The modern period has been a period of significant development in
the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology. It has also
been an Age of Discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, strengthened their political, economic, and cultural colonization
of the rest of the world. It also created a new modern lifestyle and
has permanently changed the way people around the world live.
In the 19th and early 20th century, modernist
art, politics, science, and culture have come to dominate not only
Western Europe and North America, but almost every area on the globe,
including movements thought of as opposed to the western world and globalization. The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, socialism, urbanization and a belief in the positive possibilities of technological and political progress.
The term "modern" was coined shortly before 1585 to describe the beginning of a new era.
The term "early modern" was introduced in the English language by
American historians at the turn of the 20th century (around 1900). It was long thought that the concept was invented either in the 1930s
to distinguish the time between the Middle Ages and time of the late
Enlightenment (1800), or that "early modern" was not coined until the mid-20th century and only gained substantial traction in the 1960s and 1970s. Nipperdey (2022) pointed to its widespread usage by American historians
around 1900 already, adding: 'In the interwar years the term permeated
all areas of professional activity from textbooks and graduate school
seminars to conferences, research articles, and job descriptions.' The difference between "early modern" and just "modern" was defined by the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
Sometimes distinct from the modern periods themselves, the terms "modernity" and "modernism" refer to a new way of thinking, distinct, from previous ways of thinking such as medieval thinking.
The European Renaissance (about 1420–1630) is an important transition period beginning between the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, which started in Italy.
"Postmodernism",
coined 1949, on the other hand, would describe rather a movement in art
than a period of history, and is usually applied to arts, but not to
any events of the very recent history. This changed, when postmodernity was coined to describe the major changes in the 1950s and 1960s in economy, society, culture, and philosophy.
These terms stem from European History; in worldwide usage, such
as in China, India, and Islam, the terms are applied in a very different
way, but often in the context with their contact with European culture
in the Age of Discoveries.
Characteristics
Changes, mostly seen as advances, in all areas of human activity—politics, industry, society, economics, commerce, transport, communication, mechanization, automation, science, medicine, technology, religion, the arts, and other aspects of culture—appear to have transformed an Old World into the Modern or New World. In each case, the identification of the change over time can be used to demarcate the old and old-fashioned from the modern.
Starting in western countries, the modern world has seen a systematic re-evaluation of value systems, monarchical regimes, and feudal
economic systems. These have often been replaced by democratic and
liberal ideas in the areas of politics, science, psychology, sociology,
and economics.
Some events of modern history, though born out of context not
entirely new, show a new way of perceiving the world. The concept of
modernity interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks
explanations for major developments. Historians analyze the events taking place in Modern Times, since the so-called "Middle Ages" (between Modern and Ancient Times).
During this century, the Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman Empires
began to decline. The Ottoman Empire suffered territorial losses in the
eastern Mediterranean and Balkans. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by Emperor Francis II. The Mughal Empire effectively ended after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Napoleonic era, regarded as the fourth phase of the French Revolution, began with Napoleon’s coup in 1799 and ended with his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The subsequent Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) sought to restore the pre-Revolutionary balance of power across Europe.
A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine
started the industrial revolution in England. The steam engine was
created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened
beyond groundwater levels.
The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural change in late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. During that time, an economy based on manual labour
was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of
machinery. It began with the mechanisation of the textile industries and
the development of iron-making techniques, and trade expansion was
enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads, and then railways. The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity. The development of all-metal machine tools
in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the
manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other
industries.
The date of the Industrial Revolution is not exact. Eric Hobsbawm held that it "broke out" in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830 (in effect the reigns of George III, The Regency, and George IV).
The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America
during the 19th century, eventually affecting the majority of the world.
The impact of this change on society was enormous and is often compared
to the Neolithic Revolution, when mankind developed agriculture and gave up its nomadic lifestyle.
The First Industrial Revolution gave way to the Second Industrial Revolution
around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum
with the development of steam-powered ships and railways, and later in
the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electric power generation.
Late 19th century
Following the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire became the world's leading power, controlling one-quarter of the world's population and one-third of the land area. It enforced a Pax Britannica, encouraged trade, and battled rampant piracy.
Slavery was greatly reduced around the world. Following a successful slave revolt in Haiti, Britain forced the Barbary pirates to halt their practice of kidnapping and enslaving Europeans, passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which banned slavery throughout its domain, and charged its navy with ending the global slave trade. Slavery was then abolished in Russia in 1861, by the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States in 1863, and in Brazil in 1888.
Following the abolition of the slave trade, and propelled by economic exploitation, the Scramble for Africa was initiated formally at the Berlin West Africa Conference in 1884–1885. All the major European powers laid claim to the areas of Africa where
they could exhibit a sphere of influence over the area. These claims did
not have to have any substantial land holdings or treaties to be
legitimate. The French gained major ground in West Africa, the British in East Africa, and the Portuguese and Spanish at various points throughout the continent, while Leopold II of Belgium was able to retain his personal fiefdom, Congo.
While earlier centuries also saw significant developments, the 20th century was distinguished by the unprecedented pace and global scale of economic, technological, and cultural changes.
Still, advancing technology and medicine have had a great impact even in the Global South.
Large-scale industry and more centralized media made brutal
dictatorships possible on an unprecedented scale in the middle of the
century, leading to wars that were also unprecedented. However, the increased communications contributed to democratization.
Major political developments included the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, two world wars, and the Cold War. It also saw the former British Empire lose most of its remaining
political power over Commonwealth countries, most notably by the
dividing of the British crown into several sovereignties by the Statute of Westminster, the patriation of constitutions by the Canada Act 1982, and the Australia Act 1986, as well as the independence of countries like India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Ireland.
The First World War was a world conflict, ranging from July 1914 to the final Armistice on 11 November 1918. The Allied Powers, led by the British Empire, France, Russia until March 1918, Japan and the United States after 1917, defeated the Central Powers, led by the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
The war caused the disintegration of four empires – the
Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian ones – as well as radical
change in the European and Middle Eastern maps. The Allied powers
before 1917 are sometimes referred to as the Triple Entente, and the Central Powers are sometimes referred to as the Triple Alliance.
Much of the fighting in World War I took place along the Western Front, within a system of opposing manned trenches and fortifications (separated by a "no man's land") running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. On the Eastern Front,
the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench
warfare stalemate from developing, although the scale of the conflict
was just as large. Hostilities also occurred on and under the sea and –
for the first time – from the air. More than 9 million soldiers died on
the various battlefields, and nearly that many more in the
participating countries' home fronts on account of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts. Notably, more people died of the worldwide influenza outbreak
at the end of the war and shortly after than died in the hostilities.
The unsanitary conditions engendered by the war, severe overcrowding in
barracks, wartime propaganda interfering with public health warnings,
and migration of so many soldiers around the world helped the outbreak
become a pandemic.
Ultimately, World War I created a decisive break with the old world order
that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, which was modified by the
mid-19th century's nationalistic revolutions. The results of World War I
would be important factors in the development of World War II approximately 20 years later.
The Interwar period was the period between the end of World War I in
1918 and the beginning of World War II in 1939. It included the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the rise of communism in Russia and fascism in Italy and Germany.
