BUDDHISM.

LECTURE I.

_Introductory. Buddhism in relation to Brāhmanism._

In my recent work[3] on Brāhmanism I have traced the progress of Indian

religious thought through three successive stages—called by me Vedism,

Brāhmanism, and Hindūism—the last including the three subdivisions of

Ṡaivism, Vaishṇavism, and Ṡāktism. Furthermore I have attempted to prove

that these systems are not really separated by sharp lines, but that

each almost imperceptibly shades off into the other.

I have striven also to show that a true Hindū of the orthodox school is

able quite conscientiously to accept all these developments of religious

belief. He holds that they have their authoritative exponents in the

successive bibles of the Hindū religion, namely, (1) the four

Vedas—Ṛig-veda, Yajur-veda, Sāma-veda, Atharva-veda—and the Brāhmaṇas;

(2) the Upanishads; (3) the Law-books—especially that of Manu; (4) the

Bhakti-ṡāstras, including the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahā-bhārata, the

Purāṇas—especially the Bhāgavata-purāṇa—and the Bhagavad-gītā; (5) the

Tantras.

The chief works under these five heads represent the principal periods

of religious development through which the Hindū mind has passed.

Thus, in the first place, the hymns of the Vedas and the ritualism of

the Brāhmaṇas represent physiolatry or the worship of the personified

forces of nature—a form of religion which ultimately became saturated

with sacrificial ideas and with ceremonialism and asceticism. Secondly,

the Upanishads represent the pantheistic conceptions which terminated in

philosophical Brāhmanism. Thirdly, the Law-books represent caste-rules

and domestic usages. Fourthly, the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahā-bhārata, and Purāṇas

represent the principle of personal devotion to the personal gods, Ṡiva,

Vishṇu, and their manifestations; and fifthly, the Tantras represent the

perversion of the principle of love to polluting and degrading practices

disguised under the name of religious rites. Of these five phases of the

Hindū religion probably the first three only prevailed when Buddhism

arose; but I shall try to make clear hereafter that Buddhism, as it

developed, accommodated itself to the fourth and even ultimately to the

fifth phase, admitting the Hindū gods into its own creed, while Hindūism

also received ideas from Buddhism.

At any rate it is clear that the so-called orthodox Brāhman admits all

five series of works as progressive exponents of the Hindū

system—although he scarcely likes to confess openly to any adoption of

the fifth. Hence his opinions are of necessity Protean and multiform.

The root ideas of his creed are of course Pantheistic, in the sense of

being grounded on the identification of the whole external world—which

he believes to be a mere illusory appearance—with one eternal,

impersonal, spiritual Essence; but his religion is capable of presenting

so many phases, according to the stand-point from which it is viewed,

that its pantheism appears to be continually sliding into forms of

monotheism and polytheism, and even into the lowest types of animism and

fetishism.

We must not, moreover, forget—as I have pointed out in my recent

work—that a large body of the Hindūs are unorthodox in respect of their

interpretation of the leading doctrine of true Brāhmanism.

Such unorthodox persons may be described as sectarians or dissenters.

That is to say, they dissent from the orthodox pantheistic doctrine that

all gods and men, all divine and human souls, and all material

appearances are mere illusory manifestations of one impersonal spiritual

Entity—called Ātman or Purusha or Brahman—and they believe in one

supreme personal god—either Ṡiva or Vishṇu or Kṛishṇa or Rāma—who is not

liable (as orthodox Brāhmans say he is) to lose his personality by

subjection to the universal law of dissolution and re-absorption into

the one eternal impersonal Essence, but exists in a heaven of his own,

to the bliss of which his worshippers are admitted[4].

And it must be borne in mind that these sectarians are very far from

resting their belief on the Vedas, the Brāhmaṇas, and Upanishads.

Their creed is based entirely on the Bhakti-ṡāstras—that is, on the

Rāmāyaṇa, Mahā-bhārata, and Purāṇas (especially on the Bhāgavata-purāṇa)

and the Bhagavad-gītā, to the exclusion of the other scriptures of

Hindūism.

Then again it must always be borne in mind that the terms ‘orthodox’ and

‘unorthodox’ have really little or no application to the great majority

of the inhabitants of India, who in truth are wholly innocent of any

theological opinions at all, and are far too apathetic to trouble

themselves about any form of religion other than that which has belonged

for centuries to their families and to the localities in which they

live, and far too ignorant and dull of intellect to be capable of

inquiring for themselves whether that religion is likely to be true or

false.

To classify the masses under any one definite denomination, either as

Pantheists or Polytheists or Monotheists, or as simple idol-worshippers,

or fetish-worshippers, would be wholly misleading.

Their faculties are so enfeebled by the debilitating effect of early

marriages, and so deadened by the drudgery of daily toil and the dire

necessity of keeping body and soul together, that they can scarcely be

said to be capable of holding any definite theological creed at all.

It would be nearer the truth to say that the religion of an ordinary

Hindū consists in observing caste-customs, local usages, and family

observances, in holding what may be called the Folk-legends of his

neighbourhood, in propitiating evil spirits and in worshipping the image

and superscription of the Empress of India, impressed on the current

coin of the country.

As a rule such a man gives himself no uneasiness whatever about his

prospects of happiness or misery in the world to come.

He is quite content to commit his interests in a future life to the care

and custody of the Brāhmans; while, if he thinks about the nature of a

Supreme Being at all, he assumes His benevolence and expects His good

will as a matter of course.

What he really troubles himself about is the necessity for securing the

present favour of the inhabitants of the unseen world, supposed to

occupy the atmosphere everywhere around him—of the good and evil demons

and spirits of the soil—generally represented by rude and grotesque

images, and artfully identified by village priests and Brāhmans with

alleged forms of Vishṇu or Ṡiva.

It follows that the mind of the ordinary Hindū, though indifferent about

all definite dogmatic religion, is steeped in the kind of religiousness

best expressed by the word {deisidaimonia}. He lives in perpetual dread

of invisible beings who are thought to be exerting their mysterious

influences above, below, around, in the immediate vicinity of his own

dwelling. The very winds which sweep across his homestead are believed

to swarm with spirits, who unless duly propitiated will blight the

produce of his fields, or bring down upon him injury, disease, and

death.

Then again, besides the orthodox and besides the sectarian Hindū and

besides the great demon-worshipping, idolatrous, and superstitious

majority, another class of the Indian community must also be taken into

account—the class of rationalists and free-thinkers. These have been

common in India from the earliest times.

First came a class of conscientious doubters, who strove to solve the

riddle of life by microscopic self-introspection and sincere searchings

after truth, and these did their best not to break with the Veda, Vedic

revelation, and the authority of the Brāhmans.

Earnestly and reverently such men applied themselves to the difficult

task of trying to answer such questions as—What am I? Whence have I

come? Whither am I going? How can I explain my consciousness of personal

existence? Have I an immaterial spirit distinct from, and independent

of, my material frame? Of what nature is the world in which I find

myself? Did an all-powerful Being create it out of nothing? or did it

evolve itself out of an eternal protoplasmic germ? or did it come

together by the combination of eternal atoms? or is it a mere illusion?

If created by a Being of infinite wisdom and love, how can I account for

the co-existence in it of good and evil, happiness and misery? Has the

Creator form, or is He formless? Has He qualities and affections, or has

He none?

