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1. The First Buddhist Fundamentalist? |
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Devadatta caused a schism
that nearly destroyed the early Buddhist community. What
can we learn from the greatest crisis of the Buddha’s
lifetime?
By Shin Yatomi
Senior Editor
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Typically, a fundamentalist movement is
a reaction against the perceived threat of secularism,
as in the conservative Protestant movements against evolutionary
theories and liberal theology in the early 20th century
or today’s various Islamic extremists against Western
culture. The leaders of fundamentalist religions, therefore,
often try to separate their followers from the rest of
corrupt society and unite them through distinct rules
of behavior.
It is perhaps easier for many people to go along with
rules, even those governing their most intimate choices
regarding what to eat or whom to love, than to question
the purpose of such rules. At the same time, there are
many others who, even though they themselves cannot abide
by such rules, admire others who live by or at least appear
to live by them.
Devadatta--a prominent leader of the early Buddhist Order
who later betrayed his teacher--knew how to take advantage
of people’s love of rules. After his failed attempts
on the Buddha’s life (including sending assassins,
hurtling a boulder down on him, and stampeding an elephant
toward him), Devadatta worked to create a schism in the
Buddhist Order by asking Shakyamuni to adopt five new
rules that he knew the Buddha would not accept.
According to the Vinaya-Pitaka, an early Buddhist text,
Devadatta’s rules required members of the Order
to: 1) live in the forest and never go near a village;
2) beg for alms and never accept invitations for meals;
3) wear robes made of rags and never wear household robes;
4) sleep at the root of a tree and never sleep under cover;
and 5) never eat meat and fish. Whoever in the Order failed
to follow those rules, Devadatta declared, “Sin
would besmirch him” (The Book of the Discipline:
Vinaya-Pitaka Cullavagga, vol. 5, trans. I. B. Horner,
p. 276).
Devadatta then assured his cohorts of his plan’s
success: “The recluse Gotama [Buddha] will not allow
these. Then we will win over the people by means of these
five items. It is possible…with these five items,
to make a schism in the recluse Gotama’s Order,
a breaking of the concord. For…people esteem austerity”
(p. 276).
As expected, the Buddha refused those rules, explaining
that it was up to each member how he would handle such
matters. Elated, Devadatta went to the city of Rajagriha
and proudly announced, “The recluse Gotama does
not allow these five items, but we live undertaking these
five items” (p. 277). According to the Vinaya-Pitaka,
those without faith and wisdom took the Buddha’s
response to mean he was in favor of seeking wealth. But
those with faith and wisdom questioned Devadatta’s
motives: “How can this Devadatta go forward with
a schism in the Lord’s Order, with a breaking of
the concord?” (p. 277).
When informed of the event, the Buddha explained that
those who worked to destroy the Buddhist Order would suffer
from “demerit that endures for an aeon” and
those who challenged such attempts would enjoy “sublime
merit…for an aeon” (p. 278). As a result of
Devadatta’s scheme, 500 newer members deserted the
Order. The Buddha then instructed Shariputra and Maudgalyayana,
two of his trusted disciples, to help them understand
the true teaching and return to the Order before they
could “fall into trouble and distress” (p.
279).
When Shariputra and Maudgalyayana caught up with Devadatta’s
group, he was preaching to his new converts and assumed
that those eminent disciples of the Buddha had come to
join him. Despite a warning from his assistant Kokalika,
Devadatta invited the pair to the assembly where he spoke
to his followers until late into the night. Then, imitating
the mannerisms of the Buddha, who was then past 70, Devadatta
said to his followers, “My back aches and I will
stretch it” (p. 280). So saying, he quickly fell
asleep.
Seizing the opportunity, Shariputra and Maudgalyayana
eloquently explained the Buddha’s true teachings,
which dispelled the confusion of Devadatta’s followers
and led them all back to the Buddha. When Kokalika woke
Devadatta, all his followers were gone. His shock was
so great, it is said, that “…at that very
place hot blood issued from Devadatta’s mouth”
(p. 281).
Upon their return, the Buddha instructed Shariputra to
be cautious about reinstating those who had left with
Devadatta and to make them “confess a grave offence”
(p. 282), perhaps to help them avoid making the same mistakes
in the future.
When Shariputra reported how intently Devadatta was mimicking
him, Shakyamuni warned his disciples of the foolishness
of such behavior, comparing it to how young, ignorant
elephants might mimic adult elephants eating lotus stalks
but, by failing to clean them first, they become sick
and die in agony. Then the Buddha predicted, “Devadatta
will die, a wretched creature, copying me” (p. 282).
This is the end of Devadatta’s known history. The
canonical texts do not tell his fate. According to one
commentary, however, the earth opened up and swallowed
him alive into hell. Did Devadatta’s brand of strict
asceticism survive? Fa-hsien, a fifth-century Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim who traveled to India, reported in his
Travels about a group in the Nepal area that had descended
from Devadatta. Furthermore, in The Record of the Western
Regions of the Great T’ang Dynasty, Hsüan-tsang,
a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist translator known for
his travels through Central Asia and India, recorded the
existence of Devadatta’s monastic community at Bengal.
If these accounts are true, Devadatta’s group survived
some 1,000 years after Shakyamuni’s death, which
is estimated at having occurred around either 480 or 380
B.C.E.
Devadatta might well qualify as the first Buddhist fundamentalist,
a particularly malignant kind owing to his insincere advocacy
of strict asceticism combined with blatant violence toward
usurping the leadership of the Buddhist Order. What is
troubling about this early Buddhist episode is how easily
so many members of the Order and Rajagriha citizens fell
under Devadatta’s influence, and how many centuries
his influence might have lasted. Without the Buddha’s
penetrating insight into Devadatta’s true nature
and his disciples’ courage, what might have happened
to Buddhism?
Nichiren Daishonin admonishes our tendency to be deceived
by imposters posing as true teachers: “Powerful
enemies of the correct teaching…are to be found
not so much among evil rulers and evil ministers, among
non-Buddhists and devil kings, or among monks who disobey
the precepts. Rather they are those great slanderers of
the Law who are to be found among the eminent monks who
appear to be upholders of the precepts and men of wisdom”
(The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 584).
Imposters are essentially concerned with the appearance
of keeping precepts, while true practitioners question
the relevance of precepts to the ultimate goal of Buddhist
practice, that is, happiness for oneself and others. The
purpose of a true practitioner is to internalize Buddhism
and manifest it from deep within his or her life. One
way not to be deceived by an imposter, then, is to embody
the teachings of Buddhism instead of simply keeping up
their appearance. That is, only when we practice true
to the intent of Buddhism can we distinguish between being
and seeming.
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Key points:
1) An important aspect of our Buddhist practice is to
internalize the Buddhist teachings, digesting their meaning
to our happiness and acting in accord with their intent.
The main purpose of Buddhism is not to bind people with
external precepts, but to help them develop self-control
and self-reliance, without which genuine freedom is impossible.
2) What appears Buddhist on the surface may not be truly
Buddhist in substance. One who appears to be a teacher
of Buddhism may be merely an imposter. In many of his
writings, Nichiren Daishonin cautions us of our tendency
to be caught up with our appearance and lose sight of
the substance and spirit of Buddhism.
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Food for Thought
1) Have you had an experience of realizing the importance
of internalizing the Buddhist teachings as opposed to
merely imitating them? If so, what led to your realization?
2) What is the difference between learning how to practice
Buddhism from a teacher and imitating only the appearance
of a teacher?
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(Originally published in the World
Tribune, Feb. 14, 2004.)
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