First, the simple Arhat (described above), who has attained perfection
through his own efforts and the doctrine and example of a supreme
Buddha, but is not himself such a Buddha, and cannot teach others how to
attain Arhatship, though he associates with others.
Secondly, and second in rank, but far above the simple Arhat, the
Pratyeka-Buddha or Solitary Saint, who has attained perfection for
himself and by himself alone, and not as a member of any monastic Order,
nor through the teaching of any supreme Buddha (except in some former
birth). This solitary hermit-like Arhat—a kind of concentration of
isolated or selfish sanctity—is symbolized by a rhinoceros. He does not
appear on earth at the same time with a supreme Buddha, and has not the
same epithets (p. 23) applied to him.
Thirdly, the supreme Buddha or Buddha _par excellence_ (once a
Bodhi-sattva), who, having by his own self-enlightening insight attained
perfect knowledge (sambodhi), and having, by the practice of the
transcendent virtues (p. 128) and through extinction of the passions and
of all desire for life, become entitled to that complete extinction of
bodily existence (pari-nirvāṇa), in which the perfection of all
Arhatship must end, has yet delayed this consummation that he may become
the Saviour of a suffering world—not in the same manner as the God-sent
Saviour of Christianity, but by teaching men how to save themselves.
This is the supreme Buddha, the founder of the whole monastic Order,
immeasurably superior both to Pratyeka-Buddhas and to all mere Arhats.
He said of himself (Mahā-vagga I. 6, 8),—‘I am the all-subduer
(sabbābhibhū); the all-wise; I have no stains; through myself I possess
knowledge; I have no rival (paṭipuggalo); I am the chief Arhat—the
highest teacher; I alone am the absolutely wise (Sambuddha); I am the
Conqueror (Jina); all the fires of desire are quenched (sītibhūto) in
me; I have Nirvāṇa (nibbuto).’ See p. 42 of this volume.
This seems a marvellous assumption on the part of one who never claimed
to be other than a man; yet he had taken the idea from Brāhmanism, which
held that its saints could surpass all gods (Brahmă only excepted).
Such supreme Buddhas, who are perfect knowers, and also perfect teachers
of the truth, are only manifested on the earth at long intervals of
time.
Gautama is the fourth Buddha of the present age (Bhadra-Kalpa). He was a
Kshatriya; his three mythical predecessors—Kraku-ććhanda, Kanaka-muni,
and Kāṡyapa—having been sons of Brāhmans. He is to be followed by the
fifth Buddha, Maitreya (a name meaning ‘full of love towards all
beings’), but not until the doctrine of Gautama has passed out of men’s
memory after five thousand years (p. 181). In their previous existences
Gautama and his predecessors were, (see pp. 98, 112,) Bodhi-sattvas[53],
‘beings who have knowledge (derived from intellect) for their essence,’
a name borne by all destined to become supreme Buddhas as well as by the
first of Gautama’s successors, Maitreya.
This coming Buddha is, as we shall see hereafter, an object of universal
reverence among later Buddhists of all sects as a kind of expected
Messiah or Saviour. Often, indeed, he is more honoured than Gautama
himself, because he is interested in the present order of things, as
well as in the future, while Gautama Buddha and all his predecessors
have passed away into non-being.
Twenty-four mythical Buddhas (the first being Dīpaṃkara, ‘Light-causer’)
are held to have appeared[54] before Gautama in preceding cycles of
time. Many particulars about them are given, including their
birth-places, the length of their lives and their statures. Gautama
himself is said to have met some of them during his transmigrations.
Even the trees under which they achieved supreme wisdom are enumerated.
Sometimes the last six of the twenty-four are reckoned with Gautama
Buddha as constituting seven principal Buddhas[55], who seem to have
been grouped together to correspond with the Brāhmanical seven Manus of
the present Kalpa. Usually, however, Gautama is held to be the last of
twenty-five Buddhas.
Clearly, then, the principal lines of Buddhist moral teaching all
converge to one focus—to the perfected Arhat or rather to a still
brighter point of light in the perfect Buddha waiting for his reward—the
nectar of the eternal state of complete Nirvāṇa.
And this compels us to attempt some explanation of Nirvāṇa. In the first
place forty-six synonyms of it are given in the Abhidhānappadīpikā, e.g.
