Buddhist Warfare
Page 9
Davidson intends to support the argument that there was a fundamental conflict in Buddhist support for violence. But Asaga’s argument for compassionate violence is broadly and authoritatively attested in Mahyna literature. It is not an ethics of self-sacrifice, but one that offers merit for killing. This stra is somewhat more expansive in explicitly making compassionate killing an option not just for bodhisattvas, but also for kings. There is no sign that the kings addressed by this stra were regarded as bodhisattvas, quite the opposite; and one has to assume that the king’s entire army, and those who enforced his punishments, would be implicated in his karmic situation and the logic of making merit through compassionate killing. Tantric literature, which was used in the royal cult in later Indian Buddhism, supplemented the basic Mahyna ethic of compassionate killing with hyperbolic exhortations and deadly ritual technologies.
Davidson notes inscriptions in Nland, the great North Indian monastic university, that glorify the gore-smeared swords of widow-making Buddhist kings, but finds their grisly language weaker and less common than comparable aivite inscriptions.46 There can be no question that, in terms of both warfare and harsh penal codes, Hindu literature and inscriptions are far more robust and unreserved in their enthusiasm for violent imagery. Davidson makes an important argument here that Buddhist values were much more suited to periods of pacification and stability than to the violent instability of the last centuries of Indian Buddhism, and so Buddhist kings were ideologically disadvantaged. However, the force of the argument needs to be reconsidered to the degree that it is based on the normative perception of exaggerated Buddhist pacifism. The location of such inscriptions in a monastic university of vast international prestige suggests that Buddhists, rather than being conflicted or duplicitous, found it appropriate to publicly honor, and so validate, military violence. The relationship between rhetoric and action is complex. For instance, despite idealizing an ethic of compassion, Buddhist polities have historically done all of the things forbidden in the Satyakaparivarta, from aggressive warfare to blinding and capital punishment. On the other hand, despite their violent rhetoric, the Hindu ethics of violence are deeply intertwined with ideals of dharma and ahis. Considering the broad success of Buddhism with a remarkable variety of patrons, including Indian kings, Mongol khans, samurai warlords, and Chinese emperors in diverse political circumstances over several millennia, it seems dubious to attribute the downfall of Buddhism in India to the inability to ideologically support the violence of its protectors.47
Conclusions
General conceptions of a basic Buddhist ethics broadly conceived as unqualified pacifism are problematic. Compassionate violence is at the very heart of the sensibility of this stra. Buddhist kings had sophisticated and practical conceptual resources to support their use of force, which show a concern for defense, political stability, and social order through a combination of harshness and benevolence. These resources offer techniques for removing and preventing the causes of hostility, but fully empower the use of warfare when it is deemed appropriate and necessary. Military readiness and intimidation are important elements of a king’s responsibilities. Violence is an important tool for criminal rehabilitation, social stability, and military defense. Torture, but not mutilation or execution, is approved as a means, and in battle a king should seek to capture the enemy alive. A king may avert fear of karmic retribution by establishing proper intentions, making efforts to avoid conflict, and limiting modes of waging war. The only killing compatible with Buddhist ethics is killing with compassion. Moreover, if a king makes war or tortures with compassionate intentions, even those acts can result in the accumulation of vast karmic merit. Values of compassion were not necessarily in conflict with the political necessities of Indian statecraft. Rather than an awkward extension of ascetic values into the realm of power politics, there was a recognized symmetry among dharmic rule, compassion, and the acquisition and retention of power.
In the course of orally presenting this research at conferences and in university lecture series, I have experienced how distressing it can be for Buddhists that compassionate warfare and torture could be advocated in Buddhist scriptures. I would ask those who find this disturbing to also consider that these texts advocate that warfare should only be pursued when all other means have failed; that benevolence is a state’s first defense; that we must take responsibility for exploitation, which creates our enemies; that physical punishment may only be undertaken from a compassionate intention to benefit the recipient; that the destruction of infrastructure and the natural environment is a mistaken policy; and, above all, that a nation will thrive or fall based upon its capacity for compassion, rather than on the ethics of self- or national interest.
