BUDDHA AND DEVADATTA

By A.M. Hocart

Indian Antiquary,

vol. 52, Oct. 1923, pp. 267-72.

vol. 54, Oct. 1925, pp. 98-99.

p. 267

DEVADATTA'S constant, but unsuccessful, persecution
of the Buddha, his cousin, is one of the main themes
of Buddhist legend. It has usually been taken as a
simple case of sectarian jealousy, requiring no
further explanation. I believe there is a great deal
more in it than that.

I will preface my remarks with the Buddha's
genealogy. Spence Hardy, in his Manual of Buddhism
(p.140), relates how the thirty-two sons of Rama of
the Koli tribe married their thirty-two mother's
brother's daughters of the Sakya tribe. "From this
time it became the custom of the Koli and Sakya
tribes to intermarry with each other." This is borne
out by the following pedigree taken from Rhys David's
Buddhism and Spence Hardy(1):--

Jayasena Devadaha
(Sakya) (Koli)
ﾚﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｿ ﾚﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｿ
Sinhahanu=Kancana Yasodhara=Anjana Sinhahanu=Kancana
ｳ ｳ ｳ
ﾚﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｿ ﾚﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｿ (See left)
ｳ ｳ ｳ ｳ
Suprabuddha=Amirita Sudhodhana=Maha Maya Suprabuddha=Amrita
ｳ (Sakya) ｳ ｳ
ｳ ﾀﾄﾄﾄｿ ﾚﾄﾄﾄﾄﾁﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄﾄｿ
(See right) ｳ ｳ ｳ
Gautamabuddha=Yasodhara Devadatta

Any one who has the slightest acquaintance with
kinship systems will immediately diagnose the case.
It is the cross-cousin system, under which a man's
children are expected to marry his sister's children,
but not his brother's children. In technical language
a man marries his cross-cousin, a term invented to
express the fact that they are cousins through
parents of opposite sexes. Such a form of marriage
results in a system of reckoning kin, in which the
maternal uncle is the same as the father-in-law, the
paternal aunt as the mother-in- law, and so forth, as
any one can work out for himself on the above
pedigree.

This mode of reckoning kin is found in its typical
form among the Tamils, the Todas, and other peoples
of South India(2), among the Sinhalese, ancient and
modern, the Torres Straits Islanders"(3), the New
Hebrideans, and in Fiji. With a trifling modification
it occurs among the Seneca-Iroquois of North
America.(4) Species of the same genus, or crosses
between this and other species, are found broadcast
from South Africa to America across the Pacific.

I assume straightaway that all these systems have a
common origin. If we maintain that they have arisen
independently, then good-bye to all history of
civilization. We might just as well be consistent and
say that the resemblances between Latin and Sanskrit,
or Mala- gasy and Hawaiian are accidental.

If all these systems have a common origin, we are
justified in drawing inferences from one to another,
provided we observe the laws of evidence. Just as we
compare the Latin pater,
______________________________

1 This Pedigree is given in Mahavamsa II, 15ff.

2 Richard's Cross-cousin Marriage in South India;
Man, 1914, No. 97; Rivers', The Todas, p. 484;
Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity, Pl, X ff.

3 Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, VI, p.92,

4 Morgan, cf, cit. Pl. IV ff.

p. 268

with the Sanskrit pitar, the Gothic fadar, and, so
hark back to an original pater, so we are justified
in placing the Sakya custom besides the Sinhalese,
the Fijian, and the New Hebridean, and thus restore
the original practice from which all these varieties
are derived.

In a series of papers I have described the beliefs
and practices that centre round cross- cousinship in
Fiji(5), In Fiji groups intermarry just like the Koli
and the Sakya, and this tribal relationship is
variously described in different parts as tauvu,
veitambani, veimbatiki, veikila. 'People who are so
related make a, point of abusing one another ｷ,
calling each other "cad," " orphan," " body fit to
cook"; they pull one another by the hair; they take
each other's property without asking leave; on
ceremonial occasions a man will seize a lot of stuff
and get beaten in a playful way by his
cross-cousins.(6) There is a great rivalry between
such groups: " they are lands that vie with one
another," says a Fijian, "it is a disgrace for them
that the report should go forth that they have been
overwhelmed in war, or in ex- changes, or in eating,
or in drinking."(7) All this rough handling, and
rivalry, and abuse is done, mind you, in a friendly
way; in fact a man's proper "pal" is his
cross-cousin, and tales are told of the endless
tricks inseparable cross-cousins played on one
another. So essen- tial is this cheating that over
and over again tribes will derive their relationship,
from two gods of whom one cheated the other, who,
thereupon, retaliated with bad language. So essen-
tial is the fighting that in the Windward Islands of
Fiji, where they have forgotten the mean- ing of
veitambani, they will tell you that two tribes are
veitambani because they could fight one another!

