LAITY

The laity in Buddhism makes up two of the four constituent parts of the sa?gha (monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen) and the great majority of Buddhists. The ordained differ from the laity by virtue of their renunciation of the householder's life and observance of a strict code of behavior, which make them worthy and deserving, a pure and holy "field of merit." Laypeople acquire merit through giving food, clothing, shelter, and other material support to the ordained, and meritmaking by laity to the ordained has been a central aspect of lay life in all Buddhist societies. Prohibitions on the ordained acquiring individual wealth, as well as prohibitions on sexual activity, make the ordained dependent upon laity for their living and the perpetuation of a religious order.

The textual legacy

Laity in early Buddhist texts are referred to as up?saka (laymen) and up?sik? (laywomen), devoted followers of Buddhist teaching, and they are distinguished from ordinary householders. Lay followers should take proper care of the monks during the retreats, hear the dharma expounded at that time and on the monthly Posadha (P?li, Uposatha) days, take the three refuges, follow the first five ??ilas or moral rules (refraining from taking life, stealing, unchastity, lying, and taking intoxicants), offer robes to the monks at the end of the rainy season, undertake pilgrimage, and venerate st?pas containing relics of the Buddha. The Sigalov?da-sutta (Discourse to Sigala) urges laity to revere their parents, spouses and children, friends and companions, and religious teachers. Instructions specifically for women direct them in various texts to be capable in work, to manage servants well, to be physically attractive to their husbands, and to manage his fortune well.

Therav?da Buddhism has traditionally emphasized a strong distinction between the ordained and the laity. The nik?yas show that laity can reach the first three stages of sanctity (sot?anna, sakad?g?mi, and an?g?mi), but they cannot become arhats. Instead, they aim for a better rebirth. Recent studies suggest, nevertheless, that the Sutta Pi?aka also contains a second, contrasting view on the laity, holding that laity can attain enlightenment. The Mah?vagge Ma??apeyyakath? depicts the Buddha teaching the four noble truths and the eightfold path to the laity, and the Nakulapit?-sutta (Discourse to Nakulapit?) has the Buddha teaching a layman about the five aggregates and the error of confusing these with the self.

With the appearance of early Mah?y?na in the first century, new concepts and practices developed, widening the laity's scope. The cardinal idea of emptiness undermined all conceptual oppositions, including that between monastics and laity. The idea of the bod-hisattva who purposefully remains in the world to save others further undermined the dichotomy separating the ordained and laity, and the idea of the lay bodhisattva emerged.

The quintessential example of the lay bodhisattva is the layman Vimalak?rti, in the Vimalak?rtinirde?a (The Teaching of Viamalak?rti), composed between the first century b.c.e. and first century c.e. Vimalak?rti expounds on the nature of emptiness, exhibiting his wisdom to an immense assembly of holy men and bodhisattvas. He ridicules their doctrinal abstractions and pretensions to a higher status than the

laity. Other sutras continue the themes of this work, sometimes introducing laywomen as the protagonists. Two such examples are Vimalak?rti's daughter in the Candrottar?d?rikavyakara?a-s?tra (Discourse on the Prediction Made about the Girl Candrottar?) and Queen ?rimala in the ?rim?l?dev?si?han?da-s?tra (Lion's Roar of Queen ?rim?l?).

Other Mah?y?na texts present filial piety as a kind of Buddhist morality, in a concession to the prominence of this principle especially among the laity in East Asia. The central role of the priesthood in funerary and ancestral rites in East Asian Buddhism stems from the elevation of filial piety as an ethical ideal in such works as the Ullambana-s?tra.

Laity in Therav?da countries

Lay life in Therav?da countries is greatly influenced by the custom of men entering a Buddhist monastery for a period of time, later returning to lay life. Nearly all Burmese men and about half the men in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia have spent at least one rainsretreat, and often much longer, as an ordained monk. This means that the laity of several Therav?da countries has significant personal experience of monastic life, unparalleled by any comparable custom in countries where Mah?y?na predominates. This custom creates close ties between laity and the ordained and expands the range of religious experience for lay men. Women are excluded because the tradition of valid ordination for nuns is believed to have died out.

Lay practice revolves around the precepts and merit-making activities. Laypeople observe the five basic precepts already discussed, and on holy days they may take a further five: refraining from sex, eating after noon, perfumes and adornments, seeing public entertainments, and the use of grand beds. Giving food to monks on a daily basis is a widespread practice, as is contributing to such ceremonies as a man's ordination, New Year's, an abbot's promotion, meals for monks, presentation of robes, cremations, and to general monastery fund-raising or repairs. Donations may take the form of money, items involved in a particular ceremony, or they may be things monks are allowed to own, such as bedding, a razor, an umbrella, or a needle and thread. Founding and supporting schools and hospitals is also religiously meritorious. The performance of meritorious giving thus creates and strengthens the connections between monastic and lay society.

