Buddhist Warfare

by Michael Jerryson

  The claim that Buddhism is a tolerant religion is based on the fact that Buddhist history does not show the kind of fanatic excesses familiar in the histories of Christianity and Islam. Opponents of the Buddha may have been labeled “heretical masters,” but (in part for lack of an ultimate authority) the accusation of heresy rarely led to physical purges. In China, the teaching of the three stages (sanjie jiao) was suppressed merely for political reasons. In Japan, the doctrine of the “heretical” Tachikawa branch of the Shingon school was apparently censored because of its sexual elements. It was eventually forbidden in the fifteenth century, and almost all of its texts were destroyed in a kind of Buddhist autodafé. Other cases of Buddhist intolerance include the denunciation of the new Pure Land school of Hnen (1133–1212), his exile in 1207, and the profanation of his grave after his death. We should also mention the sectarian antics of Nichiren (1222–1282), the founder of the Nichiren school, who liked to compare the priests of other schools to dogs wagging their tails in front of their masters and to mice afraid of cats. Nichiren barely escaped execution; he was sent into exile. One of his successors, Nichi (1565–1630), launched the so-called fuju fuse (not giving, not receiving) movement, which required his adherents to forsake all relationships with outsiders. Through their intransigence, Nichi’s disciples were even led to refuse allegiance to the shgun and eventually had to go underground. The Nichiren sect is also well known for its coercive conversion methods (shakubuku). Yet, in part because of this, it is one of the most powerful Buddhist sects in Japan today. But these cases are the exception that proves the Buddhist rule, and they underscore the contrast with the practices of the Inquisition in Christianity.

  Violence is not always directed at the Other, however. Well-ordered violence begins with oneself. As with all established institutions, the Buddhist sangha has remained ambivalent toward the interiorized form of violence known as asceticism. Monastic discipline and practice, whose aim is to form an obedient body and mind, can also be seen as a kind of muted violence against oneself. To show their determination, Chinese monks would sometimes mutilate themselves—including cutting off or burning one or more of their fingers. In extreme cases, self-denial could extend to self-immolation by fire. As James Benn’s book has demonstrated, many such cases have been recorded.12 We still recall the disturbing image of the Vietnamese monk who immolated himself as a sign of protest during what is known in Vietnam as the American war. Paradoxically, one of the main scriptural sources that legitimizes that form of violence is the apocryphal Fanwang jing (Brahma-Net stra), a disciplinary text that most vehemently condemns any direct or indirect participation in murder.

  Another important aspect of violence which has come to light is the Buddhist discrimination against women. Despite the theoretical equality between genders asserted by Mahyna, Buddhism has always been and remains a fundamentally patriarchal, and therefore largely sexist, tradition. Even in the twenty-first century, nuns in most Buddhist cultures have a subaltern status that largely derives from the eight “heavy rules” (gurudharma) allegedly laid down by the Buddha. The media reported the case of a Thai nun who was physically attacked by some monks for requesting an improvement of that status. But a discussion of this form of violence, as well as various forms of sexual abuse toward children, for instance found in Buddhist monasteries, is beyond the scope of this chapter.13

  In the name of objectivity, Buddhist scholars often content themselves with presenting their materials without passing judgment. Brian Victoria’s chapter is the exception, even though his expression of moral outrage does not quite replace a thorough ideological critique. His chapter—like Vesna Wallace’s—provides us with a wealth of information concerning actual acts of violence committed in the name of Buddhism, whereas representations of violence found in the Buddhist forms of discourse analyzed by other authors tend to misrepresent the causes of violence. These representations may assist in replicating a form of false consciousness, although the notion of false consciousness may sound paradoxical when applied to Buddhist masters. Regardless, we need to know more about the causes—structural, sociopolitical, psychological—of violence before we can pass judgment on Buddhist representations of violence.

