LIFE OF THE BUDDHA
1
We have hitherto been occupied with obscure and shadowy personalities.
The authors of the Upanishads are nameless and even MahâvÎra is unknown
outside India. But we now come to the career of one who must be ranked
among the greatest leaders of thought that the world has seen, the
Indian prince generally known as Gotama or the Buddha. His historical
character has been called in question, but at the present day probably
few, if any, competent judges doubt that he was a real person whose date
can be fixed and whose life can be sketched at least in outline.
We have seen that apart from the personality of Gotama, ancient India
was familiar with the idea of a Buddha and had even classified the
attributes he should possess. Two styles of biography are therefore
possible: an account of what Gotama actually was and did and an account
of what a Buddha is expected to be and do. This second style prevails in
later Buddhist works: they contain descriptions of the deeds and
teaching of a Buddha, adapted to such facts in Gotama's life as seemed
suitable for such treatment or could not be ignored. Rhys Davids has
well compared them to _Paradise Regained_, but the supernatural element
is, after the Indian fashion, more ornate.
The reader will perhaps ask what are the documents describing Gotama's
sayings and doings and what warrant we have for trusting them. I will
treat of this question in more detail in a later chapter and here will
merely say that the Pali works called Vinaya or monastic rules and
Suttas[294] or sermons recount the circumstances in which each rule was
laid down and each sermon preached. Some narrative passages, such as the
Sutta which relates the close of the Buddha's life and the portion of
the Vinaya which tells how he obtained enlightenment and made his first
converts, are of considerable length. Though these narratives are
compilations which accepted new matter during several centuries, I see
no reason to doubt that the oldest stratum contains the recollections of
those who had seen and heard the master.
In basing the following account on the Pali Canon, I do not mean to
discredit Sanskrit texts merely because they are written in that
language or to deny that many Pali texts contain miraculous and
unhistorical narratives[295]. But the principal Sanskrit Sûtras such as
the Lotus and the Diamond Cutter are purely doctrinal and those texts
which profess to contain historical matter, such as the Vinayas
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, are as yet hardly accessible to
European scholars. So far as they are known, they add incidents to the
career of the Buddha without altering its main lines, and when the
accounts of such incidents are not in themselves improbable they merit
consideration. On the whole these Sanskrit texts are later and more
embellished than their Pali counterparts, but it is necessary not to
forget the existence of this vast store-house of traditions, which may
contain many surprises[296].
Though the Pali texts do not give the story of the Buddha's life in a
connected form, they do give us details about many important events in
it and they offer a picture of the world in which he moved. The idea of
biography was unknown to the older Indian literature. The Brâhmaṇas and
Upanishads tell us of the beliefs and practices of their sages, the
doctrines they taught and the sacrifices they offered, but they rarely
give even an outline of their lives. And whenever the Hindus write about
a man of religion or a philosopher, their weak historical sense and
their strong feeling for the importance of the teaching lead them to
neglect the figure of the teacher and present a portrait which seems to
us dim and impersonal. Indian saints are distinguished by what they
said, not by what they did and it is a strong testimony to Gotama's
individuality and force of character, that in spite of the centuries
which separate us from him and the misty unreal atmosphere which in
later times hangs round his name, his personality is more distinct and
lifelike than that of many later teachers.
Most of the stories of his youth and childhood have a mythical air and
make their first appearance in works composed long after his death, but
there is no reason to distrust the traditional accounts of his lineage.
He was the son of Suddhodana of the Kshatriya clan known as Sâkya or
Sâkiya[297]. In later literature his father is usually described as a
king but this statement needs qualification. The Sâkyas were a small
aristocratic republic. At the time of the Buddha's birth they recognized
the suzerainty of the neighbouring kingdom of Kosala or Oudh and they
were subsequently annexed by it, but, so long as they were independent,
all that we know of their government leads us to suppose that they were
not a monarchy like Kosala and Magadha. The political and administrative
business of the clan was transacted by an assembly which met in a
council hall[298] at Kapilavatthu. Its president was styled Râjâ but we
do not know how he was selected nor for how long he held office. The
Buddha's father is sometimes spoken of as Râjâ, sometimes as if he were
a simple citizen. Some scholars think the position was temporary and
elective[299]. But in any case it seems clear that he was not a Mahârâjâ
like Ajâtasattu and other monarchs of the period. He was a prominent
member of a wealthy and aristocratic family rather than a despot. In
some passages[300] Brahmans are represented as discussing the Buddha's
claims to respect. It is said that he is of a noble and wealthy family
but not that he is the son of a king or heir to the throne, though the
statement, if true, would be so obvious and appropriate that its
omission is sufficient to disprove it. The point is of psychological
importance, for the later literature in its desire to emphasize the
sacrifice made by the Buddha exaggerates the splendour and luxury by
which he was surrounded in youth and produces the impression that his
temperament was something like that reflected in the book of
Ecclesiastes, the weary calm, bred of satiety and disenchantment, of one
who has possessed everything and found everything to be but vanity. But
this is not the dominant note of the Buddha's discourses as we have
them. He condemns the pleasures and ambitions of the world as
unsatisfying, but he stands before us as one who has resisted and
vanquished temptation rather than as a disillusioned pleasure-seeker.
The tone of these sermons accords perfectly with the supposition,
supported by whatever historical data we possess, that he belonged to a
fighting aristocracy, active in war and debate, wealthy according to the
standard of the times and yielding imperfect obedience to the authority
of kings and priests. The Pitakas allude several times to the pride of
the Sâkyas, and in spite of the gentleness and courtesy of the Buddha
this family trait is often apparent in his attitude, in the independence
of his views, his calm disregard of Brahmanic pretensions and the
authority that marks his utterances.
The territory of the Sâkyas lay about the frontier which now divides
Nepal from the United Provinces, between the upper Rapti and the Gandak
rivers, a hundred miles or so to the north of Benares. The capital was
called Kapilavatthu[301], and the mention of several other towns in the
oldest texts indicates that the country was populous. Its wealth was
derived chiefly from rice-fields and cattle. The uncultivated parts were
covered with forest and often infested by robbers. The spot where the
Buddha was born was known as the Lumbini Park and the site, or at least
what was supposed to be the site in Asoka's time, is marked by a pillar
erected by that monarch at a place now called Rummindei[302]. His mother
was named Mâyâ and was also of the Sâkya clan. Tradition states that she
died seven days after his birth and that he was brought up by her
sister, Mahâprajâpatî, who was also a wife of Suddhodana. The names of
other relatives are preserved, but otherwise the older documents tell us
nothing of his childhood and the copious legends of the later church
seem to be poetical embellishments. The Sutta-Nipâta contains the story
of an aged seer named Asita who came to see the child and, much like
Simeon, prophesied his future greatness but wept that he himself must
die before hearing the new gospel.
The personal name of the Buddha was Siddhârtha in Sanskrit or Siddhattha
in Pali, meaning he who has achieved his object, but it is rarely used.
Persons who are introduced in the Pitakas as addressing him directly
either employ a title or call him Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama). This was
the name of his _gotra_ or gens and roughly corresponds to a surname,
being less comprehensive than the clan name Sâkya. The name Gotama is
applied in the Pitakas to other Sâkyas such as the Buddha's father and
his cousin Ânanda. It is said to be still in use in India and has been
borne by many distinguished Hindus. But since it seemed somewhat
irreverent to speak of the Buddha merely by his surname, it became the
custom to describe him by titles. The most celebrated of these is the
word Buddha[303] itself, the awakened or wise one. But in Pali works he
is described just as frequently by the name of Bhagavâ or the Lord. The
titles of Śâkya-Muni and Śâkya-Siṃha have also passed into common use
and the former is his usual designation in the Sanskrit sûtras. The word
Tathâgata, of somewhat obscure signification[304], is frequently found
as an equivalent of Buddha and is put into the mouth of Gotama himself
as a substitute for the first personal pronoun.
We can only guess what was the religious and moral atmosphere in which
the child grew up. There were certainly Brahmans in the Sâkya territory:
everyone had heard of their Vedic lore, their ceremonies and their
claims to superiority. But it is probable that their influence was less
complete here than further west[305] and that even before this time they
encountered a good deal of scepticism and independent religious
sentiment. This may have been in part military impatience of priestly
pedantry, but if the Sâkyas were not submissive sheep, their waywardness
was not due to want of interest in religion. A frequent phrase in the
Buddha's discourses speaks of the "highest goal of the holy life for the
sake of which clansmen leave their homes and go forth into
homelessness." The religious mendicant seemed the proper incarnation of
this ideal to which Kshatriyas as well as Brahmans aspired, and we are
justified in supposing that the future Buddha's thoughts would naturally
turn towards the wandering life. The legend represents him as carefully
secluded from all disquieting sights and as learning the existence of
old age, sickness and death only by chance encounters which left a
profound impression. The older texts do not emphasize this view of his
mental development, though they do not preclude it. It is stated
incidentally that his parents regretted his abandonment of worldly life
and it is natural to suppose that they may have tried to turn his mind
to secular interests and pleasures[306]. His son, Râhula, is mentioned
several times in the Pitakas but his wife only once and then not by name
but as "the princess who was the mother of Râhula[307]." His separation
from her becomes in the later legend the theme of an affecting tale but
the scanty allusions to his family found in the Pitakas are devoid of
sentimental touches. A remarkable passage is preserved in the Anguttara
Nikâya[308] describing his feelings as a young man and may be the origin
of the story[309] about the four visions of old age, sickness, death and
of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort
in which he lived[310], he says that he reflected how people feel
repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But
is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free
from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should
feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight?