Mokkha or Mutti, ‘deliverance,’ Nirodha, ‘cessation,’ Taṉhakkhaya
(tṛishṇā-kshaya), ‘destruction of lust,’ Arūpa, Khema, Kevala, Apavagga,
‘emancipation,’ Nibbuti (= nirvṛiti), ‘quietude,’ Amata (Amṛita),
‘deathless nectar.’
The following is from Rhys Davids’ Jātaka (p. 4): ‘One day the wise
Sumedhā fell a-thinking, thus:—“Grievous is re-birth in a new existence,
and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are
re-born. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death. It is
right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless
Nirvāṇa, which is tranquil, and free from birth, decay, sickness, grief,
and joy.
‘“For as in this world there is pleasure—the opposite of pain—so where
there is existence there must be its opposite, the cessation of
existence; and as where there is heat there is also cold which
neutralizes it, so there must be a Nirvāṇa that extinguishes (the fires
of) lust and the other passions; and as in opposition to a bad and evil
condition there is a good and blameless one, so where there is evil
Birth there must also be Nirvāṇa, called the Birthless, because it puts
an end to all re-birth.
‘“Just as a man who has fallen into a heap of filth, if he beholds afar
off a great pond covered with lotuses of five colours, ought to seek
that pond, saying, ‘By what way shall I arrive there?’ but if he does
not seek it, the fault is not that of the pond; even so where there is
the lake of the great deathless Nirvāṇa.”’
What, then, is the proper definition of Nirvāṇa (Pāli Nibbāna)? In
venturing on an explanation of so controverted a term, I feel rather
like a foolhardy person walking barefoot over thorny ground.
Nevertheless I may fearlessly assert two things about it.
The first is, that the term Nirvāṇa was not originated by Gautama. It
was an expression common to both Brāhmanism and Buddhism, and most of
its synonyms such as moksha, apavarga, and nirvṛiti are still common to
both. It was current in Gautama’s time, and certainly occurs in the
Mahā-bhārata, parts of which are of great antiquity.
In the celebrated episode of that poem called Bhagavad-gītā[56], V. 24,
we find the following:—
‘That Yogī who is internally happy, internally satisfied and internally
illumined, attains extinction in the Supreme Being, and becomes that
Being’ (Yo ’ntaḥsukho ‘ntarārāmas tathāntarjyotir eva yaḥ, | Sa Yogī
Brahma-nirvāṇaṃ[57] Brahma-bhūto ’dhigaććhati).
The second point is that it would be about as unreasonable to expect
that Nirvāṇa should always be explained in one way as to restrict
Brāhmanism and Buddhism—two most elastic, comprehensive, and Protean
systems, which have constantly changed their front to suit changing
circumstances and varying national peculiarities at different epochs and
in different countries—to one hard and fast outline.
It is certainly singular that although the term Nibbāna (Sanskṛit
Nirvāṇa)—like some of the crucial theological terms of Christianity—has
led to endless discussions, it does not occur often in the Pāli texts.
The word Arahattam, ‘Arhatship,’ is more common.
Nirvāṇa, of course, originally means ‘the state of a blown-out flame.’
Hence its first meaning is properly restricted to the complete
extinction of the three chief fires[58] of lust, ill-will, and delusion,
and a total cessation of all evil passions and desires[59], especially
of the desire for individual existence (name and form).
Following on this is the state of release from all pain and from all
ignorance, accompanied by a sense of profound rest—a state achieved by
all Arhats while still living in the world[60], and notably by the
Buddha at the moment when he attained Buddhahood, forty-five years
before his final Pari-nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa then is not necessarily the
annihilation of all existence. It is the absence of kleṡa (p. 124), as
in the Yoga system, and corresponds very much to the Brāhmanical
Apavarga, described in the Nyāya, and defined by a commentator,
Vātsyāyana, to be Sarva-duḥkha-ćheda (‘the cutting off of all pain’). In
short, it is Arhatship.
But besides Nirvāṇa we have the expression Pari-nirvāṇa. This is not
merely the blowing out of the fires of the passions but also the entire
cessation of re-births, with extinction of all the elements or seeds of
bodily existence. This took place when the Buddha died or ‘passed away’
after innumerable previous deaths. Practically, however, in Buddhism the
death of every ordinary being amounts to this kind of Nirvāṇa; for, if
there is no recollection of any former state of existence in the new
being created by Karma, what is every death but utter personal
extinction?
