Buddhism and animal rights

by K.T.S. Sarao

In the wake of the alarming degradation of the environment and destruction of large number of species of animals it has become imperative for humankind to reevaluate its attitude towards environment and animals.

A civilization in which we must kill and exploit other forms of life in order to live is not a civilization of mentally healthy people. Social sciences are blatantly anthropocentric and it is taken as a matter of fact to pay little or no attention to the nonhuman domain of animalkind. Accordingly, animals are depicted as mechanical who far from being considered agents or subjects in their own right, are themselves virtually overlooked by social scientists.

They and their relationship with humans tends to be treated as unworthy of interest in social sciences. Accordingly, issues concerning animal welfare hardly ever appear in social sciences in which the animals are seen as an integrated part of human-centred ecosystem. We need to address ourselves to the main question as to whether or not various human practices with animals are morally or ecologically rational.

Apart from animals that function as subsistence factors, there are animals that are made to serve non-subsistence human purposes, for instance as objects of prestige or sacrifice or as totems. Animals in this capacity have been vested with religious significance and with symbolic and metaphorical power. In addition, anthropologists have focused on the roles that animals play in human ceremonial and religious life.

Anthropological interest in animal totems or animal symbols is no guarantee against an anthropocentric approach. More often than not such interest serves as an excuse to stop at human constructs instead of paying attention to the animals themselves. At present, the anthropocentrism in social sciences goes virtually unchallenged. The reason for this is the commonly held view that animals in themselves have nothing to offer as according to them sociality and culture do not exist outside the human realm.

On the whole, animals figure in social sciences not only as objects for human subjects to act upon but also as antitheses of all that according to social sciences makes humans human. Another obstacle to the recognition of human - animal continuity is the fear among biologists of being accused of anthropomorphism, the attribution of exclusively human characteristics to animals. For their part, social scientists have been jealously guarding what they see as the human domain and so tend to applaud the biologists' fear of anthropomorphism. What is currently denounced as anthropomorphism are those characterizations which social scientists are keen to reserve for humans. In their critique of biological determinism social scientists point an accusing finger at anyone who credits animals with personhood. However, there are some courageous animal scientists who do say that animals are more human_like and less object like than their own science will have us believe.

Animism and anthropomorphism was widely prevalent amongst the ancient Indian people. Animals were seen as an incarnation of human spirits, or the spirits of one's own ancestors. Of course, it is true that any agricultural people has a feeling for the force that works in nature, and comes to personalize each separate force. The human came to address the extrahuman in terms of human intercourse. In fact, some of the early Buddhist texts show that animals shared man's religious nature, that such observed phenomena were visible proofs of the communion of men, animals, and the gods.

The Buddhist view of the migration of samskaras across species lines reduces the psychic space between man and beast. In addition to the power of intentional perception, the Buddha's animals are capable of both passion and voluntary motion, and so are not simply driven about by impulses beyond their control. Modern research has shown that animals experience conscious thoughts and feelings and the picture of animal life as unconscious, sleepwalker existence is no more sustainable. It is becoming increasingly non-credible and antediluvian to regard subjective mental experiences as the exclusive province of one species or even as the exclusive province of a few species with large brains.

The Jatakas validate our deepest feelings and keep alive for us today knowledge of the wisdom inherent in all life forms. To lose respect for all other species, and the fundamental wisdom they too embody is, after all, to weaken the first and most fundamental of the precepts not to kill but to cherish all life. The most famous is the Sasa Jataka about the hair who lived in the woods with a monkey, a jackal, and an otter. The story concerns their decision to observe the holy days and the moral law by giving alms. Recognizing the full moon they decided to consider the next day as a fast day and feed any beggar.

While the monkey, the jackal and the otter collected food to be given to anyone in need of it, the hare was unable to collect any food and offered his own flesh. The hare was rewarded for having supernaturally imposed its form on the face of the moon. The animal hero here is considered as having been a Bodhisatta in a previous life. The story offers a very humane picture of its animal characters. The Nandimagga Jataka is the story of a deer who fearlessly faced a king who was hunting; by his steadfast gaze, he changed the mind of the king and saved the other animals. In the Dhammapada we find the story of Dhanapalaka, an elephant who suffered from homesickness after being separated from his mother.

