Monkhood and priesthood in Newar Buddhism
État monastique et prêtrise dans le bouddhisme newar
p. 165-192
Résumés
This article asks how priesthood is justified in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Using material from the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, it suggests that at least four different types of priest have to be distinguished, two of which are particularly significant: the god-guardian and the family-priest. These two types of priesthood correspond broadly to the socio-religious identity of Śākyas and Vajrācāryas respectively, the two status groups which together form the sacerdotal caste of Newar Buddhism. The god-guardian type of priesthood is legitimated by Śākyas’ and Vajrācāryas’ shared identity as monks. The position of the family-priest is legitimated by the application of a fundamental Mahāyāna Buddhist idea, the hierarchy of Disciples’ Way (śrāvakayāna), Great Way (mahāyāna) and Diamond Way (vajrayāna). Thus the family-priesthood in Newar Buddhism, exercised by the Vajrācāryas alone, is justified in terms of the images of bodhisattva (altruistic saint) and siddha (accomplished one), the ideals of Great Way and Diamond Way respectively. Vajrācāryas are monks, householders and priests all at once and the contradiction this seems to entail in modern eyes is avoided traditionally by viewing this sequence as a hierarchy.
On s’interrogera dans cet article sur la façon dont la prêtrise est légitimée dans le bouddhisme Mahāyāna. À partir de matériaux néwar de la vallée de Kathmandou, l’auteur suggère qu’il est nécessaire de faire la distinction entre quatre types de prêtres au moins, dont deux sont particulièrement significatifs : le desservant de temple et le prêtre domestique. Ces deux types de prêtres correspondent généralement à l’identité socio-religieuse des Śākyas et des Vajrācāryas respectivement, ces deux groupes de statut qui forment ensemble la caste sacerdotale du bouddhisme néwar. Le type de prêtrise des desservants est légitimé par leur identité de moines, commune à la fois aux Śākyas et aux Vajrācāryas. La position du prêtre domestique est justifiée par l’application d’une des idées fondamentales du bouddhisme Mahāyāna : la hiérarchie entre la « Voie des Disciples » (śrāvakayāna), la « Grande Voie » (mahāyāna) et la « Voie de Diamant » (vajrayāna). Ainsi dans le bouddhisme néwar, la prêtrise domestique, qui n’est exercée que par les Vajrācāryas, est justifiée en termes d’images du bodhisattva (saint altruiste) et du siddha (accompli), les deux idéaux de la Grande Voie et de la Voie de Diamant. Les Vajrācāryas sont à la fois moines, maîtres de maison et prêtres, et la contradiction que ceci semble impliquer, à nos yeux, est évitée dans la tradition en concevant cette séquence comme une hiérarchie.
Texte intégral
1. Introduction : the problem1
1Can there be priests in Buddhism? It is clear that in Theravāda Buddhism there are none:
the bhikkhu [Theravāda monk] is most certainly not a priest... He is not an intermediary between man and the supernatural; he administers no sacraments; he does not minister to a congregation, whether as the celebrant of a divine service or as a pastor. Although when requested he performs rituals on behalf of laymen, this is not his essential function, which, so far as laymen are concerned, is to serve as a “field of merit,” i.e., as a means by which (through the offerings they make to him) they can acquire merit (Spiro 1982: 280).
2The Theravāda Buddhist monk has another function not included in Spiro’ s summary: he preserves the Buddhist tradition and teaches it to laymen (Gombrich 1971: 271). In fact some of the monks Spiro asked included teaching Buddhism or performing religious ritual as a function (purpose) of a monk. However those who mentioned these functions thought them secondary; all agreed that “the main function of Buddhist monasticism is to promote the monk’s spiritual welfare” (Spiro 1982: 285). This is the origin of the Mahāyāna charge that the pre-Mahāyāna type of Buddhism is selfish, a charge repeated to me both by Buddhist priests and by Brahmans in Nepal. From the Theravāda point of view however, the monk’s primary pursuit of his own salvation is precisely the point: it is this which makes him worthy of respect and generosity.2
3Theravāda monks are then more learned than laymen and they are defined as monks by the fact that they keep more rules than laymen (Gombrich 1971: 64-7), but they are not intermediaries. The reason for this is that in Theravāda Buddhist doctrine an individual can advance spiritually only by his or her own efforts.3 What is extremely surprising in comparison with other religions or other forms of Buddhism is that even unsophisticated Theravāda Buddhists recognize a strict division between otherworldly religion (religion proper, Buddhism) and thisworldly activities which Westerners tend to think of as religion also. The latter include festivals and life-cycle rituals ; the self-interested bribing of gods, godlings or other supernaturals ; and apotropaic rituals. None of these count as religion (dharma or śāsana) in Theravāda Buddhism. Since Theravāda Buddhism always refrained from evolving thisworldly rituals or justifications for those few deviant monks who indulge in or encourage such activities, it necessarily always coexists with some system which provides for thisworldly needs :
The Buddha’s teaching was limited to what he thought conducive to enlightenment. Most people have broader interests, so Buddhists are almost bound to have other beliefs besides those of Buddhist doctrine. To sum this up in a word. Buddhism in real life is accretive (Gombrich 1971: 49 ; emphasis in original).
4This explains the coexistence of Buddhism with Hindu gods in Sri Lanka and with spirit cults in Burma and Thailand.4 It is in these other systems which co-exist with Theravāda Buddhism and provide for the thisworldly needs of Theravāda Buddhists, that priests are to be found. As ministers to lower ends they receive much less respect than monks.
5The traditional Buddhism of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, is not Theravāda,5 but Mahāyāna (‘the Great Way’) Buddhism. There are important, and usually unappreciated, continuities between Theravāda, the last surviving representative of the pre-Mahāyāna schools of Buddhism, and Mahāyāna Buddhism; but of course there are also certain important differences. One of these is the philosophical doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) that underlies all Mahāyāna soteriology. I discuss the relevance of this to Newar Buddhists below. Another difference is the complex pantheon of divine beings evolved by Mahāyāna Buddhism; at the top are numerous Buddhas, below them saints called bodhisattvas who are so compassionate that they do not advance to ultimate enlightenment but turn over their vast merit to suffering beings, even to those who appeal to them for worldly goods ; below the bodhisattvas come other protective gods. The bodhisattva represents the moral ideal of the Mahāyāna: all good Buddhists should strive to become bodhisattvas, that is, they should devote themselves to uplifting all sentient beings and bringing them to enlightenment.

Three Vajrācāryas perform a Fire Sacrifice in front of the main deity of Ha Bāhā, Lalitpur, as part of the Monastic Initiation of a young boy into the monastery. On the right is the Rituals Officer (betāju) of Ha Bāhā who customarily fills the role of assistant-priest (upādhyāya) in monastery rituals. In the centre is the second most senior elder (sthavir, āju) of Ha Bāhā, filling the role of main officiant (mūlācārya) in the absence through illness of the seniormost elder. He wears the metal helmet of a Vajrācārya priest. To his right is the third most senior elder of Ha Bāhā who takes the second most senior’s place as sponsor or patron (jajmān, jaymā) of the rite. He wears the skirt, jacket and headdress of a monastery elder: like the helmet of a Vajrācārya priest it displays the Five Buddhas, but unlike it, it does not have a vajra on the crown. Note that in Ha Bāhā the boy’s family-priest (purohit) plays no role in the monastery (cf. Gellner 1988: 66). Photo taken 19/1/83
6One consequence of the bodhisattva-doctrine was to shift the emphasis away from the monastic ideal and away from a rigid interpretation of monastic vows.6 The Buddha himself had been a bodhisattva dedicated to attaining enlightenment for the sake of all beings in many lives before his final rebirth, and in all of them he had lived as a layman, not as a monk.
7A second important consequence was to provide a justification for a Buddhist priesthood. In the Nepalese context, the bodhisattva-doctrine is combined with the practices of Vajrayāna (‘Diamond Way’) Buddhism, also known as Tantric Buddhism. The Diamond Way is not an alternative to the Great Way, but a specialized, privileged and esoteric set of ritual and yogic practices within it. By making use of these practices, the priest is supposed to realize emptiness, which is inseparable from compassion in Buddhist doctrine. He makes use of this power therefore, in line with his bodhisattva-vow, to visualize the manifold divine beings of the Mahāyāna pantheon on behalf of others (his patrons or parishioners).
8The Buddhism of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley is indeed an ideal testing ground if one wishes to see how a Buddhist priesthood can exist within Mahāyāna Buddhism. Newar Buddhists are in effect the last surviving South Asian Mahāyāna Buddhists. They are the last Buddhists whose scriptural and ritual language is Sanskrit. This is why Sylvain Lévi came to Nepal and wrote its history as a first step in writing the history of the whole of South Asia. Newar Buddhism goes back in an unbroken line to the late Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism evolved in the great monastic universities of north India (Nālandā, Odantapuri and others), which were destroyed by Muslim incursions from the twelth century onwards. The Kathmandu Valley is a small place and its medieval kings were always inclined to Hinduism not Buddhism. Consequently there were no great scholastic monasteries as had existed in India and grew up later in Tibet. Until the early fifteenth century Tibetans came to the Kathmandu Valley for instruction from Indian or Nepalese teachers. Thereafter scholarship declined and Newar Buddhists became convinced, as their myths show,7 that Tibetan Buddhism preserved a level of understanding, practice and orthodoxy from which they had fallen away.
9It is hard to avoid the conclusion, also expressed in these local myths, that this decline was connected to the disappearance of celibacy within the holy order of Newar Buddhism. It would be wrong however to follow the myths in representing this transformation of a celibate monastic order into a caste of married monks and Tantric preceptor-priests as a single cataclysmic-event. It seems far more likely that married priests appeared (in the tenth or eleventh century?) along with the rise of Vajrayāna Buddhism, and coexisted with celibate monks until the latter dwindled, finally to disappear some time in the middle of the Malla period (1200-1768).