And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there
is in life died within me."
No connected account of his renunciation of the world has been found in
the Pitakas but[311] people are represented as saying that in spite of
his parents' grief he "went out from the household life into the
homeless state" while still a young man. Accepted tradition, confirmed
by the Mahâparinibbâna Sutta, says that he retired from worldly life
when he was twenty-nine years old. The event is also commemorated in a
poem of the Sutta-Nipâta[312] which reads like a very ancient ballad.
It relates how Bimbisâra, King of Magadha, looking out from his palace,
saw an unknown ascetic, and feeling he was no ordinary person went
himself to visit him. It would appear from this that Gotama on leaving
his family went down to the plains and visited Râjagaha, the capital of
Magadha, now Rajgîr to the south of Patna. The teachers of the Ganges
valley had probably a greater reputation for learning and sanctity than
the rough wits of the Sâkya land and this may have attracted Gotama. At
any rate he applied himself diligently to acquire what knowledge could
be learned from contemporary teachers of religion. We have an account
put into his own mouth[313] of his experiences as the pupil of Alâra
Kâlâma and Uddaka Râmaputta but it gives few details of his studies. It
would appear however that they both had a fixed system (dhamma) to
impart and that their students lived in religious discipline (vinaya) as
members of an Order. They were therefore doing exactly what the Buddha
himself did later on a larger scale and with more conspicuous success.
The instruction, we gather, was oral. Gotama assimilated it thoroughly
and rapidly but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not
conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation[314]. He evidently accepted
his teachers' general ideas about belief and conduct—a dhamma, a vinaya,
and the practice of meditation—but rejected the content of their
teaching as inadequate. So he went away.
The European mystic knows the dangers of Quietism[315]. When Molinos and
other quietists praise the Interior Silence in which the soul neither
speaks nor desires nor thinks, they suggest that the suspension of all
mental activity is good in itself. But more robust seekers hold that
this "orison of quiet" is merely a state of preparation, not the end of
the quest, and valuable merely because the soul recuperates therein and
is ready for further action. Some doctrine akin to that of the quietists
seems to underlie the mysterious old phrases in which the Buddha's two
teachers tried to explain their trances, and he left them for much the
same reasons as led the Church to condemn Quietism. He did not say that
the trances are bad; indeed he represented them as productive of
happiness[316] in a sense which Europeans can hardly follow. But he
clearly refused to admit that they were the proper end of the religious
life. He felt there was something better and he set out to find it.
The interval between his abandonment of the world and his enlightenment
is traditionally estimated at seven years and this accords with our
other data. But we are not told how long he remained with his two
teachers nor where they lived. He says however that after leaving them
he wandered up and down the land of Magadha, so that their residence was
probably in or near that district[317]. He settled at a place called
Uruvelâ. "There" he says "I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant
spot and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river and pleasant are the
bathing places: all around are meadows and villages." Here he determined
to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. The place is in
the neighbourhood of Bodh-Gaya, near the river now called Phalgu or
Lilañja but formerly Nerañjara. The fertile fields and gardens, the
flights of steps and temples are modern additions but the trees and the
river still give the sense of repose and inspiration which Gotama felt,
an influence alike calming to the senses and stimulating to the mind.
Buddhism, though in theory setting no value on the pleasures of the eye,
is not in practice disdainful of beauty, as witness the many allusions
to the Buddha's personal appearance, the persistent love of art, and the
equally persistent love of nature which is found in such early poems as
the Theragâthâ and still inspires those who select the sites of
monasteries throughout the Buddhist world from Burma to Japan. The
example of the Buddha, if we may believe the story, shows that he felt
the importance of scenery and climate in the struggle before him and his
followers still hold that a holy life is led most easily in beautiful
and peaceful landscapes.
2
Hitherto we have found allusions to the events of the Buddha's life
rather than consecutive statements and narratives but for the next
period, comprising his struggle for enlightenment, its attainment and
the commencement of his career as a teacher, we have several accounts,
both discourses put into his own mouth and narratives in the third
person like the beginning of the Mahâvagga. It evidently was felt that
this was the most interesting and critical period of his life and for
it, as for the period immediately preceding his death, the Pitakas
provide the elements of a biography. The accounts vary as to the amount
of detail and supernatural events which they contain, but though the
simplest is perhaps the oldest, it does not follow that events
consistent with it but only found in other versions are untrue. One
cannot argue that anyone recounting his spiritual experiences is bound
to give a biographically complete picture. He may recount only what is
relevant to the purpose of his discourse.
Gotama's ascetic life at Uruvelâ is known as the wrestling or struggle
for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but
is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration[318]. Fire, he
thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but
it can from dry wood. Even so must the body be purged of its humours to
make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began a
series of terrible fasts and sat "with set teeth and tongue pressed
against the palate" until in this spiritual wrestling the sweat poured
down from his arm pits. Then he applied himself to meditation
accompanied by complete cessation of breathing, and, as he persevered
and went from stage to stage of this painful exercise, he heard the
blood rushing in his head and felt as if his skull was being split, as
if his belly were being cut open with a butcher's knife, and finally as
if he were thrown into a pit of burning coals. Elsewhere[319] he gives
further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself.
He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on
seeds and grass, and for one period literally on dung. He wore haircloth
or other irritating clothes: he plucked out his hair and beard: he stood
continuously: he lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate
till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented a cemetery—that is
a place where corpses were thrown to decay or be eaten by birds and
beasts—and lay among the rotting bodies.
But no enlightenment, no glimpse into the riddle of the world came of
all this, so, although he was nearly at death's door, he determined to
abstain from food altogether. But spirits appeared and dissuaded him,
saying that if he attempted thus to kill himself they would nourish him
by infusing a celestial elixir through his skin and he reflected that he
might as well take a little food[320]. So he took a palmful or two of
bean soup. He was worn almost to a shadow, he says. "When I touched my
belly, I felt my backbone through it and when I touched my back, I felt
my belly—so near had my back and my belly come together through this
fasting. And when I rubbed my limbs to refresh them the hair fell
off[321]." Then he reflected that he had reached the limit of
self-mortification and yet attained no enlightenment. There must be
another way to knowledge. And he remembered how once in his youth he had
sat in the shade of a rose apple tree and entered into the stage of
contemplation known as the first rapture. That, he now thought, must be
the way to enlightenment: why be afraid of such bliss? But to attain it,
he must have more strength and to get strength he must eat. So he ate
some rice porridge. There were five monks living near him, hoping that
when he found the Truth he would tell it to them. But when they saw that
he had begun to take food, their faith failed and they went away.
The Buddha then relates how, having taken food, he began to meditate and
passed through four stages of contemplation, culminating in pure
self-possession and equanimity, free alike from all feeling of pain or
ease. Such meditation was nothing miraculous but supposed to be within
the power of any trained ascetic. Then there arose before him a vision
of his previous births, the hundreds of thousands of existences with all
their details of name, family and caste through which he had passed.
This was succeeded by a second and wider vision in which he saw the
whole universe as a system of karma and reincarnation, composed of
beings noble or mean, happy or unhappy, continually "passing away
according to their deeds," leaving one form of existence and taking
shape in another. Finally, he understood the nature of error[322] and of
suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path that leads to the
cessation of suffering. "In me thus set free the knowledge of freedom
arose and I knew 'Rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been
led; what had to be done has been done, I have no more to do with this
world[323].' This third knowledge came to me in the last watch of the
night: ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen, darkness was
destroyed, light had arisen, as I sat there earnest, strenuous,
resolute[324]."
On attaining enlightenment he at first despaired of preaching the truth
to others. He reflected that his doctrine was abstruse and that mankind
are given over to their desires. How can such men understand the chain
of cause and effect or teaching about Nirvana and the annihilation of
desire? So he determined to remain quiet and not to preach. Then the
deity Brahmâ Sahampati appeared before him and besought him to preach
the Truth, pleading that some men could understand. The Buddha surveyed
the world with his mind's eye and saw the different natures of mankind.
"As in a pool of lotuses, blue, red or white, some lotuses born in the
water, grown up in the water, do not rise above the water but thrive
hidden under the water and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in
the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface: and other
lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water,
stand up out of the water and the water does not touch them." Thus did
he perceive the world to be and he said to Brahmâ "The doors of
immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear, show faith."