The captive elephant refused food. In the Mahakapi Jataka, a monkey saves his tribe by using his body as part of a bridge for them to cross the Ganga. While some Jatakas depict superhuman qualities expressing the life of the Bodhisatta, they also reflect a capacity for affection, which is as important as the heroic qualities of courage and sacrifice. Although we may not find a structured moral code among animals, they seem to express certain deeply valued virtues. It has been observed that animals are devoted to their offspring, sympathetic to their kindred, affectionate to their mates, self-subordinating in their community, courageous beyond praise.

There are several reasons for the appearance of animals in Buddhist literature, sculptures and paintings. Firstly, this was so because of kamma where individuals are born again and again in different forms. Second reason is the tendency towards animism, the idea that animals and even plants which concern man have life in some similar way as men. This thought seems to have been very strong already at the time of the Buddha. The third reasons is the personification of animals which was greatly developed at the time. It was very easy to adapt these personifications for moral purposes and thus animals and men talk to each other on the same footing. This happens chiefly in stories and parables.

The use of animals which were familiar to everyone was a very good method of popularizing the teaching. Many examples of this method are found in the Jatakas. Some examples from the Jatakas are like, say the Ruru Jataka: A son of a rich merchants, who leads a profligate life tries to kill himself by throwing himself in the Ganga. A deer named Ruru saves the youth at by endangering his own life. Later, the youth betrays the deer by giving information about his whereabouts. But from the thus, the caught deer, the king comes to now about the relationship between the two. The kind lets the der go but wants to ill the youth. The deer, however, pleads with the king to let the youth go.

Abhaya-dana (the path of fearlessness) is a kind of giving meaning to take away one's fear and to give a sense of security. According to one tradition, the Abhaya-mudra is said to have originated from the gesture made by the Buddha when he was confronted by the drunken elephant Nalagiri who was set loose on the highway at the instigation of Devadatta. Abhaya-dana was given concrete expression by some kings of the Theravada countries, in their own ways. We have instances from the inscriptions of Asoka such as the 7th, 5th and 2nd Pillar Edicts, which are devoted to the same idea which, today, we know as Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Though the 5th Pillar Edict does not altogether prohibit the slaughter of animals and only takes a realistic view of the subject, yet, in effect, there is no question that it is a positive case of Abhaya-dana. So also is it evident from the contents of the same emperor's bilingual inscription (Greek-Aramaic) recently found in Afghanistan. The Mahavamsa mentions that some kings of Sri Lanka had forbidden the slaughter of animals, sometimes wholly and at other times in certain circumstances. Amandgamani Abhaya (1st century AD) and Kassapa V (10th century AD) may be cited as examples. In later times we have inscriptional records, like those of Nissanka Malla of the 12th century, who gave safety of life to animals such as fishes in tanks, birds and forest animals. It is to be noted that here, unlike in the inscriptions of Asoka, the actual word used is abhaya-dana.

In historic India, animal deities preceded anthropomorphic ones. Empty throne of the Buddha. During the Mauryan period, the statues purely belong to the animal world. In the following period, the images centre far more on animals than on human beings. Animals predominate as characters in the Jataka stories and the heroes are generally not people but animals.

These are, in addition, the bearers of culture. Humanity receives water from a snake, fire from a frog and sleep from a lizard. Perhaps early people were overawed by the superior natural abilities of other creatures.

The animals featured, whether by frequency or by placement, in Buddhist literature and art are usually animals with impressive speed and strength - horses, bulls, deer, tigers, lions, bears, rhinoceroses. But animals may also have been preferred as Bodhisattvas simply because they are so unlike us, and therefore filled with mystery.

The Buddha fervently argued the importance of making ethical treatment of all sentient beings a theological priority. He opposed animal sacrifices and paid special attention to the important task of building up an ethical system in which justice for animals is regarded as the norm rather than the exception. The Buddha's frequent reference to the migration of samskaras and rebirth across species lines reduces the psychic space between humans and other beings. In this paper, an attempt is made to show on the basis of early Buddhist literature that animals in Buddhism are not simply driven about by impulses beyond their control and that they are capable of both passion and voluntary motion. As the Animal Rights/ Welfare Movement is growing stronger by the day, through this paper it is shown that Buddhism has many importance lessons to offer in this field.

