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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (853235)	4/30/2015 12:09:34 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574732

Slavery was once the norm in all cultures ... only one has produced an antislavery movement.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (853235)	4/30/2015 12:24:07 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1574732

How about Buddhism as a Justification for Slavery (see below for interest)? Or Judaism as a Justification for Slavery? As a matter of fact, there are still slaves in the world today. I heard a radio story a few days ago about a lady from India who was recently freed from slavery in California. She was a widow and had been sold by her husband's family. She'd been brought into the country by Indian doctors and had been traded from doctor to doctor, doing domestic work in their homes. But there's only one culture that has produced an antislavery movement. And the abolitionist movement was composed of fanatic evangelistic Christians, not secular liberals. Someday abortion will be thought of as we think of slavery today. Don't you think so? Buddhist teachings don't explicitly forbid slavery, but the eightfold path says that engaging in trade in living beings is not a right form of livelihood. This appears to ban Buddhists from engaging in the slave trade. ...a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in living beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.Eightfold path Other texts seem incompatible with many aspects of slavery itself. For example, this quotation requires Buddhists to ensure that their workers and servants are properly treated: In five ways should a master minister to his servants and employees: by assigning them work according to their ability, by supplying them with food and with wages, by tending them in sickness, by sharing with them any delicacies, by granting them leave at times. Sigalovada Sutta Despite these texts there's no doubt that slavery was part of some Buddhist cultures, although many of these slaves were servants, rather than slaves of the sort traded across the Atlantic. Richard Gombrich has argued that the Buddha did not intend to do away with slavery: Though it could well be argued that the Buddha made life in the world more worth living, that surely was an unintended consequence of his teaching. To present him as a sort of socialist is a serious anachronism. He never preached against social inequality, only declared its irrelevance to salvation. He neither tried to abolish the caste system nor to do away with slavery. While a famous sermon, the Samañña-phala Sutta, stresses the practical benefits for a slave in leaving his servitude and joining the Order, in fact runaway slaves were not allowed to join the Order. Moreover, though in ancient India there was no caste or other form of social ranking within the Order itself, the Order soon came to own (lay) slaves. Richard F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo, 1988 In fact the restrictions placed on monks required them to have some form of servant in monastic communities. So for example if monks were to obey the rule barring the cooking and storing of food, they would need somebody to do it for them. Some Buddhist commentaries warn that slaves are not allowed, unless they are called "called monastery servants (aramika) or legalisers (kappiya-karaka)". Gombrich also notes that: at one point the Vinaya commentary says in so many words that kings gave slaves to monasteries, and that they could not be ordained unless they had first been freed. Inscriptions record that people gave money for the specific purpose of maintaining monastic slaves – and offered the resulting merit to all living beings.Richard F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo, 1988 If granting endowments to maintain slaves at monasteries was considered meritorious, freeing them from slavery was considered even more meritorious. Thus the device of offering slaves to monasteries provided a two-fold way for the acquisition of merits.Rahula, Walpola (1956), History of Buddhism in Ceylon: the Anuradhapura Period, Colombo. Quoted in Gombrich Some kings in Ceylon offered themselves to the monastic community "as slaves and then redeemed themselves, thus combining a symbolic gesture of total humility with extreme munificence". In 9th century China Buddhist institutions are reputed to have employed 150,000 slaves , who were taken over by the Taoist Emperor Wu-tsung in 845 as part of his action against the Buddhist community. In some parts of South East Asia Buddhist locations were a sanctuary for those fleeing more oppressive forms of slavery: Where Buddhist monastic orders had claimed political retreats from state military power, their estates and temple complexes became sanctuaries where peasants sought the exemption from state conscription and corvée that 'slavery' to a privileged individual or institution provided.Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 2004 Pagoda slaves In some Buddhist cultures a male slave would become free if their owner allowed them to become a Buddhist monk. In Kampuchea a person could be made a 'Pagoda Slave' if they were found guilty of certain crimes - as could members of their family up to seven degrees removed. Pagoda slaves did domestic and maintenance work on temple sites. While pagoda slaves might have a relatively easy life for a slave they ranked very low on the social ladder and had an extra disadvantage: Pagoda slaves, who were supposed to belong only to Buddha, could not be redeemed.Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 2004 Because pagoda slaves could not be redeemed their children inherited slave status. Pagoda slaves were found mostly in what are now Burma and Thailand. Pagoda slaves weren't only 'criminals' or the descendants of slaves; people could be given to monasteries for slave use. Among Buddhist reformers of slavery was King Thibaw of Burma, a former monk. He paid 40,000 rupees in 1883 to buy the freedom of many slaves; 1,000 of those he freed are said to have become Buddhist monks and novices. answers.yahoo.com