Then he began to wonder to whom he should first preach his doctrine, and
he thought of his former teachers. But a spirit warned him that they had
recently died. Then he thought of the five monks who had tended him
during his austerities but left him when he ceased to fast. By his
superhuman power of vision he perceived that they were living at Benares
in the deer park, Isipatana. So, after remaining awhile at Uruvelâ he
started to find them and on the way met a naked ascetic, in answer to
whose enquiries he proclaimed himself as the Buddha; "I am the Holy One
in this world, I am the highest teacher, I alone am the perfect supreme
Buddha, I have gained calm and nirvana, I go to Benares to set moving
the wheels of righteousness[325]. I will beat the drum of immortality in
the darkness of this world." But the ascetic replied. "It may be so,
friend," shook his head, took another road and went away, with the
honour of being the first sceptic.
When the Buddha reached the deer park[326], a wood where ascetics were
allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him
coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his
exertions, and turned to a luxurious life. But as he drew near they were
overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him, and
brought water to wash his feet. While showing him this honour they
called him Friend Gotama but he replied that it was not proper to
address the Tathâgata[327] thus. He had become a Buddha and was ready to
teach them the Truth but the monks demurred saying that if he had been
unable to win enlightenment while practising austerities, he was not
likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease. But he
overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them, apparently during
some days, for we are told that they went out to beg alms.
Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not
perhaps the Buddha's own words but the reminiscences of some one who had
heard him describe the crisis of his life? Like so much of the Pitakas
the narrative has an air of patchwork. Many striking passages, such as
the descriptions of the raptures through which he passed, occur in other
connections but the formulæ are ancient and their use here may be as
early and legitimate as elsewhere. In its main outlines the account is
simple, unpretentious and human. Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by
self-mortification: finds that this is the wrong way: tries a more
natural method and succeeds: debates whether he shall become a teacher
and at first hesitates. These are not features which the average Indian
hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would
invent or emphasize. Towards the end of the narrative the language is
more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it
is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling
his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic. The
supernatural intervention recorded is not really great. It amounts to
this, that in mental crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat
similar to those delivered by the dæmon of Socrates[328]. The appearance
of Brahmâ Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse,
which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he
found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in
this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many
generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him
describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth and his victory.
Other versions of the enlightenment give other incidents which are not
rendered less credible by their omission from the narrative quoted, for
it is clearly an epitome put together for a special didactic purpose.
But still the story as related at the beginning of the Mahâvagga of the
Vinaya has a stronger smack of mythology than the passages quoted from
the Sutta-Pitaka. In these last the Bodhi-tree[329] is mentioned only
incidentally, which is natural, for it is a detail which would impress
later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be
sceptical as to the part it has played in Buddhist history. Even if we
had not been told that he sat under a tree, we might surmise that he did
so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a
homeless ascetic. The Mahâvagga states that after attaining Buddhahood
he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days
uninterruptedly, enjoying the bliss of emancipation, and while there
thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the
suttas quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days
under each. Heavy rain came on but Mucalinda, the king of the serpents,
"came out of his abode and seven times encircled the body of the Lord
with his windings and spread his great hood over the Lord's head." Here
we are in the domain of mythology: this is not a vignette from the old
religious life on the banks of the Nerañjara but a work of sacred art:
the Holy Supreme Buddha sitting immovable and imperturbable in the midst
of a storm sheltered by the folds of some pious monster that the
artist's fancy has created.
The narrative quoted from the Majjhima-Nikâya does not mention that the
Buddha during his struggle for enlightenment was assailed or tempted by
Mâra, the personification of evil and of transitory pleasures but also
of death. But that such an encounter—in some respects analogous to the
temptation of Christ by the Devil—formed part of the old tradition is
indicated by several passages in the Pitakas[330] and not merely by the
later literature where it assumes a prominent and picturesque form. This
struggle is psychologically probable enough but the origin of the story,
which is exhaustively discussed in Windisch's _Buddha und Mâra_, seems
to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his
mental struggles as in amplifications of old legends and in
dramatizations of metaphors which he may have used about conquering
death.
The Bodhi-tree is still shown at Bodh-Gaya. It stands on a low terrace
behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow, below the level of the
surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all
Buddhist lands though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anuradhapura in
Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches transplanted
thither. Whatever title it may have to the reverence of the faithful
rests on lineage rather than identity, for the growth which we see at
Bodh-Gaya now cannot claim to be the branches under which the Buddha sat
or even the trunk which Asoka tended. At best it is a modern stem sprung
from the seeds of the old tree, and this descent is rendered disputable
by legends of its destruction and miraculous restoration. Even during
the time that Sir A. Cunningham knew the locality from 1862 to 1880 it
would seem that the old trunk decayed and was replaced by scions grown
from seed.
The texts quoted above leave the Buddha occupied in teaching the five
monks in the Deer Park and the Mahâvagga gives us the text of the
sermon[331] with which he opened his instruction. It is entitled Turning
the Wheel of Righteousness, and is also known as The Sermon at Benares.
It is a very early statement of the main doctrines of primitive Buddhism
and I see no reason to doubt that it contains the ideas and phrases of
the Buddha. The gist of the sermon is extremely simple. He first says
that those who wish to lead a religious life should avoid the two
extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture and follow a middle way.
Then he enunciates what he calls the four truths[332] about evil or
suffering and the way to make an end of it. He opens very practically,
and it may be noticed that abstruse as are many of his discourses they
generally go straight to the heart of some contemporary interest. Here
he says that self-indulgence is low and self-mortification crazy: that
both are profitless and neither is the religious life. That consists in
walking in the middle path, or noble eightfold path defined in a
celebrated formula as right views, right aspirations, right speech,
right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right
rapture. He then enunciates the four truths. The first declares that all
clinging to existence involves suffering. I shall have occasion to
examine later the pessimism which is often said to characterize Buddhism
and Indian thought generally. Here let it suffice to say that the first
truth must be taken in conjunction with the others. The teaching of the
Buddha is a teaching not so much of pessimism as of emancipation: but
emancipation implies the existence of evil from which men must be freed:
a happy world would not need it. Buddhism recognizes the evil of the
world but it is not on that account a religion of despair: the essence
of it is that it provides a remedy and an escape.
The second and third truths must be taken together and in connection
with the formula known as the chain of causation (paṭiccasamuppâda).
Everything has a cause and produces an effect. If this is, that is: if
this is not, then that is not. This simple principle of uniform
causation is applied to the whole universe, gods and men, heaven, earth
and hell. Indian thought has always loved wide applications of
fundamental principles and here a law of the universe is propounded in a
form both simple and abstract. Everything exists in virtue of a cause
and does not exist if that cause is absent. Suffering has a cause and if
that cause can be detected and eliminated, suffering itself will be
eliminated. This cause of evil is Tanhâ, the thirst or craving for
existence, pleasure and success. And the cure is to remove it. It may
seem to the European that this is a proposal to cure the evils of life
by removing life itself but when in the fourth truth we come to the
course to be followed by the seeker after salvation—the eightfold
path—we find it neither extravagant nor morbid. We may imagine that an
Indian of that time asking different schools of thinkers for the way to
salvation would have been told by Brahmans (if indeed they had been
willing to impart knowledge to any but an accredited pupil) that he who
performs a certain ceremony goes to the abode of the gods: other
teachers would have insisted on a course of fasting and self-torture:
others again like Sâñjaya and Makkhali would have given argumentative
and unpractical answers. The Buddha's answer is simple and practical:
seven-eighths of it would be accepted in every civilized country as a
description of the good life. It is not merely external, for it insists
on right thought and right aspiration: the motive and temper are as
important as the act. It does not neglect will-power and activity, for
right action, right livelihood and right effort are necessary—a point to
be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy unpractical religion. But
no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation,
is meant to be its crown and fulfilment. It takes the place of prayer
and communion with the deity and the Buddha promises the beatific vision
in this life to those who persevere. The negative features of the Path
are also important. It contains no mention of ceremonial, austerities,
gods, many or one, nor of the Buddha himself. He is the discoverer and
teacher of the truth; beyond that his personality plays no part.
But we are here treating of his life rather than of his doctrine and
must now return to the events which are said to have followed the first
sermon.
The first converts had, even before embracing the Buddha's teaching,
been followers of a religious life but the next batch of recruits came
from the wealthy mercantile families of Benares. The first was a youth
named Yasa who joined the order, while his father, mother and former
wife became lay believers. Then came first four and subsequently fifty
friends of Yasa and joined the order. "At that time" says the
Mahâvagga. "there were sixty-one Arhats[333] in the world," so that at
first arhatship seems to have followed immediately on ordination. Arhat,
it may be mentioned, is the commonest word in early Buddhist literature
(more common than any phrase about nirvana) for describing sanctity and
spiritual perfection. The arhat is one who has broken the fetters of the
senses and passions, for whom there will be no new birth or death, and
who lives in this world like the Buddha, detached but happy and
beneficent.