It was in the effort to solve such insoluble enigmas by their own

unaided intuitions and in a manner not too subversive of traditional

dogma, that the systems of philosophy founded on the Upanishads

originated.

These have been described in my book on Brāhmanism. They were gradually

excogitated by independent thinkers, who claimed to be Brāhmans or

twice-born men, and nominally accepted the Veda with its Brāhmaṇas,

while they covertly attacked it, or at least abstained from denouncing

it as absolutely untrue. Such men tacitly submitted to sacerdotal

authority, though they really propounded a way of salvation based

entirely on self-evolved knowledge, and quite independent of all Vedic

sacrifices and sacrificing priests. The most noteworthy and orthodox of

the systems propounded by them was the Vedānta[5], which, as I have

shown, was simply spiritual Pantheism, and asserted that the one Spirit

was the only real Being in the Universe.

But the origin of the more unorthodox systems, which denied the

authority of both the Veda and the Brāhmans, must also be traced to the

influence of the Upanishads. For it is undeniable that a spirit of

atheistic infidelity grew up in India almost _pari passu_ with dogmatic

Brāhmanism, and has always been prevalent there. In fact it would be

easy to show that periodical outbursts of unbelief and agnosticism have

taken place in India very much in the same way as in Europe; but the

tendency to run into extremes has always been greater on Indian soil and

beneath the glow and glamour of Eastern skies. On the one side, a far

more unthinking respect than in any other country has been paid to the

authority of priests, who have declared their supernatural revelation to

be the very breath of God, sacrificial rites to be the sole instruments

of salvation, and themselves the sole mediators between earth and

heaven; on the other, far greater latitude than in any other country has

been conceded to infidels and atheists who have poured contempt on all

sacerdotal dogmas, have denied all supernatural revelation, have made no

secret of their disbelief in a personal God, and have maintained that

even if a Supreme Being and a spiritual world exist they are unknowable

by man and beyond the cognizance of his faculties.

We learn indeed from certain passages of the Veda (Ṛig-veda II. 12. 5;

VIII. 100. 3, 4) that even in the Vedic age some denied the existence of

the god Indra.

We know, too, that Yāska, the well-known Vedic commentator, who is

believed to have lived before the grammarian Pāṇini (probably in the

fourth century B.C.), found himself obliged to refute the sceptical

arguments of Kautsa and others who pronounced the Veda a tissue of

nonsense (Nirukta I. 15, 16).

Again, Manu—whose law-book, according to Dr. Bühler, was composed

between the second century B.C. and the second A.D., and, in my opinion,

possibly earlier—has the following remark directed against sceptics:—

‘The twice-born man who depending on rationalistic treatises

(hetu-ṡāstra) contemns the two roots of law (ṡruti and smṛiti), is to be

excommunicated (vahish-kāryaḥ) by the righteous as an atheist (nāstika)

and despiser of the Veda’ (Manu II. 11).

Furthermore, the Mahā-bhārata, a poem which contains many ancient

legends quite as ancient as those of early Buddhism, relates

(Ṡānti-parvan 1410, etc.) the story of the infidel Ćārvāka, who in the

disguise of a mendicant Brāhman uttered sentiments dangerously

heretical.

This Ćārvāka was the supposed founder of a materialistic school of

thought called Lokāyata. Rejecting all instruments of knowledge

(pramāṇa) except perception by the senses (pratyaksha), he affirmed that

the soul did not exist separately from the body, and that all the

phenomena of the world were spontaneously produced.

The following abbreviation of a passage in the Sarva-darṡana-saṅgraha[6]

will give some idea of this school’s infidel doctrines, the very name of

which (Lokāyata, ‘generally current in the world’) is an evidence of the

popularity they enjoyed:—

No heaven exists, no final liberation,

No soul, no other world, no rites of caste,

No recompense for acts; let life be spent,

In merriment[7]; let a man borrow money

And live at ease and feast on melted butter.

How can this body when reduced to dust

Revisit earth? and if a ghost can pass

To other worlds, why does not strong affection

For those he leaves behind attract him back?

Oblations, funeral rites, and sacrifices

Are a mere means of livelihood devised

By sacerdotal cunning—nothing more.

The three composers of the triple Veda

Were rogues, or evil spirits, or buffoons.

The recitation of mysterious words

And jabber of the priests is simple nonsense.

Then again, the continued prevalence of sceptical opinions may be shown

by extracts from other portions of the later literature. For example, in

the Rāmāyaṇa (II. 108) the infidel Brāhman Jāvāli gives utterance to

similar sentiments thus:—

‘The books composed by theologians, in which men are enjoined to

worship, give gifts, offer sacrifice, practise austerities, abandon the

world, are mere artifices to draw forth donations. Make up your mind

that no one exists hereafter. Have regard only to what is visible and

perceptible by the senses (pratyaksham). Cast everything beyond this

behind your back.’

Furthermore, in a parallel passage from the Vishṇu-purāṇa, it is

declared that the great Deceiver, practising illusion, beguiled other

demon-like beings to embrace many sorts of heresy; some reviling the

Vedas, others the gods, others the ceremonial of sacrifice, and others

the Brāhmans[8]. These were called Nāstikas.

Such extracts prove that the worst forms of scepticism prevailed in both

early and mediæval times. But all phases and varieties of heretical

thought were not equally offensive, and it would certainly be unfair and

misleading to place Buddhism and Jainism on the same level with the

reckless Pyrrhonism of the Ćārvākas who had no code of morality.

And indeed it was for this very reason, that when Buddhism and Jainism

began to make their presence felt in the fifth century B.C. they became

far more formidable than any other phase of scepticism.

Whether, however, Buddhism or Jainism be entitled to chronological

precedence is still an open question, about which opinions may

reasonably differ. Some hold that they were always quite distinct from

each other, and were the products of inquiry originated by two

independent thinkers, and many scholars now consider that the weight of

evidence is in favour of Jainism being a little antecedent to Buddhism.

Possibly the two systems resulted from the splitting up of one sect into

two divisions, just as the two Brāhma-Samājes of Calcutta are the

product of the Ādi-Samāj.

One point at least is certain, that notwithstanding much community of

thought between Buddhism and Jainism, Buddhism ended in gaining for

itself by far the more important position of the two. For although

Jainism has shown more tenacity of life in India, and has lingered on

there till the present day, it never gained any hold on the masses of

the population, whereas its rival, Buddhism, radiating from a central

point in Hindūstān, spread itself first over the whole of India and then

over nearly all Eastern Asia, and has played—as even its most hostile

critics must admit—an important rôle in the history of the world.

To Buddhism, therefore, we have now to direct our attention, and at the

very threshold of our inquiries we are confronted with this difficulty,

that its great popularity and its wide diffusion among many peoples have

made it most difficult to answer the question:—What is Buddhism? If it

were possible to reply to the inquiry in one word, one might perhaps say

that true Buddhism, theoretically stated, is Humanitarianism, meaning by

that term something very like the gospel of humanity preached by the

Positivist, whose doctrine is the elevation of man through man—that is,

through human intellect, human intuitions, human teaching, human

experiences, and accumulated human efforts—to the highest ideal of

perfection; and yet something very different. For the Buddhist ideal

differs toto cælo from the Positivist’s, and consists in the

renunciation of all personal existence, even to the extinction of

humanity itself. The Buddhist’s perfection is destruction (p. 123).