World War II was a globalmilitary conflict that took place in 1939–1945. It was the largest and deadliest war in history, culminating in The Holocaust and ending with the dropping of the atom bomb.
Although Japan had invaded China in 1937, the conventional view is that World War II began on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany
invaded Poland. Within two days, the United Kingdom and France declared
war on Germany, even though the fighting was confined to Poland.
Pursuant to a then-secret provision of its non-aggression Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union joined Germany on 17 September 1939, to conquer Poland and divide Eastern Europe. The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, as well as British Commonwealth countries which were controlled directly by the UK, such as the Indian Empire. All of these countries declared war on Germany in September 1939.
Following the lull in fighting, known as the "Phoney War",
Germany invaded western Europe in May 1940. Six weeks later, France, in
the meantime attacked by Italy as well, surrendered to Germany, which
then tried unsuccessfully to conquer Britain. On 27 September, Germany,
Italy, and Japan signed a mutual defense agreement, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis Powers.
Nine months later, on 22 June 1941, Germany launched a massive invasion
of the Soviet Union, which prompted it to join the Allies. Germany was
now engaged in fighting a war on two fronts.
On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor,
bringing it too into the war on the side of the Allies. China also
joined the Allies, as did most of the rest of the world. China was in
turmoil at the time and attacked Japanese armies through guerrilla-type
warfare. By the beginning of 1942, the alignment of the major combatants
was as follows: the British Commonwealth, the Soviet Union, and the
United States were fighting Germany and Italy; China, the British
Commonwealth, and the United States were fighting Japan. The United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China were
referred to as a "trusteeship of the powerful" during World War II and were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in the Declaration by United Nations. These four countries were considered the "Four Policemen" or "Four Sheriffs" of the Allies and were the primary victors of World War II. Battles raged across all of Europe, in the north Atlantic Ocean, across
North Africa, throughout Southeast Asia, throughout China, across the
Pacific Ocean, and in the air over Japan. Italy surrendered in September
1943 and was split into a northern Germany-occupied puppet state and an Allies-friendly state in the south; Germany surrendered in May 1945. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, marking the end of the war on 2 September 1945.
It is possible that around 62 million people died in the war; estimates vary greatly. About 60% of all casualties were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust), and aerial bombing. The former Soviet Union and China suffered the most casualties.
Estimates place deaths in the Soviet Union at around 23 million, while
China suffered about 10 million. No country lost a greater portion of
its population than Poland: approximately 5.6 million, or 16%, of its
pre-war population of 34.8 million died. The Holocaust (which roughly means "burnt whole") was the deliberate
and systematic murder of millions of Jews and other "unwanted" groups
during World War II by the Nazi regime in Germany. Several differing
views exist regarding whether it was intended to occur from the war's
beginning or if the plans for it came about later. Regardless,
persecution of Jews extended well before the war even started, such as
during Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). The Nazis used propaganda to great effect to stir up anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.
After World War II, Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. Western Europe later aligned as NATO, and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact. There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. These two rivals would later face off in the Cold War. In Asia, the defeat of Japan led to its democratization. China's civil war
continued through and after the war, eventually resulting in the
establishment of the People's Republic of China. The former colonies of
the European powers began their road to independence.
The Cold War
between the "West" (the United States, Western Europe, and Japan) and
the "East" (the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China) dominated
politics from the end of World War II in 1945, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at which point the Cold War ended and the post–Cold War era began (which includes most of the 1990s, the last decade of the 20th century).
At the end of the twentieth century, the world was at a major
crossroads. Throughout the century, more technological advances had been
made than in all of preceding history. Computers, the Internet, and
other technologies radically altered daily lives. However, several problems faced the world during the Cold War period and the 1990s that followed.
First of all, the gap between rich and poor nations continued to
widen. Some said that this problem could not be fixed, arguing that
there was a set amount of wealth and it could only be shared by so many. Others claimed that powerful nations with large economies were not
doing enough to help improve the rapidly evolving economies of the Third World. Developing countries faced many challenges, including the scale of the
task to be surmounted, rapidly growing populations, and the need to
protect the environment, along with the associated costs.
Secondly, disease threatened to destabilize many regions of the world. Viruses such as West Nile and Avian influenza continued to spread quickly and easily. In poor nations, malaria and other diseases affected the majority of the population. Millions were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, which was becoming an epidemic in southern Africa and around the world.
Increased globalization, specifically Americanization, was also occurring. While not necessarily a threat, it was causing anti-Western and anti-American feelings in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East. English was quickly becoming the global language, with people who did not speak it becoming increasingly disadvantaged.
Terrorism, dictatorship, and the spread of nuclear weapons were also issues requiring immediate attention. Dictators such as Kim Jong-il in North Korea continued to lead their nations toward the development of nuclear weapons. The fear existed that not only were terrorists already attempting to
obtain nuclear weapons, but that they had already acquired them.
Buddhism and violence looks at the historical and current examples of violent
acts committed by Buddhists or groups connected to Buddhism, as well as
the larger discussion of such behaviour within Buddhist traditions.
Although Buddhism is generally seen as a religion that promotes compassion, nonviolence (ahimsa), and the reduction of suffering,
there have been instances throughout its history where violence has
been condoned or carried out in the name of Buddhist organisations or
ideals. These include instances of Buddhist players participating in
nationalist movements, sectarian conflicts, and monastic support for
military actions.
Whether these incidents show how religion interacts with
political, cultural, and social forces or whether they are departures
from the essential teachings of Buddhism is a matter of debate among
scholars. Examining how Buddhist teaching is interpreted and applied in
various historical and geographical circumstances is still a focus of
scholarly investigation.
According to one analysis, Buddhist violence tends to occur when
the state and Buddhism are closely intertwined, as it emboldens Buddhist
vigilantes to attack religious minorities.
Teachings, interpretations, and practices
Bhikkhus, even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb
with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them
would not be carrying out my teaching.
— Kakacūpama Sutta, Majjhima-Nikāya 28 at MN i 128-29
Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha.
Nirvana is the oldest and most common term for the end goal of the Buddhist path and the ultimate eradication of duḥkha—nature of life that innately includes "suffering", "pain", or "unsatisfactoriness". Violent actions and thoughts—actions that harm and debase others and
thoughts that contemplate the same—stand in the way of spiritual growth
and the self-conquest that leads to the goal of existence, and they are
normally deemed unskilled (akusala) and cannot lead to the goal of
Nirvana. Buddha condemned killing or harming living beings and
encouraged reflection or mindfulness (satipatthana)
as right action (or conduct), therefore "the rightness or wrongness of
an action centers around whether the action itself would bring about
harm to self and/or others". In the Ambalatthika-Rahulovada Sutta, the
Buddha says to Rahula:
If you, Rahula, are desirous of
doing a deed with the body, you should reflect on the deed with the
body, thus: That deed which I am desirous of doing with the body is a
deed of the body that might conduce to the harm of self and that might
conduce to the harm of others and that might conduce to the harm of
both; this deed of body is unskilled (akusala), its yield is anguish,
its result is anguish.
The right action or right conduct (samyak-karmānta / sammā-kammanta) is the fourth aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path
and it said that the practitioner should train oneself to be morally
upright in one's activities, not acting in ways that would be corrupt or
bring harm to oneself or to others. In the Chinese and Pali Canon, it is explained as:
And what is right action? Abstaining from taking life, from stealing, and from illicit sex [or sexual misconduct]. This is called right action.
