Buddhist sociology

The Buddha lived in a period of urbanisation in India, transitioning from villages to towns and cities, together with the rise of trade (across cities and towns). The population was divided into 4 castes (varṇa[S]) (as well as “outcastes” or those outside the social hierarchy). There was an established or “mainstream” religious and cultural system that I will call “brahmanism” administered by the religious caste (brāhmaṇa[S]).¹

However, with the rise of trade, members of the merchant and farming caste (vaiśya[S]), together with the political caste (kṣatriya[S]), were becoming more affluent and powerful and were open to new religious ideas. These represent the primary audience that was drawn to the Buddha’s teachings, although the Buddha also won converts from brahmanism and welcomed followers from the artisan and worker caste (śūdra[S]).

One would expect the sort of person who would be drawn to Buddha’s teachings would typically be wealthy and educated, with leisure time and experienced in various sensual pleasures, who would grow to be disenchanted with what life has to offer and gradually question whether there were alternative answers outside of brahmanism.²

There were already other alternatives to brahmanism, including Jainism, and those practising alternate religious practices were generally classified as ascetics.

The Buddha himself was initially an ascetic when he renounced and left the worldly life and for a time practised asceticism. Later on he would denounce many aspects of ascetic practice (although he conceded some ascetic practices are beneficial), but he also understood the general population would consider him an ascetic and he encouraged his followers to refer to themselves as “wanderers who are followers of the Sakyan” (samaṇā sakyaputtiyāmhā, 8D/4.1 Catuvaṇṇasuddhi #250), evidently to distinguish themselves from other kinds of ascetics.

A unique community developed around Buddhism during Buddha’s time, and still survives today (albeit with modifications) in Buddhist dominated countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and even in countries where Buddhism isn’t the dominant religion.

This community started when the Buddha invited those he felt understood his teachings to “join” him. Others asked Buddha to accept them as disciples and followers. Some are renunciants like him and adopted his simple lifestyle of wearing a robe and dependent on householders for food and other necessities. Others continued in their worldly lives but came to hear his sermons and to provide alms and other donations to him.

This community became known as the saṅgha. Anyone who joined the saṅgha left their caste behind, so the Buddha promoted the intermingling of castes within the community. Instead of the 4 castes separated by profession or birth, the saṅgha consisted of four types of followers:

bhikkhu: male renunciants
bhikkhuni: female renunciants
upāsaka: male lay devotees
upāsikā: female lay devotees

The “fourfold assembly” would often meet together for events (such as during uposatha days when monastic confess their faults to each other and recite the monastic rules communally, and followers intensify their practices), or to hear a public sermon or lecture, often given by the Buddha or one of his senior disciples. The saṅgha also had a missionary purpose, monastics were sent out to spread the word and encourage people to join.

Also, anyone who is enlightened is part of the “pure saṅgha” or āryasaṅgha, whether they were formerly part of any saṅghas or not. This is a sort of uber-saṅgha, or an Enlightened Society, of arahants. Today there is no formal āryasaṅgha as it is believed there are no known arahants (more on this in the next section).

Initially the saṅgha was a loose, informal community, but as Buddha’s followers grew into thousands spread across multiple cities, some degree of control was required. The Buddha was reluctant to impose a command and control hierarchy, so to a large extent the community governed itself, with seniority (and gender) used as a basis for relative relationships within the community. However, a set of rules was established for this Utopian society, primarily to ensure there were norms for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

The rules started out few and straightforward, but over time grew into a complex set. New rules were added by necessity, and each rule was accompanied by a clear case study justifying its inclusion. Rules were sometimes changed or rescinded due to unexpected and unforeseen circumstances. Throughout this process, we become acutely aware that the Buddha was a human being after all, he made mistakes and had to rectify them. Despite the Buddha saying before he passed away that the minor rules can be abolished after his death³, the First Council after the Buddha’s death couldn’t decide which rules were minor and which were major. Indeed, scholars believe the rules continued to be expanded for several centuries after and the current version may date to 3 BCE.⁴

The Buddha consistently showed us that he was fair, but also practical. When King Bimbisāra, a very important benefactor, complained that soldiers were deserting his army to become monks, the Buddha then forbade soldiers from being ordained.⁵ Similar, slaves were not allowed to be ordained, lest they desert their masters.⁶ In one year the King requested the rainy season retreat (vassa) be delayed, and the Buddha advised his disciples to comply.⁷ Rather than being the omniscient being that was revered by the gods, the Buddha was in fact the loyal vassal of a human king. But he was also a practical man adapting to social expectations. He did not reject the social conventions of his day: the caste system, inequality between the genders, the principles of trade and commerce, or the rules by which society was governed. Revolutionary anarchist he was not.

