Issue

12th Issue (June, 2009)

Social Crimes: Are they attributions of kamma?
- A case study of the examples of Devadatta and Aṅgulimāla

Bhikkhu K Tanchangya
bdsaddhananda@yahoo.com

Recent scholastic research has shown that kammatic Buddhism dominates over nibbānic Buddhism, two of the terms being introduced by Melford E. Spiro [1] .This is understandably because, to put it simply, the majority of the people who consider themselves Buddhists have little time, if not at all, for the keen pursuit of the highest goal – nibbāna. Kammatic Buddhism is just another name for popular Buddhism wherein religious cults, rituals, offerings and give-and-take beliefs in the form of merits reign. My long time experience in traditional Buddhist lands of South and Southeast Asia has shown that the Buddhist principle of kamma has seriously been misunderstood and misinterpreted at the common level just as the theory of Dependent Co-arising (paṭiccasamuppāda) is often misunderstood and misinterpreted at a scholastic level. Meeting with a car accident, coming down with a chronic illness, having no luck in lottery, being a prostitute, a thief, a robber, a killer, a trafficker, being poor and rich are all interpreted and explained with one term – "kamma". Are they really the attributive cause of "kamma"? Or are we simply imposing the notion of kamma to justify and rationalize our activities to suit our own interests and to comfort ourselves in times of misfortune? First of all, let’s be informed that we do find such explanations in the suttas but not in the way we think them to be.

It is interesting to know that almost all of the jātaka stories, dealing with the previous births of Buddha, portray Devadatta as an evil conspirator. Devadatta was a cousin of the Buddha who, as the canonical records make us to believe, was "a person with evil intentions" bent on harming the Buddha and his Dispensation. Devadatta's life has been colored with crimes of spiritual and social nature. He caused a schism in the monastic saṅgha, killed a female arahant and hurt the foot of the Buddha – crimes that are considered spiritually and morally heinous and weighty (garukakamma). He was also instrumental in the killing of a powerful king, Bimbisāra of the kingdom of Magadha – a social crime that is considered a crime against the state. The interesting point is that the jātakas seem to attribute the evils of Devadatta in his present life to his numerous previous lives. This being so, the question arises as to whether what Devadatta did was determined by his (previous) kamma or not. To our understanding, the jātakas justified the actions of Devadatta by attributing them to his previous kamma. In modern day criminology, the present existence of severe depression, lack of social and economic security, loss of self-esteem, work or study pressure and stress are counted as causes leading to crimes. A careful examination of the life of Devadatta would show that there was nothing in his princely and later monk life to suggest that he was suffering from such disorders for him to commit the crimes attributed to him. Apparently he was suffering from more serious psychological negativities like greed (lobha), jealousy (issā), pride (māna) and ignorance (avijjā) – factors considered in Buddhism to be the roots of crimes and social misbehaviors. We shall elaborate on this in the later part of this write-up. 

Moreover, the violent death of Ven. Moggallāna by bandits, the murderous life of Aṅgulimāla, the massacre of the entire Sakyan clan, the Buddha’s food poisoning to name but a few are all attributed to be the determined effects of previous kammas. Our interest here is the murderous life of Aṅgulimāla who was a serial killer, most wanted by the state but couldn’t be arrested until the intervention of Buddha himself. The story records that Buddha only intervened when Aṅgulimāla who laced with human fingers had already killed nearly a thousand people. Once again the commentarial explanations justified the belated intervention of the Buddha by attributing the killings of Aṅgulimāla to one of his previous kammas, suggesting that he was kammically expected to do what he did and that those who died at his bloody hand were those who must die. This is certainly a very serious misrepresentation of the Buddhist principle of kamma. Buddha himself was very cautious in not equating his kamma theory with that of the prevailing theory of determinism (niyativāda). The hypothesis that Aṅgulimāla was "kammically expected to do what he did and that those who died at his bloody hand were those who must die" falls into niyativāda which was vehemently rejected by the Buddha. We cannot possibly understand why a person like Buddha, the embodiment of wisdom and compassion coupled with a 'skillful means' (upāya-kausalyā) could consciously, intentionally and knowingly allow, as is recorded, a serial killer like Aṅgulimāla to continue his killings, because in another story we read that he successfully intervened and prevented the outbreak of a fierce battle between Sakyans and Koliyans. The war couldn’t take place due to Buddha’s compassionate and timely prevention whereas He, as the story is recorded, allowed Aṅgulimāla’s killings to continue until to a point which was unacceptable.