— Saccavibhanga Sutta
For the lay follower, the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta elaborates:
And how is one made pure in three
ways by bodily action? There is the case where a certain person,
abandoning the taking of life, abstains from the taking of life. He
dwells with his... knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, compassionate
for the welfare of all living beings. Abandoning the taking of what is
not given, he abstains from taking what is not given. He does not take,
in the manner of a thief, things in a village or a wilderness that
belong to others and have not been given by them.
Sarambha can be translated as "accompanied by violence". As
the mind filled with lobha, dosa and moha (lust, hatred and delusion) is
led to actions which are akusala. Indulging in violence is a form of
self-harming. The rejection of violence in society is recognized in Buddhism as a
prerequisite for the spiritual progress of society's members, because
violence brings pain to beings with similar feelings to oneself. The
Buddha is quoted in the Dhammapada
as saying, "All are afraid of the stick, all hold their lives dear.
Putting oneself in another's place, one should not beat or kill others". Metta (loving kindness), the development of mindstates of limitless good-will for all beings, and karuna, compassion
that arises when you see someone suffering of the human being, are
attitudes said to be excellent or sublime because they are the right or
ideal way of conduct towards living beings (sattesu samma patipatti). The Sutta Nipata says "'As I am, so are these. As are these, so am I.' Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill."
In Buddhism, to take refuge in the Dharma—one of the Three Jewels—one should not harm other sentient beings. The Nirvana Sutra states, "By taking refuge in the precious Dharma, One's minds should be free from hurting or harming others". One of the Five Precepts of Buddhist ethics or śīla states, "I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing." The Buddha reportedly stated, "Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live
in pain. Happily the peaceful live giving up victory and defeat."These elements are used to indicate Buddhism is pacifistic and all violence done by Buddhists, even monks, is likely due to economic or political reasons.
The teaching of right speech (samyag-vāc / sammā-vācā)
in the Noble Eightfold Path, condemn all speech that is in any way
harmful (malicious and harsh speech) and divisive, encouraging to speak
in thoughtful and helpful ways. The Pali Canon explained:
And what is right speech?
Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and
from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
Michael Jerryson, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Ohio's Youngstown State University and co-editor of the book Buddhist Warfare,
said that "Buddhism differs in that the act of killing is less the
focus than the 'intention' behind the killing" and "The first thing to
remember is that people have a penchant for violence, it just so happens
that every religion has people in it."
Gananath Obeyesekere, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University,
said that "in the Buddhist doctrinal tradition... there is little
evidence of intolerance, no justification for violence, no conception
even of 'just wars' or 'holy wars.' ... one can make an assertion that
Buddhist doctrine is impossible to reconcile logically with an ideology
of violence and intolerance"
"Killing to save lives" is, uniquely amongst Buddhist schools,
considered justified by certain Mahayana scriptures such as the
Upaya-kaushalya Sutra, where, in a past life, Shakyamuni Buddha kills a
robber intent on mass murder on a ship (with the intent both of saving
the lives of the passengers and saving the robber from bad karma). K. Sri Dhammananda taught warfare is accepted as a last resort, quoting the Buddha's conversation with a soldier. The 14th Dalai Lama has also spoken on when it is permissible to kill another person. During a lecture he was giving at Harvard University
in 2009, the Dalai Lama invoked the Upaya-kaushalya Sutra and said that
"wrathful forceful action" motivated by compassion, may be "violence on
a physical level" but is "essentially nonviolence", and we must be
careful to understand what "nonviolence" means. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden
in 2011, the Dalai Lama endorsed his killing, stating "Forgiveness
doesn't mean forget what happened. ... If something is serious and it is
necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures." During a question panel in 2015, in which he was asked if it would be justified to kill Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao while they were early into their campaigns of genocide, the Dalai Lama stated that it would be justified, so long as they were not killed in anger.
In addition capital punishment for murder is justified according
to this interpretation of Buddhism because the Judge is not seen as
causing death but rather the actions of the murderer executed are.
There is also in Buddhism a long tradition of self-inflicted violence and death, as a form of asceticism or protest, as exemplified by the use of fires and burns to show determinations
among Chinese monks, by the self-immolations of monks such as Thích Quảng Đức during the Vietnam war or Tibetan monks in support of Tibetan independence.
Kittivuddho (see, Kittiwuttho, spelling in translation varies) was a
staunch follower of the Thai Sangha - the religious organization that
leads the Buddhist movement in Thailand. The Sangha
offers validity to the Thai government. If the ruling body shows fealty
to the Sangha, then their actions are seen as legitimized and moral via
the association. Likewise, the Sangha receives power and influence
through the recognition of their partnership with the ruling government.
Thai Buddhist Flag
In the 1900s, the outbreak of World War 1 impacted then King of Siam, King Rama VI.
Rama VI had studied and trained with the military in London, and thus
felt it necessary to show his support for the allied forces. Thailand
would not have been affected by the fighting in the West, nevertheless,
Siam sent a voluntary cohort of 1,200 troops. Although they arrived too
late to participate in the fighting, Rama VI received critical feedback
from Abbot Phra Thep Moli Sirichantoe.
The Abbot's critique of Rama VI's decision - published in a book criticizing military knowledge as "evil", was likewise counter-critiqued by the Supreme Patriarch
(at the time, Rama VI's uncle). The Supreme Patriarch brought attention
to the concept of sacrifice in Buddhist teachings, and thus likened it
to the sacrifice soldiers must make in defense of their homeland. In so
doing, he used the teachings of Buddha to justify the violence thought
necessary to protect a nation or culture in times of war, and the need
to prepare for war in times of peace.
Thai
Buddhist Monks blessing the primary pillar of a school during Exercise
Cobra Gold - a set of humanitarian exercises in Thailand
The Supreme Patriarch likened the King's decisions to the necessary
role of the leader or protector of a group or family to take the risk in
leading others. The Supreme Patriarch quoted an ancient saying, "When a herd of cattle
is fording a stream, if the leading ox leads straight, all the oxen will
follow straight." Additionally, he compared the role of king or leader to that of a
parent, who must ensure a child takes bitter medicine in times of
illness. In so doing, he supports his argument that the King knew better
than the Abbot, or than the citizenry, in his choice to supply soldiers
to the Western Conflict in World War I.
These arguments, based in ancient proverb and justified through
Buddhist relations of sacrifice, directly strike against the ancient
story of Temija
- a past life of Buddha that was shocked and appalled by the use of
violence by governing leaders. While the story of Temija teaches against
the use of violence in forms of punishment, the Supreme Patriarch
instead utilized the concepts of sacrifice put forth through other
Buddhist teachings to justify the use of violence by leaders, even to
the point that violence for the sake of the nation would be viewed as
virtuous.
1970s Thai Buddhism:
In the 1970s, Kittivuddho - a prominent Buddhist monk with influence in Thai culture - stated in an interview with Caturat
(a news magazine from the period) that killing communists is, "not
de-meritorius". Kittivuddho's assertion that the killing of Communists
is forgiveable for Buddhists reflects earlier philosophies from Asanga
and Buddhaghosa. Against the assertions sixty years prior of Phra Thep
Moli, Kittivuddho did not see acts of violence and killing as a demerit
within certain contexts.
