02 - DANA - Redefining Relationships The New Donor

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa!
i Buddhism
48
108. M 1.28.
109.M 1.28.
CHAPTER2
110. Yin 4.4-6; A 1.242-44.

I l l. M 3.293-97; see D 3.89; M 1.462; 3.294; S 1.297; A 2.125; 3.95-99.
112. Yin 1.45; 4.164-65; M 1.469; S 1.200; A 3.117.
113. For example, the first one to return from the village after going on alms
tour is to make ready the seats, the water for drinking and washing the
feet, and the bowl for refuse. The last one returning is responsible for
attending t o the left-overs from the meal, either eating them himself o r
discarding t h e m in s u c h a w a y t h a t no injury will occur to living things. H e
i s also responsible f o r tidying up t h e seats, the drinking and washing wa
ter, and the refuse bowl, and for sweeping the floor. A ny help needed in
these d u ties has to be signalled for by hand, not requested in words (Yin
1.157-58, 352; 2.216; M 3.157).
114. In addition to obvious large-scale market activity, heaps of grain, for
example, are kept near some villages and towns from which country folk
can simply come and take away corn (A 4.163-64).
115. s 1.18-19.
116. When a town like M adhura comes to be known as a place where alms are
gotten with difficulty (du//abhapiw;la), not only does this signify hard ship
for renunciant petitioners there but loss of reputation for the center, com
peting as it must in a world where attracting good people of all kinds is
considerably more desirable than repelling them (A 3.256).
117. Yin 3.144-45.
118. H orner, Book of the Discipline l.x vii.
119. E.g., cows, horses, garments, gold (Thapar, Lineage to State, pp. 58, 6466).
120. Darian, p. 230.
121. Darian, p. 232.
122. Wagle, p. 152.
Redefining Relationships: The

New Donor
Buddhism arises in the new urbanism of the middle Ganga Val
ley as material resources increase, as renunciant optiOflS prolif
erate, and as the social dynamics of the supporting community
become more complex. One of the chief players at this time is
the gahapati 'ho useho lder' ( and his wife or the gahapatiini
'housemistress ' ) , terms not new with Buddhism but, as used in
Pali texts, reflective of the momentous social changes taking
place. M any factors contribute to these changes and o ne of them
is the centrality of administrative and commercial organizations. 1
M a rket and industrial towns and cities are distinguished from
villages by larger and denser populations, by the prominence of
non-agricultural activities, and by being convergence points for
more complex political and commercial affairs . The conspicu
ousness of both the ruler and the merchant, "each the ally of the
other in history, " 2 means that the organization and investment
of wealth takes place on a scale larger than ever before and that
wealth becomes a critica l medium in the disposition of human
affairs . Against this background, the merchant plays a decisive
role in the rise of Buddhism.
123. Wagle, p. 107.
THE HOUSEHOLDER AS DONOR
124. Misra, pp. 108-110.
The more central place of the merchant, and of commerce, is

the result of an evolution of a family-centered system out of an
o lder lineage-centered system. Thapar has charted the shift from
a lineage culture of Rg Vedic times3 in which there is a bifurca
tion between the rulers (riijanya) and the tribute-giving clans (viS).
A t this time, lands are held in common, though worked by the
vis, and, as a pastoral society, wealth often comes through raids
o n catt le. Late Vedic texts reflect a system of combined lineage
125. Erdosy, Urbanisation, pp. 144-45; Misra, pp. 208-209; Thapar, Lineage to
State, p. 116; Chakravarti, pp. 10-12.
126. Misra, pp. 208-210.
127. Fenn, p. 109.
50
Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor
and householding economies with a shift from pastoralism to

agriculture. A s the vis produce more, the sacrificial ritual draws
off greater amounts of wealth, going from the vis through the
k$atriya (that is, the o lder rajanya) patrons to the brahmins.4
As the k$atriyas become more dependent "on the agricultural
activities of the vis and the prestations that the visean provide , "
storage o f materials for the ritual a n d for other gift-giving set
tings increases . As the grhapati 'head of house' emerges from
this older householding system where keeping goods for ritual
use evolves, viS is replaced by vaisya, suggesting "an a ltered
status, the clan element decrea sing and the ind ividual status be
coming more apparent."5 I n time, with the break-up of lineage
held lands into family holdings ,6 the grhapati is transformed
from a household head within a clan system working the land
"to a landowner, and subsequent to this , . . . [to ] a participant in
trading activities"7 -in both cases, a household head being him
self responsible for the storage of his own goods . During this
period , Pali literature often uses gahapati as a functional equiva
lent of vessa (vaiSya), though the former is, at the same time,
evolving into a term of substantially broader referent. Thus, with
the eventual consolidation of the kingdoms of Kosala and
M agadha and the emergence of a more complex economy and
of commerce, the grhapati/ gahapati, now drawn from any of
the three twice-born castes, comes to be in clear contrast to the
sildra as peasant cultivator and artisan.8
Early Buddhist texts reflect a culture in which Brahmal)ic ritual
is seen as the domain exclusively of ritual specialists9 and in
which non-Brahmal)ic renunciants are in regular daily contact
with ordinary folk during their a lms rounds in the villages . 10
The old Vedic grhapati, once a fairly narrowly used concept,
now emerges as the Pali gahapati, its o ld ties to wealth still in
tact, but with a wider range of social applications. The term
gahapati comes to be used in two ways : as a general term refer
ring to the broad category of non-renunciants, i.e. , to those who
simply 'live in a house,' and as a more specific, contemporary,
term referring to powerful managers of property. Gaha patis form
"the basis of Buddhist Society. " Not only are they the fledgling
ma instrea m in which Bud dhism takes shape, but it is their
51
patronage, their good counsel, and their general support that is

sought by each emergent religious group. They are, as Wagle
notes , "the prizes in the religious struggle ."" Thapar suggests
tat the rel ationship between the gahapatis and new religions
.
hke Buddhtsm and Jainism is a mutual one. On the one hand
gahapatis provide essential material support in their patronag
of young religious institutions. On the other, these young insti
tutions provide a place for gahapati merchants and business
men in a religious panorama that up until this point has been
intensely exclusivistic. By giving support to Buddhism, for ex
a ple, gahapati merchants gain socio-ritual standing and Bud
dhtsm , then, becomes their religion, a religion rooted among
householders .12 The world to the householder is now an open
market, and Pali texts show that it is this group, with its broad
c ste constituency, that becomes the principal audience and prin
ctpal so urce of patronage for the new religion.
The Gahapati in the Social Order
The sh ift to an economically viable family unit of smaller pro

.
portiOns than the older lineage renders the Pali gahapati( or gihin)
a family man of a few but definite ties. Routinely accompanied
by his wife the gahapatani'3 'housemistress' and his offspring
the gahapatiputta14 (normally a son), the gahapati is no longer
just the Vedic householder keeping the household stores but of
ten a figure of substantial social and economic importance as
wel l . Consisting of heads of household, the gahapati group has
specific social recognition as a distinguished collection of dis
tinguishable individuals, 15 making names for themselves as the
opportunity suits.
Reflecting the production of wealth through both agriculture
and commerce-and the computing of this wealth in both grain
and coin-the o ccupations of the ho useho lder vary. 16 M ost
householders, however, are involved in some sort of trade in
the town or city, and trade is identified as the dhamma or duty
of the householder, a long with support and provision for his
parents.'7 While there are passages that locate the trader among
others fairly low in the social order, 18 texts most often treat the
trade practised by householders as work of burgeoning intensity
52
and significance. H ouseholder traders contract debts, set up busi

nesses , and repay their accounts; 19 they assess investments and
act accordingly, putting themselves at risk for success or fail
ure. There are four possibilities for som;'one in trade: either the
work fails, or it does not turn out as intended, or it turns out as
intended, or it reaps rewards beyond all expectation . In the text,
t h e s e p o s s i b i l it i e s are u n d er s t o o d B u d d h i s t i c a l l y , i . e . ,
"diinically, "as they are kammically dependent o n what the trader
has given to renunciant s in previous lives. 20
The most prominent occupation of the householder, however,
is that of se.t.thP' (Skt. sre$_lin), a role exemplified by such fig
ures as AnathapiQ.<;i ika22 and his brother-in-l aw, the great mer
chant of R ajagaha . 2 3 A lthough there is no detailed discussion
of the se.t.thi, the texts suggest that he is a trader of high order
and of great prominence: banker, treasurer, merchant, or a cor
porate officer.24 A leading figure in the business community , he
has wealth, talent, and organizatio nal skills that bring him into
decisive circles of political influence. 25 As Narendra W agle
points out, the se.t.thi gahapati belongs primarily to urban sites
where there is a cash economy and where wealth accumulat es
for those at the crossroads of commerce. 26 G.S.P. M isra has
argued further that while gaha p ati"denote[s] a class constitute d
of wealthy people from [the] businessm en 's communit y , " the
se.t.thi is "a distinguish ed personage holding some post of re
sponsibilit y and distinct from other gahapatis of the place. " 27
The designation "se.t.thi gahapatis [then] would mean the lead
ing middle class gahapatis as distinct from the brahmal).a s by
birth and the members of [the] ruling aristocrac y." 2 8 W hile many
are gahapatis, only some are se.t.thi gahapatis.
A t this time, the householder has a complex relationshi p to
the van;a or caste system currently emerging in Brahmal).i c cul
ture. Given that the grhapati becomes important in Vedic texts
when the head of the household begins to store goods for ritual
use, the vis are drawn into the van;a scheme as the source of
these goods. Because it is the household head who does the man
aging of what comes in, then, grhapati and vaisya, though not
strictly equable, become correlated . While Thapar argues that
the Buddhist gahapati is seen to replace vessa, a substitutio n
Redefining Relationships: The New Donor
53
that "poin s to t e final disintegration of the original vis, "29 sup

port for thiS-VIZ. , two apparently interchangeable lists in Pali
may refer instead to different systems of activity.
The first Pali list reverses the order of the first two rank s : 3o
thu s , the traditional four-fold division of brahman, k$atriya,
_ _
va1sya,
and sl7dra31 is rearranged into a decidedly Buddhist or
der in this way: khattiya, briihmal)a, vessa, and sudda. In the
other, the first two ranks are again reversed and the list short
ened by one k attiya, briihmal)a, and gahapati, giving an ap
:
parent substitutiOn of gahapati for vessa. While the first list
khattiya, briihmal)a, vessa, and sudda-is a classification of
the four val)l)as, 32 the second khattiya briihmal)a, a n d
gahapatP3-is distinct i n several ways. First, the gaha pati list is
not sed as a description of val)l)a ranking, suggesting instead
of ntual status something else, such as socio-economic place.
Seco nd, unlike the first list it is applied to an economic term
mahiisii/a 'having great ha lls ' 34 designating those who live in
substantial residences and who , by inference, have a sizable in
come and are socia lly prominent. Third, its three members are
one of the many sets of parisii 'company, assembly, congrega
tion, ' 35 a term applied to various categories of Buddhist doc
trine .
The most important difference between the two lists is that
while the vea l st is oriented toward ties of birth and heredity,
_
the gahapatJ hst IS onented
toward associations made voluntar
ily and toward status that is earned. This conclusion is based
primarily o the vessa list's application to the category of val)l)a,
a emarcatwn
relating to complexion color36 and to status given
_
pm:n a n y b loation of birth,37 while the gahapati list's appli
cati n IS h1ghhghted by mahiisiila, a designation usually set
Withm
_ the context of acquiring great wealth and prosperous au
thonty, and of ind ivid ual distinction through honest effort and
hard work.38 The vessa list, then, suggests socio-ritual status or
caste, and the gahapati economic status or class.
The very use of the two lists in the same texts is a symptom
of a culture in transition , a culture that knows Vedic structures
but is also forging new ones . Because "the dominant strata of
urban so ciety are not catered for, not even reco gnized by
-
54
brahminism"39 at the time of the rise of Buddhism, the new struc

tures come to be based not on ritual rank (the vessa list) but on
socio-economic place (the gaha pati list). Because of their s imi
larities, however, the two lists are textually homologized, a pro
cess confirmed by the overlap in trade and commerce of the
activities of vessa and many of the prominent gahapatis.40
If the terms are roughly equivalent, then, why not have o nly
one of them and avoid the confusion? In mature Vedic society,
with it s tendency to classify, 4 1 the management of trade is the
specific purview of a specialized sector. As changes in the Ganga
Va lley take place, wealth is more available and more desirable,
and a t6rm is now needed separate from Vedic vaisya to desig
nate a cross-cutting category of those garnering and managing
wea lth. Because Buddhism grows up in a society where "wealth
creates the differences,"42 the term gahapati, that is a lready in
use across the upper three castes,43 comes to be associated with
the new wealth as it is available to all in a position to handle it .
Strictly, then, gahapati's appearance in the second list is the
canon's recognition that in terms of profession, the gahapati
and the vessa are often functiona lly equivalent . More gener
a lly, however, gahapati's consistently broader usage in narra
tives is the canon's recognition that all householders, drawn from
whatever social ranking they might be, are the economic base
of Sangha support to whom wealth might accrue. The gahapati
is the one who has managerial place within his family and a
place in society not given by birth but earned; he is a lso the one
who has wealth, uses it in a certain way and, in that, forms a
special relationship with emergent Buddhism. Because it is the
agency of the householder that supports the Sangha, anyone
may give who can; ties of caste or lineage are not necessary in a
setting where individual choice is the determinant.
The category briihmm;a gahapatikii further illumines the re
lationship of the gahapatito the vaiJIJa system.44 Seemingly par
a llel to se{!hi gahapati, kassaka gahapati, and diirukammika
gahapati, the 'brahmin householder, '45 however, lives in special
brahmin v il lages, briihmaiJagama.46 Most of these brahmin
settlements are in lands under monarchical rule, where early pat
terns of brahmadeyya land -ownership are most prominent.
55
Brahmadeyya is the royal gift of lapd

or an estate to well-known briihmaiJas
and others, for the services, probably
ritual in nature, which they rendered
to the king. Some of the brahmadeyya
lands are specifically described as
briihmaiJa gamas . 47
It is normally in the context of these brahmin villages , Wagle
argues, that brahmins are called gahapatis, 48 emphasizing that
here brahmins are land-owners and managers of their own house
hold wea lth. The need to identify brahmin householders in par
ticular stems from early control of goods by only k$afriyas and
vaisyas,49 who through these goods support brahmins within
the rit ual system. As the ritual system's influence wanes, and as
brahmins acquire land-owning status, they are newly available
as potential donors in their own right, now to renunciant wan
derers and institutions. 50
The Pali gahapati thus represents a new moment in the cul
tural evolution of north I ndia. As society and the economy be
come more complex and as great wealth is procured through
trade, 51 householders like the se.t.thi become more prominent as
patrons. With wealth, patronage, and householdership now as
sociated with commerce, the classifying tendency of canonical
red actors has to relocate the gahapati in relationship to the so
cial schema idealized by Vedists, and that process makes it an
a lternate to the vessa/vaisyaY A lthough the gahapati is the rep
resentative of his whole household, whether his profession be
farmer or priest, that household becomes important in Pali texts
primarily because it is prosperous and can provide the support
requis ite for the survival and spread of the Sangha . The most
prosperous householders, however, are not necessarily those who
have been prosperous of o ld, but often the newly wealthy busi
nessmen who are iooking for investments that highlight their
own recent prosperity and prominence. While the gahapati does
not belong restrictively "to either the Buddhist or the briihmaiJic
order, "53 he does find new (though not exclusive) identity in
this period of transition through association with the Buddhist
Sangha. The term gahapati, then, is both an old marker of
56
responsibility for the management of common household prop

erty separating him from subordinate members of the house
hold,54 and a new marker of the householder's conspicuous as
sociation with commerce: what ties both these together is his
role in the acquiring, maintaining, and disposing of wealth .
Householdership, Wealth, and Donation
The wealth from agriculture, and in time from commerce, 55

becomes a central part of gaha pati identity, and attention fo
cuses on both the attitudes and practices of its management .56
Wagle notes that the emergence of the "gaha patifrom the Vedic
householder to a comparatively wealthier head of the house
hold may represent the growing disparity of wealth within the
society, "57 and Pali texts document householder wealth as be
ing substantial. Not only do gaha patis, like nobles and brahmins,
have mahasala s8 'great halls ' built with flowing cash and gen
erating community stature, but much dha na 'property'59 as well,
deriving from agriculture through an abundance of grain and
evidenced in commerce by silver and gold .60 l n standard descrip
tions, they are eminently prosperous,61 and have great wealth,62
riches, many possessions, and much treasure.63 One brahmin
hou seholder in particular, a certain Velama, is legendary for
.the richness and variety of the things he owns : a story in the
Anguttara Nikaya tells of the thousands of golden, silver, and
copper bowls, thousands of horses decked out in golden finery,
thousands of chariots covered with animal skins, ocher blan
kets, and golden trappings, thousands of cows with silver milk
pails, thousands of jewel-bedecked young women, thousands
of expensive, handsomely made couches , coverlets, rugs , aw
nings, and cushions, and glorious food that flows in rivers .64
The reason the early texts make so much of householder
wea lth is that by mutual consent and through an elaborately
reciprocal system of transactions, this wealth gets diverted from
householder life to suit Sangha needs and eventually to fill
Sangha stores. The linchpin in the arrangement is the growing
conception of the gaha pati as donor. M any terms are used for
the donor (e.g. , datar 'giver, '65 dayaka 'benefactor'66 /dayika
'benefactress, '67 dana pati'liberal donor,'68 and bha ttar'supporter'),
57
whose prototype is the liberal giver celebrated in the Danastuti

sections of several B.,g Vedic hymns .69 Like the o ld king Seri
who pronounces himself an habitual giver, a generous benefac
tor, and an extoller of donation,70 many such early givers are
known by name71 who from their often sovereign status give gifts
(dak$Ii)ii) of great munificence to the poets, priests, and gods
who then ensure the maintenance of a benevolent cosmos.72 The
do nor-patro n of the ritual system continues in the Brahmat:ta
period to be at the pivot of the sacrifice, for not only is it at his
expense that the ritual is performed, but it is through him and
his transformation that ritual effectiveness and its cosmic con
sequences in the material world are ensured .73
The figure of the donor takes on new dimensions as Vedic
society begins to accommodate larger numbers of renunciants
receiving daily sustenance from local families . Texts like the
Grhya Sutras, in the making at the time of the early Buddhist
movement but reflective of a system some centuries o lder/4 pre
scribe etiquette for the alms contract of two religious offices,
the brahma carin and the sa J?ln yasin. This etiquette assumes that,
as each of these petitioners presents a request for food, the mem
ber of the household most often present at the request and from
w h o m the gift w i l l c o m e w i l l be t he h o u s e m i s t re s s , the
grha pat ni.75 Thu s , as family members, usua lly men , increas
ingly decide to leave home for a period, either as celibate stu
dents or as full renuriciants, women as representatives of the
entire househo ld76 are in a conspicuous position to offer mate
ria l support for this life-style. The old concept of the house
holder as donor is thus based in two central assumptions of Vedic
religion: first, that hospitable giving to religious persons, whether
in the context of a self-commissioned ritual or of an o ther-initi
ated a lms request , is a proper, necessary, and worthy posture
fo r a householder to take77 and , second, that the category of
donor, as established now by religious tradition, can be either
the householder himself or more normally his wife, who in the
Brahmal)ic view acts on behalf of the whole househol<J when
ever she gives.
Turning to the Buddhist gaha pati, his main role as donor gives
legitimation to the fact that the Sangha has material needs and
58
Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism
that these material needs can be met only through donation.