Over time, lay disciples became progressively excluded from the saṅgha. It was embarrassing for monastics to have the laity listening in on the monastics confessing their transgressions, and eventually it was too much even for the whole monastic community to hear each other’s confessions. So confessions became a private affair between pairs or small groups of monastics. Gradually, the saṅgha transformed from a Utopian Society into an exclusive club for mostly male monastics, who by and large were not answerable to anyone but themselves.

Some parts of the teachings were not allowed to be disclosed to the laity, for various reasons. Benefactors and donators were very important - thousands of monastics need to be fed daily and provided with necessities. So any teaching that might jeopardise this precarious balance must be handled with care. The Buddha’s core teachings with a soteriological goal which is dependent on renouncing oneself from worldly life, may not appeal to everyone. Indeed, some of the teachings, such as those articulating meditation techniques focusing on rotting corpses (to cultivate a distaste for the pleasures of the flesh and to remind the listener of the impermanence of life) may not even be palatable to ordinary people. So eventually the core teachings were only disclosed to the monastics, people who were serious enough to pursue the soteriological goal, and the teachings to lay people focused on virtue, morality, the importance of giving alms, generosity and respect for monastics. The Buddha became a person to be venerated, and what he actually taught was glossed over.

The Buddha’s greatest lay benefactor was Anāthapiṇḍika, the wealthy banker. Indeed, many of the Buddha’s discourses were given at Anāthapiṇḍika’s park (donated to the saṅgha) located at Jeta’s Grove (a famous monastery) in Sāvatthī. There are special sermons composed especially for his benefit. When Anāthapiṇḍika was dying, he summoned the Buddha for the last time, and Sāriputta was sent to visit him. Out of compassion, and wishing Anāthapiṇḍika to be reborn in a higher place, Sāriputta revealed a teaching not normally taught to lay people, and Anāthapiṇḍika exclaimed in surprise in 11M/5.1 Anāthapiṇḍikovādasutta:

1116. When this was said, Anāthapiṇḍika the householder wept, shedding tears. Then Venerable Ānanda said to Anāthapiṇḍika the householder,

“Are you sinking, householder? Are you collapsing, householder?”

“I am not sinking, Venerable Ānanda, nor am I collapsing; but for a long time I have attended upon the Teacher and the bhikkhus who are dear to my mind; yet I have never before heard such a Dhamma talk.”

“Indeed, householder, such a Dhamma talk does not occur to householders wearing white clothes; such a Dhamma talk occurs to renunciants, householder.”

“Then, Venerable Sāriputta, let such a Dhamma talk occur to householders wearing white clothes too. For there are, venerable sir, young men of little dust in their eyes, who are perishing through not hearing the Dhamma; there will be those who understand the Dhamma.”

Buddhism spread rapidly across India during Asoka’s reign, to Sri Lanka, Burma and eventually to South East Asia. Buddhists claim that the structure and lineage of the saṅgha was mostly preserved throughout this process, but in reality the saṅgha underwent many changes and adaptations to local cultures and customs.

Theravāda Buddhist countries

For example, in one of the earliest anthropological studies of a Buddhist society (1960-1963), S.J. Tambiah in Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand describes how the saṅgha is integrated with village social structure in rural Thailand and the ideology of merit (bun). Ordaining and becoming a bhikkhu is less about a permanent renunciation of the world and more often a temporary rite of passage for young men before marriage. Buddhism in the Thai village does not exist in isolation but operates alongside spirit cults (phii) and Brahmanistic rituals.

Melford Spiro did a similar study in Burma in 1962, described in Buddhism and Society, where he observed that the saṅgha is part of a larger religious system that includes nat (spirit) worship, astrology, and various rituals. The monastic community plays a central role in village life, but the laity also engages in practices outside of orthodox Buddhism.

In both societies, the Buddha’s original soteriology of the cessation of suffering (dukkha) has shifted to the accumulation of merit (puñña) in order to facilitate a pleasurable future rebirth, primarily achieved through giving (dāna) and morality (sīla).

In Buddhist Precept and Practice, Richard Gombrich observed that the saṅgha in Sri Lanka has evolved from a fraternity of wanderers into a federation of settled monastic communities controlling communal property and temple lands. The integration of the saṅgha into a caste-ridden feudal society has caused division into fraternities (Nikāyas) often based on caste (e.g., the Siyam Nikāya restricts higher ordination to the Goigama or cultivator caste).

