Mitchell McVeigh 

Essay #1: Early Indian Buddhism 

REL-201I-S01 

Dr. Ellen Posman 

Buddha as a Social Activist 

Through a twenty-first-century lens, one may not see the life of the Buddha to be one wrought 

with social activism, but when considering the societal implications of fifth-century India, Gautama 

Buddha was certainly a social activist. Although scholars have cited the Buddha’s reluctance to be 

directly involved in worldly issues as an argument against his status as a social activist, he acknowledges 

that, in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment, one’s physical needs must be met. This led him and 

future Buddhist leaders to implement and support social causes in the hope of allowing more people 

the opportunity for spiritual enlightenment. Social activism is defined as “an intentional action with 

the goal of bringing about social change” (Amherst College, “Social Activism”). In the pursuit of 

aiding others along the path to spiritual enlightenment, the Buddha took intentional action to cause 

social change by denouncing the caste system, creating a spiritual safe haven for women, and 

encouraging political leaders to provide more for their constituents’ needs. 

Siddharta Gautama was born into an incomparably comfortable environment with an 

incredibly wealthy family. Throughout his youth, his father tried to ensure that Gautama would stay 

home by providing him with every worldly possession he could ask for and surrounding him with 
people and luxuries to provide him with unimaginable comfort. This upbringing caused him to grow 

up unaware of the world’s problems until one day he went on a series of chariot rides on which he saw 

a sickly man, an old man, and a corpse, where he realized that “the impermanent pleasures he had been 

enjoying were passing, that they could not provide a permanent happiness that the ills of life, 

represented by old age, illness, and death, could not destroy” (Mitchell and Jacoby, 12). This was 

followed by his witnessing of a man who had left his home to go off and seek spiritual enlightenment, 

which came to be known as The Four Sights, initiated his desire to follow a more spiritual path and 

eventually become the Buddha. His experience with The Four Sights awakened deep compassion in 

Siddharta which he would continue to implement in his teachings and practices throughout his life. In 

the years following his Great Renunciation, he practiced asceticism and nearly destroyed his body, 

until he came to the realization that ascetic practices are not conducive to spiritual enlightenment, as 

one cannot focus on the mind when the body isn’t nourished and taken care of. This realization 

became a hugely important aspect of the policies and practices of future Buddhist leaders as they tried 

to help their followers maintain their bodies and attain all basic worldly needs. 

One of the first rulers to lead while ascribing to Buddhist principles was King Asoka of the 

Magadhan Empire who had met the Buddha in his youth. Dharma is the second of The Three Refuges 

(or Three Jewels) and it is the set of teachings from the Buddha. King Asoka ruled his kingdom 

according to the “Dharma-rule”, which for him meant to “govern in a way that protected and cared 

for his subjects and also elevated them morally and spiritually according to the Dharma” (Mitchell and 

Jacoby, 73). The way that this manifested itself in practice was through the building and upkeep of 

wells and rest houses for travelers, hospitals for both people and animals, care for both orphans and the 
elderly, and schools for children. He was interested in equal justice for all people, which was a 

somewhat new concept when one looks at the caste system in India at the time. The caste system 

consists of four different levels of people: Shudras (laborers), Vaishyas (farmers, traders, and 

merchants), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), and Brahmins (priests and teachers), ranked by their 

social stratification at birth with a group of outcasts made up of street sweepers and latrine cleaners 

who were known as Dalits. King Asoka also made a point to preach ahimsa, or nonviolence, by 

replacing hunting trips with pilgramages to Buddhist sites, making his palace vegetarian, banning 

animal sacrifice, and protecting all non-food animals. These actions all came from the Buddha’s 

Dharma, but the Magadhan Empire was not required to be Buddhist, as King Asoka believed in 

religious freedom and made sure to care for all religions in his kingdom. Buddhist teachings directly 

affected Asoka’s rulership of his kingdom and led to some of the most progressive social projects and 

developments of the time. In only the rule of King Asoka, one can see how the Buddha’s teachings and 

practices led directly to social reform.  

