[Illustration: BRASS IMAGE OF GAUTAMA BUDDHA FROM CEYLON.]
He is seated on the Mućalinda Serpent (see p. 480), in an attitude
of profound meditation, with eyes half closed, and five rays of light
emerging from the crown of his head.
[_Frontispiece._
BUDDHISM,
IN ITS CONNEXION WITH BRĀHMANISM AND HINDŪISM,
AND
IN ITS CONTRAST WITH
CHRISTIANITY,
BY
SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, K.C.I.E.,
M.A., HON. D.C.L. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
HON. LL.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA,
HON. PH.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN,
HON. MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES OF BENGAL AND BOMBAY,
AND OF THE ORIENTAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETIES OF AMERICA,
BODEN PROFESSOR OF SANSKṚIT,
AND LATE FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, ETC.
[Illustration: ]
NEW YORK:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1889.
[_All rights reserved._]
PREFACE.
The ‘Duff Lectures’ for 1888 were delivered by me at Edinburgh in the
month of March. In introducing my subject, I spoke to the following
effect:—
‘I wish to express my deep sense of the responsibility which the writing
of these Lectures has laid upon me, and my earnest desire that they may,
by their usefulness, prove in some degree worthy of the great missionary
whose name they bear.
‘Dr. Duff was a man of power, who left his own foot-print so deeply
impressed on the soil of Bengal, that its traces are never likely to be
effaced, and still serve to encourage less ardent spirits, who are
striving to imitate his example in the same field of labour.
‘But not only is the impress of his vigorous personality still fresh in
Bengal. He has earned an enduring reputation throughout India and the
United Kingdom, as the prince of educational missionaries. He was in all
that he undertook an enthusiastic and indefatigable workman, of whom, if
of any human being, it might be truly said, that, when called upon to
quit the sphere of his labours, “he needed not to be ashamed.” No one
can have travelled much in India without having observed how wonderfully
the results of his indomitable energy and fervid eloquence in the cause
of Truth wait on the memory of his work everywhere. Monuments may be
erected and lectureships founded to perpetuate his name and testify to
his victories over difficulties which few other men could have overcome,
but better than these will be the living testimony of successive
generations of Hindū men and women, whose growth and progress in true
enlightenment will be due to the seed which he planted, and to which God
has given the increase.’
I said a few more words expressive of my hope that the ‘Life of Dr.
Duff’[1] would be read and pondered by every student destined for work
of any kind in our Indian empire, and to that biography I refer all who
are unacquainted with the particulars of the labours of a man to whom
Scotland has assigned a place in the foremost rank of her most eminent
Evangelists.
I now proceed to explain the process by which these Lectures have
gradually outgrown the limits required by the Duff Trustees.
When I addressed myself to the carrying out of their wishes—communicated
to me by Mr. W. Pirie Duff—I had no intention of undertaking more than a
concise account of a subject which I had been studying for many years. I
conceived it possible to compress into six Lectures a scholarly sketch
of what may be called true Buddhism,—that is, the Buddhism of the
Piṭakas or Pāli texts which are now being edited by the Pāli Text
Society, and some of which have been translated in the ‘Sacred Books of
the East.’ It soon, however, became apparent to me that to write an
account of Buddhism which would be worthy of the great Indian
missionary, I ought to exhibit it in its connexion with Brāhmanism and
Hindūism and even with Jainism, and in its contrast with Christianity.
Then, as I proceeded, I began to feel that to do justice to my subject I
should be compelled to enlarge the range of my researches, so as to
embrace some of the later phases and modern developments of Buddhism.
This led me to undertake a more careful study of Koeppen’s Lamaismus
than I had before thought necessary. Furthermore, I felt it my duty to
study attentively numerous treatises on Northern Buddhism, which I had
before read in a cursory manner. I even thought it incumbent on me to
look a little into the Tibetan language, of which I was before wholly
ignorant.
