Buddhist Warfare

by Michael Jerryson

  Afterthoughts

  Bernard Faure

  In our time of terrorism and rising fundamentalisms, examining the relationships between Buddhism and violence has acquired a certain urgency. This is only indirectly reflected by the chapters contained in this volume and in the book on a similar topic edited by Michael Zimmermann.1

  I will simply outline a few themes running through these chapters, starting from the observation that they deal mostly with certain forms of discourse—textual or oral, representing canonical dogma or extracanonical doxa. In other words, they rarely deal with actual cases of Buddhist violence—Vesna Wallace’s description of the “spine method” of killing being a significant exception—but essentially with discursive representations and justifications. Derek Maher, for instance, analyzes the Fifth Dalai Lama’s rhetoric, showing how he tried to justify the use of violence or to explain the relation between Buddhism and violence. In Michael Jerryson’s chapter, we hear about the politics of representation. Several chapters deal with canonical sources that seem to allow for a certain use of violence, for instance, the Satyakaparivarta stra and the Suvaraprabhsa stra.2 The Satyakaparivarta stra, mentioned by Wallace in the Mongolian context, was also important in Japan as a scripture for the protection of the state, beginning in the Nara period.

  Most of the chapters found in these two volumes start from what is taken to be the basic interdiction against killing, one of the prjika rules whose transgression leads to exclusion from the sangha.3 The rule in question is actually limited to the killing of human beings, while the killing of other types of beings only entails a lesser offense. Other normative texts, like the Sutta Nippta, forbid the taking or harming of any life.

  Most of the authors raise the question of whether killing is compatible or not with Buddhist ethics, in light of the Vinaya and also of the spirit of compassion promoted most conspicuously by Mahyna. The general opinion is that there is some discrepancy between the normative claims of Buddhism and its more pragmatic approach to war and violence. The assumption that the Buddhist teaching fundamentally condemns killing (and lesser forms of violence) is rarely questioned. According to Daniel Kent, the apparent contradiction or inconsistency between the normative claim and the pragmatic approach can be explained by recognizing that abstaining from killing fellow humans is merely a prima facie obligation. As such, this obligation needs to be reconsidered as a function of the context. On the other hand, Stephen Jenkins argues that the Buddhist position is coherent in this respect, inasmuch as the notion of killing with compassion runs through Mahyna literature.

  Although reasons for bending the principle of nonviolence are never wanting, they often sound like casuistry. They can take a number of more or less sophisticated forms, particularly in the Mahyna and Tantric traditions. But “killing with compassion,” like the “compassionate torture” mentioned in Wallace’s chapter, remains a dubious oxymoron. The definition of torture as skillful means or as a necessary evil calls to mind the worst casuistry of twentieth- and twenty-first-century history. The real evil here, what Jacques Derrida once called the “evil of abstraction,” shows its true face when “compassion” takes the concrete form of techniques such as the “spine method” described by Wallace.

  Thus, even granting Jenkins that the only killing compatible with Buddhist ethics is “killing with compassion,” a sense of uneasiness remains. We hear, for instance, that the “evil” Tibetan king Lang Darma was “killed with compassion in 842.”4 Some historians have questioned the historicity of that regicide, but that is not the problem here. The point is that this murder has become a paradigm that has been periodically reenacted, and still is today, in widely attended rituals. In these rituals, the officiating monk stabs an effigy that personifies the demonic forces. The ritual murder is designated by a euphemism, “liberation”—since the demon, owing to this compassionate killing, is allegedly released from ignorance and can be reborn under better auspices. Incidentally, the same kind of euphemism was used by the Khmer Rouge to describe the physical elimination of their political opponents.

  Another oft-invoked argument to justify killing is the claim that, when the dharma is threatened, it is necessary to ruthlessly fight against the forces of evil. The notion of a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil (which seems to derive from the Hindu myth of the fight between the devas and the asuras) gives Buddhism an eschatological dimension that it seems to have lacked initially. This notion, promoting the need for violence in order to preserve a cosmic balance (see Wallace), lends itself to the development of a kind of just-war theory (see Maher). A more metaphysical argument arises from the Mahyna notion of emptiness. Indeed, how can one kill another person when, according to good Buddhist orthodoxy, all is emptiness? The man who kills with full knowledge of the facts kills no one because he realizes that all is but illusion, himself as well as the other person. He can kill, because he does not actually kill anyone. One cannot kill emptiness, nor destroy the wind.

