The Cross and the Begging Bowl: Deconstructing the Cosmology of Violence

Abstract

Rene Girard's work on the origins of violence as it relates to Christian symbolism is an ideal consruct by which to compare the teachings of the Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ. Both Jesus and Gautama eschew violence, but take different paths toward doing so. Much of the more recent discussion of the historical Jesus has centered on his ministry as a form of social criticism.1 Although casting Jesus of Nazareth as social critic has led to exaggerations, the conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment of his day is reminiscent of the conflict between the historical Buddha and the Brahmans witnessed to in the Pali Canon of early Buddhism. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament and the Nikaya literature is enough to recommend the issue of sacrifice as a common point for comparison. As Siddhartha Gautama clashed with Brahmans over the efficacy and morality of Vedic sacrifices, so also Jesus was clearly a critic of the cultic sacrifice offered in the Jerusalem Temple of his day. Among contemporary interpreters of religion, Rene Girard's theory of sacrifice suggests a fruitful way of comparing the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Buddha. Rene Girard has devoted his scholarly career to locating the origins of violence within the broadest possible anthropological and religious framework. By linking violence with desire, Girard has also sought to uncover things hidden since the foundation of the world: the nature of social structures as institutionalizations of violence and sacrificial rituals as legitimations of these structures. Girard's intellectual itinerary has led him from the roots of the modern novel to inquiries into archetypal themes in Greek tragedy and ethnographic accounts of sacred narrative, to an original and controversial reading of the New Testament.2 This essay will attempt no comprehensive study of Girard's work, especially the global claims he makes for his theory of sacrificial violence.3 Instead, I hope to outline a few of Girard's basic ideas regarding violence, Buddhist-Christian Studies 18 (1998). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.242.202.216 on Mon, 25 Apr 2016 23:43:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms