Stratification Outside the Sangha/Monastic fourwalls

However, the problem of determining the Buddhist attitude to the vanna, jati, and kula divisions in the context of the world outside the sangha is more complex. It is evident from the preceding sections that the Buddhists system of stratification was different from the Brahmanical notion of hierarchy. The idea of high and low expressed itself in the context of jati, kula, kamma and sippa. Nevertheless, it has to be pointed out that the portrayal of the system of stratification in the Pali canon describes a social phenomenon or an existential reality, without religious sanction, unlike the Brahmanical conception of hierarchy. The situation prevalent in the region in which early Buddhism located was reflected by the Buddhist texts.

The Buddhists did not give importance to the vanna divisions even within the social world.^[1] The reason behind this was vanna being purely conceptual categorization of society. On the other hand, jati seems to be relevant in Buddhist society. There is an important passage in the Ambattha sutta which states that jativado applies not in the context of ‘wisdom and righteousness’ (or the asocial world concerned with salvation) but in context of marriage, where reference are made to questions of jati and gotta.^[2] In early Buddhist literature, this idea is a fairly recurrent theme and we often come across the idea of pure, unblemished birth (jati) joint back seven generations on the side of both mother and father.^[3] The reference to degenerate brahmanas of old who did not marry non-brahmanas are contrasted with them. It is important to note that this is explained by the Buddha as the first of the offences of degenerating brahmanas.^[4]