The Buddha then addressed his followers and said--"Monks, I am delivered
from all fetters, human and divine, and so are you. Go now and wander
for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the
world, for the good, for the gain and for the welfare of gods and men.
Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine which is
glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle and glorious in the
end, in the spirit and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect and
pure life of holiness." The monks then went forth and returned bringing
candidates to be formally ordained by the Buddha. But seeing that these
journeys caused fatigue and trouble, he authorized the ordained monks to
confer ordination without reference to himself. He then returned to
Uruvelâ, where he had dwelt before attaining Buddhahood, and converted a
thousand Jaṭilas, that is to say Brahmans living the life of hermits,
which involved the abandonment of household life but not of sacrifices.
The admission of these hermits to the order is probably historical and
explains the presence among the Buddha's disciples of a tendency towards
self-mortification of which he himself did not wholly approve. The
Mahâvagga[334] contains a series of short legends about these
occurrences, one of them in two versions. The narratives are miraculous
but have an ancient tone and probably represent the type of popular
story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life.
One of them is a not uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how
the chamber in which a Brahman called Kassapa kept his sacred fire was
haunted by a fire-breathing magical serpent. The Buddha however spent
the night in this chamber and after a contest in which both emitted
flames succeeded in conquering the beast. After converting the Jaṭilas
he preached to them the celebrated Fire Sermon, said to have been
delivered on the eminence now called Brahma Yoen[335] near Gaya and
possibly inspired by the spectacle of grass fires which at some seasons
may be seen creeping over every hill-side in an Indian night,
"Everything, Monks, is burning and how is it burning? The eye is
burning: what the eye sees is burning: thoughts based on the eye are
burning: the contact of the eye (with visible things) is burning and the
sensation produced by that contact, whether pleasant, painful or
indifferent is also burning. With what fire is it burning? It is burning
with the fire of lust, the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it
is burning with the sorrows of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation,
suffering, dejection and despair."
The Buddha now went on with his converts to Râjagaha. He stopped in a
bamboo grove outside the town and here the king, Bimbisâra, waited on
him and with every sign of respect asked him to take food in his palace.
It was on this occasion that we first hear of him accepting an
invitation to dinner[336], which he did frequently during the rest of
his career. After the repast the king presented a pleasure garden just
outside the town "to the fraternity of monks with the Buddha at their
head." At that time another celebrated teacher named Sâñjaya was
stopping at Râjagaha with a train of two hundred and fifty disciples.
Two of them, Sâriputta and Moggallâna, joined the Buddha's order and
took with them the whole body of their companions.
The Mahâvagga proceeds to relate that many of the young nobility joined
the order and that the people began to murmur saying "The Monk Gotama
causes fathers to beget no sons and families to become extinct." And
again "The Great Monk has come to Giribbaja of the Magadha people,
leading with him all the followers of Sâñjaya. Whom will he lead off
next?" When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement
would only last seven days and bade his followers answer with the
following verse "It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the
Buddhas, lead men. Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power
of truth?" It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two
popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and
enemies of the Buddha.
3
It now becomes difficult to give dates but the Mahâvagga[337] relates
that the Buddha stopped some time at Râjagaha and then revisited his
native town, Kapilavatthu. That he should have done so is natural enough
but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya.
Its object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the
rules of the order. Irrelevant incidents are ignored and those which are
noticed are regarded simply as the circumstances which led to the
formulation of certain regulations. "The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country
near Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Grove. And in the forenoon having put on
his robes and taken his alms bowl he went to the home of the Sakka
Suddhodana[338] and sat down on a seat prepared for him. Then the
princess who was the mother of Râhula[339] said to him 'This is your
father, Râhula, go and ask him for your inheritance.' Then young Râhula
went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said 'Your
shadow, Monk, is a place of bliss.' Then the Lord rose from his seat and
went away but Râhula followed him saying 'Give me my inheritance, Monk.'
Then the Lord said to Sâriputta (who had already become his chief
disciple) 'Well, Sâriputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young
Râhula.' Sâriputta asked how he should do so and the Buddha explained
the forms.
"Then the Sakka Suddhodana went to the place where the Lord was and
after respectfully saluting him asked for a boon. 'Lord, when the
Blessed One gave up the world, it was great pain to me and so it was
when Nanda[340] did the same. Great too was my pain when Râhula did it.
The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and
reaches the marrow. Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a
son without his parents' permission.' The Buddha assented. Three or four
years later Suddhodana died."
From Kapilavatthu the Buddha is said to have gone to Sâvatthî, the
capital of Kosala where Pasenadi was king, but now we lose the
chronological thread and do not find it again until the last years of
his life. Few of the numerous incidents recorded in the Pitakas can be
dated. The narrators resemble those Indian artists who when carving a
story in relief place all the principal figures in one panel without
attempting to mark the sequence of the incidents which are represented
simultaneously. For the connection of events with the Buddha's teaching
the compilers of the Pitakas had an eye; for their connection with his
life none at all. And though this attitude is disquieting to the
historic sense it is not unjustifiable. The object and the achievement
of the Buddha was to preach a certain doctrine and to found an order.
All the rest—years and countries, pains and pleasures—was of no
importance. And it would appear that we have not lost much: we should
have a greater sense of security if we had an orderly account of his
wanderings and his relations with the kings of his time, but after he
had once entered on his ministry the events which broke the peaceful
tenour of his long life were few and we probably know most of them
though we cannot date them. For about forty-five years he moved about
Kosala, Magadha and Anga visiting the two capitals Sâvatthî and Râjagaha
and going as far west as the country of the Kurus. He took little part
in politics or worldly life, though a hazy but not improbable story[341]
represents him as pacifying the Sâkyas and Koliyas, who were on the
point of fighting about the water of the Rohini which irrigated the
lands of both clans. He uniformly enjoyed the respect and attention of
kings and the wealthy classes. Doubtless he was not popular with the
Brahmans or with those good people who disliked seeing fine young men
made into monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any
serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within
the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which
though peaceful was active and benevolent but aloof, majestic and
authoritative.
We are told[342] that at first his disciples wandered about at all
seasons but it was not long before he bade them observe the already
established routine for itinerant monks of travelling on foot during the
greater part of the year but of resting for three months during the
rainy season known as Vassa and beginning some time in June. When moving
about he appears to have walked from five to ten miles a day, regulating
his movements so as to reach inhabited places in time to collect food
for the midday meal. The afternoon he devoted to meditation and in the
evening gave instruction. He usually halted in woods or gardens on the
outskirts of villages and cities, and often on the bank of a river or
tank, for shade and water would be the first requisites for a wandering
monk. On these journeys he was accompanied by a considerable following
of disciples: five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often
mentioned and though the numbers may be exaggerated there is no reason
to doubt that the band was large. The suttas generally commence with a
picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was
delivered. The Buddha is walking along the high road from Râjagaha to
Nâlanda with a great company of disciples. Or he is journeying through
Kosala and halting in a mango-grove on the banks of the Aciravatî river.
Or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahman village and the people go
out to him. The principal Brahmans, taking their siesta on the upper
terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what
it means. On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha
should pay the first call and ultimately visit him. Or he is halting on
the shore of the Gaggarâ Lake at Campâ in Western Bengal, sitting under
the fragrant white flowers of a campaka tree. Or he visits the hills
overlooking Râjagaha haunted by peacocks and by wandering monks. Often
he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely
rest houses for travellers. But it became more and more the custom for
the devout to erect such buildings for his special use and even in his
lifetime they assumed the proportions of monasteries[343]. The people of
Vesâlî built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the
Gabled Hall. It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large
room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the
Buddha. Such private rooms (especially those which he occupied at
Sâvatthî), were called Gandhakûṭî or the perfumed chamber. At
Kapilavatthu[344] the Sâkyas erected a new building known as Santhagâra.
The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting
late into the night which he delivered sitting with his back against a
pillar. At last he said his back was tired and lay down, leaving Ânanda
to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less
exhausted than the preacher.
But perhaps the residence most frequently mentioned is that in the
garden called Jetavana at Sâvatthî. Anâthapiṇḍika, a rich merchant of
that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Râjagaha and
invited him to spend the next rainy season at Sâvatthî[345]. On
returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided
that the garden of the Prince Jeta best satisfied his requirements. He
obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover
the whole ground with coins. When all except a small space close to the
gateway had been thus covered Jeta asked to be allowed to share in the
gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway
with a room over it. "And Anâthapiṇḍika the householder built dwelling
rooms and retiring rooms and storerooms and halls with fireplaces, and
outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the
bath rooms and ponds and roofed open sheds[346]."
Buddhaghosa has given an account[347] of the way in which the Buddha was
wont to spend his days when stopping in some such resting-place, and his
description is confirmed by the numerous details given in the Pitakas.