East Asian (Mahāyāna) Buddhism

As Buddhism evolved in India, a significant new movement known as the Mahāyāna or “Great Vehicle” emerged around the first century BCE. It contrasted itself with earlier schools (which it pejoratively termed Hīnayāna or “Lesser Vehicle”) by shifting the spiritual ideal from the arhat, who achieves individual liberation, to the bodhisattva, a compassionate being who vows to postpone their own final nirvāṇa to guide all other beings to enlightenment. This gave rise to new devotional practices centered on a vast pantheon of celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas, such as Amitābha and Avalokiteśvara, and profound philosophical developments like the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā).

When Mahāyāna Buddhism reached China via the Silk Road, it initially struggled against the strong worldly and family-oriented values of Confucianism. Over centuries, it adapted by developing complex scholastic schools like T’ien T’ai and Hua-yen for the intellectual elite, and the immensely popular Pure Land school, which offered salvation to the masses through simple, devotional chanting of Amitābha Buddha’s name. The most unique Chinese innovation was Chan (Zen), a tradition that rejected scholasticism and emphasized direct, personal insight through meditation.

During its “golden age” in the Tang dynasty (618–907 C.E.), Chan produced iconoclastic masters like Lin-chi, who famously urged his followers to “kill the Buddha” to avoid attachment to external forms. In this period, the saṅgha transformed into a powerful socio-economic institution. Major monasteries, through imperial patronage, accumulated vast, tax-exempt lands, ran businesses, acted as banks, and owned slaves and serfs. This worldly power ultimately led to a violent backlash. The great persecution of 842-845 destroyed thousands of temples, returned hundreds of thousands of monastics to lay life, and broke the power of all major schools except the more resilient Chan and Pure Land traditions.

From China, Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan, where it continued to evolve. In Japan, new forms emerged that appealed to the rising samurai class and the common people. This included the uniquely Japanese and fervent Nichiren school, centered on chanting devotion to the Lotus Sutra. Zen also flourished, splitting into two main lineages: the Soto school, founded by Dōgen, which emphasized “just sitting” (shikan taza) as the identity of practice and enlightenment; and the Rinzai school, revitalized by Hakuin, which focused on breaking down conceptual thought through the intense contemplation of paradoxical stories known as koans.

Tibetan (Vajrayāna) Buddhism

The last major innovation in Indian Buddhism was the Vajrayāna or “Diamond Vehicle,” a Tantric movement characterized by radical practitioners known as siddhas. They rejected conventional monasticism and sought rapid enlightenment by harnessing the energy of worldly passions through esoteric practices involving deity visualization, sacred diagrams (maṇḍalas), and empowered sounds (mantras). While Buddhism eventually died out in India, this Tantric form was successfully transmitted to Tibet, where it merged with the local Bön religion. Tibetan Buddhism developed unique features, such as its lineages of teachers (lāmas) and the system of identifying reincarnated masters (tulkus), the most famous being the Dalai Lama. For centuries, monasteries functioned as the centers of political and economic power, creating a unique religious feudal society.

For the average Tibetan, the saṅgha’s primary role was not to teach meditation for enlightenment in this life, but to provide ritual and magical protection from a world filled with hostile spirits, and to offer a means to accumulate merit (puñña) for a favorable rebirth.

Western Buddhism

The arrival of Buddhism in the West in the 20th century marked another profound transformation. James William Coleman, in The New Buddhism, charts the development of this new form, shaped by figures like Alan Watts, Shunryu Suzuki, and Chögyam Trungpa, and movements like Beat Zen, the Zen boom, and the spread of Vipassana. This “New Buddhism,” as Coleman describes it, is distinct from its Asian predecessors: it is predominantly a lay movement, demystified and democratized, with a strong focus on meditation practice and its psychological benefits rather than on ritual, merit, or cosmology. However, this adaptation has not been without turmoil. Coleman documents the significant crises that have rocked Western Buddhist communities, particularly around issues of sex, gender inequality, and the abuse of power by teachers, forcing a confrontation between ancient hierarchies and modern Western values.

A more recent and severe critique is offered by Glenn Wallis in A Critique of Western Buddhism. Wallis argues that this process of adaptation has gone too far, resulting in a “Buddhofiction” that pacifies rather than liberates. He contends that Western Buddhism has been co-opted by the logic of neoliberal capitalism, repackaging ancient practices as tools for “wellbeing” and “mindfulness” that help individuals become more resilient and productive workers, rather than challenging the fundamental causes of suffering. For Wallis, this “theater of Western Buddhism” has obscured the difficult, unsettling core of the “Buddhist Real” — the radical insights into suffering (dukkha), non-self (anātman), and emptiness (śūnyatā) — in favor of a comforting, therapeutic product that reinforces the very structures the original teachings sought to dismantle.