Poignantly put, a monk 's livelihood rests on his being depen
dent upon (upanissaya) the economy of villages and towns.78
Thus , a mutuality of contract develops whereby any tension
about life choices between householder and renunciant-in par
ticular, the renunciatory option as signifying the "rejection of
the religious primacy of the householder"79 central to the Vedic
view-vanishes amidst the complexity of their increasingly in
terwoven relationships. Householders provide the Sangha with
food, robes, lodging, and medicine, and Sangha members, in
return, nourish hous e holders ' less advanced but nevertheless
quite authentic quest for realized spirituality. 8 Crucial in the
development of the philosophical network affirming this con
tract is support for the goodness of the act of donation itself,
hence the description of the gahapati donor as a sappurisa, ' a
good a n d worthy person. '8 1 Because the duty of the sappurisa82
is to uphold the charitable aim of the householder, 83 the new
relationship is one where householding and donation are syn
o nymo us.
What does being a donor mean to the householder? The wide
spread missionizing activity that leads to so many household
ers becoming donors is not a fully correspondent process, 84 for
some gahapatis in the texts are not associated specifically with
donation to the Sangha and some donors to the Sangha a re not
m a rked specifically a s gahapatis. The tie between h o u s e
holdership a n d donation i s s o strong, however, that from the
donor side, especially, the forces drawing one in are particu
larly compelling. Helpful here a re the d istinctions Kenneth
Boulding makes between two k inds of economies : the "ex
change" economy of the open market in which there is a two
way or reciprocal transfer of wealth and money, and the "grant"
economy of a more centrally planned system in which there is a
one-way or unilateral transfer of goods.85 Each of these econo
mies sheds light on the householder side of donation to the Sal).gha.
In seeing donatio n as an "exchange," the donor's gifts of
robes, food, lodgings, and medi.cine are given in return for the
goodwill of the Buddha, the bhikkhus and the bhikkhunis, for
the teaching of the Dhamma, or for a promise of heaven o r a
59
good rebirth after death. While the promise, in the latter case,
o ccurs in the present, the actual return on the exchange does not
happen until the future, making this particular option a "deferred
exchange, "86 a trade made in expectation of a delayed but cer
tain and assured reward . The element of exchange present in
donation is best expressed in the reciprocalact of danadhamma
dhammadana. That is, while donors operate under the rubric of
danadhamma, the teaching about (that is, the obligation of) giv
ing, renunciants act under that of dhammadana, the giving of
teaching in return for material support.
In seeing donation to the Sangha as making a "grant," how
ever, other more complicated things are involved. Boulding, first,
distinguishes between grants made from fear that are the products of threats and threat systems, sueh as tn"b utes or taxes, 87
and those made from love that are the products of an integra
tive and relational system in which the donor identifies with the
welfare of the recipient. A uthentic philanthropy, he argues, is
"the gift which is given out of a genuine sense of community
with the object of the donation. "88 While there is a loss of utility
to the donor from a gift thus given, this is more than made up
fo r by the donor's appreciation of the new well-being of the re
cipient. The identification of the householder donor with the
Sangha recipient, then, is most obvious in case of the majority
of donors who are also Buddhist laypeople; that there is genuine
appreciation by householder donors for the benefits of their gifts
to Sangha members is, in fact, a theme found throughout the
Vinaya and Nikayas.
Boulding notes, second, that grants within an organization,
like a family or university, often involve an internal transfer
and that the ability to make such an internal transfer is a princi
pal mark of status within a hierarchy. "The higher a person stands
in a hierarchy . . . the more internal grants he has the power to
co ntrol. "89 The converse, then, would also be viable: the greater
the grant one is able to give, the higher the place in the hierarchy
one is presumed to hold or, at best, the higher the status one is
imputed to have. If the social order in which Buddhism emerges
is taken as the institution providing for the internal grant trans
fer, the attribution of status is normally found at the beginning
60
of textual narratives. I n many cases, immediate notice in the

narrative is given to the non-renunciant who provides either the
audience for the teaching or the context of the ruling, but most
importantly, the material support needed by the Sangha. Here,
then, status for donors, often specifically gahapati donors, is
conferred by their increasingly wide-spread reputation as well
as through the texts which are compiled by the donees elevating
these donors to prominence o n the basis of the gifts.
Third , central to the grant economy is the integrative factor
whereby the giver gives out of identification with the receiver.
A grant, Boulding argues, is a sacrifice made in the interest of
one's identity to someone or some thing that heightens that iden
tity; and if there is very great sacrifice, that identity is reinforced
even more. This process is, in fact, mutual, for grants work best
when there is "the building up of integrative structures and
communities . . .[and in which there are] groups of people who
have some feelings of identification a nd benevolence toward
each other . "90 Moreover, "the more an individual identifies with
some cause, community, or organization, the more likely he is
to support it and the greater will be his donations to it . "9 1 Those
gaha pati donors who are related by family ties to Sangha mem
bers already gone forth are especially relevant here, as the kin
tie seems to remain strong for some time after the renunciation.
I ndeed , o ne clear expression of this tie would be to follow a
relative into the renunciant life, but when that doesn't happen
material support to the monastic community is given not only
because a family member belongs but concomitant with his or
her belonging.
In examining the pattern of relative-support for the Sangha,
the greatest majority of donors turn out to be women-moth
ers , aunts, wives, and sisters of men who have now become
bhikkhus. 9 2 There are a lso men who give when relatives belong
to the Sangha , and here male relatives of the Buddha, such as
M ahanama, and of Nakulapitar, are noteworthy. These women,
and men, are like the mothers of Vedic brahmaciirins who give
to sons petitioning at the doorway for food; their relatedness to
the wanderer is central to the good feeling of giving as well as to
any identification they have with the system as a whole. Clearly
61
o ther patterns of strong identification with Sangha are at work

as well (personal, ethical, and philosophical commitment being
preeminent), but relational ties are some of the most enduring.93
Boulding suggests, finally, that grant economy plays a sig
nificant role in the redistribution of resources, and that this role
is o ne that strives for an equilibrium among competing groups .94
The dynamics of the new urbanism may be involved in shifting
the ba lance of wealth away from the hands of tribute-supported
katriya rulers, and of brahmin receivers of great ritual dakll;iis,
into the hands of the mercantile community. W ith the rise of the
renunciant option, gaha patidonation helps to bring another new
lopsidedness into better balance as well: that between house
holders and renunciants. The potential for householder extrava
gance in secular life is thus curbed , and the Sangha becomes a
significant institution available as an equalizer in drawing off
householder surplus. Being a donor, then, means not only reap
ing spiritual rewards for giving a gift, but contributing to social
equilibrium as well.
The Gahapati as Buddhist Lay
The integrative function of the donation process seen as grant

economy is probably most obvious in the large number of house
holder donors who are a lso laymen (upiisaka) and laywomen
(upiisikii). Thapar has observed that the social context of Bud
dhism is "ari essential part of . . . [its] religious doctrine"95 and
this may well derive both from the collaborative efforts of indi
vidual householders and Sangha members as they put together
workable Dhamrriic and Vinayic systems for donation, and from
Buddhism 's strong appeal to mercantile and other economically
energetic groups. The degree of integration of donor and donee
varies tremendously, however, and it is a mistake to assume
that a ll gaha pati donors are personally committed to Buddhism,
just as it is to assume that all Buddhist laity are called gahapatis.
A s W agle points out, the gahapati is aligned not only with Bud
dhism, but with many other groups of wanderers as well, for
t here are many who seek him out for his growing resources.96
The variety of renunciant groups householders are committed
to is great97 and, since the donor often feeds whomever comes
62
to the door,98 it happens that householder followers of one group

may feed renunciants of another. 99 The Buddha's views on such
interfaith giving are tolerant and are themselves responsible for
many conversions to Buddhism. 100
Perhaps the most substantial non-Buddhist householder au
dience is from traditional brahmin communities. Many of these
brahmins are defenders of Buddhism and some, in time, become
disciples in the tradition. 101 Brahmin householders are not only
part of the Buddha 's audience but conspicuous donors to the
Sangha as well. There is the brahmin in Andhakavinda, for ex
ample, who waits his turn with other country people to provide
a meal for the monks. When in the course of two months no
turn comes up for him, he becomes mindful of his own personal
affairs going to ruin with the waiting, and goes to the monas
tery dining hall to see for himself what is currently missing so
that he can prepare it. Since he does not see conjey and honey
balls, he gets permission from the Buddha, through the interces
sion of A nanda , to offer them and does. 102 The continued pres
ence and conservatism of Vedic culture among householders
donating to the Buddhist movement is further evident in terms
such as gahapataggi, referring to the sacred domestic fire main
tained by the householder, 103 and gahapatipal)(iita, 'ho useholder
scho lar. ' 104 The fluidity and plura lity of this env ironment in
which donors of varied persuasion can give as they will to whom
ever they will is exemplified by the brahmin village of Paiicasala
in M agadha , whose inhabitants have the distinction of being
the only people to refuse to give a lms to the Buddha even on a.
festival day. 105
Pali narratives overwhelmingly identify the householder as
the intended audience of Buddhism and, a lthough Buddhism has
great tolerance for variety in spiritua l development, Dhamma is
most specifically for the consumption, inspiration , and conver
sion of that broad category of gahapati. The most important
type of gahapati for Pali texts, then, are the gahapatis who. are
a lso laymen or laywomen, for amongst them the exchange of
Dhamma and dana may be the most fortuitous. Successful out
reach to the householder follows an ideal course: according to
the Tevijja Sutta , a householder hears the Dhamma, acquires
63
confidence (saddhii) in the three refuges, realizes all the hin

drances of the householder life, and sees the contrasting free
dom of life in the ocher robe. Forsaking all his wealth and prop
erty, and forsaking his relatives, the householder then cuts his
hair, shaves his beard , dons the robe, and goes forth 'from the
household life into the homeless state' (agiirasmii anagiiriyarp). 106
The material well-being of the Sangha , however, depends on
this process moving not swiftly but slowly, intense enough at
the beginning to turn the householder toward commitment to
Buddhism, but leisurely enough in the intervening time before
renu nciatio n to continue the ho useho lder's procurement of
wea lth and his use of it in support of the Sangh a . The most
frequent descriptions of the householder donor, then, are de
scriptions of him or her in this transitional time, applying some
but not all effort to spiritual development and equal or more
effort to the building up and proper use of his material resources.
It is to the Sangha's benefit, then, to make this intervening pe
riod as desirable as possible: by giving it clear status a long a
recognized progression to enlightenment, as layman and lay
woman; by developing doctrinal systems peculiar to lay needs,
focusing in particular on merit; and by establishing an external
symbol in the standard white clothes by which the Buddhist
householder will be recognized by others.
The technical terms for layman and laywoman (upiisaka107
and upiisikii}'08 are from upa 'up close' and iis 'to sit , ' indicat
ing both the direct receipt of teaching from the Buddha himself
and the still-present need for a teacher-hence perfect terms for
the committed, yet transitional, donor who links the uncommit
ted with the fully committed. Thus, the Pali portrayal of the
upiisakagahapatiis as an unstable figure marked by transitional
spirituality; the householder is a lways vulnerable both to temp
tation from the material world as well as from the fu ll life of a
renunciant. The canonical definition exemplifies this, for an
upiisaka/upiisikii is someone who has taken the triple refuge
in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha 109 -but who has
not yet gone forth into the homeless state. Despite the "unsettled"
p l a c e of the l a y p e rs o n , the B u d d h a tells the w a nderer
Vacchagotta that many hundreds of them have committed to
64
his movement , 1 10 and they are known openly to the public be

cause they are odiitavasana 'dressed in white'-an auspicious
symbol of purity and well-being1 1 1 worn prior t o rebirth in the
fully spiritual life of the ocher-robed renunciant.
The key distinguishing feature of the layperson is that he or
she hears the Dhamma, 1 12 the doctrinal formulation of the dis
covery that brings enlightenment with all its attendant implica
tions. A lthough he isn't the only audience for the Buddha's ser
mons (certainly the monks and nuns hear Dhamma as do non
followers), the layperson acts as the mainstay listening-post for
the missionizing activities of the early movement. 1 13 The "hear
ing" of hearing the Dliamma is crucial for, as in the Vedic con
text, "the respect and reverence in which the sacred scriptures
are held" is based on their not being seen but having "to be learnt
by hearing them from one's teacher." 114 The acquisition of knowl
edge through hearing is purer than through other means, for less
interferes in the transmission and more authority can be im
puted to the source. Buddhist Dhamma, however, works even
without a teacher for it is pure and auspicious directly on its
own; 1 15 if indeed there is any convincing in the hearing of the
Dhamma it is because of the bare truthfulness of what is heard. 116
Just hearing the Dhamma, however, is not enough: o ne has to
listen to it, to be mindful of it, and to take heart in it. 1 17 Because
the Dhamma is a lways given out of compassion (karw;ii) and
empathy (anukampii) for the specific vulnerabilities and needs
of the audience, 1 18 the possibility for receptive hearing is height
ened. Those who do become laypersons, however, have presum
ably heard the Dhamma correctly, for it cannot happen if hear
ers engage in certain trades that injure others 1 19 or are otherwise
spiritually unprepared .
The results of authentically hearing the Dhamma v ary. A t
the very least, a hearer finds pleasure (abhinandati) i n the teach
ing and delights in it. 120 Often, hearing the Dhamma causes the
curious to become l aypersons and those who a re a lready
laypersons to go forth into the homeless state, that is, to be
accepted into the Sangha_,. as bhikkhus/bhikkhunis.m I t is espe
cially advantageous; however, when hearing the Dhamma re
sults in giving to the Sangha. In a transaction evocative of a n
65
exc ange economy, the word of the Buddha can elicit generous
sentunent and, then, support for the movement. 122 The exchange
tructure can ?e reversed as well: the donor can give a gift and
m return recetve a Dhamma talk. In a. repeated formula, for
example, the layman Udena sends a messenger to the Buddha
who is staying for the rains at A nathapiiJ<;lika's monastery i
Savatthi, with the request that the monks come to the monas
tery he has just built in Kosala: 'I want to give a gift, and to hear
the Dhamma, and to see the bhikkhus.' This formula is then
repea ted throughout the narrative as Udena, a ngry over the
monks' delay in arriving, proclaims himself to be a benefactor
a doer of good works, and an attendant on the Sangha (and i
thus due the proper attention of a Dhamma teaching ! ) .l23
The exchange described by Udena, however-that initiated
by a gift and followed by a Dhamma talk-is set out in a num
?er o f other places, including Visakha's gift of a cloth for wip
mg the face to the Budddha who upon receipt delivers a talk to
her. I n giving the cloth, however, V isakha does not ask for
Dhamma; what she says is, ' may the Blessed One, 0 Lord ac
cept this cloth f?r wiping the face from me, that is for my ros
_
enty and happmess over a long time.' 124 This appeal is interest
tg fo t o reasons. First, the use of the imperative at the begin
.
mug stgmftes a speech act, a performative utterance, such that
the com nd given t the very event of Visakha's handing over
of the wtpmg cloth ts what effects her future providence. Sec
ondly, although she gives, expecting an exchange, what she wants
in return is not necessarily Dhamma now but contentment in
times to come. This transaction, again, is a deferred exchange
or, better, an exchange with a continuing return over time-a
gift that keeps on giving.
That some k ind of worldliness remains a part of lay house
ho lder status is clear from the description kiimabhogin o r
'enjoye of pleasures .' While some see the phrase describing lay
possesston of wealth, 125 others see it describing lay pursuit of
sensual p esures.126 either case, however, it underscores again
.
the transttlonal pos1t10n of the lay: still bound to the material
world and yet, when the phrase follows odiitavasana 'dressed
in white,' committed to the Buddhist mission. The training of
66
the upasaka, moreover, allows him to handle this liminal posture