3
Sacralized Warfare: The Fifth Dalai Lama and the Discourse of Religious Violence
Derek F. Maher
It is a truism that history is written by the winners. A correlate to that axiom of power and the control of rhetoric is less well noted. In many cases, the last battle of a war, the one that finally secures the victory, occurs when one party manages to represent the history of the war in its own terms, deploying its own account to justify its martial successes and representing itself in a light that is sensible, acceptable, and meaningful to the relevant audience. Wars, according to Michel Foucault, reveal disequilibriums between contending parties, and the subsequent political forms that arise in the wake of such conflicts both sanction and uphold those disparities in forces. By means of an ongoing subsequent “unspoken war,” such disequlibriums are inscribed by political means in social institutions, economic inequalities, language, and the very bodies of the citizenry.1
In a companion lecture, Foucault describes how such power is seized and maintained through the successful deployment of a particular discourse, a set of declarations that frame and define a moment in time. He argues that it is not possible “to exercise power except through the production of truth,” and he observes, “[t]hese relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse.”2 Foucault maintains that a given historical moment calls into existence a discourse that configures power and summons a narrative that makes sense of how power is to be arranged. A shift in a religious or political reality, for example, only becomes possible when the prevailing narrative is supplanted by a new account of the past and the present, an alternative vision with new or refurbished symbolic connections that arrange people and events in a pattern justifying the new paradigm. This, he suggests, is one of the most significant engagements of a war.
In this chapter, I will explore the evolution of discourses of power in seventeenth-century Tibet, a period of great turmoil and flux. I will focus on the ways the discourse that emerged in the middle of that century was elaborated in Buddhist terms and the ways that the discourse employed narrative accounts of warfare and other forms of violence. I will concentrate on the religious justifications and associations of violence in an effort to problematize the generally accepted notions of Buddhism as an entirely pacifistic religion and of Tibet as a place where Buddhism “turned their society from a fierce grim world of war and intrigue into a peaceful, colorful, cheerful realm of pleasant and meaningful living.”3 It is precisely because such enduring—but superficial and limiting—notions of Buddhism and Tibet have some bases in historical and doctrinal truth that problems of religious violence have been at the center of Buddhist efforts to create meaningful discourses for themselves. This is particularly true in historical periods when Buddhist actors were endeavoring to create and maintain political structures. It is not just contemporary scholars who must struggle to place Buddhist violence in a nuanced context, but theoreticians throughout Buddhist history have contended with the polyvocal foundations of their own tradition.
My objective is to probe the ways in which rhetoric is employed to justify warfare and other forms of violence; how these arguments are couched in specifi
cally Buddhist terms; and how these efforts are embedded in discourses that seem to have answered the evolving needs of the time period. In Foucault’s terms, I will examine the ways in which discourses of truth are deployed to secure and express power.
This chapter focuses on the writings of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho (1617–1682), a key figure who not only distinguished himself as one of the more important historians of the seventeenth century, but who also ended up at the center of a war that served as a significant pivot point in Tibetan history. This war culminated in the unification of a large portion of Tibet, the defeat of his opponents, and his own ascent to political power. His religious sect, the dGe lugs school, simultaneously underwent a dramatic elevation in prestige, importance, and influence.
The Fifth Dalai Lama’s attitudes toward warfare and violence can be fathomed by exploring how he describes such incidents in Tibetan history. Fortunately, he was a prolific author and wrote a wide range of historical, biographical, and autobiographical material; he thereby provided many examples for analysis. In particular, his highly motivated history of Tibet, Song of the Queen of Spring: A Dynastic History, provides insights into his thinking on Buddhist justifications for violence.4
That text was published in 1643, a critical time when the twenty-six-year-old reincarnate lama was working to fortify the gains his Mongolian allies had recently made on the battlefield. Beginning in 1635, pro–dGe lugs pa forces battled opponents of the Dalai Lama from far eastern Tibet to the edge of the Himalayas in the west. By 1642, they had subdued most of the outright opposition. In the view of dGe lugs partisans, the seeds of that war were sown in the latter part of the sixteenth century, when a period of disharmony began to manifest between the well-established rival bKa’ brgyud school and the Dalai Lamas’ own nascent dGe lugs school.5 The two schools were increasingly in competition for patronage and adherents, particularly as the dGe lugs pas extended their influence into the gTsang region in western Tibet, a traditional stronghold of the bKa’ brgyud school.