In the light of the two canonical examples cited above, we shall discuss whether social crimes and misbehaviors are determined by kamma or not.  

As far as the Jātakas could trace back the previous lives of Devadatta, he had always been an evil person with no apparent change. The reason behind his samsāric evils in the first place, however, has not been pointed out in the scriptures. This permanency of Devadatta being an evil person for times beginningless seems to contradict the flexibility of the Buddhist doctrine of aniccatā (impermanence). The commentarial attribution of Devadatta’s wrongdoings to the static chain of his saṁsāric lives does no justice to the Buddhist doctrines of aniccatā, kamma and paṭiccasamuppāda. There are enough hints in the Scriptures to prove that Devadatta was merely reacting to what he believed as "injustice" done to his own sister Princess Yasodharā, who was the royal consort of Prince Siddhattha, the person we know as Buddha. We must not forget when Siddhattha left his wife and son, parents and kingdom was a time considered in Indian society at the time as improper and not suitable for a youthful prince. Buddha as Siddhattha left his wife Yasodharā secretly at a time when she needed him the most, hours after giving birth to their first child. Great must have been her sorrow and grief knowing that her dear and beloved husband was no more in the palace. Siddhattha’s unfairness and so-called injustice to Yasodharā in the social context can only be understood when considered from an Indian social context where a wife losing her husband is considered as "living dead". Siddhattha’s leaving her was technically meant that she was made "living dead" which was strongly opposed and objected by her parents and certainly by her brother Devadatta. This was the reason why Buddha’s former father-in-law Suppabuddha (the father of Devadatta and Yasodharā) was reluctant to meet him in the first place.

The Dhammapada commentary explicitly records Suppabuddha as saying to Buddha "you have done wrong to my daughter by leaving her like that". Likewise, we read of the incident of Yasodharā refusing to go and meet Buddha, her former husband who came to the palace to meet the family. These incidents show that Buddha was strongly accused and faulted for leaving his family in such emotionally depressed condition. This is evidently true when we read about Buddha confessing in front of the royal family that he understood the emotional sufferings caused to and undergone by Yasodharā but revealed that she had always been with him in previous lives as well devoted and helping in his perfection of Bodhisatta vows. This comforting and appreciation of the royal family’s courage to withstand the shock and grief by the Buddha must have eased some tension between the two royal families but Devadatta was in no way forgiving to Buddha.

Once again we must understand his reactions from purely an emotional level, nothing to do with anything in the previous lives whatsoever. This must have been the very preliminary reason why Devadatta was bent on harming the Buddha and his Dispensation. As is always usual, one type of human emotions leads to other complicated emotions which are often mere "justifications". This then may again result in the manifestations and activation of serious psychological negativities like greed, jealousy, pride and ignorance – roots, which, as we have noted at the beginning, are causes of crimes. Devadatta attempted to harm the Buddha and his Dispensation because he was jealous of Buddha’s popularity and supremacy. He refused to accept Buddha as his teacher because he was very proud of the fact that he, like the Buddha, also comes from a similar royal backgrounds. Finally, he did all that because he was overcome by ignorance. It was ignorance that prevented him from understanding the other side of the reality.

The story and example of Aṅgulimāla as explained in the commentarial sources[2] make us to believe that one can be kammically determined to be a killer, a criminal and so on and that such deterministic mechanism cannot be altered even by Buddha. This is at least what we understand from the recorded story. However, we have already noted that Buddha had successfully altered such mechanism such as the war between the Sakyans and Koliyans.

 A critical reading of the Aṅgulimālasutta and its commentarial story would suggests that Buddha was unaware of Aṅgulimāla’s killings until the time he heard of him while going for alms in the Kosalan kingdom where he terrorized people. The canonical sutta reads that the Kosalan king with his powerful commando battalion was after Aṅgulimāla and this must have been the Buddha’s preliminary reluctance in the first place to face the murderer thinking that he would soon be brought under control, not necessarily because it was his kamma to kill, as we all believe. Soon after Buddha heard of him and most probably after being informed that Aṅgulimāla could not be controlled by ordinary means, he decided to take the task into his hand. This is how and why, with his compassion and wisdom, he utilized psychic powers to subdue the fierce serial killer, however much late though. This reading would then reject the working of any previous kammic mechanism as portrayed in the story. We should never take any incident linked to kammic mechanism for granted because ultimately Buddha’s own doctrines of aniccatā, anattatā, kamma and paṭiccasamuppāda point to something empirical in this very life (diṭṭhe dhamme).

