The Macrostatus System: Buddhist Thars and Some Notes on Newar Buddhism
Buddhism may well have existed in the Kathmandu Valley from the time of the Buddha's own teachings. During the Licchavi period there is evidence for both Theravada and Mahayana versions. By the seventh century A.D. Vajrayana forms are attested (Slusser 1982, vol. 1, p. 39) that reached their "full flowering" 200 or 300 years later (ibid., 48) to become the dominant form of valley Buddhism. All three forms had been monastic, centering around monks and monasteries, vihara s. Starting at the end of the twelfth century, monastic life began the transformation that characterizes contemporary Newar Buddhism; the
monks began to marry (various reasons for the transition have been offered) and, following the Brahmanic pattern, established hereditary lineages of priests.[31] As many observers have noted, the priestly Buddhism that developed among the Newars is much closer to Newar Hinduism in its social, philosophical, and ritual forms than it is to classical Indian Buddhism. As Oldfield wrote in his nineteenth-century report on Nepal, "Buddhism ought to be considered as it is in Nepal as a branch of Hinduism and not as a distinct faith" ([1802] 1974, vol. II, p. 286).[32]
The descendants of the married monks are called "Bare" in Bhaktapur (in Kathmandu Newari, "Bare"), and are divided into two segments, a higher group who continued to act as temple and family priests, the Gubaju or Vajracarya, and a lower segment that does not take the special initiation required to become a priest, the Sakyas. While only the Vajracarya work as priests, both groups now work as gold and silversmiths, which previously, reportedly, was the thar profession only of the Sakyas (Locke 1976, 12). The two sections intermarry.
Traditionally associated with the Bare, whose priests they were, were various thar s of traders and craftsmen, collectively known elsewhere in the Kathmandu Valley as "Urae," a term not used for a social category in Bhaktapur.[33] It is difficult to know exactly which of the present thar s in Bhaktapur might have been designated as Urae. Different authors (e.g., Lévi 1905; Rosser 1966, 86, Chattopadhyay 1923, 521) have given different lists of associated thar s.[34] Their residue is found in some groups of merchants and craftsmen situated at the Jyapu level, who use Vajracarya either exclusively, or in conjunction with Brahmans as family priests.
Fürer-Haimendorf, in an influential article on Newar social structure (1956), suggested that those "castes" whose members employed Brahmans as hereditary family priests for domestic rituals be considered Hindus, while those who employed Newar Buddhist priests be considered Buddhist. But, as Colin Rosser subsequently pointed out "on grounds of religious belief and practice . . . it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to identify the vast bulk of the Newar population as being either Hindu or Buddhist" (1966, 78). Once we go beyond the Bare themselves and the one Urae thar —the Tuladhar—which persists in Bhaktapur as an exclusive patron of the Bare, the basis for any distinction becomes problematic. The Vajracarya priests also perform priestly services in different ways for various thar s, who are not, therefore, necessarily to be considered "Buddhists." There are some thar s who use
both Vajracaryas and Brahmans as priests, usually with the Vajracarya officiating at rites of passage and the Brahman at household puja s (worship) (app. 4). There are some thar s of marginally clean status—Sa:mi, Chipa, and some sections of Pu(n)—who exclusively use Vajracaryas. For such marginally unclean thar s the Buddhist priests compete with other non-Brahman priests in an "opportunistic" offering of priestly services to groups that the Brahmans will not serve (chap. 10).
The 1971 census asked people in Bhaktapur to identify themselves and their family members as "Buddhist" or "Hindu." As we have noted, about 3,000 of Bhaktapur's total population were so identified as Buddhist. As the average household size in Bhaktapur is six members, this would represent approximately 500 households. There are about 260 households of Bare (see table 1 [below, next section]). This would suggest that there are approximately 240 additional households among Bhaktapur's total of 6,484 households in 1971 that both use Vajracarya for some or all of their rituals and that identified themselves as Buddhists on the census. Which particular households these are within those various thar s which do use Vajracaryas in one way or another would require further studies.
The Newar "Buddhists," whatever the nature of their Buddhism might be, as Sylvain Lévi put it "extend Hindu society beyond the 'Brahmanic church'" (1905, vol. I, p. 244f.). For Bhaktapur they are, with the exception of the Bare (and perhaps the Tuladhars), an integral part of Bhaktapur's Hindu core system.