Now with regard to the Nirvāṇa of Arhatship, no one can have come in
contact with the natives of India in their own country, without
observing that for a genuine aristocratic Brāhman to allow others to see
him give way to any passion, to exhibit any emotion or enthusiasm, is
regarded as a proof of weakness.
We can easily understand, therefore, that when the Buddha exhorted his
followers to strive after a wholly impassive condition, he addressed a
sympathetic audience.
Long before his exhortations were heard in India, his fellow-countrymen
held persons in the highest respect who claimed to have entirely
suppressed their passions. The only peculiarity in Gautama’s teaching
was that he made this object incumbent on all true Buddhists alike,
without exception. And this state of absolute imperturbability is well
indicated to the eye by the usual attitude of the images which, after
Gautama’s death, were carved to represent him—an attitude of passionless
composure, and dignified calm.
In the interesting Pāli work Milinda-praṡna (Milinda-pañho), containing
a conversation on the subject of Nirvāṇa between King Milinda (Menander)
and the monk Nāgasena (supposed to have lived about 140 B.C.), the
latter compares it to the pure water which quenches fire, and to the
fathomless Ocean freed from trouble and impurities, which no river,
however vast, can fill to overflowing; and to the Air, which cannot be
seen or explained, though it enters our bodies and fills us with life;
and to Space, which is eternal and infinite, and beyond the power of man
to conceive.
I trust I shall not shock my Indian friends if I illustrate this
condition by a comparison of my own drawn from the animal creation. In
crossing the Indian Ocean, when unruffled by the slightest breeze, I
have sometimes observed a jelly-fish floating on the surface of the
transparent water, apparently lifeless. The creature is evidently
neither asleep nor awake. It certainly is not thinking about anything,
and its consciousness is doubtful. All that can be affirmed about it is
that it seems to be drinking in the warm fluid in a state of lazy
blissful repose.
No Buddhist, at least, could look at such a sight without being reminded
of this idea of Nirvāṇa—the idea of, so to speak, floating in perfect
repose and peace and cessation from all pain, and all work, and even all
thought, on a kind of ocean of half conscious, half unconscious
beatitude. It is not consciousness, neither is it unconsciousness. It is
symbolized by a full-blown, perfectly formed lotus—a frequent emblem of
perfection—reposing on a calm mirror-like lake.
With regard to Pari-nirvāṇa[61]—the complete termination of migrations
and passing away of all the elements of bodily existence—if this is to
be distinguished from the Brāhmanical idea of absorption into an
impersonal spirit—whereby the Ego of personal identity is destroyed—it
is a distinction without much difference.
Strictly, however, in Buddhism the dissolution of the body leaves no
surviving personality or individuality, and consequently Pari-nirvāṇa is
not properly described either as absorption into a void (ṡūnya) or as
annihilation. It is simply the absolute termination of a series of
conscious bodily organizations. The Buddha himself evaded dogmatic
definitions, and would probably have said:—it is not life, neither is it
non-life; it may be compared to infinite space (ṡūnya) which is not to
be comprehended or explained.
We should also bear in mind that although Nirvāṇa and Pari-nirvāṇa
constitute the ultimate goal to which all the morality of a true
Buddhist tends, they have no place either in the aims or thoughts of the
ordinary adherents of Buddhism at the present day.
The apex of all the desires, the culminating point of all the ambition
of the most religiously-minded Buddhists of modern times, points to a
life in one of the heavens, while the great mass of the people aim only
at escaping one of the hells, and elevating themselves to a higher
condition of bodily existence in their next birth on this earth, and
perhaps on that very part of this earth which is the scene of their
present toils, joys, and sorrows.
It only remains for me to caution those who may be impressed with the
beauty of some of the precepts of the moral code and its theory of
perfection, as ending in Pari-nirvāṇa, against deducing therefrom too
optimistic an estimate of the Buddhist system. Buddhist morality is like
a showy edifice built on the sand. It is a thoroughly fair-weather
structure, incapable of standing against flood, storm, and tempest.
It may be summed up in a few words as a scheme for the establishing of a
paradox—for the perfecting of one’s self by accumulating merit with the
ultimate view of annihilating all consciousness of self—a system which
teaches the greatest respect for the life of others, with the ultimate
view of extinguishing one’s own.
It must, in short, be clearly understood that if any comparison be
instituted between Buddhism and Christianity in regard to the
self-abnegation, or self-sacrifice which each claims to inculcate, the
self to be got rid of in Buddhism is not the selfishness condemned by
Christianity, but rather the self of individuality—the self of
individual life, and personal identity.