  In Chan Buddhism, the Jueguan lun similarly states that, if a murderous act is as perfectly spontaneous as an act of nature, it entails no responsibility:

  Question: “In certain conditions, isn’t one allowed to kill a living being?”—Answer: “The fire in the bush burns the mountain; the hurricane breaks trees; the collapsing cliff crushes wild animals to death; the running mountain stream drowns the insects. If a man can make his mind similar [to these natural forces], then, meeting a man, he may kill him all the same.” (94a1–5)5

  As Brian Victoria has shown, the same kind of sophism can be found in the writings of modern Zen advocates like D. T. Suzuki.6

  Another common justification relies on the Two Truths theory, a cardinal tenet of Mahyna. In the best of all possible worlds, or better, from the standpoint of ultimate reality, of course we are compassionate and therefore we should not kill. But we live in the world of sasra where we have to cut some corners.7 One Sri Lankan monk quoted by Kent vividly expresses the Two Truths theory. He emphasizes that, whatever Buddhists may say about the importance of fighting for one’s country (which here is conveniently conflated with the dharma), the dharma itself never condones violence or killing. He argues that you would never find any such justification in the Buddhist canon, just like you wouldn’t find a recipe for chicken curry there. Now, anyone who has read extensively in the Buddhist canon knows that you will find everything there, even possibly a recipe for chicken curry. Indeed, the Two Truths theory gives you a sense of how you can eat your chicken and have it too.

  The Two Truths theory also has more practical variants: for instance, it allows the distinction between two social spheres—those of the priests and of the warriors. A further distinction (one not always maintained in practice) is that between the world of the clerics and the world of the householders and state officials. The semantic dualism of the Two Truths theory, by establishing an absolute distinction between “good” and “bad” violence, allows for preemptive strikes. However, if history has taught us anything, it is that such a distinction is highly problematic.

  A related type of argument that is used by modern Thai and Sri Lankan monks (see Kent and Jerryson) is more psychological and seems to rely on the Abhidhamma. This argument emphasizes intention and claims that, if the killing is committed with the right state of mind (detachment or compassion), it entails no karmic consequence and therefore can be considered to be a wholesome act.

  Let me finally mention an argument that is not a moral one but rather an ontological one. It is used, for instance, by the Fifth Dalai Lama when he argues that his Mongol protector, Gushri Khan, is a man who is “entitled” to violence, because he acts to protect the dharma; or, rather—a slightly different claim—that violence is justified in Gushri Khan’s case because of who he is, namely, a bodhisattva in disguise (see Maher). It is no longer the act but the agent that matters; when that agent is no longer acting on selfish motives, he is no longer truly a responsible agent. This type of argument has often been invoked in an
tinomian traditions such as Tantric Buddhism and Chan/Zen.

  Those are some of the main Buddhist justifications for killing, some of which are examined at length in the chapters contained in this volume. By focusing on such justifications, however, one may leave the casual reader with the false impression that one endorses them. Yet such justifications are typical of an ideological discourse, i.e., a discourse that misrepresents relations of power and the causes of violence (historical, sociological, economic, political, ethnic). Indeed, a common feature of many discussions on the issue is that they tend to focus solely on normative texts. Concrete practices of Buddhism are largely ignored or, when they are examined, it is still often only to question whether they fit normative texts.

  Buddhist exegetical discourse regarding violence is not always apologetic, however: sometimes, it constitutes a kind of speech act. The sermons of modern Thai and Sri Lankan monks, for instance, have pragmatic and performative goals, namely, to boost the morale of the troops and, if possible, to safeguard the soldiers’ moral conduct. The chapters by Kent and Jerryson move away from texts to emphasize performance—perhaps under the influence of Mark Juergenmeyer’s notion of violence as performance.8 In Kent’s chapter, Buddhist sermons justifying violence are presented as a kind speech act in which—an interesting idea in itself—delivery is more important than content. In other words, what the monks say matters less than how they say it. The real point is not the semantic (ethical or philosophical) content of their sermons; the content may even at times seem to contradict fundamental Buddhist ethics. Rather, these sermons have pragmatic goals—and a smooth delivery increases the chance that they will achieve their purposes, namely, pacifying the soldiers’ minds (thereby diminishing their bad karma) and protecting their lives.

