Water, Water Everywhere

By | 10/24/2024

The Buddhist virtue of generosity (dāna) or sharing (cāga) are well-known. That food is the main thing given is also well-known and a well-established custom. However, the Buddha often spoke of giving things other than food and giving to recipients other than the Saṅgha. One of these gifts that receives little attention and which could perhaps be re-emphasized is the giving of water. In a land such as India in ancient times, where summers could be witheringly hot, where distances between one village and the next could be long, and where most travel was done on foot, the availability of water was not just a convenience, it could be a matter of life-and-death. The Tipitaka contains a dozen or so passages about travellers running out of water while on the road, of people dying of thirst in the wilderness and of anxiety about not having enough to drink when away from home.

In the Aguttara Nikāya the Buddha spoke of a traveller “tormented and overcome by heat, wearied, craving and thirsty,” who then to his great relief arrives at “a pool of clear, sweet water, a lovely resting place shaded by all kinds of trees. He plunged into that pool, bathe and drunk and coming out sat and then reclined in the shade of those trees.” In another sutta in the Aguttara Nikāya the Buddha spoke of a man on a journey who runs out of water and is forced to drink from a puddle in a cow’s hoof-print because nothing else is available. Aware of these and other problems associated with the lack of clean drinking water, and moved by compassion, the Buddha suggested a way to remedy it; he encouraged his disciples to provide drinking facilities where they might be lacking. In the Vinaya he says that when a monk arrives at a monastery or hermitage the resident monks should, apart from other gestures of hospitality, offer him water for washing his feet and then some more so he can refresh his thirst. Beyond offering water to individuals one could also arrange drinking facilities for the public. The Buddha said that those who construct cisterns or reservoirs (papa) and who dig wells (udapāna) could expect a good rebirth (S.I,33). He also said, “One should construct cisterns in wilderness areas” (S.I,100). The Jātaka expands the Buddha’s exhortation to include animals. The lovely Amba Jātaka, for example, tells of an ascetic who went to great lengths to provide water for forest creatures during a prolonged drought, and how the animals repaid his kindness. The Dubhiyamakkata Jātaka indicates that devout people would put large stone troughs near roadside wells so that passers-by could fill them with water for the animals. Apparently, doing this was seen as an act of merit.

Such exhortations initiated a long tradition in Buddhism of providing drinking water along roads for travellers and wayfarers. In his Suhrllekha, written some 700 years after the Buddha, the philosopher Nāgārjuna encouraged his royal correspondent to “establish rest houses in temples, towns and cities and set up water pots along lonely roads.” Ancient kings of Sri Lanka were of course famous for constructing vast dams and reservoirs and while these were of enormous benefit to the general population they were primarily motivated by economic and political considerations, rather than adherence to the Dhamma. But there are records from Sri Lanka, Burma and other Buddhist lands of individuals providing drinking water to wayfarers and the public simply as an act of kindly charity.

In his account of his journey through Ceylon in the 1820s, Bishop Heber wrote,

There is one custom here which I have not seen elsewhere, which struck me as remarkably humane; at certain distances along the road, large pots of water, with ladles attached to them, are placed for the use of travellers, and I have frequently seen my bearers take a draught with great eagerness, and then run to join his comrades at my palanquin.

This custom is not as common in Sri Lanka as it used to be, and probably not as necessary. Today there are small shops everywhere selling bottled water and soft drinks. In Myanmar the custom remains widespread and popular. It is common for groups of friends to form what are called ‘water-donating societies’ (wainayyathulkha) and arrange for clay water pots with drinking cups to be put at strategic places for the convenience of passers-by.

Today, millions of people throughout the world, including significant numbers of them in traditional Buddhist countries, are deprived of clean drinking water and appalling numbers of them are sickened by or die from drinking contaminated water. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if devout Buddhists reconsidered the virtue of dāna beyond its traditional expressions and made donations to provide water for those in need of it? Wouldn’t it be inspiring if donating a well and electric pump to a poor village was considered as meritorious as building another stūpa?

Shravasti Dhammika

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