10It is the task of this essay to explain how Vajrayāna Buddhism legitimates a Buddhist priesthood very similar to that of the Brahmans in Hinduism, while at the same time maintaining continuity with Mahāyāna and pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism. Looking at the priesthood in this way enables one to avoid the naive and/or moralizing approaches which, judging Vajrayāna Buddhism by the canons of the Theravāda, or by those of the modern West, ignore the views of Newar Buddhists themselves.8
2. Śākyas and Vajrācāryas : types of priest
11The holy order of Newar Buddhism is a caste: it is made up of two subsections or status groups, the Vajrācāryas (‘Master of the Diamond [Way]’, i.e. Tantric preceptor) and the Śākyas, formerly called Śākyabhikṣu (‘Buddhist monk’) or Śākyavaṃśa (‘of the Śākya’s, i.e. the Buddha’s, lineage’).9 The majority of Śākyas and Vajrācāryas live in the old royal cities of the Kathmandu Valley : Kathmandu itself, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. Others live in outlying towns and villages but most of them maintain an urban and high-caste style of life. Only Vajrācāryas may act as family-priests (purohit)10 for Buddhists, just as Brahmans must be the family-priests of (clean-caste) Hindus. In Lalitpur and Kathmandu the majority of Newars have Vajrācārya and not Brahman family-priests. In Lalitpur priestly roles in most festivals and religious practices are filled by Vajrācāryas, and thus one can say that Lalitpur is predominantly Buddhist. At the same time one must remember that the rituals of the royal palace at the city’s centre are in Brahman hands, and that the family-priests of the socially most prestigious families (the Chatharīya Śreṣṭhas) are in most cases Brahmans. Furthermore, the majority of the population – when faced with the census-question of either/or – declare themselves to be, or are declared, Hindus.11
12Vajrācāryas are superior in status to Śākyas, because only they may act as family-priests for others. The traditional self-images of Vajrācāryas and Śākyas – as Tantric priests and married monks respectively – differ. This is why I call them separate status groups: the distinction is not one of caste (though outsiders, particularly Hindus, may see it as such) since they interdine freely and frequently intermarry. During the 1920s and ’30s there was a long and bitter dispute between Vajrācāryas and Urāy in Kathmandu, which is still keenly remembered. The Urāy are a highly educated and often wealthy lay Buddhist caste (found only in Kathmandu) ranking just below the Śākyas and Vajrācāryas. The dispute arose over the claim of the majority of Vajrācāryas that they were superior in caste to the Urāy and ought not therefore to accept cooked rice from them; the Urāy themselves, and the minority of Vajrācāryas who sided with them, claimed that the superiority of the Vajrācāryas was not based on caste and that therefore they ought to continue to accept boiled rice in their patrons’ homes (Rosser 1966). At no time did the Vajrācāryas claim that they could not eat rice cooked by Śākyas, even though most of the Śākyas ultimately sided with the Urāy. In short, the Vajrācāryas never publicly claimed higher caste status than the Śākyas. The Kathmandu Vajrācāryas did however begin to break off intermarriage with them (ibid.: 124-6).
13I would interpret this withdrawal of marriage relations by Kathmandu Vajrācāryas as an accentuation, possibly prompted by caste feelings on the part of some, of a tendency of Vajrācāryas everywhere to be reluctant to accept Śākya wives, while willing to give their daughters to Śākya husbands. This is illustrated in table I.

Table I: Breakdown of 430 marriages of and between Vajrācāryas and Śākyas recorded in ward 15, Lalitpur, 1984.
14There are about twice as many Śākyas as Vajrācāryas. Thus table I shows that in Lalitpur Vajrācārya men have a very marked preference for Vajrācārya wives. This bears out what informants say, that for ritual reasons Vajrācāryas do not like to accept Śākya brides: parishioners (jajmān, jaymā) prefer to have a Vajrācārya woman as the priest’s wife (gurumā) who must (unlike a Brahman’s wife) always accompany her husband to important rituals, and to whom half her husband’s ritual payment (dakṣiṇā) is due; on the practical level a Śākya girl is less likely to be well acquainted with rituals; and if a Vajrācārya is ever to give Tantric Initiation his wife must be a Vajrācārya.
15As far as their monastic identity is concerned there is no difference between Śākyas and Vajrācāryas. Śākya and Vajrācārya males are distinguished from all other Newar men by the fact that instead of the puberty/caste-initiation ceremony of kaytā pujā or vratabandha they undergo a four-day Monastic Initiation (cūḍākarma or bare chuyegu).12 By this rite they become members of their father’s monastery, bāhā or bahī,13 with all the rights and duties which that entails. For this reason the son of a Vajrācārya or Śākya by a lower-caste wife is not allowed to go through Monastic Initiation in his father’s monastery, but must do it outside at a caitya, which confers no membership of a monastic community (saṃgha, saṃ).
16The principal duty of monastery members is to take turns to be the guardian (dyaḥpāḥlā) of the monastery’s main non-Tantric deity (kwābāju, kwāḥpāḥdyaḥ). The guardian is responsible for performing the daily rituals and for the security of the images and ornaments in the shrine. During his tenure (which varies from monastery to monastery: it may be one or two weeks, a month or even, in some cases, a year) he receives the offerings of devotees and keeps them for himself. He is therefore a temple-priest of a sort, though in many small monasteries he performs the ritual on his own, and the offerings are negligible. Kwā Bāhā in Lalitpur is the largest and most impressive monastic temple complex of this kind and until recently the volume of offerings there ensured that the chance to be guardian (which comes only once a lifetime because the Monastic Association of Kwā Bāhā is so large) was a jealously guarded privilege.14
17In some monasteries there are only Śākyas, in others only Vajrācāryas and in yet others there are both. As members of the same monastery Vajrācāryas have no advantage over Śākyas: rights, duties and positions of authority are determined by simple seniority. The only exception to this is that the seniormost Vajrācārya is called the Cakreśvara and is responsible for the regular worship of the monastery’s principal Tantric deity. He also has an assistant, called a Betāju, who must also be a Vajrācārya and not yet an elder of the monastery, chosen for his knowledge of ritual, who oversees the whole round of ritual in the monastery.
18All Vajrācāryas and Śākyas undergo Monastic Initiation and thereby gain membership of a monastery. Vajrācāryas differ from Śākyas in that only they may subsequently undergo the rite of Consecration as a Master (i.e. of the Diamond Way) (ācāryābhiṣeka, ācāḥ luyegu) (Locke 1975; 1980: 47-50). The Consecration rite gives Vajrācāryas, on top of the monastic identity conferred by Monastic Initiation, the status of priests and preceptors for all Newar Buddhists. Most Vajrācāryas perform the rite immediately or shortly after Monastic Initiation, although there is another pattern, followed in Bu Bāhā, whereby it is performed only after marriage. Space does not permit an analysis of the rite itself. As Locke (1980: 53-4) points out, it is in fact an abbreviated version of Tantric Initiation (dīkșā), followed by the neophyte performing his first fire sacrifice (homa, yajña or – most colloquially – jog). In Kathmandu Śākyas and Urāy are also entitled to Tantric Initiation; in Lalitpur, Śākyas, Śreṣṭhas and also, in a less elaborate form, Tāmrakārs, Rājkarṇikārs, Bārāhi and Sthāpits. Logically, then, in terms of the textual tradition, these castes – or at least those who receive the same initiation as Vajrācāryas – ought also to be able to take up the priesthood. It is here that the practice of Newar Buddhism is most in conflict with its own canon: not in abandoning celibacy (which is justified in the Tantras) but in making the highest spiritual role, that of the Vajrācārya, the exclusive monopoly of a hereditary status group. For this there is no scriptural justification, only the legitimating power (which is still for the most part accepted) of tradition.
19The practical significance of the different religiously defined identities of Śākya and Vajrācārya can be clearly seen when we consider the forms of priesthood encountered by Newar Buddhists. As a matter of empirical observation they interact regularly with ritual specialists of the following four broad types15:
(i) family-priests (purohit);
(ii) temple-priests (dyaḥpāḥlā);
(iii) initiation-priests (dīkṣāguru);
(iv) various types of healer (vaidya and dyaḥ waipīṃ).
20The third and fourth categories need not detain us long. The initiation-priest for Buddhist Tantric Initiation must be a learned Vajrācārya whose wife is still living. Whoever organizes the initiation and therefore fills the role of principal sponsor and senior initiand (dhaḥmū thakāli) chooses the priest and he does not have to choose his own family-priest. The many others who come to receive the initiation at the same time (it is expensive and therefore occurs infrequently) effectively have their initiation-priest chosen for them.
21The fourth category of specialist is very heterogeneous. It includes Ayurvedic doctors, healers who use mantras, blowing and brushing (jhārphuke vaidya), and midwives (didi aji).16 There are also Vajrācārya healers who combine various methods eclectically: they may describe the cause of an ailment in terms of the Ayurvedic system of humours, astrological conjunctures, divine anger or witchcraft.17 Vajrācāryas of this sort often take a special Tantric Initiation of the deity Caṇḍamahāroṣana (acaladīkṣā). This is appropriate because the final section of the Caṇḍamahāroṣana Tantra, unlike most other Buddhist Tantras, contains much information on medical matters.18 All of these healers so far described are called vaidya, a category which also includes those such as apothecaries (baniyā) and Ayurvedic doctors who make no use of religious symbols and cannot be considered ritual specialists at all.
22Also in the fourth category of ritual specialist are the numerous ‘faith-healers’ or mediums, literally ‘those to whom a god or gods come (s)’ (dyaḥ waipīṃ). Informants claim that, although the phenomenon of deity-possession may have been frequent in the past, it was more often temporary: the pattern whereby every area of the big cities has at least one and often many more such healers is relatively new. One might add to this category those who dance as deities (sometimes known as dhāmi as, for instance, in Naradevī, Kathmandu); also the shamans, jhẵkri, of other ethnic groups, whom Newars know about but do not normally use. Although the ‘faith-healers’ are most often possessed by Hārītī (usually written ‘Hāritī’ by Newars), the Buddhist goddess of smallpox, they are not part of organized Buddhism. The healer may be a Buddhist, but need not be. So this kind of religion is not specifically Buddhist but belongs rather to the ambiguous ‘folk’ religion which is neither Buddhist nor Hindu, but can be articulated in the idiom and using the symbols of either religion.
