Editing The Buddha (section)

==== Socio-political teachings ====
The early texts depict the Buddha as giving a deflationary account of the importance of politics to human life. Politics is inevitable and is probably even necessary and helpful, but it is also a tremendous waste of time and effort, as well as being a prime temptation to allow ego to run rampant. Buddhist political theory denies that people have a moral duty to engage in politics except to a very minimal degree (pay the taxes, obey the laws, maybe vote in the elections), and it actively portrays engagement in politics and the pursuit of enlightenment as being conflicting paths in life.<ref>{{cite book |first=Matthew J. |last=Moore |title=Buddhism and Political Theory |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-19-046551-3 |page=2}}</ref>

In the ''[[Aggañña Sutta]]'', the Buddha teaches a history of how monarchy arose which according to Matthew J. Moore is "closely analogous to a social contract". The ''Aggañña Sutta'' also provides a social explanation of how different classes arose, in contrast to the Vedic views on social caste.<ref name=":7">{{cite journal |last=Moore |first=Matthew J. |date=2015 |title=Political theory in Canonical Buddhism |journal=Philosophy East & West |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=36–64 |doi=10.1353/pew.2015.0002 |s2cid=143618675 |url=https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&httpsredir=1&article=1026&context=poli_fac |access-date=9 February 2020 |archive-date=27 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727062753/https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&httpsredir=1&article=1026&context=poli_fac |url-status=live }}</ref>

Other early texts like the ''Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta'' and the ''Mahāsudassana Sutta'' focus on the figure of the righteous wheel turning leader ([[Chakravarti (Sanskrit term)|''Cakkavatti'']]). This ideal leader is one who promotes Dharma through his governance. He can only achieve his status through moral purity and must promote morality and Dharma to maintain his position. According to the ''Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta'', the key duties of a Cakkavatti are: "establish guard, ward, and protection according to Dhamma for your own household, your troops, your nobles, and vassals, for Brahmins and householders, town and country folk, ascetics and Brahmins, for beasts and birds. let no crime prevail in your kingdom, and to those who are in need, give property."<ref name=":7" /> The sutta explains the injunction to give to the needy by telling how a line of wheel-turning monarchs falls because they fail to give to the needy, and thus the kingdom falls into infighting as poverty increases, which then leads to stealing and violence.{{efn|"thus, from the not giving of property to the needy, poverty became rife, from the growth of poverty, the taking of what was not given increased, from the increase of theft, the use of weapons increased, from the increased use of weapons, the taking of life increased — and from the increase in the taking of life, people's life-span decreased, their beauty decreased, and [as] a result of this decrease of life-span and beauty, the children of those whose life-span had been eighty-thousand years lived for only forty thousand."<ref name=":7" />}}

In the ''Mahāparinibbāna Sutta,'' the Buddha outlines several principles that he promoted among the Vajjika tribal federation, which had a quasi-republican form of government. He taught them to "hold regular and frequent assemblies", live in harmony and maintain their traditions. The Buddha then goes on to promote a similar kind of republican style of government among the Buddhist Sangha, where all monks had equal rights to attend open meetings and there would be no single leader, since The Buddha also chose not to appoint one.<ref name=":7" /> Some scholars have argued that this fact signals that the Buddha preferred a [[Republicanism|republican]] form of government, while others disagree with this position.<ref name=":7" />