Doing business for the Lord: lending on interest and written loan contracts in the Mulasarvastivada-Vinaya.

• Author: Schopen, Gregory

It is probably fair to say that there has been very little discussion in Western scholarship about how Indian Buddhist monasteries paid their bills. It is possible, of course, that this is in part because money and monks have had, to be sure, an unhappy history in the West - at least as that history has often been written - and the topic may, therefore, be considered somehow unedifying.(1) It may also be true, as Peter Levi's "Study of Monks and Monasteries" suggests, that we like our monasteries in "ruins," as "landscape decorations and garden ornaments." "That," Levi says, "is because the ruins of monasteries speak more clearly than the real inhabited places."(2)

However this be eventually settled, it appears that this reticence or romanticism has worked less forcefully in regard to the study of China. Why this was so is again uncertain, but one effect of it is not: much that a student of Indian monastic Buddhism might find surprising in the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya, for example, will be old hat to economic and legal historians of China. A particularly good instance of this sort of thing occurs in the Civara-vastu of the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya where we find the following passage: tatra bhagavan bhiksun amantrayate sma. bhajayata yuyam bhiksava upanandasya bhiksor mrtapariskaram iti. bhiksubhih samghamadhye avatarya vikriya bhajitam. On one level the meaning of this passage is straightforward: "In this case the Blessed One said to the monks: `You, monks, must divide the estate of the dead monk Upananda!' The monks, having brought it and having sold it in the midst of the community, divided (the proceeds)."(3) It looks here like there was a kind of `public' sale or auction of the belongings of a dead monk that was held by the monks, and that what was realized from this sale was then distributed to the monks in attendance.

Although there is, in fact, a second reference to "selling" the goods of a deceased monk in this same passage, this procedure, seen through the eyes of an Indianist, will almost certainly appear unusual. But readers of J. Gernet's remarkable Les Aspects economiques du bouddhisme dans la societe chinoise du [v.sup.e] au [x.sup.e] siecle will already be familiar with it. In discussing the "partage entre les moines des vetements du defunt" Gernet said - almost forty years ago - that "les documents de Touen-houang nous montrent les religieux d'une meme paroisse ... reunis pour la vente aux encheres des vetements et des pieces de tissu. Les benefices sont ensuite partages entre les moines ..."(4)

Professor Gernet, who for good reason paid less attention to the Vinaya of the Mulasarvastivadins, seems to have thought that "il n'est pas question cependant dans les Vinaya de la vente des vetements des moines morts," and that "seul le Vinaya des Mahasamghika fait une allusion, fort discrete, a ce mode de partage ...," although he himself then quotes short passages from both the Vinaya of the Sarvastivadins and "la Matrka [des Mulasarvastivadin]" which refer to the sale of monastic robes,(5) and Lien-sheng Yang had already some years before noted that "a [Mulasarvastivadin] vinaya text translated in the early T'ang period, however, indicates that in India sale by auction was used to dispose of such personal belongings" of deceased monks.(6) Yang's assertion seems now, in part at least, to be confirmed by the passage from the Civaravastu cited above. that passage does not actually contain a word for `auction', but clearly refers to the sale "in the midst of the community" of a dead monk's possessions, and - although it cannot establish that this was actually practiced in India - it does confirm that Mulasarvastivadin vinaya masters thought it should, or hoped it would.

Such confirmation from an extant Sanskrit text is, of course, welcome, but perhaps a more important point is that without the work of sinologists the significance of the Civara-vastu passage might very easily be missed. Scholars working on China have in fact very often been the first to introduce and make available important Indian material bearing on the institutional and economic history of Buddhism, but this material rarely, or never, makes it into Indian studies. References to Gernet's Les Aspects economiques du bouddhisme, for example, are extremely rare in works on Indian cultural and economic history. D. D. Kosambi long ago referred to Gernet when he raised the "fundamental question" of the extent to which Buddhist monks and monasteries in India participated directly in trade. "The documentary evidence" for such participation, Kosambi said, "exists at the other end of the Buddhist world, in Chinese records and translations," of the sort presented by Gernet.(7) But few have followed this up. Andre Bareau, too, relied heavily on Gernet in a short piece he published on certain forms of monastic endowments in India and China.(8) Apart from these papers I know of little else.(9)