  When confronted with the complex relationships between Buddhism and various forms of violence, a more fundamental question arises: is violence contextual, parasitic, or intrinsic to Buddhism? The Buddhist apologies of violence presented in this book are mostly contextual, in other words, they owe as much, or more, to the cultural context as to Buddhism per se. When that context is violent (as is too often the case), Buddhists tend to use their casuistic resources to reinterpret creatively the first prjika rule and to condone the use of certain forms of violence.

  Buddhists repeatedly have gone beyond the call of duty, confusing the Buddhist dharma with the reasons of State and with patriotism. For instance, the esoteric Buddhist monks of medieval Japan argued that the law of the Buddha and the kingdom’s law were identical (b soku bupp). Thus, nationalism or patriotism surreptitiously replaced the alleged monastic detachment toward worldly values. Buddhist doctrine has become at times a quasi-magical device to acquire peace of mind and protection of the body during battle. In the Mongolian case studied by Wallace, for instance, we are dealing with a culture of violence in which Buddhism merely serves as an alibi for repression. Like the Mongol ruler Gushri Khan, whom the Fifth Dalai Lama praised as a cakravartin king, the Manchu rulers of Mongolia were glorified as emanations of the wrathful form of the bodhisattva Mañjur. Likewise, the death penalty was generously inflicted in the name of King Yama, the ruler of the underworld. As Wallace points out, the image of the Mongol monarch is closer to that of the Hindu god Indra than to that of the cakravartin king. Like the Indian ruler following the injunctions of the dharmastra, he punishes in order to preserve cosmic order, a notion that is at first glance alien to early Buddhist or Mahyna ideals. However, if the Indian Buddhist discourse on kingship is itself largely indebted to such non-Buddhist texts, can its position on violence be seen as representative?

  In Thailand, monks are perceived (and perceive themselves) as symbols of patriotism (Jerryson chapter) and as members of a community that is not only the sangha, but the whole nation. As such, they feel obliged to participate in nationalist discourse and to condone acts of violence committed in the name of the nation. Here again, much of the Buddhist discourse on violence is contextual.

  Not surprisingly, when it had to adapt to societies such as those of China and Japan, the Buddhist sangha had to make hard compromises. But Buddhist monks often went one step, or several steps, further. This can be seen in the case of Japanese warrior-monks embroiled in internecine struggles, or in the cases of modern Thai and Sri Lankan monks yielding to patriotic frenzy. During the Mongol attempts to invade Japan, in the second half of the thirteenth century, Buddhist priests gave their unrestricted support to both sides of the conflict. A more recent example is the Japanese Buddhist support of the war effort during the Second World War. In the process, Buddhist monks came at times to legitimize the worst kind of brutality in the name of “ruthless compassion.”

  Although the dharma often has had to bow to reasons of State, in some instances it also provided an ideology for counterforces, inspiring peasant revolts in the name of a millenarianism centered on the coming of the future Buddha, Maitreya. In one of these movements, which arose in China at the start of the sixth century CE, the rebels, claiming for themselves the name Great Vehicle (Mahyna), undertook to rid the world of its demons—among which they included the established Buddhist clergy.

  In Japan, on the other hand, Buddhism paved the way to feudalism, with a new type of religious figure, the warrior-monk. It was only at the end of the sixteenth century, after centuries of feudal struggles, that the power of the great monasteries was crushed by military leaders. The subordinate status of Buddhism during the Tokugawa rule explains in part why, after the Meiji restoration (1868), Buddhists did not express any resistance to th
e rising militarism; eventually, they fell in line with “spiritual mobilization.” The Buddhist theory of selflessness served, for instance, to justify giving one’s life for the emperor, while the notion of the Two Truths was used to explain the contradiction between the principle of respect for human life and patriotic duty.

  But contextual explanation, while it accounts for a large part of the Buddhist discourse on war and violence, soon reaches its limits. For some reason, however, scholars have been reluctant to consider the idea that violence could be intrinsic to Buddhism, that the nondual dharma could include violence. Yet this question, which raises the specter of Buddhist fundamentalism, must be asked.