This constant feud between cross-cousins was not a
local growth in Fiji, for traces of it are found
elsewhere. In the New Hebrides the two halves of
society "are said to have dif- ferent characters In
the old time members of the two moieties hated one
another and even now there is a feeling of enmity
between the two."(8) Among the Thonga, of South
Africa, just as in Fiji, the uterine nephew steals
the offering and gets pelted by the others(9). This
therefore looks like an original feature of the
cross-cousin system sufficiently ancient to have
spread to South Africa at one end, and Fiji at the
other.

The reader will long ago have seen what we were
coming to, namely to the conclusion that the rivalry
of Buddha and Devadatta is an echo of the friendly
and ceremonial antagonism of cross-cousins. We must
leave it undecided, however, whether there existed
between the Buddha and his cousin a friendly feud,
which, with the disappearance of the custom, was
misinterpreted as a bitter enmity; or whether in
those days an originally friendly opposition had
degenerated into hate; or whether, finally, there
never was such a rivalry between the two, but
traditions of cross-cousin rivalry became attached to
the pair. It matters little to our purpose what may
have been the case, for we are not concerned here
with events, but with customs, and it is sufficient
if we can show that the legend of Buddha and
Devadatta. is evidence that similar customs once
prevailed in Northern India as they do now in the
Pacific.

At the suggestion of Rao Saheb S. Krishnaswami
Aiyangar let us consider the exact form taken by the
feud between Buddha and Devadatta. "Shin-i-tian''
quoted by Klaproth and Remusat, in their edition of
Fa Hian (p.201) records a rivalry in mighty deeds
between Nanda, the Buddha's brother, and Devadatta,
in which, of course, Nanda surpasses his cousin. Late
in life, according to Spence Hardy (Manual of
Buddhism, p. 326) Devadatta thought thus:--"I am
equally honourable as to my family with Buddha;
before I became a priest I was treated with all
respect, but now I receive even less than my previous
___________________________

5 "The Fijian Custom of tauvu, " JRAI., 1913, p. 101;
" More about tauvu,'' Man, 1914, No. 96; "The Uterine
Nephew," Man, ibid., 1922,

6 "Chieftainship in the Pacific, " American Journ, of
Anthropology, 1915, p.631.

7 "The Common Sense of Myth," ibid., 1916, p.
316.

8 Rivers' History of Malanesian Society, I, p. 22.
The author probably took it more seriously than it
was meant.

9 Junod, Life of an African Tribe, I, p. 162.

p. 269

followers. I must take to myself 500 disciples; but
before I can do this, I must persuade some king or
other to take my part; great monarchs of Rajagaha,
and other places, are all on the side of Buddha; I
cannot therefore deceive them, as they are wise. But
there is Ajasat, the son of Bimsara; he is ignorant
of causes, and disobedient to his parents; but he is
liberal to his followers; so I must bring him over,
and then I can easily procure a large retinue." Thus
Devadatta enters into rivalry with the Buddha: the
Buddha founds a monastic order, Devadatta, must do
the same; the Buddha is patronised by a great
monarch, Devadatta, must also seek such an exalted
patron. Devadatta preaches " in imitation of Buddha "
(p.339): but like our Fijian veitambani, Devadatta
must go one better than the Buddha, only he does so
in the spiritual, they in the material. When he finds
his Order fall to pieces he comes to the Buddha, and
says (p.337): "I have hitherto been refused that
which I asked at your hands, but this is not right,
as I am the nephew of Sudhodana:" (here I must
interrupt to inquire whether this is not an echo of
the right a man's sister's son has of taking
everything of his uncle's without his uncle being
allowed to say him, nay; otherwise what is the
meaning of Devadatta's words? ). Devadatta then
proceeds to ask that on five points the discipline of
the Order should be made more severe. The Buddha
calls on men to leave the world and retire into
monasteries; Devadatta wants them to retire to the
forest. Buddha allows his disciples to eat what is
brought by the people to the monasteries; Devadatta
wants them to eat nothing but what they have begged
from door to door, and so on. The only motive that
influences Devadatta from beginning to end is
rivalry, a desire to surpass his cousin.

