Śramaṇa

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A mendicant, or śramaṇa, in India

śramaṇa (P. samaṇa; T. dge sbyong དགེ་སྦྱོང་; C. shamen ). A religious mendicant dependent on alms. At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, there were a variety of different śramaṇa groups in existence.

Rupert Gethin states:

This term means literally ‘one who strives’ and belongs to the technical vocabulary of Indian religion, referring as it does to ‘one who strives’ religiously or spiritually. It points towards a particular tradition that in one way or another has been of great significance in Indian religious history, be it Buddhist, Jain, or Hindu. Any quest for the historical Buddha must begin with the śramaṇa tradition. [...]

The tradition is sometimes called the ‘renouncer (saṃnyāsin) tradition’. What we are concerned with here is the phenomenon of individuals’ renouncing their normal role in society as a member of an extended ‘household’ in order to devote themselves to some form of religious or spiritual life. The ‘renouncer’ abandons conventional means of livelihood, such as farming or trade, and adopts instead the religious life as a means of livelihood. That is, he becomes a religious mendicant dependent on alms. What our sources make clear is that by the fifth century BCE this phenomenon was both widespread and varied. Thus while ‘renouncers’ had in common the fact that they had ‘gone forth from the household life into homelessness’ (to use a phrase common in Buddhist sources), the kind of lifestyle they then adopted was not necessarily the same. This is suggested by some of the terms that we find in the texts: in addition to ‘one who strives’ and ‘renouncer’, we fiṇd ‘wanderer’ (parivrajāka/paribbājaka),‘one who begs his share [of alms]’ (bhikṣu/bhikkhu), ‘naked ascetic’ (acelaka), ‘matted-hair ascetic’ (jaṭila), as well as a number of other terms. Some of these wanderers and ascetics seem to have been loners, while others seem to have organized themselves into groups and lived under a teacher. Early renouncers seem to have been for the most part male, although with the growth of Buddhism and Jainism it is certainly the case that women too began to be numbered among their ranks.

Gethin identifies three types of activities that the śramaṇas engaged in: the practice of austerities, the cultivation of meditative states, and the development of philosophical views.

The term śramaṇa was one of the epithets of the Buddha, who was referred to as the "Great Śramaṇa" (Skt. Mahāśramaṇa).

Within Indian society

Bhikkhu Bodhi states:

The word samaṇa originally seems to have been applied to those religious seekers, numerous in ancient India, who devoted themselves to the practice of austerities and stringent asceticism as the main endeavour of their discipline. However, by the Buddha’s time the term came to be applied indiscriminately to all those outside the fold of orthodox Brahmanism who led a homeless life on vaguely spiritual grounds. It included ascetics who engaged in the most grueling exercises of self-mortification as well as freely moving wanderers who saw nothing wrong in the tender touch of their female companions (see MN 45/M I 305); it included skeptics and atheists, mystics and rationalists, and proponents of systems of belief bewildering in their sheer diversity. Roaming the rural countryside of northern India or sequestered in its jungles, debating with each other in halls built especially for that purpose or preaching to the village folk who supported them with alms, the samaṇas constituted a distinct class of Indian society outside the tightly class-bound structure of that society. Their very presence, whether visible or invisible, held out a promise to those disillusioned with the pleasures of secular life and a question mark to those comfortably entrenched within it.

Buddhism as a sramana tradition

Bhikkhu Bodhi states:

The Buddha too was a samaṇa, known to his contemporaries as “the recluse Gotama,” and his bhikkhu disciples were also samaṇas, distinguished from others with a similar demeanour and lifestyle as “the recluses who follow the son of the Sakyan clan.”

According to Bhikku Bodhi, the Sāmaññaphala Sutta originated "in response to a question whether the life of a recluse is capable of yielding fruits that are visible here and now." This sutta presents and explanation "to the secular world at large why so many young men of good family (and women as well) chose to leave behind their homes, wealth, loved ones, and status in order to follow the Sage of the Sakyan clan into homelessness." According to Bodhi,

The Buddha’s discourse aims at dispelling the perplexities the people of the world may face when encountering the life of homelessness by showing that this life can reward those who lead it in earnest with fruits that are concrete, personal, and directly verifiable.

Etymology

The Sanskrit term śramaṇa literally means means "one who labours, toils, or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose)" or "seeker, one who performs acts of austerity, ascetic".

Sources

• Bhikkhu Bodhi, ed. (2008), The Discourse on the Fruits of Recluseship: The Sámaññaphala Sutta and its Commentaries, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist Publication Society 
• Gethin, Rupert (1998), Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press