Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
The Buddha as astute businessman, economist, lawyer
Very interesting article....
The Buddha was a businessman. But don’t take anyone’s word for it — it’s written in stone.
Of all the iconic scenes found in the earliest Buddhist art from India, none are more striking than the sculpted representation of a title deed involving one of
Photos by Todd Cheney/UCLA Photo.
Buddhism’s most venerable monasteries: The transaction, involving 10 million gold coins, clearly shows that, far from being an ascetic, other-worldly religious tradition, Buddhism was, in fact, “deeply entangled with money – and a very great deal of it at that,” according to Gregory Schopen, chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and an authority on ancient Indian Buddhism.
Schopen spoke March 10 at the 106<sup>th</sup> Faculty Research Lecture at the Freud Playhouse on a topic that has much to say about why our world has sunk into a recession: “The Buddha as Businessman: Economics and Law in an Old Indian Religion.” The prestigious event was attended by Chancellor Gene D. Block and hundreds of faculty, staff and members of the public. Dressed casually in jeans and sporting a colorful tie, Schopen delivered his hour-long lecture with iconoclastic wit, verve and vitality, prompting frequent bursts of enthusiastic laughter from his audience.
Partly because of popular culture, it’s hard to imagine the Buddha as anything other than a great sage, “seated in what appears to be serene and deep meditation,” or surrounded by students craving enlightenment, said Schopen. Neither image suggests that the Buddha, who taught that “all things are impermanent,” might, in fact, be “pondering how to avoid paying custom duties and taxes” — or that he might well be teaching his followers “how to write a loan contract and not make unsecured loans.”
rest of the article here....
http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/two-cheers-for-the-buddha-astute-85231.aspx
The Buddha was a businessman. But don’t take anyone’s word for it — it’s written in stone.
Of all the iconic scenes found in the earliest Buddhist art from India, none are more striking than the sculpted representation of a title deed involving one of
Photos by Todd Cheney/UCLA Photo.Buddhism’s most venerable monasteries: The transaction, involving 10 million gold coins, clearly shows that, far from being an ascetic, other-worldly religious tradition, Buddhism was, in fact, “deeply entangled with money – and a very great deal of it at that,” according to Gregory Schopen, chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and an authority on ancient Indian Buddhism.
Schopen spoke March 10 at the 106<sup>th</sup> Faculty Research Lecture at the Freud Playhouse on a topic that has much to say about why our world has sunk into a recession: “The Buddha as Businessman: Economics and Law in an Old Indian Religion.” The prestigious event was attended by Chancellor Gene D. Block and hundreds of faculty, staff and members of the public. Dressed casually in jeans and sporting a colorful tie, Schopen delivered his hour-long lecture with iconoclastic wit, verve and vitality, prompting frequent bursts of enthusiastic laughter from his audience.
Partly because of popular culture, it’s hard to imagine the Buddha as anything other than a great sage, “seated in what appears to be serene and deep meditation,” or surrounded by students craving enlightenment, said Schopen. Neither image suggests that the Buddha, who taught that “all things are impermanent,” might, in fact, be “pondering how to avoid paying custom duties and taxes” — or that he might well be teaching his followers “how to write a loan contract and not make unsecured loans.”
rest of the article here....
http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/two-cheers-for-the-buddha-astute-85231.aspx
0
Comments
It's generally agreed that the Mahasanghika Vinaya is older than the Theravada Vinaya. Some of the rules against handling money are not found in the Mahasanghika text. Furthermore, according to the Sariputrapariprccha (the oldest surviving account of the first schism), the schism that occurred at the Second Council was due to the Mahasangha faction refusing to accept new rules that the Sthavira party wanted to add to the Vinaya. Calling the Buddha a businessman sounds like an exaggeration to me, but the Nikayas document that the Buddhist sangha owned considerable real estate by the time the Buddha died, and the Sarputrapariprccha indicates that monks were dealing with money as early as sixty to one hundred years after the Buddha died, and may have been doing it all along.
Schopen has a reputation for focusing on one source of information and ignoring others. However, it does appear that the community that was the predecessor to Theravada went through a period of increasing strictness, including the addition of rules to their vinaya, during the century following the Buddha's parinibbana. The remaining Buddhist communities, who made up the majority of monks, didn't experience an increase in strictness, and the resulting tension between the communities was one of the reasons for the first schism.
