Buddhist critiques of the Veda and Vedic sacrifice began with works attributed to its founder.
There are several suttas that directly take up the subject of Vedic sacrifice.25 However, in those suttas, the Buddha does not reject the notion of sacrifice itself. Following his trait of
reinterpreting others’—mostly Brahmanical—concepts and thus assimilating them into Buddhist vocabulary,26 the Buddha, rather than advising his Brahmin interlocutors to dispense with Vedic sacrifice, proposes to perform "reinterpreted" sacrifices infused with Buddhist values.27 The proposal is, according to the Buddha, not only to perform sacrifice in a more perfect form; it is
25 Tan lists three suttas from the Pāli Sutta-piṭaka in which Vedic sacrifice is “demythologized” and
“ethicized” (see his introductions to the translations of the following suttas available at dharmafarer.org).
They are the Kūṭadantasutta (Dīgha Nikāya 5, vol.1, pp. 127-49), the (Pasenadi) Yañña Sutta (Saṃyutta Nikāya 3.2.9, pt. 1, pp. 75-6), and the (Uggatasarīra) Aggi Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.44, vol.4, pp. 41-46) (references are to the PTS edition of the texts). However, they are by no means the only suttas that discuss the topic. As Tan’s translation of the entire Tipiṭaka is still in progress, he might add more texts to the list in the future. I would like to add the Ujjaya Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.39) to the list (see fn.11).
For their corresponding sūtras in the Taishō canon, use the digital compilation of Anesaki (1908)’s and Akanuma (1929)’s catalogues by Bingenheimer (“A Digital Comparative Catalogue of Āgama Literature”
ver. 3) available at http://mbingenheimer.net/tools/comcat/indexComcat.html.
26 For a list of Brahmanical terms that the Buddha uses in his own senses, see Norman (1991), section “2.
Terms taken over by the Buddha but used with new senses” (pp. 194-9). Norman also notes a possibility that “the use of Brahmanical terms in a non-Brahmanical sense was taken from the general fund of vocabulary of śramaṇical religions.” (p. 200)
27 Or, as Gombrich (2006[1996], 42) puts it, “the Buddha regularly used the language of his opponents, but turned it into metaphor.”
also to avoid unwanted consequences that would befall the performer as the result of the
sacrificial act. That is to say, the Buddha’s reinterpretation lies in showing that Brahmin sacrifice is not the path to the goal that it claims to be fulfilling and that it instead brings negative effects due to its immoral aspects.
Brahmin interlocutors, or, more accurately, questioners, on the other hand, show no attempt to resist the Buddha’s reinterpretation of sacrifice. Also, in those suttas on Vedic
sacrifice, the Buddha generally does not comment on the Veda when he criticizes Vedic sacrifice.
The presence of the Veda as the background of sacrificial practice is only alluded to when the Brahmin questioners’ qualities are listed.28 This is not to say, however, that the authority of the Veda is not assumed by the Buddha and the Brahmins who seek advice from him. Indeed, the Buddha’s “humorous and satirical” references to “Brahmins and Brahminism” (Gombrich 1990, 12) undermine the authority of the Veda, but only in an indirect manner. The weight that the Veda carries in the mind of Brahmins is not recorded and the Buddha pays no attention to the high esteem invested in the Veda. As Gombrich notes on the Buddha’s attitude toward the Upaniṣadic notion of “Brahman” (cosmic principle), the authority that the Veda assumes in contemporary Indian society “is not directly mentioned, let alone argued against; the Buddha simply bypasses it.” (2006, 64) The Buddha’s criticism of Vedic ritual, on the surface, is made mainly ethical. It is the sacrificial act itself, rather than the scripture that enjoins such actions, that is at the center of the controversy around Vedic sacrificial practices.
In those sacrifice-related suttas, the element of killing29 is specifically identified as
28 For example, as in the Kūṭadanta sutta: “For the master Kūṭadanta is a mantra-reciter, a mantra-expert, a master of the Three Vedas, along with their invocations and rituals, phonology and etymology, and the Itihāsa Purāṇas as the fifth; learned in the Vedic padas, grammarian, and well versed in nature lore and the marks of the great man.” (Tan 2007, 61); According to Tan, this is a stock description of Brahmin
questioners also used in several other suttas. See ibid., fn.50.
