Crassness of the Cula-Kammavibhanga Sutta

In the Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta, a young Brahmin student goes to the Buddha and asks him why there are differences between people (translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu):

Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race? For short-lived & long-lived people are to be seen, sickly & healthy, ugly & beautiful, uninfluential & influential, poor & rich, low-born & high-born, stupid & discerning people are to be seen. So what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race?

The Buddha cryptically replies, "Students, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness & refinement."

The student perplexed by the Buddha’s statement asks the Buddha to elaborate. The Buddha explains in further detail by elaborating that the physical, socio-economic and intellectual differences in people are due to their kamma. He emphasizes the retributive nature of kamma by stating that if someone kills another person, that individual will in a next life experience a short life. He also relates that if a person is ill-tempered, he or she will be reborn ugly. If a person does not give, he or she will end up poor in the next life. If a person is not intelligent enough to ask wise men important questions, he or she will be born dumb in the next life and so on. He summarizes that it is our actions that will determine our length of life, health, beauty, influence, wealth, social status and intelligence:

So, student, the way leading to short life makes people short-lived, the way leading to long life makes people long-lived; the way leading to sickliness makes people sickly, the way leading to health makes people healthy; the way leading to ugliness makes people ugly, the way leading to beauty makes people beautiful; the way leading to lack of influence makes people uninfluential, the way leading to influence makes people influential; the way leading to poverty makes people poor, the way leading to wealth makes people wealthy; the way leading to low birth makes people low-born, the way leading to high birth makes people highborn; the way leading to stupidity makes people stupid, the way leading to discernment makes people discerning.

The underlining motif in the sutta is that one’s actions always have consequences. The form of the actions you take, you will experience in a future life (thus, for example, if you kill a person thus shortening their life you will experience a short life in the next one).

Seeds of this idea can be seen in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, possibly suggesting a Brahmanism influence, where in the discussion of desire it is stated (translation by Patrick Olivelle): "A man resolves in accordance with his desire, acts in accordance with his resolve, and turns out to be in accordance with his action” (4.4.5).

While the main motif in this sutta may be borrowed from the religious milieu during or after the Buddha’s time, the motif, nevertheless, can be found in various scriptures. The Cula-kammavibhanga sutta is a worthy example to examine, what I believe, to be an immoral and tasteless teaching.

The main issue I have with this sutta, besides its naïve, unsophisticated and retributive undertone, is it promotes a “blame the victim” attitude towards everyone’s misfortune or suffering while explaining away any injustices a person experiences as their fault and no one else’s.

To begin with, modern science of today can explain the reason for many of the physical differences and sicknesses that people are subject to. Modern science can not only explain the terrible deformities and afflictions people are born with but in some cases eradicate them.

It is beyond dispute that many deformities can be explained by genetics or the exposure of dangerous pathogens during pregnancy. As a simple example, there is ample evidence that parents who have exposure to high-levels of radiation are more likely to sire a deformed child. Let me emphasize the point: this has nothing to do with kamma but with dangerous gamma rays.

Intelligence is also another category that under closer statistical examination has nothing to do with kamma. Modern statistics show that an intelligent mother and father are more likely to produce intelligent children rather than dumb ones. Genetic explanations hold far more weight than a speculative belief that a person is dumb because in a previous life that person did not honor a religious person, failed to listen to the truth or some other thing they did stupidly from a religious stance.

As for the issue of a person who has a shortened life, the same argument applies. If we take for example, a child with incurable cancer who will clearly have a shortened life. Does that mean it was caused by bad kamma in a previous life? Modern science has shown that many different types of cancers have a genetic basis, and can be caused by dangerous pathogens, radiation and so on.

What is terrible about the view that a child’s shortened life is the cause of bad actions in a previous life is that the child is in some sense responsible for their short life; the child’s cancer is their fault.

To me this is not only morally repulsive but borderline inhumane. If one takes this sutta seriously and has a dying child that asks, “Daddy, why am I going to die and not live a full life?” That “loving and compassionate” Buddhist parent will respond, “Child, you are going to die a horrible and painful death well before your prime, because in a previous life you did horrible, bad things.”

In my opinion, those poor souls who experience great physical, mental sufferings or injustices do not need to be blamed for their particular predicament or viewed from a perspective that they somehow deserve it. Such views, when taken seriously, can only mitigate compassion (if they are to blame, then why have sympathy and loving kindness for them) which these people so dearly need. Such a perverse belief system would regard those that really have unfortunate circumstances to have done really terrible things in the past, evening lessening more the natural compassion one feels for those in need.

As an example, it was not more than around 50 years ago when black people in the United States were routinely discriminated against, abused, burned and hanged for no apparent reason than the color of their skin. Even today, discrimination still exists for many minorities. For all those people past and present that experienced great injustices purely due to skin color, the notion of kamma would say that to be born a black man or woman was due to evil actions in a past life. In other words, to be born black is a punishment. Thus to be black is “bad.”

On the flip side, a slave owner who experiences wealth and well being due to the exploitation of human beings that are treated as animals would be regarded by the doctrine of kamma as experiencing such good fortune because in a previous life they did many noble and good acts. In a sense the slave owners are entitled to their slaves and fortune because they are being rewarded due to past life deeds. What more, the ownership and exploitation of slaves is nothing bad. The slave owner is simply carrying out the karmic sentence that has been given to slaves. If they were not bad in a past life they would not be born a slave. The poor exploited slaves they are there not because of an inhuman political and social system but they deserve to be there because of their bad past karma.

I hope it is clear from these examples that this retributive notion of kamma explains away any terrible atrocity a person who group of people experience as being their fault and the carrier of justice is just helping to carry out the kammic sentence.

A women who is brutally beaten and gang raped: her fault due to bad kamma. A child is sexually molested by a pedophile: the child’s fault due to bad kamma. A mother watching her child be murdered in front of her eyes: the mother’s fault due to bad kamma. The millions of Jewish people that were gassed, shot, experimented on and eradicated: it was their fault. The Nazi’s weren’t really to blame they were simply carrying out what the Jewish people “deserved.”

Conclusion

The retributive notion of kamma has been portrayed in many of suttas as a means to scare or entice those towards more moral actions in their lives. For whatever the reason, the earlier compilers of the suttas thought it necessary to treat many aspirers to Buddhism as animals needing to be prodded and led by infantile notions of reward and punishment so as to alter or preserve existing behavior.

In the process, many elements were borrowed from the religious milieu that developed into explaining all the differences between human beings. Contrary to many of the suttas where the Buddha saw moral action in the current life as the only thing worthy of differentiating people, kamma became an elevated principle explaining everything having to do with the differences in people, their circumstances and the universe itself through a cosmology based on planes of existence determined by kamma.

The Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta is an atrocious example of a notion of kamma in Buddhism that seeks to explain all the differences between human beings. It is a shockingly cruel idea which blames the victim and seems to provide justification to any atrocity committed by the most reprehensible in society.