THE RISE AND SPREAD OF BUDDHISM
279. Q. _As regards the number its followers, how does Buddhism at
this date compare with the other chief religions?_
A. The followers of the Buddha Dharma outnumber those of every other
religion.
280. Q. _What is the estimated number?_
A. About five hundred millions (5,000 lakhs or 500 crores): this is
five-thirteenths, or not quite half, of the estimated population of the
globe.
281. Q. _Have many great battles been fought and many countries
conquered; has much human blood been spilt to spread the Buddha Dharma?_
A. History does not record one of those cruelties and crimes as having
been committed to propagate our religion. So far as we know, it has
not caused the spilling of a drop of blood. (See footnote
_ante_--Professor Kolb's testimony.)
282. Q. _What, then, is the secret of its wonderful spread?_
A. It can be nothing else than its intrinsic excellence: its
self-evident basis of truth, its sublime moral teaching, and its
sufficiency for all human needs.
283. Q. _How has it been propagated?_
A. The Buddha, during the forty-five years of his life as a Teacher,
travelled widely in India and preached the Dharma. He sent his wisest
and best disciples to do the same throughout India.
284. Q. _When did He send for his pioneer missionaries?_
A. On the full-moon day of the month _Wap_ (October).
285. Q. _What did he tell them?_
A. He called them together and said: "Go forth, Bhikkhus, go and
preach the law to the world. Work for the good of others as well as
for your own.... Bear ye the glad tidings to every man. Let no two of
you take the same way."
286. Q. _How long before the Christian era did this happen?_
A. About six centuries.
287. Q. _What help did Kings give?_
A. Besides the lower classes, great Kings, Rajas and
Maharajas were converted and gave their influence to spread
the religion.
288. Q. _What about pilgrims?_
A. Learned pilgrims came in different centuries to India and carried
back with them books and teachings to their native lands. So,
gradually, whole nations forsook their own faiths and became Buddhists.
289. Q. _To whom, more than to any other person, is the world
indebted for the permanent establishment of Buddha's religion?_
A. To the Emperor Ashoka, surnamed the Great, sometimes Piyadasi,
sometimes Dharmashoka. He was the son of Bindusara, King of
Magadha, arid grandson of Chandragupta, who drove the Greeks out of
India.
290. Q. _When did he reign?_
A. In the third century B.C., about two centuries after the Buddha's
time. Historians disagree as to his exact date, but not very greatly.
291. Q. _What made him great?_
A. He was the most powerful monarch in Indian history, as warrior and
as statesman; but his noblest characteristics were his love of truth
and justice, tolerance of religious differences, equity of government,
kindness to the sick, to the poor, and to animals. His name is revered
from Siberia to Ceylon.
292. Q. _Was he born a Buddhist?_
A. No, he was converted in the tenth year after his anointment as
King, by Nigrodha Samanera, an Arhat.
293. Q. _What did he do for Buddhism?_
A. He drove out bad Bhikkhus, encouraged good ones, built monasteries
and dagobas everywhere, established gardens, opened hospitals for
men and animals, convened a council at Patna to revise and re-establish
the Dharma, promoted female religious education, and sent embassies to
five Greek kings, his allies, and to all the sovereigns of India, to
preach the doctrines of the Buddha. It was he who built the monuments
at Kapilavastu, Buddha Gaya, Isipatana and Kusinara, our four
chief places of pilgrimage, besides thousands more.
294. Q. _What absolute proofs exist as to his noble character?_
A. Within recent years there have been discovered, in all parts of
India, fourteen Edicts of his, inscribed on living rocks, and eight on
pillars erected by his orders. They fully prove him to have been one
of the wisest and most high-minded sovereigns who ever lived.
29.5. Q. _What character do these inscriptions give to Buddhism?_
A. They show it to be a religion of noble tolerance, of universal
brotherhood, of righteousness and justice. It has no taint of
selfishness, sectarianism or intolerance. They have done more than
anything else to win for it the respect in which it is now held by the
great pandits of western countries.
296. Q. _What most precious gift did Dharmashoka make to Buddhism?_
A. He gave his beloved son, Mahinda, and daughter, Sanghamitta, to the
Order, and sent them to Ceylon to introduce the religion.
297. Q. _Is this fact recorded in the history of Ceylon?_
A. Yes, it is all recorded in the Mahavansa, by the keepers of the
royal records, who were then living and saw the missionaries.
298. Q. _Is there some proof of Sanghamitta's mission still visible?_
A. Yes; she brought with her to Ceylon a branch of the very Bodhi tree
under which the Buddha sat when he became Enlightened, and it is still
growing.
299. Q. _Where?_
A. At Annradhapura. The history of it has been officially
preserved to the present time. Planted in 306 B.C., it is the oldest
historical tree in the world.
300. Q. _Who was the reigning sovereign at that time?_
A. Devanampiyatissa. His consort, Queen Anula, had invited
Sanghamitta to come and establish the Bhikkhuni branch of the Order.
301. Q. _Who came with Sanghamitta?_
A. Many other Bhikkhunis. She, in due time, admitted the Queen and
many of her ladies, together with five hundred virgins, into the Order.
302. Q. _Can we trace the effects of the foreign work of the Emperor
Ashoka's missionaries?_
A. His son and daughter introduced Buddhism into Ceylon: his monks
gave it to the whole of Northern India, to fourteen Indian nations
outside its boundaries, and to five Greek kings, his allies, with whom
he made treaties to admit his religious preachers.