as best as he can. The white-clothed lay householder Sandhana,
for example, doe not surprise the renunciant Nigrodha when he
arrives in quiet, for Gotama 's lay followers are known to be
'trained in quiet, trained in making little noise . ' 127 This training
begins with taking the vow of triple refuge and proceeds through
the five precepts (vowing to abstain from taking life, from steal
ing, from sexual misconduct, from wrong speech, and from using
intoxicants) to a self-contained posture of confidence, moral
habit, and renunciation (saddhii, sila, and ciiga) in living out
the Dhamma . A lthough clearly a social and pleasure-loving crea
ture, the lay householder can work for spiritual advancement in
ways that not only transform him internally but are visible to
those around him. 12 8
Hindrances of the Householder Life
To work for his own spiritual benefit as his sole endeavor is

difficult for the householder for he is what the Buddha called
manussagiiha, still 'caught up by humans . ' He lives in a mixed
society, rejoices and sorrows with his fellows, finds happiness
in their happiness and suffering in their suffering, and in this
way makes a bond (yoga) with them in whatever befalls them. 129
H is efforts to achieve a middle pose as a. committed Buddhist,
still of this world , are hampered by several restrictions, restric
tions related to the circumstances he finds himself in as well as
his o wn mental conditioning.
M o re than a nything else, the h o u seholder 's mentality is
grounded in enjoying sense-pleasures. 130 Not only is this defect
looked down upon and a source of criticism from o thers, 13 1 but
a source of self-derision as well. More spiritually aware house
holders look around them and see that they take unfortunate
delight, for example, in Benarsi muslin and sandalwood , i or
namental flowers and cosmetics, and in using gold and stlver
and, noting this, ask the Buddha to teach them another kind of
happines s . 132 While householders know that they are enjoyers
of pleasure (kiimabhogin) , fond of plea s u re (kiimiiriima),
deligbters in pleasure (kiimarata), and rej oicers in pleasure
(kiimasammudita), they also know that it will be hard for them
67
to cross the 'precipice ' (papata) of actually giving these plea

sures up-thus the radical difference between the renunciant and
the 'many folk ' (bahu jana)'33 who are bound to this world by
klima. A source of solace and satisfaction for householders ,
however, is given by Buddhist doctrine, for four types of happi
ness a re available to the kiimabhogin: the happiness of owning,
the happiness of wealth, the happiness o f being without debt,
and the happiness of being without blame. 134 And each of these
types of happiness are so, curiously enough, because of the pos
sibilities of dana.
The grip o f the h o u seholder life is expressed a g a i n by
rajopatha, 'of the dusty path. ' 135 Some interpretations focus on
the narro w confinement of life in the house with its stuffy, op
pressive, dirty air in stark contrast to open freedom of life in the
'gone forth' state with its clean, pure air. Others find the dust of
passion here, and still others the dust of ignorance which con
ceals knowledge. What is clear from the passages, however, is
that ho wever obscuring and confining this dusty life might be,
it is difficult to maintain . It is not an easy thing (na sukara),
these passages say, for one living the household life to practice
the spiritual path perfectly and purely.136 While the answer for
some is to give it up and go forth in ocher-robes, this is not
always suitable for the householder nor is it entirely suitable for
the welfare of the Buddhist movement. If everyone gives up the
dusty life, there would be no one to support the pure life. Hence,
Buddhist teaching has to provide a clear way through difficul
ties that will still allow the householder the greatest satisfaction
and advantage in committing temporarily to staying precisely
where he or she is .
The difficulties of householder life mount even more: not only
is o ne still prey to pleasures and to the obscuration of knowl
edge, but to innumerable diversions as well. The householder
by definition lives in sleeping quarters crowded with children
(puttasambiidhasayana);137 and this proximity to the young,
especially to his own, is a d istraction filled with attachment.
While he is obliged (by none other than the Singalovada Sutta)
to provide the basic necessities to those he lives with, 138 their
acquisition is not always easy. But if the collection of necessities
68
is difficult, more so is their protection, that often entails the

maintenance of a strong bodyguard . 139 Moreover, the house
ho lder has to pay taxes (thus filling up the coffers of the king) 140
and is saddled with numerous administrative chores and with
duties and responsibilities at every turn of his way. 14 1 Most of
all, however, is the continuing bondage of his wealth, 142 a theme
that pervades the discussion of householder hindrances and that ,
fortuitously, can be rectified by Buddhist lay ethics.
WOMEN DONORS ON THEIR OWN
As the householder moves onto center-stage amidst the changes

of his world, and as dana becomes the religious contract suit
ably accommodating him to these changes , his own household
unit responds as well with the emergence of the gahapatani or
'housemistress ' as an independent agent. Not only are house
holder and housemistress distinguished one from the other in
the giving of gifts to renunciants, but women . are named as in
dependent donors to the Sangha a lmost as freqently as men .
The new autonomy of women in matters of dana reflects a wider
involvement of women in economic matters at this time 143 and
has its immediate roots in the gift of food by the Vedic wife to
renunciant petitioners who appear at the household door. In
danadharma "the utmost importance is given to the gift of
food" 144 and, when petitioners come to the door, according to
the prescriptions for the ritual transaction of bhik$a or a lms
petition, it is normally the wife who gives out cooked fare into
their waiting bowls . 145
This formal pattern of the Vedic tradition is reflected in the
Buddhist context from the beginning, and the featured role of
women in the day-to-day practice of lay Buddhism toward the
Sangha remains significant in Buddhist settings to this day. 146
While some see Buddhist disparagement of women as the_ norm
in Pali texts , 147 these same texts can be read otherwise: as sup
port for the enlightenment of women148 and for the ful l partici
pation of women in the lay life of Buddhist donation. The
significance of the status of women donors in Buddhism is re
flected not only in textua l formulations of the alms petition , but
in the requisites of the Vedic ritual as well, 149 where the full range
of hospitality anxieties are rendered manageable in ritual form. 150
69
Hospitality: Binding Vedic Women Donors to the Marital Unit
The Vedic pattern for women as gift-givers derives from both

the srauta (public) and the grhya (domestic) setting. In the sol
emn sacrifice, it is the guest reception (Atithya) of Soma that
illuminates the efficacy of the ritual around two central points:
the hospitality of the patron and his household in receiving and
hosting guests , and the role of the sacrificer's wife in mediating
relations with the guest and , most importantly, in representing
the household in the gifting of its property. A lthough the fire
god Agni is the frequent guest (atithi) of humans at the ritual
from Rg Vedic time onwards, and although the brahmin officiant
is the human "guest par excellence" at the ritual, 151 it is the herb
K ing Soma 152 around whom the paradigms of ritual giving are
most significantly woven .
I n the Atithya ceremony, after ritual purchase of the p lant
and after Soma is brought forward to 'the house of the sacrificer'
(yajamanasya grha) the fire is kindled 153 and Soma is received
by the household:
(The sacrificer/household) offers hos
pitality for the continuity of the sac
rifice. The wife touches (the Soma
cart) from behind, for the wife is the
mistress of the household goods; in
this way (the household) offers what
is approved by the wife. Verily that
part of the sacrifice that is the wife
makes a pairing. Now this touching
(of the Soma cart) from behind by the
wife is for the uninterruptedness o f
the sacrifice. 154
H ere, the power and successful endurance of the rit u a l is

clearly defined as dependent upon the hospitality of the sacrificer
and his household, and the wife's approval is established as es
sential in the making of the ritual offering. 155 That the whole
household is the agent in reception of a ritual guest:_represented
in the couple (mithuna) of husband and wife-is made clear
again in a Satapatha Brahmar:ta passage: 156
70
Thus they enclose him (Soma) on two

sides by a (husband and wife) couple;
wherever in this , way a worthy one
comes, there indeed all the household
members bestir themselves. Thus, he
is attended to.
The ritual wife, as half of the couple, thus ensures the auspi
cious prosperity of the process by her full presence in the host
ing.
The wife is indispensable to hospitality within the ritual spe
cifically because of her relation to household property. A lthough
subject in other ways to the overlordship of her husband, and
although united symbolically as one with the husband in the
marital unit, 157 the wife has power through use and disposal rights
over, as well as responsibilities of care for, goods in the house
hold domain. As seen, TS 6.2. 1 . 1-2 158 declares that in the guest
reception of Soma to 'the hou se of the sacrificer , ' 159 the wife is
essential to hospitality settings because it is she who is the 'mis
tress of the household goods' (patni hi piiril;ahyasyese), such
that "her permission to give [household goods] . . . away to a guest
is required" for a ritual's efficacy. 160 Stephanie Jamison has dis
cussed this passage and the possible origin of pari(Jahya in "the
moveable goods that the bride brought to her new home at mar
riage" as a way of focusing on the rights of dominion a wife
may have over a wider range of goods and property in the house
hold . 16 1 In the srauta setting, she argues, the ritual wife is seen
as guardian and manager of the household property and not
only has to be present at the occasion of the ritual, but has to
give agreement to ritual offerings as well. As indicative of a
wider paradigm, srauta hospitality offered to Soma comes to
be emblematic of that offered to all guests, particularly to
brahmin guests 162 and to the increasing numbers of wandering
petitioners appearing at the household door.
The l i n k a ge between the Vedic hou semistress and her
household 's hospitality obligations is clear as well in the grhya
context . I dentified fully with the house as her resting place
and sanctuary, the housemistress is the representative of the
hospitality of the domestic fire . 163 This is most conspicuous in
71
t h e bhik$ ii relationship ritua lized in t h e a ppearance of the

brahmaciirin, 164 and later of saf!J nyiisin, 165 at the door for food .
I n the case o f the brahmaciirin, the encounter at the door i s gov
erned by the identity of the donor and the identity of the peti
tioner, as well as by whether the student is coming at the time of
his Upanayana or as part of the actual practice of his student
hood . The donor, that is, the housemistress at whose house the
student petitions for food at the time of the Upanayana , is iden
tified by the majority of the Grhya Sutras , first, as the student 's
own mother and , then, as a woman who will not refuse him. 166
For food during his daily alms round, the student is to peti
tion women in the reverse order of the initiation . Thu s , t he
Satapatha Brahmana enjoins the student to petition daily from
women in whom he has confidence and , if no others a re to be
found, to petition from his teacher's wife and finally from his
mother . 167 M anu actua lly prohibits the student from petitioning
on a day-to-day basis from relatives of his teacher or from his
mother's family unless there are no strangers' houses available,
in which case he is allowed to begin with his mother's blood
relatio ns. 168
The identity of the petitioner is announced by the student him
self at the very moment of the encounter and, as given in Vedic
texts, the announcement upholds the idealized social schema of
the tradition. According to the Paraskara Grhya Sutra , a brahmin
student is to petition from a householder woman by putting
bha vati 'lady' at the beginning of his request, a k$atriya/riijanya
student by putting 'lady' in the middle, and a vaisya student by
putting 'lady ' at the end. 169 Although other texts have formulae
that can be applied either to a male or a female donor, the norm
for the verbal petition is for use in approaching the householder
wife. 17 For her part, the housemistress is enjoined by the Dharma
Si.itras not to refuse alms that are requested by students for fear
of vio lating those who a re truly conscientious about their vows ,
to examine the qualities of those who petition and to be favor
able to those who are worthy and, finally, to give according to
her a bility. 171
In the Vedic enco unter a t the threshold door, then , the
piiril;ahya model is at work: as dispenser of the household goods
72
and as representative of the household in an atithya 'hospitality'

setting, it is the woman of the household, the grhapatni, to whom
the brahmacarin goes as giver of food on behalf of the house
hold. That a woman as hospitality representative of the marital
unit actually manages the property of the household is critical in
the threshold encounter and, in this way, a woman's dana iden
tity is formulated early on by the structure of her marriage.
If the obligations of the Vedic relationship rest upon a view of
hospitality in which the agent of that atithya behavior is the house
hold, represented by the presence and hospitable functioning of
the housemistress, there are only a few rules obligatory to the
behavior of the guest at the point of the encounter; most rest upon
the host, that is, upon the hostess. The householder wife here does
not act independently, 172 however, but instead stands in for the
household itself for not only does she complete the household,
but she is the one whose graciousness to others cements the bonds
of a hierarchical and highly segmented society.
The bhik$fi encounter between the brahmacarin and his do
nor thus serve to reaffirm the social placement of the partici
pants within the larger structures of Brahmai:tic society. While
the Upanayana petitioning brings the student into a newly dis
tant and more formalized relationship with his o wn family, es
pecially with his own mother, daily petitioning brings him into
greater contact with other families in his wider social world .
The formalized relationship of bhik$fi heightens his awareness
both of caGte boundaries and of the need for a solemn, purity
maintaining, etiquette. It a lso, importantly, underscores the tra
ditional role Vedic women have in representing the household
a-s a critical part of that etiquette.
Individual Agency: Buddhist Women Donors and Risk
The Vedic relationships of a lms petition have formal parallels

in Buddhist texts, but the Vinayic understanding indicates that
much has changed, particularly for women. Similar to the case
of the brahmacarin, the Buddhist bhikkhu/bhikkhuniis obliged
by virtue of admission into the Sangha to take up the bowl and
outer-robe and to go on tour for alms food once a day during
the period before n o o n . 1 73 Pali accounts of the pii.u ;/apata/
piru;la cara prescribe in exceedingly careful detail the wearing of
Redefining Rela tionships : The New Donor
73
the robe, the walking amidst the houses, the comportment of

the body as the renunciant meets the gahapatani at the door, the
holding of the bowl, and the careful focusing of the m ind. 174
In contrast to the Vedic pa.radigm, however, there is a shift in
the Buddhist relationship from household obligations toward
the renunciant to individual patronage of him or her, that is , a
shift from responsibilities that impinge upon the donor to pre
scriptions given over to the monk or nun. Thus 1 instead of do
nor hospitality, the relationship is governed by renunciant de
pendence (upanissaya): others are, by open acknowledgement,
relied upon to supply food, robes, lodgings, and medicine. 175
Nevertheless , a lthough set now in the context of voluntary pa
tronage instead of obligatory hospitality, the Buddhist encoun
ter remains an encounter primarily with the woman of the house
hold . Thus , with formal pattern from the brahmacarin model,
this patronage is, again, a style of matronage. 176
Two elements are critical as the renunciant walks among the
houses, clad properly in three robes and waiting silently for the
gahapatanito offer food: the anonymity of both the donor and
the petitioner and the need for the petitioner to evoke the donor's
goodwill. In the Cullavagga, the renunciant is enjoined to walk
among the houses with his eyes cast down, 177 looking a plough's
length ahead , 178 and not to look at the face of the donor of the
alms. Based on the commentary, I . B. Horner notes that "the
donor may be a woman or a man. One is not to look at his (or
her) face at the time when the alms are being given . " 179
The contrast to the practice of the brahmacarin is striking.
Not o nly is the Buddhist petitioner not to look at the face of the
donor, and thereby not to notice the donor's gender (although
the texts are clear that the donor is normally the mistress of the
house), but there are also no prescriptions for announcing the
status of the petitioner. A lthough certain unmistaka bie signs
w ill signal to the donor that it is a Sakyaputtiya, a follower of
the Sakyamuni, who has come to the door-the color, number,
and hang of the robes, the material of the bowl, and the com
portment of the body-there is no overt sign , and certainly no
verbal formula, indicating the petitioner's status along the path
way. It is true that the donor accrues greater merit by giving to
increasingly more productive 'fields of merit' (puiiiiakkhetta), 180
74
Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa!i Buddhism
but external markers for these are rarely found in the texts pre
scribing the encounter. A later practice found particularly in the
Theragatha may prescribe, however, the self-identification of
arahants with "I am an arahant, .worthy of gifts," in order to
compensate for the increased unfamiliarity of donors in an ur
ban environment with the spiritual status of individual renun
ciants and, therefore, of the quality of merit resulting from seeds
sown in particular renunciant fields. In the traditional Buddhist
paradigm , rather than focusing on the social markers of those
in the bhik$fi relationship (e.g., caste and gender), however,
where a woman' s place as woman vis-a-vis the household is
heightened as in the Vedic paradigm, the tradition turns a blind
eye to the externa ls of gender, in the case of both the donor and
the petitioner, and focuses instead on the internal qualities of
tl,ose in the transaction . 18 1
While the downcast eyes reaffirm the anonymity of the thresh
o ld relationship, they a lso express a virtue crucial to the depen
dence of the renunciant upon the donor: humility. Because the
merit to the donor increases with the spiritual advancement of
the recipient and because the inner spiritual advancement of the
recipient is thought to be visible in his or her external comport
ment, donors are more likely to give when the recipient's behav
ior fits their notion of worthiness . Downcast eyes, then, are a
critical sign of deferential reliance upon the generosity of the
donor and of a renunciant's need to keep these channels open .
Preserving the goodwill of the donor is effected, secondly,
by a renunciant's ritualized "testing of the waters" in which he
or s he d iscerns how willing the donor, here explicitly t he
housemistre s s , rriight be to giving fo o d . A ccording to the
Cullavagga , at each instance of petitioning fQod, a monk or
nun has to do the following :
While standing, he [or she] should
consider: 'Is she willing to give alms
food or is she not willing to give?' If
she Jays her work aside, or rises from
her seat, or wipes a spoon, or wipes a
dish, or sets it out, he [or she] should
stand still thinking: 'it is as though she
' 182
is willing to give.
75
The giving of specific signs-the transfer of attention, the