23Thus the whole fourth category of ritual specialist belongs exclusively to the sphere of purely ‘practical’ religion. Practitioners of this category are chosen primarily by their own volition. Traditionally their roles were often inherited, but they need not be. Although Newar Buddhism has evolved many practices to help in thisworldly affliction, yet it has retained its primary orientation to salvation. By contrast the activities of healers are very obviously worldly, of advantage to the practitioners themselves and to their self-interested clients. Consequently people are often sceptical about these freelance healers, whereas they are never sceptical about the activities of other types of priests or doubt the existence of the gods they worship. (The complaint there is that their rituals are expensive and burdensome.) The fact that most of the ‘faith-healers’ are women no doubt also tells against them.
24The first three types of specialist are associated with the sphere of religion which is soteriological and/or symbolic in aim and is often expressive of social relations. By contrast, the fourth type belongs to that aspect of religion which is thisworldly, instrumental and practical. There is the same conceptual distinction between this- and otherworldly practices as in Theravāda Buddhism, but the boundary between the two is no longer sharp. Priests now have the highest religious status and teach the path to salvation; their rites include magical elements to an extent quite foreign to the sober spirit of Theravāda Buddhism.
25In talking of priesthood in Newar Buddhism, rather than of ritual specialists in Newar society as such, we must mean priests of the first three types. Of these it is the first two which are really important. They correspond to the two halves of Max Weber’s definition:
The crucial feature of priesthood [is] the specialization of a particular group of persons in the continuous operation of a cultic enterprise, permanently associated with particular norms, places and times, and related to specific social groups.19
26Weber (1968 II: 424-5) wanted to set up an ideal type of priest to distinguish them from magicians. He rejected definitions of‘priest’ as a ritual specialist employed by an organization rather than self-employed, as a ritual specialist legitimated by doctrine and vocational qualifications rather than by miracles or as a specialist practising worship rather than magic. In assessing these putative definitions Weber illustrated their shortcomings with the case of Catholic priests: some are not office-holders, some are not at all learned, and, most significantly for our present discussion, “the concept of the priest includes... a magical qualification” (ibid.). What Weber says of Catholic priests and of priests as such applies fully to Vajrācārya priests. Vajrācārya priests are not, and are not regarded as, magicians, even though they are often believed to be able to perform magical acts, and the more spiritually advanced they are, the more capable. In the Newar, as in the Weberian view, some of them may perform magic, and their regular rites may have magical aspects, but this is not their prime function, which is to carry on a permanent cult associated with given norms and social groups. Furthermore, in the Nepalese context they are defined as priests rather than magicians because the doctrine they are associated with is a soteriology (mārga). (Weber avoided this in his definition because of the priesthoods, e.g. the Shintoist, which lack a doctrine of salvation.)
27Newar Buddhism presents the observer with an analytical distinction between two main types of priest, and, as indicated, these correspond, roughly, to the two halves of the Weberian definition. The second kind of specialist listed above, the god-guardian, serves the continuous cult of the public Buddhist deities. Family-priesthood by contrast is associated with the sacralization of life stages (a type of religion in which Weber, unlike Durkheim, was not particularly interested): that is, the perpetuation of ritual ties and norms of given social groups (those with Buddhist priests). Vajrācāryas have the right to carry on both types of priesthood, whereas Śākyas may carry on only the former. Thus B. R. and R. K. Vajracharya (1963: 9) define a Vajrācārya as
a monk who has received the consecration of vajra [ritual implement symbolizing the absolute] and bell [= the Consecration of a Master], which are the entitlement (sarvādhikāra) to perform the fire sacrifice and so on.
28Thus, doctrinally Vajrācāryas are defined as a kind of Śākya (i.e. monk), who have, in addition, the right to be a priest. Interestingly, the uninformed popular view, in which Vajrācāryas are more prominent, reverses this, and sees Śākyas as a kind of Vajrācārya who lack the right to serve as family-priests. (I have heard this expressed jocularly as their not being allowed to ring the priest’s bell.)
29Family-priesthood is, then, the monopoly of the Vajrācāryas. Under this heading we might also wish to include other religious specialists who inherit their patrons (jajmān), viz. Barbers and Kāpālīs (death specialists).20 The right to serve given families is inherited, leased out and (traditionally) sold, in the same way that Brahmans and other Hindu specialists treat jajmān-rights. Vajrācāryas do not merely have a monopoly on performing life-cycle rites for families: only they may perform the fire sacrifice, and in practice only they may direct complex, occasional rituals (e.g. vrata), since only they are sufficiently knowledgeable.
30The other type of priesthood, god-guardianship, is much more widely distributed in Newar society. Almost every caste has at least some members who take turns as guardians of certain gods. The shrines of Gaṇeśa are usually tended by Maharjans. Mother-goddess shrines outside the city gates are tended by Untouchables (hence their honorific caste name ‘Dyaḥlā’ from dyaḥpāḥlā). The guardians of Bhīmsen shrines are usually Kāpālī. However purely Buddhist divinities, that is, the main Śākyamuni images of monasteries, Tārā shrines and Avalokitesvara cults such as the famous Matsyendranāths, must have Śākyas and/or Vajrācāryas as their god-guardians. This kind of Buddhist priesthood is justified in terms of Śākyas’ and Vajrācāryas’ common status as monks, as ‘sons’ of the Buddha. Only they go through the Monastic Initiation rite, and while performing the rites for the god, the guardian must keep monastic rules: celibacy, food restrictions and purity taboos.21
31The god-guardian type of priesthood does in fact have considerable antiquity within Buddhism. Here it is necessary to qualify an impression given at the outset. In general, Theravāda Buddhism lacks priests. But Theravāda monks may, as a secondary feature, take on priestly activities in a limited way. In particular, they may act in effect as a kind of god-guardian of the monasteries in which they live. Only rarely however, at large monasteries, often with royal connections, does this role seem to acquire any importance (Evers 1972: ch. 4). The monastic god-guardian role of Śākyas and Vajrācāryas is directly descended from the elaborate Buddha-worship conducted in such monasteries. Here however, due to changes legitimated by the Vajrayāna, as discussed below, the food and other offerings made are considered to be imbued with the deity’s blessing (prasād) and are returned to devotees. From the Theravāda point of view this is the Hindu, not the Buddhist, view of offerings.22
32The cult of the esoteric (Tantric) Buddhist deities differs from that of exoteric deities: usually only Vajrācāryas may carry on their cult. Thus, as mentioned, the seniormost Vajrācārya of a monastery in which there are both Śākyas and Vajrācāryas performs the daily ritual of the monastery’s principal Tantric deity.23 Vajrasattva is a Tantric deity of a more exoteric sort (his image may be displayed in public) and his cult is also in the hands of Vajrācāryas alone: in Kwā Bāhā there is a separate shrine to him in which the Vajrācārya members of the monastery take fortnightly turns as guardian.
33The legitimation of the Vajrācāryas’ monopoly of the family-priesthood and of their pre-eminence in the cult of Tantric deities is rather a complex matter in contrast to the monastic practices and symbols which legitimate the god-guardianship that they share with Śākyas. To this legitimation we must now turn.
3. The hierarchy of the three ways (Yāna) in Newar Buddhism
34Two other anthropologists, Stephen Greenwold and Michael Allen, have addressed the question of how the Vajrācārya priesthood is legitimated, and it makes a useful starting point to recapitulate their findings. The main points of Greenwold’s article (1974a) ‘Buddhist Brahmans’ (a description of Vajrācāryas going back to Levi 1905 I: 226) can be listed as follows24:
(i) The ideal Vajrācārya is a Realized One (siddha) who lives in the world, not a monk who renounces caste and family.25
(ii) The ritual of Monastic Initiation is used to maintain control of monasteries and exclude outsiders: “the very basis of the Newar priesthood is prior ordination as a monk” (op. cit.: 110).
(iii) Since only Vajrācāryas may perform the fire sacrifice for Buddhists, only they may act as family-priests for parishioners.
(iv) Only 28 % of Greenwold’s sample of working Vajrācāryas in Kathmandu served as priests and only 11.9 % had no other job but the priesthood.26 It is the ritual status of priest, not the actual practice of priesthood, which is essential to being a Vajrācārya.
(v) There is a close parallel with the position of Brahmans, whose high status in a hierarchy of purity, and whose ability to act as priests for others, depend on their incarnating ascetic values.
35To these five points made by Greenwold, three others may be added, taken from M. Allen’s article (1973) ‘Buddhism without monks’:
(vi) The Three Ways (or Vehicles) of Buddhism represent a hierarchy through which the Buddhist neophyte ascends, thereby recapitulating the history of Buddhism itself.
(vii) The highest, Tantric Way is based on inversions of the first, monastic one: “sex in place of celibacy, long hair instead of shaven pates, indulgence instead of abstinence, drunkenness instead of sobriety” (op. cit.: 13).
(viii) A crucial factor in the preservation of the income and identity of Buddhist priests has been the development of popular cults, such as that of Matsyendranāth, which appeal equally to all Newars.
36Material amplifying these points has since been published by others, notably by Locke.27
37Greenwold ignored the sixth point above, the ideological framework used by Newar Buddhists themselves, and was led therefore (particularly in 1974b) to see the ideal of the priest as straightforwardly opposed to that of the monk.28 By following La Vallée Poussin and translating siddha as ‘magician’ rather than as ‘accomplished’ or ‘realized person’, he perpetuated an oversimple, and partial, opposition between otherworldly monks and thisworldly Vajrācāryas. Furthermore, strictly speaking, in contrasting the siddha with the monk he was not comparing like with like: the former is a soteriological ideal and the latter a socio-religious role (see below, table IV).