But such a reply would have only reference to the truest and earliest

form of Buddhism. It would cover a very minute portion of the vast area

of a subject which, as it grew, became multiform, multilateral, and

almost infinite in its ramifications.

Innumerable writers, indeed, during the past thirty years have been

attracted by the great interest of the inquiry, and have vied with each

other in their efforts to give a satisfactory account of a system whose

developments have varied in every country; while lecturers, essayists,

and the authors of magazine articles are constantly adding their

contributions to the mass of floating ideas, and too often propagate

crude and erroneous conceptions on a subject, the depths of which they

have never thoroughly fathomed.

It is to be hoped that the annexation of Upper Burma, while giving an

impulse to Pāli and Buddhistic studies, may help to throw light on some

obscure points.

Certainly Buddhism continues to be little understood by the great

majority of educated persons. Nor can any misunderstanding on such a

subject be matter of surprise, when writers of high character colour

their descriptions of it from an examination of one part of the system

only, without due regard to its other phases, and in this way either

exalt it to a far higher position than it deserves, or depreciate it

unfairly.

And Buddhism is a subject which must continue for a long time to present

the student with a boundless field of investigation. No one can bring a

proper capacity of mind to such a study, much less write about it

clearly, who has not studied the original documents both in Pāli and in

Sanskṛit, after a long course of preparation in the study of Vedism,

Brāhmanism, and Hindūism. It is a system which resembles these other

forms of Indian religious thought in the great variety of its aspects.

Starting from a very simple proposition, which can only be described as

an exaggerated truism—the truism, I mean, that all life involves sorrow,

and that all sorrow results from indulging desires which ought to be

suppressed—it has branched out into a vast number of complicated and

self-contradictory propositions and allegations. Its teaching has become

both negative and positive, agnostic and gnostic. It passes from

apparent atheism and materialism to theism, polytheism, and

spiritualism. It is under one aspect mere pessimism; under another pure

philanthropy; under another monastic communism; under another high

morality; under another a variety of materialistic philosophy; under

another simple demonology; under another a mere farrago of

superstitions, including necromancy, witchcraft, idolatry, and

fetishism. In some form or other it may be held with almost any

religion, and embraces something from almost every creed. It is founded

on philosophical Brāhmanism, has much in common with Sāṅkhya and Vedānta

ideas, is closely connected with Vaishṇavism, and in some of its phases

with both Ṡaivism and Ṡāktism, and yet is, properly speaking, opposed to

every one of these systems. It has in its moral code much common ground

with Christianity, and in its mediæval and modern developments presents

examples of forms, ceremonies, litanies, monastic communities, and

hierarchical organizations, scarcely distinguishable from those of Roman

Catholicism; and yet a greater contrast than that presented by the

essential doctrines of Buddhism and of Christianity can scarcely be

imagined. Strangest of all, Buddhism—with no God higher than the perfect

man—has no pretensions to be called a religion in the true sense of the

word, and is wholly destitute of the vivifying forces necessary to give

vitality to the dry bones of its own morality; and yet it once existed

as a real power over at least a third of the human race, and even at the

present moment claims a vast number of adherents in Asia, and not a few

sympathisers in Europe and America.

Evidently, then, any Orientalist who undertakes to give a clear and

concise account of Buddhism in the compass of a few lectures, must find

himself engaged in a very venturesome and difficult task.

Happily we are gaining acquaintance with the Southern or purest form of

Buddhism through editions and translations of the texts of the Pāli

Canon by Fausböll, Childers, Rhys Davids, Oldenberg, Morris, Trenckner,

L. Feer, etc. We owe much, too, to the works of Turnour, Hardy, Clough,

Gogerly, D’Alwis, Burnouf, Lassen, Spiegel, Weber, Koeppen, Minayeff,

Bigandet, Max Müller, Kern, Ed. Müller, E. Kuhn, Pischel, and others.

These enable us to form a fair estimate of what Buddhism was in its

early days.

But the case is different when we turn to the Northern Buddhist

Scriptures, written generally in tolerably correct Sanskṛit (with

Tibetan translations). These continue to be little studied,

notwithstanding the materials placed at our command and the good work

done, first by the distinguished ‘founder of the study of Buddhism,’

Brian Hodgson, and by Burnouf, Wassiljew, Cowell, Senart, Kern, Beal,

Foucaux, and others. In fact, the moment we pass from the Buddhism of

India, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, to that of Nepāl, Kashmīr, Tibet,

Bhutān, Sikkim, China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Corea, and Japan, we seem to

have entered a labyrinth, the clue of which is continually slipping from

our hands.

Nor is it possible to classify the varying and often conflicting systems

in these latter countries, under the one general title of Northern

Buddhism.

For indeed the changes which religious systems undergo, even in

countries adjacent to each other, not unfrequently amount to an entire

reversal of their whole character. We may illustrate these changes by

the variations of words derived from one and the same root in

neighbouring countries. Take, for example, the German words selig,

‘blessed,’ and knabe, ‘a boy,’ which in England are represented by

‘silly’ and ‘knave.’

A similar law appears to hold good in the case of religious ideas. Their

whole character seems to change by a change of latitude and longitude.

This is even true of Christianity. Can it be maintained, for instance,

that the Christianity of modern Greece and Rome has much in common with

early Christianity, and would any casual observer believe that the

inhabitants of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Edinburgh, London, and Paris were

followers of the same religion?

It cannot therefore surprise us if Buddhism developed into apparently

contradictory systems in different countries and under varying climatic

conditions. In no two countries did it preserve the same features. Even

in India, the land of its birth, it had greatly changed during the first

ten centuries of its prevalence. So much so that had it been possible

for its founder to reappear upon earth in the fifth century after

Christ, he would have failed to recognize his own child, and would have

found that his own teaching had not escaped the operation of a law which

experience proves to be universal and inevitable.

It is easy, therefore, to understand how difficult it will be to give

any semblance of unity to my present subject. It will be impossible for

me to treat as a consistent whole a system having a perpetually varying

front and no settled form. I can only give a series of somewhat rough,

though, I hope, trustworthy outlines, as far as possible in methodical

succession.

And in the carrying out of such a design, the three objects that will at

first naturally present themselves for delineation will be three which

constitute the well-known triad of early Buddhism—that is to say, the

Buddha himself, His Law and His Order of Monks.

Hence my aim will be, in the first place, to give such a historical

account of the Buddha and of his earliest teaching as may be gathered

from his legendary biography, and from the most trustworthy parts of the

Buddhist canonical scriptures. Secondly, I shall give a brief

description of the origin and composition of those scriptures as

containing the Buddha’s ‘Law’ (Dharma); and thirdly, I shall endeavour

to explain the early constitution of the Buddha’s Order of Monks

(Saṅgha). After treating of these three preliminary topics, I shall next

describe the Law itself; that is, the philosophical doctrines of

Buddhism, its code of morality and theory of perfection, terminating in

Nirvāṇa. Lastly, I shall attempt to trace out the confused outlines of

theistic, mystical, and hierarchical Buddhism, as developed in Northern

countries, adding an account of sacred objects and places, and

contrasting the chief doctrines of Christianity. In regard to the

Buddhism of Tibet, I shall chiefly base my explanations on Koeppen’s

great work—a work never translated into English and now out of print—as

well as on my own researches during my travels through the parts of

India bordering on that country.