Buddhism does not distinguish as sharply as the Judaic-Christian faiths between animals and human beings, and Buddhist deities are often depicted in animal form. The overwhelming number of animal Bodhisattas is a proof of this. Lion, bull, elephant remain associated with the Buddha directly. There are many Jataka tales which may have served to assimilate local animal cults into Buddhism. The old animal cults were still part of the folk lore at the time of the Buddha, and he appears to have mixed theriomorphic traits with human ones while including them in the Buddhist pantheon. As divine aspects of women and men need to be acknowledged, so do those in animals.

We need inspiring figures which are not anthropomorphic to remind us that the world was not simply created for human beings, and that other figures also need to be respected. Furthermore, the recognition of divinities that are not anthropomorphic could diffuse and mediate the tension that comes of viewing divinity solely in terms of men and women.

The Buddha stood for an ethically based relationship between humans and animals. The idea of continuation of life between human and animal life is implicit in basic Buddhist concepts such as that of kamma and rebirth.

The Buddha pointed out that beings are inferior, exalted beautiful, ugly, well-faring, ill-faring, according to their kamma. Beings pass from existence to existence being reborn in accordance with the nature of their deeds.

A being's kamma leads it to pass from one existence to another depending whether it is wholesome or unwholesome. After death the body breaks up and an individual is reborn in a satisfactory state of existence (sugati) such as a human if its conduct has been comparatively good or a miserable state of existence (duggati) such as an animal or even worse if its conduct had been bad. Thus, individuals who creep or slink along in this life, be they bloody-handed hunters, or robbers, or whatever, are most likely to be reborn in the form of a sneaky or creeping creature as a - snake, a scorpion, a centipede, a mongoose, a cat, a mouse, an owl-ans so on. It is also true the other way round i.e. an animal can be reborn as a human.

Animals are also seen by Buddhism as subject to their kamma. A large number of the Jatakas revolve around the good and bad deeds done in the past by different kinds of animals. These are then linked up with the present, the good creatures being identified through the process of rebirth with the Buddha and his followers, and the wicked with Devadatta and the like. It is, therefore, possible for a human to be reborn as an animal or vice-versa depending upon the kamma. Animals have used liberally as examples of ideal behaviour on which monks are advised to pattern their lives.

Thus, Buddhism considers animals and humans as part of the same chain of becoming, the same universal flux in the Buddhist view constitutes phenomenal existence. This is clearly clinched in a statement of the Buddha when he says that it is not easy to find out any being who has not been mother, father, brother, sister, son, or daughter to us... (due to)... repetition of rebirths. However, animals as such are not treated to be capable of growth in the dhamma.

For this reason, the Parivara and the Mahavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka both declare the ordination of animals into the monastic order to be an invalid practice. Similarly, it is forbidden to ordain a man who had an animal as a preceptor and to recite the Patimokkha in the presence of an animal is reckoned an offence of the class of wrong-doing.

This indicates to low estimation by Buddhism of the spiritual qualifications of animals and it may be said that although animals on the whole are generally seen to be more violent, less wise, and their existence less satisfactory than that of humans. However, animals such as sheep, goats, oxen, buffaloes etc. are accepted as having the power of reasoning. But, it can still be said that within the samsaric scheme there is no permanent or ultimate distinction between beings within these two courses of existence. This being the case, it becomes incumbent upon humans to relate to animals on the basis of the same ethical principles that govern their relationship with other people. Thus, humans are advised not to direct harsh speech in human-animal relationship.

In the rules of the Vinaya Pitaka, the precept against taking life is broken down in a significant way. The taking of human life is listed here as a third of the parajikas, the most serious class of offences, leading to expulsion from the Samgha for its violation.

This is distinguished from the destruction of non-human sentient life, which is classified among the less serious pacittiya forbidding monks the use (paribhoga) of water containing living beings which might thereby be destroyed makes clear the intent to apply the rule against the destruction of life even to insects and the smallest of one-celled creatures. The Buddha was strongly critical of the practice of animal sacrifices as well as hunting enjoyed by the royalty. He discouraged war as a method of settling disputes and demonstrated its utter futility.