38These confusions can be sorted out if we distinguish, as Newar Buddhists do themselves, between three levels in their religion: the Śrāvakayāna (Way of the Disciples), the Mahāyāna (Great Way) and the Vajrayāna (Diamond Way).29 In the texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism the term ‘Śrāvakayāna’ is used to refer to the pre-Mahāyāna schools in order to contrast their limited and selfish goal with the more noble and altruistic aim of the hero of the Great Way, the bodhisattva. This usage continues among Newar Buddhists today: the newly introduced Theravāda Buddhism is referred to, especially by the older generation, as Śr̄avakayāna. At the same time the monastic practices within traditional Newar Buddhism are also referred to by the same term, in particular the keeping of the Eight Precepts in the context of Observances (vrata) (of which Monastic Initiation is one).30
39The cardinal virtue of the Great Way is the altruism of the bodhisattva, intent on the spiritual good of all beings, not just his own enlightenment. For Newar Buddhists this means carrying out all the religious duties of a Buddhist householder as they have been handed down to them. Vajrayāna, the Diamond Way, is closely associated with Vajrācāryas, so that for most Newars ‘Vajrayāna’ tends to mean “what Vajrācāryas do”. It also has the popular connotation of the practice of supernatural and magical powers gained by advanced spiritual states and (to this end) frequenting frightening places such as cremation grounds. At the same time the Diamond Way includes the practice of rites and daily exercises to which one has access only through Tantric Initiation.
40These three levels are arranged in a hierarchy with the Disciples’ Way as the lowest and the Diamond Way as the highest level. They are not practised sequentially however : attainment of the highest level through Tantric Initiation does not mean that the practices of the other levels are abandoned. Higher levels contain the lower within themselves.31 Nor is the relationship of the levels, each to the other, symmetrical. The Great Way has displaced the Disciples’ Way as the proper Buddhist path in Newar Buddhism, while continuing its rites and practices within prescribed contexts. The Diamond Way, on the other hand, represents a means within the Great Way whereby its aims can be attained with greater efficiency within this life.32 In order to convey what this means in practice, I present in table II a summary of the different kinds of religious practice that tend to be associated with the different levels of Newar Buddhism.
The Way of the Disciples: | monachism. |
The Great Way: (mahāyāna) | worship of all the gods. |
The Diamond Way: (vajrayāna) | worship of Tantric deities. |
Table II: Summary of the different religious practices falling under the head of the Three Ways (yāna) in Newar Buddhism.
41The different deities of Newar Buddhism can be assigned to different Ways: the Buddha Śakyamuni belongs to the Śrāvakayāna, the bodhisattvas to the Great Way and ‘Great Buddha’ Vajrasattva and the esoteric deities to the Diamond Way. Similarly the architecture of the Buddhist monastery was several times explained to me as reflecting this same hierarchy (Gellner 1987: 18). The Three Ways also provide a model of Buddhist history: as a matter of historical fact the types of Buddhism represented by the Three Ways did arise in that order, and the texts of the later forms reveal an awareness of this. However, these later texts claim that they were taught by the Buddha himself, but were hidden by him. since the Disciples at that time were not ready for their teachings. The majority of Newar Buddhists do not have a first-hand acquaintance with their texts; all the same, some of them do see the Great Way and Diamond Way as a later adaptation of the Way of the Disciples, that is, they understand the conceptual levels as a chronological development. This may be due to the influence of the Theravāda monks and nuns now active in Nepal, or it may be due to the fact that this structure is built into the rite of Monastic Initiation in which the neophyte passes from being a monk to becoming a householder (cf. Locke’s remarks, 1975: 18).
4. The structure of newar Buddhism determined by ritual rather than doctrine
42It would be wrong to interpret this conceptual structure of the Three Ways as a rigid framework into which every aspect of Newar Buddhism can or should be fitted. Newar Buddhists may define themselves by caste (Śākyas, Vajrācāryas and others), by priest (all those with Vajrācārya family-priests) or by personal devotion (to the Buddha and Buddhist deities); they would never think to define Buddhists as those who believe a specific doctrine.33 There is no organization whose role or duty it is to propound doctrine. Consequently well-known doctrines or concepts, such as the hierarchy of the Three Ways, can be and are applied to particular cases in different ways. Newar Buddhists, especially elderly men, often discuss these issues, but the discussion, although lively, is carried on in a tolerant spirit: all readily admit that their understanding is deficient and they readily defer to others considered more learned; no one would accuse another of heretical opinions.34 The only organization even remotely resembling a church is the Ācārya Guthi (Association of Vajrācāryas) in Kathmandu.35 In Lalitpur there is no association of all the Vajrācāryas of the city, but in Kwā Bāhā and other large monasteries all the Vajrācāryas of the monastery have their own association. These associations are less important nowadays, but in the past they were supposed to ensure uniformity of rituals among their members.
43As far as doctrine is concerned, there are a few informal groups meeting to study under the guidance of a more learned guru.36 But for the vast mass of Newar Buddhists the only teaching they receive is contained – often only implicitly – in the stories of the previous lives of the Buddha or other saints occasionally recounted in public by learned Vajrācāryas. One of the reasons for the popularity of the new Theravāda movement is the fact that preaching by monks occupies the central place that ritual holds in traditional Newar Buddhism. Thus there is an enormous variation in doctrinal knowledge between the learned paṇḍit and the illiterate farmer who is his hereditary parishioner, and there are innumerable degrees of knowledge between the two. And it is an essential part of the religion that there should be such hierarchy – of two levels at least – since it is forbidden for the teachings given at Tantric Initiation to be mentioned to the uninitiated.
44Traditional Newar religion – whether Buddhist or Hindu – consists for the most part of ritual and ritualized devotion. However the simple act of making an offering is in itself ambiguous: nothing has been said about what the devotee thinks is happening, and most Newars are happy to leave it that way. Even complex sets of ritual determined by tradition can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, Śākyas and Vajrācāryas claim that the Maharjans are Buddhist since their priests are Vajrācāryas and their rites are, therefore, mostly directed at Buddhist deities and use Buddhist mantras. Maharjans themselves often say they are Hindus. The life-cycle rituals of the Maharjans are indeed Hindu in origin, but they have been adapted for Buddhist householders. Within both religions most worshippers believe that it is in the power of the gods to grant protection and success. Others, a sophisticated minority, sometimes denounce this self-interested orientation; they nonetheless continue to worship, but reinterpret it as custom, disinterested piety or a kind of psychological therapy.
45The rites of the Vajrācāryas can be divided into exoteric and esoteric forms. The differences between them may be summarized as follows:

Table III : Differences between Śrāvakayāna and Mahāyāna rites on the one hand and Vajrayāna rites on the other.
46These differences are very clear to Newars who have taken Tantric Initiation. Even those who have not are aware that substances required in one context are forbidden in another. Contrary to what M. Allen implied (1973: 13), rites of the Diamond Way do not require drunkenness or orgies: alcohol, meat and sexual symbolism are used in a highly ritualized way as a controlled infraction of exoteric taboos. Newar Buddhists are as hostile to licentiousness as other Buddhists.
47There are inevitably certain overlaps and exceptions to the distinctions outlined in table III. The opposition between Observances (vrata) and yogic visualization is not absolute: for instance the monthly ritual for the main Tantric deity of a monastery performed by its elders is in practice like an Observance but makes use of Tantric substances. The dividing line between the esoteric and the exoteric may be laid down differently in different contexts and interpreted slightly differently by different groups. In spite of these qualifications, however, the opposition between the exoteric (bāhya) and esoteric (guhya) is fundamental in Newar religion, as others have already observed (M. Allen 1975: 56; Vergati 1979: 127).
48This opposition between exoteric and esoteric corresponds to that between the Great Way and the Diamond Way, since the Great Way, when not itself opposed to the Disciples’ Way, can be understood also to include it. All Newars, even those who have never heard of the doctrine of Three Ways, understand the distinction between esoteric and exoteric rites. In the simplest terms it is expressed as an opposition between rites one may see (swaye jyū) and those one may not (swaye ma jyū). Even those castes which may not receive Tantric Initiation, either Buddhist or Hindu, hold fast to this distinction.37
49Theravāda Buddhism by contrast is not a system of ritual. There are a very few, extremely simple, Theravāda rituals, but they can hardly be said to form a system. This is tacitly recognized in Newar Buddhism, in which ‘Śrāvakayāna’ connotes practices of restraint, particularly celibacy in a monk-like idiom.
5. The Vājrācārya as siddha and bodhisattva
50With this background understood we can now see in what sense Vajrācāryas are siddhas and how they are also monks, although this latter status is incorporated and transcended in the role of Vajra-master. This is summarized in table IV.

Table IV: Soteriological ideals and social roles of the Three Ways.
51Newars sometimes assert that these three Ways differ only in means, that the end result is the same; at other times they emphasize the differences between the Ways. Both ways of speaking have scriptural precedent. Vajrācāryas have to combine all three Ways, while being most clearly identified with the third, the Vajrayāna.38
52Vajrācāryas put monastic ideals into practice at various times : during the Monastic Initiation ritual, whenever they act as god-guardian, and, in a sense, whenever they perform a ritual. Until a ritual is completed the priest, as well as the sponsor (jajmān) and other participants (e.g. dhalaṃ daṃpīṃ39 in an Observance), must maintain a state of ritual purity: this includes bathing, fasting and avoiding contact with impure substances. When the ritual lasts more than one day it also includes celibacy. One can see however that the practice of restraint characteristic of the Disciples’ Way is interpreted primarily in ritual terms. The members of Kwā Bāhā, Lalitpur, refer proudly to the fact that more rules, i.e. more rules designed to maintain purity, are kept there than in any other monastery. It is no accident that this is the monastery in Lalitpur most frequented by high-caste Hindus.