And here I ought to state that my explanations and descriptions will, I

fear, be wholly deficient in picturesqueness. My simple aim will be to

convey clear and correct information in unembellished language; and in

doing this, I shall often be compelled to expose myself to the reproach

contained in the expressions, _ćarvita-ćarvaṇam_, ‘chewing the chewed,’

and _pishṭa-peshaṇam_, ‘grinding the ground.’ I shall constantly be

obliged to tread on ground already well trodden.

To begin, then, with the Buddha himself.

LECTURE II.

_The Buddha as a personal Teacher._

It is much to be regretted that among all the sacred books that

constitute the Canon of the Southern Buddhists (see p. 61)—the only true

Canon of Buddhism—there is no trustworthy biography of its Founder.

For Buddhism is nothing without Buddha, just as Zoroastrianism is

nothing without Zoroaster, Confucianism nothing without Confucius,

Muhammadanism nothing without Muhammad, and I may add with all

reverence, Christianity nothing without Christ.

Indeed, no religion or religious system which has not emanated from some

one heroic central personality, or in other words, which has not had a

founder whose strongly marked personal character constituted the very

life and soul of his teaching and the chief factor in its effectiveness,

has ever had any chance of achieving world-wide acceptance, or ever

spread far beyond the place of its origin.

Hence the barest outline of primitive Buddhism must be incomplete

without some sketch of the life and character of Gautama Buddha himself.

Yet it is difficult to find any sure basis of fact on which we may

construct a fairly credible biography.

In all likelihood legendary histories of the Founder of Buddhism were

current in Nepāl and Tibet in the early centuries of our era; but

unhappily his too enthusiastic and imaginative admirers have thought it

right to testify their admiration by interweaving with the probable

facts of Gautama Buddha’s life, fables so extravagant that some modern

critical scholars have despaired of attempting to sift truth from

fiction, and have even gone to the extreme of doubting that Gautama

Buddha ever lived at all.

To believe nothing that has been recorded about him, is as unreasonable

as to accept with unquestioning faith all the miraculous circumstances

which are made to encircle him as with a halo of divine glory.

We must bear in mind that when Gautama Buddha lived—about the fifth

century B.C.—the art of writing was not common in India[9]. We may point

out, too, that in all countries, European as well as Asiatic—notably in

Greece (witness, for example, the familiar instance of Socrates)—men

have thought more of preserving the sayings of their teachers than of

recording the facts of their lives.

And we must not forget that in India—where the imaginative faculties

have always been too active, and anything like real history is

unknown—any plain matter-of-fact biography of the most heroic personage

would have few charms for any one, and little chance of gaining

acceptance anywhere.

Hence it has happened that the ballads (gāthā) and legends current about

Gautama among Northern Buddhists, bristle with the wildest fancies and

the most absurd exaggerations.

Yet it is not impossible to detect a few scattered historical facts

beneath stories, however childish, and legends, however extravagant. We

shall not at least be far wrong, if, in attempting an outline of the

Buddha’s life, we begin by asserting that intense individuality, fervid

earnestness, and severe simplicity of character, combined with singular

beauty of countenance, calm dignity of bearing, and above all, almost

superhuman persuasiveness of speech, were conspicuous in the great

Teacher.

The earliest authorities, however, never claim for him anything

extraordinary or superhuman in regard to external form. It was only in

later times that Buddhist writers pandered to the superstitions of the

people, by describing the Buddha as possessed of various miraculous

characteristics of mind and body. He is said to have been of immense

stature—according to some, eighteen feet high—and to have had on his

body thirty-two chief auspicious marks (mahā-vyañjana), regarded as

indications of a Supreme Lord and Universal Ruler, eighty secondary

marks (anu-vyañjana), besides one hundred and eight symbols on the sole

of each foot, and a halo extending for six feet round his person.

All that can be said with any degree of probability about his personal

appearance is, that he was endowed with certain qualities, which acted

like a spell, or with a kind of irresistible magnetism, on his hearers.

These must have formed, so to speak, the foundation-stone on which the

superstructure of his vast influence rested.

[Illustration: SACRED LAND OF BUDDHISM, AND SCENE OF THE BUDDHA’S

ITINERATION AND PREACHING FOR FORTY-FIVE YEARS.]

Unhappily, no authoritative Buddhist scripture gives any trustworthy

clue to the exact year of the Buddha’s birth. The traditions which refer

back his _death_ to a date corresponding to 543 B.C. are now rejected by

modern European scholars. Nor can we as yet accept as infallible the

results of the latest researches, which making use of various other

data, such as the inscriptions on coins, rocks, and columns, place his

death more than a century later. We shall not, however, be far wrong if

we assert that he was born about the year 500 B.C. at Kapila-vastu (now

Bhūila)—a town situated about half-way between Bastī and Ajūdhyā

(Ayodhyā) in the territory of Kosala (the modern Oudh, see pp. 29, 48),

about sixty miles from its capital city Ṡrāvasti (a favourite residence

of Gautama), and about one hundred miles[10] north-west of Benares, and

near the borders of the kingdom of Magadha (now Behār).

His father, named Ṡuddhodana, was a land-owner of the tribe of the

Ṡākyas (a name possibly connected with the Sanskṛit root Ṡak, ‘to be

powerful’), whose territory in the Gorakh-pur district extended from the

lower Nepalese mountains to the river Raptī in Oudh. It has been

conjectured that the Ṡākyas may have been originally a non-Āryan tribe,

connected perhaps with certain nomad immigrants from Tibet or Northern

Asia, who may have immigrated into India at various periods; but even if

this could be proved, it would have to be admitted that the Ṡākyas had

become Āryanized. It is said that the chief families claimed to be

Rājputs, tracing back their origin to Ikshvāku, the first of the Solar

race. It appears, too, that though belonging to the Kshatriya caste,

they were agriculturists, and mainly engaged in the cultivation of rice.

It is also asserted that Ṡākya families were in the habit of taking the

name of the family of the Brāhmans who were their spiritual guides and

performed religious offices for them, and that the family of Ṡuddhodana

took the name Gautama, that is, descendant of the sage Gotama. It does

not, however, seem necessary to account for the name in this manner. It

was an auspicious name, which in ancient times might have been given to

the child of any great land-owner as a proof of orthodoxy, or with the

view, perhaps, of pleasing the Brāhmans and securing their prayers and

good wishes on its behalf.

The father of the Founder of Buddhism was simply a chief of the Ṡākya

tribe—certainly not a king in our sense of the term—but rather a great

Zamīndār or landlord, whose territory was not so large in area as

Yorkshire. His name Ṡuddhodana, ‘one possessed of pure rice,’ probably

indicated the occupation and ordinary food of the peasantry inhabiting

the district belonging to him and subject to his authority. Those who

have travelled much in India must often have met great land-owners of

the Ṡuddhodana type—men to whom the title Mahā-rāja is given much as

‘Lord’ is to our aristocracy. For example, the Mahā-rāja of Darbhanga is

probably a more important personage than Gautama’s father ever was, and

his territory larger than that of Ṡuddhodana ever was.

The name Gautama (in Pāli spelt Gotama) was the personal name

corresponding to that given to all children at the name-giving ceremony.