29 The Buddha’s uneasiness with the act of “killing” among other features of Vedic sacrifice is most clearly seen in the Ujjaya Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.39). In the Sutta, the Brahmin named Ujjaya asks the
causing karmically negative effects on its performer. However, these texts lack explanations of, for example, the principle behind the Buddha’s negative judgment of ritual killing or the
necessary causal relation between killing and being born in the lower realms.30 When asked about the successful performance of sacrifice31 or the form of sacrifice that would result in happiness and welfare for a long time32, the Buddha, without unconditionally disregarding the performance of sacrifice, provides the questioners with better forms of sacrifice in which no actual sacrifice of animals occurs yet goal of sacrifice is accomplished.33 The disparity between the means and the goal of Vedic ritual perceived by the Buddha is aptly expressed in this phrase:
“Even before the sacrifice, one thinks, ‘Let this many animals be slaughtered for sacrifice’. So while thinking one is doing something purifying one is doing something not purifying; while thinking one is doing right one is doing wrong; while thinking one is finding the way to a good
Buddha whether he praises sacrifice or not. In the reply, the Buddha makes the act of killing the sole criterion for not praising sacrifice. Cf. “I do not praise all sacrifice, Brahmin, nor do I withhold praise from all sacrifice. I do not praise a violent sacrifice at which cattle, goats, rams, chickens, and pigs are slain, at which various creatures are led to slaughter. For what reason? Because arahants and those who have entered the path to arahantship attend a non-violent sacrifice.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi tr. 2012, 429)
30 Schmithausen (2000) identifies two strands of arguments for ahiṃsā (“abstention from killing/hurting living beings”) in the early Jaina and Buddhist sources. He shows those two strands in the latter source by dividing it into the discourse for lay people which dissuades them from killing living beings “by pointing out its evil consequences in the afterlife or even in this life” (268) and the discourse for those who seek liberation which formulates the “Golden Rule.” The following sutta passage that he quotes from the Saṃyutta Nikāya expressively lays out the rule: “I for one want to live and not to die, I want happiness and dislike pain. Since I want to live, etc., it would not be agreeable and pleasant to me if somebody were to take my life. Again, for another person, too, it would be disagreeable and unpleasant if I were to take his life, since he [too] wants to live, etc. Precisely that which is disagreeable and unpleasant to me is disagreeable and unpleasant also to the other. How then could I inflict upon the other that which is disagreeable and unpleasant to myself!” (272) I could not find such rationalizations for denouncing the act of killing in the suttas that explicitly deal with the problem of Vedic sacrifice.
31 As in the Kūṭadanta Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 5). See Tan (2007, 65).
32 As in the Aggi Sutta (Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.44). See Gombrich (1990, 17), Tan (2003, 208).
33 The Kūṭadanta Sutta lists diverse forms of such sacrifice. After having related the “mythological”
sacrifice in which all four castes participated, no animal slaughter was involved, and no labor was imposed on people under the supervision of the Buddha himself as a Brahmin priest, the Buddha tells Kūṭadanta several other “less difficult” forms of sacrifice including “regular giving (dāna),” “donating a vihāra,” “going for refuge” and so forth.
rebirth one is finding the way to a bad.”34 Thus, according to the Buddha, the sacrifice conceived by those Brahmins who approached him betrays their own purposes and accomplishes their opposite, namely, impurity, demerit, and rebirth in lower realms.
The Buddha’s attack on the Veda, on the other hand, is recorded in another sutta that does not directly deal with Vedic sacrifice and its element of “killing.” In the Tevijja Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 13), the Buddha is approached by two Brahmin boys, Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja, who want to verify their own teachers’ teaching on the path to the state called “companionship with Brahmā” (brahmasahavyatā) at death. The Buddha ridicules the Brahmins’ practice using several similes and provides the Brahmin boys with his own answer. However, before he proceeds to the main sermon, he first questions Vāseṭṭha as to the qualification of the Brahmin teachers on the subject matter by asking: “Is there even a single one of these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas who has himself seen Brahmā [God] face to face?”35 The Buddha continues to question the qualification of the teachers, the pupils, and the ancestors of those teachers by asking the same question. After hearing negative answers, the Buddha finally turns his criticism to the
“authors” of the Veda (expressed as “mantra makers” (mantānaṃ kattāro)), that is, the ancient Vedic Ṛṣis (pubbakā isayo):
“Well then, Vāseṭṭha, what about the ancient seers of the brahmins, mantra makers, mantra preachers—that is to say, Aṣṭaka, Vāmaka, Vāmadeva, Viśvamitra, Jamadagni, Aṅgirasa, Bhāradvāja, Vāsiṣṭha, Kaśyapa, and
Bhṛgu36—whose ancient mantras and verses are chanted, uttered and collected by the brahmins of today, who sing them and recite them, and having sung them make others sing them, having recited them make others recite them—did they ever say: ‘We know and see when, how and where Brahmā appears?’”
34 This is a passage from Aṅguttara Nikāya, Sattaka Nipāta, Mahāyañña Vagga, Sutta no. 44 translated in Gombrich (1990, 17).