He rose before dawn and would often retire and meditate until it was
time to set out on the round for alms but not unfrequently he is
represented as thinking that it was too early to start and that he might
first visit some monk of the neighbourhood. Then he went round the town
or village with his disciples, carrying his almsbowl and accepting
everything put into it. Sometimes he talked to his disciples while
walking[348]. Frequently, instead of begging for alms, he accepted an
invitation to dine with some pious person who asked the whole band of
disciples and made strenuous culinary efforts. Such invitations were
given at the conclusion of a visit paid to the Buddha on the previous
day and were accepted by him with silence which signified consent. On
the morning of the next day the host announced in person or through a
messenger that the meal was ready and the Buddha taking his mantle and
bowl went to the house. The host waited on the guests with his own
hands, putting the food which he had prepared into their bowls. After
the repast the Buddha delivered a discourse or catechized the company.
He did the same with his own disciples when he collected food himself
and returned home to eat it. He took but one meal a day[349], between
eleven and twelve, and did not refuse meat when given to him, provided
that he did not know the animals had been slaughtered expressly for his
food. When he had given instruction after the meal he usually retired to
his chamber or to a quiet spot under trees for repose and meditation. On
one occasion[350] he took his son Râhula with him into a wood at this
hour to impart some of the deepest truths to him, but as a rule he gave
no further instruction until the late afternoon.
The Pitakas represent all believers as treating the Buddha with the
greatest respect but the salutations and titles which they employ hardly
exceed those ordinarily used in speaking to eminent persons[351]. Kings
were at this time addressed as Deva, whereas the Buddha's usual title is
Bhagavâ or Bhante, Lord. A religious solemnity and deliberation prevails
in the interviews which he grants but no extravagance of adoration is
recorded. Visitors salute him by bowing with joined hands, sit
respectfully on one side while he instructs them and in departing are
careful to leave him on their right hand. He accepts such gifts as food,
clothes, gardens and houses but rejects all ceremonial honours. Thus
Prince Bodhi[352] when receiving him carpeted his mansion with white
cloths but the Buddha would not walk on them and remained standing at
the entrance till they were taken up.
The introduction to the Ariyapariyesana-Sutta gives a fairly complete
picture of a day in his life at Sâvatthî. It relates how in the morning
he took his bowl and mantle and went to the town to collect food. While
he was away, some monks told his personal attendant Ânanda that they
wished to hear a discourse from him, as it was long since they had had
the privilege. Ânanda suggested that they had better go to the hermitage
of the Brahman Rammaka near the town. The Buddha returned, ate his meal
and then said "Come, Ânanda, let us go to the terrace of Migâra's
mother[353] and stay there till evening." They went there and spent the
day in meditation. Towards evening the Buddha rose and said "Let us go
to the old bath to refresh our limbs." After they had bathed, Ânanda
suggested that they should go to Rammaka's hermitage: the Buddha
assented by his silence and they went together. Within the hermitage
were many monks engaged in instructive conversation, so the Buddha
waited at the door till there was a pause in the talk. Then he coughed
and knocked. The monks opened the door, and offered him a seat. After a
short conversation, he recounted to them how he had striven for and
obtained Buddhahood.
These congregations were often prolonged late into the night. We hear
for instance how he sat on the terrace belonging to Migâra's mother[354]
in the midst of an assembly of monks waiting for his words, still and
silent in the light of the full moon; how a monk would rise, adjusting
his robe so as to leave one shoulder bare, bow with his hands joined and
raised to his forehead and ask permission to put a question and the Lord
would reply, Be seated, monk, ask what you will. But sometimes in these
nightly congregations the silence was unbroken. When King Ajâtasattu
went to visit him[355] in the mango grove of Jîvaka he was seized with
sudden fear at the unearthly stillness of the place and suspected an
ambush. "Fear not, O King," said Jîvaka, "I am playing you no tricks. Go
straight on. There in the pavilion hall the lamps are burning ... and
there is the Blessed One sitting against the middle pillar, facing the
east with the brethren round him." And when the king beheld the assembly
seated in perfect silence, calm as a clear lake, he exclaimed "Would
that my son might have such calm as this assembly now has."
The major part of the Buddha's activity was concerned with the
instruction of his disciples and the organization of the Sangha or
order. Though he was ready to hear and teach all, the portrait presented
to us is not that of a popular preacher who collects and frequents
crowds but rather that of a master, occupied with the instruction of his
pupils, a large band indeed but well prepared and able to appreciate and
learn by heart teaching which, though freely offered to the whole world,
was somewhat hard to untrained ears. In one passage[356] an enquirer
asks him why he shows more zeal in teaching some than others. The answer
is, if a landowner had three fields, one excellent, one middling and one
of poor soil, would he not first sow the good field, then the middling
field, and last of all the bad field, thinking to himself; it will just
produce fodder for the cattle? So the Buddha preaches first to his own
monks, then to lay-believers, and then, like the landowner who sows the
bad field last, to Brahmans, ascetics and wandering monks of other
sects, thinking if they only understand one word, it will do them good
for a long while. It was to such congregations of disciples or to
enquirers belonging to other religious orders that he addressed his most
important discourses, iterating in grave numbered periods the truths
concerning the reality of sorrow and the equal reality of salvation, as
he sat under a clump of bamboos or in the shade of a banyan, in sight
perhaps of a tank where the lotuses red, white and blue, submerged or
rising from the water, typified the various classes of mankind.
He did not start by laying down any constitution for his order. Its
rules were formed entirely by case law. Each incident and difficulty was
referred to him as it arose and his decision was accepted as the law on
that point. During his last illness he showed a noble anxiety not to
hamper his followers by the prestige of his name but to leave behind him
a body of free men, able to be a light and a help to themselves. But a
curious passage[357] represents an old monk as saying immediately after
his death "Weep not, brethren; we are well rid of the Great Monk. We
used to be annoyed by being told, 'This beseems you and this does not
beseem you. But now we shall be able to do what we like and not have to
do what we don't like.'" Clearly the laxer disciples felt the Master's
hand to be somewhat heavy and we might have guessed as much. For though
Gotama had a breadth of view rare in that or in any age, though he
refused to multiply observances or to dogmatize, every sutta indicates
that he was a man of exceptional authority and decision; what he has
laid down he has laid down; there is no compulsion or punishment, no vow
of obedience or _sacrificium intellectus_; but it is equally clear that
there is no place in the order for those who in great or small think
differently from the master.
In shepherding his flock he had the assistance of his senior disciples.
Of these the most important were Sâriputta and Moggallâna, both of them
Brahmans who left their original teacher Sâñjaya to join him at the
outset of his ministry. Sâriputta[358] enjoyed his confidence so fully
that he acted as his representative and gave authoritative expositions
of doctrine. The Buddha even compared him to the eldest son of an
Emperor who assists his father in the government. But both he and
Moggallâna died before their master and thus did not labour
independently. Another important disciple Upâli survived him and
probably contributed materially to the codification of the Vinaya.
Anuruddha and Ânanda, both of them Sâkyas, are also frequently
mentioned, especially the latter who became his personal attendant[359]
and figures in the account of his illness and death as the beloved
disciple to whom his last instructions were committed. These two
together with four other young Sâkya nobles and Upâli joined the order
twenty-five years before Gotama's death and perhaps formed an inner
circle of trusted relatives, though we have no reason to think there was
any friction between them and Brahmans like Sâriputta. Upâli is said to
have been barber of the Sâkyas. It is not easy to say what his social
status may have been, but it probably did not preclude intimacy.
The Buddha was frequently occupied with maintaining peace and order
among his disciples. Though the profession of a monk excluded worldly
advancement, it was held in great esteem and was hence adopted by
ambitious and quarrelsome men who had no true vocation. The troubles
which arose in the Sangha are often ascribed in the Vinaya to the
Chabbaggiyas, six brethren who became celebrated in tradition as spirits
of mischief and who are evidently made the peg on which these old
monkish anecdotes are hung. As a rule the intervention of the Buddha was
sufficient to restore peace, but one passage[360] indicates resistance
to his authority. The brethren quarrelled so often that the people said
it was a public scandal. The Buddha endeavoured to calm the disputants,
but one of them replied, "Lord, let the Blessed One quietly enjoy the
bliss which he has obtained in this life. The responsibility for these
quarrels will rest with us alone." This seems a clear hint that the
Blessed One had better mind his own business. Renewed injunctions and
parables met with no better result. "And the Blessed One thought" says
the narrative "'truly these fools are infatuated,' and he rose from his
seat and went away."