Issues with the saṅgha

As a result of Buddhism forking into various “sects”, the saṅgha today is no longer a unified community. The differences between the sects are such that a reconciliation seems unlikely. Whole books have been written on the reasons and the history of divisions in the way Buddhism is interpreted or practiced that I will not summarise here. Recently, “modern”, “humanistic” and “protestant” versions of Buddhism have surfaced, each with their own adherents.

However, cracks began to appear even during the Buddha’s lifetime. Although the ordaining as a monastic was meant to be a process supporting those who have renounced from worldly life, it became a career option for those who have no soteriological intentions but simply wished to have an “easy” life where they do not need to work, or have any responsibilities, and will be looked after as part of a community.

As we saw, monastic life will seem attractive compared to the life of a soldier, or a slave, and no doubt to others wishing to escape or be relieved of ordinary commitments.

According to Torkel Brekke in The Early Samgha and the Laity⁸, the relationship between the early Buddhist Saṃgha and the laity was shaped by a dynamic process that began with a “conversionist” phase, where the new religion actively and competitively sought converts with few restrictions. This openness attracted many individuals with “extrinsic motivation” who joined not for spiritual enlightenment but for worldly benefits such as escaping debt, military service, or poverty. As the laity began to criticize the Saṃgha for this lack of purity, threatening its essential material support, the order responded by developing “introversionist” characteristics. This involved withdrawing from the world by implementing stricter admission procedures, emphasizing internal unity through disciplinary rules, enforcing a distinct and dignified appearance for monks, and establishing physical separation in monasteries. This cultivation of purity and aloofness attracted greater lay support, which in turn made the Saṃgha an even more appealing refuge for the extrinsically motivated, creating a self-enforcing cycle that shaped the structure of Buddhist societies.

Although technically, monastics are not supposed to handle money, earn a living, or own property, the temptation became too much and ways were found circumventing these rules. Generous donations from benefactors include luxury items and property that were granted in perpetuity, so individual monastics had all the benefits of ownership without any of the drawbacks. Even “servants” were “gifted” to monastics, and technically these were slaves. The Buddha himself received the “gift” of hundreds of “servants” from King Bimbisāra - that amounts to an entire village.

The benefactor gains merit from the “donation”, the monastic gets free labour - everyone benefits except the poor slave. Even if the monastic then “frees” the slave, both the benefactor and the monastic benefit further from the “merit” of having freed a human being. All the slave got out of that was their freedom, which was their right in the first place.

Periodically, there were cries of “corruption” in the saṅgha from these “fake monastics” and ownership of property and human beings. Notably Asoka did a “cleansing purge” of a monastery, and there have been records of periodic cleanses or “purifications” in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand etc. but the problems continue to the present time. The history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Burma in particular appear to be one of decline, revival, amd state control, along with the fortunes of those countries. Even today, genocide and civil wars dominate the recent history of many so called “Buddhist” countries.

Gombrich describes the various issues related to the above in Theravāda Buddhism in chapters 6-8. Similar issues are described for Buddhism in Myanmar by Spiro in Buddhism and society.

Today the saṅgha survives but is mainly regarded as monastic communities of (primarily) bhikkhus, at least in the Theravadin tradition. The various groups of Theravadan bhikkhunis disappeared and although there are women today who regard themselves as bhikkhunis, wear ochre robes, and adhere to monastic rules (patimokkha), they are not necessarily formally recognised, as a bhikkhuni has to be ordained by other bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, and since there are no surviving properly ordained bhikhhunis, no bhikkhuni can be legally ordained, a view that is often criticised and widely debated. Bhikkhunis of other sects still exist, and are formally recognised as such.