Having said so far, we are not of course trying to interpret everything in terms of this life per se because that would fall into the other extreme namely ucchedavāda (nihilism) which was also rejected by the Buddha. Nihilism i.e. believing only this life exists is something that rejects morality and the practice of higher life (brahmacariyā) and this is of course against the basic tenets of Buddhism. By citing the above two examples, our main focus is to show that we cannot cite them as examples to interpret what’s happening in present day society.

The working of kamma is very complex. It neither is attributive nor independent of what comes to be. Buddhist kamma is not so-called moral "justice", "reward" or "punishment" handed out to wrongdoers by an unseen supreme judge. It is just the way it is. What Buddha meant by kamma is the "volition" (cetanā) which is one of the 52 mental states that accompany the arising of consciousness (viññāṇa). Kamma i.e. volition is the mental aggregate of formation (saṅkhāra) which precedes consciousness in generating skillful, unskillful or neutral feelings and reactions. Kamma is therefore the cause, not the result as is popularly misinterpreted. In giving, there must first be the volition which prompts one to give and that is the cause, kamma. Since kamma is saṅkhāra, a mental factor, its lasting is very short but when it disappears it leaves some potential to produce results which are technically called vipāka, the actual result of kamma. Vipāka, however, is not stored in the kamma itself because kamma itself is subjected to change (anicca) and empty of an ever lasting entity (anattā). This subtle working of kamma and vipāka can be grasped by the analogy of sunlight, dried cow dung and a gem. The coming together of these three produces fire but the fire itself is not stored in either of them but it arises depending on the three which is exactly the principle of paṭiccasamuppāda. Hence kamma and vipāka are also paṭiccasamuppannā i.e. dependently co-arisen, not fixed, not determined and not same either.

 Now let’s recall the previous reference where we mentioned that Buddha did explain the diversity of human conditions and experiences on the basis of kamma – “young man, beings are the owners, heirs, origins, relations and refuges of actions. Action classifies beings as inferior and superior"[3] . This was the answer given by Buddha in response to an inquiry of a young Brahmin "Ven. Gotama, among humans, why is there evident inferior and superior states? We see humans with short life and long life, with many ailments and few ailments, beautiful and ugly, weak and powerful, poor and wealthy, from low clans and high clans, foolish and wise. Why are these differences seen in humans?" This question is very plainly asked and the explanation given to it is also very plain but not as simple as we think it might be because this is the canonical reference where popular Buddhism has gone wrong. While Buddha’s proclamation and clarification of differences among humans is very much to do with volitional actions (kamma) done in the past, this is not, in any way, to suggest that these human differences cannot be overcome. But unfortunately this canonical reference is often utilized in a twisted manner at the popular level. The accusation that kamma makes life passive and fixed is mainly due to the misrepresentation of this point. Though kamma is an inescapable net of complex mechanism, we are no way to sit down passively and idly doing nothing to change our lifestyles because Buddha himself explicitly mentioned five factors that are instrumental in changing and altering one’s course of lifestyle namely, ātappamanvāya (through exertion), padhānamanvāya (making endeavor), anuyogamanvāya (yoking), appamādamanvāya (with diligence) and sammāmanasikāramanvāya (with right attention)[4] .

The background story of the Dhammapada verse no.109 is a clear example where kamma can be altered with these factors. In this story, a young child has been predicted to be dead within seven days. When consulted with the Buddha, he recommended that monks be invited to the house and let the seven days be passed with the chanting of the Holy Scriptures. On the seventh day, Buddha himself was present at the chanting and successfully prevented the death of this young child. On this happy occasion Buddha then proclaimed, to paraphrase his words, to anyone living with constant diligence, four blessings increase – longevity (āyu), beauty (vaṇṇo), happiness (sukhaṁ) and strength (balaṁ)

In his PhD thesis, Bhikkhu Mettanando of Thailand has faulted kammatic Buddhism as being partly responsible for the AIDS epidemic in the 20th century Thailand. His research has shown that while brothels were just situated next to temples, it was this twisted understanding of kamma that prevented monks and even serious lay practitioners to speak out against the deadly epidemic. The twisted form of kammatic Buddhism indeed seems to accept prostitution with the belief that those who are prostitutes are those who must be prostitutes, that they are repaying kammic debt and that they will once again reap the consequences of their actions.