Other troubles are mentioned but by far the most serious was the schism
of Devadatta, represented as occurring in the old age of Gotama when he
was about seventy-two. The story as told in the Cullavagga[361] is
embellished with supernatural incidents and seems not to observe the
natural sequence of events but perhaps three features are historical:
namely that Devadatta wished to supersede the Buddha as head of the
order, that he was the friend of Ajâtasattu, Crown Prince and afterwards
King of Magadha[362], and that he advocated a stricter rule of life than
the Buddha chose to enforce. This combination of piety and ambition is
perhaps not unnatural. He was a cousin of the Buddha and entered the
order at the same time as Ânanda and other young Sâkya nobles. Sprung
from that quarrelsome breed he possessed in a distorted form some of
Gotama's own ability. He is represented as publicly urging the Master to
retire and dwell at ease but met with an absolute refusal. Sâriputta was
directed to "proclaim" him in Râjagaha, the proclamation being to the
effect that his nature had changed and that all his words and deeds were
disowned by the order. Then Devadatta incited the Crown Prince to murder
his father, Bimbisâra. The plot was prevented by the ministers but the
king told Ajâtasattu that if he wanted the kingdom he could have it and
abdicated. But his unnatural son put him to death all the same[363] by
starving him slowly in confinement. With the assistance of Ajâtasattu,
Devadatta then tried to compass the death of the Buddha. First he hired
assassins, but they were converted as soon as they approached the sacred
presence. Then he rolled down a rock from the Vulture's peak with the
intention of crushing the Buddha, but the mountain itself interfered to
stop the sacrilege and only a splinter scratched the Lord's foot. Then
he arranged for a mad elephant to be let loose in the road at the time
of collecting alms, but the Buddha calmed the furious beast. It is
perhaps by some error of arrangement that after committing such
unpardonable crimes Devadatta is represented as still a member of the
order and endeavouring to provoke a schism by asking for stricter rules.
The attempt failed and according to later legends he died on the spot,
but the Vinaya merely says that hot blood gushed from his mouth.
That there are historical elements in this story is shown by the
narrative of Fa Hsien, the Chinese pilgrim who travelled in India about
400 A.D. He tells us that the followers of Devadatta still existed in
Kosala and revered the three previous Buddhas but refused to recognize
Gotama. This is interesting, for it seems to show that it was possible
to accept Gotama's doctrine, or the greater part of it, as something
independent of his personality and an inheritance from earlier teachers.
The Udâna and Jâtaka relate another plot without specifying the year.
Some heretics induced a nun called Sundarî to pretend she was the
Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her. They then accused
the Bhikkhus of killing her to conceal their master's sin, but the real
assassins got drunk with the money they had received and revealed the
conspiracy in their cups.
But these are isolated cases. As a whole the Buddha's long career was
marked by a peace and friendliness which are surprising if we consider
what innovations his teaching contained. Though in contending that
priestly ceremonies were useless he refrained from neither direct
condemnation nor satire, yet he is not represented as actively
attacking[364] them and we may doubt if he forbade his lay disciples to
take part in rites and sacrifices as a modern missionary might do. We
find him sitting by the sacred fire of a Brahman[365] and discoursing,
but not denouncing the worship carried on in the place. When he
converted Siha[366], the general of the Licchavis, who had been a Jain,
he bade him continue to give food and gifts as before to the Jain monks
who frequented his house—an instance of toleration in a proselytizing
teacher which is perhaps without parallel. Similarly in the
Sîgâlovâda-sutta it is laid down that a good man ministers to monks and
to Brahmans. If it is true that Ajâtasattu countenanced Devadatta's
attempts to murder him, he ignored such disagreeable details with a
sublime indifference, for he continued to frequent Râjagaha, received
the king, and preached to him one of his finest sermons without alluding
to the past. He stands before us in the suttas as a man of amazing power
of will, inaccessible to fear, promises and, one may add, to argument
but yet in comparison with other religious leaders singularly gentle in
taking the offensive against error. Often he simply ignored it as
irrelevant: "Never mind" he said on his deathbed to his last convert
"Never mind, whether other teachers are right or wrong. Listen to me, I
will teach you the truth." And when he is controversial his method is
often to retain old words in honourable use with new meanings. The
Brahmans are not denounced like the Pharisees in the New Testament but
the real Brahman is a man of uprightness and wisdom: the real sacrifice
is to abstain from sin and follow the Truth.
Women played a considerable part in the entourage of Gotama. They were
not secluded in India at that time and he admitted that they were
capable of attaining saintship. The work of ministering to the order, of
supplying it with food and raiment, naturally fell largely to pious
matrons, and their attentive forethought delighted to provide for the
monks those comforts which might be accepted but not asked for.
Prominent among such donors was Visâkhâ, who married the son of a
wealthy merchant at Sâvatthî and converted her husband's family from
Jainism to the true doctrine. The Vinaya recounts how after entertaining
the Buddha and his disciples she asked eight boons which proved to be
the privileges of supplying various classes of monks with food, clothing
and medicine and of providing the nuns with bathing dresses, for, said
she, it shocked her sense of propriety to see them bathing naked. But
the anecdotes respecting the Buddha and women, whether his wife or
others, are not touched with sentiment, not even so much as is found in
the conversation between Yâjñavalkya and Maitreyî in the Upanishad. To
women as a class he gave their due and perhaps in his own opinion more
than their due, but if he felt any interest in them as individuals, the
sacred texts have obliterated the record. In the last year of his life
he dined with the courtezan Ambapâlî and the incident has attracted
attention on account of its supposed analogy to the narrative about
Christ and "the woman which was a sinner." But the resemblance is small.
There is no sign that the Buddha, then eighty years of age, felt any
personal interest in Ambapâlî. Whatever her morals may have been, she
was a benefactress of the order and he simply gave her the same
opportunity as others of receiving instruction. When the Licchavi
princes tried to induce him to dine with them instead of with her, he
refused to break his promise. The invitations of princes had no
attraction for him, and he was a prince himself. A fragment of
conversation introduced irrelevantly into his deathbed discourses[367]
is significant--"How, Lord, are we to conduct ourselves with regard to
womankind? Don't see them, Ânanda. But if we see them, what are we to
do? Abstain from speech. But if they should speak to us what are we to
do? Keep wide awake."
This spirit is even more evident in the account of the admission of Nuns
to the order. When the Buddha was visiting his native town his aunt and
foster mother, Mahâprajâpatî, thrice begged him to grant this privilege
to women but was thrice refused and went away in tears. Then she
followed him to Vesâlî and stood in the entrance of the Kûṭagâra Hall
"with swollen feet and covered with dust, and sorrowful." Ânanda, who
had a tender heart, interviewed her and, going in to the Buddha,
submitted her request but received a triple refusal. But he was not to
be denied and urged that the Buddha admitted women to be capable of
attaining saintship and that it was unjust to refuse the blessings of
religion to one who had suckled him. At last Gotama yielded—perhaps the
only instance in which he is represented as convinced by argument—but he
added "If, Ânanda, women had not received permission to enter the Order,
the pure religion would have lasted long, the good law would have stood
fast a thousand years. But since they had received that permission, it
will now stand fast for only five hundred years[368]."
He maintained and approved the same hard detached attitude in other
domestic relations. His son Râhula received special instruction but is
not represented as enjoying his confidence like Ânanda. A remarkable
narrative relates how, when the monk Sangâmaji was sitting beneath a
tree absorbed in meditation, his former wife (whom he had left on
abandoning the world) laid his child before him and said "Here, monk, is
your little son, nourish me and nourish him." But Sangâmaji took no
notice and the woman went away. The Buddha who observed what happened
said "He feels no pleasure when she comes, no sorrow when she goes: him
I call a true Brahman released from passion[369]." This narrative is
repulsive to European sentiment, particularly as the chronicler cannot
spare the easy charity of a miracle to provide for the wife and child,
but in taking it as an index of the character of Gotama, we must bear in
mind such sayings of Christ as "If any man come to me and hate not his
father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea
and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple[370]."
4
Political changes, in which however he took no part, occurred in the
last years of the Buddha's life. In Magadha Ajâtasattu had come to the
throne. If, as the Vinaya represents, he at first supported the schism
of Devadatta, he subsequently became a patron of the Buddha. He was an
ambitious prince and fortified Pâṭaligâma (afterwards Pâṭaliputra)
against the Vajjian confederation, which he destroyed a few years after
the Buddha's death. This confederation was an alliance of small
oligarchies like the Licchavis and Videhans. It would appear that this
form of constitution was on the wane in northern India and that the
monarchical states were annexing the decaying commonwealths. In Kosala,
Viḍûḍabha conquered Kapilavatthu a year or two before the Buddha's
death, and is said to have perpetrated a great massacre of the Sâkya
clan[371]. Possibly in consequence of these events the Buddha avoided
Kosala and the former Sâkya territory. At any rate the record of his
last days opens at Râjagaha, the capital of Magadha.
This record is contained in the Mahâparinibbâna Sutta, the longest of
the suttas and evidently a compilation. The style is provokingly uneven.
It often promises to give a simple and natural narrative but such
passages are interrupted by more recent and less relevant matter. No
general estimate of its historical value can be given but each incident
must be apprized separately. Nearly all the events and discourses
recorded in it are found elsewhere in the canon in the same words[372]
and it contains explanatory matter of a suspiciously apologetic nature.
