dvija varNa

[Lynken Ghose]

Dear Lance Cousins:

My replies are below.

>I have made no comments about either you or Richard Gombrich. I am
>simply addressing the method.

I entirely agree with you about caution when it comes to quoting much later
sources. However, in another posting, I also quoted two sources from the
Pali Canon (Vasettha Sutta and Dhammapada) which seem to imply that early
Buddhism did not accept the idea of caste as something one can be born into.
Please take a little more time in reading all of my postings before
responding.

Since one of the distinctive features of the caste system seems to be the
idea of being born into a certain jati or varna, to reject the idea of caste
by birth seems to be a rejection of the caste system. The implication (in an
earlier posting) that early Theravada Buddhism did not reject caste was what
I originally reacted to.

>To defend the traditions, you have to argue that they are based on
>texts written down in the Sinhalese dialect of Prakrit in the first
>century B.C. on the basis of earlier traditions brought from what we
>now call India or Pakistan in the third or second century B.C.

I don't know if defending or not defending the tradition is the issue: the
issue is what did the tradition really say. Even if we throw out the
commentary discussed by Gombrich because of its late date, it seems fairly
clear that at least some of the suttas in the Pali Canon rejected caste as
something one is born into.

On a slightly different note, there are also suttas such as the Tevijja
Sutta in the Digha Nikaya which poke fun at some of the brahmin religious
teachers. Here, however, it is doubtful that this means that the Buddha was
anti-brahmin; rather, it seems that, in this sutta, what he is rejecting is
learnedness which has no basis in experiential knowledge.

Best Wishes,

Lynken Ghose


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