If you insist on placing its moral code on the same level with that of
Christianity, ask yourselves one plain question—Who would be the more
likely to lead a godly, righteous, and sober life, a life of moderation
and temperance, a life of holiness and happiness—the man who has learnt
his morality from the dead, the extinct Buddha, or the man who draws his
morality and his holiness from the living, the eternal, the life-giving
Christ?
LECTURE VII.
_Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India._
In the preceding Lectures I have confined myself chiefly to the
consideration of what may be called _true Buddhism_ as taught by its
Founder and developed by his immediate followers and disciples during
the first two or three centuries of its existence in the land of its
birth, India.
To attempt an explanation of all the subsequent phases of Buddhism
would, as I have before stated, require the command of unlimited time.
All I can hope to accomplish in the concluding Lectures is to give a
very general idea of the nature of the changes Buddhism underwent before
it died out in India, and of its corruptions in some of the countries
bordering on India and in North-eastern Asia.
And I may add that those who desire correct views on this subject, ought
not to trust to mere inferences and theories founded on a critical
perusal of the so-called Sacred Books of the Buddhists. For it is
certain that without any practical experience of what Buddhism has
become in modern times—I mean such an experience as can only be gained
by residing or travelling in countries where Buddhism now prevails—the
mere study of its ancient scriptures is likely to be misleading.
At the same time book-knowledge is indispensable, and it is essential to
bring to the study of later Buddhism a scholarlike acquaintance with
Sanskṛit and Pāli. Even a knowledge of Tibetan ought to be added. Nor
ought the inquirer to be ignorant of the science of comparative
religion, seeing that the principles of that science may throw light on
many difficult questions.
For example, a student of comparative religion will be prepared to
expect that all religious systems will diverge more or less from their
original type in the hands of enthusiastic disciples, who are ever
inclined to amplify their master’s teaching and to explain it
differently according to each man’s peculiar temperament and mental
bias, until in the end the original deposit of simple doctrine becomes
overlaid with layer upon layer of adventitious matter.
Nor will he be surprised to find that the tendency of every religious
movement is towards deterioration and disintegration. Nor will it appear
strange to him that the chief conservative force is antagonism. As time
goes on disagreements among the followers of any great leader seem to be
inevitable, and always lead to sectarian divisions and subdivisions. Yet
it is this opposition of religious parties that usually operates to
mitigate the worst extremes of corruption, and tends to bring about
re-forming movements.
Even the progress of Christianity—as history shows too well—furnishes
illustrations of the law of deterioration, disintegration, and
re-formation. At all events, it is certain that no study of the New
Testament is likely to give a true idea of the varying condition of the
Christian religion as exhibited at the present day in different parts of
the world.
But here it is important to caution the student of religions against
forcing a comparison between two systems of doctrine like Christianity
and Buddhism, which are radically and essentially opposed to each other.
The unchristianlike incrustations and divisions which have marred the
original teaching of the Head of our religion exist _in spite_ of
Christianity. They are not the result of any development of its first
principles; whereas, on the contrary, the corruptions and schisms of
Buddhism are the natural and inevitable outcome of its own root-ideas
and fundamental doctrines.
In proof of this let us revert for a moment to the insight we have
gained into the origin of Buddhism.
It will be seen that the most remarkable feature of the Buddha’s
teaching, so far as it has been stated in the preceding Lectures, was
that he altogether ignored the existence in human nature of any
spiritual aspirations, affections, or instincts higher than or distinct
from the natural aspirations, affections, and instincts of humanity; and
of any force outside of human nature capable of aiding a man’s own
efforts in his struggle for salvation. Not that he reviled, or poured
contempt on the religion prevalent among his fellow-countrymen, but that
he found no place in his system for an external Ruler and Controller of
the Universe, and would have stultified his own teaching had he
acknowledged a Supreme Creator, guiding and upholding all things by His
will, and always at hand to co-operate with His creatures and listen to
their supplications.
If it were possible, in short, to condense into a categorical statement
the scattered utterances of a man whose teaching was rarely dogmatic, we
might affirm that it was to the effect that for any man to depend on a
Being higher than himself, or to centre the noblest affections of his
nature on a merciful, just, and holy God, whose presence he yearned for,
whose aid he prayed for, and to whose image he longed to be
assimilated—was a mere delusion, though perhaps a harmless one. He
therefore set aside every supposed supernatural revelation as useless
and incapable of proof. He prescribed no prayer, he enjoined no form of
worship, he established no real church, and instead of a priesthood or
clergy, ordained to aid men in their progress heavenwards or to console
them in the trials of life, he founded an Order of Monks pledged to
denounce human life as not worth living, and bound to abstain from all
participation in human affairs.
It is true that he deserves commendation for having substituted moral
conduct for useless superstitious rites, but his moral code had no other
aim than the suppression of lusts and desires (p. 139, note 2), and his
peculiar stoical philosophy had no other object than the removal of the
ignorance which obstructed the path to true knowledge—the knowledge that
all life is fraught with pain and misery, and not worth perpetuating.
It is admitted, too, that its moral precepts were of a high order; but
it promised man no divine aid in observing them, it supplied him with no
motive power except the selfish hope of benefiting himself in future
states of corporeal existence, and it provided no remedy in case his
attempts to obey its injunctions ended in failure. How, indeed, could it
do any of these things when its only idea of sin was not the infraction
of God’s law, but the commission of an act fraught with evil
consequences to the doer?
Furthermore, it was guilty of the inconsistency of bidding a man cherish
a fellow-feeling for others and diligently engage in all good works,
while it made his true salvation depend on his giving up all love for
wife and children, and setting before himself, as his final goal, a
condition of absolute indifference and inactivity.
What, therefore, I am at present concerned to point out is that, if the
essential doctrines of primitive Buddhism were of the character thus
summarized, a rebound from one extreme to another became inevitable, and
that such a reaction was due to the very nature of the original teaching
of its Founder. In point of fact it was not a development that took
place, but a recoil—like the recoil of a spring held down for a time by
a powerful hand and then released. And this resulted from the simple
working of the eternal instincts of humanity, which insisted on making
themselves felt notwithstanding the unnatural restraint to which the
Buddha had subjected them; so that every doctrine he taught developed by
a kind of irony of fate into a complete contradiction of itself.