When a group of long time serious lay vipassanā practitioners was asked what they would do if they knew that one of their neighbor’s houses is turned into a brothel, the reply was that they would all contemplate on anicca, dukkha and anattā and let the problem be as it is. This inaction from the part of these practitioners contradicts the fundamental Buddhist doctrines of compassion and loving-kindness. Trying to contemplate on anicca, dukkha and anatta of a social crime such-as prostitution without active involvement in trying to solve or prevent it is just the habit of an ostrich hiding its head into the sand whenever it faces dangers and thinks that the problem is over, when it actually is not.

Though Buddha openly did not comment much about prostitution, he neither endorsed such a profession[5] . We must not forget that commerce in humans like selling and trafficking humans is a prohibited profession and prostitution is just that i.e. selling oneself for money. A number of prostitution cases have been mentioned in the Canon itself but none of them has been explained as kammic debt. Hence, prostitution which, in modern criminology, is termed as "victimless crime" is not kammic debt but rather outcome of excessive poverty and social insecurities and inequalities as in the case of Thailand where major part of prostitution has been concentrated in economically disadvantaged areas. But the same case in economically super countries like Japan has to be looked from intrinsic human tendencies like greed (lobha) and ignorance (moha). Hence prostitution is the combination of all these which is very fragile to exist in morally fragile social environments.

Interestingly, an Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso (18th century) suggested that criminals are born and can be recognized by such physical attributes as a receding forehead. Though evidence has been produced suggesting that such physiological abnormalities as an extra y chromosome or an endocrine abnormality predispose one to criminality, humanitarianism and psycho-analysis have disagreed on this theory, instead proved that psychological and environmental factors, family background, emotional disorders as well as poverty lead social crimes such-as killings, rapes, robbery, gabling and so on.

In modern day, violent crimes are also being resorted to due to perceived social injustice and inequalities and due to political and even religious motivations and indoctrinations. Some of these current phenomena are so newly developed that we can hardly attribute their outcomes to any perceived kammic results or debts. The example of Aṅgulimāla cannot be kammic debt but religiously motivated and indoctrinated because he was induced to kill to fulfill a religious vow, not certainly because he was kammically expected to do so. In modern terminology, Aṅgulimāla was a religious extremist. The example of Devadatta is just the manifestation of serious psychological negativities such-as greed, hatred, jealousy, revenge, and delusion which were partly determined by the social environment in which, unfortunately, he was an active member.

The Buddha’s explanation of people with short life and long life, with many ailments and few ailments, beautiful and ugly, weak and powerful, poor and wealthy, from low clans and high clans, foolish and wise on the basis of kamma is no doubt the most convincing and most attractive. What is not mentioned in the quoted sutta is whether one is a criminal by kamma or rather whether one’s criminal activities are explainable by kamma. In current social phenomena, the reality that some people are short lived, while others are long lived, some are beautiful while others are ugly, some are weak and being suppressed by the powerful, some are starving while yet others are over fed can best be explained only with the Buddhist Kamma theory. But we have noted above that poverty and perceived social and even religious injustice and inequalities are the principal causes leading to social misbehaviors and crimes. Hence they are partly influenced by kamma-vipākas of being weak and poor. Social misbehaviors and crimes are, then, not directly kammic in themselves, so to speak.

Kamma in Buddhism, therefore, is not something that can always explain the facets of human existence because kamma is only one of the many complex mechanisms that operate in this world, the others being utu-niyāma (seasonal phenomena), bῑja-niyāma (seed-phenomena), citta-niyāma (psychological phenomena) and dhamma-niyāma (conditioned phenomena), terms that denote the complexity of the working phenomena of conditioned existence.  

Bibliography:

1. Melford E. Spiro, 'Buddhism and Society', George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1971
2. Durkheim, Emile, 'Suicide', Free Press, Glencoe, 1951   
3.  Lamotte, E., 'Religious Suicide in Early Buddhism', Buddhist Studies Review 4, 1987
4. De Silva, Padmasiri, 'Buddhism, Ethics and Society, The conflicts and dilemmas of our times', Monash Asia Institute, 2002
5. Gnanarama, Pategama, Ven., 'An Approach to Buddhist Social Philosophy', Ti-sarana Buddhist Association, Singapore, 1996
6. Keown, Damien, 'Buddhism and Bioethics', 1995
7. Ratnapala, Nandasena, 'Buddhist Sociology', Sri Satguru Publications, 1993
8. All canonical references are that of the PTS edition