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107 7 Bara: Buddhist Vows at Kataragama SUNIL GOONASEKERA A Classification of Buddhist Vows Are there vows in Buddhism? The answer depends on what is meant by the term “vow.” In general, we can say that there are two meanings to the term. On the one hand, a vow is a promise one makes to oneself. On the other, it is a promise made to a supernatural being to propitiate that being for performing a requested favor. In the Indian religious traditions the former type of vows are known as vrata. In Buddhist terminology they are called sila in Pali and sil in the colloquial Sinhala of Sri Lanka. The vrata, sila, or sil are soteriological and disciplinary . They are behavioral restrictions that a person imposes upon herself in order to stay away from spiritual defilement and to purify herself so that soteriological progress is hastened. Everyday Buddhist lay practice includes five such promises. These are known as panchasila (pansil in Sinhala) or the five precepts. On poya days,1 religious virtuosi observe the eight precepts or astangasilla (atasil in Sinhala). Atasil restrict personal and social conduct in three more ways than the everyday five precepts and require temporary abandonment of household activities. The atasil holder maintains these vows for the twenty-four hours of poya day and then returns to the household by reobserving the five precepts.2 Occasionally, one comes across individuals who hold dasasila (dasasil in Sinhala) or ten precepts. These individuals have abandoned all household activities but have not become members of the monastic order, the next step in Sri Lankan Buddhist soteriological progress, where the monks are supposed to hold kotiyak sanvara sil or a billion behavioral restraints.3 My focus here is not these soteriological 108 Sunil Goonasekera vows but the latter type introduced above—the vows made to propitiate supernatural beings in return for favors granted by those beings. In Sri Lanka, vows made to propitiate supernatural beings are known as bara.4 The term bara also has a broader application, and means placing an individual under the care of an authority figure. For example, when a parent admits a child to a school she would say, “lamaya iskoleta bara keruva” (lamaya [child] iskoleta [of the school] bara keruva [placed under the authority]). When a criminal surrenders himself to the police, he would say “policiyata bara vuna” (policiyata [to the police] bara [surrender] vuna [I became]. Thus, the dominant meaning of the concept is surrendering to an authority figure. In religious contexts, by means of a bara, the devotee surrenders herself to a supernatural being and asks for a favor with the promise that she will propitiate the deity in a particular way if the favor is granted. It is thus a contractual agreement that one enters into with a supernatural being. However, unlike in legal contracts, the supernatural’s acceptance of the devotee’s offer is not a necessary condition for the contract to be effective. The devotee does not have to wait until the supernatural accepts the offer of devotion because it is taken for granted that the supernatural always accepts these offers and will provide the favor if possible. In fact, the devotee’s devotion hinges on this continuous availability of relief or pihita. The fulfillment of a promise by the devotee is an ethical obligation. If the devotee has a bad record of nonfulfillment of previous promises, the supernatural is displeased by the devotee’s unethical conduct. They punish (danduvamkaranava) such parties, sometimes very severely and become reluctant to be of help. As the kapurala (temple attendant) of the Kataragama devalaya in Kirinda, near Kataragama, emphatically stated, “there is no escape from this responsibility.” The well-known statement, that the culprit can run but cannot hide, applies here to the letter. The devotee also knows of her previous breaches for she remembers her failure and remembers the punishment (danduvama) that was meted out by the supernatural. But, there is always hope. The supernatural does not reject her and the pihita or help requested will never be denied. However , the supernatural only accepts the new offer conditionally, requiring that special rituals be performed in atonement of previous breaches, in addition to the fulfillment of the promise that she now makes. The dependability of the supernatural , realized through the continual availability of his help, thus constitutes the foundation of devotion. The fulfillment of a bara is called the bara oppukaranava. Here, oppu means “proof” and karanava means “doing.” Oppukaranava means offering...

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