  In Jerryson’s chapter, performance appears in the fact that alms begging is perceived as a kind of state ritual. In that sense, it is not as pacific an activity as it may seem—from the Muslim minority’s viewpoint at least. This brings to mind the case of Bhutan, a state whose official religion is Tantric Buddhism, where the Muslim minority feels increasingly threatened by the performance of Buddhist rituals.

  Emphasizing the performative level, however, does not mean that the semantic level has become insignificant and does not need to be submitted to an ideological critique. When Sri Lankan or Thai monks argue that there is no sin for soldiers in firing at the enemy, are we not confronted with an invidious form of false consciousness—or worse, a blatant deception? And those monks who admit in private that it does constitute a sin, yet refrain from saying so publicly for fear of undermining patriotic morale, fare hardly better. In that context, Western followers of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama rightly might have felt disappointed when he (admittedly caught between a rock and a hard place) abstained from condemning the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

  So far, I have been talking about texts and words in their apologetic or performative functions. Yet, apart from words—oral or written—we have images. Mythological imagery and narrative are perhaps as important as normative sources such as the Suvaraprabhsa stra. Paradoxically, this text was instrumental for much of the martial imagery that developed in East Asian Buddhism. The Suvaraprabhsa stra emphasizes the figures of Vairavaa (J. Bishamonten), one of the four wrathful deva kings, and the eight-armed Sarasvat (J. Benzaiten), whose martial appearance (perhaps influenced by the image of Durga) appealed to medieval Japanese warriors. Another example of martial imagery is the conversion of shamanists by a vegetarian Mahkla (a Buddhist form of iva), as described by Vesna Wallace. This is somewhat ironic when we recall that Mahkla (J. Daikokuten) was initially described by Buddhists as a flesh-eating deity roaming the forest at night with his horde of blood-thirsty demons.

  The motif of coerced conversion can be traced back to the myth of the submission of Mahevara (another avatar of iva) by the dharma protector Vajrapi. The latter, whose name appears in several contributions to this volume, is usually depicted as a powerful, wrathful figure. Initially a servant of the Buddha, he plays an important role in Indian Buddhism. Vajrapi also appears in Chinese Buddhism, where he is the muscular protector and model of the Shaolin monks. These monks have played an important paramilitary role and have come to be seen as the founders of several martial arts traditions.9 Vajrapi’s subjugation of Mahevara constitutes the paradigm of the esoteric Buddhist relation with non-Buddhist deities: Vajrapi tramples to death Mahevara and his consort because they refuse to submit to the new Buddhist order. The Buddha, who has witnessed the whole scene without intervening, now feels vaguely sorry for them and asks Vajrapi to resuscitate them. As a result, the couple comes back to life, now duly metamorphosed into Buddhist followers. This happy ending looks very much like an interpolation, a clerical attempt to paper over Vajrapi’s hubris.

  Images often speak louder than words, and they do not always say the same thing. All of the dialogue about Buddhist compassion cannot erase the impression produced by the above scene of subjugation and similar ones. Tantric imagery reveals, in a most obvious and at times obscene fashion, a kind of violence that, once noticed, can also be found throughout Mahyna Buddhism. Despite all arguments to the contrary, this imagery seems to contradict the claim of compassion made at the level of normative discourse. Imagery is obviously an important dimension that tends to be neglected by textual scholars, and it is just mentioned in passing by some of the authors in this volume. On the iconographic plane, if compassion is well expressed by serene images of meditating buddhas, conversely, the angry gods of Buddhism and Mongolia partake in a puzzling symbolic violence: does this symbolic violence mark a return of the repressed or an outlet for real violence, or is it its mirror image, indeed, its underlying cause? The question must remain open.