  If Buddhism is not reducible to its sociopolitical and economic contexts, there may be something more disturbing in it. What if the discourse on compassion turns out to be, in some cases at least, merely a form of lip service or wishful thinking? Could one go so far as to speak of the “sacrificial nature” of Buddhism? As is well known, Buddhism rejected animal sacrifices. Yet exceptions to that rule could still invoke a Buddhist argument. Buddhist vegetarianism, too, suffers many exceptions—beginning perhaps with the Buddha himself, who allegedly died from meat indigestion, and more recently with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s tongue-in-cheek statement that he is a Buddhist monk, not a vegetarian.

  Are there deeper explanatory models to be found below the surface of the texts? Could violence result from specific intrinsic structures, for instance, ritual mechanisms? Despite the importance of ritual in Buddhism—and the fact that a lot of work has been done in this area by anthropologists and historians—it still seems beyond the purview of Buddhist scholars. Among some possible theoretical frameworks for the data discussed here, we could consider Émile Durkheim’s notion of social effervescence; Michel Foucault’s discussion of discipline and punishment; René Girard’s explanation of the intimate link between violence and the sacred, between mimetic desire and its resolution through sacrifice and scapegoating;14 Georges Bataille’s theory of violence as a form of expenditure belonging to the “general economy.”15

  Another interesting model is Maurice Bloch’s analysis of the ritual structure of violence.16 Like Foucault in his analysis of power, Bloch shifts the focus from psychological forms of aggressiveness to systemic violence. This systemic violence derives from a certain ritual structure that is aimed at obtaining (through initiation) an identification with the transcendental realm (symbolized by apparently permanent social institutions). Bloch argues that the subject’s attempt to reach transcendence at the cost of human vitality already implies violence; so does the “rebounding violence” required in order to regain this vitality. Bloch actually discusses Buddhism, and more specifically Japanese Buddhism, although this is an area where his fieldwork is clearly insufficient and his model’s application most problematic. Without following him completely in his claim that Buddhist ritual (like all ritual aimed at transcendence) is fundamentally violent, it is clear that much of Tantric Buddhist ritual is centered on exorcisms and black magic. Without forcing an alien theory at all costs on our data, there are many theoretical tools that could prove useful in better grasping that complex problem.

  Indeed, the fundamental Tantric narrative is one of subjugation, a forced conversion of the non-Buddhists or a taming of the infidels. Conversely, like the maala, the Buddhist sangha looks sometimes like a besieged citadel. Even a cursory look at esoteric ritual manuals gives the feeling that the world is a dangerous place, where humans are constantly threatened by demonic forces. This category of demonic forces conveniently includes social rebels and political opponents. In other words, Buddhists have constantly resorted to the demonization of their rivals, Buddhist or non-Buddhist. A similar term for demonic forces was used by the priest Dgen (1200–1253) to label some Chinese monks that the Chan/Zen tradition accused of having murdered the first “Chinese” Chan patriarch, the Indian monk Bodhidharma. The tendency to debase outsiders (or sometimes rival insiders, as in this case) and to deny them the status of human is quite common in religious groups. The notion of nonhumans (J. hinin) has played an important role, for instance, in Japanese Buddhism and has justified a social discrimination that is still rampant. In the Klacakratantra, a text often used by the Dalai Lama and recently translated by Vesna Wallace, the narrative speaks of a final showdown between Buddhists and heretics—clearly designated as Muslims—who threaten the mythical kingdom of Shambhala. On the other hand, many eschatological movements have inserted themselves into this mythological narrative context of a cosmic fight between the forces of good and evil—as was the case with the millenarian rebellions in China.