If the hostility of Devadatta is merely the record
of ordinary hatred, it is difficult to under- stand
why Devadatta, possesses the power of flying through
the air and of performing miracles (Spence Hardy,
Manual of Buddhism, p.326). Here we have a man who,
according to existing accounts, is utterly wicked, so
wicked as to oppose the Saviour of the World, yet
endowed with a power which is normally attained only
after treading the path of meditation and
renunciation towards the goal of sanctity. Buddhist
tradition seems to have felt the difficulty, for it
is at pains to explain that to him the power of
passing through the air and of assuming of any form
was only a curse, which " led him on to do that which
involved himself in ruin." If on the other hand this
antagonism is really the echo or the continuation of
an old sporting feud involving no moral stigma on
either side, it is only natural that the rival chiefs
should both be endowed with wondrous power; only one
surpasses the other. When at a later time it came to
be interpreted as the malice of the Evil One against
the Good One, a difficulty arose which had to be
explained away. A similar difficulty beset our
theologians of old, who accepted the wonders
tradition ascribes to "Osiris, Isis, Horus and their
train;" yet deeming them to be devils, were perplexed
by the power wielded by the enemies of God, and were
reduced to suppose that only

"Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator."

But to return to our problem, can we find in Modern
India any evidence that the kinship customs mere
similar to those that now prevail in Fiji, any trace
of that playful antagonism of cross-cousins?
Unfortunately kinship and its customs has not
received the attention it deserves, and therefore
there is a dearth of evidence. I have made inquiries
in Ceylon and this is the result: "If cross-cousins
are of equal age they talk to one another like chums.
If they are of different ages, the younger one treats
the older as if he were his elder brother. Brothers
don't discuss private matters, such as love affairs,
with each other; but cousins of equal age discuss
such matters freely. They call each other names, if
they are angry. Brothers abuse one another when they
are very young."All that survives then in Ceylon is a

p. 270

greater familiarity between cross-cousins, and even
that is restricted by the respect for age, which is
such that " a, man will address his servant as ayya
(elder brother), if he is older.

" Thanks to Rao Saheb S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, I
am able to produce more definite evidence from South
India. I will quote his letter:--" Whether they
actually marry or no, these cross-cousins usually
enjoy that license, particularly as between men, to
indulge in free talk, which between others would be
regarded as insulting. As between these cousins there
is infinitely more freedom of talk. This habit has
even invaded the castes to whom marriage between
cross-cousins is a prohibition, such as, for
instance, the Brahmans. The habit is almost general
among all classes other than that of the Brahmans."

Another way of approaching the problem is by
looking for divisions that fight one another. The
only case I know of is the hostility between the
right-hand and left-hand factions of Southern India,
as described by Dubois in his Hindu Manners and
Customs (Oxford ed., p. 25). The left-hand includes
the Vaisyas, a, high caste, and also the lowest of
all. The right-hand consists of most of the higher
Sudras and of the Parias. Their disputes centre, it
should be noted, round religious ceremonies. It may
be objected that these two groups do not intermarry
and that there is no evidence that they ever did; on
the other hand there is no evidence that they did
not. The rigidity of caste is admittedly not early.
Even at the present day cases of intermarriage are
not uncommon, and I need not dwell upon them beyond
quoting Mr. H. Codrington's information as regards
Ceylon:--"The castes used to intermarry, i.e., a
higher caste man took a wife from the caste next
below. This is still done in parts of Ceylon by the
Hali (Salagama. Tamil, Saliyar) and Vahunpurayo."

But whether caste ever intermarried or not, the
Tamil and Sinhalese kinship system is there to prove
that there must at one time have been in the South
intermarrying groups like the Sakya and Koli, for the
Tamil system is based on the dual organization and is
sufficient evidence of its former existence. If in
Tamil land this system divided the clans into two
intermarrying groups, we should get back to a state
of society such as exists in Fiji. There each state
is divided into two groups of clans: the nobles and
their councillors or heralds are always in one,(10)
the vanguard in the other; it can be shown that
marriage into the other half was, until recently, the
proper thing; but the nobles have tended to form
alliances with the nobles of foreign states and thus
to become endogamous within their rank or caste; the
car- penters are strictly endogamous because no one
will marry into them, they are so despised. `

The Todas, who have the cross-cousin system are
divided into Tartharol and Teivaliol. These two
divisions do not now intermarry, but the following
custom is significant. When a girl reaches a certain
age "a man belonging to the Tarthstrol, if the girl
is a Teivali, and to Teivaliol, if she is a Tarthar,
comes in the day-time to the village of the girl,
and, lying down beside her puts his mantle over her
so that it covers both and remains there for a few
minutes. Fifteen days later she is deflowered by a
man of either division."(11) This looks very much
like a survival of the time when a woman's proper
husband came from the opposite division. She still,
in the majority of cases, finds her official paramour
in the opposite divi- sion.(12) The Todas therefore
constitute the first link in the chain with which we
want to connect the Tamil social organisation with
the Fijian. Students of Indian society may well find
some more links among the backward tribes of India,
for those who are out of the swim of civilization
move more slowly and are often to be found now
exactly where their neighbours stood thousands of
years ago.