  A theme such as “Buddhism and violence” entails some more fundamental issues, beginning with the problem of defining these two terms. What one calls Buddhism is admittedly an elusive entity. There are many kinds of Buddhist discourses, which do not so much reveal a common essence as what Wittgenstein would call a “family resemblance.” It is therefore at best problematic to posit, as we often do, an “authentic” Buddhist teaching, one allegedly based on “what the Buddha taught” (to use the title of Walpola Rahula’s influential book).10

  Brian Victoria’s chapter is the only one in this book that definitely denounces Buddhist war ideology. While acknowledging that other Buddhist schools were involved in the Japanese war effort, he restricts his sharp criticism to Zen, the tradition that nurtured him and that he tends to contrast too quickly with some timeless, universalist Buddhist ethics. Although, as a Buddhist, he is justified in underscoring the moral imperative of non-killing, I find it more difficult to follow him when he seems to imply that this moral imperative has been and should remain the horizon of Buddhist ethics and was once historically embodied in a specific (“authentic”) form of Buddhism. This view of an authentic early Buddhism (as opposed to “decadent” Zen) flies in the face of reality. As far as we can tell, Buddhism has always been closely associated with rulers, even if the Indian context gave Indian monks more autonomy than their Chinese and Japanese counterparts had. From the start, Buddhism was seen in these countries as an instrument of power. The same is also true in Tibet and Southeast Asia. This conventional view also tends to view later forms of Buddhism—and in particular Tantric or esoteric Buddhism—as degenerations (a few exceptions in the case of “reformers” like Dgen notwithstanding).

  In a word, there is no generic, fundamental (or even mainstream) Buddhism. It may not even be sufficient to say that we are dealing with a multivocal tradition, or multiple traditions that we could call “Buddhisms.” Rather, we are dealing with a variety of people—clerics and lay believers, kings and commoners—who call themselves Buddhists. From their respective vantage points, these people hold discourses that are, not surprisingly, often at odds with each other. Among them, some may deplore violence, others condone it, and we find all kinds of intermediate positions between pu
re affirmation and pure rejection, including various types of denial.

  Defining the term violence is equally difficult. Most authors so far seem to have restricted its meaning to “war.” This is legitimate as a first approach, to the extent that war is the most obvious and massive form of violence. For instance, this approach was taken by Paul Demiéville in his seminal essay “Le bouddhisme et la guerre,” originally written as an appendix to Gaston Renondeau’s detailed historical survey of the warrior-monks (shei) of medieval Japan.11

  Violence is often implicitly defined in contrast to compassion and tolerance. Indeed, compared to other world religions, Buddhism does seem relatively tolerant. The Two Truths theory, for instance, allows Buddhists to integrate various alien doctrines as belonging to the level of conventional truth, which the dharma (the ultimate truth) both complements and transcends. The Buddha himself is said to have preached on the conventional truth in order to adapt his teaching to disciples of shallow understanding while reserving the ultimate truth for an elite. The use of “expedient means” (upya) renders dogmatism difficult, inasmuch as any dogma belongs to the realm of speech, hence, of conventional truth. This approach allows several forms of militant syncretism. Using militant syncretism, rival doctrines were co-opted and integrated at a lower rank in a doctrinal classification (Ch. panjiao) that placed one’s own doctrine at the top. Needless to say, this kind of syncretism easily led to sectarianism.

  As in the case of Mahevara’s “conversion,” the mythological realm reflects Buddhism’s encounter with local cults. Indeed, it is in this realm that a certain intolerance most clearly manifests itself. Buddhism claims that it “pacified” the new lands to which it spread. A case in point is the myth of Tibet’s pacification by Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava, owing to his wondrous powers, subjugated all of the local “demons” of that land (actually, they were the former gods). The metaphor behind the conversion of local deities is often that of sexual submission. In all of these tales, Buddhism is fundamentally male, whereas local cults are often feminized. For instance, prior to Padmasabhava’s conquest, we are told that the first Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo, subdued the telluric powers symbolized by a demoness, Srinmo. The Tibetan king subdued the demoness, whose body covered the Tibetan territory, by “nailing” her down to the ground. He did so by erecting (no pun intended) stpas that served as so many metaphoric nails driven into the twelve points of her body. The Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, the most holy place of Tibetan Buddhism, is said to be the nail driven into the central part of the demoness’s body, her genitalia. The rape imagery could hardly be more explicit. An even cruder sexual symbolism is found in a variant of the myth of Mahevara’s submission, in which Rudra (another form of iva) is literally sodomized by his Buddhist nemesis, Hayagrva (a terrible form of the “compassionate” Avalokitevara).