BUDDHA OR KARL MARX 553
to prevent exploitation, the State must own the instrument of production, that is, property. Land must belong to the State, industry must belong to the State, so that no private owner might intervene and rob the worker of the profits of his labour. That is what Marxism said.
Now, let us go to the Sangha, the Buddhist Sangh, and examine the rules of life that the Buddha laid down for the monks. What are the rules that the Buddha laid down ? Well, the Buddha said that no monk shall have private property. Ideally speaking, no monk can own property. And although there might be a few lapses here and there, and I have noticed that in some countries the monks own some property, yet in the large majority of the cases the monks have no property at all. In fact, the Buddhist rules for the Sangha are far more severe than any rule that the Communists have made in Russia. I take it as a mute subject, nobody has yet discussed it and come to any conclusion.
What object did the Buddha have in forming the Sangha? Why did he do it ? Going back a little into the history, when the Buddha was engaged in propagating this religion, those we today call the “Parivrajakas” were existing there long before the Buddha was there. The word “Parivrajaka” means a displaced person, a person who has lost his home. Probably during the Aryan period the different tribes of the Aryans were warring against one another as all tribal people do. Some broken tribes left, lost their moorings and they were wandering about. And it is those wanderers that were called Parivrajakas. The great service that the Buddha did to these Parivrajakas was to organise them into a body, to give them rules of life - those that are contained in the ‘ Vinayapitika’. In the rules, the Bhikkhu is not allowed to have property. The Bhikkhu is allowed to have only seven things - a razer, a lota for getting water, a Bhikshyapatra and three Chivaras, and the needle for sewing things. Well, I want to know if the essence of Communism is to deny the private property, can there be any greater and more severe rule so regards private property than is found in the ‘ Vinayapitika’ ? I do not find one. Therefore, if any people or