It was not till his supposed attainment of perfect wisdom that Gautama

assumed the title of Buddha, or ‘the enlightened one.’ But from that

time forward this became his recognized title. Every other name besides

Gautama (or Gotama), and every other title except Buddha (or together,

Gautama Buddha), are simply epithets; for example, Ṡākya-muni, ‘sage of

the tribe of the Ṡākyas;’ Ṡākya-siṉha, ‘lion of the Ṡākyas;’ Ṡramaṇa

(Samano), ‘the ascetic;’ Siddhārtha, ‘one who has fulfilled the object

(of his coming);’ Sugata, ‘whose coming is auspicious;’ Tathāgata, ‘who

comes and goes as his predecessors;’ Bhagavān (Bhagavā), ‘the blessed

lord;’ Ṡāstā (Satthā), ‘the Teacher;’ Aṡaraṇa-ṡaraṇa, ‘Refuge of the

refugeless;’ Āditya-bandhu, ‘Kinsman of the Sun;’ Jina, ‘conqueror;’

Mahā-vīra, ‘great hero;’ Mahā-purusha, ‘great man;’ Ćakravartī,

‘universal monarch.’ Devout Buddhists call him ‘Lord of the World,’ ‘the

Lord,’ ‘World-honoured One,’ ‘King of the Law,’ ‘the Jewel,’ etc.; and

prefer to use the titles rather than the personal name Gautama, which is

thought too familiar.

The names of previous Buddhas, supposed to have existed in previous

ages, are given at p. 136.

Little of the story of the miraculous birth of Buddha is worthy of

repetition. Since, however, a white elephant is reckoned among the

sacred objects of Buddhism, as something rare and precious, it is worth

while mentioning the fable, that when the time came for the Bodhi-sattva

to leave the Tushita heaven (p. 120) and be born on earth as Gautama

Buddha, he descended into the womb of his mother in the form of a white

elephant. He was born under a Ṡāl tree and the god Brahmā received him

from his mother’s side. His mother, Māyā, died seven days afterwards,

and the infant was committed to her sister (Mahā-prajāpatī), a second

wife of Ṡuddhodana.

It is not related of Gautama that, as he grew up, any efforts were made

to imbue him with sacred learning; though, as a Kshatriya, he was

privileged to receive instruction in certain portions of the Veda.

Nor are we told of him that as a Kshatriya he was trained to the

profession of a soldier. It is more probable, that his love of

contemplation developed itself very early, and that from a desire to

humour this not uncommon Oriental propensity, he was allowed to pass

most of his time in the open air.

There is a well-known legend, which relates how Gautama’s relations came

in a body to his father and complained that the youth’s deficiency in

martial and athletic exercises would incapacitate him, on reaching

manhood, from taking part in warlike expeditions. This might be reckoned

among the few trustworthy historical incidents, were the story not

marred by the legendary addition, that on a day of trial being fixed,

the youth, without any previous practice, and of course to the surprise

of all present, proved his superiority in archery and in ‘the twelve

arts.’

One statement may certainly be accepted without much qualification. It

is said that Gautama was made to marry early, according to the universal

custom throughout India in the present day. No son of any respectable

person in modern times could remain unmarried at the age of sixteen or

seventeen, without, so to speak, tarnishing the family escutcheon, and

exposing the youth himself to a serious social stigma, likely to cling

to him in after-life. In ancient times marriage was equally universal,

and there is no reason to suppose that among Kshatriyas it was delayed

to a much later period of life.

No doubt, therefore, the future Buddha had at least one wife (whose name

was Yaṡodharā, though often called Rāhula-mātā, ‘Rāhula’s mother’), and

probably at least one son, named Rāhula. It is said that this son was

not born till his father was twenty-nine years of age, or not till the

time when a sense of the vanity of all human aims, and a resolution to

abandon all worldly ties, and a longing to enter upon a monastic life

had begun to take possession of his father’s mind.

The story of the four visions, which led to his final renunciation of

the world, is profusely overlaid with fanciful hyperbole, but, however

slight the basis of fact on which it may reasonably be held to rest, it

is too picturesque and interesting to be passed over without notice. I

therefore here abridge the account given in Mr. Beal’s translation of

the Chinese version of the Abhi-nishkramaṇa-sūtra, varying (for the sake

of brevity) the phraseology, but retaining the expression ‘prince’:—

One day the prince Gautama resolved to visit the gardens in the

neighbourhood of his father’s city, desiring to examine the beautiful

trees and flowers.

Then there appeared before his eyes in one of the streets the form of a

decrepid[**decrepit] old man, his skin shrivelled, his head bald, his

teeth gone, his body infirm and bent. A staff supported his tottering

limbs, as he stood right across the path of the prince’s advancing

chariot.

Seeing this aged person, Siddhārtha inquired of his charioteer:—‘What

human form is this, so miserable and so distressing, the like of which I

have never seen before?’

The charioteer replied:—‘This is what is called an old man.’

The prince again inquired:—‘And what is the exact meaning of this

expression “old”?’

The charioteer answered:—‘Old age implies the loss of bodily power,

decay of the vital functions, and failure of mind and memory. This poor

man before you is old and approaching his end.’

Then asked the prince:—‘Is this law universal?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘this is the common lot of all living creatures. All

that is born must die.’

Soon afterwards another strange sight presented itself—a sick man, worn

by disease and suffering, pale and miserable, scarcely able to draw his

breath, was seen tottering on the road.

Then the prince inquired of his charioteer:—‘Who is this unhappy being?’

The charioteer replied:—‘This is a sick man, and such sickness is common

to all.’

Soon afterwards there passed before them a corpse, borne on a bier.

Then asked the prince:—‘Who is this borne onwards on his bed, covered

with strangely-coloured garments, surrounded by people weeping and

lamenting?’

‘This,’ replied the charioteer, ‘is called a dead body; he has ended his

life; he has no further beauty of form, and no desires of any kind; he

is one with the stones and the felled tree; he is like a ruined wall, or

fallen leaf; no more shall he see his father or mother, brother or

sister, or other relatives; his body is dead, and your body also must

come to this.’

Next day on his going out by a different gate there appeared advancing

with measured steps a man with a shaven crown, and monk’s robe—his right

shoulder bare, a religious staff in his right hand, and a mendicant’s

alms-bowl in his left.

‘Who is this,’ the prince inquired, ‘proceeding with slow and dignified

steps, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, absorbed in

thought, with shaven head and garments of reddish colour?’

‘This man,’ said the charioteer, ‘devotes himself to charity, and

restrains his appetites and his bodily desires. He hurts nobody, but

does good to all, and is full of sympathy for all.’

Then the prince asked the man himself to give an account of his own

condition.

He answered:—‘I am called a homeless ascetic; I have forsaken the world,

relatives, and friends; I seek deliverance for myself and desire the

salvation of all creatures, and I do harm to none.’

After hearing these words, the prince went to his father and said, ‘I

wish to become a wandering ascetic (parivrājika) and to seek Nirvāna;

all worldly things, O king! are changeable and transitory.’

Such is an epitome of the legendary story of the ‘four visionary

appearances,’ so called because they are supposed to have been divine

visions or appearances, miraculously produced. The remainder of the

legendary life of Gautama Buddha is interesting and here and there not

without some historical value, and portions of it I now add in an

abridged form.

Very shortly after the occurrences just described, Gautama receives

intelligence of the birth of his son Rāhula. This is the first momentous

crisis of his life, and Gautama remains for a long time lost in profound

thought. He sees in his child the strongest of all fetters, binding him

to family and home. But his mind is made up. He must fly at once, or be

for ever held in bondage. Around him gather the beautiful women of his

father’s household, striving by their blandishments to divert him from

his purpose; but in vain. He seeks the chamber of his wife, and finds

her asleep with her hand on the head of his infant son. He longs for a

last embrace; but fearing to arouse her suspicions hurries away.

