Doubting the Kālāma-Sutta Epistemology, Ethics, and the Sacred.pdf

Buddhist Studies Review 24(1) 2007, 91–107

ISSN (print): 0256–2897

doi: 10.1558/bsrv.v24i1.91

ISSN (online): 1747–9681

Doubting the Kālāma-Sutta :

Epistemology, Ethics, and the ‘Sacred’

STEPHEN A. EVANS

Bangkok

saevans60@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The Kālāma-sutta is frequently cited as proof of the rational and empirical

spirit of early Buddhist epistemology, ‘The Buddha’s charter of free enquiry’, accord-

ing to Soma Thera. A close reading, however, calls that interpretation into question.

The Kālāmas do not ask what is the truth, and the Buddha does not tell them how to

ﬁ nd it. Rather the Kālāmas ask ‘Who is telling the truth?’ in what may have been the

pursuit of sacred or quasi-magical power through the person of a teacher. The Bud-

dha, in turn, encourages them to adopt a set of attitudes and actions, which includes

choosing a teacher. The method of evaluation that the Buddha gives, which includes

the famous ‘know for yourselves’ is found to be as least as much ethical as it is epis-

temological and to invoke the opinion of authority and the public. The Buddha here

seems to call for a decision that is partly based on faith, and the Kālāmas respond not

with independent research, but with an act of faith in committing themselves to (and

being accepted by) the Buddha.

INTRODUCTION

The Kālāma-sutta (or, more accurately, the Kesamutti-sutta ) is one of the best

known and most widely cited sutta s of the Pāli Nikāya s. Its importance, on the

one hand, is that it seems to give an account of the Buddha’s epistemology; its

popular appeal, on the other, is that the epistemology seems strikingly modern.

In the usual interpretation, the Buddha advises the Kālāmas to discover truth

for themselves through a process of investigation unbiased by faith or tradition.

Soma Thera (1981) goes so far as to subtitle his translation ‘The Buddha’s Charter

of Free Enquiry’. As such, it gives Buddhism the status of being at least 2,000 years

ahead of the European Enlightenment and holds out the promise of a humanistic

and rational religion.

Bhikkhu Bodhi (1998), evidently uncomfortable with this reading, suggests

that the Kālāmas simply were not ready to hear deeper truths, which might

require faith, so the Buddha oﬀ ered, ‘the most reasonable counsel on whole-

some living possible when the issue of ultimate beliefs has been put into brack-

ets’. Bodhi is right that the usual reading of the Sutta does not square with the

BUDDHIST STUDIES REVIEW

Nikāyas in general, where faith is indeed important. However, it seems reasonable

to suppose that the concern is ultimate; moreover, as we shall see, the concern

was not with belief. The sense of modernity in the Sutta should make us pause and

ask whether we have been projecting our own categories of thought into it and

thereby misunderstanding it. Bhikkhu Bodhi, in other words, might have done

better to question the usual interpretation than to make excuses for the Sutta .

This essay endeavors to bring the usual interpretation into question through

a closer than usual examination of the question that the Buddha addresses and a

critical look at the mode of reasoning, or method, that the Buddha advocates. It is

not my purpose here to defend an alternate interpretation of the Sutta , although

the critique does suggest some elements of what a more adequate interpretation

would include.

My concern here is not with what the historical Buddha may have said or

thought. That question, it seems to me, is neither answerable nor, although many

will disagree, is it of the greatest interest. I am rather interested in the Buddha

who has been eﬀ ective in history, the Buddha who has a voice, that is, the Buddha

of tradition. That the Buddha of tradition may be mythical is no matter: having

been operative in the world he is real. For the purposes of this paper, the Buddha

is the Buddha of the Pāli Nikāya s as seen through the lens of the Theravāda tradi-

tion. Similarly, when I explore the possible meanings of the Kālāma’s question,

I do not presume access to the historical Kālāma’s world of discourse or to their

actual historical cultural presuppositions, rather, my interpretations are in terms

of the story and within the context of the tradition. Of course, the Nikāya s are

not uniquely Theravādin and one may interpret them through other traditions as

well. Nevertheless, the Theravāda has always been closely associated with them,

and it seems an appropriate (if not the only appropriate) interpretative frame-

work. 1 I therefore make no distinction between texts that may re ﬂ ect the words

of the historical Buddha and those that may represent later accretions, and I

consult the commentarial and post-commentarial literature as needed, assum-

ing that the overall tradition constitutes a more-or-less coherent whole. That is

a methodological assumption. There is no denying, nor would I wish to deny, that

there is material in the commentaries that goes well beyond what the Nikāya s

include, or that there are commentarial interpretations of constructs from the

Nikāya s that can be, and are, contested (for example, the three-life interpretation

of dependent origination). In short, I attempt here to interpret the Sutta from

within the context of the Theravāda tradition. Nevertheless, a careful reading of

the Sutta itself, even without reference to other material, does not support the

usual modern interpretation.

I begin with a brief review of the Sutta itself.