These remarks followed the 1973 student-led uprising, as well as
the creation of a Thai parliament and the spread of communism in
neighboring East Asian countries. The fear of communism shaking the
social forms of Thailand felt a very real threat to Kittivuddho, who
expressed his nationalist tendencies in his defense of militant actions. He justified his argument by dehumanizing the Communists and leftists that he opposed. In the interview with Caturat he affirmed that this would not be the killing of people, but rather the killing of monsters/devils. He similarly asserted that while killing of people is prohibited and
thus de-meritorious in Buddhist teachings, doing so for the "greater
good" will garner greater merit than the act of killing will cost.
Kittivuddho's statements in the 1970s reflect the argument made
in defense of King Rama VI by the Supreme Patriarch following the events
of WWI. Kittivuddho, likewise, justifies his approval of the killing of
communists by claiming that in so doing, the soldiers who commit these
acts will gain greater merit than they will lose from the act. Like the
Supreme Patriarch, he utilizes the concept of sacrifice for the sake of
defending, "the country, the religion, and the institution of monarchy."
"He taught us to kill. Venerable sirs, you are likely to be
suspicious about this teaching. I will tell you the sutta and you can
investigate: (It is) the Kesi-sutta in the Kesiya-vagga, the
sutta-nipitaka, anguttara-nikaya, catu-kaka-nipata. If you open (this
text) venerable sirs, you will find that the Lord Buddha ordered
killing."
Kittivuddho, Gillberg, Christina 2006
Feelings of patriotism and the sense of national security are valued
more highly than human lives in Kittivuddho's argument. Since defending
the nation becomes the highest priority, or highest "value" for Thai
Buddhist philosophy, the act of killing is seen as a sacrifice made by
the killer, but one that is justified. By manipulating the literal
definition of the words within Buddhist scriptures, Kittivuddho was able
to support his position.
Thailand in the 2000s
Religious tensions in Thailand are directly related to the state's choice to represent Buddhism as the de facto state religion. The Thai monk is no longer only a Thai practitioner of Buddhism, but a
figure for the Thai state. As the Thai monk has become an iconic
representative of the Thai nation state, the refusal to acknowledge
and/or the mistreatment of other religious practitioners in Thailand has
resulted in strained relationships between religions. Such as in the
early 2000s, when conflict between Malay Muslims (citizens and
militants) began to rise in the southernmost provinces of Thailand, and
less so between Thai Buddhist and Thai-Chinese Buddhists.
This rise in militant interactions rose with prominent events in
2004, and continued to build. On April 28th, 2004, the Thai military
assaulted the Khru Se Mosque, resulting in over 100 deaths of militant
Malay Muslims. That same October, peacefully protesting Malay Muslim
citizens were met with intense police brutality, wherein the Thai
military fired upon and suffocated as many as 80 Malay Muslim citizens
In recent years the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the military regime of Burma
from 1988 to 2011, had strongly encouraged the conversion of ethnic
minorities, often by force, as part of its campaign of assimilation. The
regime promoted a vision of Burmese Buddhist nationalism as a cultural
and a political ideology to legitimise its contested rule, trying to
bring a religious syncretism between Buddhism and its totalitarian ideology.
The Saffron Revolution,
a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that
took place during 2007, were led by students, political activists,
including women, and Buddhist monks and took the form of a campaign of nonviolent resistance, sometimes also called civil resistance.
In response to the protests dozens of protesters were arrested or
detained. Starting in September 2007 the protests were led by thousands
of Buddhist monks, and those protests were allowed to proceed until a
renewed government crackdown in late September 2007. At least 184 protesters were shot and killed and many were tortured. Under the SPDC, the Burmese army engaged in military offensives against ethnic minority populations, committing acts that violated international humanitarian law.
Flag of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army
Myanmar had become a stronghold of Buddhist aggression and such acts are spurred by hardline nationalistic monks. The oldest militant organisation active in the region is Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), headed by a Buddhist monk U Thuzana, since 1992. In the recent years the monks, and the terrorist acts, are associated with the nationalist 969 Movement particularly in Myanmar and neighboring nations. The violence reached prominence in June 2012 when more than 200 people were killed and around 100,000 were displaced. As of 2012, the "969" movement by monks (the prominent among whom is Wirathu) had helped create anti-Islamic nationalist movements in the region, and have urged Myanmar Buddhists to boycott Muslim services and trades, resulting in persecution of Muslims in Burma by Buddhist-led mobs. However, not all of the culprits were Buddhists and the motives were as much economic as religious. On 20 June 2013, Wirathu was mentioned on the cover story of Time magazine as "The Face of Buddhist Terror". According to the Human Rights Watch report, the Burmese government and local authorities played a key role in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya people
and other Muslims in the region. The report further specifies the
coordinated attacks of October 2012 that were carried out in different
cities by Burmese officials, community leaders and Buddhist monks to
terrorize and forcibly relocate the population. The violence of Meiktila, Lashio (2013) and Mandalay (2014) are the latest Buddhist violence in Burma.
Michael Jerryson, author of several books heavily critical of
Buddhism's traditional peaceful perceptions, stated that, "The Burmese
Buddhist monks may not have initiated the violence but they rode the
wave and began to incite more. While the ideals of Buddhist canonical
texts promote peace and pacifism, discrepancies between reality and
precepts easily flourish in times of social, political and economic
insecurity, such as Myanmar's current transition to democracy."
However several Buddhist leaders including Thích Nhất Hạnh, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Shodo Harada and the Dalai Lama
among others condemned the violence against Muslims in Myanmar and
called for peace, supporting the practice of the fundamental Buddhist
principles of non-harming, mutual respect and compassion. The Dalai Lama
said "Buddha always teaches us about forgiveness, tolerance,
compassion. If from one corner of your mind, some emotion makes you want
to hit, or want to kill, then please remember Buddha's faith. We are
followers of Buddha." He said that "All problems must be solved through
dialogue, through talk. The use of violence is outdated, and never
solves problems."
Maung Zarni, a Burmese democracy advocate, human rights campaigner, and a research fellow at the London School of Economics who has written on the violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, states that there is no room for fundamentalism in Buddhism. "No Buddhist can be nationalistic",
said Zarni, "There is no country for Buddhists. I mean, no such thing
as 'me,' 'my' community, 'my' country, 'my' race or even 'my' faith."
South Asia
India
Ashokavadana (a text from 3rd cent CE) states that there was a mass killing of Ajivikas for drawing a figure of the Buddha bowing down to the Nataputta by Emperor Ashoka in which around 18,000 Ajivikas were killed. However this account is controversial. According to K. T. S. Sarao and Benimadhab Barua, stories of persecutions of rival sects by Ashoka appear to be a clear fabrication arising out of sectarian propaganda. At that time, the custom of representing Buddha in human form had not started, and the text conflates Nirgranthas and Ajivikas.
Buddhism in Sri Lanka has a unique history and has played an important role in the shaping of Sinhalese nationalist identity. Consequently, politicized Buddhism has contributed to ethnic tensions and protracted social conflict in the island between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population and other minorities, especially the Tamils.