getting up, the readying of utensils-indicates that the donor
herself is open to the encounter and is willing to give o n the
basis of perceptions of the renunciant's integrity as well as out
of her own goodwill . This shift from the obligation of hospital
ity to the search for goodwill not only lays the burden o n the
Buddhist petitioner to demonstrate each time anew, through signs
of inner worthiness, the appropriateness of the dependent rela
tionship but opens up an element of choice for the woman being
petitioned .
The Jain case is reflective of the common formal pattern but
applies a centra l Jain principle. Aptly, the Acarali.ga SUtra notes
that the donor petitioned is normally a woman and , as with the
brahmacfirin, prescribes that the Jain renunciant approaches the
donor with a verbal formula. To the householder's wife, sister,
daughter-in-law or nurse, or male or female s lave or servant,
the renunciant says: 'Oh long-lived one! (or Oh sister ! ) will you
give me something to eat?' Ever mindful of the need for ahiril sfi,
however, if the woman, in agreement, moves to wipe or wash
the hands or spoon or plate in water, the renunciant is to inter
vene by asking her not to, saying, 'if you want to give me some
thing, give it as it is, ' for washing might cause injury to water
borne creatures. The concern for ahiril sfi is so great that Jain
renunciants have to choose carefully which donors to petition
from , 183 how and with whom to walk, and the exact manner for
acceptance of food into the bowl. Water is of particular con
cern for not only can the washing of hands in preparation for
giving the food kill living creatures, but water to drink is, pref
erably, to be poured by the renunciant him or herself. 184 More
over, any food that is suspected of containing live matter-in
the form, for example, of seeds, sprouts, mildew or dust-is
unacceptable for alms and has to be rejected by the petitioner. 185
Jain injunctions are shaped throughout by the principle of non
injury. While the woman serves as donor, 186 as she has in other
cases , the governing of her actions is not hospitality etiquette or
a w illingness prompted by renunciant 's worthiness but the need
to m a intain ahiril sfi both in the process of giving and in the foo d
that is given. This principle is visible in the issue of bathing:
76

while both brahmacarins and bhikkhus and bhikkhunis are to

bathe regularly and to wear clean clothes, Jain mendicants nor
mally do not, hoping to avoid killing living beings lodged on
their skin. This often gives rise to a smell that is notably dis
agreeable to householders. 187 Whether for reasons of ahif!l sil or
of an indifference to the outside world , 188 the effect is to disre
gard a principle that Buddhists now hold so central, that is , the
maintenance of goodwill in the donor.
Thus, the paradigm shift for Buddhist women is manifest in
a ltered prescriptions for renunciant encounter. This shift has at
least two aspects . First, the subordination of women to the mari
tal unit, and the consequent definition of women as given by the
structure of marriage, is loosening somewhat so that separation
from the strict confines of the household becomes possible. No
longer the religious unit having agency for ritual effectiveness,
the ho useh o ld as represented in the Buddhist gahapati and
gahapatani is now more generally a social unit with significant
economic implication s . The redefinition of the household within
a broader network of resources and responsibilities a ligns its
members with channels supporting the young religion and, as
wealth can increasingly be directed in ways different from Vedic
patronage, women 's role in that redirection is often indepen
dent of consultation with her household.
Second, the shift away from defining women exclusively as
the hospitality representative of the household is concurrent with
the emergence of a new individualism, 189 best reflected in what
Pali women do with wealth. In that the Buddhist prescriptions
for the renunciant encounter place final agency in the hands of
the housemistress at the door, she is unlike the Vedic wife who
gives o n behalf of the whole household . A s the actual individual
who comes to the door, she is the one who decides then and
there whether giving or not giving is something she wants or is
prepared to do. The element of choice in the Buddhist setting,
and of the play of personal judgment and of inventive agency
by a female donor, is strikingly illustrated in the story of Suppiya .
Hearing of a sick monk in need of a meat broth, Suppiya goes in
search of something in the market with which to make it. Finding
none (this being a non-slaughter day, maghata ajja), she remains
77
intent upon making a medicinal gift to the monk and eventually

cuts a piece of her own thigh for the simmering. When the broth
is done, she has a servant bring it to the monk and herself goes
to her room in weak confinement. I nvited to Suppiya 's house
by her husband, the Buddha then asks for her and, when she
comes before him, the cut out of her thigh is healed immedi
ately. The Buddha then returns to the community and berates
the monk who has accepted the broth for not inquiring as to its
origins, ruling finally against the use of human flesh as food . 190
The separability of a woman's wealth and her independent

use of it are illustrated in two further stories. In both, well-mean
ing parents use three piles of wealth, one of them belonging spe
cifically to the mother, to entice the renunciant son back into
the household life. In the case of the monk Sudinna, part of
what he refuses is matumattikaf!l itthikaya itthidhanaf!J 'the
mother's portion, the wife 's property due her because she is a
w o m a n/w ife, ' 1 9 1 a n d in that of the m o n k R a tthapala it is
mattikaf!J dhanaf!J 'the mother's property. ' 192 Significant to both
stories is that the property of the wife is clearly d ifferentiated
and that the mother of each monk has given permission for this
property to devolve separately upon the "errant" son should he
choose to return to householder life. 193
Some measure of the economic independence available to
women is reflected in Buddhist encouragement to wives to learn
the business 'of their husbands. In this instance, the Buddha 's
counsel to the daughters of the gahapati Uggaha is not only to
guard and protect the material property of their future husbands
and to manage deftly and sensitively the household staff, but to
learn their husbands' crafts as well. The daughters respond:
We will be skilled and diligent at the
domestic crafts of our husbands,
whether they be of wo ol or of cotton,
focusing on understanding the tech
niq ue s therei n in o rde r t o d o
194
i t and t o get i t done.
On another occasion, a wife counsels her sick husban.d, that,

having learned his crafts well, she will be able to support herself
78
.
195
"
and her family prosperously through Its proceed s when he d Ies.
The most notable example of women 's economic independence,
of course, is the great number of individual women donors to
the Sangha who o n their own give not only monumental quanti
ties of food, medicine, and robes, but land and lodgings as well.
The possibility for a woman to be a donor of the fo ur Bu
dhist requisites (parikkhiira) illuminates further the changes m
the traditional bhik,s-ii relationship at the door. A lthough the fact
that Pali households are normally marked by both the house
holder and his wife indicates the continued influence of the Vedic
"unit" model of marriage (mithuna), of the hospitable (iitithya)
reception of guests, and of Vedic views on hous hold wealth
(piiriiJahya), the ritual prescriptions for the renunciant encoun
ter tell more. That the petitioner does not look at the face of the
donor and that the donor may be a man or a woman, 196 sugges t s
the new trend at work. If it is not important that the food giver
at the door be a woman, then the understanding of the wife as
manager and dispensr of household goods is of less imp r
tance than in the Vedic paradigm. What seems to be more sig
nificant is that whoever makes the donation does so out of indi
vidual support for the movement, rather than out of hospitality
obligations reflected in female management of hous hold good .
The positioning of a woman as ;:t donor in her own nght, then, IS
not ultimately the attribution of a higher status, but a s _ign that
gender, in theory, does not matter in the dana process . In prac
tice, moreover, it means that women 's identity is not bound by
an accident of birth but open to redefinition through individual
actions .
H aving said this, one curious item from the Vinaya prescnp
tion rema ins . Buddhist discipline is not laid down as a simple
list of rules , but 6ften set wirhin narrative contexts purporting
to give an originating situation or a defining historical arena. 197
The classic prescription for the piiJ{japiita/piiJ{jaciira in the
Cullavagga is no exceptiol,l and its narrative home is helpful in
illuminating the new setting for women in the Buddhist world.
According to tl;le Cullavagga , there is once a time when a cer
tain unnamed rhonk, who is dressed improperly and who walks
amongst houses improperly, happens to come upon a woman
Redefining R elationships : The New Donor
79
lying naked on her back in the inner chamber of her house. The
husband seeing the monk there accuses him of seducing his wife
and beats him, waking the woman who then comes to the monk's
defense. Hearing of this, the Buddha lays down rules for proper
a lm s -touring, 198 that emphasize the monk's (or nun's) taking
more stringent measures to reign in his (or her) senses and to
guarantee donor-suitable comportment.
At first glance, this seems an odd mechanism by which to
introduce a lms-to uring rules-until it 's remembered that , in the
Vedic paradigm, marriage is the establishing structure for a
woman's bhik,s-ii obligations. The advantage of using this struc
ture is that in marriage the natural , and potentially explosive,
ero tic tendencies of women 199 can be tamed and , in their do
mestication, the threat they pose to the social and moral order
defused. The institution of marriage itself is then the context
within which sexual pleasure (rati)can be expressed and the goal
of children (prajii) pursued, 200 such that wives who allow these
boundaries to frame their identity are honored and revered by
their husbands. 20 1 The Vedic paradigm of the bhik,s-ii encounter,
then, is founded 0n and circumscribed by the properly function
ing institution of marriage: the two women specifically named
in the defining and sustaining ritual of Upanayana bhik,s-ii are
the wife of the father and the wife of the teacher. A ltho ugh
Dharma literature is especially mindful of the distracting and
seductive po wers of women, 202 these do not play into the thresh
old encounter with a renunciant, for it is here that the control
ling model of the household unit is so strong that the untamed
sexua lity of the woman at the door is rendered moot by her mar
ried state.
In the Buddhist case, however, where the household unit is
not necessarily the defining unit, the bhik,s-iicara, that is , the
bhikkhu or bhikkhuni is instructed to be forever on his or her
guard. Unlike Vedic prescriptions giving those households-not
to-beg-from as those whose heads do not have Vedic expertise,
but saying nothing specific about certain women 's households/03
Buddhist prescriptions deride those who petition a mong prosti
tutes, widows, grown girls, eunuchs , and nuns204 in order to pro
tect, apparently, the monk from the untamed sexua l powers of
80
Dana : Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism
such people. More specifically, in giving rules for the renunciant

encounter, the Cullavagga text works within the newer context in
which the woman who meets the bhikkhu at the door, and who
indicates her willingness to give by certain subtle actions in the
kitchen, is doing so not necessarily as representative of the house
hold unit but as an individual sympathetic to the new religion .
Appearing, then, in a role that i s , for all intents and purposes,
unprotected by the Vedic ramparts of marriage, the woman be
comes a source of a more loosely contained sexuality against
which the vulnerable renunciant now has to guard himself with
all his mindfulness. Like the more general Vedic understanding
of women, the canon 's view of the individualized encounter is
that , while it is the woman who tempts, it is the male renunciant
who has to be on his guard .
While the piiJdapata rules set within this story of the naked
encounter seem to be exclusively about the sexual seductive
ness of women, they are in fact as much, if not more, about
maintaining the goodwill of the donor. W ith the Cullavagga
passage as the base for these procedural rules , this goodwill is
certain to be preserved if the onus for the safeness of the thresh
old relationship rests upon the renunciant. That it is the respon
sibility of the renunciant for maintaining the sexual safeness of
the donor-renunciant relationship is reaffirmed textually when
the genders are switched; a number of times in the Bhikkhuni
Vibhailga nuns are enjoined to keep their desires in strict con
trol when around male donors, 205 indicating that bearing the
burden of safeness in the threshold encounter is not, fundament
aly, a gender-bound issue.
The Encounter as a Non-Gendered Transaction
The transaction at the door is a central feature of lay-renunciant

relations, in part because it serves the nutritional needs of monks
and nuns. It is clearly more than this, however, for as a truly
religious act it contributes to spiritual transformation as well.
If this act does, in fact, effect fundamental change, and if the
paradigm for giving is in fact the woman's posture at the door,
it becomes important to examine what place gender has , if any,
in shaping the transformational process of the alms encounter.
81
Most influential on the Buddhist understanding o f the process

is the view of "causal productiveness" developed within the con
text of the early Vedic ritual: the belief that there is a power set
in motion by the ritual procedure that produces a future result,
and the belief specifically that the individual is the beneficiary
of his own ritual action at a later time. The formative threads of
this early quest to understand the mechanisms of causality even
tually produces the traditional I ndian views on karma and re
birth (punarjanman, punarmrtyu and sarpsara). And out of this
development in the srauta and grhya contexts , significantly,
emerge values instructive for male and female identity. In the
influence of these threads on the Buddhist alms encounter how
'
'
ever, ambiguities arise due to confliCtingly engendered ideas;
but, whatever ambiguities there are they iue so lved with the ritu
als' loss of gendered properties when expressed in the Buddhist
setting.
As noted, it is in the ritual efficacy associated with hospi
table reception of ritual guests, such as Soma , that the causal
process becomes associated with the identity of the Vedic wife.
Representative of the household and manager of its property,
the wife's proper action within the boundaries of this identity,
ensures that the ritual process will produce the desired short
term fruit of prosperity for the household, and the desired long
term fruit of future spiritual adv antage for, principally, the
sacrificer. Here female identity becomes associated with the
continued prosperity of the extended household as it upholds
the so cio-ritual obligations of its place within the Vedic schema.
The shaping of male identity takes place in a number of dif
ferent contexts, each consistently delineating family lineage as '
the construct of enduring value. Two of these contexts are espe
cially significant in understanding the eventual mechanism of
causation taking place in the Buddhist encounter. In the first,
speculation focuses on what happens at death and, in particular,
where the person might go and how individual identity might be
maintained . Rg Vedic funeral verses suggest the dispersal of
parts of the body into appropriate natural elements . 206 or the
movement of the mind (manas) itself out toward natural habi
tats. 207 Attempts to control this process ritually, to the auspicious
82
Dana: Giying and Getting in Pali Buddhism
benefit of both tl-.e departed and the survivors, is paramount

and, although the 'i deas about rebirth are sketchy, hopes for the
human mechanisJin of control are increasingly elaborate. To the
point, a lthough te. verses can be said of any deceased, their use
in later ritual sytings208 suggests that the generic deceased is, in
fact, a dead m!ari; hat is, !person here means male person.
This copcer,h for continuity after death, and for the mechan
ics of ensuring nd controlling it, are developed in the 'rite of
transfer' (sanipratti/sampradiina/09 whereby a dying father gives
his own p,e rson up into that of his son. Working out of a Vedic
heritage tpat hold that the son is both the symbolic immortality
of the father here on earth as well as his actual continuity, 2 10
'
the rite of transfer as laid out in the Upaniads effects the transfer through a series of responsive utterances . I n it, when the
father pronounces 'I will place my speech in you , ' the son re
sponds 'I place your speech in me, ' and this pattern of antipho
nal utterances then moves sequentially through functions such
as breathing, seeing, heari , tasting, acting, moving, and think
ing up to full transfer of the father into the son and the father's
death. 2 1 1 In this way, the ritua l ensures the continuity of the fa
ther through the son and, in time, of the son through his grand
son in an o ngoing lineage sequence, through the po wer of
performative speech. The person as male person is linked unin
terruptedly into a sequence of 'immortality' by the potency of
the linked members' own verbal activity. 2 12
M a le identity established in the context of lineage continuity
is the basis, second, for the ritual efficacy of the funeral and
a ncestra l rites. The early notion of i$!iipiirta, for example,
whereby the person unites with the fruits of his own and other's
ritual action after death is tied primarily to the deceased 's being
m a le and to his connections with previously deceased male an
cestors (pitaral;) and to still surv iv ing m a le descendants. 2 1 3
Through the Sraddha offerings, the son guarantees a happy life
for his father after death as well as for several generations of
immediately preceding fathers. Because the dead need the assis
tance of the still living in order "to emigrate from this world to
that higher one, to pass from the dangerous condition of a dis
embodied spirit [preta]to the secure role of pitr among his own
83
pitarab, " 2 14 the negotiation of this passage in the sapilJdikaral}a

rite requires regular nourishment for the creation of a tempo
rary body necessary for the process . During the rites, for ex
ample, offerings of cooked white rice (pilJda) are needed for the
remembering, part by part, of the preta 's intermediate body and,
through continued ritual manipulation of the symbolic nourish
ments of pilJda and of cups of water, and of the honorifics of
incense, flowers, lamps, and white threads for clothing, 2 15 the
deceased eventually moves to "the triple world of the immigran t
dea d . " 2 16 I n addition to providing for the transitional well-be
ing of the newly dead, the postcremation Sraddha rites estab
lish and reaffirm the sapilJda relationships, the ritual bonds be
tween living men and preceding generations of deceased male
ancestors. A lthough these rites can be performed as well for
materna l relations , the Vedic standard focuses on the paternal
lineage and on the subsumption of male identity within it. 2 17
In these ways, then, female and male identity come to be de
fined within different but related constructs that stem from Vedic
ritual. While the identity of the woman/wife is ritualized in the
hospitality etiquette to be shown a guest (e.g . ,to Soma, the
brahmin guest, and the brahmaciirin), as based in the house
hold, the identity of the man/son is ritualized in the rites of trans
fer from a dying father and in the Sraddha offerings by the son
to paternal ancestors, as based in family lineage. I n the one case
(female identity), proper action affirms the structure of the com
munity over space and , in the other (male identity), it affirms
the c ontinuity of the community over time. When these threads
come together as formal Vedic remnants within the setting of
the Buddhist renunciant encounter, the a lms ritual as prescribed
in the Vinaya not o nly combines them into a more complex
understand ing of th,e mechanisms of causa lity, but it brings
together conflictingly gendered components . Specifically, the
norm in the Cullavagga is that a female donor at the household
door gives to a male renunciant who receives pil;(ia. The gender
discordance here is that Vedic practice does not conspicuously
call for a woman to give pil;da to benefit "the dead. " 2 18 Through
a now more complex construction, the Buddhist encounter solves
this gender ambiguity by rendering the gender aspects moot.
84
Thus, one of the most important changes in the Buddhist ritual