35 Tan (2010, 121).
36 Corrected from “Bhagu.”
“No, master Gotama.”37
Thus, having disqualified the authors, preachers, and guardians of the Veda, the Buddha
compares them to a series of blind men in which “the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, the last one sees nothing”38 and declares Brahmins’ teachings to be “only laughable, mere words, simply empty, utterly vain.”39 Their teachings are so laughable that they are like a man on the one side of the riverbank who calls out to the other shore (“Come over here, O farther bank, come over here!”40) in order to cross the river rather than gathering grass and wood to make a raft.41 It is because, in order to accompany the god Brahmā, rather than trying to
resemble the purity of the god, Brahmins are just chanting mantras: “We call upon Indra, we call upon Soma, we call upon Varuṇa, we call upon Isāna, we call upon Pajāpatī, we call upon Brahmā, we call upon Mahiddhi, we call upon Yama.”42
The disparity between the means and the goal is once again observed here, but it is important to note that, this time, the disparity is not just implied by pointing out the discrepancy between the immorality of the means (killing) and the goodness of the goal (rebirth in heaven).
The mismatch of chanting mantras (the means) and companionship with Brahmā (the goal) is
106a16-24, “Vāseṭṭha! Brahmins well-versed in the Three Vedas are like this. It is non-sense for one to aspire to be born in the heaven of Brahmā who rather cultivates the impure practice of the heretics than practicing pure brahmacarya of the śramaṇas. Vāseṭṭha! Suppose that mountains and waters were violently uprisen and people were in flood. There was no boat or raft, nor was there a bridge. A traveler, desiring to cross to the other shore, saw that mountains and waters are violently uprisen, people are in flood, no boat or raft, nor a bridge. That man thought to himself: “I, now, will gather much grass and wood, bind tightly a raft. Am I able to cross to the other shore with my own power?” Then, he bound a raft and, with his own power, could cross the river safely.” (婆悉咤! 三明婆羅門亦復如是. 不修沙門清 淨梵行, 更修餘道不清淨行, 欲求生梵天者, 無有是處. 婆悉咤! 猶如山水暴起, 多漂人民, 亦無船 栰, 又無橋梁, 有行人來, 欲渡彼岸. 見山水暴起, 多漂人民, 亦無船栰, 又無橋梁, 彼人自念: “我 今寧可多集草木, 牢堅縛栰, 自以身力渡彼岸耶?” 即尋縛栰, 自以身力安隱得渡.)
42 Tan (ibid., 124).
caused by the ignorance of Vedic Brahmins; not only those who are learned in the Three Vedas but also the very authors of those texts. They lack the direct experience/vision of Brahmā, whom they long to be with. On top of this, they make no effort to acquire the qualities they attribute to Brahmā: unlike Brahmā, they have wives, hate, ill will, defiled hearts, and no self-mastery.43 Considering all these disqualifications of Brahmins, how should one judge the nature of the text that they authored and preached? The Buddha, before he commences the sermon on the proper way of reaching the world of Brahmā, expresses his disapproval of the Veda in the strongest terms: “Therefore, these Three Vedas are called the threefold desert, the threefold forest, the threefold misfortune of the brahmins learned in the Three Vedas!”44
We may summarize the above discussions from the canonical sources as follows: 1.
Vedic sacrifice is criticized by the Buddha because of the immoral, thus karmically negative, act of killing animals. On account of this, though a Brahmin ritualist may perform a sacrificial act in hopes of gaining welfare in this life and beyond, the Buddha claims, they will ultimately fall to the evil path, that is, of being born either as hungry ghosts, animals, or hell beings. 2. The Buddha, in the Tevijja Sutta, reveals the absurdity of Brahmins’ project of attaining the world of Brahmā, and, in so doing, challenges the authority of the Veda as the religious text by showing its authors’ and preachers’ shortcomings. Given these observations, we may say that the major themes of Buddhist critique of Vedic ritualists (and later the Mīmāṃsakas) that continuously recur in later Buddhist literature are already present in the canonical sources. Those themes are:
1. criticizing Vedic sacrifice by highlighting its immoral aspects and viewing it within the framework of karma and 2. criticizing the Veda by pointing out (or proving) the faults of its author(s).
43 See Tan (2010, 125-6)
44 Ibid., 127.
However, these two critiques of the Veda and Vedic sacrifice are not yet presented in a combined form, as we would see from Harivarman’s time on. They are connected, somewhat tangentially, in the Tevijja Sutta as it refers to the practice of mantra recitation; the absurdity of ritual practice of chanting mantras indeed contributes to the Buddha’s denunciation of the Veda.
But the Buddha’s evaluations of the ritual performance and the authority of the Veda are not directly linked. The focus of the Buddha’s critique is Brahmins’ qualification. It is only through Brahmins’ foolishness that the Veda, as their work, is disregarded. And Buddhists’ criticisms of the Veda and Vedic sacrifice, though they seem to be intrinsically related, continue to be made separately in the Mahāvibhāṣā.