It is unfortunate that Buddhism died out in India and today is a minority religion in that country, and usually portrayed as a variant of Hinduism. Johannes Bronkhorst in Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism Chapter 3 suggests that Buddhism lost political support compared to brahmanism and over time adopted or adapted to brahmanism practices. I venture to suppose that a desire to portray Buddhism in a favourable light compared to brahmanism potentially was one of the main reasons why the texts were altered and expanded as we saw earlier in the article. The main soteriological basis of Buddha’s teachings became obscured by passages extolling and exalting the Buddha, emphasising his supernatural skills and powers, and brahmanism practices were incorporated in the texts to demonstrate the Buddhism was at least comparable in stature. The volume of material expanded considerably to demonstrate the depth of Buddha’s teachings, even though the core messages were actually relatively concise. Increasinglly, verse was used to convey abstract concepts, again possibly to convey depth and mysticism, even though the Buddha himself advised against using verse. In Khuddakavatthukkhandhaka Kd 15 PTS 2.105–2.145 33.1.13 the Buddha states:

1192. Now at that time, two bhikkhus named Yameḷa and Kekuṭa, who were brothers of brahmin birth, with beautiful voices and beautiful elocution, approached the Blessed One. Having approached, having paid homage to the Blessed One, they sat down to one side. Seated to one side, those bhikkhus said this to the Blessed One:

“Now, venerable sir, bhikkhus of various names, various clans, various castes, various families have gone forth. They corrupt the word of the Buddha with their own dialects. Come now, venerable sir, let us put the word of the Buddha into verse.”

The Buddha, the Blessed One, rebuked them…

“How can you, foolish men, say such a thing: ‘Come now, venerable sir, let us put the word of the Buddha into verse?”

“This, foolish men, is not for the conviction of those who are unconvinced, etc.”

Having rebuked them, etc., having given a Dhamma talk, he addressed the bhikkhus:

Bhikkhave, the word of the Buddha should not be put into verse. Whoever does so, commits an offense of wrong conduct. I allow, bhikkhus, to learn the word of the Buddha in one’s own dialect.”

18Dh Dhammapada is a very popular collection of inspirational verses, as people are drawn by the inherent beauty of the verse and the metaphors, even though the actual content can be rather opaque. It is a very problematic text.

First of all, it is a late collection, and almost certainly composed after the Buddha died. It can also be ambiguous in meaning and intent and difficult to parse in parts. There are significant variations in the various versions of Dhammapada or it’s equivalents across the canonical collections. And finally, not all of the Dhammapada may have been Buddhist in intent, as some contents appear to be aligned with non-Buddhist text, eg. the Mahabharatha, so it seems likely the Dhammapada is a collection of verse sourced from many places, and may not always reflect the Buddha’s teachings. Von Wilhelm Rau has done an analysis of parallels between the Dhammapada and other texts, including non-Buddhist texts, in Bemerkungenund Nicht-Buddhisti-Schesanskrit-Parallelenzum Pāli-Dhammapada, from Jñānamuktāvalī, International Academy of Indian Culture, New Dehli (1963).

And thus we come full circle: the very practices and beliefs that the Buddha would have refuted have gradually seeped into and have become part of buddhavacana.

The evolution (and devolution) of Buddha's teachings

Therefore, it is no surprise that Buddhism has become less and less effective over years, and there are currently no generally acknowledged arahant, or enlightened person. Therefore Buddhism in a sense can be regarded as a failed religion.

The failure of Buddhism?

Theravāda Buddhism The Social Conditions Of His Day pp. 49-56. Interestingly, Johannes Bronkhorst in Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism presents a counter-opinion, that “the Brahmins, did not occupy a dominant position in the area in which the Buddha preached his message” and that Brahmanism didn’t really spread until after the reign of Asoka. This would imply all the brahmanical references found in the Tipiṭaka must be from a later period when Buddhism found itself in competition with Brahmanism. ↩
Theravāda Buddhism To whom did the Buddha’s message appeal? pp. 56-60 ↩
7D/3.35 Tathāgatapacchimavācā: Ākaṅkhamāno, ānanda, saṅgho mamaccayena khuddānukhuddakāni sikkhāpadāni samūhanatu. (If they wish, Ānanda, the Saṅgha may abolish the minor and lesser training rules after my passing away.) ↩
Frauwallner, Erich (1956), The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature, Rome., p. 3 and chap. 4. ↩
3V/1.27 Rājabhaṭavatthu ↩
3V/1.34 Dāsavatthu ↩
3V/3.2 Vassānecārikāpaṭikkhepādi: Tena kho pana samayena rājā māgadho seniyo bimbisāro vassaṁ ukkaḍḍhitukāmo bhikkhūnaṁ santike dūtaṁ pāhesi — “yadi panāyyā āgame juṇhe vassaṁ upagaccheyyun”ti. (At that time, King Seniya Bimbisāra of Magadha, wishing to postpone the rainy season retreat, sent a messenger to the bhikkhus, saying, “Can you undertake the rainy season retreat in the coming fortnight?”) ↩
Brekke, Torkel (1997). The Early Saṃgha and the laity. Journal of the international Association of Buddhist studies, 7-32. ↩