is the de-gendering of the offices of both donor and donee. On
the donor side, the guest etiquette proffered by an obligated
hou semistress becomes donation offered by a willing fol lo wer,
male or female; and, on the donee side, the ancestral dead served
piiJda in hopes of prospering from an enduring male lineage be
comes a humble renunciant , monk or nun. In this way, the
degendering takes place in clear context of individualism, illu
mined sharply by the Buddhist doctrine of k amma , where one
reaps exactly what one sows. A lthough in form, parallels to
Vedic ritual persist, the meaning is sufficiently "Buddhized" such
that, by doctrine, the donor and donee stand in for no one but
themselves and can be either m a le or fema le : gahapati o r
gahapatiini, bhikkhu or bhikkhuni.
If view of causality not fully explained by the earlier mechan
ics of the ritual, 219 a new structure emerges that fits more con
structively into Buddhist thought and that, for -the discussion
here confirms the movement away from gendered categories .
The image that comes into use, possibly from the expansion of
agriculture in the Ganga Valley, is that of the field. I n this im
age, just as a farmer sows seed in a field and reaps a harvest, so
a donor gives gifts to a renunciant and makes merit. A lthough
seemingly s imple, the sowing and reaping imagery becomes
m anifoldly complex as the relation between donors and the
Sangha grows symbiotically, in such a way that there are many
gra d a t i o n s o f farmers/d o n o r s , 220 seeds/gift s , 22 1 and fields/
renunciants. 222 Moreover, the act of sowing/giving223 changes
depending on the agent's nature, and the growing in the field
depends on the frequency and quality of the rain and sunlight,
o ngoing attention to the field, and the timing of the harvest . 224
I n a ll , the prosperity of the result, that is, of the harvest/merit
both of which are the foundations of enduring life-depend upon
a great many variables. 225 For purposes here, it is enough to make
two points. First, in the shift to a new image for describing the
causal process of a lms giving, Buddhism leaves behind gendered
structures and uses instead an image in which the elements can
be either male or female: though male with no feminine version ,
the kassaka a s farmer d oes n o t need to b e m a le to d o the
85
so wing; moreover, both the seed (bija) and the field (khetta) are
a lready neuter and are treated in Buddhism without thought to
a gendered role. Second , th<e shift to a new image does not in
vo lve, after de-gendering, a second process of re-gendering.
A lthough the traditional H indu view casts the field cultivator
as m a le and the cultivated field as female-with Sita 's father,
the plo ughing King Janaka, and mother, the furrowed Earth, as
clear exemplars of this stereotype-these renderings are rare in
Pa li texts. 226
A s the context of householder life changes, so does house
holder religious affiliation with the Pali gahapati and gahapatiini
emerging as much more open-ended and flexible religious con
sumers . Available now to a number of groups to provide re
so urces , the householder and housemistress experience a new
freedom in choosing their a lliances. M oreover, since many are
invo lved in trade and since the merchants are not well-provided
for in the Vedic religious system, the availability of so many
spiritual possibilities is tremendously invigorating. A s one of
these possibilities, early Buddhism responds with a clear, well
organized, and systematic schema for lay religio us life, includ
ing teachings on proper relationships, good conduct, and val
ues fo r using wealth. 227 While there is nothing doctrinally that
prohibits lay meditation, day-to-day impediments prove signifi
cant , 228 and practices such as donation (as a part of good con
duct) become the easiest and most opportune way for house
holder commitments to be effective. Donation is good for, as
H a rvey A ro nson notes , harm does not ever come to a family
from the practice of giving gifts. 229
I n spite of the Dhammic importance of giving, however, the
hou seholder life remains the antipodal symbol of mona stic
virt u e . The gahapati and gahapatiini a re by circumstance
kiimabhogins, enjoying those very things that homeless wan
derers vow to give up. Moreover, they are reminders to renunciants
of what they once were but now can no longer be. The separation
is sometimes artificial, however, for monastic renunciation is
not fully a uthentic when texts focus on, for example, which
donor gives the most sumptuous food 230 and how resplendent
gone forth lodgings can be. And these gone forth cannot be too
86
far gone with householder support so critical to the Sangh a ' s

material survival.
Whatever the spiritual defects of their place, however, house
holder husband and wife are treated with the utmost respect in
Pa li texts. There is honor in the family life/31 an advantageous
address 2 32 and, most importantly, the designation of sappurisa
'good person , ' as someone who cares for the welfare of oth
ers.233 To be a good person, one has to be able to act responsibly
and in consonance with a set of ethical standards and this, per
haps, is o ne of the crucial elements represented by the new
houseperson: that of the individual. In this setting, household
ers move away from conformity in a group to separately choos
ing affiliation and separately making free use of their wea lth.
Steven Collins, in fact, makes a case that the houseperson, as
one who lives in a house, becomes the very -symbol f individu
ality, for in the saJ!l sii ric cycle the house or the abode comes to
represent a station for. the self in the pursuit of its perfection.234
Householder individua lity needs guidelines , however, and the
emergent Buddhist institution gives these novice practitioners
just that.
Redefining Relationships : The Ne w Donor
head of the household: ' lead us to su itable property (v_asu), ' s ings the poet
t o the god Puan in R V 6.53.2, 'to one we can count on, to the expected
poet 's pay (daki(Ja), to a grhapati agreeable (to our service) . ' Here the
householder i s understood as the s u itable, propertied , responsible patron
o f priestly prowess, whom Puan, the god of prosperity, can provide for
the s k illful, unemployed s i nger.
By the t i me of the Satapatha Brahrnal)a, grhapati is a designation given to
the principal sacrificer patronizing the ritu a l , who as lord o f the horne h a s
primary control o v e r t h e domestic wealth, s o m e of w h i c h w i l l t h e n b e
g i ven t o the offic i a t i n g priests a s daki(Jii. S e e S B 1 1 . 8 .4. 1 ; 1 2 . 1 . 1 . 1 . ;
Eggeling, Satapatha Brahma(Ja 4.xxv.
6.
Thapar, Lineage to State, pp. 39, 42.
7.
Thapar, Lineage to Sta te, p . 157; Cha k ravarti, pp. 87-93.
8.
Thapar, Lineage to St,?te, p . 159.
9.
H eesterrnan, "Daki(Jii, " p . 242.
10.
Collins, p. 66.
I I.
W agle, pp. 7 1 , 74, 77.
12.
Thapar, History of India, pp. 68-69.
13.
E . g . , M 1 . 1 2 5 ; A 2 . 57ff. , 6 1 . W h i l e the ' a c c o m p a n y i n g r o l e ' o f the

gahapatiin i is historic a l ly para l le l to that o f the sacrificer ' s w i fe , the
yajamiinapatni, the Pali housernistress i s , in. fact, much more involved ,
and often independently so, in the material support of the young Sangha.
14.
E . g . , D 1 . 62 , 169, 250; 3. 180; M 1 . 179; 2 . 1 7 1 ; S 4.347; A 1 . 1 17, 137, 274;

2 . 125; 3 . 2 10; 5 .40. The form putti is rare in the texts, occurring primarily
i n the Jataka compound riijaputti, 'princes s , ' leaving the putta here to
function genera lly, without necessary reference to specific gender. Nev
ertheless, in normal usage gahapatiputta seems to refer primarily t o the
male offspring, first-born, who will become the next head of household,
he nce the 'householder's e ldest s on . ' (See the gloss i n Yin 4.224 o n
galwpatiputta as niima yo koci puttabhiitaro, 'whoever a r e brothers a n d
sons . ' ) A nother term sometimes found in e a r l y texts is k ulaputta ( e . g . , M
1 . 16, 193; A 4.284) meaning son of a good or respected family.
15.
W agle, p. 7 1 .
ENDNOTES
I.
Reynolds, p. 7 1 .
2.
Ghosh, p p . 20-2 1 , 4 1 .
3.
Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 17.
4.
Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 4 1 .
5.
Thapar, Lineage to Sta te, p p . 37-38. The term grhapati is associated with
ritual wealth from very early times. I n the R g Ved a , it refers to the fire
god Agni who as ' lord of the home' presides over the domestic hearth
place ensuring the continued reception of sacrificial offerings from hu
m a n pet itioners and the contin ued return-bestowal o f blessings by the
gods. Because the hearth-place is the crucible for the transmutation of
offerings and blessings between man and god, its perpetual care guaran
tees the enduring presence of wealth i n Vedic homes. For references to
Agni a s grhapati see, for example, R V 1 . 12.6; 1 . 3 6 . 5 ; 1 . 60.4; 2 . 1 . 2 ; 4.9.4;
4. 1 1 . 5 ; 5 . 8 . 1 , 2 ; 6 . 1 5 . 13, 19; 6 . 1 6 .42; 6.48 . 8 ; 7 . 1 . 1 ; 7 . 1 5 .2; 7. 1 6 . 5 ; 8 . 60 . 1 9 ;
8. 102 . 1 ; 10. 9 1 . 10; 10. 1 18.6; 10. 122. 1 .
I n o n e early a n d well-known case, grhapati actually refers t o a human
87
1 6 . Some are farmers (kassaka gahapati o r kassaka gahapatika) ( Y i n 1 . 24045), fol lowing the livelihood of a l arge majority of those l i ving in s m a l l
v i l lages and r u r a l area s. They m a ke a l i v ing n o t only by tending c a t t l e b u t
a lso by c u ltivating cerea ls, especially evident i n t h e increased production
o f rice (siiiJ) ( A 1.24 1-42; see a lso W agle, pp. 150-5 1 ; and M isra, p. 247).
Other householders are wood workers or perhaps wood traders o r sellers
(diirukammika gahapati) (A 3.39 i), and still others like the householder
"Firetools" are builders or master carpenters (thapati) ( M 3 . 144-48). The
i ncreased use of iron for the clearing and c u ltivation of land d i rectl y ben
efits householders l ike these, whose own l a bors produce goods for a wider
m a rket. See Thapar, Lineage to State, p . 92.
88
17.
Sn no. 404.
18.
A mong, for example, field ploughers, cowherders, archers, or servants to

the k ing ( A 3.229). See the d iscussion i n Wagle, pp. 135-36.
19.
D 1 . 7 1-72.
20. A 2 . 8 1-82.
2 1.
Y i n 1 . 273; S 1 . 92. See Cha k ravart i , pp. 73-79.
RedefiningRe!ationships : The New Donor

33.
D 1 . 136-37; 3 . 16- 17, 46; M 1 . 86; A 1 . 66; 2 . 74; 3.328. I t intersects with the
first, however, in its description of k ula fam i l ies (Yin 2 . 1 6 1 [kula] and M
3 . 177; S 1 . 94; A 2 . 86 ; 3 . 386 [mahasii/akula]).
34.
D 3 . 2 5 8 ; S 1 . 7 1 , 74; A 4. 132, 133, 239. See the usage of mahasa/a 'pos

sessor of a large house; a great householder' i n CU 5 . 1 1 . 1, 3.
35.
Yin 1 . 227; D 2 . 86; 3 . 236; M 1 . 72; A 2 . 133; 3 . 39 ; 4.80. This includes the
well-known list of the 'eight assemblies : ' of nobles, of brahmins, of house
holders, o f recluses, of the celestial retinue of the Four Guardian K i ngs,
of the thirty-three ( Devas), o f the M a ra s , and of the Brahmas (D 2 . 109;
3.260 ; M 1.72; A 4.307). A s a list, moreover, it distinguishes categories of
learned men (pa(Jdita) ( M 1 . 396; S 3.6, 7 , 8), and often has other members
appended t o its end : sama(Ja or 'recluse'( Yin 1 . 227; D 2 . 86 ; 3 . 2 3 6 ; M
1 . 72; A 2 . 133; 3.328), titthiya or 'member of another school' (D 3.44 , 46.
See the d iscussion in Horner, Book of the Discipline 2 . x l i i i ) , negama
jiinapada or 'townsman and country m a n ' ( D 3 . 6 1 ; see also D 2 . 202; 3 . 167),
and mother, father, child, brother, sister, and friend ( M 2 . 120).
22. See Wagle, p. 147.

23.
Yin 2 . 1 10- 12; 146-48. Like other householders, se{{his are a lso fa mily men,
for the early canon k nows o f the se{fhibhariya the 'merchant's wife' (Yin
1 .270-72) as well as the se!fhiputta the 'merchant's son' ( Yin 1.275 ) . H orner
addresses the question o f the se!fhiputta specifically and argues that while
he is i n fact a young merchant he is 'not yet the head of the firm, for his
description as putta mean[s] that his father. .. [is] still alive.' H orner, Book
of the Discipline 2 . x l v i i .
2 4 . H o rner, Book o f the Discipline 2 . xlvii; Thapar Lineage t o State, pp. 9495, 103.
3 6 . See the d iscussion i n Wagle, p. 125.
25. Gokhale, p. 395; M isra, pp. 260-62.
37.
26. Wagle, pp. 28-29; see also pp. 2 2 , 82, 84, 1 1 8.
38. See the discussion in Wagle, pp. 28, 12 1 , 126.
A 1 . 162.
27. M isra, pp. 260-6 1 .
39. Gombrich, Thera vada Buddhism, pp. 55-56.
2 8 . Wagle, p. 29.
40 . See W agle, p. 126.
29. Thapar, Lineage to Sta te, pp. 86, 88.
41.
See Smith, pp. 26-85.
30. Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 85.
42.
Kalupah a n a , Ca usality, p. 133.
3 1.
43. Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 159.
See R Y 10.90 . 1 2 .
32. E . g . , Y i n 2 . 239; D 1 . 9 1 ; 3 . 82-83; M 2 . 128-29, 150, 15 1; A 3.242; 4.202; see

a lso M 2 . 132, 147, 149. See also M 2 . 89 , 177- 184; S 1 . 102, 166; 4. 2 19; 5 . 5 152; A I. 162; 2 . 194; 3 . 2 14, 226, 229; 4.259. There are occasional passages
where briihma(J<I is the first i n the list (M 2. 177), and where the four (headed
most often by khattiya) are followed by a fifth, lower, ra nk ing, that of
the ca(J(iiila . ( S 1 . 1 0 2 , 166; A 1 . 162; 3 . 2 14, 226, 229). On the issue of
Brahmanic versus Buddhist ordering of the vauua ranks, see Gombrich,
Thera vada Buddhism, p. 49; Wagle, p. 133; and Misra, pp. 35-36, 166-67.
A lthough the DTgha has a lengthy discussion of the origin and character
istics of the VWJ(Jc1 ra n k s , indicating that the categories are k nown to the
compilers of the canon, the d iscussion is resolutely Buddhist not only in
using the Buddhist caste order for ranking but a lso in giving a Buddh ist
take on the story as well: greed, desire, and the hoarding of goods play an
important role in human evolution ( D 3 . 80-98, see Thapar, Lineage to
State, p. 120). The ranks in the first list (the vessa list of four members)
also define d i fferent k ulas or fam ilies ( Y i n 3 . 1 84-85 ; 4.80, 100, 177, 272;
M 1.284. See Wagle, pp. 1 1 9- 12 1 . ) , different ma(J(ialas or social circles ( D
3 . 80-98) i n which people of like birth exhibit l i k e characteristics, a n d d if
ferent wealths (dhana [M 2 . 84-86) or sandham1 [M 2 . 180)) assigned to
them as appropriate.
89
44.
D I . I l l , 1 12 , 127; 2 . 202; 3 . 167, 172 , 173, 177; M 1 . 285-290 , 334-37; 40040 I, 4 1 3 ; 2 . 54, 5 5 , 56, 79, 80, 164, 165, 185; 3 . 1 16 , 1-17, 176, 290-93; S 1 . 1 14;
A 1 . 6 8 , 1 10 , 180; 2 . 74; 3.30; 4.340.
45 .
An a lternate understanding renders the compo und 'priests and laymen'

o r 'brahmins and householders . ' Rhys Davids and Stede, p. 495; see a lso
T . W. Rhys Davids, Dialogues 2 . 207n .
46. Such as the Kosalan v i llages of Sala (M 1 . 285-290, 400-40 I; S 5 . 144-45 ) ,

Yeraiija ( M 1 . 290), M a nasakata ( D 1 . 235-253) , Nagaravinda ( M 3 . 2909 3 ) , Yenaga pura ( A 1 . 180) , Opasada (M 2 . 164), and Icchanangala (A
3.30; 4 . 340 ) , the K u r u t o \!' n of T h u l l a k o q h i t a (M 2 . 54-5 5 ) , a n d the
M agadhan vil lages Qf' Pa iicasala (S 1 . 1 13- 14), Ekanala ( S 1 . 172-73; Sn pp.
13- 16), and Khanumata (D 1 . 127).
47 .
W agle, p. 1 8 . These gifts of land are made out of the royal domain , not
out of lands held by c u lt ivators, and are often uncleared o r only part i a l l y
cleared lands (Chakravarti, p p . 24-26, 5 7 ) . S o m e of t h e g r a n t s of land to
brahmins are so large that the phrase m:1hiisiila ind icating wea lth is ap
plied to them (Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 87). See D 1 . 136, 235; 3. 1 6 , 20;
s 1 . 175.
48 . W agle, p. 19.
90
Dana: Giving and Gerring in Pali Buddhism
principle of escheat, then reverts to his k ing, K ing Pasenadi of Kosala.

Pasenad i , receiving the property, goes to the Buddha and bemoans the
fact t ha t so great an amount of wealth has belonged t o so poor a speci
men of humanity (asappuristl), who has lacked the wisdom to spend it
usefu l ly . While this story has as its clear goa l t o teach the proper use of
wealth, i t also funct ions to enumerate in some detail what great and luxu
rious t h ings householders can acquire i n this l ife ( S 1 . 89-93).
49. Thapar, Lineage to Sta te, p. 158; see also Gombrich, Thera vada Buddhism,
p. 56; Wagle, p. 156.
50. Hence are wealthy "and influential Brahmarw householders like Jiil)ussoni,
Aggika Bharad vaja and Dhanaiijani and d isti nguished Brahmal)a teach
ers, l ike Pokkharasad i , Lohicca, Ca n k i and others [who 1 became l ife-long
devotees and d isciples of Buddha . " Chaudhury, p. 1 5 .
51.
M isra, p. 260.
5 2 . M i sra, pp. 167-68.

53.
Wagle, p. 7 1; see a lso pp. 156-57.
54. R hys Davids, D11 /ogues 2.207n; Chakravart i , pp. 66, 69, 82-84.
55.
Thapar, Lineage to Sta te, pp. 103- 104.
56. Wagle, pp. 28-29, 126-28, 1 5 1-56.