This sensitivity was extended to the minutest of the creatures. The rule for the monks that prohibits the cutting of trees. Destroying plants, digging the soil, and so forth may be interpreted as a warning that the minute forms of life may be destroyed by such actions. A certain form of life called one-faculties (ekindriya jiva) inhabits plants, trees and the soil, and even water may have creatures or breathers (sappanaka udaka) in it. An ideal king, as mentioned in the Cakkavattisihanada Sutta, should provide protection not only to human beings, but also to the beasts of the forests and the birds of the air (miga-pakkhisu).

The Buddha's concern about the value of life emerges from compassion, which is why he was critical of capital punishment, warfare, hunting, animal sacrifices, suicide and callousness of a physical or psychological nature toward living creatures. Agni, the Vedic god of fire, is perhaps the most contemptuously treated of the Vedic deities referred to in the Pali Buddhist literature of early times, and, unlike other gods like Indra (Sakka) and Brahma, who has not been admitted into the pantheon in any form. The early Buddhist writers make no mistake as to the identification or association of this deity by the brahmanas with the Vedic fire ritual, which, particularly with regard to animal sacrifice, the Buddhists have always totally condemned.

Their scorn for this ritual is perhaps associated with the fact that the Vedic Agni shared characteristics in common with the brahmanical priest, for whom the monastic writers of early Buddhism seem to have nothing but ridicule and contempt. In the Vedic pantheon Agni, being the sacrificial priest of the gods, was the divine representative or symbol of the brahmanical priest. An attitude of condemnation runs throughout all references to Agni in Pali Buddhist literature. The reason for this was that the ritual was associated in the Buddhist mind with the sacrifice of animal life. The orgies of the sacrifice are described with much emphasis and exaggeration in the Aggi Sutta.

The Buddha vehemently opposed animal sacrifices. The Buddha pointed out that sacrifices like the Asvamedha bring great calamities. Animal sacrifice was a prominent feature of the Brahmanical faith before and at the time of the Buddha. The Buddha outrightly rejected such an evil practice. Regarding his abhorrence of animal sacrifices, the Buddha once told a brahmana called Udayin:

In Buddhism, killing or injuring living beings is regarded as both unwholesome and fundamentally immoral; for, on the one hand, killing or injuring them is bad kamma entailing evil consequences for the perpetrator after his death, and on the other all living, sentient beings are afraid of death and recoil from pain just like oneself. Time and again, Buddhism declares spiritual attitudes like benevolence as well as actual abstention from killing or injuring animate beings to be the right attitude or behaviour for monks as well as lay people.

A call to expatriates

by R. Chandrasoma

One need not be media-savvy to realize that the newspapers (and their electronic counterparts) in our country have embarked upon course of action that is highly detrimental to the interests of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority of Lanka. There are two ways in which a group towards which antipathy is directed can be degraded and made inconsequential. The first is the method of direct attack in which the group in question is the target of malicious representation with no attempt to hide or finesse the opprobrium directed towards it.

This was the method employed by the colonialists and the freshly converted among the natives in the first phase of Western domination of our Island. At that time, the denial of the rights of a cowed and beaten Buddhist majority was thought to be the prerogative of conquest and the christianization of our people proceeded apace with scarce a thought given to the negative effects of a novel acculturation based on an alien creed. Our ancient religion Buddhism was dismissed as little more than a base superstition of a conquered people.

It is a matter of documented history that this deplorable state of affairs was happily reversed, largely attributable to the reservoirs of strength found in the masses of rural people in this country whose indomitable spirit had maintained their ancient faith through twenty strife-ridden centuries. Men of vision arose amongst us that deemed it their glorious mission to defend the motherland from the religio-cultural onslaughts of an inveterate enemy. The tide was turned and in the middle decades of the last century it appeared that the worst was over and the stage was set for a great revival of Buddhism under the aegis of a free and independent people at long last rid of the shackles of imperialism.

Our expectations were too sanguine. The closing decades of the last century saw a renaissance and an infusion of fresh strength to the very forces that were thought to have been successfully thwarted in an exuberant phase of post-independence revival and redefinition. Alas, while the White Conqueror had gone, his heritage was successfully transmitted to a new class of pseudo-Buddhist leaders that came into power in the waning years of the century that we have left behind.