The most telling way to see the Buddha’s social conservatism, as opposed to his social activism 

is in his treatment of women. Women were not allowed to be ordained as nuns until five years after the 

Buddha’s Awakening after repetitious visits from his female family members and followers asking for 

his permission to start a nun’s order. While it took him a long time to finally establish a nun’s order, all 

records state that “the Buddha made it clear that women could attain all the goals of his religion, 

including full Awakening” (Mitchell and Jacoby, 25). When the nuns were finally allowed to take part 

of the monastic life, there were still a set of rules that ensured that nuns always remained subservient to 

monks including one stating that nuns must treat all monks as senior, implying a hierarchical line of 
respect, and nuns were not permitted to reprove nuns, though monks can reprove nuns. These rules 

and expectations led to the eventual demise of the nun’s order, even through up to the present day, 

and are one of the main reasons scholars use to argue agains the Buddha’s status as a social activist and 

also directly oppose the Buddhist teachings of compassion, contradicts the Buddha’s omniscience, and 

goes against the Buddhist idea of no-self, which should relate to no gender. But what reasons could the 

Buddha have had for perpetuating such patriarchal, androcentric stereotypes? His initial reluctance 

may have come from social expectation, however deeply buried, appeasing the more conservative 

monks who may have feared the monks and nuns becoming an item of desire for one another. While 

it’s rather simple to attribute his initial reactions to being rooted in sexism and misunderstanding, it 

may be quite the opposite. The way Buddhism spread among early Indian society meant that many 

families were coping with the loss of their brothers, sons, fathers, and uncles who left to pursue their 

own path to spiritual enlightenment. Gautama may have been trying to prevent public backlash from 

families who were losing female relationships as well, though in his decision to allow a nun’s ordeer, 

one may see that he was allowing a place for women with a interest furthering their spirituality to 

escape the domestic gender roles they face in society. One must also acknowledge the Therigatha, or 

Books of Elder Nuns, which is the largest collection of women’s literature composed in India, that 

contains verses from a woman whose child has died, a former sex worker, wealthy heiress who 

abandoned her life of pleasure, and even verses from the Buddha’s own aunt and stepmother, 

Mahaprajapati, and quotes from the Buddha which state that a girl “may prove a better offspring than 

a boy” and that he had always intended on establishing a nun’s order, although his initial actions may 

have contradicted that. The Buddha’s actions in his life reflected social activism, but as time has moved 
forward, the definition of social activism has changed, so though Gautama may not have been a great 

twenty-first-century feminist, he certainly advanced some aspects of women’s rights at the time. 

The Buddha spent his life trying to educate people and help guide them along their spiritual 

path. Through his discovery of The Middle Way, he encouraged rulers of the time to create social 

programs which would allow their constituents to have the physical necessities necessary to allow for 

spiritual growth. Much as we see in the Democratic Party of the United States of America today, the 

ways people approach making progress is very different. While we have Democrats such as Alexandria 

Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren who are trailblazing a path forward, there are 

also Democrats such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi who have all the best intentions 

but may need a longer time to implement the changes the country needs to see. In this day and age, we 

may be more willing to give the title of “social activist” to people who are demanding radical change, 

but we must acknowledge that like the moderate Democrats today, the Buddha’s actions were 

certainly intentional acts that were intended to bring about social change which grants his the title of a 

social activist.  

 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

College, Amherst. “Social Activism.” ​Social Activism | Public Interest Careers | Amherst College​, 

2021, 

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hange%20in%20society.&text=Social%20action%20work%20is%20a,the%20goal%20of%20social

%20justice.  

“Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience.” B

Experience​, by Donald William Mitchell and Sarah Jacoby, Oxford University Press, 2014.  

Swearer, Donald K. T
​ he Buddhist World of Southeast Asia​. State University of New York Press, 

2010.