57. Wagle, p. 154. Perhaps the most telling signs of the new prominence of
wea l t h as a social marker are the stories of those who by contrast have
l i t t le wealth-either through circumstance o r through voluntary abandon
ment. In a story from the Suttan ipata, impoverished brahmins, bereft of
cows and gold, look around a t the new world of great human wea lth and
complain about their own meager circumsta nces-the Buddha's response,
of course, i s that they are ripe for a new spiritual pathway (Sn nos. 285,
30 I , 303). Voluntary forfeit of wealth also points o u t the propertied na
t u re of the householder, for if and whenever a householder does lose h i s
s t a t u s a s g,1hapati(if h e enters t h e Sangha , for example), the biggest change
i s the loss of his wea lth: as there is a rise in Buddhist confidence (saddhii),
the Dhamma teaches, there is a consequent decrease i n wealth (bhoga)
( Y i n 4. 179; D 1 . 62-63; 2 . 8 5 , 86; M 1 . 179, 452; A 5 . 204; Sn no. 393). A
story is told of the householder Potaliya in this regard who approaches
the Buddha for teaching and is angry when the Buddha still calls him a
"householder," since he thinks he has given up all of the requisite wea lth
and occupations and is now living a most si mple life. The address "house
holder" is s t i l l to be used for Pot a l iya, argues the Buddha, because a mo
d icum of ethical and mental wea lth yet rema ins ( M 1 . 359-368; see S 3.93).
5 8 . D 3 . 2 5 8 ; S 1 . 7 1 , 74; A 2 . 86; 3 . 386; 4. 104, 239
5 9 . A s one of the seven treasures' (ratana) belonging t o the u n i vers a l sover
eign (cakka vattin), the householder has d!wna 'propert y . ' See D 2 . 1 76-77;
3.59, 142, 177; M 3. 175; S 5 . 99; A 4.89.
65. A 2. 203. Archaeological work a t places l ike Bodhgaya and Sanchi has
revealed a number of inscriptions designating parts of each complex a s
the gift (dana) o f d o n o r gahapatis. Even though monks and n u n s (bhikkhu/
bhikkhuni) are responsible for many of these gifts, many others are at
tr ibuted t o lay men a nd women and to otherwise uncommitted house
holders. A n sari, pp. 10 1 - 103; Cunningham, pp. 150- 172, 180- 183, 222, 226.
66.
M 1 . 2 36-37; A 1 . 26, 1 6 1 ; 2 . 64, 80; 3.32, 336; 4.8 1 ; Sn p. 87.
67.
Y i n 2 . 2 16.
68.
D 1 . 137; A 3.39; 4.79-82; Sn no. 487.
69. Precise t raditional list ings of the Danastuti port ions of Rg Vedic hymns
can be found i n Kii tyayana 's A n u k ramal)l and i n the Brhaddevat a . These
list ings do not agree fu lly, but agreement does occur in the following cases:
R V 1 . 125; 6.27.8; 7. 1 8 . 22-25; 8 . 2 .4 1-42; 8 . 3 . 2 1-24; 8.4. 19-2 1 ; 8 . 5 . 37cd-39,
8.6 .46-48; 8 . 2 1 . 17- 18; 8.46.2 1 -24; 8 . 5 5 and 56. 1-4; 8.68. 15- 19; 8 . 74. 1 3 - 14.
Several scholars have found "that i n rea lity there are many passages which
possess the marks of Danastutis a l though they are not so recognized , "
a n d have p u t together their o w n lists. Patel, p . 2 0 ; see pp. 13-75.
70.
diiyak o dEinapMi diinassa vanna vadi ( S 1.58).
7 1.
E . g . , S v a n a y u , Sudas P a ij a v a n a , K a s u Caidya, T i r i n d ira Piira savya,

K ii nH a .
7 2 . These gifts include cows, horses, sheep, camels, dogs, chariots and rigging, gold coins and ornaments, &nd clothes. See Patel, pp. 64-75.
73.
Heest:rman, 1nner Conflict, p. 27.
74.
Ca. 1000-500 BCE.
75. See R V 10.85.26.

76. See SB 2. 5 . 2 . 29; 3.3. 1 . 10; KhGS 1 . 5 . 17.
77.
Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 65.
60. S 1 . 7 1 ; A 2 . 86 ; M 5 .40.
78.
M 1 . 369.
61.
79. O l i velle, Saq wyasa Upamjads, p. 43.
D 1 . 136, 137; 3 . 1 6 , 17.
91
62. D 3 . 188; M 2 . 7 1 .
80 . Wagle, p. 154.
6 3 . Y i n 3 . 1 7 , 1 8 ; M 1 .45 1-52, 505; S 1 . 7 1 ; A 2 . 86 ; 3 . 386.
8 1.
64. What m akes th i s story so spectacular is not only that these t h i n gs are
given a s gifts, but that this man Velama i s none other than the Buddha
himself in a former life ( A 4.393-94). In another story, a rich se!fhigahapati
from Savatthi d ies intestate, child less and without heir. H i s estate, by the
8 2 . M 3. 37.
83.
Sappurisadanaf!l deti ( M 3.23). See Wagle, pp. 106- 107.

In Hindu law, the householder comes to be charged with the support, through
gifts, of all other life stations, and who finds himself most at home in the
present K a l i Yuga, the age of liberality ( Manu 3 . 77, 78, 80; 1 . 86).
92
Dana: Giving and Getting 1i1 Pa!i Buddhism
84. N. Dutt, Monastic, pp. 96- 1 3 2 .

85. Bould ing, Lo ve and Fear, p p . 1 - 3 ; " Ph i lanthropy," p . 5 7 .
86. Boulding, L o ve and Fear, p. 2 ; "Phi lanthropy ," p. 59.
87. Bould ing, Lo ve and Fear, p. 4.
88. Bould ing, " Ph ilanthropy," p. 6 1 .
89. Boulding, L o ve and Fear, p. 3 .
90. B o u l d i n g , L o ve and Fear, p p . 98-99, 2 7 .
9 1 . Bould ing, " Ph i lanthropy , " p . 6 2 .
93
h i m , after which t h e y o u n g critic becomes a lay d isciple ( M 2 . 209-2 13).

A g a i n , man y brahmins are impressionable hearers of the Dhamma, such
a s the young Yasettha and Bharadvaja of the brahmin v i llage M a nasakara
i n K o s a l a who a s k a b o u t the doctrines o f other sects, the bra h m i n
Aggika Bharadvaja of Savatthi who shows h i s prej u d ice against outca stes
( vasal:t), and one brahmin of great wea lth who is worried about what he
sees as the current depopu lation of the world, all of whom become com
mitted followers of the Buddha ( D 1 . 235-253; Sn pp. 1 15- 123; Sn pp. 2 1 25; A 1 . 159- 160).
92. For e x a m p l e , Sujata ( mother o f Yasa), Suppavasa (mother o f SivalT),

M aha pajapan ( a u nt and step-mother to the Buddha), A mbapa!I (mother
to Y i m a l akot:<;laiiiia), and Ye!ukal)taki (mother to Nanda).
102. Yin 1 . 220-22; see Yin 1 . 248-49. Again, a resident pupil of a brahmin woman
from the Yerahaccani fa mily visits the monk Ud ayin and, after having an
inspired talk, invites Udayin to a meal with the woman a t her home a s a
teacher' s fee for his sermon (S 4. 1 2 1-24). Aga in, a brahmin of Yeraiiya
9 3 . Note that the great setthi A nathapit:<;l ika and his brother-in-law, the great
sett!Jifrom Rajagaha , are both extravagant, and sometimes rival donors
though each's generosity would probably he as large without competition
from the other.
who hosts the Buddha and his monks d uring the rains grows upset when
he rea l izes the entou rage w i l l leave before he has a chance to give his gifts
(api ca yo deyyadlwmmo so na dinno; Y in 3 . 10- 1 1 ) . The Buddha consents
(in s i lence) to the giving and the group stays on for feed ing and the be
94. Boulding, L o ve and Fear, pp. 7, 8.

95. Thapar, History of India, p. 68.
96. Wagle, pp. 74-77; see a lso S. Dutt, p. 48, and Chakravarti, pp. 13 1 - 140.
97. A 1 . 2 17.
98. Gombrich, Therc1 vada Buddhism, pp. 75, 79.
99. Yin 2 . 165.
I OO . I n a wel l-known passage from the Majjhima Nikaya concern ing the per
suasions of the householder Upa l i from the v i l l age Balaka, the Buddha's
own tho ughts on donation and commitment reflect a characteristic open
ness and flexibility. Upa l i is a follower of Nataputta the Jain and is asked
by his teacher to refute the teachings of the Budd ha. I n conversation with
the Buddha, many topics are covered, including Upa l i ' s long-time mate
rial support of the Jains. I t is at this point in the teaching, on the very issue
of diina, that Upa l i asks to be accepted a s a Buddhist uptisak,1. Upa l i
apparently h a s heard that the Buddha teaches giving-only-to-the-Sangh a ,
f o r o n l y s u c h gifts a r e of great fruit b u t , when t h e Buddha urges him to
g i ve to the Jains as wel l , the householder is struck by his tolerance and
converts (M 1 . 3 7 1 -387, esp. 379-80. See Yin 1.236-38; A 1 . 160-62). I n her
d i scussion o f the Siha story, Chak ravarti (pp. 60-6 1) notes the Buddha's
concern for contin ued support for all sama(Ja life-styles.
10 I . There i s once a brahmin woman named Dhanaiijani, for example, who
has trusting confidence (abhippasannti) in the Buddha , the teaching and
the Order and who speaks out o n their behalf; for this she incurs the criti
cism of the Bharadvaja brahmin youth Sangarava. ( Y inaya texts note
that the Bharadvajas are among those brahmin fa m ilies considered to be
low [hlna} and not worthy of respect [Yin 4.6].) When the Buddha comes
to town, however, Dha naiijani is able to persuade Sa ngarava to go near
stowal of robes. Finally, there is the case of the young brahmin n a med
Magha who comes to the Buddha and anno unces his own great m u n ifi
cence and libera l ity and worries whether such great giving will produce
much merit (puiiiia ) (aham. . . dtiyako dtinapa ti vadaiiiiil yticayogo; Sn p.
87). The Buddha assures him that i t will and then speaks of the character
istics of the recipients ( e . g . , worthy Buddhist renunciants) to whom gifts
w i l l provide the most merit for the brahm i n .
1 0 3 . D 3 . 2 17; A 4.4 1 , 45 . See Thapar, Lineage to State, p. 8 9 .
104. M 1 . 176, 395-96 .
1 0 5 . The force of the narra t i ve is not d i m i n ished by attributing the source o f
this stinginess to Mara's effect on t h e potential donors' m i n d s . S 1 . 1 13- 14;
see Wagle, p. 19.
1 0 6 . D 1 . 62-63, 250; M 1 . 179. Given stories such as these, i t i s unclear how
Chakravarti (p. 148), who notes fu lly the strong rel a tionship of gahapatis
to the Sangha as lay (p. 84), can wonder about "the absence of gahapatis
in the ranks of bhikkhus. "
107. D 3 . 124-25; M 1 . 299; A 1 . 25-26; 4.233. Obeyesekere ("Theodicy, Sin a n d
Salvation," p p . 3 1-32) argues t h a t t h e upasaka is the Buddhist ana logue
of the Hindu vlinaprastha, each deriv ing out of s i m i l a r socio-economic
contexts.
108. D 3 . 124-25; M 1 .493; A 1.26; 4.233.
109. Y i n 3 . 189; Y i n 1 . 18; M 1 . 378-79, 413; 2 . 2 13; 3 .7; A 1 . 226; 4.220.
1 10 . M 1 . 49 1 - 9 2 . The upasak a l i s t o f A 1 . 2 6 - 2 6 : T a p u s s a, B h a l l i k a ,
A n a t h a pi t:<;l i k a , C i t r a , H a t t h a k a , M a h a n a m a , U gg a , U gg a t a , S U r a
A mbattha, Hvak a , and N a k ulapitar; the upasikti l i s t : S ujata, Y i s a k h a ,
K h ujj u t a r a , S a m a v a n , U t t a r a , S u p p a v a s a , S u p p i y a , K a t i y a n i ,
N a k u lamatar, a n d Ka!I. The list o f A 2 . 164: Citra, H atth a k a , Khujjuttara,
94
a n d Y e f u k a n t a k i y a . The upasika l i s t of A 4. 347-48: Bojj h a , S i r i m a ,

Padu m a , Sudhana , M a n uja, Uttara, M utta, Khema, Soma, R iip1 , Cund1,
Bimb1, S u m a na , M a l l i k a , Tissa, Tissa 's mother, Sol) a , Sol) a ' s mother,
Kal)a, Kal)a ' s mother, Uttara the mother of Nanda, Yisakha the 'mother'
of M igara, the lay-d isciples Khujjuttara and Samavat1, Suppavasa the
K ol iy a n ' s d a ughter, the l a y - d i s c i ple Suppiya , and N a k u l a m a t a r the
gahapatani.
I l l . D 3.37, 125; M 1 . 340, 490-94; 2 . 2 3 ; 3.26 1 ; S 4.30 I ; A 1 . 73; 3.2 1 1 , 2 13 , 297,
384; 4. 2 18; 5 . 185. See Bec k , pp. 553-56, and Tambiah, " Ideology of Meri t , "
p. 8 9 .
1 12 . Y i n 1 . 1 5 - 1 8 , 227-28; Y i n 2 . 2 10 ; D 1 . 62-63, 2 1 1 , 250; 2. 85-86; 3 . 1 80- 193; M
1 . 179, 285-290, 344, 397; 400-4 1 3 , 483; 2 . 22-29, 106; 3.290-93; s 2 . 68-80;
4. 123; 3 . 1-2; A 1 . 2 17- 1 9 , 26 1-63; 2 . 57; 3 . 203-2 19; 5 . 5 8 . See H a rri son, pp.
52-55, o n hearing the Dhamma i n Mahaya n a .
1 13 . Whole sec t ions of t h e N i k a y a s a r e g i v e n o v e r to material for or a b o u t the
committed Buddhist householder (M 1 . 339-4 1 3 ; A 3 . 203-2 19) and/or lay
person, and this material acknowledges clearly that, while the lay is "ac
Dhamma; R oja the M a l i a , now filled with confidence (saddhti) i n the in

struction, gives solid food and vegetables to the Sangh a . When Roja wants
to be the only donor of robes, food, lodgings, and med icine, however, the
Buddha ass ures h i m he will be one among the many other well-appreci
ated do nors ( Y i n 1 . 247-49; see also Yin 2 . 156). Again, Slha the general
hears a long Dhamma talk from the Buddha and then, with the Buddha's
perm ission, serves him and the monks with his own hands, after which
the Buddha speaks once more from his teaching (Yin 1 .233-38). A n d again,
the Buddha gives a Dhamma talk to Yisakha, who i n t urn gives a full
feast to the monks of the Sangha the next day ( Y i n 1.290-94).
1 2 3 . Yin 1 . 139- 142.
124. Yin 1 . 296. pa{iga(lhiitu me bhante bhaga vti mukhapuiichanaco/akaf!l yaf!/
mama assa digharattarp hitaya sukhiiya. On gifts that "keep on g i v i ng , "
s e e Schopen, "Doing Business f o r t h e Lord , " p. 532.
125. E . g . , Rhys Davids, Dialogues 2. 1 1 8.
1 2 6 . D 3 . 126; M 1.49 1 .
127. D 3 . 37.
t i vely concerned with religious affairs," he i s n ' t concerned only with reli
128. A 4.220-22.
gious a ffa irs. Moreover, the material has to ackno wledge as well that
those comm itted hou s eholders who are brahmins "genera lly chose not to
129. s 4. 180.
completely rel inquish their membership of the brahmal)a order;" hearing

the Dhamma seriously, then, means that "brahmal) a upasakas . . . n1a v e ] to
resort t o v a rious su bterfuges i n openly ack nowledging the Buddha as their
superior, even when they are intellectually convinced of his superiority"
( Wagle, p. 73).
1 14. Jayatilleke, p. 5 8 .
130. Y i n 4.288, 305, 337, 338; Y i n 1 . 1 8 5 , 1 9 1, 204, 287; Yin 2 . 105- 107, 1 15 , 123,
124, 133, 136, 137, 139; D 3 . 124; M 1 .49 1-93; A 2 . 69; 3.39 1 ; 4. 2 8 1 ; 5 . 176182; S 1 . 78. See also A 4.369-370. Women householders a s ktimabhogini:
Y i n 2 . 2 66 , 267, 27 1 .
1 3 1 . Y i n 1 . 185, 190, 1 9 1 , 204, 287; Y i n 2 . 105- 107, 1 1 5 , 123, 124, 133, 136, 1 37,
139. The Buddha 's criticism of kama to the monk A riqha can be found i n
M 1 . 1 33.
1 1 5 . M 1 .400-402.
132. A 4.28 1 .
1 16 . M 1.402-404. Note here the words of the Buddha to A nanda just before
1 3 3 . A 4.438.
the former's death (D 2 . 154): siya kho pan ' Ammda tumhakam e v.1m i/Ssa:
"A lita satthukaf!l pavacanarp , n 'atthi no Sa ttha " ti. Na kho pan ' etam
Ananda e vaf!/ daf!habbaf!J Yo vo Ananda rm1yii Dhammo ca Vinayo ca
desito paiiiiatto, so vo mam ' <JccayemJ Satthii.
1 17 . The canon uses the term savaka/sa vika 'hearer' or Miyasavaka/siivika
'hearer of the noble doctri ne, ' to describe a d i sciple of the Buddha, nor
mally a layperson in training but s ometimes a monk ( W a rder, p. 1 8 1 ;
Ergard t , p . 37).
1 1 8 . W a rder, p. 196; Aronson, Love and Sympathy, pp. 14- 17. See M 1.400413.
1 1 9. Wagle, p . 146.
120. D 1 . 2 2 3 .
1 2 1 . Y i n 1 . 15- 1 8 , 2 3 6 ; M 1.493.
122. When the Buddha, for example, k nows that the mind of Roja the M a l i a is
ready a n d m a lleable, he gives him a progressive t a l k (anupubbrkMhti) on
95
1 34. A 2.69.
1 3 5 . D 1 . 6 3 , 250; M 1 . 179, 240; S 2 . 2 19; A 5 . 204.
1 3 6 . S 2 . 2 19; A 5 . 205 . See a lso M 2 . 56.
137. S 5 . 353; A 3.39 1; 4.28 1 .
1 3 8 . A 1.49. Note, however, t h a t in the very same passage t h e struggle of the
gone forth to renounce is detailed as wel l .
139. Y i n 3 . 148-49; S 3 . 1 12 ; A 2 . 67-68.
140. D 1 . 6 1-62.
141. M 2 . 205.
1 42 . M 1 . 452.
143. See, for example, the role of women in small trade ( Wagle, p. 148).
144. A charya , p . 28.
145 . M a n u 3 . 99- 1 17; see A pDS 1 . 1 . 3.26.
96
146. Tambiah, " I deology of Merit," pp. 66-67.