53All Newars who participate in Buddhist rituals take a vow to become a Buddha for the good of all beings, that is, the bodhisattva-vow, as part of the guru mandala rite (Locke 1980: 87). The vast majority are not aware that they are doing this. Unlike the Eight or Ten Precepts in an Observance (vrata) which are read out in a singsong and archaic – but comprehensible40 – Newari, the bodhisattva-vow is read in Sanskrit and in such a way as to be wholly incomprehensible. Knowledge of the bodhisattva-vow is confined therefore to the pious, mostly men, and mostly Vajrācāryas and Śākyas. Most Newar Buddhists are equally unaware that the great compassionate deity Karuṇāmaya (Matsyendranāth) is a bodhisattva : to the unlearned he is simply ‘Buṃgadyaḥ’ (god of the village Buṃga), ‘Karuṇāmaya’ or ‘Matsyendranāth’. For most Newar Buddhists bodhisattva refers only to the Buddha in his previous lives and to one other divine being, Maitrī (= Maitreya) Bodhisattva, the future Buddha.41 A few knowledgeable Buddhists assert that Vajrācārya priests are supposed to be bodhisattvas, wise beings who help others: this is usually followed by the assertion that no such exist today. Paradoxically those who are sophisticated enough to be acquainted with the bodhisattva-concept are also sophisticated enough to despise actual practising Vajrācāryas, whereas those who genuinely respect their Vajrācārya priest and believe in his powers are almost invariably peasants of the older generation who regard him simply as ‘ their Gubhāju’.
54Compared to the bodhisattva the ideal of the siddha is much more widely known. Vajrācārya Realized Ones are the heroes of many popular folktales in which they put out a fire at their home in Kathmandu by pouring tea on the floor in Lhasa, walk across rivers by singing Tantric songs, defeat Indian jugglers or Tibetan lamas and turn into animals at will.42 Very few non-Vajrācāryas identify Vajrācāryas as bodhisattvas ; all know stories about powerful Vajrācāryas who attained success/powers (siddhi).
55The popular stories focus on the magical powers of the Realized One, but most Newars are also aware that these depend on an advanced spiritual state expressed and obtained through the strict observance of purity rules and devotion to the gods : a loss of singlemindedness, for instance deception by a woman, can lead to the holy man’s downfall. Although these ideal Vajrācāryas are capable of impressive magical feats, it would be a mistake to see them purely as magicians. This applies a fortiori to ordinary practising Vajrācāryas, whose main raison d’être as far as laypeople are concerned is as ritual technician and religious expert. That they also may have a reputation for magical knowledge is due in part to the theory underlying the rituals they perform for their parishioners, a theory which we must now briefly examine.
6. Vajrācārya practice : control of deities, self-divinization or the realization of emptiness?
56Vergati (1975: 315) criticized Greenwold for ignoring “the social consequences of the [Mahāyāna Buddhist] belief in non-duality. If everything is empty there is no difference between good and evil. There is therefore nothing surprising in the fact that the Vajracharyas chose to compromise with worldly values.” Is it true then that the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) plays a direct role in legitimating the Vajrācārya priesthood either in their own eyes or in those of their parishioners? Superficially it does not do so. It is the power to control deities (plus the sanction of tradition) which legitimates Vajrācārya priests as far as the laity is concerned, and it is the altruism of the bodhisattva which is most often invoked by Vajrācāryas themselves.
57One theme which recurs in the folktales referred to is the control of deities (or other supernatural beings) by a Realized One: he can force them to come and stay in a particular place. One of the best-known stories, which is in fact an important myth since it legitimates and gives the origin of the cult of Matsyendranāth, tells how the Vajrācārya Bandhudatta brought back the god Karuṇāmaya from Kāmarūpa (Assam) in order to end a twelve-year drought. This myth also expresses another facet of Vajrācāryas’ power, which is called upon by Buddhists and Hindus alike: their ability to control holy serpents (nāga) and cause rain during a drought.43
58Whenever a Vajrācārya priest performs a complex ritual he likewise controls deities : he begins by setting up a holy waterpot (kalaśa) and various other ritual objects and containers on a row of unhusked rice (the thrones, āsana), and he then summons (sādhan yāye) various deities into the pot and objects by a process of ritualized meditation. Once the deities are present the complex worship, performed by the sponsor (jajmān, jaymā) of the ritual under the Vajrācārya’s direction, may begin.
59In accordance with these popular perceptions the ritual texts of the Vajrācāryas do indeed talk of summoning (Sanskrit ākṛṣ, āvah or āhve) deities and then offering them worship (pūjā). Equally important however is the fact that certain forms of the deity are summoned out of the Vajrācārya himself (Sanskrit bhāv or vibhāv) and that he identifies himself with the deity.44 If one asks a Newar Buddhist directly, “Is a Vajrācārya priest identical with the deities he summons down for a ritual?” the answer is likely to be “No, of course not”.45 On the common sense level – which includes the understanding of many Vajrācārya priests who recite their texts by heart without being able to analyze or explain them – the officiant summons deities but he is not identical with them. His power to do so derives from knowing the prescribed form of Sanskrit utterance, and in particular the personal mantras of the deity to be summoned. The term sādhan yāye in Newari refers to the meditation on the deity performed by the Vajrācārya priest in which he holds the five-coloured thread (pañcasūtrakā, pasūkā) and vajra in his right hand and counts his rosary with the left (cf. Locke 1980: 101 and 115-121). Most Newars who know this term understand it as a technical term to refer to the ‘pulling down’ and installing (sālāḥ taye) of a deity. What this ‘folk’ understanding omits is the priest’s identification with the visualized deity which is part of sādhana according to the texts.
60Ordinary Newars would acknowledge that Vajrācāryas have to imitate the deities they worship: they carry bell and vajra like Vajrasattva, and hold them like him; they wear a crown of the same sort with the Five Buddhas on it. In this they are no different from other holy orders: monks imitate the Lord Buddha, Śaivite ascetics dress like Lord Śiva and so on. However, imitating the deity is one thing, identity another. Popularly a kind of identity is thought to occur at death : those who are ‘saved’ (taray juyāḥ wane) are sometimes thought to become one with (līn juye, literally ‘merge into’) the deity.46 This is rather a theistic Hindu conception; it is expressed at the end of the Buddhist story, already referred to, of bringing Karuṇāmaya to Nepal: Bandhudatta, the Buddhist priest, merges into the right foot of Karuṇāmaya’s image, the king Narendradeva into the left, and the farmer into the deity’s seat (Locke 1973: 48).47
61So far as the ‘common sense’ view is concerned, identity with the deity in this life is obtained in secret – not by mystic meditation but by controlled possession. Newar Buddhists who have taken Tantric Initiation have dressed in the bone ornaments of the secret Tantric deities (Cakrasaṃvara and Vajravārāhī) and been possessed by them, even if only in a ritualized manner. During the Tantric Initiation ritual, and at many other regular esoteric rites, the identification of the main priest with Vajrasattva is made clear in dance; and even more so, the identification of his wife with Vajravārāhī. In secret rites she (or, if not she, the senior unwidowed woman of the household or lineage sponsoring the ritual) must be possessed by Vajravārāhī in order to distribute to all the participants the goddess’ blessing (here : rice beer in a skull-bowl). The modernizing apologist for Tantric Buddhism tends to see the identity of practitioner and deity as a therapeutic metaphor: the tradition presents it more as controlled possession by the deity induced by mantras.48
62In short, the identification of Vajrācārya and deity is only indirectly an element in the legitimation of priesthood, whereas the power of the priest to force the deity to be present is directly and cognitively so.49 The mystical teaching of emptiness – that ultimately everything is empty of essence, and all conceptual distinctions are void – was certainly a crucial philosophical legitimation of the new developments in Buddhism which took place in the first millennium A. D. It is also an essential part of the doctrinal teachings given in Tantric Initiation, and the small minority of Newar Buddhists who are philosophically inclined understand its importance and discuss it. All Newars would allow that a Realized One must understand mystical truths. But the concept of emptiness is too remote, even for those who know of it, to play any active role in legitimating the Vajrācārya priesthood. In the eyes of Newar Buddhists it is rather the set of attitudes and actions – which in canonical texts are justified by reference to the emptiness and mind-only doctrines50 – that legitimate Vajrācārya pre-eminence : treating all the universe alike, thus being able to frequent dangerous and impure places, archetypally cremation grounds ; consequently possessing power over deities and other forces which can be used for good or evil.51 At the same time, paradoxically, the Vajrācārya has to observe purity taboos very strictly. The texts explain this as following the rules so as not to frighten ‘the world’, i.e. ordinary people. Vajrācāryas themselves see it as part of their religious vocation. The paradox of following purity rules more strictly than others while understanding – unlike them – that they are unimportant, is only dimly perceived, if at all, in common parlance.
63For the laity then it is primarily the symbol of the siddha, plus the restraint associated with a ritualized, Tantric version of monachism, that legitimate the superior status and hereditary vocation of the Vajrācārya. The Vajrācāryas themselves however, though equally believing in the importance of these two ideals, often stress the altruism of the bodhisattva, their vocation to help others, as their raison d’être. Thus in a local text, the Mañjuśrīpārājikā (Rules of Conduct expounded by the Buddha to Mañjuśrī), the Vajrācārya is defined thus :
If one is a Vajrācārya he must act for all the world, that is to say, for the good of all beings. Whoever, being a Vajrācārya, acts thus in accordance with scripture, will obtain both release and worldly enjoyment [translated from the Newari rendering of M. R. Vajracharya 1985: 9].
64Although acting for all beings, the Vajrācārya cannot save them himself, but can help them to help themselves. Spiro (1982: 287) contrasts the monk and the priest:
As the Burmese see it [...] the monk’s duty is to save himself; and laymen’s duty is to provide him with the physical requirements by which he can devote his energies to that end […]. Whereas in Christianity, for example, it is the duty of the priest, by his sacramental functions, to assist the layman to achieve salvation, in Buddhism it is the recognized duty of the layman to assist the monk to achieve salvation.
65Certainly in this respect the Vajrācārya is closer to the Catholic priest than to the Theravāda monk. Yet he cannot distribute grace in the way that the Catholic priest can. In Vajrayāna Buddhism, as in Theravāda Buddhism, each person’s salvation is in his or her own hands. Like the Theravāda monk, the Vajrācārya has a duty to teach, but above all he should use his superior ritual knowledge and entitlement for the good of others. Whether they profit from his services depends, most Newar Buddhists would agree, on their own devotion, sincerity and application.