303. Q. _Can you name them?_
A. ANTIOCHUS of Syria, PTOLEMY of Egypt, ANTIGONUS of Macedon, MARGAS
of Cyrene, and ALEXANDER of Epiros.
304. Q. _Where do we learn this?_
A. From the Edicts themselves of Ashoka the Great, inscribed by him on
rocks and stone pillars, which are still standing and can be seen by
everybody who chooses to visit the places.
305. Q. _Through what western religious brotherhoods did the Buddha
Dharma mingle itself with western thought?_
A. Through the sects of the Therapeuts of Egypt and the Essenes of
Palestine.
306. Q. _When were Buddhist books first introduced into China?_
A. As early as the second or third century B.C. Five of
Dharmashoka's monks are said--in the Samanta Pasadika and the
Sarattha Dipani--two Pali books--to have been sent to
the five divisions of China.
307. Q. _Whence and when did it reach Korea?_
A. From China, in the year A. D. 372.
308. Q. _Whence and when did it reach Japan?_
A. From Korea, in A. D. 552.
309. Q. _Whence and when did it reach Cochin China, Formosa, Java,
Mongolia, Yorkand, Balk, Bokhara, Afghanistan and other Central Asian
countries?_
A. Apparently in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.
310. Q. _From Ceylon, whither and when did it spread?_
A. To Burma, in A.D. 450, and thence gradually into Arakan, Kamboya
and Pegu. In the seventh century (A.D. 638) it spread to Siam, where
it is now, as it has been always since then, the State religion.
311. Q. _From Kashmir, where else did it spread besides to China?_
A. To Nepal and Tibet.
312. Q. Why is it that Buddhism, which was once the prevailing
religion throughout India, is now almost extinct there?
A. Buddhism was at first pure and noble, the very teaching of the
Tathagata; its Sangha were virtuous and observed the Precepts; it won
all hearts and spread joy through many nations, as the morning light
sends life through the flowers. But after some centuries, bad Bhikkhus
got ordination (_Upasampada_) the Sangha became rich, lazy, and
sensual, the Dharma was corrupted, and the Indian nation abandoned it.
313. Q. _Did anything happen about the ninth or tenth century A.D. to
hasten its downfall?_
A. Yes.
314. Q. _Anything besides the decay of spirituality, the corruption
of the Sangha, and the reaction of the populace from a higher ideal of
man to unintelligent idolatry?_
A. Yes. It is said that the Mussalmans invaded, overran and
conquered large areas of India; everywhere doing their utmost to stamp
out our religion.
315. Q. _What cruel acts are they charged with doing?_
A. They burnt, pulled down or otherwise destroyed our viharas,
slaughtered our Bhikkhus, and consumed with fire our religious books.
316. Q. _Was our literature completely destroyed in India?_
A. No. Many Bhikkhus fled across the borders into Tibet and other
safe places of refuge, carrying their books with them.
317. Q. _Have any traces of these books been recently discovered?_
A. Yes. Rai Bhadur Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E., a noted Bengali
pandit, saw hundreds of them in the vihara libraries of Tibet,
brought copies of some of the most important back with him, and is now
employed by the Government of India in editing and publishing them.
318. Q. _In which country have we reason to believe the sacred books
of primitive Buddhism have been best preserved and least corrupted?_
A. Ceylon. The _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ says that in this island
Buddhism has, for specified reasons, "retained almost its pristine
purity to modern times".
319. Q. _Has any revision of the text of the Pitakas been made in
modern times?_
A. Yes. A careful revision of the Vinaya Pitaka was made in Ceylon
in the year A.D. 1875, by a convention of the most learned Bhikkhus,
under the presidency of H. Sumangala, Pradhana Sthavira.
320. Q. _Has there been any friendly intercourse in the interest of
Buddhism between the peoples of the Southern and those of the Northern
Buddhist countries?_
A. In the year A.D. 1891, a successful attempt was made to get the
Pradhana Nayakas of the two great divisions to agree to accept
fourteen propositions as embodying fundamental Buddhistic beliefs
recognised and taught by both divisions. These propositions, drafted
by Colonel Olcott, were carefully translated into Burmese, Sinhalese
and Japanese, discussed one by one, unanimously adopted and signed by
the chief monks, and published in January 1892.
321. Q. _With what good result?_
A. As the result of the good understanding now existing, a number of
Japanese bhikkhus and samaneras have been sent to Ceylon and India to
study Pali and Samskrt.
322. Q. _Are there signs that the Buddha Dharma is growing in favour
in non-Buddhistic countries?_[1]
A. There are. Translations of our more valuable books are appearing,
many articles in reviews, magazines and newspapers are being published,
and excellent original treatises by distinguished writers are coming
from the press. Moreover, Buddhist and non-Buddhist lecturers are
publicly discoursing on Buddhism to large audiences in western
countries. The Shin Shu sect of Japanese Buddhists have actually
opened missions at Honolulu, San Francisco, Sacramento and other
American places.
323. Q. _What two leading ideas of ours are chiefly taking hold upon
the western mind?_
A. Those of Karma and Reincarnation. The rapidity of their acceptance
is very surprising.
324. Q. _What is believed to be the explanation of this?_
A. Their appeals to the natural instinct of justice, and their evident
reasonableness.
[1] See Appendix.