Outside, his favourite horse is waiting to aid his flight. He

accomplishes the first stage of what Buddhists call with pride the

Mahābhinishkramaṇa, ‘the great going forth from home;’ but not without

overcoming other still more formidable trials. For Māra, the evil deity

who tempts men to indulge their passions (see p. 120), makes himself

visible, and promises the prince all the glories of empire if he will

return to the pleasures of worldly life.

Finding all his allurements disregarded, Māra alters his method of

attack; he fills the air with mighty thunderings, and creates on the

road before the youthful fugitive’s eyes apparitions of torrents, lofty

mountains, and blazing conflagrations. But nothing alarms or deters him.

‘I would rather,’ he exclaims, ‘be torn to pieces limb by limb, or be

burnt in a fiery furnace, or be ground to pieces by a falling mountain

than forego my fixed purpose for one single instant.’

Arrived at a safe distance from his father’s territory, he exchanges

garments with a passing beggar, cuts off his own hair with a sword, and

assumes the outward aspect and character of a wandering ascetic. The

hair does not fall to the ground but is taken up to the Trayastriṉṡas

heaven (p. 120), and worshipped by the gods.

His first halting-place is Rāja-gṛiha (now Rāj-gīr), the chief city of

Magadha, which, with Kosala (Oudh, pp. 21, 48), afterwards became the

holy land of Buddhism. There he attaches himself as a disciple to two

Brāhmans named Āḷāra (in Sanskṛit Ārāḍa, with epithet Kālāpa or Kālāma)

and Uddaka (Udraka, also written Rudraka, and called Rāma-putta,

Mahā-vagga I. 6. 3), who imbue him with their own philosophical tenets

and theory of salvation. Sufficient evidence exists to warrant a belief

in this part of the story.

No place in India abounds in more interesting Buddhistic remains than

Rāja-gṛiha (about 40 miles south-east of Patnā), proving that it was one

of the most sacred places of Buddhism, consecrated by some of its most

cherished associations. Its Pāli name is Rāja-gaha. It may be

conjectured that the connexion between the metaphysics of Buddhism and

those of Brāhmanism was due to Gautama’s intercourse with the Brāhmans

of this district, and to the ideas he thus imbibed at the earliest stage

of his career.

But to resume our story. Gautama fails to find in Brāhmanical philosophy

that rest and peace for which his soul was craving when he left his

home.

Still there was another way of emancipation and union with the Universal

Soul, taught by the Brāhmans. This was the way of Tapas[11], or

self-inflicted bodily pain and austerity.

From the earliest times a favourite doctrine of Brāhmanism has been,

that self-inflicted bodily suffering is before all things efficacious

for the accumulation of religious merit, for the acquirement of

supernatural powers, and for the spirit’s release from the bondage of

transmigration and its re-absorption into the One Universal Spirit.

Among other forms of self-inflicted pain, religious devotees (Tapasvīs)

sometimes went through the process of sitting all day long unmoved

during the hottest months on a prepared platform or plot of ground,

surrounded by five fires, or by four blazing fires, with the burning sun

above their heads as a fifth[12]. Even gods (and notably Ṡiva) are

described as mortifying themselves by bodily austerities (_tapas_), so

as not to be outdone by men; for according to the theory of Hindūism,

the gods themselves might be supplanted and even ousted from their rank

and position as divinities by the omnipotence acquirable by human

devotees through a protracted endurance of severe bodily suffering.

Hence we are not surprised to find it recorded of Gautama Buddha, that

seeking in vain for rest in the teaching of Brāhmanical philosophy, and

eager to try the effect of a course of self-mortification, he wandered

forth from Rāja-gṛiha to a wood in the district of Gayā, called Uruvilvā

(or Uruvelā).

There, in company with five other ascetics, he began his celebrated

sexennial fast. Sitting down with his legs folded under him on a raised

seat in a place unsheltered from sun, wind, rain, dew, and cold, he

gradually reduced his daily allowance of food to a single grain of rice.

Then holding his breath, he harassed and macerated his body, but all in

vain. No peace of mind came, and no divine enlightenment. He became

convinced of his own folly in resorting to bodily austerity as a means

of attaining supreme enlightenment, and delivering himself from the

evils and sufferings of life.

Rousing himself, as if from a troubled dream, he took food and

nourishment in a natural way, thereby incurring the temporary

disapproval of his five companions in self-mortification. Then, when

sufficiently refreshed, he moved away to another spot in the same

district. There, under the shelter of a sacred fig-tree (Aṡvattha,

_Ficus religiosa_, known as the Pippala or Pīpal), in a village,

afterwards called Buddha-Gayā, he gave himself up to higher and higher

forms of meditation (Jhāna = Dhyāna). In this he merely conformed to the

Hindū Yoga,—a method of attaining mystic union with the Deity, which

although not then formulated into a system, was already in vogue among

the Brāhmans. There can be little doubt that the Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna (see p.

209), and Samādhi of the Yoga were resorted to, even in Gautama’s time,

as a means for the attainment of perfect spiritual illumination, as well

as of final absorption in the Deity.

In Manu VI. 72 it is said:—‘Let him purge himself from all taints

(doshān) by suppression of breath, from sin by restraints of thought

(dhāraṇābhiḥ), from sensual attachments by control, and from unspiritual

qualities by meditation (dhyānena).’

In the later work called Bhagavad-gītā (see p. 95 of this volume) it is

declared:—‘holding his body, head, and neck quite immovable, seated on a

firm seat in a pure spot with Kuṡa grass around, the devotee (Yogī)

should look only at the tip of his nose, and should meditate on the

Supreme Being’ (VI. 11, 12). Further on he is directed to meditate so

profoundly as to think about nothing whatever (VI. 25).

The very Gāyatrī or ancient Vedic prayer (Ṛig-veda III. 62. 10, see p.

78 of this volume)—which is to Hindūs what the Lord’s Prayer is to

Christians, and is still repeated by millions of our Indian

fellow-subjects at their daily devotions—was originally an act of

meditation, performed with the very object Gautama had in view—supreme

enlightenment of mind:—‘Let us meditate (Dhīmahi, root _dhyai_) on the

excellent glory of the divine vivifying Sun, may he enlighten our

understandings.’ Even the selection of a seat under an Aṡvattha tree was

in keeping with Brāhmanical ideas (see ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p.

335).

The first result, however, of his engaging in abstract meditation, was

that he seemed to himself to be as far as ever from the emancipation

which was the one aim of his great renunciation. Why not then return to

the world? Why not indulge again in the pleasures of sense? Why not go

back to home, wife, and child? Thoughts of this kind passed through his

mind, while all his old affections and feelings seemed to revive with

tenfold intensity. Then on one particular night, during this mental

struggle, Māra, the Destroyer and personification of carnal desire,

seized his opportunity. The spirit of evil had bided his time; had

waited to assail the sage at the right moment, when protracted

self-mortification had done its work—when with exhausted strength he had

little power of resistance.

It is certainly remarkable that a great struggle between good and evil,

right and wrong, truth and error, knowledge and ignorance, light and

darkness, is recognized in all religious systems, however false. (See a

notable allusion to this in Ṡaṅkara’s Commentary to Ćhāndogya Upanishad,

p. 26, ll. 2-8.)

