Agganna Sutta 1

Agganna Sutta - On knowledge of Beginning

The Agganna Sutta explains this evolution in terms of a mythical story. On one occation a young Brahman,named Vasettha, joined the Buddhist Order and thereby became a monk of equal status with men from lower castes, for this he was severely reprimanded by other Brahmans. They said he had forsaken a divine and holy order; that the Brahmans were a special race born from the mouth of God. To repudiate these contentions the Buddha explained to Vasettha the true origins of humanity and said that all people had a common ancestry.

The first beings are described as sexless, vaguely shaped creatures whose bodies lacked solidity in the beginning, they fed on a savoury earth which first appeared as a scum on the ocean surface. This continued for a great length of time during which their bodies increased in solidity and diversity began to appear in their shapes. With the disappearance of the savoury earth, growths similar to mushrooms appeared in the soil and the earth's inhabitants fed upon these. After these vanished, creeping plants became the source of nourishment and finally rice. All this is said to have required great periods of time and eventually sexual characteristics developed. Following this, the words "man" and "woman" and later "people" make their first appeareance in the sutta with regards to the creatures under discussion.

In time these beings took to making huts and following this they learnt to store up rice instead of obtaining daily rice supplies. Eventually the supply of this food also became scarce. At this point they divide the land among themselves so that each has his own property. But with the establishment of property, theft arose followed by punishment and the eventual choosing of a ruler to a minister justice. Following this, a class of nobles appeared and finally division of labour occurred with the development of various trades.

Thus in the Agganna Sutta we find several features of modern evolutionary theory. The principle of gradual change over great lengths of time, the continuous development of diversified forms, and asexuality preceding sexual differentiation are all clearly stated. Furthermore, the development of plants in the sequence of scum, fungi, creepers and rice is a reasonable approximation of botanical evolution. And the description of the building of huts followed in succession by the establishment of property, law, government and division of labour is supported by contemporary historical and anthropological data.

The Sutta also shows how the basic elements of the social structure like the family came into being due to the conception of the egoistic feelings like privacy and greed which are also the results of lust and craving. Thus the separation of individuals into social units is due to a basic immorality. This separation makes the social situation more complex and leads to further social complications. Thus, due to the scarcity of rice, boundaries to rice fields appear, and with the appeareance of private property, a new set of vices like stealing come in.

Finally, in contradiction to the Hindu theory of caste, the Buddha goes on to say that the four classes of people, Brahmans, Khattiyas, Vessas and Suddas, did not become so because they were created by Brahma, but simply because of their professions. Also, the Sutta states that there is no intrinsically rigid hierarchy among these classes because it could change in differing historical contexts. Thus Buddhism gives an empirical and a social theory about the origin of class structure as opposed to the metaphysical Hindu theory of the divine origin of the classes or castes.