1. Unfortunately,this Sutta is treated so brie ﬂ y in the commentaries that the pre-modern tradi-

tion provides little clari ﬁ cation of its meaning.

EVANS DOUBTINGTHE KĀLĀMA-SUTTA

The Kālāma-sutta 2

The Buddha comes to Kesaputta and the Kālāmas approach him in the same way

that they must have approached all the wandering teachers of the day. 3 These

teachers, they say, each insist on his own teaching while condemning the teach-

ings of others. The Kālāmas are confused and in doubt, ‘Which of these reverend

monks and Brahmins [ samaṇa-brāhmaṇa ] spoke the truth [ saccaṃ āha ] and which

falsehood [ musā ]?’ (Soma 1981, 5). The Buddha responds that their uncertainty

is appropriate, ‘It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncer-

tainty [ vicikicchā ] has arisen in you about what is doubtful’ (ibid.). The Buddha

tells them that they must know for themselves and oﬀ ers a method of evalua-

tion that includes four criteria: whether something is bad or good ( akusala or

kusala ), blameable or unblameable, censured or praised by the wise, and whether

it leads to harm or bene ﬁ t when undertaken. He then engages the Kālāmas in a

dialogue, through which they agree that lobha, dosa, and moha lead to taking life,

stealing and so on, which lead, in the long term, to ‘harm and ill’ for the perpe-

trator. The method is then applied to determine that ‘these dhammas ’ should

be ‘abandoned’. Alobha, adosa and amoha, on the other hand, are said to lead a

person not to steal and so on, and thence to ‘happiness and bene ﬁ t’. Applying

the method to ‘these dhammas ’ the Buddha advises the Kālāmas to ‘enter into

and abide in them’. Lobha, dosa, moha and alobha, adosa, amoha , usually translated

‘greed’, ‘hatred’, ‘delusion’ and their negations are the mūla s , ‘roots’, fundamental

attitudes or, perhaps, motivating impulses, more-or-less, that give rise to good

or bad actions (MN I 47).

The Buddha continues by telling them that a ‘noble disciple’ ( ariya-sāvaka ), free

from covetousness, ill-will and confusion ( vigatābhijjho vigatavyāpādo asammūḷho ,

implying being free of lobha, dosa and moha ) , practises the brahma-vihāras 4 (Soma

1981, 9, 10). With his mind puri ﬁ ed by this practice, the disciple ﬁ nds four solaces.

They are: if there is an afterlife and result of actions ( kammānaṃ phalaṃ vipāko ),

then I may be reborn in a heaven; if not, then I am nevertheless, at present, free

from hatred, safe and happy; if there are painful results of wrong actions, I have

nothing to fear; if not, I am still puri ﬁ ed (Soma 1981, 10, 11). These solaces are inter-

esting in that the Buddha is here saying that the ariya-sāvaka may remain in doubt

about rebirth and the long-term eﬃ cacy of karma, although he lives as though

it were eﬃ cacious in the assumed way. The term ariya-sāvaka normally refers to

someone who has achieved at least the stream-enterer ( sotāpanna ) stage of enlight-

2 . Kesamutti-sutta , AN I 188–93. There is, in fact no Kālāma-sutta , the Sutta popularly referred to by

that name is the Kesamutti-sutta. All quotes are from Soma Thera’s translation. Pāli terms and

so on in square brackets are inserted by the author.

3. The word is ‘ samaṇa-brāhmaṇā’. It is convenient to call them ‘teachers’, since they might not

all have Brahmins or renunciants. They were, in any case, wandering teachers who gave them-

selves out as having ultimate knowledge.

4 . Mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā: love, compassion, joy in the success of others, equanimity. The

actual term ‘ brahma-vihāra’ is not used in the Sutta .

BUDDHIST STUDIES REVIEW

enment and that usage may be suggested here in that the Buddha has just said that

the ariya-sāvaka is free of states equivalent to lobha, dosa and moha . Only Arahat s are

completely and permanently free of lobha, dosa and moha , however, and it seems

unlikely that the Buddha was referring to Arahat s, as they in any case have no fur-

ther rebirths. He might rather have been referring to those who had achieved the

meditatively tranquil states of jhāna based on the brahma-vihāras just mentioned, 5

in whom those states are temporarily absent. In either case, vicikicchā would be

expected to be absent. As a fetter ( saṃyojana ), it has been eliminated in a person at

any stage of enlightenment (Bodhi 1993, 358; DN II 93); as a hindrance ( nīvaraṇa ) it

is overcome at least temporarily in the achievement of jhāna (DN I 71–3). Vicikicchā

is often translated ‘doubt’ (Bodhi 1993) or ‘uncertainty’ (Ñāṇamoli 1964); we have

here, then, the image of ariya-sāvaka s who have, at least temporarily, overcome

uncertainty/doubt, being nevertheless uncertain/doubtful about such a central

feature of the Buddha’s teaching as karma and rebirth. There are ways of resolv-

ing this apparent contradiction, and indeed we should not expect rigorous logical

consistency throughout the corpus of traditional and canonical material. Still, the

very suggestion that an ariya-sāvaka would be uncertain about karma and rebirth

seems odd. I return to this issue towards the end of the paper.