Statues of Buddha in Dambulla, Sri Lanka
Violence in Sri Lanka
pertaining to Buddhism has been present for decades. This violence
originated years ago with the persecution of the Tamil people by the
Sinhalese majority. However, after years of discrimination, the Tamil
formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) which fought for the North-East region of Sri Lanka which would
become an independent state for the Tamil population. This civil war
continued for three decades and claimed the lives of roughly 40,000
people by the end. The war ended in May 2009 when the majority Sinhalese
government killed LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. After the war, three predominant groups remained in Sri Lanka: the Sinhalese (mostly Buddhist), who accounted for 70% of the population, the Tamils (largely Hindu, with a Christian minority) at 10%, and another 10% who were Muslim. Since Sri Lanka has not stated a national language or religion,
Buddhist nationalism began to rise with the fear of Muslims dominating
Buddhism. The nationalist organization is called the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) which is led by Galagoda Aththe Gnanasat.
One of the first major examples of persecution against Muslims
was on September 10, 2011 when Buddhist monks destroyed a 300 year old
Muslim shrine in Anuradhapura. Although police officers were present during the attack, none intervened.
On April 20, 2012, roughly 2000 Buddhist protested outside a
mosque in Dambulla because the building stood on a sacred site for Sri
Lankan Buddhists. These protests caused the mosque to cancel prayers due
to threats from Buddhist nationalists, but on the following Sunday,
Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne ordered to have the mosque relocated from the sacred site. Since then, the BBS has taken on a new form of persecution by using
slogans and propaganda as a way of discriminating against Muslims in Sri
Lanka.
With the recent April 2019 Easter bombings orchestrated by
Islamic terrorists that claimed the lives of over 250 and injured over
500 Sri Lankans, Muslims in Sri Lanka have faced more danger than ever
before from the police and Buddhist nationalists.
Mytho-historical roots
The mytho-historical accounts in the Sinhalese Buddhist national chronicle Mahavamsa
('Great Chronicle'), a non-canonical text written in the sixth century
CE by Buddhist monks to glorify Buddhism in Sri Lanka, have been
influential in the creation of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and militant Buddhism. The Mahavamsa states that Lord Buddha
made three visits to Sri Lanka in which he rids the island of forces
inimical to Buddhism and instructs deities to protect the ancestors of
the Sinhalese (Prince Vijaya and his followers from North India) to enable the establishment and flourishing of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This myth has led to the widely held Sinhalese Buddhist belief that the
country is Sihadipa (island of the Sinhalese) and Dhammadipa (the
island ennobled to preserve and propagate Buddhism). In other words, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists maintain that they are the Buddha's chosen people, and that the island of Sri Lanka is the Buddhist promised land. The Mahavamsa also describes an account of the Buddhist warrior king Dutugamunu, his army, and 500 Buddhist monks battling and defeating the Tamil king Elara, who had come from South India and usurped power in Anuradhapura (the island's capital at the time). When Dutugamunu laments over the thousands he has killed, the eight arhats
(Buddha's enlightened disciples) who come to console him reply that no
real sin has been committed by him because he has only killed Tamil
unbelievers who are no better than beasts, then go on to say: "thou wilt
bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha in manifold ways; therefore
cast away care from the heart, O ruler of men". But the casualties mentioned in Mahavamsa is greatly exaggerated.
The Dutugamunu's campaign against king Elara was not to defeat
injustice, as the Mahavamsa describes Elara as a good ruler, but to
restore Buddhism through a united Sri Lanka under a Buddhist monarch,
even by the use of violence. The Mahavamsa story about Buddha's visit to Sri Lanka where he
(referred to as the "Conqueror") subdues forces inimical to Buddhism,
the Yakkhas
(depicted as the non-human inhabitants of the island), by striking
"terror to their hearts" and driving them from their homeland, so that
his doctrine should eventually "shine in glory", has been described as
providing the warrant for the use of violence for the sake of Buddhism
and as an account that is in keeping with the general message of the
author that the political unity of Sri Lanka under Buddhism requires the
removal of uncooperative groups.
According to Neil DeVotta (an Associate Professor of Political
Science), the mytho-history described in the Mahavamsa "justifies
dehumanizing non-Sinhalese, if doing so is necessary to preserve,
protect, and propagate the dhamma (Buddhist doctrine). Furthermore, it legitimizes a just war doctrine, provided that war is waged to protect Buddhism. Together with the Vijaya myth,
it introduces the bases for the Sinhalese Buddhist belief that Lord
Buddha designated the island of Sri Lanka as a repository for Theravada Buddhism.
It claims the Sinhalese were the first humans to inhabit the island (as
those who predated the Sinhalese were subhuman) and are thus the true
"sons of the soil". Additionally, it institutes the belief that the
island's kings were beholden to protect and foster Buddhism. All of
these legacies have had ramifications for the trajectory of political
Buddhism and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism."
Among the charges levelled against Magha, the Hindu invader from Kalinga who seized power in Polonnaruwa in the 13th century CE with the help of his soldiers and mercenaries from the modern Kerala and Damila (Tamil Nadu) regions in India, in the Culavamsa was the spreading of false faith. The Pujavaliya
composed in the aftermath of Magha's invasion declares that the
unbelievers will never have permanent residence on the island reserved
for Buddhism and that it is only suitable for Buddhist rulers. But Māgha's rule of 21 years and its aftermath are a watershed in the history of the island, creating a new political order. A second poilitical center emerged in the north of the island where Tamil settlers from previous Indian incursions occupied the Jaffna Peninsula and the Vanni. Many Tamil members of invading armies, mercenaries, joined them rather
than returning to India with their compatriots. By the 13th century the
Tamils too withdrew from the Vanni almost entirely into the Jaffna
peninsula where an independent Tamil kingdom had been established. Māgha, a bigoted Hindu, persecuted Sinhalese Buddhists, despoiling the
temples and giving away lands of the Sinhalese to his followers. His priorities in ruling were to extract as much as possible from the land and overturn as many of the traditions of Rajarata as possible. His reign saw the Killing of many Sinhalese by his army and massive migration of the Sinhalese people to the south and west of Sri Lanka, and into the mountainous interior, in a bid to escape his power. The increasing influence of Hinduism on the island starting from the
13th century CE was resisted by the Sangha who decried the worship of
Hindu gods and ridiculed Hindu customs such as wearing the sacred ash. However, the Sinhalese kingdoms continued to decline, under the attacks
by South Indian states. The last Sinhala king to rule from Polonnaruva
was Parākramabāhu III (1302–1310), who was actually a client king of the Pandyas and later had to retreat to Dambadeniya. After this, Sinhala kings were forced to retreat further to the south (to cities like Kurunagala and Gampola), mainly in search of security from South Indian states and from the expansive Tamil kingdom of Jaffna (a Hindu realm which now controlled the north-west of the island).
Rise of modern Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism
With
the rise of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a reaction to the changes
brought under the British colonialism, the old religious mytho-history of the Mahavamsa (especially the
emphasis on the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicities of Duthagamani and
Elara, respectively)
was revitalized and consequently would prove to be detrimental to the
intergroup harmony in the island. As Heather Selma Gregg writes:
"Modern-day Sinhalese nationalism, rooted in local myths of being a
religiously chosen people and of special progeny, demonstrates that even
a religion perceived as inherently peaceful can help fuel violence and
hatred in its name."
