The commentaries also comment on the story that the Buddha, prior to his awakening, gave up
the asceticism he had been practicing with five fellow ascetics. At this point the Buddha reports that
‘then those five monks, disgusted, left me’. The commentary says about this: ‘Their being dissatisfied
and leaving was just through a necessity of nature (dhamma-niyaama); their being gone was according
to dhamma (dhammataa) in the sense of the gift of an opportunity for bodily seclusion and the
bodhisatta’s full awakening in the time obtained.’ (14)
Overall, then, the term ‘dhamma-niyama’ is used in the commentaries in a way that leans on the
sutta expression ‘dhamma-niyaamataa’, which is a synonym for conditionality in the sense that there is
an intrinsic necessity of things in nature and the universe. But the way it is used in practice is always in
relation to apparently unnatural or surprising things – not just about the earthquakes that occur at
certain moments in the lives of Buddhas, but also about the inevitable awakening of a stream-entrant
after a certain number of future lives, and the way the five ascetics necessarily left the Buddha so that
he could be alone. One might say that dhamma-niyama is used both to mean the ‘order of nature’,
synonymous with conditionality, and specifically to mean ‘the surprising but necessary nature of things.’
Mrs Rhys Davids on fivefold niyama
Bhante takes dhamma-niyama to mean ‘transcendental order of conditionality’. By
‘transcendental order of conditionality’ he means the progressive and creative mode of conditionality
belonging to the ‘spiral path’ leading from samsara to nirvana, exemplified by the ‘positive nidaanas’.
However, dhamma-niyama in the suttas and commentaries does not mean this, but refers to
conditionality as a whole. Of course, what Bhante means by the ‘transcendental order of conditionality’
is part of conditionality as a whole, but it would be tendentious to argue that dhamma-niyama is limited
to only part of the whole. I think Bhante’s mistaken interpretation of dhamma-niyama may be based on
what Mrs Rhys Davids wrote about the niyamas.
C.A.F. Rhys Davids was the first western scholar to draw attention to the list of pañcavidha
niyama, in her little book of 1912 entitled simply Buddhism. Her reason for mentioning it was to
emphasise how for Buddhism we exist in a ‘moral universe’ in which actions lead to just consequences
according to a natural moral order, a situation she calls a ‘cosmodicy’ in contrast with the Christian
theodicy. She then explains:
‘This order which Buddhism saw in the universe was called in Pali niyama, that is, going-on,
process. In it five branches, strands, phases were discerned:– kamma-niyama, order of act-and-result; utuniyama,
physical (inorganic) order; biija-niyama, order of germs, or seeds (physical organic order); chittaniyama,
order of mind, or conscious life; dhamma-niyama, order of the norm, or the effort of nature to
produce a perfect type.’ (15)
There are several things to notice about Mrs RD’s presentation. One is that she translates the
terms for kinds of niyama in ways that are reminiscent of modern science: ‘physical inorganic order’,
‘physical organic order’, etc. Despite the fact that she also later cites the commentary’s examples of
these orders, which belong to pre-scientific observations of nature, her use of scientific-sounding terms
is significant as it prepares the way for Bhante and other exegetes to connect fivefold niyama with laws
of science. Second, she defines dhamma-niyama as ‘the effort of nature to produce a perfect type’. She
later adds: ‘we may define the dhamma-niyama as the order of things concerned with the production by
the cosmos of its perfect or norm type.’ This definition would appear to be the starting-point for
Bhante’s understanding of dhamma-niyama as the ‘transcendental order’.
Where does Mrs Rhys Davids get this idea of dhamma-niyama? Not from the commentaries.
She seems to have made it up. There exists, however, a record of the correspondence between Mrs RD
and the Burmese scholar Ledi Sayadaw in which her understanding of dhamma-niyama is straightened
out. (16) By this time Mrs RD had apparently realised that dhamma-niyama was in fact a synonym for
conditionality as whole, and Ledi Sayadaw explains that in this sense it includes the other four kinds of
niyama, though there are certain surprising things, like the earthquakes, that do not fit into those four,
and hence dhamma-niyama has to be included as a ‘miscellaneous’ category in the list of fivefold
niyama. Mrs Rhys Davids goes on to agree with Ledi Sayadaw’s suggestion that the law of nature
whereby Buddhas are produced could be called ‘buddha-niyama’. That is to say she concedes that
dhamma-niyama does not in fact mean the natural process whereby Buddhas are produced, but that the
expression ‘buddha-niyama’ would mean this. This would be another kind of niyama within the overall
dhamma-niyama or conditionality.