7. Conclusion
66I have attempted to show that in order to understand how a Buddhist priesthood is possible, one must first consider the ideological hierarchy which integrates and makes sense of the many different rites and practices that Newar Buddhists call dharma. Once this hierarchy is given its due weight, it can be seen how Vajrācārya priests are at once monks, householders and priests. The images of the altruistic bodhisattva and, on the other hand, of the siddha who uses his power for the good of his followers, are both essential elements which, along with the symbols and practices of monachism, tie the whole together. This is notwithstanding the fact that, because of the emphasis in Newar religion on tradition and ritual as opposed to doctrine and catechism, most of the parishioners of Vajrācārya priests are only dimly aware of, and cannot themselves expound, the doctrines associated with the two images. Thus Greenwold was right to say that “the very basis of the Newar [Buddhist] priesthood is prior ordination as a monk” (1974a : 110) but wrong to see monkhood and priesthood as always and systematically set in opposition to each other (1974b).
67Newar Buddhism was well adapted to its pre-modern context. It preserved Buddhist ideals in a society founded on caste hierarchy, close kin ties and respect for tradition. It survived in a situation of Hindu dominance as other forms of Buddhism did not. To many of the young and educated today however, it has come to seem too ritualistic, too time-consuming and too expensive. In the face of modernity, it appears to lack the intellectual and institutional resourcefulness shown by the Theravāda and Tibetan Mahāyāna forms of Buddhism. Many adherents of Newar Buddhism, particularly practising priests, wonder if it can survive the continuous decline of lay patronage and priestly application that they have witnessed in their lifetime. At the very least one must say that Newar Buddhism is in crisis. The social hierarchy preserved, and gave meaning to, the divine and ideological hierarchies. Now that the social hierarchy is rapidly metamorphosing, and new ideological models are being propagated, the hierarchy of monk, householder and priest is indeed beginning to seem to reflective Newars like a contradiction. Nor is it realistic to expect traditional Newar Buddhism to adapt by sloughing off the Tantric element in the overall religion, as Newar Brahmans and most high-caste Hindus are doing. The Diamond Way is the very heart of Newar Buddhism: even though hidden from many of those it serves, without it all else collapses.
Bibliographie
Des DOI sont automatiquement ajoutés aux références bibliographiques par Bilbo, l’outil d’annotation bibliographique d’OpenEdition. Ces références bibliographiques peuvent être téléchargées dans les formats APA, Chicago et MLA.
Format
- APA
- Chicago
- MLA
Bibliography
10.1080/00856407308730672 :Allen, M. R. (1973), Buddhism without monks : the Vajrayana religion of the Newars of Kathmandu Valley. South Asia, 2, pp. 1-14.
Allen, M. R. (1975), The Cult of Kumari, Virgin Worship in Nepal. Kathmandu, INAS, Tribhuvan University.
Allen, N. J. (1986), The Coming of Macchendranāth to Nepal : Comments from a Comparative Point of View, in N. J. Allen et al. (eds.), Oxford University Papers on India, vol. 1, pt. 1. Delhi, OUP.
Bajracharya, Dh. (1980), Madhyakālik Nepālkā ek prakhyāt rājā Śivadev. Contributions to Nepalese Studies, VIII. 1. pp. 207-222.
10.1177/006996677000400103 :Bharati, A. (1970), The use of ‘Superstition’ as an Anti-Traditional Device in Urban Hinduism, Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. IV, pp. 36-49.
Dasgupta. S. B. (1974), An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism. Berkeley and London. Shambala. 1st ed. 1958.
Durkin-Longley, M. S. (1982). Ayurveda in Nepal : A Medical Belief System in Action. Ph. D. University Microfilms International. No. 8224034.
Evers. H.-D. (1972), Monks, Priests and Peasants, A study of Buddhism and Social Structure in Central Ceylon. Leiden. E. J. Brill.
Fuller. C. J. (1985), Initiation and Consecration : Priestly Rituals in a South Indian Temple, in R. Burghart and A. Cantlie (eds.). Indian Religion, SOAS Collected Papers on South Asia, No. 7. London, Curzon Press.
Gellner, D. N. (1986), Language, Caste, Religion and Territory : Newar Identity Ancient and Modern, European Journal of Sociology, XXVII, pp. 102-148.
Gellner, D. N. (1987), The Newar Buddhist Monastery : an Anthropological and Historical Typology, in N. Gutschow and A. Michaels (eds.). The Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley, proceedings of a conference held in Lübeck, 1985. Sankt Augustin, VGH Wissenchaftsverlag.
Gellner. D. N. (1988). Monastic Initiation in Newar Buddhism, in R. F. Gombrich (ed.) Indian Ritual and its Exegesis, Oxford University Papers on India, vol. 2, Pt. I. Delhi, OUP.
Gombrich, R. F. (1971), Precept and Practice, Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford, OUP.
10.1086/462651 :Gombrich, R. F. (1971a), “Merit Transference” in Sinhalese Buddhism : A Case Study in the Interaction between doctrine and practice. History of Religions, XI, 2, pp. 203-19.
Gombrich, R. F. (1984), Introduction : the Buddhist Way, in H. Bechert and R. F. Gombrich (eds.), The World of Buddhism. London, Thames and Hudson.
Goudriaan. T. (1979), Introduction, History and Philosophy, in Hindu Tantrism, Handbuch der Orientalistik 4.2. Leiden/Köln, E. J. Brill.
10.1017/S0003975600002848 :Greenwold. S. (1974a), Buddhist Brahmans, European Journal of Sociology, XV, pp. 101-123. Reprinted as The Role of the Priest in Newar Society, in J. F. Fisher (ed.). Himalayan Anthropology, The Indo-Tibetan Interface. The Hague/Paris, Mouton. 1978.
Greenwold, S. (1974b), Monkhood versus Priesthood in Newar Buddhism, in C. von Fürer-Haimendorf (ed.). The Anthropology of Nepal. Warminster. Aris and Phillips.
Gupta. S. (1979), Modes of Worship and Meditation, in Hindu Tantrism, Handbuch der Orientalistik 4.2. Leiden/Köln, E. J. Brill.
Hodgson, B. H. (1972), Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet. New Delhi, Manjusri Publishing House. 1st pubd. 1874.
Katz, N. (1982), Buddhist Images of Human Perfection, the Arahant of the Sutta Piṭaka compared with the Bodhisattva and the Mahāsiddha. Delhi. Motilal Banarsidass.
Kloppenberg. R. (1977), Theravada Buddhism in Nepal, Kailash, V, 4, pp. 301-21.
Lévi, S. (1905), Le Népal, Étude Historique d’un Royaume Hindou. Paris, Leroux, 3 vols.
Locke, J. (1973), Rato Matsyendranath of Patan and Bungamati.Kathmandu. INAS Historical Series 5. Tribhuvan University.
Locke, J. (1975), Newar Buddhist Initiation Rites, Contributions to Nepalese Studies, 2, pp. 1-23.
Locke, J. (1980), Karunamaya, the Cult of Avalokitesvara-Matsyendranath in the Valley of Nepal. Kathmandu, Sahayogi.
Locke, J. (1985), Buddhist Monasteries of Nepal : A Survey of the Bāhā and Bahīs of the Kathmandu Valley. Kathmandu, Sahayogi.
Manandhar, Th. L. (1986), Newari-English Dictionary, Modern Language of the Kathmandu Valley, A. Vergati (ed.). Delhi, École Française d’Extrême-Orient and Agam Kala Prakashan.
Quigley, D. (1984). The Social Structure of a Newar Trading Community, East-central Nepal, Ph. D. London University.
Quigley. D. (1986), Introversion and isogamy : marriage patterns of the Newars of Nepal. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 20, 1, pp. 75-95.
Rahula, W. (1978). The Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravāda and Mahāyāna, in Zen and the Taming of the Bull, Towards the definition of Buddhist Thought. London, Gordon Frazer.
Rosser, C. (1966), Social Mobility in the Newar Caste System, in C. von Fürer-Haimendorf (ed.), Caste and Kin in Nepal. India and Ceylon. Anthropological Studies in Hindu-Buddhist Contact Zones. Bombay. Asian Publishing House.
Sakya, K. and L. Griffith, (1980), Tales of Kathmandu, Folktales from the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. Brisbane, House of Kathmandu.
Sanderson. A. (1985). Purity and Power among the Brahmans of Kashmir, in M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S. Lukes (eds.), The Category of the Person. Cambridge. CUP.
Sanderson, A. (1986), Maṇḍala and Āgamic Identity in the Trika of Kashmir, in A. Padoux (ed.). Mantras et Diagrammes rituels dans l’Hindouisme. Paris, CNRS.
Slusser, M. (1982), Nepal Mandala, A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley. Princeton, Princeton University Press. 2 vols.
10.4324/9781315081861 :Spiro. M. E. (1967), Burmese Supernaturalism. New Jersey. Prentice-Hall.
10.1525/9780520341982 :Spiro, M. E. (1982), Buddhism and Society, A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes. Berkeley, University of California Press. 1st ed. 1970.
Tambiah, S. J. (1970), Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand. Cambridge, CUP.
Toffin, G. (1979), Les Rites Funéraires des hautes castes hindouistes néwar (Népal), in J. Guiart (éd.), Les Hommes et la mort ; rituels funéraires à travers le monde. Paris. Le Sycomore-Objets et Mondes, pp. 242-252.
10.3406/hom.1986.368714 :Toffin, G. (1986), Dieux souverains et rois dévots dans l’ancienne royauté de la Vallée du Népal, L’Homme, XXVI, 3, pp. 71-95.
10.4324/9780203039427 :Tucci. G. (1980), The Religions of Tibet, tr. by G. Samuel. London, Routledge, 1st pubd. 1970.
Vajracharya. B. R. and R. K. (1963), Nepāl Jana-jīvan Kriyā Paddhati. Self-published. (N. S. 1083.)
