Evaluate the contributions of Buddhist tradition to Indian political thought. (2014, 15 Marks)
Buddhism arose as a protest against Vedic sacrifice and the varna order, and its politics carries that oppositional stamp. Where Brahmanical texts rested rule on sacred duty and danda, the Buddhist canon rested it on ethics. Its contributions are real but uneven, and they need to be weighed against what the tradition never supplied.
A Human Origin of the State
- The Agganna Sutta begins with beings of near-divine radiance who degenerate through craving and pride. Private fields are carved out by mutual consent, and four evils follow: theft, censure, lying and violence.
- To end the disorder the people choose one among them to punish wrongdoers for a share of grain: the Mahasammata, “great elect”. A Jataka tale similarly has the first people pick a handsome, commanding man as king.
- The contribution is decisive: property, state and social rank are human artefacts born of moral decline, not divine creations, and kingship is elective and conditional.
Righteousness as the Test of Rule
- U. N. Ghoshal credited the early canon with extending righteousness without exception to the king’s domestic government and his dealings with other kings.
- At home the ruler must shun the four biases (desire, hatred, fear, delusion), practise the ten royal virtues (dasa-raja-dhamma), give impartial justice, protect the good and care for the whole realm, animals included. Ashoka‘s edicts record medical care for people and beasts.
- Abroad, dhammavijaya replaces conquest: friendship with neighbouring rulers and moral example instead of annexation.
- The Kutadanta Sutta traces crime to destitution and cures it with seed, capital and wages, making welfare the basis of order.
Evaluation: The Limits
- No statecraft. Nothing on revenue, army or diplomacy rivals the Arthashastra; the ideas are inferred from sermons and birth-stories.
- Unenforceable conditions. The ruler’s title is conditional in principle, but no right of resistance or procedure of removal exists; only public opinion sanctions him.
- Not uniformly pacific. Upinder Singh shows Buddhist texts accept armies and punishment; Ashoka’s Rock Edict XIII still warns forest peoples of his power.
- Less opposed than claimed. Bhikhu Parekh treats Buddhist and Brahmanical thought as variants of one tradition, since both accept karma and rebirth and assume kings are Kshatriyas.
- Politics as secondary. Matthew J. Moore (Buddhism and Political Theory, 2016) finds that the tradition treats politics as of limited importance and offers its norms as advice, not binding command.
- Durability. Caste survived Buddhism’s decline in India.
Continuing Influence
India now uses the tradition in diplomacy: the first Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi (April 2023) and the return of the Piprahwa relics on 30 July 2025, after 127 years abroad. Soft power, however, shows the tradition’s prestige, not that its ideas govern policy.
Conclusion
The tradition’s lasting contributions are a contractual, functional account of authority, an ethic binding ruler and subject alike, and welfare and restraint in war as tests of legitimacy. Its weakness is institutional: it judged power without restraining it. It is best evaluated as the conscience of ancient Indian political thought rather than its constitution.