The legendary description of the Buddha’s temptation, and of the assault

made upon him by Māra (the deadly spirit of sensuous desire[13]), and by

all his troop of attendants, is so interesting and curious,

notwithstanding its extravagance, that I here abridge it:—

Fiends and demons swarmed about him in the form of awful monsters,

furies, vampires, hobgoblins, armed to the teeth with every implement of

destruction. Their million faces were frightful to behold, their limbs

encircled by myriads of serpents, their heads enveloped in a blaze of

fire. They surrounded the saint and assailed him in a thousand different

ways. Missiles of all kinds were hurled against him; poison and fire

were showered over him—but the poison changed into flowers, the fire

formed a halo round his head.

The baffled evil one now shifted his ground. He summoned his sixteen

enchanting daughters, and sent them to display their charms in the

presence of the youthful saint. But the resolute young ascetic was not

to be lured by their wiles. He remained calm and impassive, and with a

stern face rebuked the maidens for their boldness, forcing them to

retire discomfited and disgraced.

Other forms of temptation followed, and the debilitated ascetic’s

strength seemed to be giving way. But this was merely the crisis. After

rising to higher and higher stages of abstract meditation at the end of

a long night he shook off his foe. The victory was won, and the light of

true knowledge broke upon his mind. A legend relates that in the first

night-watch he gained a knowledge of all his previous existences; in the

second—of all present states of being; in the third—of the chain of

causes and effects (p. 102); and at the dawn of day he knew all things.

The dawn on which this remarkable struggle terminated was the birthday

of Buddhism. Gautama was at that time about thirty-five years of age. It

was then, and not till then, that his Bodhi-sattvaship (see p. 135)

ended and he gained a right to the title Buddha, ‘the Enlightened.’ No

wonder that the tree under which he sat became celebrated as ‘the tree

of knowledge and enlightenment.’ It is remarkable, too, that just as the

night on which the Buddha attained perfect enlightenment is the most

sacred night with Buddhists, so the Bodhi-tree (in familiar language,

Bo-tree) is their most sacred symbol—a symbol as dear to Buddhists as

the Cross is to Christians.

And what was this true knowledge, evolved out of a mind sublimated by

intense meditation?

This is, perhaps, the strangest point of all in this strange story. It

was after all a mere partial one-sided truth—the outcome of a single

line of thought, dwelt upon with morbid intensity, to the exclusion of

every other line of thought which might have modified and balanced it.

It was an ultra-pessimistic view of the miseries of life, and a

determination to ignore all its counterbalancing joys. It was the

doctrine that this present life is only one link in a chain of countless

transmigrations—that existence of all kinds involves suffering, and that

such suffering can only be got rid of by self-restraint and the

extinction of desires, especially of the desire for continuity of

personal existence.

For let it be made clear at the outset, that whatever may be said of the

Christian-like self-renunciation enjoined by the Buddhist code of

morality, the only self it aims at renouncing is the self of

personality, and the chief self-love it deprecates is the self-love

which consists in craving for continuous individual life.

To those who have never travelled or resided much in the East,

indulgence in such a morbid form of pessimism, under glowing skies and

amid bright surroundings, may seem almost an impossibility. But those

who know India by personal experience are aware that its climate is not

conducive to optimistic views of life, and that even in the present day

men of the Buddha type, who seek in various ways to impress their

pessimistic theories of existence on their fellow-men, are not uncommon.

In the course of my travels I frequently met ascetics who had given up

family and friends, and were leading a life of morose seclusion, and

pretended meditation, undergoing long courses of bodily mortification.

Nay, I have even seen men who, to prove their utter contempt for the

pleasures of worldly existence, and to render themselves fit for the

extinction of all personality by absorption into the Universal Soul,

have sat in one posture, or held up one arm for years, or allowed

themselves no bed but a bed of spikes, no shelter but the foliage of

trees[14]. Gautama’s course of protracted cogitation therefore had in it

nothing peculiar or original.

Nor need we doubt that certain historical facts underlie the legendary

narrative. We cannot admit with the learned Senart and Kern that the

life of Gautama was based on a mere solar myth. To us it is more

difficult not to believe than to believe that there lived in the fifth

century B.C. the youthful son of a petty Rāja or land-owner in Oudh,

distinguished from ordinary men by many remarkable qualities of mind and

body—notably by a thoughtful and contemplative disposition; that he

became impressed with a sense of the vanity of all earthly aims, and of

the suffering caused by disease and death; that he often said to

himself, ‘Life is but a troubled dream, an incubus, a nightmare,’ or,

like the Jewish sage of old, ‘All the days of man are sorrow,’ ‘Man

walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain;’ and that like

many other of the world’s philosophers, instead of acquiescing in the

state of things around him, and striving to make the best of them, or to

improve them, he took refuge from the troubles of life in abandoning all

its ties, renouncing all its joys, and suppressing all its affections

and desires.

And again, it is more difficult not to believe than to believe that in

such a man introspection and abstinence, protracted for many years,

induced a condition of mind favourable to ecstatic visions, which were

easily mistaken for flashes of inner enlightenment.

We know, indeed, that eleven centuries later another great thinker arose

among the Semitic races in Western Asia, who went through the same kind

of mental struggle, and that Muhammad, like Gautama, having by his long

fasts and austerities brought himself into a highly wrought condition of

the nervous system, became a fanatical believer in the reality of his

own delusions and in his own divine commission as a teacher.

But the parallel between the Buddha and Muhammad cannot be carried on

much further. And indeed, in point of fact, no two characters could be

more different. For the Buddha never claimed to be the channel of a

supernatural revelation; never represented the knowledge that burst on

his mind as springing from any but an internal source; never taught that

a divine force operating from without compelled him to communicate that

knowledge to mankind; never dreamed of propagating that knowledge to

others by compulsion, much less by the sword. On the contrary, he always

maintained that the only revelation he had received was an illumination

from within—due entirety to his own intuitions, assisted by his

reasoning powers and by severe purgatorial discipline protracted through

countless previous births in every variety of bodily form.

But how did this internal self-enlightenment[15]—the great

distinguishing feature of Buddhism—first find expression? It is said

that the first words uttered by the Buddha at the momentous crisis when

true knowledge burst upon him, were to the following effect:—

‘Through countless births have I wandered, seeking but not discovering

(anibbisan) the maker of this my mortal dwelling-house (gaha-kāraka),

and still again and again have birth and life and pain returned. But now

at length art thou discovered, thou builder of this house (of flesh). No

longer shalt thou rear a house for me. Rafters and beams are shattered

and with destruction of Desire (Taṉhā) deliverance from repeated life is

gained at last’ (Dhamma-pada 153, 154, Sumaṅgala 46).

Contrast with these first utterances of Gautama Buddha the first words

of Jesus Christ:—

‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?’ (St. Luke ii.

49.)

The Buddha’s first exclamations, as well as the account of his

subsequent sayings and doings, are the more worthy of credit as taken

from the Southern Canon.

The Mahā-vagga (I. 1) tells us that after attaining complete

intelligence, the Buddha sat cross-legged on the ground under the

Bodhi-tree for seven days, absorbed in meditation and enjoying the bliss

of enlightenment. At the end of that period, during the first three

watches of the night, he fixed his mind on the causes of existence. Then

having thought out the law of causation (p. 102), he exclaimed: ‘When

the laws of being become manifest to the earnest thinker, his doubts

vanish, and, like the Sun, he dispels the hosts of Māra.’