Buddhist revivalism took place among the Sinhalese to counter Christian missionary influence. The British commissioned the Sinhala translation of the Mahavamsa (which was originally written in Pali), thereby making it accessible to the wider Sinhalese population. During this time the first riot in modern Sri Lankan history broke out
in 1883, between Buddhists and Catholics, highlighting the "growing
religious divide between the two communities".
The central figure in the formation of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism was the Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933), who has been described as "the father of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism". Dharmapala was hostile to all things un-Sinhalese and non-Buddhist. He
insisted that the Sinhalese were racially pure and superior Aryans while the Dravidian Tamils were inferior. He popularized the impression that Tamils and Sinhalese had been deadly
enemies in Sri Lanka for nearly 2,000 years by quoting the Mahavamsa
passages that depicted Tamils as pagan invaders. He characterized the Tamils as "fiercely antagonistic to Buddhism". He also expressed intolerance toward the island's Muslim minorities and other religions in general. Dharmapala also fostered Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the spirit
of the King Dutthagamani who "rescued Buddhism and our nationalism from
oblivion" and stated explicitly that the Island belongs to the Sinhalese
Buddhists. Dharmapala has been blamed for laying the groundwork for subsequent Sinhalese Buddhists nationalists to create an ethnocentric state and for hostility to be directed against minorities unwilling to accept such a state.
Politicized Buddhism, the formation of ethnocracy and the civil war
Upon independence, Sinhalese ultra-nationalist Buddhist elites instituted discriminatory policies based on the Buddhist ethno-nationalist
ideology of the Mahavamsa, which privileges Sinhalese Buddhist hegemony
in the island as Buddha's chosen people for whom the island is a
promised land and justifies subjugation of minorities. Some Sinhalese Buddhist officials saw that decreasing Tamil influence
was a necessary part of fostering Buddhist cultural renaissance. The Dutthagamani myth was also used to institute Sinhalese Buddhist
dominance, with some politicians even identifying with such a
mytho-historic hero, and activist monks looked to Dutthagamani as an
example to imitate. This principal hero of Mahavamsa became so widely
regarded as exemplary by 20th-century Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists
because of his defense of Buddhism and the unification of Sri Lanka that
journalists started talking about "the Mahavamsa mentality.".
D. S. Senanayake,
who would become Sri Lanka's first prime minister in 1947, reaffirmed
in 1939 the common Mahavamsa-based assumption of the Sinhalese Buddhist
responsibility for the island's destiny by proclaiming that the
Sinhalese Buddhists "are one blood and one nation. We are a chosen
people. Buddha said that his religion would last for 5,500 [sic] years. That means that we, as the custodians of that religion, shall last as long." Buddhist monks became increasingly involved in post-independence
politics, promoting Sinhalese Buddhist interests at the expense of
minorities. Walpola Rahula,
Sri Lanka's foremost Buddhist monk scholar and one of the leading
proponents of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, played a major role in
advocating for the involvement of monks in politics, using Buddhist king
Dutthagamani's relationship with the sangha to bolster his position.
Rahula also argued for a just war doctrine to protect Buddhism by using the example of wars waged by Dutthagamani to restore Buddhism. Rahula maintained that "the entire Sinhalese race was united under the
banner of the young Gamini [Dutthagamani]. This was the beginning of
nationalism among the Sinhalese. It was a new race with healthy young
blood, organized under the new order of Buddhism. A kind of
religionationalism, which almost amounted to fanaticism, roused the
whole Sinhalese people. A non-Buddhist was not regarded as a human
being. Evidently, all Sinhalese, without exception, were Buddhists." In reflecting on Rahula's works, anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne wrote
that "it suits Rahula to be an advocate of a Buddhism that glorifies
social intercourse with lay society... the receipt of salaries and other
forms of material remuneration; ethnic exclusivism and Sinhala Buddhist
hegemony; militancy in politics; and violence, war, and the spilling of
blood in the name of 'preserving the religion'".
In 1956, the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC) released a
report titled, "The Betrayal of Buddhism", inquiring into the status of
Buddhism in the island. The report argued that Buddhism had been
weakened by external threats such as the Tamil invaders mentioned in the
Mahavamsa and later Western colonial powers.
It also demanded the state to restore and foster Buddhism and to give
preferential treatment to Buddhist schools. The same year, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike
capitalized on the ACBC report and its recommendations as the
foundation for his election campaign, using it as the 'blueprint for a
broad spectrum of policy', which included introducing Sinhala as the
sole official language of the state. With the help of significant number
of Buddhist monks and various Sinhalese Buddhist organizations,
Bandaranaike became prime minister after winning the 1956 elections.
Bandaranaike had also campaigned on the basis of Sinhalese Buddhist
nationalism, drawing influences from the writings of Dharmapala and the
Mahavamsa, arguing that it was the duty of the government to preserve
the Sinhalese Buddhist nature of the island's destiny. Once in power,
Bandaranaike implemented the 1956 Sinhala Only Act,
which would make Sinhala the country's official language and hence all
official state transactions would be conducted in Sinhala. This put
non-Sinhala speakers at a disadvantage for employment and educational
opportunities. As a result, Tamils protested the policy by staging
sit-ins, which in turn prompted counterdemonstrations by extremist
Buddhist monks, later degenerating into anti-Tamil riots
in which more than one hundred people were injured and Tamil businesses
were looted. Riots then spread throughout the country, killing hundreds
of people. Bandaranaike tried to mitigate tensions over the language
policy by proposing a compromise with the Tamil leaders, resulting in a 1957 pact
that would allow the use of Tamil as an administrative language along
with Sinhala and greater political autonomy for Tamils.
Ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks and other Sinhalese nationalists
opposed this pact by staging mass demonstrations and hunger strikes. In an editorial in the same year, a monk asked Bandaranaike to read the
Mahavamsa and to heed its lessons: "[Dutthagamani] conquered by the
sword and united the land [Sri Lanka] without dividing it among our
enemies [i.e. the Tamils] and established Sinhala and Buddhism as the
state language and religion." In the late 1950s, it had become common
for politicians and monks to exploit the Mahavamsa narrative of
Dutthagamani to oppose any concession to the Tamil minorities.
With nationalist Buddhist monks playing a major role in exerting
pressure to abrogate the pact, Bandaranaike acceded to their demands on
April 9, 1958 by tearing up "a copy of the pact in front of the
assembled monks who clapped in joy". Soon after the pact was abrogated,
another series of anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, which left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Preceding the 1958 riots, rhetoric of monks contributed to the
perception of Tamils being the enemies of the country and of Buddhism.