147. E . g . , Chakravarti, pp. 3 1-35. See the d iscussion i n Findly, ";.JTahant. "
148 . Findly, "arahant. "
149 . Nath, pp. 1 9 1- 195.
1 5 0 . Jamison, Sacrificer 's Wife, p. 254.
1 5 1 . Guest, atithi, i s derived either from at 'to wander,' a s in an etymology
favored by Grassmann ( pp. 28-29; see Amore, pp. 2 1-22, 22n), o r from .1 tithi 'being or arriving without regular schedule, or unexpected l y , ' as in
an etymology suggested by M o nier-W illiams ( p . 14), tithi being one of the
regular days of the lunar month (p. 446). H i s rendition of 11tithi is: 'one
who has n o fixed day for coming.' Amore ( p . 22n) notes that this is a folk
etymology and renders atithi as 'outside the lunar days': "The guest was
extraord inary, outside the ordinary cause-and-effect sequence, and there
fore potentially very powerful " ( A more, p. 22).
The concept of atithi 'guest' is first expressed i n the B.g Vedic figure o f
Agni. A s K n ipe (Image o f Fire, pp. 94-95) points out, the r i t u a l fire Agni
is i n the paradoxical position of holding two positions at once: he is a
guest of man in every househol d , being inv ited in anew each day, as well
as the lord o f the household, the householder himself, being responsible
for the procurement of wealth and its proper management and d i stribu
tion to appropriate rec i pients.
A s for the brahmi n officiant, Heesterman argues that, in eating the sacri
fic i a l foo d , the brahmin "takes over the burden of death . . . for in order to
be prepared the food must first be k illed." Heesterman, Broken World,
pp. 188-89, 155-56.
152. A V 6 . 96 . 1 ; CU 5 . 10 .4; A V 6 . 1 5 . 3 .
! 5 3 . A B 1 . 1 5 , 2 5 ; T S 1 . 2 . 10; K B 8 . 1 ; SB 3.4. 1 . 1-26. Jamiso n ' s d iscussion o f the
wife's place i n the ritual is substantial (pp. 38 ff.) and need not be reca
pitulated here.
154. An adaptation of Keith's ( Taittin'y11 Sanhita 2 . 50 I) translation of TS
6 . 2 . 1 . 1-2: titithyaq1 grh(liiti Y1Jiillsya s11ntatyai. pa tny an viira blwte, p11tni
hi pari(lahyasyll ise; patniya e va anumataq1 nirv11pati. yad v11i patni
y11jiiasya karoti mithullilf!l tad. a tho patniyii e va (!) e$a yajiiasya
an varambho 'na vacchityai.
1 5 5 . See, again, TS 6 . 2 . 9 . 2 : uptinakti p:1tni hi sarvasya mitraf!l mitra t vtiya.
yad vaipatniyajn1sya karoti mithunaf!l tad. a tho patniyii e va e;;a yajna sya
an varambho 'na vacchityai; " The wife (of the sacrificer) anoints (them)
for friendship, for the wife is the friend of all. I n this way that part of the
sacrifice which is the wife makes a pairing. Now this touching ( of the
Soma cart) from behind by the wife is for the u n interruptedness of the
sacrifice" ( A n adaptation of Keith 's ( Taittiriya Sanhita 2 . 5 1 0 ) transla
tion).
156. An adaptation of Egge l ing's ( 2 . 86-87) translation of SB 3.4. 1 . 6 : e v,1 etan
mithunena .1n viira bhete; yarra vti I arhann tigacchati sarvagrhyti iva vai
RedefiningRelationships : The New Donor
97
tatra I Ce${anti. tathti htipa cito bhavati. J a m i s o n g i v e s a pers u a s i v e

argument for mithuna 'coupling' a s a sexual concept, related perhaps t o
an interpretation of pari(lah as ' b o x ' in t h e sense of female genitalia (see.
the charm for safe childbirth, K S 13.9). Of this she (p. 1 18) says: "If this
was a common Vedic v ulgar idiom , it may be that the expression "the
w i fe i s master of 'what belongs t o the box"' conveyed a sexual meaning
as well as a housekeeping one in the passages in question, and the transi
tion from the cupboard to the bed in a l l three passages would be easier to
u nderst and." An economic interpret ation, that focuses on marital rather
than sexual 'coupling' as a u n it of wea lth, is also feasible. Not only is it
possible that the wife's participation is essential to the efficacy o f the
rit u a l , personally for the yajamtina and cosm ica l ly for all, but a l so is the
economic l inchpin to the dak$i(lti system.
157. See TS 1 . 1 . 10 ( ' I go a s wife u n ited with my husban d , ' sampatni patytihaf!l
gacche), SB 5 . 2 . 1 . 10 , H GS 1.7.24.4, and M an u 9.45 ( 'The husband is said
t o be one with his wife , ' etad ,1yo bharttti sti smrtiirigana). M a n u ( 9 . 1 8 ,
96) makes c lear that neither husband n o r wife can perform t h e sra uta
ritual alone, and the Taitt irlya Samhita ( 3 . 2 . 8.4-5; 6 . 2 . 9 . 1-2) notes that
efficacious rituals are produced by h u sband and wife participating to
gether.
1 5 8 . See parallel passages in KS 24.8 and M S 3.7.9 ( 8 8 . 5 ) .
159. A B 1 . 1 5 .
160. Jamison, Sacrificer 's Wife, p . 1 17 ( including italics).
1 6 1 . "These she would have control of, and even when parll)ahya came to refer
to household goods in general , the old notion of the wife's ownership of
what she literally brought to the marriage may have been preserved. This
may in turn help explain why the wife's permission is needed to give away
what she does not really own, hence part of the reason why she is so neces
sary to the exercise of hospitality." Jamison, Sacrificer 's Wife, p. 1 18. Nath
( p . 74) interprets the household goods the wife is mistress over as her
stridhana, wealth and goods pecu liarly hers as a wife. The passage, how
ever, as Jamison suggests, might bear a wider interpretation.
162 . The guest is to be cons idered a 'friend' (priya), and it is tO" h i m and t o the
rel igious mendicant that offerings of food are d ue , for he comes only t o
places where there is a wife or a domestic fire (GGS 4. 10.24; PGS 2 . 9 . 1 2 ;
SGS 2 . 16.3). By definition, t h e guest is someone who belongs to a d iffer
ent v i llage and who is only intending to stay over one night; if he comes in
the evening he is not to be t u rned away and whoever comes into the house
as a guest is not to go without the offer of cooked food (GDS 5 .40; VDS
8 . 7; SGS 2 . 16.3; A pDS 2 . 3 . 6 . 5 ) . A lthough the Paraskara Grhya Sutra sug
gests that the householder might eat before the guest, thus keeping the
best portion for hi mself, this is frowned upon by most oth'er schools who
c learly state that the guest has to eat first (VDS 8.4,5; PGS 2. 9. 1 5 ; ApDS
2 . 2 . 4. 1 1 ; 2 . 3 . 73; 2 . 4 . 8 . 2 ; VDS 1 1 . 6- 1 1 ) . The host a lso offers the guest a
seat, water to dri n k , water to wash h i s feet, and a room (with a bed ,
98
Dana: Giving and GetfliJg in Pali Buddhism

m a ttress, p i l low, and cover) i n which to sleep. The reward for such an
honoring of a guest is stated to be freed om from trouble and future bliss
in heaven (GGS 4. 10. 1-26; A pDS 2 . 3 . 6 . 6-20; 2.3. 7. 1- 17; 2.4. 8 . 1- 14).
In the sra ura context, then, there a re two ways a woman m ight be thought
of a s being an agent of dana. First, the daksJi.ui given to priestly part i c i
p a n t s c o m e s from t h e husband and wife as a u n i t . Because it i s as a p a i r
t h a t t h e two make a n effective sacrifice, and because t h e d;Jkio<I sym
bolizes the regenerative power of the birth/d i s integrati on/rebirth cycle of
the sacrifice, the wife ' s presence in the completion of that cycle means
that the d;JksJi.J<I comes as m uch from her as from the husba n d . More
over, if, as the whole of TS 6 . 2 . 1 . 1-2 (see 6 . 2 . 9 . 1-2) suggests, her indis
pensability within the ' ri t u a l pairing' of husband and wife (mirhuna) i s
t i e d to h e r being m i stress of t h e household goods (patni hipiirioahyasye.5e},
then i t becomes even c le a re r that the r i t u a l daksi(la i s thought to be
grounded within the economic parameters of the wifely role. That the
daksJi.J<I is thought to be gi ven by the u n i o n of the husband and wife ,
moreover, coincides with w h a t seems t r u e a b o u t e a r l y views on house
hold property. The lack of d iscussion of women's possessions i n B.g Ved ic
t i mes, coupled with the increasing expansion of the parameters of a ' wife's
property' (stridhana) in later t i mes ( Ka ne 3 : 772) , suggests that early on
there i s some version of joint ownership of the household wealth.
163. SB 3 . 3 . 1 . 10; KhGS 1 . 5 . 17; GGS 1 . 3 . 1 5 .

1 6 4 . I n t h e Satapatha Brahma1)a, t h e y o u n g student entering t h e brahm:Jc;Irin 's
life d uring the Upanayana i s obliged to pet ition alms according to pre
scribed rules for the i n i t iation and then to cont i n ue pet ition ing alms until
undergo ing the final ceremonial bath that marks the end of studenthood
( S B 1 1 . 3 . 3 . 5-7; see Manu 2.48). The Grhya and Dharma Sutra s then re
q u ire that the young boy undert a k i n g i n i t i a t i o n vow to l i ve by certa i n
practices ( e . g . , tending the teacher's r i t u a l fire, pet ition ing a l m s , sleeping
on the ground, d o i ng the teacher's bidding, and studying the Veda) ( S B
1 1 . 3 . 3 . 3-6; C U 4.3.5; 4. 10. 1-2), and t h a t bhik,5<I c o n t i n u e as a d a i l y practice
with food being petitioned from a number of houses belonging to any but
very low caste fa m i l ies and then brought back to the residence for an
nou ncement to the teacher who then gives perm ission to eat (SGS 2 . 6.4, 7 ,
8; A sGS 1 . 2 2 . 10; PGS 2 . 5 . 1 1; ApDS 1 . 1 . 3 . 2 5 , 3 1 -34; G D S 2 . 3 5 , 39-40; V D S
7. 14; BDS 1 . 2 . 3 . 18; Manu 2 . 5 1 , 182, 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 ) . Brahmac<Ini1s a re n o t a l
lowed to petition from apaptitras, that i s , thoe born from a high-caste
mother and a low-caste father, o r from a bhiSastas, that is, those who
have comm itted certa i n heinous crimes (see A pD S 1.9.24.6ff).
1 6 5 . For the saf!l ny<Isin, bhiks<I prescriptions are a fu nction of the rite of pas
sage in which he renounces the sacred fires, depositing them in himself
(<Itmasamiiropa), and renouncing as well the r i t u a l i m plements used i n
connection with these fires ( A pSS 6.28. 1 1 ; A sSS 3 . 10.6). H a ving renounced
a dwelling place as well as fire, the bhiksu i s t o l i ve on alms gathered
morning and evening (or, by some accounts, once a day) as he goes from
v i llage to v i llage to randomly or accidentally selected houses. W ith a ful l y
99
concentrated m i n d , he i s to 'continue to obta in a l m s ' (bhiksfiJTJ Ji5era)

a n d , w ithout eagerness, to accept only that a mount of food needed to
s u stain l i fe ( M anu 6 . 5 0 , 43, 5 5 , 57; GDS 3 . 1 1 , 14, 16, 17; VDS 10.6, 24, 2 5 ;
BDS 2 . 1 0 . 18.4, 1 2 , 2 2 ) . For a fu l l d i s c u s s i o n s e e O l i ve l l e , Sarnnytisa
Upalllads pp. 86-94.
166. SGS 2 . 6 . 5-7; A sGS 1 . 22 . 6-7; PGS 2 . 5 . 5-8; KhGS 2 .4. 27-30; GGS 2. 10.4244; HGS 1.2. 7. 15- 19. The Pa raskara Grhya Sutra enjoins the brahmac<Irin
to pet ition from three women who w i l l not refuse, or from s i x o r twelve or
a n indefi n ite numbe r (PGS 2 . 5 . 5-6), and the Gobh i l a Grhya S utra pre
scribes a total of th ree women or as many householder womn as l i ve in
the neighborhood (GGS 2 . 10.43). The only Grhya Sutra to prescribe a m a le
d o n o r is the Asvalayana which req u i res the student to pet ition from a
m a n who w i l l not refuse, or from a woman who w i l l not refuse ( A sGS
1 . 2 2 .6-7). Manu then extends the range of possible female do nors i n the
Upanayana from the student's mother to his sister and then to a m a ternal
a u nt , as well as to other local women who w i l l not refuse (Manu 2 . 5 0 ) .
167. S B 1 1 . 3 . 3 . 7; see GDS 2 . 37; B D S 1 . 2 .4. 7.
168. M a n u 2 . 184. Basham (p. 122) d i scusses a practice among the Ajlv i k a s
t h a t i s s i m i la r, but for d i fferent reasons: "the ascetic followers of Gosa l a
d id n o t beg food of t h e i r female relations, because G o s a l a h imself w a s
o n c e d i sappointed at n o t recei'":ing alms, presumably from his own k i n . "
169. This injunction appears as well i n M a n u a n d i n various Dharma Sutras
(PGS 2 . 5 . 2-4; A pDS 1 . 1 . 3 . 28-30; BDS 1 . 2 . 3 . 17; Manu 2.49 ) .
1 7 0 . G DS 2 . 36 ; B D S 1 . 2 . 3 . 16; A sGS 1 . 2 2 . 8-9. See J a m i s o n , p. 2 9 4 n . 6 1 .
1 7 1 . A pDS 1 . 1 . 3 .26; 2 . 5 . 10.2; GDS 5 . 22; VDS 8 . 1 3 ; 9 . 18.
172. GDS 1 8 . 1 ; V DS 5 . 1 ; BDS 2 . 2 . 3 .44, 45 .
173. Y i n 3 . 6 , 242-48; 4.243-45; Y i n 1 . 90-9 1; M 1 . 3 1 , 108, 109, 146, 160, 1 7 1 ,
206, 227, 237, 336, 359, 456-57; 2.6 1-63; 104, 1 1 2 ; 3 . 247.
174. Y i n 2 . 2 12-2 1 5 ; M 2 . 136-39.
175. The fo u r nissayas ' resources' are piwiiy<IIop;J bhojana, patnsukil/acivanl,
rukkham il/asemisana, putimuttabhesaJJa ( Y i n 1 . 5 8 ) , w h i l e the f o u r
parik k h<Iras' req u i s i t e s ' a re civara -pi(l(jap;Ita -sen<Isan,1 -giMnapaccay
a bhesaj;1 -parikkhiira. Y i n 1 . 248;_ Y i n 3.89, 90, 132, 184, 2 1 1 , 266; M 1 . 104108, 126, 2 7 1 ; 2. 10 I; 3 . 254; S 4.288; A 1 . 247; 2 . 26-27, 54-55, 65; 3 . 124- 126,
130, 135; 4. 1 14, 134, 366; 5 . 1 5 , 67, 13 1 , 20 I, 350.
176. I a m indebted to John Nelson for this term. On the role of matronage i n
the rise a n d development o f Buddhism, see W i l l i s , "Nuns a n d Benefac
t resses , " p. 73 and "Female Patronage," pp. 46-53.
M a t ronage achieves c learer defi n ition as H i n d u d<Inadharma evolves for,
at a mat re state, two types of g:fts are recognized: in the first, those
o ffered into the s ingle (grhya) fire, into the three (sra uta) fires, and i n s ide
the vedi d uring sacrifices constitute is{a giving, while "the dedication o f
t a n k s , wells, temples, places f o r p u b l i c d istributi o n of food , " a n d gar
dens, as well as "gifts made a t the t ime of eclipses, . . . on the sun's passage
Redefining Rela tionships : The Ne w Donor

