Social Status and Marriages: An Investigation of Concepts and Practices in the Buddhist Textual Traditions

Abstract

The production of the early Buddhist texts had a significant purpose of treasuring the teachings of the Buddha. The texts were in oral form and developed over a long time span. The period of composition and compilation of the texts witnessed magnanimous changes in terms of historical evolution and socio-political development in India. Several ethical principles in the form of the Buddha’s teachings made Buddhism popular heretical sect of the sixth century BCE. Buddhism propagated against the complex Vedic ritual practices but in no way tried to reform the Vedic structural framework. If carefully studied, the Buddhist ethos reveal an all pervasive attempt to create a resolution to the conflicts of the conventional society This becomes clear in light of many instances depicted in the early Buddhist texts. In this article, I would interrogate the role played by ‘social status’ in negotiating marriages and how that has been represented in the Jᾱtakas, Therīgāthā and Theragᾱthᾱ. How nuptial ties has been dealt in the Buddhist texts is significant because the description of the rituals which forms the central aspect in the occasion of the marriage between two individuals has been completely absent in the Buddhist textual narratives. Whereas most of the narratives in the Jᾱtakas are based on the description of householder’s life, the nuptial ties and complexities developed out of it. This article maps a comparative analysis of the Jᾱtakas, Therīgāthā and Theragᾱthᾱ for a better understanding of our shared past.