Vajracharya, R. M. (1985), Mañjuśrīpārājikā. Yala [= Lalitpur], Danbahadur Shakya. (N. S. 1105.)
Vajracharya, R. B. (1975), Gurumaṇḍalārcana wa Ekaviṃśati Prajñāpāramitāyā artha sahitaṃ. Yala [= Lalitpur], Gunaratna Shakya. (N. S. 1095.)
Vergati, A. (1975). M. Greenwold et les Néwars : Doit-on vraiment recourir à deux modèles du système des castes au Népal ?, European Journal of Sociology, XVI. pp. 310-316.
10.3406/befeo.1979.4012 :Vergati, A. (1979), Une Divinité Lignagère des Néwars : Digu-dyo, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, LXVI, pp. 115-127.
Vergati, A. (1985), Le Roi Faiseur de Pluie. Une Nouvelle Version de la légende d’Avalokiteśvara Rouge au Népal, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient, LXXIV, pp. 287-303.
10.4159/9780674240827 :Weber, M. (1968), Economy and Society, An outline of an interpretative sociology, G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds.). New York, Bedminster Press, 3 vols.
Wright, D. (1972), (ed.). History of Nepal, tr. by Munshi Shew Shanker Singh and Pandit Shri Gunanand. Kathmandu, Nepal Antiquated Book Publishers. 1st ed. 1877.
Notes de bas de page
1 This article is based on research in Lalitpur (Nepali: Pāṭan) 1982-84, in July-August 1986, financed respectively by the Leverhulme Trust, London, and the Spalding Trust, Oxford. To both I am extremely grateful. In writing the paper I have benefited from the comments of the members of the CNRS seminar where the paper was given in April 1986; I would also like to thank N. J. Allen. Prof. R. F. Gombrich. D. P Martinez, Declan Quigley, Alexis Sanderson and Gérard Toffin for helpful comments on a subsequent draft.
2 For a recent lucid statement on this point and others mentioned here see Gombrich 1984.
3 This doctrine is maintained even in the face of the (hardly surprising) desire of Theravāda Buddhists to be able to perform rites to improve the lot of their deceased parents. The Theravāda Buddhist technique, here as in other contexts, is to permit simple rituals which on a straightforward, literal interpretation seem to imply a transfer of goods or food, but which on the canonical and cognitively accepted interpretation maintain the individualist doctrine. See Gombrich 1971: 226-40 (= 1971a) for a brilliant dissection of the doctrinal gymnastics required in the case of death rites. For the distinction between cognitive and affective belief, essential for a proper understanding of Theravāda Buddhism, see id. : 5-6 and passim.
4 Hence the title of Tambiah’s study Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand and Spiro’s two books Buddhism and Society and Burmese Supernaturalism.
5 In this century Theravāda Buddhism has been introduced to Nepal from Burma. Thailand, Sri Lanka and India (via the Maha Bodhi Society). See Kloppenberg 1977 and Gellner 1986: 128-137 where I discuss Newar ethnicity and the relation of Buddhism – both modern and traditional – to it.
6 Tucci (1980: 11) quotes a good example of the latter from a thirteenth-century Tibetan text: “It is forbidden for the monk of the Small Vehicle [i.e. non-Mahāyāna Buddhism] to possess gold or silver, but for the monk who is a Bodhisattva, that is who has renounced nirvana, it is no sin. for he is striving for the good of his fellow men. ’’
7 The myths blame Śankara Ācārya for the decline of Buddhism, and the Buddhist accounts (Wright 1972: 153, Hodgson 1972 I: 48) relate his defeat in Tibet. These myths may have grown up after two visits to Nepal of the Śaṅkarācārya head of the Prayag and Kasi monasteries of Rudrasaivas in the early twelth century A. D.; he gave Tantric Initiations to the sons of the king, Śivadeva (Bajracharya 1980: 217).
8 This was the approach of Greenwold (1974b: 131). I have appropriated and adapted his title in a conscious attempt to go further in the same direction. To the hostile judgements of Hodgson, Lévi, Oldfield and Snellgrove cited by Greenwold, one could now add the unsympathetic remarks of Slusser (1982: 296b, 298a).
9 Tradition also recognizes other sub-categories, viz. Brahmacarya Bhiksu (‘celibate monk’) of the bahī-monasteries, the Cailaka (‘robe-clad’) initiated at a caitya, and the Buddha- or Bauddhācārya (‘Buddhist master’) of certain monasteries in Bhaktapur and elsewhere. All of these may be considered as Śākyas for the present discussion.
10 I follow the orthography of Manandhar (1986) with the exception that Sanskrit tatsamas are always spelt as in Sanskrit : thus ‘Vajrācārya’, not ‘Bajrācārya’. Manandhar provides two transliterations, one literal, according to the normal conventions for Sanskrit, the other phonological, to aid pronunciation. I follow the former, since it must always be possible to reconstruct a written form, but introduce certain adjustments to aid pronunciation: ‘w’ for ’v’ in non-tatsama words; dropping final inherent ’a’ in certain words.
11 Census figures for 1971 reveal that 32.5 % of the population of Lalitpur, 24.5 % of Kathmandu and 7.5 % of Bhaktapur are Buddhists. The figures for Hindus are, respectively. 67.1 %, 74.4 % and 92.4 %. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of the determinants of Buddhist and Hindu identity in premodern Newar society : suffice it to say that the necessity of identifying oneself as one or the other was not (and still is not for many) evident to most of those of Maharjan status or below.
12 On this four-day ritual see Hodgson 1972 I: 139-45 ; Locke 1975; Locke 1980: 42-7; and Gellner 1988.
13 On the difference between bāhā and bahī see Gellner 1987. Locke 1985 is a comprehensive survey of all traditional Newar Buddhist monasteries, both bāhā and bahī.
14 This is no longer the case because (a) people offer less than in the past; (b) it is believed that there is a much greater risk of theft, for which the guardian will be held responsible; (c) taking one’s turn as guardian automatically entails further duties in the following years culminating in the organization of the annual feast for all members: as there is a shortfall in monastery income, the organizers currently have to contribute about 2000 rupees each from their own pocket. Consequently there is an increasing trend to refuse one’s turn as god-guardian and thereby avoid all these problems : this worries the members of Kwā Bāhā, who discuss the problem frequently.
15 I omit from this typology the Theravāda and Tibetan monks, whose (non-traditional) presence complicates the description of presentday Newar Buddhism considerably.
16 Durkin-Longley (1982: 162) lists the following types of Ayurvedic practitioner, with the number practising in Kathmandu 1980-1 (the last two types are obsolete) : kavirāj (fully qualified Ayurvedic doctor) 50; vaidya (ordinary Ayurvedic doctor) 91; gubhāju/gurumā (Vajrācārya healer) 16; baniyā (apothecary) 11; nau vaidya (traditional surgeon) 1; aji (midwife) 55 (estimate); jhārphuke vaidya (healer using mantras, blowing and brushing with broom) 26 (estimate); Aru vaidya (healer specializing in smallpox and other spots); āṃkhe vaidya (healer for eyes) (the Newari was presumably mikhā vaidya). Only the first two are Ayurvedic practitioners properly speaking. The others make use of Ayurvedic concepts and medicines along with other techniques. It would be truer to local ways of expression to say that these are types of vaidya.
17 This is described well by Durkin-Longley (1982: 193-204). “Gubhaju healers refer to their work in Nepali variously as bhutavidya (‘supernatural knowledge’), bhutayurveda (‘supernatural Ayurveda’), tantra-mantra (‘i.e., using tantric methods including mantras’) or mantrauṣadhi (‘mantra-medicine’). They consider themselves specialists in this branch of ayurveda” (ibid. : 201). Bhūtavidyā refers specifically to knowledge of low and evil spirits and ghosts.
18 I owe this point to Alexis Sanderson who also kindly provided me with a summary of the contents of the last nine chapters (paṭala) of the Tantra, based on manuscript ’Hodgson 2’ in the Bodleian Library, Oxford : chs. 17-21 provide herbal recipes for, i.a., indigestion, lice, sexual diseases, infertility, headaches, nosebleeds, for the subjection of women and men. for magical feats (invisibility and so on); ch. 22 gives material on the use of breath control (vāyuyoga) for magical acts; ch. 23 gives the signs of approaching death; ch. 24 analyzes the body as made of moon (= semen) and sun (= female blood); finally, ch. 25 gives forms of the deity to be visualized so as to achieve the ultimate aim of identity with him.
19 Weber 1968 II: 426. Weber continues: "There can be no priesthood without a cult, although there may well be a cult without a specialized priesthood. The latter was the case in China..."
20 Kāpālī also take the surname Darśandhāri. Colloquially and non-honorifically they are known as Jogi (or Jwagi), and in Nepali as Kusle. Hindus have more death specialists than Buddhists : see Toffin 1979.
21 In Kwā Bāhā, where the guardian appoints two bāphā to perform the ritual, it is they who have to keep the rules. Sometimes the guardian himself becomes the elder bāphā.
22 Gombrich 1971 : 119-20. The Theravāda Buddhist view is that offerings made to a Buddha statue are equivalent to offerings made to the Monastic Community, which it is sinful for laypeople to consume.
23 The only exception occurs in some monasteries which are exclusively Śākya, e.g. Uku Bāhā. Here the senior elder may carry on the cult of the Tantric deity.
24 Some of these points were also made in Greenwold 1974b.
25 In this connection it is interesting to note that the personal name of Śākyamuni Buddha according to traditional Newar Buddhism was not, as in the Theravāda, Siddhārtha, ‘he whose aim has been achieved’, but Sarvārthasiddha, ‘he who has achieved all aims’.
26 In my sample of 115 Vajrācāryas from ward 15, Lalitpur, 22 % were practising priests and only 4 % had no other job. The discrepancies in the figures for the two cities may be due to the fact that those for Lalitpur were collected in 1984, whereas Greenwold’s for Kathmandu date from 1971-72. Informants claim that it has become increasingly difficult to live from the priesthood alone.