Laity in Mah?y?na countries

In East Asia ritual merit transfer is the basic motif structuring the relation between laity and the ordained. In essence, descendants make gifts to monastics, who transfer the merit to descendants' ancestors in order to ensure them a better rebirth or a more comfortable existence in the other world. Merit transfer has also become institutionalized in the mid-summer Ghost Festival, based on the Ullambana-s?tra.

A wide variety of devotional practices are performed by lay Buddhists in China, Korea, and Japan, including veneration of such sacred objects as Buddhist images, relics, and st?pas; copying and reciting s?tras, prayers, and formulas; use of Buddhist rosaries, amulets and talismans; pilgrimage; and participation in cults and rites for particular buddhas and bodhisattvas, including ??kyamuni, Maitreya, Amit?bha, Avalokite?vara, K?itigharba, Bhai?ajyaguru, Samantabhadra, Acal?, and others.

Chinese laity formed societies for reciting the Buddha's name, for study, and for publication as early as the Six Dynasties (222–589). The tradition of the learned layman in China had a prototype in Pang Yun (born ca. 740), "Layman P'ang," whose Chan sayings were later collected as Pang jushi yulu (The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang). He gave away his house and sank his possessions in a boat, taking up a wandering life and studying under several Chan masters, though not becoming a monk.

A Buddhist revival in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) grew out of a lay movement of provincial gentry, who underwrote the founding of monasteries, sponsored the clergy, and enthusiastically practiced Buddhist devotions. Gentry went on pilgrimage to Buddhist monasteries, composed poems about them, and restored them. They corresponded with monks, attended lectures, chanted Buddhist texts and the Buddha's name, and burned incense. They organized lay associations with names like Lotus Society for pure land devotions, or associations for liberating captive animals. They participated in public rites called "Bathing the Buddha" for the Buddha's birthday and the Ghost Festival.

During the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and the Republican period (1911–1920), the number of Buddhist lay societies grew rapidly, attracting literati and bourgeoisie adherents. Merit clubs operated vegetarian restaurants in the cities, and study groups met to discuss sacred texts or to hear lectures by visiting monks. Recitation clubs gathered to recite the Buddha's name in the hope of being reborn in the Western Pure Land. Founded by a Hangzhou businessman in 1920, the Right Faith Society operated a clinic and a boys' primary school, also providing soup kitchens, free coffins for the poor, and a widows' home. The Buddhist Pure Karma Society, founded in Shanghai in 1925, ran an orphanage and a clinic dispensing free medicine; it also broadcast a nightly radio program.

In ancient Korea, lay practice centered on worship of both Maitreya and Amit?bha. Chanting Amit?bha's name was a central lay practice. Pure land faith was propagated through Buddhist folk tales from the unified Silla dynasty (668–935) that were later incorporated into a history, Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms, 1285). This work reflects strong lay participation in Buddhism and also shows that lay associations were formed around pure land practice.

Ancient and medieval Japan exhibited a rich variety of lay Buddhist practices, including pilgrimage to famous monasteries and sacred mountains or around circuit routes devoted to Avalokite?vara or the historical Buddhist figure K?kai (774–835); sponsoring Buddhist art works and ceremonies; and building or repairing temples. The Great Buddha statue of T?daiji in Nara was completed in 752, in part by lay contributions organized by the lay Buddhist En no Ubasoku (from Sanskrit up?saka).

Classical literature is replete with images of laity. In 984 a lay noble, Minamoto Tamenori, completed the Sanb?e (Illustrations of the Three Jewels), an illustrated collection of Buddhist tales in three volumes, as a guide to Buddhism for an imperial princess. It included tales of Japanese Buddhists, the miracles achieved through their devotions, and stories of meritorious people whose good deeds produced rewards in this life and the next.

Especially after periods of warfare, many widows adopted a semimonastic style of life, taking the tonsure though not necessarily living in a monastery, forming societies to commission or repair statues, and devoting themselves to prayers for the souls of the dead. Sometimes such women congregated near a monastery and performed tasks like laundry and food provisioning for the monks.

During the Edo period (1600–1868), the entire population was legally required to affiliate with a Buddhist monastery. These inalterable, exclusive affiliations were established by family units and passed down through generations. In return for supporting the monasteries and their priests, the priests performed the family's funerals and periodic ancestral rites. Although the legal obligation of monastery affiliation dissolved in the 1870s, the fact of family graves and records being kept by the monasteries means that these affiliations have largely been preserved.

