sandus.org

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the creation of Sandus on 26 May 2009, our micronation’s monarch, C. Soergel Publicola, has decreed this Monday that they will take a new title, “upāsaka.” Literally meaning “one who sits by,” an upāsaka is a Sanskrit and Pali term for an ordained layperson who acts as an attendant. Today, the term refers to a worshipper or devotee of the Buddha or of a god in modern Hindi, but in the śrāvakayāna (“the disciples’ vehicle,” as opposed to the Mahāyāna) the title refers to one of the eight paths contained in the Buddhist Vinaya, the collection of the Buddhist community’s rules and ethics. While an upāsaka has not “gone forth,” that is, is not a renunciate like a monk or nun, they are ordained in the sense that they have taken one or more of the five Buddhist precepts, that form the heart of Buddhist ethics.

C. Soergel P. received the title last October when they undertook four of the five Buddhist pratimokśa precepts for the rest of their life, namely the vows not to lie, steal, harm or kill other beings, and commit sexual misconduct. They may decide in the future to renounce intoxicants, which is the vow meant to guide preceptees toward “excellent conduct.” As a result, they donned their white zen (Wylie: gzan), or the cotton shawl of a Buddhist yogin, that now forms part of the monarch’s customary dress along with their dark blue robes. In addition to the five precepts, the upāsaka has previously taken the refuge vow, the bodhisattva vow, and also tantric commitments called “samaya” as a practitioner of the Mahamudra preliminaries (Tibetan: ngöndro).

The decision to take up their Buddhist title as their regal title not only overturns 13 years of history as our micronation’s sôgmô, but also harkens back to our country’s very beginning. In 2011 the monarch decided to take the title of sôgmô to honour the indigenous peoples of the North American eastern woodland where Sandus was founded. The decision has proven controversial over the years, but served Sandus’s interests for over a decade. But the adoption of a Buddhist title recalls our micronation’s first title for its monarch in 2009: lama (Wylie: bla ma), the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit term guru that means “weighty” or “important” and is a cognate with “grave,” as in “serious.” As Sandus has consistently remained a philosophically and secular Buddhist country over the years since 2009, the decision to adopt the lowly title of an attendant as our micronation’s monarchical title does more than recall our national philosophy and history.

It represents a new path our micronation is taking as we deliberately turn away from the sôgmô as a national figurehead to the upāsaka as an attendant and servant of the Sandum people.