A thesis submitted in fulfilment to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Faculty of Humanities, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2018 / One of the key challenges facing the international community in the 21st Century is the shift of the global balance of power from West to East. The rise of the “Emerging Powers” of China and India, as well as the increasing importance of energy security globally, have converged to make the security of the sea lane of communication across the Indian Ocean crucial to the maintenance of international peace and security. South Africa as a littoral state to the Indian Ocean, sitting on a key trade route, namely the Cape of Good Hope sea lane, and with a viable navy, will be affected by these shifts as they take place, as will the rest of the Indian Ocean region’s states. As a new balance of power emerges, states will need to decide whether it is in their national interests to align against the global superpower, the United States of America, or to bandwagon with them. However, this is not simply a choice between the established status quo power of the United States and the new emerging global powers of India and China. The choice is complicated by the emerging geopolitical competition between China and India as each struggle to assert their vision for the regional integration of the Indo-Pacific on the region. While neutrality is currently an option, should the regional tensions result in a conflict between India and China, that may be a luxury that states littoral to the Indian Ocean, such as South Africa, can ill afford / MT 2019

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This dissertation is a study of the concept of etiquette in the monastic law codes of early Indian Buddhism. This category of texts, called vinaya, is considered within and outside of the tradition to be based on Buddhist ethical ideals. However, vinaya texts also contain a great deal of material that appears to be inherited from pre-Buddhist cultural habits, and is not uniquely Buddhist. That material is useful to us in reconstructing the world of early Buddhists, as literary examples of the kinds of interaction Buddhists portrayed themselves having with Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, and various political and kinship groups in premodern India. The degree to which this body of literature is representative of actual historical situations is open to debate, but the texts arguably illustrate an ideal of behaviour in social relationships. Etiquette in general manifests as a kind of public performance involving respect for boundaries and acknowledgment of social roles. The various rituals that are considered to embody etiquette in any particular culture often look arbitrary from the outside, yet there is always an internal logic that helps to determine which behaviours are considered appropriate and which are “impolite.” I argue here that the etiquette rituals of early Indian Buddhist monastics are modeled on a conception of disgust that Buddhists shared with various other Sanskritic cultures of premodern northern India. I employ some of the ideas from linguistic politeness and from contemporary theories of disgust to help in my analysis of these premodern law codes. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation is a study of the concept of etiquette in the monastic law codes of early Indian Buddhism. This category of texts, called vinaya, is considered within and outside of the tradition to be based on Buddhist ethical ideals. However, vinaya texts also contain a great deal of material that appears to be inherited from pre-Buddhist cultural habits, and is not uniquely Buddhist. That material is useful to us in reconstructing the world of early Buddhists, as literary examples of the kinds of interaction Buddhists portrayed themselves having with Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, and various political and kinship groups in premodern India. The degree to which this body of literature is representative of actual historical situations is open to debate, but the texts arguably illustrate an ideal of behaviour in social relationships. Etiquette in general manifests as a kind of public performance involving respect for boundaries and acknowledgment of social roles. The various rituals that are considered to embody etiquette in any particular culture often look arbitrary from the outside, yet there is always an internal logic that helps to determine which behaviours are considered appropriate and which are “impolite.” I argue here that the etiquette rituals of early Indian Buddhist monastics are modeled on a conception of disgust that Buddhists shared with various other Sanskritic cultures of premodern northern India. I employ some of the ideas from linguistic politeness and from contemporary theories of disgust to help in my analysis of these premodern law codes.