I need scarcely explain further the process of expansion through which
the present work has passed. A conviction took possession of my mind,
that any endeavour to give even an outline of the whole subject of
Buddhism in six Lectures, would be rather like the effort of a foolish
man trying to paint a panorama of London on a sheet of note-paper. Hence
the expansion of six Lectures into eighteen, and it will be seen at once
that many of these eighteen are far too long to have been delivered _in
extenso_. In point of fact, by an arrangement with the Trustees, only a
certain portion of any Lecture was delivered orally. The present work is
rather a treatise on Buddhism printed and published in memory of Dr.
Duff.
I need not encumber the Preface with a re-statement of the reasons which
have made the elucidation of an intricate subject almost hopelessly
difficult. They have been stated in the Introductory Lecture (pp. 13,
14).
Moreover the plan of the present volume has been there set forth (see p.
17).
I may possibly be asked by weary readers why I have ventured to add
another tributary to the too swollen stream of treatises on Buddhism? or
some may employ another metaphor and inquire why I have troubled myself
to toil and plod over a path already well travelled over and trodden
down? My reply is that I think I can claim for my own work an
individuality which separates it from that of others—an individuality
which may probably commend it to thoughtful students of Buddhism as
helping to clear a thorny road, and introduce some little order and
coherence into the chaotic confusion of Buddhistic ideas.
At any rate I request permission to draw attention to the following
points, which, I think, may invest my researches with a distinctive
character of their own.
In the first place I have been able to avail myself of the latest
publications of the Pāli Text Society, and to consult many recent works
which previous writers on Buddhism have not had at their command.
Secondly, I have striven to combine scientific accuracy with a popular
exposition sufficiently readable to satisfy the wants of the cultured
English-speaking world—a world crowded with intelligent readers who take
an increasing interest in Buddhism, and yet know nothing of Sanskṛit,
Pāli, and Tibetan.
Thirdly, I have aimed at effecting what no other English Orientalist
has, to my knowledge, ever accomplished. I have endeavoured to deal with
a complex subject as a whole, and to present in one volume a
comprehensive survey of the entire range of Buddhism, from its earliest
origin in India to its latest modern developments in other Asiatic
countries.
Fourthly, I have brought to the study of Buddhism and its sacred
language Pāli, a life-long preparatory study of Brāhmanism and its
sacred language Sanskṛit.
Fifthly, I have on three occasions travelled through the sacred land of
Buddhism (p. 21), and have carried on my investigations personally in
the place of its origin, as well as in Ceylon and on the borders of
Tibet.
Lastly, I have depicted Buddhism from the standpoint of a believer in
Christianity, who has shown, by his other works on Eastern religions, an
earnest desire to give them credit for all the good they contain.
In regard to this last point, I shall probably be told by some
enthusiastic admirers of Buddhism, that my prepossessions and
predilections—inherited with my Christianity—have, in spite of my desire
to be just, distorted my view of a system with which I have no sympathy.
To this I can only reply, that my consciousness of my own prepossessions
has made me the more sensitively anxious to exhibit Buddhism under its
best aspects, as well as under its worst. An attentive perusal of my
last Lecture (see p. 537) will, I hope, make it evident that I have at
least done everything in my power to dismiss all prejudice from my mind,
and to assume and maintain the attitude of an impartial judge. And to
this end I have taken nothing on trust, or at second hand. I have
studied Pāli, as I have the other Indian Prākṛits, on my own account,
and independently. I have not accepted unreservedly any man’s
interpretation of the original Buddhist texts, and have endeavoured to
verify for myself all doubtful statements and translations which occur
in existing treatises. Of course I owe much to modern Pāli scholars, and
writers on Buddhism, and to the translators of the ‘Sacred Books of the
East;’ but I have frequently felt compelled to form an independent
opinion of my own.
The translations given in the ‘Sacred Books of the East’—good as they
generally are—have seemed to me occasionally misleading. I may mention
as an instance the constant employment by the translators of the word
‘Ordination’ for the ceremonies of admission to the Buddhist monkhood
(see pp. 76-80 of the present volume). I have ventured in such instances
to give what has appeared to me a more suitable equivalent for the Pāli.
On the same principle I have avoided all needless employment of
Christian terminology and Bible-language to express Buddhist ideas.