100

i n a zodiacal sign or on the 12th day of a month" constitute the seco n d , or
pilrta, giving ( K ane 2 . 2 : 843-44) . As the range of possible H i n d u do nors i s
expanded i n t ime to i n c l u d e women and sildras, it i s deemed t h a t tw ice
born men can perform i${adharma and pilrtadharma, while women a n d
.s'ildrascan o n ly perform pilrtadharma. Acting independently, t h e n , women
are excluded from giving within the Brahmanic rit ual system, a s they have
a lways been, but they can now make independent gifts under the catego
ries of gift ing_which lead to the ceremonial consecration or dedication of
a monument, icon, temple, wel l , t a n k , or park-that i s , anything estab
l ished for the benefit of the public at l a rge ( K a n e 2 . 2 : 845 , 889). These
categories are k n own a s utsarga and pra ti${hii. Tech n i c a l l y , dfina a n d
utsarga d iffer i n t h e fo l lowing way: w h i l e i n diina t h e d o n o r g i v e s u p a l l
ownership a n d control o v e r a n item to a private receiver, i n utsarga he o r
s h e g i v e s u p ownership o v e r a n i t e m to t h e full benefit and use of the
public; and as a member of that public, then, the donor or former owner
can him o r herself make use of the item so dedicated ( K a n e 2 . 2 : 893).
I n the light of the type of gifts made by women and men to the Buddhist
Sangha, that include large donations of lands a n d lodgings, i t ' s possible,
then, that the Dharm a Sastric structures m ight either inform or be in
formed by the early Buddhist ones. Note, however, that i n the early Bud
dhist context giving almost consistently fa l l s under the technical denota
tion of d;Ina, a n d not utsarga, for gifts to the Sangha, while made to the
inst itution and not to individuals, are s t i l l not dedicated for the "public
good ."
177. Yin 2 . 2 1 3 , 2 16 .
178. M 2 . 137.
179. H o rner, Book of the Discipline 5 . 303n.
180. M 1 . 446; A 1 . 244, 284; 2 . 1 17, 1 7 1 ; 3. 134, 16 1 , 248, 279, 387; 4. 1 1 3, 290-9 1;
5 . 67, 198.
1 8 1 . The anonymity of the s;up nylisin 's a l m s round i s echoed here, for not
only i s he to stop at houses chosen randomly and accidenta l l y ( V DS 10.7),
but, l i k e the brahmin guest who i s not to boast of his fa m ily background
i n order to get a meal (Manu 3 . 109), he is to make no h u mble salutations
at a l l , so a s not to fa l l into a hierarch ically pre-defined relationship ( M a n u
6 . 5 8 ) . H orner's ( Women, p . 324) treatment o f t h e Cul lav agga passage,
however, renders the Buddhist household a lmost identical to the Vedic:
"She performed this functi o n , her d uty and privilege, because the home
was looked upon pre-eminently a s her sphere, and not because she was i n
any way the owner of t h e house."
182. A n adaptation of H orner ' s translation (Book of the Discipline 5 . 302) of
Yin 2 . 2 16 (See Frau w a l l ner, p. 125: {hitakena sallakkhetabbaf!J bhikkhaf!J
datukamli va adatukiima va 'ti. sace kammaf!J vii nikkhipa ti asanii vH
vurrhati ka{acchurp va paramasati bhajanaf!J vii paramasati {hapeti va,
datukama viya 'ti {hata bbaf!J. There are strik ing simi larities to the pre
scriptions for the saf!Jnylisin. I n going to the v i l lage for food, he is to beg
10 1
only once a day, eating food that is given without his ask ing
( BDS 2 . 10. 18.5,
1 2 ) , wartmg to go to a househo ld late, after people have
finished their
meals- that i s , after the smoke and embers of the cooking
fire are out
and the grinding pestle and d ishes are put aside (ODS
3 . 17; VDS 10.8;
Manu 6.43, 55, 56)-i n the hopes that at that time he
will not intrude.
While the sarp nyfisin looks for signs of appropr iate timing
a m ong the
r n a n r m a t e objects of the househo ld, however , the Buddhis
t ren u n c i a n t
look s for s i g n s g i v e n b y t h e d o n o r herself.
1 8 3 . Jacobi, pp. 64-66, 9 1 -93. A s Vv (no. 70) indicates , however
, washing the
hands before eating is the custom i n lay Buddhist househo l
ds.
1 84. J a c o b i , pp. 93, 159, 103, 1 17- 19, 107- 108.
185. Jacobi, p. 8 8 .
1 8 6 . Jacobi, p p . 1 0 1- 102, 12 1 .
1 8 7 . Jacobi, p p . 124-25; b u t see p. 242.
1 8 8 . Jacobi, pp. 24, 27.
1 8 9 . On the fo undation al role of the k i ng for the developm ent
of i n d i v i d u a l
i s m , s e e Olivelle, Saf!J nyiisa Upanisads, pp. 32-33, and on t
h e develop
ments mternal to the sra ut:1 rit u a l , see Heesterm a n , Broken World,
pp. 8 1 ,
1 0 I , 2 1 6 , 2 1 8 , Inner Conflict, pp. 32-44.
190. Yin 1 . 2 16-220. A n o t her, h a ppier, story h ighlightin g the
i n d ependent
m r ndedness of a woma n ' s giving is the account of V i s a k h
a ' s req uest to
the Buddha to be a permanen t donor of eight item s . W a n t ing to
give eight
grfts to the Sangha for life (yii vajivam}-ra i n cloths, food
for the i n
c o m i n g , food for t h e out-going , food for t h e sick , food for
t h e sick -ten
ders, med icine for the sick , conjey, and bathing c l oth for
the n u ns
Visakha persists and after a protracte d time and m uch d iscussion
, the
Buddha grants her req uest ( Y i n 1 . 290-294) .
1 9 1 . Yin 3 . 17,.
192. M 2.63.
193. Unusual here is that the norm a l devolution of a woma n ' s stridharw (goods
that come to her as wife) i n contemporary H i n d u law is upon her d a ughters.
194. An adaptatio n of H a re ' s (Gradual Sayings 3.29-30) translatio
n of A 3 . 37:
ye te bhatru abbhantarii kammantii U(J(Jii ti vii Ikappasa ti vii, tatrha
dakkhii
bha vi55iima analasa, ltatrupiiyiiya vimaf!Jsiiya samanniiga tii a/am
kiitum
alaq1 I sarp vidhiitun.
1 9 5 . A 3 . 2 95-98.
1 9 6 . See Y i n 2 . 2 13-2 16.
197. Fra u w a l l ner, pp. 6 3 , 6 5 , 153-54.
198. Yin 2 . 2 1 5 - 16 .
199. M a n u 2 . 2 13; 9 . 5 , 7, 12.
200 . A V 2.36.3; TS 3.2.8; B A U 6.4.3, 28; HGS 1 . 6 . 1 9 . 7; Manu 3.45; 5 . 153; 9.26,
27, 45 .
102
20 I . M a n u 3 . 5 5 .
202. See S G S 4. 1 1. 1, 6, 1 0 ; 6. 1 . 3 ; Manu 2 . 2 13.

203. K a ne 2. 1 . 309-3 10.
204. Yin 1 . 70.
205. Yin 4. 2 . 2 13, 220-2 1 , 233, 234.
206. E . g . , eye t o the s u n , breath to the wind, l i m bs to the plants (R V 10. 1 6 . 3 .
See Heesterman, " diksi(Ja " pp. 242-43.
207. E . g . , the four-cornered earth, the four-qu artered sky, the ocean, the lights,
the waters, the plants, the mountains (R V 10.58).
208. For RV 1 0 . 1 6 . 3 , see AV 18.2.7; TA 6. 1. 4; 7.3; 9 . 2 . For a d i scussion of
pi(J(ia offerings to female relatives, see Kane 2 . 2 :794-795.
209. See Olivelle, Saq117yasa Upanisads, pp. 89-94.
2 1 0. The h u sband (as seed) entering the w ife becomes an embryo entering i t s
mother, to be born a n e w man a g a i n i n t h e tenth m o n t h ( See A B 7. 13;
M a n u 9. 106, 107, 137). I n the "sn iff k iss" ritual of K s U 2. 10, the father o n
ret urning h o m e from a journey s n iffs t h e head o f t h e s o n a n d pronounces
his name, reaffirming the father's conti n u ity through the son's viability.
The Vedic value on sons i s so strong, in fact, that i t i s a main argu ment
against celibacy. O l ivelle, SaJ!Iny;Isa Up:misads, pp. 42, 49.
2 1 1 . K s U 2. 14. This rite of transfer is l i k e one in BU 1 . 5 . 17 in which, at death,
a father pronounces to the son that he is the brahman, the sacrifice, and
the world, and the son responds acknowled ging that he i s the brahman,
the sacrifice, and the world.
2 1 2 . This rite of tra n sfer i s also used i n the ren unciation of a male ascetic who
ritually d ies to his fa mily and who continues on for them in the person of
his son ( K s U 2. 14). See again, Ol ivelle, Samny:.Isa Upanisads, pp. 90-9 1 .
2 1 3 . See R V 10. 14. 8; TS 5.7. 7. 1; Kane 2 . 2 : 843-44; V a r m a , p p . 2 9 , 3 1 ; K e i t h ,
Religion a n d Philosophy, pp. 2 5 0 , 409, 478n, 573n-574n.
2 14. K n ipe, "Sapi(J(iikara(Ja, "p. 1 14. The DTgha ( 1. <)7) and A ligutt ara N i k a y a s
( 1 . 166; 5. 269, 2 7 3 ) make c l e a r t h a t t h e saddlw offerings to ancestors are
well-known to the Pali compilers.
2 15 . K n ipe, "Sapi(J(iikara(Jil, " pp. 1 1 5- 1 17.
103
rain; entering p l a n t s , t h e y a r e eaten b y men, become semen and take on

new l i ves in wombs of women. Persons with l i berating k nowledge, how
ever, break the cycle by passing through the opened lid covering the v a u l t
of heaven and escaping to i m mortality beyond t h e b o u n d s of t h e u n i
verse. Like the Sraddha rites, t h e construct of t h e pitryHna affirms the
power of the l i neage l i n k ages act ive within the rit u a l , i n whose setting not
only the fru its of action ripen, but the center of male identity rests.
2 1 X . See Kane 2 . 2 . 1085- 1090, where the norm of the Pil)<;lapit ryajiia i s for fa
thers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. Female relatives as departed
an cestors are certainly k n own to Buddhist cu l t ure, however, as petis fig
u re prominently i n the Pet avatthu. That the renunciant at the door peti
t i oning for alms i s thought of as dead to his fa m i l y is c lear i n S 1 . 209:
puna Jiv:.l!Ji mato hi so 'though l i ving again (as a renunciant) he i s yet
dead . ' The Cullavagga itself ( Y i n 2 . 2 15-2 16) acknowledges the problem
of women giving pi(J(ia, as evident in the words used i n the a l m s encoun
ter pre-script i o n : while p1(l(ia i s used throughout the sect ion for alms, at
that point when the donor i s specifically a woman- i . e . , fem i n ine forms
u sed and woman ' s work i n the k itchen described-pinda i s not used for
a l m s and the less encu mbered bhikkha i s Jsed instead.
2 1 9 . This i s more fu lly d i scussed i n the chapter on food.
220. dHnap;JtJ 'donor, ' S 1 . 174; see A 4.237-39; Cp 2 ; Pv I , 36-37; Thera n o .
5 6 6 . On t h e farmer ( = Buddha as teacher) sowing seeds of d iscipline i n h i s
d isciples, see S 4. 3 1 5 .
22 1 . bijHni vutttiw 'seeds sow n , ' S 1 . 2 1; see S 1 . 174; A 4.237-39; C p 2; P v I , 3637; Thera no. 566. On the seeds as Dhamma sown by the teacher i n d i s
c i p l e s , s e e S 4. 3 1 5; s e e also A 5 . 2 1 2-2 14.
2 2 2 . sukheffe, ' i n a fert ile field , ' S 1 . 2 1 ; see S 1 . 174; A 4.237-39; Cp 2; Pv I, 3637; Thera no. 566. On the d i sciple as field of varying q u ality into which
teach i ng i s sown, see S 4. 3 15 .
2 2 3 . S 1 . 174; A 4.237-39. The image of ploughing, sowing, and yielding i s used
a s well to describe the ren unciant's own d i sciplined pathway, with the
ren u nciant's body as field, confidence as seed, rain as d iscipline, i ns ight
a s plough, pole as conscience, m ind as tie, and m i ndfulness as ploughshare
( S 1 . 172).
2 1 6. K n ipe, "Sapi(J(iikarli(W, " pp. 1 17- 122.
224. S 1. 174; A 4.237-39; see A 3 . 243. In S 1 . 100, the donor i s l i k ened to a

ra incloud (meg/w) drench ing the earth, as he gives showers of gift s .
2 1 7. The use of l i neage l i n k ages as a structure for working out the mecha
2 2 5 . This i s more fully d iscussed i n t h e chapter on merit.
n i s m s of ritual causal ity (through such thing s as perfo rmative speech and
ritual m a n ipulation) i s evident again i n the development of the two paths
taken after death ( BA U 1 . 5 . 16; 6.2. 1- 16). The devayHna fathers, i s taken
by the man of act ion who has l i ved a ritually correct life and who i s des
t i ned to ret u rn to and be reborn again i n this worl d . See Varma, pp. 34-35;
O l ivelle, Upanis:.1ds, pp. x l v i i-xlviii. In this context, rebirth i s understood
as fo llows: upon cremat ion, persons desti ned to be reborn go u p to the
moon i n the form of smoke or vapor from where they return t o earth as
226. The only gendered image i s of the ra in as god -k ing (de var/Jjil)of the clouds
( S 1 . 1 74; A 4.238), whose v i olent energy i s endowed with strong virility ( A
3. 243); but this i s c learly an old i m a g e inherited from t h e V e d i c world view
of I ndra the powerful storm god.
227. Little and Twiss, pp. 63-66.
2 2 8 . Gombrich, "I ntentio n , " p. 92.
2 29 . A ronson, Love and Sympa thy, p. 9 .
104
230. Y i n 3 . 160; Y i n 2 . 77.

2 3 1 . A 4.45.
232. See references made to the houses and dwelling places of the gahap11ti : as
pasada ( Y i n 1 . 16) and as nivesana ( Yin 1 . 2 7 1 ) .
2 3 3 . Wagle , pp. 7 1 , 105- 1 10 .
234. Collins, pp. 168-69.
CHAPTER 3
Resources to Requisites: Gifts

to the Gone Forth
The most public a spects of the dana contract are the negotia
tions about the propriety of certain material resources, that i s ,
t h e gifts donors make to those gone forth into t h e homeless life .
These negotiations are part of what Olivelle calls the "domesti
cation" of renunc iant ideals a s they are "incorporated into the
fabric of mainstream religio n , " 1 a nd the process involves the
development of truly Buddhist ideal s out of the contexts of both
Vedic antecedents and co ntemporary a scetic forms a lternative
to Buddhism.
GI FTS AND THE VEDIC PATRON
Vedic ritual practice is well-known in Pali text s , 2 and there is

every reason to a ssume that Buddhists of the time live and work
side by s ide with Vedic practitio ners, and that they draw upon
what they know from this tradition3 to define a m aterial life
benefic i a l to their religious quest. Giving is an appropriate and
expected Ved ic activity, and both the terms dana and dak$i(la
are used in reference to gifts given to poets and priests part ici
pat ing in the ritual . Thus , RV 6 . 5 3 . 2 ma kes c lear that materia l
transaction is a central part of religious relationship: "Lead us
to suit able property, to one we can count on, to the expected
poet 's pay (dak$i(la), to a householder (grhapa fl) agreeable ( to
our serv ice) . " Deriving, perhaps, from dak$i(la ' right , ' the hand
that gives a nd that is said to have "munificent and beneficial pow
ers , "4 the dak$i1Ja is not strictly a salary but a gift , given by the
s acrificer to all those priestly offic ials present at the place of the
s acrifice, that itself helps to effect ritual end s . 5 Ordinarily, the
specific items to serve as dak$i(la are agreed upon ahead of t ime,
with certain dak$i]Jas deemed appropriate for certain rituals.6

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Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa!

110. Yin 4.4-6; A 1.242-44.

Redefining Relationships: The

123. Wagle, p. 107.

THE HOUSEHOLDER AS DONOR

124. Misra, pp. 108-110.

The more central place of the merchant, and of commerce, is

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

and householding economies with a shift from pastoralism to

patronage, their good counsel, and their general support that is

The sh ift to an economically viable family unit of smaller pro

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

and significance. H ouseholder traders contract debts, set up busi

Redefining Relationships: The New Donor

that "poin s to t e final disintegration of the original vis, "29 sup

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

brahminism"39 at the time of the rise of Buddhism, the new struc

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

Brahmadeyya is the royal gift of lapd

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

responsibility for the management of common household prop

The wealth from agriculture, and in time from commerce, 55

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

whose prototype is the liberal giver celebrated in the Danastuti

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

that these material needs can be met only through donation.

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

of textual narratives. I n many cases, immediate notice in the

Redefining Relationships: The New Donor

o ther patterns of strong identification with Sangha are at work

The integrative function of the donation process seen as grant

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

to the door,98 it happens that householder followers of one group

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

confidence (saddhii) in the three refuges, realizes all the hin

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

his movement , 1 10 and they are known openly to the public be

Redefining Relationships: The New Donor

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

the upasaka, moreover, allows him to handle this liminal posture

To work for his own spiritual benefit as his sole endeavor is

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

to cross the 'precipice ' (papata) of actually giving these plea

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

is difficult, more so is their protection, that often entails the

As the householder moves onto center-stage amidst the changes

Hospitality: Binding Vedic Women Donors to the Marital Unit

The Vedic pattern for women as gift-givers derives from both

H ere, the power and successful endurance of the rit u a l is

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism

Thus they enclose him (Soma) on two

Redefining Relationships : The New Donor

t h e bhik$ ii relationship ritua lized in t h e a ppearance of the

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa/i Buddhism

and as representative of the household in an atithya 'hospitality'

The Vedic relationships of a lms petition have formal parallels

Redefining Rela tionships : The New Donor

the robe, the walking amidst the houses, the comportment of

Dana: Giving and Getting in Pa!i Buddhism

Redefining Rela tionships : The New Donor

The giving of specific signs-the transfer of attention, the