Buddhism
Buddhism, which also originated in India, is a tradition with a complex history and a variety of branches and practices. As it spread throughout East, Southeast, and much of Central Asia, Buddhism was transformed in its encounter with indigenous traditions and local cultural and political conditions. Accordingly, its relationship to social stratification in terms of caste is more ambiguous than that of Hinduism. The Vedic religion—which preceded and influenced Hinduism and was the tradition of the elites during the Buddha’s lifetime (about the mid-1st millennium bce)—viewed the individual’s place in the social order as fixed by birth and increasingly came to see it as conditioned by karma, the residual effects of acts committed in one’s past lives. The Buddha, who rejected much of the Vedic religion, upheld the doctrine of karma but also proposed that any person, regardless of caste, could achieve liberation (moksha) from the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Many kingdoms that adopted Buddhism, however, had caste systems with varying degrees of rigidity, and Buddhism, especially as it was adapted by various princes and kings, played a central role in legitimating and maintaining these systems.
Dietary practice is another respect in which Buddhism differs from other religions originating in India. Whereas many Hindus are vegetarians and Jainism promotes a much stricter vegetarianism that reflects its core value of ahimsa (nonviolence), Buddhism does not take a uniform stance on diet. Monks and nuns generally maintain meat-free diets, and vegetarianism is often seen as a mark of piety among East Asian Buddhists. Adherents of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism accept some sutras (scriptures believed to be discourses of the Buddha) that prohibit meat eating; the Lankavatara-sutra is one of the most popular. These sutras, however, are not accepted by Theravada Buddhists, who claim to be the most faithful to the Buddha’s dharma, or teaching. Even many Mahayana Buddhists, including some monks, do not follow these sutras to the letter. The Buddha’s only dietary proscription was that monks and nuns should not eat foods that were specially prepared for them.
Buddhism claimed from its inception to be a Middle Way, opposed equally to the extremes of sensuous indulgence and self-mortification. This Middle Way was exemplified in the “five precepts”: no murder, no stealing, no lying, no adultery, and no drinking of alcoholic beverages. These precepts were applicable to the monastic community and to the laypeople who supported the sangha (monastic community) through alms, endowments, and service. In combination with the monastic code (vinaya) and the proscription against eating specially prepared foods, they translated into an ethic of moderation in diet among monks and nuns, who were to allay their hunger only so that they could practice the religious life. As Buddhism developed, the precept against murder was eventually extended to all animal life, thus encouraging the adoption of vegetarianism. In Buddhism the injunction against killing animals is stronger than that against eating them; the greater stigma came to be placed upon the slayer, the one who immediately takes the animal’s life, rather than on the eater. This notion was used in many Buddhist societies to justify the outcasting or untouchability of butchers and others working in polluting occupations.
Laypeople were expected to maintain the sangha by providing monks with daily meals or other alms. (As Buddhism spread and was adopted as a state religion by various rulers, monasteries and convents received generous patronage.) In this way, people who did not lead monastic lives could build up merit (punna), or good karma, which would counter the demerit, or bad karma, they had accumulated in their past and present lives.