Also the supernatural element is freely introduced. But together with
all this it contains plain pathetic pictures of an old man's fatigue and
sufferings which would not have been inserted by a later hand, had they
not been found ready in tradition. And though events and sermonettes are
strung together in a way which is not artistic, there is nothing
improbable in the idea that the Buddha when he felt his end approaching
should have admonished his disciples about all that he thought most
important.
The story opens at Râjagaha about six months before the Buddha's death.
The King sends his minister to ask whether he will be successful in
attacking the Vajjians. The Buddha replies that as long as they act in
concord, behave honourably, and respect the Faith, so long may they be
expected not to decline but prosper. The compiler may perhaps have felt
this narrative to be an appropriate parallel to the Buddha's advice to
his disciples to live in peace and order. He summoned and addressed the
brethren living in Râjagaha and visited various spots in the
neighbourhood. In these last utterances one phrase occurs with special
frequency, "Great is the fruit, great the advantage of meditation
accompanied by upright conduct: great is the advantage of intelligence
accompanied by meditation. The mind which has such intelligence is freed
from intoxications, from the desires of the senses, from love of life,
from delusion and from ignorance."
He then set forth accompanied by Ânanda and several disciples. Judging
from the route adopted his intention was to go ultimately to Sâvatthî.
This was one of the towns where he resided from time to time, but we
cannot tell what may have been his special motives for visiting it on
the present occasion, for if the King of Kosala had recently massacred
the Sâkyas his presence there would have been strange. The road was not
direct but ran up northwards and then followed the base of the
mountains, thus enabling travellers to cross rivers near their sources
where they were still easy to ford. The stopping-places from Râjagaha
onwards were Nâlanda, Pâṭaliputra, Vesâlî, Bhandagâma, Pâvâ, Kusinârâ,
Kapilavatthu, Setavya, Sâvatthî. On his last journey the Buddha is
represented as following this route but he died at the seventh
stopping-place, Kusinârâ. When at Pâṭaligâma, he prophesied that it
would become a great emporium[373]. He was honourably entertained by the
officers of the King who decided that the gate and ferry by which he
left should be called Gotama's gate and Gotama's ferry. The gate
received the name, but when he came to the Ganges he vanished
miraculously and appeared standing on the further bank. He then went on
to Vesâlî, passing with indifference and immunity from the dominions of
the King of Magadha into those of his enemies, and halted in the grove
of the courtezan Ambapâlî[374]. She came to salute him and he accepted
her invitation to dine with her on the morrow, in spite of the protests
of the Licchavi princes.
The rainy season was now commencing and the Buddha remained near Vesâlî
in the village of Beluva, where he fell seriously ill. One day after his
recovery he was sitting in the shade with Ânanda, who said that during
the illness his comfort had been the thought that the Buddha would not
pass away without leaving final instructions to the Order. The reply was
a remarkable address which is surely, at least, in parts the Buddha's
own words.
"What does the order expect of me, Ânanda? I have preached the truth
without any distinction of esoteric or exoteric, for in respect of the
truth, there is no clenched hand in the teaching of the Tathâgata. If
there is anyone who thinks 'it is I who will lead the brotherhood' or
'the order is dependent on me,' it is he who should give instructions.
But the Tathâgata does not think that he should lead the order or that
the order is dependent on him. Why then should he leave instructions? I
am an old man now, and full of years, my pilgrimage is finished, I have
reached my sum of days, I am turning eighty years; and just as a
worn-out cart can only be made to move along with much additional care,
so can the body of the Tathagâta be kept going only with much additional
care. It is only when the Tathagâta, ceasing to attend to any outward
thing becomes plunged in meditation, it is only then that the body of
the Tathagâta is at ease. Therefore, Ânanda, be a lamp and a refuge to
yourselves. Seek no other refuge. Let the Truth be your lamp and refuge;
seek no refuge elsewhere.
"And they, Ânanda, who now or when I am dead shall be a lamp and a
refuge to themselves, seeking no other refuge but taking the Truth as
their lamp and refuge, these shall be my foremost disciples—these who
are anxious to learn."
This discourse is succeeded by a less convincing episode, in which the
Buddha tells Ânanda that he can prolong his life to the end of a
world-period if he desires it. But though the hint was thrice repeated,
the heedless disciple did not ask the Master to remain in the world.
When he had gone, Mâra, the Evil one, appeared and urged on the Buddha
that it was time for him to pass away. He replied that he would die in
three months but not before he had completely established the true
religion. Thus he deliberately rejected his allotted span of life and an
earthquake occurred. He explained the cause of it to Ânanda, who saw his
mistake too late. "Enough, Ânanda, the time for making such a request is
past[375]."
The narrative becomes more human when it relates how one afternoon he
looked at the town and said, "This will be the last time that the
Tathâgata will behold Vesâlî. Come, Ânanda, let us go to Bhandagâma."
After three halts he arrived at Pâvâ and stopped in the mango grove of
Cunda, a smith, who invited him to dinner and served sweet rice, cakes,
and a dish which has been variously interpreted as dried boar's flesh or
a kind of truffle. The Buddha asked to be served with this dish and bade
him give the sweet rice and cakes to the brethren. After eating some of
it he ordered the rest to be buried, saying that no one in heaven or
earth except a Buddha could digest it, a strange remark to chronicle
since it was this meal which killed him[376]. But before he died he sent
word to Cunda that he had no need to feel remorse and that the two most
meritorious offerings in the world are the first meal given to a Buddha
after he has obtained enlightenment and the last one given him before
his death. On leaving Cunda's house he was attacked by dysentery and
violent pains but bore them patiently and started for Kusinârâ with his
disciples. In going thither he crossed the river Kakutthâ[377], and some
verses inserted into the text, which sound like a very old ballad,
relate how he bathed in it and then, weary and worn out, lay down on his
cloak. A curious incident occurs here. A young Mallian, named Pukkuisa,
after some conversation with the Buddha, presents him with a robe of
cloth of gold, but when it is put on it seems to lose its splendour, so
exceedingly clear and bright is his skin. Gotama explains that there are
two occasions when the skin of a Buddha glows like this—the night of his
enlightenment and the night before his death. The transfiguration of
Christ suggests itself as a parallel and is also associated with an
allusion to his coming death. Most people have seen a face so light up
under the influence of emotion that this popular metaphor seemed to
express physical truth and it is perhaps not excessive to suppose that
in men of exceptional gifts this illumination may have been so bright as
to leave traces in tradition.
Then they went on[378] to a grove at Kusinârâ, and he lay down on a
couch spread between two Sâla trees. These trees were in full bloom,
though it was not the season for their flowering; heavenly strains and
odours filled the air and spirits unseen crowded round the bed. But
Ânanda, we are told, went into the Vihâra, which was apparently also in
the grove, and stood leaning against the lintel weeping at the thought
that he was to lose so kind a master. The Buddha sent for him and said,
"Do not weep. Have I not told you before that it is the very nature of
things most near and dear to us that we must part from them, leave them,
sever ourselves from them? All that is born, brought into being and put
together carries within itself the necessity of dissolution. How then is
it possible that such a being should not be dissolved? No such condition
is possible. For a long time, Ânanda, you have been very near me by
words of love, kind and good, that never varies and is beyond all
measure. You have done well, Ânanda. Be earnest in effort and you too
shall soon be free from the great evils—from sensuality, from
individuality, from delusion and from ignorance."
The Indians have a strong feeling that persons of distinction should die
in a suitable place[379], and now comes a passage in which Ânanda begs
the Buddha not to die "in this little wattle and daub town in the midst
of the jungle" but rather in some great city. The Buddha told him that
Kusinârâ had once been the capital of King Mahâsudassana and a scene of
great splendour in former ages. This narrative is repeated in an
amplified form in the Sutta and Jâtaka[380] called Mahâsudassana, in
which the Buddha is said to have been that king in a previous birth.
Kusinârâ was at that time one of the capitals of the Mallas, who were an
aristocratic republic like the Sâkyas and Vajjians. At the Buddha's
command Ânanda went to the Council hall and summoned the people. "Give
no occasion to reproach yourself hereafter saying, The Tathâgata died in
our own village and we neglected to visit him in his last hours." So the
Mallas came and Ânanda presented them by families to the dying Buddha as
he lay between the flowering trees, saying "Lord, a Malla of such and
such a name with his children, his wives, his retinue and his friends
humbly bows down at the feet of the Blessed One."
A monk called Subhadda, who was not a believer, also came and Ânanda
tried to turn him away but the Buddha overhearing said "Do not keep out
Subhadda. Whatever he may ask of me he will ask from a desire for
knowledge and not to annoy me and he will quickly understand my
replies." He was the last disciple whom the Buddha converted, and he
straightway became an Arhat.