Both extremist Buddhist monks and laity laid the foundation for the
justifiable use of force against Tamils in response to their demand for
greater autonomy by arguing that the whole of Sri Lanka was a promised
land of the Sinhalese Buddhists and it was the role of the monks to
defend a united Sri Lanka. Tamils were also portrayed as threatening
interlopers, compared to the Mahavamsa account of the usurper Tamil king
Elara. Monks and politicians invoked the story of the Buddhist warrior
king Dutthagamani to urge the Sinhalese to fight against Tamils and
their claims to the island, thereby providing justification for violence
against Tamils. As Tessa J. Bartholomeusz explained: "Tamil claims to a
homeland were met with an ideology, linked to a Buddhist story, that
legitimated war with just cause: the protection of Sri Lanka for the
Sinhala-Buddhist people." In order to appease Tamils amidst the ethnic tension, Bandaranaike
modified the Sinhala Only Act to allow Tamil to be used in education and
government in Tamil areas, and as a result an extreme ultra-nationalist
Buddhist monk named Talduwe Somarama
assassinated him on September 26, 1959. The monk claimed he carried out
the assassination "for the greater good of his country, race and
religion". It has also been suggested that the monk was guided in part by reading of the Mahavamsa.
Successive governments after Bandaranaike implemented a similar
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist agenda, at the expense of minorities. In
1972, the government rewrote its constitution and gave Buddhism "the
foremost place [in the Republic of Sri Lanka]" and making it "the duty
of the state to protect and foster Buddhism". With another pact in 1965
that sought to establish greater regional autonomy
for Tamils being abrogated (some members of the Buddhist clergy were at
the forefront in opposing the pact) and the implementation of discriminatory quota system in 1974 that severely restricted Tamil entrance to universities, Tamil youth became radicalized, calling for an independent homeland to be established in the Tamil-dominated northeastern region of the island. In 1977, anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, killing hundreds of Tamils and leaving thousands homeless. A leading monk claimed that one of the reasons for the anti-Tamil riots
of 1977 was the Tamil demonization of the Sinhalese Buddhist epic hero
Dutthagamani, which resulted in a justified retaliation. Another anti-Tamil riot erupted in 1981 in Jaffna,
where Sinhalese police and paramilitaries destroyed statues of Tamil
cultural and religious figures; looted and torched a Hindu temple and
Tamil-owned shops and homes; killed four Tamils; and torched the Jaffna Public Library which was of great cultural significance to Tamils. In response to the militant separatist Tamil group LTTE killing 13 Sinhalese soldiers, the largest anti-Tamil pogrom
occurred in 1983, leaving between 2,000 and 3,000 of Tamils killed and
forcing from 70,000 to 100,000 Tamils into refugee camps, eventually
propelling the country into a civil war between the LTTE and the predominately Sinhalese Buddhist Sri Lankan government. In the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, Buddhist monks lead rioters in some instance. Cyril Mathew, a Senior Minister in President Jayawardene's
Cabinet and a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist who in the year preceding
the pogrom reaffirmed the special relationship between Buddhism and
Sinhalese and the Buddhist nature of the country, was also responsible
for the pogrom. In the months following the anti-Tamil pogrom, authorizations for
violence against Tamils began to appear in the press, with Tamils being
depicted as interlopers on Dhammadipa. The Mahavamsa narrative of
Dutthagamani and Elara was also invoked to justify violence against
Tamils. The aftermath of the pogrom spawned debates over the rights to
the island with the "sons of the soil" ideology being called into
prominence. A government agent declared that Sri Lanka's manifest
destiny "was to uphold the pristine doctrine of Theravada Buddhism".
This implied that Sinhalese Buddhists had a sacred claim to Sri Lanka,
while the Tamils did not, a claim which might call for violence. The
Sinhalese Buddhists, including the Sri Lankan government, resisted the
Tamil claim to a separate homeland of their own as the Sinhalese
Buddhists maintained that the entire country belonged to them. Another government agent linked the then Prime Minister Jayewardene's attempts to thwart the emergence of a Tamil homeland
to Dutthagamani's victory over Elara and went on to say, "[w]e will
never allow the country to be divided", thereby justifying violence
against Tamils.
In the context of increasing Tamil militant struggle for
separatism, militant Buddhist monks founded the Mavbima Surakime
Vyaparaya (MSV) or "Movement for the Protection of the Motherland" in
1986 which sought to work with political parties "to maintain
territorial unity of Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Buddhist sovereignty over
the island". The MSV used the Mahavamsa to justify its goals, which
included the usage of force to fight against the Tamil threat and defend
the Buddhist state. In 1987, along with the MSV, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, a militant Sinhalese nationalist group which included monks) took up arms to protest the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord
which sought to establish peace in Sri Lanka by requiring the Sri
Lankan government to make a number of concessions to Tamil demands,
including devolution of power to Tamil provinces. The JVP, with the support of parts of the Sangha, launched a campaign of violent insurrection against the government to oppose the accord as the Sinhalese nationalists believed it would compromise the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.
From the beginning of the civil war in 1983 to the end of it in
2009, militant Buddhist monks were involved in politics and opposed negotiations, ceasefire agreements, or any devolution of power to Tamil minorities, and most supported military solution to the conflict. This has led to Asanga Tilakaratne, head of the Department of Buddhist
Philosophy in the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies in
Colombo, to remark that "the Sinhala Buddhist nationalists are ...
opposed to any attempt to solve the ethnic problem by peaceful means;
and they call for a 'holy war' against Tamils". It has been argued that the absence of opportunities for power sharing
among the different ethnic groups in the island "has been one of the
primary factors behind the intensification of the conflict". Numerous nationalist Buddhist religious leaders and extremist Buddhist
organizations since the country's independence have played a role in
mobilizing against the devolution of power to the Tamils. Leading
Buddhist monks opposed devolution of power that would grant regional
autonomy to Tamils on the basis of Mahavamsa worldview that the entire
country is a Buddhist promised land which belongs to the Sinhalese
Buddhist people, along with the fear that devolution would eventually
lead to separate country.
The two major contemporary political parties to advocate for Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism are the JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya
(JHU) or "National Heritage Party", the latter of which is composed
solely of nationalist Buddhist monks. According to A. R. M. Imtiyaz,
these groups share common goals: "to uphold Buddhism and establish a
link between the state and religion, and to advocate a violent solution
to the Tamil question and oppose all form of devolution to the
minorities, particularly the Tamils". The JHU, in shunning non-violent
solutions to the ethnic conflict, urged young Sinhalese Buddhists to
sign up for the army, with as many as 30,000 Sinhalese young men doing
just that. One JHU leader even declared that NGOs
and certain government servants were traitors and they should be set on
fire and burnt due to their opposition to a military solution to the
civil war. The international community encouraged a federal structure for Sri Lanka as a peaceful solution to the civil war but any form of Tamil self-determination, even the more limited measure of autonomy, was strongly opposed by hard-line Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist groups such as the JVP and JHU, who pushed for the military solution. These groups in their hard-line support for a military solution to the
conflict, without any regard for the plight of innocent Tamil civilians, have opposed negotiated settlement, ceasefire agreement, demanded that
the Norwegians be removed as peace facilitators, demanded the war to be
prosecuted more forcefully and exerted influence in the Rajapaksa government (which they helped to elect), resulting in the brutal military defeat of the LTTE with heavy civilian casualties. The nationalist monks' support of the government's military offense
against the LTTE gave "religious legitimacy to the state's claim of
protecting the island for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority." President Rajapaksa, in his war against the LTTE, has been compared to the Buddhist king Dutthagamani by the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists.
Violence against religious minorities
Other
minority groups have also come under attack by Sinhalese Buddhist
nationalists. Fear of country's Buddhist hegemony being challenged by
Christian proselytism has driven extremist Buddhist monks and
organizations to demonize Christian organizations, with one popular monk
comparing missionary activity to terrorism; as a result, Sinhalese
Buddhist nationalists, including the JVP and JHU, who oppose attempts to
convert Buddhists to another religion, support or conduct anti-Christian violence.
The number of attacks against Christian churches rose from 14 in 2000
to over 100 in 2003. Dozens of these acts were confirmed by U.S.
diplomatic observers. This anti-Christian violence was led by extremist Buddhist clergy and
has included acts of "beatings, arson, acts of sacrilege, death threats,
violent disruption of worship, stoning, abuse, unlawful restraint, and
even interference with funerals". It has been noted that the strongest
anti-West sentiments accompany the anti-Christian violence since the
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists identify Christianity with the West which they think is conspiring to undermine Buddhism.
In the postwar Sri Lanka, ethnic and religious minorities continue to face threat from Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. There have been continued sporadic attacks on Christian churches by
Buddhist extremists who allege that Christians conduct unethical or
forced conversion. The Pew Research Center has listed Sri Lanka among the countries with very high religious hostilities in 2012 due to the violence committed by Buddhist monks against Muslim and Christian places of worship. These acts included attacking a mosque and forcefully taking over a
Seventh-day advent church and converting it into a Buddhist temple.
Extremist Buddhist leaders justify their attacks on the places of
worship of minorities by arguing that Sri Lanka is the promised land of
the Sinhalese Buddhists to safeguard Buddhism. The recently formed Buddhist extremist group, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force, founded by extreme Buddhist monks in 2012, has been accused of inciting the anti-Muslim riots that killed 4 Muslims and injured 80 in 2014. The leader of the BBS, in linking the government's military victory
over the LTTE to the ancient Buddhist king conquest of Tamil king Elara,
said that Tamils have been taught a lesson twice and warned other
minorities of the same fate if they tried to challenge Sinhalese
Buddhist culture. The BBS has been compared to the Taliban, accused of spreading extremism and communal hatred against Muslims and has been described as an "ethno-religious fascist movement". Extremist Buddhist monks have also protested against UN Human Rights Council resolution that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes during the civil war. The BBS has received criticism and opposition from other Buddhist clergy and politicians. Mangala Samaraweera, a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs
since 2015, has accused the BBS of being "a representation of 'Taliban'
terrorism" and of spreading extremism and communal hatred against
Muslims. Samaraweera has also alleged that the BBS is secretly funded by the Ministry of Defence. Anunayake Bellanwila Wimalaratana, deputy incumbent of Bellanwila Rajamaha Viharaya
and President of the Bellanwila Community Development Foundation, has
stated that "The views of the Bodu Bala Sena are not the views of the
entire Sangha community" and that "We don't use our fists to solve problems, we use our brains". Wataraka Vijitha Thero, a Buddhist monk who condemns violence against
Muslims and heavily criticized the BBS and the government, has been
attacked and tortured for his stances.
Buddhist opposition to Sinhala Buddhist nationalism
Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism is opposed to Sarvodaya, although they share many of the same influences like Dharmapāla's teachings for example, by having a focus upon Sinhalese culture and ethnicity sanctioning the use of violence in defence of dhamma, while Sarvodaya has emphasized the application of Buddhist values in order to transform society and campaigning for peace.
These Buddhist nationalists have been opposed by the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a self-governance movement led by the Buddhist Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and based in Buddhist ideals, who condemn the use of violence and the denial of human rights to Tamils and other non-Buddhists. Ariyaratne calls for non-violent action and he has been actively
working for peace in Sri Lanka for many decades, and has stated that the
only way to peace is through "the dispelling of the view of 'I and
mine' or the shedding of 'self' and the realization of the true
doctrines of the interconnection between all animal species and the
unity of all humanity", thus advocating social action in Buddhist terms. He stated in one of
his lectures, "When we work towards the welfare of all the means we use
have to be based on Truth, Non-violence and Selflessness in conformity with Awakening of All". What Ariyaratne advocates is losing the self in the service of others
and attempting to bring others to awakening. Ariyaratne has stated, "I
cannot awaken myself unless I help awaken others".
The beginning of "Buddhist violence" in Japan relates to a long history of feuds among Buddhists. The sōhei or "warrior monks" appeared during the Heian period, although the seeming contradiction in being a Buddhist "warrior monk" caused controversy even at the time. More directly linked is that the Ikkō-shū movement was considered an inspiration to Buddhists in the Ikkō-ikki
rebellion. In Osaka they defended their temple with the slogan "The
mercy of Buddha should be recompensed even by pounding flesh to pieces.
One's obligation to the Teacher should be recompensed even by smashing
bones to bits!"
During World War II,
Japanese Buddhist literature from that time, as part of its support of
the Japanese war effort, stated "In order to establish eternal peace in
East Asia, arousing the great benevolence and compassion of Buddhism, we
are sometimes accepting and sometimes forceful. We now have no choice
but to exercise the benevolent forcefulness of 'killing one in order
that many may live' (issatsu tashō). This is something which Mahayana Buddhism approves of only with the greatest of seriousness..." Almost all Japanese Buddhists temples strongly supported Japan's militarization. These were heavily criticized by the Chinese Buddhists
of the era, who disputed the validity of the statements made by those
Japanese Buddhist supporters of the war. In response the Japanese
Pan-Buddhist Society (Myowa Kai) rejected the criticism and stated that
"We now have no choice but to exercise the benevolent forcefulness of
'killing one in order that many may live' (issatsu tashō)" and that the
war was absolutely necessary to implement the dharma in Asia. The society re-examined more than 70 texts written by Nichiren and re-edited his writings, making changes in 208 places, cutting all the statements that disagreed with the state Shinto. In contrast, a few Japanese Buddhists such as Ichikawa Haku and Seno'o Girō opposed this and were targeted. During the 1940s, "leaders of the Honmon Hokkeshu and Soka Kyoiku Gakkai
were imprisoned for their defiance of wartime government religious
policy, which mandated display of reverence for the state Shinto". Brian Daizen Victoria, a Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect, documented in his book Zen at War how Buddhist institutions justified Japanese militarism in official publications and cooperated with the Imperial Japanese Army in the Russo-Japanese War and World War II. In response to the book, several sects issued an apology for their wartime support of the government.
In more modern times instances of Buddhist-inspired terrorism or
militarism have occurred in Japan, such as the assassinations of the League of Blood Incident led by Nissho Inoue, a Nichirenist or fascist-nationalist who preached a self-styled Nichiren Buddhism.
Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese new religion and doomsday cult that was the cause of the Tokyo subway sarin attack that killed thirteen people and injured more than a thousand, drew upon a syncretic view of idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship, Christian millennialist ideas from the Book of Revelation, Yoga and the writings of Nostradamus.Its founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism" and declared himself "Christ", Japan's only fully enlightened master and identified with the "Lamb of God". His purported mission was to take upon himself the sins
of the world, and he claimed he could transfer to his followers
spiritual power and ultimately take away their sins and bad deeds. While many discount Aum Shinrikyo's Buddhist characteristics and
affiliation to Buddhism, scholars often refer to it as an offshoot of
Japanese Buddhism, and this was how the movement generally defined and saw itself.