27 Locke 1975 and 1980. In particular, on point (i) 1980: 65, 115f.; on (ii) 1980 : 13; on (iii) 1980: 20; on (vi) 1975: 18.
28 Vergati (1975) rightly criticized him for this. There were also two mistakes of fact not pointed out by Vergati : it is not true that only Vajrācāryas take Tantric Initiation and the initiation is of Cakrasaṃvara, not Vajrasattva (Greenwold 1974a : 120).
29 Canonical lists sometimes call the Mahāyāna ‘Bodhisattvayāna’, the Way of the Bodhisattvas. Vajrayāna is also called ‘Mantrayāna’ or ‘Tantrayāna’, the way of mantras or of Tantra. The lists also include the Pratyekabuddhayāna, the way of the Solitary Buddhas (who attain enlightenment on their own and do not teach it to anyone). Clearly this is a theoretical category without sociological significance. Naya, path, is sometimes used as a synonym of yāna, which indicates that ’way’ is a better translation than the conventional ‘vehicle’. The meaning is : way across the ocean of saṃsāra, i.e. way out of the cycle of rebirth. As discussed in the text, many Newar Buddhists, especially those who are not Śākyas or Vajrācāryas. are ignorant of doctrine. The explanatory scheme is known only to the learned but is authoritative for all. There is another usage (particularly common, it seems to me. in Kathmandu) whereby Newar Buddhism is called ‘Vajrayān’ and Tibetan Buddhism ‘Mahāyān’ : in fact, as knowledgeable Newars are aware, both Newar and Tibetan Buddhism are equally Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna.
30 On the Five. Eight and Ten Precepts in Theravāda Buddhism, see Gombrich 1971 : 65-6. The participants in a Newar Buddhist Observance do not utter the precepts themselves but have them read out by the officiating Vajrācārya. In Monastic Initiation the priest reads out the Ten Precepts which define one as a monk (I discuss this in Gellner 1988). In both cases, although the participants may not be fully aware that they have taken the precepts, they do keep them and are fully aware that the point of an Observance is to keep such rules. The only difference from the Theravāda interpretation is that the sixth precept, not to eat at the wrong time, is taken to mean that one should eat only one meal, which excludes impure food, and not to mean that one should not eat after midday. Since the ritual part of an Observance, during which one fasts, often does not finish until 3 p.m. or later, for the participants to follow the Theravāda interpretation would mean fasting for 36 hours.
31 For a detailed exposition of how this principle operated within the highly complex daily ritual of Tantric Śaivism in Medieval Kashmir, see Sanderson 1986, particularly p. 202.
32 Cf. Katz (1982 : 282) : “The mahāsiddha is not antithetical to the bodhisattva, just as the bodhisattva is not antithetical to the arahant ; in fact, the mahāsiddha is understood, within the tantric tradition, as a special case of bodhisattvas who are distinguishable by method alone.”
33 As Weber (1968 II: 461) observed, "Asiatic religions [...] knew practically nothing of dogma as an instrumentality of differentiation.”
34 The followers of the modern Theravāda movement are an exception. They have a more western concept of what a religion should be, and denounce traditional Newar Buddhism as corrupt, not real Buddhism etc. They make frequent use of the non-traditional word andhaviśvās (literally ‘blind trust’), invented by Dayananda Sarasvati to translate the English ‘superstition’ (Bharati 1970: 45). The word is now an active part of the hortatory neo-Hindu (and here neo-Buddhist) vocabulary of all north Indian vernaculars, except Bengali. Bharati (ibid. : 42) points out the irony that " very few of the American and European disciples of the Maharishi are aware of. or bothered by. the fact that his language is entirely that of the missionaries who tried to proselytize his grandfather.”
35 See Locke 1980 : 23-9. On the role of the Kathmandu Ācārya Guthi in the dispute between Vajrācāryas and Urāy, see Rosser 1966 : 116f.
36 Śākyas form the majority of such groups. The other members are usually Vajrācārya, Maharjan and Śreṣṭha. Practising Vajrācārya priests are conspicuous by their absence from such circles.
37 Indeed, perhaps because they do not have a more strictly religious sphere in which such exclusivism is practised, middle and low castes are often much fiercer in excluding outsiders from their socio-religious (guthi) rites and feasts. Quigley (1984 : 274; 1986) relates the Newars exclusivism to their preference for isogamous marriage as near to home as possible.
38 Rahula (1978: 71-77) points out the Theravāda roots of the bodhisattva doctrine and rightly insists that in Mahāyāna scriptures the enlightenment of a Buddha is said to be no different from that of anyone else : the Buddha is equally an arhat ; he differs in his omniscience and ability to teach.
39 This derives from dharma dane, i.e. ‘those who carry out the religious act’. Dhalaṃ dane is nowadays a technical term and the derivation from dharma is not obvious. ’To do dharma’ is used for any religiously meritorious act ; and dharma is used also for the merit itself (rather than puṇya) in the common phrase dharma lāye, to gain merit.
40 Although the ‘explanation’ (khaṁ) of an Observance is clearly meant to be comprehensible, few participants ever make an effort to understand, and they are never made to feel that they ought to do so. Invariably they are tired from fasting and. in any case, merit derives from participating and keeping the rules, not from mentally asserting a canonical dogma. This does not mean that one’s attitude of mind is irrelevant : a selfish and/or aggressive attitude would negate any benefits to be had. I discuss the place of the priest’s archaic Newari ‘explanation’ in the Monastic Initiation ritual in Gellner 1988 : 52, 97 fn. 28.
41 The language nonetheless maintains the distinction between god, Sanskrit deva, Newari dyaḥ, and bodhisattva. The great gods of Hinduism are called Mahādyaḥ and Nārāindyaḥ. Dyaḥ is never appended to the Sanskritic names of the bodhisattvas : they are called Karuṇāmaya, Mañjuśrī etc. Note that ordinary usage, in confining the term bodhisattva to the Buddha in his previous lives and to Maitrī Bodhisattva is extraordinarily conservative : this is exactly how the term was used in pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism.
42 See Sakya and Griffith 1980 : 31-4, for Jāmana Gubhāju defeating the Indian juggler, and 38-41 for Surat Vajra putting out the fire and crossing the Brahmaputra river.
43 See N. J. Allen 1986 for a recent comparative survey of the myth, and Vergati 1985, for an early version of the myth before the accretion of Hindu elements due to the changed political situation after 1769. The basic source in English is Locke 1973.
44 A more detailed analysis of the rite is given in my D. Phil. for Oxford University: ‘Monk, householder and priest’ (1987). In an exoteric rite such as the guru maṇḍala there is the meditation that one is of the form of emptiness, and summoning of the deity, but no explicit identification with the deity (Vajracharya 1975 : 9, 11-12). Identification with the deity worshipped is a key feature of Tantric worship in Hinduism also (Goudriaan 1979 : 8 ; Gupta 1979: 129; Fuller 1985 : 107; Sanderson 1986).
45 Partly due to the unnaturalness of the question, and partly because I failed to see its importance during fieldwork, I did not put this question to a cross-section of Newar Buddhists. The following answers, to questions sent by post, given by an elderly Tulādhar lady from Kathmandu, are probably representative. What is a bodhisattva ? : “A bodhisattva is someone with the thought of enlightenment, who helps everyone and has good thoughts (citta). Bodhisattvas are men, but men with thirty-two special qualities (lakṣaṇa).” What is a siddlha? " All gods are siddhas. They are also men. They are called siddha because of their great accomplishments (tataḥdhaṃgu jyā) while alive.” Can Buddhist priest (guruju) and god be considered identical? “Priest and god are not identical. Priests are the gurus of men. Without them no great worship of the gods can be successful. Gods, on the other hand, are those who are already saved (taray juye) and now try to uplift (uddhār yāye) the world."
46 Opinions on this, as on other topics, are varied. Many others refer to it simply as nirvāṇ (or nirmāṇ, sic) juye ; or as attaining the abode of Amitābha, Sukhāvatī,
47 The three main characters in the myth, the priest, king as sponsor, and farmer as servant can be seen as corresponding to the three varṇas Brahman, Kṣatriyas and Śūdra (but for the Jyāpu as Vaiśya see N. J. Allen 1986 : 100). Note that only the first two. i.e. those entitled to Tantric Initiation, actually merge into the deity himself.
48 This was also the way Śaiva Tantric rites were understood in Medieval Kashmir (Sanderson 1986 : 169, fn. 2).
49 In the same way, the Tantric Initiation of Śaivite priests of Mīnākṣī in Madurai clearly identifies “priest and god... [But] I do not mean to suggest by this that anyone actually believes that an ordinary priest is identical with the Lord of the Universe. No one does..." (Fuller 1985: 127). Toffin (1986) points out that although the kings of Nepal are traditionally supposed to have divine aspects, and to incarnate gods in certain contexts, they were never worshipped as gods; this marks an important difference from the Southeast Asian god-king cults, and indicates that fundamentally Dumont was right to insist on the separation of status and power in Hinduism, whatever qualifications to his theory may be called for.
50 See, e.g., Dasgupta 1974 : 180-4, 193.
51 This lay belief is well expressed in a quotation given by Greenwold 1974a : 117-8.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Circulation et territoire dans le monde indien contemporain
Véronique Dupont et Frédéric Landy (dir.)
2010
Construire les savoirs dans l’action
Apprentissages et enjeux sociaux en Asie du Sud
Marie-Claude Mahias (dir.)
2011
Politique et religions en Asie du Sud
Le sécularisme dans tous ses états ?
Christophe Jaffrelot et Aminah Mohammad-Arif (dir.)
2012
L’Inde des Lumières
Discours, histoire, savoirs (XVIIe-XIXe siècle)
Marie Fourcade et Ines G. Županov (dir.)
2013
Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud
Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)
Corinne Lefèvre, Ines G. Županov et Jorge Flores (dir.)
2015
L’Inde et l’Italie
Rencontres intellectuelles, politiques et artistiques
Tiziana Leucci, Claude Markovits et Marie Fourcade (dir.)
2018