Next he meditated for another seven days under a banyan tree, called the

tree of goat-herds (aja-pāla). It was there that a haughty Brāhman

accosted him with the question, ‘Who is a true Brāhman?’ and was told,

‘One free from evil and pride; self-restrained, learned, and pure.’

Then he meditated under another tree for a third period of seven days.

There the serpent (Nāga) Mućalinda (or Mućilinda) coiled his body round

the Buddha, and formed a canopy to protect him from the raging of a

storm—this being one of the trials he had to go through. When it was

over the Buddha exclaimed, ‘Happy is the seclusion of the satisfied man

(tushṭa) who has learned and seen the truth.’

A fourth period of meditation was passed under the tree Rājāyatana,

making four times seven days. May not these symbolize the four stages of

meditation (p. 209)? Later legends, however, reckon seven times seven

days.

During the whole of the interval between the first acquisition of

knowledge and the setting forth to proclaim it, the Buddha fasted, being

too elated to seek food, and only once receiving it from two merchants,

named Tapussa (Trapusha) and Bhallika. These became his first

lay-reverers (p. 89) by repeating the _double_ formula of reverence for

the Buddha and for his doctrine (the Saṅgha not being then instituted,

Mahā-v° I. 4. 5). A later legend relates that they received in return

eight of his hairs which they preserved as relics.

In connexion with the legend of a forty-nine days’ fast, I may mention

that an ancient carving of Gautama was pointed out to me at Buddha-Gayā,

which represents him as holding a bowl of rice-milk divided into

forty-nine portions, one for each day.

With these legends we may contrast the simple Gospel narrative of

Christ’s forty days’ fast in the wilderness.

The Buddha’s first resolution to come forth from his seclusion and

proclaim his gospel to mankind is of course a great epoch with all

Buddhists.

And here it should be observed, that, strictly, according to Gautama’s

own teaching he ought to have ceased from all action on arriving at

perfect enlightenment. For had he not attained the great object of his

ambition—the end of all his struggles—the goal of all his

efforts—carried on through hundreds of existences? He had, therefore, no

more lives to lead, no more misery to undergo. In short he had achieved

the summum bonum of all true Buddhists—the extinction of the fires of

passions and desires—and had only to enjoy the well-earned peace

(nirvṛiti) of complete Nirvāṇa. Yet the love of his fellow-men impelled

him to action (pravṛitti). In fact it was characteristic of a supreme

Buddha that he should belie, by his own activity and compassionate

feelings, the utter apathy and indifference to which his own doctrines

logically led (p. 128).

But he did not carry out his benevolent design without going through

another course of temptation (which it is usual to compare with the

temptation of Christ). Evil thoughts arose in his mind, and these were

suggested, according to later legends, by Māra (p. 33), thus:—‘With

great pains, blessed one, hast thou acquired this doctrine (dharma). Why

proclaim it? Beings lost in desires and lusts will not understand it.

Remain in quietude. Enjoy Nirvāṇa’ (Mahā-v° I. 5. 3).

To counteract these malevolent suggestions, the god Brahmā Sahāmpati

(Pāli Sahămpati, p. 210) presented himself and exclaimed:—‘Arise, O

spotless one, open the gate of Nirvāṇa. Arise, look down on the world

lost in suffering. Arise, wander forth, preach the doctrine.’

First the Buddha thought of his two teachers, Āḷāra and Uddaka (p. 29),

but found they were dead. Next he thought of the five ascetics whom he

had offended by his abandonment of the method of gaining true knowledge

through painful austerities. They were at that time prosecuting their

bodily mortifications at Benares in the Deer-park called Isipatana. It

was only natural that the Buddha should think of wending his way in the

first instance to Benares, even if special considerations had not drawn

him there; for that city was the great centre of Eastern thought and

life, the Indian Athens, where all peculiar doctrines were most likely

to gain a hearing.

On his way thither, Upaka, a member of the Ājīvaka sect of naked

ascetics, met him and inquired why his countenance was so bright

(pariṡuddha)? He replied, ‘I am the all-subduer, the all-wise, the

stainless, the highest teacher, the conqueror (p. 135); I go to Benares

to dissipate the world’s darkness’ (Mahā-vagga I. 6. 7).

The five ascetics (Kauṇḍinya = Koṇḍañño, Aṡvajit = Assaji, Vāshpa,

Mahānāma, and Bhadrika) were soon converted by his words, and by merely

repeating the triple formula were admitted at once to his Order of

monks. They constituted, with Gautama, the first six members of the

Saṅgha, or fraternity of men seeking release from the misery of

existence by cœnobitic monasticism.

And of what nature were Gautama Buddha’s first didactic utterances? His

first sermon, delivered in the Deer-park at Benares, is held in as much

reverence by Buddhists as the first words of Christ are by Christians.

It is called Dhamma-ćakka-ppavattana-sutta, or in Sanskṛit

Dharma-ćakra-pravartana-sūtra, ‘the discourse which set in motion the

wheel of the law,’ or ‘of the universal dominance of the true belief.’

The following is the substance of it, as given in the Mahā-vagga (I. 6.

17). It is important to note that the Buddha spoke in the vernacular of

Magadha (now called Pāli), and not to men generally, but to the first

five would-be members of his Order of monks:—

‘There are two extremes (antā), O monks (Bhikkhus), to be avoided by one

who has given up the world—a life devoted to sensual pleasures (kāma),

which is degrading, common, vulgar, ignoble, profitless; and a life

given to self-mortification (ātma-klamatha)—painful, ignoble,

profitless. There is a middle path, avoiding both extremes—the noble

eightfold path discovered by the Buddha (Tathāgata)—which leads to

insight, to wisdom, to quietude (upaṡama), to knowledge, to perfect

enlightenment (sambodhi), to final extinction of desire and suffering

(Nirvāṇa).’

So far there is nothing very explicit in the discourse. Doubtless such

precepts as ‘virtue is a mean’ and that ‘medio tutissimus ibis’ are

useful, though trite, truths; but the difficulty is to prove that the

Buddha’s eightfold path is really a middle course of the kind described;

for the most fanatical enthusiasts will always regard their own creed,

however extravagant, as moderate.

The Buddha, therefore, goes on to propound what he calls the four noble

truths (ariya-saććāni = ārya-satyāni), which are the key to his whole

doctrine. They may be stated thus:—

1. All existence—that is, existence in any form, whether on earth or in

heavenly spheres—necessarily involves pain and suffering (dukkha). 2.

All suffering is caused by lust (rāga) or craving or desire (taṉhā =

trishṇā, ‘thirst’) of three kinds—for sensual pleasure (kāma), for

wealth (vibhava), and for existence (bhava). 3. Cessation of suffering

is simultaneous with extinction of lust, craving, and desire (p. 139).

4. Extinction of lust, craving, and desire, and cessation of suffering

are accomplished by perseverance in the noble eightfold path (ariyo

aṭṭhangiko maggo), viz. right belief or views (sammā diṭṭhi), right

resolve (saṅkappo), right speech, right work (kammanto), right

livelihood (ājīvo), right exercise or training (vāyāmo = vyāyāma), right

mindfulness (sati, p. 50), right mental concentration (samādhi).