The dGe lugs pas perceived themselves as subject to systematic patterns of persecution at the hands of the bKa’ brgyud pas. For example, the patronage tours of both the Second Dalai Lama, dGe ’dun rgya mtsho (1476–1542), and the Fourth Dalai Lama, Yon tan rgya mtsho (1589–1617), in gTsang and mNga’ ris in western Tibet, were perceived as being hindered by pro–bKa’ brgyud allies in gTsang. More significantly, in 1613, a bKa’ brgyud monastery was built on the hillside above bKra shis lhun po monastery, which had been founded near Shigatse by the First Dalai Lama, dGe ’dun grub (1391–1474), in 1447. The words “Suppressor of bKra shis lhun po” were written above the gate, and boulders were rolled down from the hillside, damaging the dGe lugs monastery below. When Mongols retaliated by stealing livestock from the Karmapa (the most prominent incarnate lama in the bKa’ brgyud school), forces allied with him attacked ’Bras spungs monastery. This was the home of the Dalai Lama, and the attack killed hundreds of dGe lugs pa monks.6 Simultaneously, non-Buddhist religious rivals of the dGe lugs who were members of the indigenous religion of Tibet, Bon, were perceived to be persecuting the latter school in eastern Tibet. These Bon opponents were thought to be in alliance with the dGe lugs pas’ bKa’ brgyud enemies.7
Surviving the lifetime of the Fourth Dalai Lama, these violent trends emerged in a more virulent form during the Fifth Dalai Lama’s youth. According to dGe lugs sources, many of their monasteries were forcibly converted to the bKa’ brgyud school. Such grievances festered over a period of decades while new complaints accumulated, continuing to animate dGe lugs imaginations. New provocations from Bon opponents in eastern Tibet finally compelled pro–dGe lugs Mongols to act.8
In 1635, a Mongolian army under the leadership of the tribal chief Gushri Khan (1582–1654/1655) was assembled and launched with the objective of rectifying all of these perceived wrongs to the Dalai Lamas’ school. Before we turn to the Fifth Dalai Lama’s presentation of these events in the Song of the Queen of Spring: A Dynastic History, it will be illuminating to get a preview of how he comments on these events in his autobiography, the Good Silk Cloth, written decades later. There, he describes a meeting he held in the Potala Palace prior to the war with his own first regent, bSod nams Chos ‘phel (1595–1657/1658), and with dKa’ bcu dGe bsnyen don grub, the envoy from Gushri Khan, his Mongolian patron. The three men discussed how the Mongols would protect the Dalai Lama’s dGe lugs interests in eastern Tibet from the persecution of the Bon chieftain from Be ri, whereupon the Mongolian military force would withdraw. The Fifth Dalai Lama writes:
That night in the camp, Zhal ngo gave instructions to the messenger, dKa’ bcu dge bsnyen don grub, in my presence. He said that Be ri should be cut at the root by all necessary means. Thereafter, Gushri Khan himself should return to the Blue Lake [on the northeastern frontier with Mongolia]. His two queens and a group of pilgrims were invited to come to Lhasa. I gave extensive advice against fomenting any sort of civil conflict. The next day, when dKa’ bcu dge bsnyen don grub was departing, Zhal ngo rode out to dGa’ ldan Khang gsar to give him provisions. Just the two of them rode along speaking for the time it takes to prepare tea twice. However, it hadn’t occurred to me that the trill of the flute had changed into the whistle of an arrow.9
In other words, the Dalai Lama is claiming that his regent freelanced and changed the instructions that were conveyed to Gushri Khan and that this deception was responsible for launching a war that the Dalai Lama himself did not anticipate or authorize. In the event, the Mongolian forces did not return to northeastern Tibet after defeating the Be ri chieftain in eastern Tibet. Instead, they progressed to Lhasa and moved throughout dbU and gTsang in the west, where a broad-ranging war resulted in the defeat of most of the Dalai Lama’s other Buddhist opponents, the deaths of many soldiers and civilians, and the establishment of dGe lugs hegemony.