There are of course problems in using Chinese sources in studying India. No one, I think, would accept without serious qualifications, for example, Kosambi's assertion that "not only the art but the organization and economic management of Chinese Buddhist monasteries, especially the cave-monasteries ... were initially copied from Indian models, so that their records can be utilized for our purpose," that is to say, to study directly Indian monasteries.(10) The use of Chinese translations of Indian texts is sometimes less problematic, but here too there are still serious difficulties. The process of translation often conceals, for example, the Indian vocabulary, and this is often especially the case with realia or financial matters. The sinologists, too, who present such Indian texts are, justifiably, often unable to recognize their broader Indian significance. Here I would like to deal with just one example which might illustrate at least some of these points.

In his survey of what the Chinese translations of the various vinayas have to say in regard to monks participating in "commerce" or trade or business, Professor Gernet partly paraphrases and partly translates a text from the Vinaya-vibhanga of the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya which - unless I am very much mistaken - is of unique importance. (11) It is important first for what it can tell us about the kinds of legal and economic ideas that were developed by at least some Indian vinaya writers; it is important for what it can contribute to our understanding of the laws of contract and debt in early and classical India, and because it provides another good example of Buddhist vinaya interacting with Indian law, it is also important for what it can contribute to the discussion concerning the uses of writing and written documents and legal instruments in India.

A Sanskrit text for this passage has not yet - as far as I know - come to light But in addition to the Chinese version presented by Gernet, the text is also available in a Tibetan translation. This Tibetan translation has at least one advantage over the Chinese text: it is often, though not always, easier to see the Sanskrit that underlies a Tibetan translation, and therefore to get at the original Indian vocabulary. Since the text has not yet been fully translated, I first give a complete translation. This will be followed by an attempt to establish the technical Indian vocabulary that, the Tibetan appears to be translating, and then further discussion directed toward situating this piece of vinaya in the larger context of similar discussions in Indian dharmasastra, with some reference to actual legal records presented in Indian inscriptions. In the end, too, there will have to be some attempt made to get at the religious and institutional needs which might lie behind our text and the legal instruments it is concerned with.

* * *

Vinaya-vibhanga

(Derge, 'dul ba, Cha 154b.3-155b.2)

The Buddha, the Blessed One, was staying in Vaisali, in the hall of the lofty pavilion on the bank of the monkey's pool. At that time the Licchavis of Vaisali built houses with six or seven upper chambers (pura).(12) As the Licchavis of Vaisali built their houses, so too did they build viharas with six or seven upper chambers. As a consequence, because of their great height, having been built and built, they fell apart.(13) When that occurred the donors thought: "If even the viharas of those who are still living, abiding, continuing and alive fall thus into ruin, how will it be for the viharas of those who are dead@ We should give a perpetuity (aksaya) to the monastic community for building purposes."

Having thought thus, and taking a perpetuity, they went to the monks. Having arrived they said this to them: "Noble Ones, please accept these perpetuities for building purposes"

The monks said: "Gentlemen, since the Blessed One has promulgated a rule of training in this regard, we do not accept them."

The monks reported this matter to the Blessed One.

The Blessed One said. For the sake of the community a perpetuity for building purposes is to be accepted. Moreover, (155a) a vihara for a community of monks should be made with three upper chambers. A retreat house (varsaka) for a community of nuns should be made with two upper chambers."

The monks, having heard the Blessed One, having accepted the perpetuity, put it into the community's depository (kosthika) and left it there.

The donors came along and said: "Noble Ones, why is there no building being done on the vihara?"

"There is no money (karsapana)."

"But did we not give you perpetuities?"

The monks said: "Did you think we would consume the perpetuities? They remain in the community's depository."

"But of course, Noble Ones, they would not be perpetuities if they could be exhausted, but why do you think we did not keep them in our own houses?(14) Why do you not have them lent out on interest (prayojayati)?"

The monks said: "Since the Blessed One has promulgated a rule of training in this regard we do not have them...