For example, I have in most cases excluded such words as ‘sin,’
‘holiness,’ ‘faith’, ‘trinity,’ ‘priest’ from my explanations of the
Buddhist creed, as wholly unsuitable.
I regret that want of space has compelled me to curtail my observations
on Jainism—the present representative of Buddhistic doctrines in India
(see p. 529.) I hope to enter more fully on this subject hereafter.
The names of authors to whom students of Buddhism are indebted are given
in my first Lecture (pp. 14, 15). We all owe much to Childers. My own
thanks are specially due to General Sir Alexander Cunningham, to
Professor E. B. Cowell of Cambridge, Professor Rhys Davids, Dr.
Oldenberg, Dr. Rost, Dr. Morris, Dr. Wenzel, who have aided me with
their opinions, whenever I have thought it right to consult them. Dr.
Rost, C.I.E., of the India Office, is also entitled to my warmest
acknowledgments for having placed at my disposal various subsidiary
works bearing on Buddhism, some of which belong to his own Library.
My obligations to Mr. Hoey’s translation of Dr. Oldenberg’s ‘Buddha,’ to
the translations of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims by Professor
Legge, Mr. Beal, M. Abel Rémusat, and M. Stanislas Julien, to M. Huc’s
travels, and to Mr. Scott’s ‘Burman,’ will be evident, and have been
generally acknowledged in my notes. I am particularly grateful to Mr.
Sarat Chandra Dās, C.I.E., for the information contained in his Report
and for the instruction which I received from him personally while
prosecuting my inquiries at Dārjīling.
I have felt compelled to abbreviate nearly all my quotations, and
therefore occasionally to alter the phraseology. Hence I have thought it
right to mark them by a different type without inverted commas.
With regard to transliteration I must refer the student to the rules for
pronunciation given at p. xxxi. They conform to the rules given in my
Sanskṛit Grammar and Dictionary. Like Dr. Oldenberg, I have preferred to
substitute Sanskṛit terminations in _a_ for the Pāli _o_. In Tibetan I
have constantly consulted Jäschke, but have not followed his system of
transliteration.
In conclusion, I may fitly draw attention to the engravings of objects,
some of which were brought by myself from Buddhist countries. They are
described in the list of illustrations (see p. xxix), and will, I trust,
give value to the present volume. It has seemed to me a duty to make use
of every available appliance for throwing light on the obscurities of a
difficult subject; and, as these Lectures embrace the whole range of
Buddhism, I have adopted as a frontispiece a portrait of Buddha which
exhibits Buddhism in its receptivity and in its readiness to adopt
serpent-worship, or any other superstition of the races which it strove
to convert. On the other hand, the Wheel, with the Tri-ratna and the
Lotus (pp. 521, 522), is engraved on the title-page as the best
representative symbol of early Buddhism. It is taken from a Buddhist
sculpture at Amarāvatī engraved for Mr. Fergusson’s ‘Tree and
Serpent-worship’ (p. 237).
The portrait which faces page 74 is well worthy of attention as
illustrating the connexion[2] between Buddhism and Brāhmanism. It is
from a recently-taken photograph of Mr. Gaurī-Ṡaṅkar Uday-Ṡaṅkar,
C.S.I.—a well-known and distinguished Brāhman of Bhaunagar—who (with Mr.
Percival) administered the State during the minority of the present
enlightened Mahā-rāja. Like the Buddha of old, he has renounced the
world—that is, he has become a Sannyāsī, and is chiefly engaged in
meditation. He has consequently dropped the title C.S.I., and taken the
religious title—Svāmī Ṡrī Saććidānanda-Sarasvatī. His son, Mr.
Vijay-Ṡaṅkar Gaurī-Ṡaṅkar, kindly sent me the photograph, and with his
permission I have had it engraved.
It will be easily understood that, as a great portion of the following
pages had to be delivered in the form of Lectures, occasional
repetitions and recapitulations were unavoidable, but I trust I shall
not be amenable to the charge of repeating anything for the sake of
‘padding.’ I shall, with more justice, be accused of ‘cramming,’ in the
sense of attempting to force too much information into a single volume.
_January 1, 1889._