  Let me return to my question: could the dharma, or ultimate reality, be intrinsically violent? Would that not explain figures such as Vajrapi and the “Bright Kings” (Skt. vidyrja, Ch. mingwang, J. my), emanations of the cosmic Buddha, who are represented as fierce beings bent on destroying the gods or demons they were supposed to convert or tame? To speak of ruthless compassion here is, at best, a euphemism, at worst, an ideological sleight of hand.17 In Japanese Buddhism, we find a divine/demonic figure called Kjin (also read in Japanese as aragami, or “wild god”). The term designates an individual deity that is both a dharma protector (known as Sanb Kjin, “Kjin of the Three Treasures”) and a “god of obstacles” (sometimes identified with the elephant-headed Vinyaka, a Buddhist version of the Hindu god Gaea). Aragami also designates a category of autochthonous spirits not yet individualized and tamed by ritual. The term ara, which is contained in their name, is related to the verb aru, “being.” At the risk of anachronism, one could perhaps heuristically read it as referring to some quasi-Heideggerian “ground of being” (a manifestation of ultimate reality that is really violent) and to the idea that the dharma manifests itself violently. This interpretation seems to reflect the general thrust of Tantric Buddhism.

  The fundamental ambivalence of this kind of deity calls to mind a cardinal tenet of Mahyna Buddhism, reflected for instance in the Tendai notion of “original awakening” (J. hongaku). This notion finds its expression in such mottos as “Passions are no different from awakening” (bonn soku bodai), or “Mra and the Buddha are one and the same” (mabutsu ichinyo). Playing with this kind of nondualism leads to the perception that evil is intrinsic to our real nature and that enlightenment is, again, the manifestation of that evil reality within us.

  Because Buddhists have made compassion their trademark, their complicated (and at times, disingenuous) relation with violence has raised more questions than in the case of followers of other religions. In a time of fear and terrorism, when the only form of tolerance that seems to increase is, sadly, the tolerance toward banalized violence, Buddhists too have tended to lower their standards, even though such compromise is clearly in opposition to the ethical absolute against killing. This is because, now more than ever, the religious sphere is unable to exist outside of the political sphere. In Asia at least, Buddhism has become ancillary to nationalism. More fundamentally, however, it is time to ask ourselves whether being Buddhist does not require a confrontation with the violence that lurks at the heart of reality (and of each individual), rather than eluding the question by taking the high metaphysical or moral ground.

  Appendix

  Examples of Buddhist Warfare

  Bibliography

  Abeysekara, Ananda. “The Saffron Army, Violence, Terror(ism): Buddhism, Identity, and Difference in Sri Lanka.” Numen 48.1 (2001): 1–46.

  Almond, Philip C. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

  Altangerel, T. XVI–XVII Zuuny Mongol Tsaazyn Bichgüüd. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1999.

  Altan Khany Tsaaz. In Mongolyn Tör, Erkh Züin Tüükh, vol. 1. Translated by B. Bayarsaikhan into modern Mongolian. Ulaanbaatar: University of Mongolia, School of Law, Research Center for Mongolian State and Law History, 2006.

  rya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upyaviaya-vikurva-nirdea stra. Tarthang Derge, mDo-sde, text 146, bKa’-’gyur, vol. Pa 203,
Derge, folio 82a–141b.

  ryadeva and Candrakrti. Catuatakam: Candrakrtipratakay Sahita: Sanskrit and Tibetan Edited with Hindi Translation. Edited by Gurucharan Singh Negi as Ph.D. diss., Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, India, 2005.

  Asaga. Bodhisattvabhmi, ed. K. P. Nalinaka Dutt (Sanskrit). Patna: Jayasawal Research Institute, 1978.

  ———. Asaga’s Chapter on Ethics with the Commentary of Tsong-kha-pa, trans. Mark Tatz. New York: Mellen, 1986.

  Atwood, P. Christopher, ed. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts of Life, 2004.

  Austin, J. L. “Performative Utterances.” In Philosophical Papers, ed. and trans. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock, 233–252. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.