It's also worth noting that much of the land that was given to the Sangha was for the purpose of spending the rains when monks were forbidden to travel due to the weather and the damage done to plants by monks, of which the laity apparently complained about. At least in the beginning, the land wasn't used for growing crops or renting.
Thanx for the reference to the site. That really does put the "businessman" in perspective! What a relief!:)
Some more comments about Schopen's statements:
He says that neither the language or the structure of the Buddhist sangha suggests that it was a religious institution, pointing to the fact that "sangha" was the term used to denote a commercial guild. That may be true, but it was also used to denote the Jain's monastic assemblies. As far as I know, it was being used to denote religious assemblies before the Buddha. In general, it seems to have been a term for any group of people who assembled and organized themselves to accomplish some goal.
The Buddha was often referred to as a "pramukha", and the same was true for the heads of guild organizations. However, as near as I can tell, it also applied to the head of a family, and was a general term for a chief or leader.
Like commercial guilds, status in the Buddhist sangha was determined by seniority, not spiritual attainment. Gombrich traces this to the Sakya social structures that the Buddha grew up with. Regardless of where it originated, seniority makes a better basis for status simply because it is observable. It's very easy to determine which of two monks is more senior, but often difficult to determine which is more spiritually advanced.
Schopen points out that training in the Buddhist sangha followed the master-apprentice model, just like the commercial guilds. But master-apprentice was the standard pedagogical model at the time. It wasn't unique to guilds, and there's nothing about it that's inherently commercial.
Schopen says that Buddhist sanghas used seals to mark their goods. When you have goods that belong to an organization, as opposed to an individual, you have to have some way of marking them off. Otherwise, the goods tend to disappear. If seals were the standard way of marking ownership at the time, then the use of seals doesn't necessarily indicate commercial activity.
As the sangha grew, it would have become necessary for some monks to take on the role of administrator, and the Buddha would have been more or less forced into the role of head administrator. The sangha's administrators would have carried out the expected administrative tasks, which include marking and recording organizational resources. Most of the activities that Schopen uses as examples of commercial activity are actually administrative. They were things that had to be done in order to keep the organization functioning. It's likely that early Buddhist sanghas learned how to administer their resources from monks who already had administrative experience; i.e. monks who had been merchants or commercial guild members. It wouldn't be terribly surprising if Buddhist sanghas and commercial guilds administered themselves in similar ways.
It's clear that over the centuries, the sangha's of various different sects took on a more and more commercial role. It also seems evident that as early as the Second Council the majority of the sanghas were engaging in more money handling than was strictly necessary for their own maintenance. But that doesn't mean that early sanghas were as commercial as later ones, or that the Buddha's administrative activities were commercial and profit oriented. I'm not denying the possibility that the Buddha engaged in commercial activity, but I think more evidence is needed before it is asserted as a fact.
It mentions Middle Way which is the key of a meaningful way of life. The root of all evil is not due to poverty as many impoverish people also did not create evil deeds.:)
Schopen has a number of things wrong.
Sangha meant “republic” and referred to the tribal form of government in place during the Buddha’s time. Actually, sanghas were dying out and monarchies were replacing them. The Buddha, in regards to both the naming and the structure of his group, was attempting to reproduce the old tribal collective and then improve on it. The Buddha and his immediate followers were neither businesspeople nor monks, they were ajivakas or “homeless ones”, wandering ascetics.
I have never heard of the Sangha owning real estate during the Buddha’s life. Nor that he established any monasteries or ordained monks. These are all elements, like much of the Vinaya, that were added after the Buddha’s passing. The Sangha settled into monasteries only for survival. Some monarchies were not too sure about having all these people wandering around saying whatever they pleased, thus the Sangha found that it was safer for them if they stayed in one place, and mostly indoors.
I don’t doubt that the business affairs Schopen describes took place, but I am sure that it was at a time much after the Buddha.
I hope it is permissible for me to do this, because I’d like to mention that I do have a blog and I have fairly recent post (Apr. 21) entitled “The Buddha” that deals with this subject. If there is interest, I believe the blog URL is on my profile. That isn’t the reason why I joined or why I am posting here. I have been looking for a good Buddhist since since esangha bit the dust. Obviously this discussion sparked my interest.
Namaste