In the wake of these bloody battles, members of the dGe lugs pa alliance were compelled to develop a discourse that configured events in a meaningful way, in order to satisfy public opinion and to contribute to a stable new social organization. This multipronged effort needed to justify and legitimize the recent warfare by placing it in the context of acceptable Buddhist values and recognizable narratives. The approach that evolved over a period of decades consisted of a new symbolic system, with the institution of the Dalai Lama at its apex. In its mature form, it had historical, ritual, narrative, architectural, and biographical components. In short, as Foucault would have it, the development of this discourse enabled the Dalai Lama and his cohorts “to exercise power … through the production of truth.”
One of he first steps in creating this discourse was taken by the Fifth Dalai Lama with his composition of the Song of the Queen of Spring. In it, by retelling the history of Tibet, he did more than exercise the prerogative of the victor. In a sense, he was prosecuting the last battle of the war by placing the recently concluded conflict within a framework that made it meaningful and that exonerated him and justified his rule. The Dalai Lama’s autobiography, Good Silk Cloth, was compiled throughout his life in three volumes, and supplemented by an additional three volumes which were composed by his last regent, sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705). Good Silk Cloth was not published until 1692, a full decade after the former’s death in 1682 and half a century after the pivotal events of 1642. With the fullness of time, these two authors knew how events had turned out and that they had been able to create a stable environment. From the comfortable vantage point of their fully articulated—and by then successful—mythology, they seem to have decided to distance the Dalai Lama from responsibility for the warfare of the 1630s and 1640s, denying that he had approved of the most consequential bloodshed. It may also be that, by that time, the elderly Dalai Lama had come to have second thoughts about the violence that had been unleashed in his name. It is evident, for example, that the Dalai Lama remained troubled by the human impact of the battles. A wide variety of the dreams and visions reported
in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Sealed and Secret Biography demonstrate that he was often disturbed by specters of violence and war.10
However that may be, it is clear that, in contrast to his more seasoned reflections on the warfare of his younger years, he took great care to glorify Gushri Khan and to justify his war in the Song of the Queen of Spring, written just a year after the cessation of hostilities. In that text, he unequivocally trumpets his endorsement of his Mongolian patron’s endeavors. He begins the description of Gushri Khan’s exploits by identifying him as an emanation of Vajrapni, the bodhisattva representing perfect yogic power.11 He writes that, out of compassion for humanity, the bodhisattva “would take birth as a religious king, whereupon he would radiate a hundred rays of light in the ten directions.” He goes on to say that even hearing the name of the dGe lugs school made the young khan happy, and he prostrated in the direction of Lhasa so often that his forehead became swollen. He is praised as having realized emptiness [107b–108a].12
Still in his twenties, before the wars that concern us came to fruition, Gushri Khan is described in the text as having settled a terrible conflict between rival Mongolian factions. As the Dalai Lama phrases it, the young warrior—moved by great compassion for other beings—plunged into “an overgrown forest of dissension between limitless numbers of people born in bad transmigration due to their murderous ways.” As a sign of his transcendent status, Gushri Khan managed to sort out that quarrel, seemingly all by himself. Thereupon, the Dalai Lama cites a prophecy saying, “A dharma-protecting king, the second Srong btsan sgam po, has come” [108b]. King Srong btsan sgam po (617–649), a luminary of Tibet’s imperial period, is credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet in the seventh century. His significance in the Tibetan mind can hardly be overemphasized. In part, by suggesting that Gushri Khan was a latter-day echo of that seventh-century king, the Dalai Lama was evoking King Srong btsan sgam po’s symbolic resonance as a protector and promoter of Buddhism. Below, we will discuss the symbolic assignment given to that king in the more sophisticated discourse of the Dalai Lama’s later years.