To be righteous in a Christian sense a man must be God-like, and to be
righteous in a Buddhistic sense a man must be Buddha-like; but the
righteousness of the Buddhist is not the perfection of holiness by the
extinction of sin committed against God, but the perfection of
merit-making, with the view of earning happiness for himself in a higher
state hereafter.
For every Buddhist is like a trader who keeps a ledger, with a regular
debtor and creditor account, and a daily entry of profit and loss.
He must not take, make, or hoard money. He is forbidden to store up a
money-balance in a worldly bank, but he is urged to be constantly
accumulating a merit-balance in the bank of Karma.
In conclusion, let the Buddha enforce his own moral teaching in his own
way, by allegory and illustration drawn from real life:—When asked by a
Brāhman ‘why he did not plough and sow and earn his own bread?’ he
replied to the following effect: ‘I do plough and sow and eat immortal
fruit (Amata = Amṛita); my plough is wisdom (paṇṇā); my shaft is
modesty; my draught-ox, exertion; my goad, earnest meditation (sati); my
mind, the rein. Faith (saddhā) in the doctrine is the seed I sow;
cleaving to life is the weed I root up; truth is the destroyer of the
weed; Nirvāṇa and deliverance from misery are my harvest.’
(Kasi-bhāradvāja-sutta of the Sutta-nipāta.)
This may be compared with St. Luke viii. 11-15; but have we not here a
contrast rather than a comparison?
Perhaps some may think that the contrast is not unfavourable to
Buddhism. Nay, possibly some may complain that I have not enlarged
sufficiently on the remarkable resemblance between certain moral
precepts in the Buddhist code and in the Christian. I admit this
resemblance—I admit that both tell us:—not to love the world; not to
love money; not to show enmity towards our enemies; not to do
unrighteous or impure acts—to overcome evil by good, and to do to others
as we would be done by.
Nay, I admit even more:—I allow that some Buddhist precepts go beyond
the corresponding Christian injunctions. For Buddhism prohibits all
killing—even of animals and noxious insects. It demands total abstinence
from stimulating drinks—disallowing even moderation in their use. It
excludes all who aim at perfect sanctity from the holy estate of
matrimony. It bids a man, if he strives after perfection, abandon the
world and lead a life of monkhood. In fine, its morality is essentially
a monkhood-morality. It enjoins total abstinence, because it dares not
trust human beings to be temperate. How indeed could it trust them when
it promises them no help, no divine grace, no restraining power?
The glory of Christianity is that having freely given that grace and
that power to man, it trusts him to make use of the gift. It seems to
speak to him thus:—Thy Creator wills to trust thee and to be trusted by
thee; He has endowed thee with freedom of choice, and therefore respects
thy liberty of action. He imposes no rule of total abstinence in regard
to natural desires; He simply bids thee keep them within bounds, so that
thy moderation may be known unto all men; He places thee in the world
amid trials and temptations and says to thee, ‘My grace is sufficient
for thee’ and by its aid thou mayest overcome them all.
Yes, the grand difference between the morality of Buddhism and the
morality of Christianity is not in the letter of the precepts, but in
the principle and motive power brought to bear on their application.
Buddhism says:—Be righteous by yourselves, and through yourselves, and
for the getting rid of all life in yourselves. Christianity says:—Be
righteous through the power of God’s gift of eternal life in His Son. In
a word, Buddhism founds its morality on self. Christianity founds its
morality on Christ.
The Buddha said to his followers:—Take nothing from me, trust to no one
but to yourselves.
Christ said, and says to us still:—Take all from me; take this free
gift. Put on this spotless robe. Eat this Bread of Life. Drink this
Living Water.
Think you that any one who receives a priceless gift, is likely
willingly to insult the Giver of it? Think you that any one who accepts
a snow-white robe is likely willingly to soil it by impure acts? Think
you that any one who tastes life-giving Bread is likely to relish husks?
or that any one who draws deep draughts at a living Well is likely to
prefer the polluted water of a stagnant pool?
Beware, then, of judging by the mere letter; or, should you insist on so
judging, bear in mind that everywhere the Buddha’s Law is a dead letter,
because the Buddha is dead; just as the Sermon on the Mount would be a
dead letter, if Christ were dead.