This interpretation of the meaning of dhamma-niyama is confirmed independently by the Thai
scholar-monk P.A. Payutto, who writes: ‘The first four niyama are contained within, or based on, the
fifth one, Dhammaniyama, the Law of Dhamma, or the Law of Nature. It may be questioned why
Dhammaniyama, being as it were the totality, is also included within the subdivisions. This is because
this fourfold categorization does not cover the entire extent of Dhammaniyama.’ (17)
Sangharakshita on fivefold niyama
Bhante describes the five niyamas as different orders or levels of cause and effect or
conditionality obtaining in the universe, and always lists them in the following order:
(i) utu-niyama or ‘physical inorganic order’, the ‘law of cause and effect as operative on the level of
inorganic matter. It very roughly embraces the laws of physics and chemistry and associated disciplines.’
(ii) biija-niyama or ‘physical organic or biological order’, the ‘physical organic order whose laws
constitute the science of biology.’
(iii) citta-niyama or ‘(non-volitional) mental order’, the ‘law of cause and effect as operative in the world
of the mind – and we may say that it is a concept which corresponds to the modern science of
psychology.’
(iv) kamma-niyama or ‘volitional order’, the ‘principle of conditionality operative on the moral plane.’
(v) dhamma-niyama or ‘transcendental order’, the principle of conditionality as it operates on the
spiritual or transcendental level as opposed to the mundane. (18)
Bhante takes dhamma-niyama to mean the ‘transcendental order of conditionality’, which of
course he also describes in terms of the ‘spiral path’ and the positive nidaanas. There are plenty of
sources in the Pali texts for what Bhante says about the positive nidaanas. The early commentarial text,
the Nettipakarana, specifically mentions ‘lokuttara paticcasamuppaada’ (transcendental conditionality)
in reference to the positive nidaanas. (19) However, as should be clear by now, the term dhammaniyama
does not and cannot refer specifically to the positive nidaanas. The word ‘dhamma’ does not
mean ‘transcendental’, and the term ‘dhamma-niyama’ means ‘order of nature’ in general, and is more
or less synonymous with the whole of conditionality.
What then is the niyama that describes the spiral path? Such a term is not found in the Pali
literature, but ‘magga-niyama’ would do the job – ‘order of the path’. I am not envisaging that such a
term should actually be taken up by anyone; I am just noticing that it is theoretically possible to identify
a kind of niyama that corresponds to what Bhante says about the ‘transcendental order of
conditionality’.
Going back to the other niyamas, it’s clear that Bhante wishes to interpret the first three as
corresponding (‘roughly’) with scientific disciplines, namely physics/chemistry, biology and psychology.
It seems to me that modern interpreters of Buddhism, including Mrs Rhys Davids and Bhante, have an
understandable desire to present the Dharma in such a way that it is compatible with the successful and
powerful methodology of modern science. However, the scheme of fivefold niyama was developed in
the quite different intellectual milieu of abhidhamma, in which, for instance, reality was analysed into
‘dhammas’ lasting fractions of a second. Using the scheme of fivefold niyama to integrate Buddhism
with science is like putting new wine into old wineskins – they aren’t up to the job. Given that Bhante’s
teaching about the ‘transcendental order of conditionality’ is not in fact included in the traditional
fivefold niyama, it seems to me pointless trying to squeeze the laws of science and the positive nidaanas
into a concept that was not designed to contain them.