Laity established associations for pilgrimage and for the recitation of Amit?bha's name or the title of the Lotus S?tra (Saddharmapu??ar?ka-s?tra). Stories of the ideal layperson, based on historical individuals, were published by the True Pure Land sect during the Edo period in collections called ?j?den (tales of rebirth [in the pure land]). These tales vividly illustrated valued traits: filial piety, honesty, compassion, devotion to reciting Amit?bha's name, and strong conviction of the certain rebirth in the Western Pure Land.

Laity and modernization

The modernization of Buddhist societies has brought sweeping changes. The extension of the franchise and expanded political participation in secular life colored religious life, creating the expectation that laity should be able to influence the character of Buddhist institutions. The spread of literacy has enabled laity to read and interpret sacred scripture with increasing independence from the ordained. Higher education hones a critical spirit and encourages skepticism regarding clergy's preeminence over the laity and their monopoly over funerals and other rituals. The prestige of science and rationality in modernizing societies further nurtures a critical view of traditional religious beliefs, practices, and institutions.

The encounter with Christian missionaries and Western imperialism was an important catalyst to Buddhist revival movements, and laymen have frequently played significant roles. The lay branch of the Buddhist Theosophical Society, founded in Sri Lanka in 1880, created a press, the Buddhist English School (later Ananda College), and a newspaper, The Buddhist. Prominent laity like Anag?rika Dharmap?la (born David Hewavitarne, 1864–1933) acquired their first experience of activism in the Buddhist Theosophical Society and in the Young Men's Buddhist Association (later renamed the All-Ceylon Buddhist Congress), founded in Colombo in 1898 by C. S. Dissanayake.

Dharmap?la founded the first international Buddhist organization, Mah?bodhi Society, in Colombo in 1891, later starting a revival of Buddhism in India, beginning with a project to restore Bodh Gay?. Dharmap?la linked his support for Buddhism to the struggle for Indian independence, so that Buddhist advocacy was inseparable from the call for political independence. The Indian Buddhist revival did not become a mass movement, however, until the leadership of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), an attorney trained in the United States and Britain who worked for the legal emancipation of the Untouchables. Despairing of integrating the Untouchables into Hindu caste society, he converted to Buddhism in 1950. When he called on all Untouchables to convert, mass conversions followed in several Indian states.

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan, Buddhist reform movements arose, frequently led by groups of priests and laymen, calling for free inquiry into traditional beliefs and practices, rejecting superstition, and striving to articulate a modern Buddhist ethic. One such association, Bukky? Seit? D?shikai, published a widely circulated journal called Buddhism (Bukky?), sought inspiration from Unitarianism, embraced skepticism, and even questioned whether Mah?y?na is true Buddhism. Other reformers admired socialism, affirmed equality, and called for reform of authoritarian sectarian organizations. Still others aligned Buddhism with nationalism, such as Nation's Pillar Society (Kokuch?kai), founded in 1914 by a Nichiren priest who later disrobed and wrote in defense of marriage, Tanaka Chigaku (1861–1939).

Buddhist new religious movements in Japan

The formalism inherent in the historical origins of Japanese temple affiliations has made the country a fertile area for the founding of new religious movements expanding the scope of lay Buddhism. In the early twentieth century Buddhist new religions emerged, based on the belief that the laity possess all necessary qualifications to perform funerals and ancestral rites without clerical mediation. Reiy?kai Ky?dan, founded in 1930, and its offshoot Rissh? K?seikai, founded in 1938, are two such examples. Both derive from Nichiren Buddhism and emphasize ancestor worship through the Lotus s?tra.

After World War II, many more Buddhist new religions emerged. The largest is S?ka Gakkai, which was founded in 1930 but which did not become a mass movement until after 1945. Its main religious practices are chanting the title of the Lotus s?tra and studying its doctrines. It founded a political party in 1964. S?ka Gakkai was originally affiliated with a branch of the Nichiren school, Nichiren Sh?sh?, but this connection was abolished in 1991. S?ka Gakkai maintains an extensive program of peace work and branches throughout the world. With membership estimated at seventeen million, it is one of the largest—if not the largest—Buddhist lay associations in history.

In recent years Buddhist new religions deriving from Shingon Buddhism, such as Agon-shu, Shinnyoen, and Gedatsukai, have been founded. In 1995 the Buddhist new religion Aum Shinriky?, founded in 1986, carried out an attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed twelve people and required some five thousand to be hospitalized. The founder, Asahara Sh?k?, hoped to cause Armageddon to fulfill his prophecy of the millennium. This group had no affiliation with any branch of Japanese Buddhism; it drew its main doctrines from Tibetan Buddhism mixed with the founder's eclectic readings in Christianity and Western millenarianism.

See also:Merit and Merit-making; Monasticism

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Helen Hardacre