They lost no time to play down and to dismantle the heroic work of the revivalists at a moment when the nation was distracted by rents in the social fabric brought on by a new and ferocious brand of terrorism. The agents of imperialism were pusillanimously brought in again to quell an uprising that festered endlessly due to a weak and treacherous leadership. They exacted a price for their return the re-imposition of the bondage that we had thrown off a mere half a century ago.

Needless to say, the method of direct attack was not an option. Buddhism (and Sinhala Nationalism) was no longer held in derision in the manner that was fashionable in the days of the long-departed colonialists. It is against this vastly changed background that reference must be made to the second line of attack adverted to in our opening paragraph the technique of indirect calumny and belittlement. A parallel drawn from the field of advertising will help us to grasp the cunning strategy involved. Suppose a product having wide acceptance is denied publicity in the media while its rival is allowed to showcase its product ad libertum in the organs of publicity widely available to the reading masses. Will it come as a great surprise if the first product slips from its position as market leader?

The comparison may appear crude, but something very close to this is happening in Sri Lanka in the opening years of the new century. Sinhala-nationalism and Buddhism, if not openly anathematized, are never made out to be praiseworthy as a public issue in newspapers, TV and the numerous FM Radio stations that have recently come on air. Let us make clear what we mean by 'public issue'. Religious broadcasts and the coverage of festivals do not fall into this category they are religio-ethnic issues that the media cover as matter of course. Very different is the editorial, feature and general coverage of the media.

Sinhala-nationalism and Buddhism are excluded from this high-impact part of the publicity apparatus. On the contrary, Tamil separatism, Muslim claims to exclusivity and, above all, Christianity in its myriad manifestations are given a foremost place in this privileged part of the newspapers. Astonishingly, in a country with almost three quarters of its population claiming to be Buddhist, there is not one newspaper, TV station or radio-broadcast station that is unashamedly Buddhist. The state-controlled media have, in a bizarre turn of events, metamorphosed into agents and apologists for the Tamils, Christians and Muslims while they make a business of reviling the 'pretensions' of those they are pleased to call majoritarian extremists.

Sinhala-Buddhism is kept at bay by endlessly repeated fulminations of publicly paid editorialists on the 'evils' of Sinhala hauteur. Does it come as a great surprise that the English newspapers are largely run by Christian journalists? The leading commentators on public matters are Christian this includes the people who send messages to the outside world on the state of affairs in our country. Our leading Business Journal a colour-printed glitzy affair supposed to be read by the rich elite has lengthy essays on the injustice done to the Tamils but shows its contempt for Buddhism by pretending it does not exist. The writers are united in the belief that Sinhala-Buddhism is an irrelevance in the world of corporate wheeling and dealing.

Fellow Sinhalayas, how long can we tolerate this shameful state of affairs? Do we not have the intellectual and spiritual strength to combat this grave threat to our survival as the dominant cultural species in this ancient land we call our own? Must we tamely accept defeat and submission? Are we so poverty-stricken in resources that we must cravenly accept the overlordship of those who would love to see the supplanting of our language and religion by those foisted on us by the Western conqueror?

Let us not be carried away by mere words into adventures that may turn out to be no more than quixotic. It may not be possible for us to launch a great newspaper but it is certainly within our reach to set up a modest institute to counter the propaganda indefatigably pressed on us by the Christian-led consortium that has the Buddhist public in its thrall.

We urgently need the services of a few combative writers imbued with the ideals of patriotism to return the verbal fire of our enemies. Such professionals must be paid and there lies the rub. Practically all Buddhist Institutions are bankrupt and depend on a meager largess doled out by political patrons. They have been silenced most inopportunely - at a time when the enemies of Buddhism are lavishly financed to do their destructive work

This is an appeal to Sinhala-Buddhists throughout the world to contribute to a rigorously audited central fund to finance the kind of propaganda and publicity unit mentioned above one untrammeled by the machinations of subversive politics and untainted by the canker of corruption. Let this be a first step. It cannot be denied that issues more far-reaching and momentous cry out for the attention of the Buddhist public such things as the impending destruction of our unitary state and the mass-conversion of our people by rampaging monotheists. Such issues are too large to be tackled head-on through the benevolence and large-heartedness of individuals. On the contrary, the propaganda war can be won - and it is pivotal that we win it by this very benevolence that must be deemed ineffective for the resolution of larger problems that challenge our survival.