conclusion
Probably this essay will read to some as pedantic. And indeed, in the big scheme of things, what
could be the harm in us continuing to talk about the five niyamas, and to teach this list to mitras? I can
see two disadvantages in our doing so. First, Bhante’s teaching on five niyamas is misleading in the
sense that ‘dhamma niyama’ does not mean ‘transcendental order of conditionality’ in the Pali sources,
so there is an issue of accuracy and truth to the sources. Second, because Bhante’s teaching on the five
niyamas is more of an innovation, a creative interpretation, than a traditional teaching, then it will be
difficult to communicate with other Buddhists if we continue talking as if it really is a traditional
teaching. Even Theravadins might scratch their heads over it. (20) This is important given that Bhante’s
reason for teaching the five niyamas is to combat the idea that everything that happens is because of
karma. He writes: ‘in Tibetan Buddhism, and in the Mahaayaana generally, there is a tendency to think
that everything that happens to you is a result of your own personal past karma, although the teaching
of the five niyamas makes it clear that that is not the case.’ (21) Dialogue with Buddhists who believe
that everything happens due to karma will require clarity in terminology and concepts.
My suggestion is that we stop talking about the five niyamas and simply talk about ‘orders of
conditionality’. This term, in English, does all the work of Bhante’s five niyamas but without the
problems. So – there is (i) the objective order of conditionality corresponding to the physical and
biological sciences; there is (ii) the subjective order of conditionality corresponding to psychology; there
is (iii) the ethical order of conditionality corresponding to the law of karma; and there is (iv) the
transcendental order of conditionality corresponding to the path to awakening. It would be perfectly
reasonable to say that the teaching of ‘the orders of conditionality’ is suggested by or even derived from
the traditional commentarial teaching of fivefold niyama. But Bhante’s teaching of ‘orders of
conditionality’ is bigger, more inclusive and more relevant than that.
Dhivan, Cambridge April 2009. A very much more detailed version of this article is available on
www.dhivan.netnotes
1.
http://www.videosangha.net/video/Sangharakshita-and-his-Legacy2. C.A.F. Rhys Davids Buddhism: a study of the Buddhist norm London: Williams and Norgate 1912,
pp.118–9.
3. The PTS Dictionary includes ‘cosmic order’ under its definition of ‘niyama’. In my opinion, however,
Rhys Davids and Stede were too much influenced by Mrs Rhys Davids here, who, as we will see, was
responsible for many people, including Bhante, seeing more in fivefold niyama than is really there.
4. Digha Nikaya, sutta 14, PTS vol.2, p.12–15.
5. DA p.432. The commentary on the Digha Nikaya is also called the Sumangala Vilasani.
6. Walpola Rahula ‘Wrong Notions of Dhammmataa’ in L. Cousins et al, eds., Buddhist Studies in Honour of
I.B. Horner Dordrecht: Reidel 1974, p.183.
7. Trans. Pe Maung Tin The Expositor PTS London 1921 vol.II, p.360.
8. Monier Williams p.552; PED p.368. The PED seems to want to make a distinction between the
words but is self-contradictory in doing so.
9. E.g. at Samyutta Nikaya 25:1, in Bhikkhu Bodhi trans. p.1004. He translates it as ‘fixed course of
rightness.’
10. DA p. 313; also Ud-A p.290. Dr Margaret Cone gave me these references.
11. Samyutta Nikaya 12:20, in Bhikkhu Bodhi trans. p.551.
12. Bhikkhu Bodhi p.741.
13. AA vol.2, p.380.
14. M vol.1, p.247; MA vol.2, p.219. My translation.
15. Buddhism p.119.
16. Ledi Sayadaw, trans. Beni Barua and ed. Mrs Rhys Davids, Manuals of Buddhism Bangkok:
Mahamakut Press 1978 (originally published 1916).
17. P.A. Payutto, trans. Bruce Evans Good, Evil and Beyond: kamma in the Buddha’s teachings (online).
18. The main written sources are in The Three Jewels Windhorse 1977 (originally published 1967)
Windhorse pp.69–70 and in the lecture ‘Karma and Rebirth’, in edited form in Who is the Buddha?
Windhorse 1994, pp.105–8.
19. Mentioned in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s essay Transcendental Dependent Arising, online.
20. Though in fact Mrs Rhys Davids’ creative interpretation has spread to many Theravadin exegetical
works – for instance, Narada Thera’s The Buddha and His Teaching, and even to David Kalupahana’s
scholarly Causality: the central philosophy of Buddhism.
21. Transforming Self and World p.205.