The use of the terms 'right' and 'left' as applied
to social divisions, lends probability to my
suggestion. Among the Elema, of New Guinea the clubs
are divided into right and left.
__________________________

10 It is quite possible that they have the same
origin as the Ksattriyas and Brahmans of India.

11 Riversa ' The Todas, p. 503.

12 Ibid., p. 526

p. 271

If I understand Dr. Seligman's note, the right and
left intermarry, but not right with right, or left
with left.(13) The Galla of East Africa also divides
society into a right and left wing, each of which can
only marry into the other.(14)

I must apologize, for producing such flimsy
supports to the argument. As a matter of fact, they
are intended not as proofs, but as clues for dwellers
in India and. round the Indian Ocean to follow up,
and thus link up Africa and the Pacific with
Northern India. Such a result might have far reaching
consequences, so far reaching indeed that I am almost
afraid of hinting at them, for fear of being utterly
discredited, but here goes.

The antagonism of the Buddha and Devadatta is that
of Good and Evil, which appear again in the persons
of Osiris and Seth, Ahura Mazda and Angro-Minyus,
Christ and Satan, the Devas and Asuras. If it is
based on the rivalry of two intermarrying groups, may
not those other antagonisms go back to the same
source. In Fiji we have seen that the gods of
intermarrying tribes over-reach one another just as
their descendants do. May not the same have happened
in other parts of the world, and the rivalry of t he
tribesmen be shared by their gods? I must insist that
this institution is essentially religious: in Fiji
the relation of tauvu is defined as " having gods in
common;" and a man who resents the seizing of
property by his cross-cousins is made ill by the
spirits. In South Africa the pelting of the uterine
nephew is part of a religious ceremonial. The story
of the malice of Devadatta has only been preserved by
the Buddhist religion. It is not therefore surprising
that a feud, which is essentislly religious, should
have been preserved in the annals of religion; nor
that, once the custom had died out, the tradition
should have been misunderstood, and an animus crept
in which was not there before. Scholars may fail to
see how a theory of good and evil can have arisen out
of a mere system of intermarriage; but it is not a
mere system of intermarriage; it is an elaborate
theology of which the intermarriage of two tribes or
families is only one consequence. That theology is
only beginning to unfold itself. As the picture
becomes clearer and more detailed we shall cease to
fin.d it difficult to believe that the powers of good
and evil go back to the ceremonial antagonism of
intermarrying groups.

Appendlix A.

I should like to draw the reader's attention to
Vinaya, vol. II, p.188, where Devadatta approaches
Buddha most respectfully and offers to relieve his
age of the burden of administering the Order. The
Buddha, replies with abuse, calling him "corpse,
lick-spittle" (chavassa). This seems scarcely in
keeping with the character of the Buddha, but it is
with that of a cross-cousin.

Devadatta is hurt and one day when Buddha is
walking up and down on Grdhrakuta hill throws a stone
at him (op. cit., p. 193).

Hiuen Tsiang saw the stone which was 14 or 15 feet
high.(15) Evidently we have here an old world legend
of a type that covers a good part of the world, and
is far more ancient than Buddhism, An example from
the. Pacific will be found in my '; Cult of the Dead
in Eddystone Island," pt.II(16) It is remarkable that
in Fiji this kind of legend is often told to account
for the cross-cousinship. Thus the people of the
island of Nayau and of Vanuavatu intermarry a great
deal and are relations (veiwekani); they tell a
legend which is the nearest approach I can think of
to the legend of Grdhrakuta. The gist of it is that
the ancestor god of Nayau stole the water which the
ancestor god of Vanuavatu had hung on a tree while
he was at work. When the god of Vanuavatu discovered
this he looked towards Nayau and saw the god, of
Nayau fleeing towards Nayau. He picked up a stone
and therew it, and struck the bottles so that they
broke. The stone broke in two and one; half is in
Nayau.

________________________________________

13 The Melanssians of British New Guinea, p.28

14 A. Werner, Some Galla Notes, 1915, No.10.

15 Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World,
II, 153.

16 JRAI., July-December, 1922.

p. 272

A similar legend without the stone throwing is told
to explain why Undu in Totoya and Natokalau in Matuku
are tribal cross-cousins (tauvu).

Appendix B.

Rao Saheb S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar has given me
further particulars about the abuse usual among
cross-cousins, from which it appears that they
indulge in obscenities; for he says, "These
expressions have reference more or less to matters of
banter not usually permissible except as between
husband and wife." Among the hill tribes of Fiji the
banter of cross- cousins alludes to sex.(17)

I think enough has been said to show that the use
of abusive language among cross- cousins is a very
ancient feature of the cross-cousin system, as
ancient as the nearest common ancestor of the people
who introduced the system into India, the New
Hebrides, and Fiji. It follows that normally
Siddartha and Devadatta would have behaved in this
characteristic manners.
________________________

17 Man, Note on various definition of Totemism, 1920,
No. 12.