Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present legal scholars with major notions and features pertaining to a non-Western philosophical tradition such as Buddhism, which possesses its own normative vision that expresses itself in different models, patterns and exigencies according to the capacity, spiritual goals, context and position of the agents. This results in a varied array of role-based regulations: it is this area that is explored in this paper through an analysis of the cases of the householder, the monks and the monarch, thus enabling a reflection upon social structure, legal idiosyncrasy and the functioning of the ruling power.