THE QUESTION

In our eﬀ ort to understand the Buddha’s answer, it may be helpful to examine

the question. What did the Kālāmas want to know and why did they want to

know it?

The Kālāmas ask neither what is true nor how to discover what is true. They

ask instead who is speaking the truth and who is speaking falsehood, ko su nāma

imesaṃ bhavataṃ samaṇabrāhmaṇānaṃ saccaṃ āha, ko musā. The question is

couched within the Kālāmas’ complaint that not only do diﬀ erent teachers give

diﬀ erent teachings, but that each reviles the teachings of the others while glori-

fying his own. It is interesting that the string of vituperation – ‘the doctrines of

others they despise, revile, and pull to pieces’ (Soma 1981, 5) – that each teacher

is said to direct at the teachings of the others does not include that the teach-

ings are false, giving the impression that the teachings are thought of rather in

terms of good and evil. For the Kālāmas, the multiplicity of con ﬂ icting teachers

calls them all into question. 6 But also, they evidently feel the necessity of asking

5. The Visuddhimagga explicitly makes the brahma-vihāras a basis of the jhānas (Ñāṇamoli 1964,

113).

6. As well it might: the Udāna includes a story in which King Pasenadi has sent out 35 spies dis-

guised as ascetics of ﬁ ve diﬀ erent movements. Soon, the king tells the Buddha, they will return

to a life of sensuality. It is interesting that the Buddha himself, apparently, does not realize that

the ascetics are frauds. It takes long association, he says, to tell whether or not someone is an

Arahat or on the path to becoming one ( Sattajaṭila-sutta , Ud 64).

EVANS DOUBTINGTHE KĀLĀMA-SUTTA

the question, ‘Who speaks the truth?’; rejecting all the teachers out of hand is

not an apparent option.

Filled with doubt ( kaṅkhā ), the Kālāmas say that there is ‘uncertainty’

( vicikicchā ) in them. ‘ Vicikicchā’ , like the English word ‘uncertainty’, can take on

a range of meanings from intellectual doubt, to confusion, to an inability or fail-

ure to make a commitment, all of which may be due to general indecisiveness.

Vicikicchā , indeed, is often contrasted not with certainty but with adhimokkha ,

which means to decide, or to choose (cf. Nārada 1987, 92, 101; Ñāṇamoli 1964, 533).

Abandoning vicikicchā , then, might mean that one overcomes indecisiveness by

making a commitment rather than that one achieves epistemic certainty about

the truth of statements. Since the Kālāmas’ question has to do with choosing

among teachers and the Buddha’s answer has to do with choosing among funda-

mental attitudes and actions, we take vicikicchā here to mean primarily ‘indeci-

siveness’. The Kālāmas cannot decide which teacher to believe or to follow.

The Kālāmas’ question itself is ambiguous. It could mean, on the one hand,

‘Who is telling the truth?’, that is, who is giving an honest account of what he

believes, or, on the other, ‘Who is making statements that are independently

true?’. Ko … saccaṃ āho, ko mūsā , ‘Which (of them) spoke the truth, which false-

hood’ could mean either. The Kālāmas evidently did not make the distinction.

That the Buddha himself was aware of the distinction is evident in such suttas as

the Caṅki-sutta (MN II 164–77), where he clearly recognizes that statements may

be true or false independently of the person who utters them (MN II 170–72). Even

after careful research and re ﬂ ection, he says, one may come to a conviction that

is false, one may be mistaken; on the other hand, a poorly researched opinion

might, as it were by accident, be true. 7 In either case, when someone who believes

X says, ‘I believe X ’, he preserves a truth. 8 ‘I believe it is raining in northeast

Spain’, is true, independently of the weather in northeast Spain, as long as the

one who says it is telling the truth about what he believes. Yet, the Buddha says

in the Sutta , such a preservation of truth, no matter how well researched, does

not constitute ‘awakening to truth’ ( saccānubodho ). In addition to independently

true statements and truth-telling, then, there is also a kind of truth that is awak-

ened to and a further one that is attained ( saccanuppatti ) 9 only via personal trans-

formation brought about by ethical and meditative eﬀ ort under the guidance of

a pure teacher. It may not be too much to say, based on the Caṅki-sutta , that this

7. The Sutta does not give examples. The topic of conversation had been the truth or falsity of

Vedic lore ( mantapada ), but the analysis would apply to statements of fact as well. The state-

ment, ‘It rained in a particular part of Spain on 5 May 1999’, is true or false, the Buddha would

say, independent of the person who says it. I do not mean to impute a theory of truth to the

Buddha here, but simply to say that, according to him, some statements may be independently

true or false.

8. It is not clear what it means to ‘preserve a truth’ ( saccānurakkhaṇam ), but at the very least, tell-

ing the truth is involved.

9.TheÑāṇamoli and Bodhi translation, n. 892 suggests that awakening to truth and attaining

truth in this Sutta refer to the attainment of stream-entry and Arahatship, respectively.

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