Filial piety in early buddhism

Abstract

Buddhist scholars like Kenneth Ch’en thought that filial piety was a special feature of Chinese Buddhism. Later John Strong employed “popular Buddhist stories” to show that filial piety was also important in Indian Buddhism as well, but he asserted that it is “a Buddhist compromise with the Brahmanical ethics of filiality operating at the popular level”. On the other hand, Gregory Schopen, who mainly used Indian Buddhist epigraphical material in his research, pointed out the same idea but he could not find definite support from the early Buddhist textual sources. In this essay, from my investigation in the early Buddhist texts and analysis of the relevant passages it clearly shows that filial piety is one of the important aspects of the early Buddhist ethical teachings. Filial piety was practiced by the early Indian Buddhists (1) as a way of requiting for the debt to one’s parents, (2) as a chief ethical good action, and (3) as Dharma, the social order. And on this basis it also shows that the early Indian Buddhists practiced filial piety not as a “compromise with the Brahmanical ethics of filiality” but as an important virtue taught by the master.