{"id":2969,"date":"2011-02-26T13:44:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T17:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/?p=2969"},"modified":"2011-03-20T12:03:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T16:03:25","slug":"new-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/2011\/02\/26\/new-post\/","title":{"rendered":"The Buddha and the M\u0101gadha-Vajj\u012b War"},"content":{"rendered":"
ISSN 1076-9005
\nVolume 18, 2011<\/h6>\n

The Buddha and the M\u0101gadha-Vajj\u012b War<\/h3>\n

Ven. Pandita (Burma)
\nUniversity of Kelaniya<\/p>\n

According to an account recorded in Mah\u0101parinibb\u0101nasutta<\/em>, the Buddha had to meet a royal minister named Vassak\u0101ra when King Aj\u0101tasattu ordered the latter to visit the Buddha and inform him about the king\u2019s plan to subdue the Vajj\u012bs. After hearing Vassak\u0101ra, the Buddha spoke on seven Conditions of Welfare (satta aparih\u0101niy\u0101 dhamm\u0101<\/em>), which would ensure the prosperity of the Vajj\u012bs as long as its citizens observed them. Vassak\u0101ra shrewdly inferred from the Buddha\u2019s discourse how to defeat the Vajj\u012b people and later actually forced them into submission. Regarding that event, there are some perplexing questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Why did King Aj\u0101tasattu choose to consult a wandering ascetic on a significant matter of state like fighting a war?<\/li>\n
  2. Vassak\u0101ra discerned how to defeat the Vajj\u012bs from the Buddha’s exposition of the Seven Conditions of Welfare. So did the Buddha intend to help Aj\u0101tasattu defeat the Vajj\u012bs? If not, what was his purpose in expounding the seven Conditions of Welfare to Vassak\u0101ra?<\/li>\n
  3. If the Buddha really did not accept any kind of violence, as the tradition would have it, why did he not openly speak against it?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This paper will attempt to answer these questions and will argue, in the conclusion, that this event shows the Buddha\u2019s disapproving attitude toward a political role of the Buddhist Order.<\/p>\n

    Read article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISSN 1076-9005 Volume 18, 2011 The Buddha and the M\u0101gadha-Vajj\u012b War Ven. Pandita (Burma) University of Kelaniya According to an account recorded in Mah\u0101parinibb\u0101nasutta, the Buddha had to meet a royal minister named Vassak\u0101ra when King Aj\u0101tasattu ordered the latter to visit the Buddha and inform him about the king\u2019s plan to subdue the Vajj\u012bs. … Continue reading The Buddha and the M\u0101gadha-Vajj\u012b War<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6784],"tags":[2647,2658,2663,2646,2592,881],"class_list":["post-2969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-18-2011","tag-ahimsa","tag-buddha","tag-indian-buddhism","tag-non-violence","tag-theravada","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5X8HA-LT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/buddhistethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}