Now comes the last watch of the night. "It may be, Ânanda," said the
Buddha, "that some of you may think, the word of the Master is ended. We
have no more a teacher. But you should not think thus. The truths and
the rules which I have declared and laid down for you all, let them be
the teacher for you after I am gone.
"When I am gone address not one another as hitherto, saying 'Friend.' An
elder brother may address a younger brother by his name or family-name
or as friend, but a younger brother should say to an elder, Sir, or
Lord.
"When I am gone let the order, if it should so wish, abolish all the
lesser and minor precepts."
Thus in his last address the dying Buddha disclaims, as he had
disclaimed before in talking to Ânanda, all idea of dictating to the
order: his memory is not to become a paralyzing tradition. What he had
to teach, he has taught freely, holding back nothing in "a clenched
fist." The truths are indeed essential and immutable. But they must
become a living part of the believer, until he is no longer a follower
but a light unto himself. The rest does not matter: the order can change
all the minor rules if expedient. But in everyday life discipline and
forms must be observed: hitherto all have been equal compared with the
teacher, but now the young must show more respect for the older. And in
the same spirit of solicitude for the order he continues:
"When I am gone, the highest penalty should be imposed on Channa." "What
is that, Lord?" "Let him say what he likes, but the brethren should not
speak to him or exhort him or admonish him[381]."
The end approaches. "It may be, that there is some doubt or misgiving in
the mind of some as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the
way. Enquire freely. Do not have to reproach yourselves afterwards with
the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face with us and we could not
bring ourselves to enquire when we were face to face with him.'" All
were silent. A second and third time he put the same question and there
was silence still. "It may be, that you put no questions out of awe for
the teacher. Let one friend communicate to another." There was still
silence, till Ânanda said "How wonderful, Lord, and how marvellous. In
this whole assembly there is no one who has any doubt or misgiving as to
the Buddha, the truth, the path and the way." "Out of the fulness of
faith hast thou spoken Ânanda, but the Tathâgata knows for certain that
it is so. Even the most backward of all these five hundred brethren has
become converted and is no longer liable to be born in a state of
suffering and is assured of final salvation."
"Behold, I exhort you saying, The elements of being are transitory[382].
Strive earnestly. These were the last words of the Tathâgata." Then he
passed through a series of trances (no less than twenty stages are
enumerated) and expired.
An earthquake and thunder, as one might have predicted, occurred at the
moment of his death but comparatively little stress is laid on these
prodigies. Anuruddha seems to have taken the lead among the brethren and
bade Ânanda announce the death to the Mallas. They heard it with cries
of grief: "Too soon has the Blessed One passed away. Too soon has the
light gone out of the world."
No less than six days were passed in preparation for the obsequies[383].
On the seventh they decided to carry the body to the south of the city
and there burn it. But when they endeavoured to lift it, they found it
immoveable. Anuruddha explained that spirits who were watching the
ceremony wished it to be carried not outside the city but through it.
When this was done the corpse moved easily and the heaven rained
flowers. The meaning of this legend is that the Mallas considered a
corpse would have defiled the city and therefore proposed to carry it
outside. By letting it pass through the city they showed that it was not
the ordinary relics of impure humanity.
Again, when they tried to light the funeral pile it would not catch
fire. Anuruddha explained that this delay also was due to the
intervention of spirits who wished that Mahâkassapa, the same whom the
Buddha had converted at Uruvelâ and then on his way to pay his last
respects, should arrive before the cremation. When he came attended by
five hundred monks the pile caught fire of itself and the body was
consumed completely, leaving only the bones. Streams of rain
extinguished the flames and the Mallas took the bones to their council
hall. There they set round them a hedge of spears and a fence of bows
and honoured them with dance and song and offerings of garlands and
perfumes.
Whatever may be thought of this story, the veneration of the Buddha's
relics, which is attested by the Piprava vase, is a proof that we have
to do with a man rather than a legend. The relics may all be false, but
the fact that they were venerated some 250 years after his death shows
that the people of India thought of him not as an ancient semi-divine
figure like Rama or Krishna but as something human and concrete.
Seven persons or communities sent requests for a portion of the relics,
saying that they would erect a stupa over them and hold a feast. They
were King Ajâtasattu of Magadha, the Licchavis of Vesâlî, the Sâkyas of
Kapilavatthu, the Bulis of Allakappa, the Koṭiyas of Râmagâma, the
Mallas of Pâvâ[384] and the Brahman of Veṭhadîpa. All except the last
were Kshatriyas and based their claim on the ground that they like the
Buddha belonged to the warrior caste. The Mallas at first refused, but a
Brahman called Doṇa bade them not quarrel over the remains of him who
taught forbearance. So he divided the relics into eight parts, one for
Kusinârâ and one for each of the other seven claimants. At this juncture
the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent in a claim for a share but had to be
content with the embers of the pyre since all the bones had been
distributed. Then eight stupas were built for the relics in the towns
mentioned and one over the embers and one by Doṇa the Brahman over the
iron vessel in which the body had been burnt.
5
Thus ended the career of a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest
intellectual and moral forces that the world has yet seen, but it is
hard to arrive at any certain opinion as to the details of his character
and abilities, for in the later accounts he is deified and in the
Pitakas though veneration has not gone so far as this, he is
ecclesiasticized and the human side is neglected. The narrative moves
like some stately ceremonial in which emotion and incident would be out
of place until it reaches the strange deathbed, spread between the
flowering trees, and Ânanda introduces with the formality of a court
chamberlain the Malla householders who have come to pay their last
respects and bow down at the feet of the dying teacher. The scenes
described are like stained glass windows; the Lord preaching in the
centre, sinners repenting and saints listening, all in harmonious
colours and studied postures. But the central figure remains somewhat
aloof; when once he had begun his ministry he laboured uninterruptedly
and with continual success, but the foundation of the kingdom of
Righteousness seems less like the triumphant issue of a struggle than
the passage through the world of some compassionate angel. This is in
great part due to the fact that the Pitakas are works of edification.
True, they set before us the teacher as well as his teaching but they
speak of his doings and historical surroundings only in order to provide
a proper frame for the law which he preached. A less devout and more
observant historian would have arranged the picture differently and even
in the narratives that have come down to us there are touches of human
interest which seem authentic.
When the Buddha was dying Ânanda wept because he was about to lose so
kind a master and the Buddha's own language to him is even more
affectionate. He cared not only for the organization of the order but
for its individual members. He is frequently represented as feeling that
some disciple needed a particular form of instruction and giving it. Nor
did he fail to provide for the comfort of the sick and weary. For
instance a ballad[385] relates how Panthaka driven from his home took
refuge at the door of the monastery garden. "Then came the Lord and
stroked my head and taking me by the arm led me into the garden of the
monastery and out of kindness he gave me a towel for my feet." A
striking anecdote[386] relates how he once found a monk who suffered
from a disagreeable disease lying on the ground in a filthy state. So
with Ânanda's assistance he washed him and lifting him up with his own
hands laid him on his bed. Then he summoned the brethren and told them
that if a sick brother had no special attendant the whole order should
wait on him. "You, monks, have no mothers or fathers to care for you. If
you do not wait one on the other, who is there who will wait on you?
Whosoever would wait on me, he should wait on the sick." This last
recalls Christ's words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of
these brethren, ye have done it unto me." And, if his approval of monks
being deaf to the claims of family affection seems unfeeling, it should
also be mentioned that in the book called _Songs of the Nuns_[387] women
relate how they were crazy at the loss of their children but found
complete comfort and peace in his teaching. Sometimes we are told that
when persons whom he wished to convert proved refractory he "suffused
them with the feeling of his love" until they yielded to his
influence[388]. We can hardly doubt that this somewhat cumbrous phrase
preserves a tradition of his personal charm and power.
The beauty of his appearance and the pleasant quality of his voice are
often mentioned but in somewhat conventional terms which inspire no
confidence that they are based on personal reminiscence, nor have the
most ancient images which we possess any claim to represent his
features, for the earliest of them are based on Greek models and it was
not the custom to represent him by a figure until some centuries after
his death. I can imagine that the truest idea of his person is to be
obtained not from the abundant effigies which show him as a somewhat
sanctimonious ascetic, but from statues of him as a young man, such as
that found at Sarnath, which may possibly preserve not indeed the
physiognomy of Gotama but the general physique of a young Nepalese
prince, with powerful limbs and features and a determined mouth. For
there is truth at the bottom of the saying that Gotama was born to be
either a Buddha or a universal monarch: he would have made a good
general, if he had not become a monk.
We are perhaps on firmer ground when we find speakers in the
Pitakas[389] commenting on his calm and bright expression and his
unruffled courtesy in discussion. Of his eloquence it is hard to judge.
The Suttas may preserve his teaching and some of his words but they are
probably rearrangements made for recitation. Still it is impossible to
prove that he did not himself adopt this style, particularly when age
and iteration had made the use of certain formulæ familiar to him. But
though these repetitions and subdivisions of arrangement are often
wearisome, there are not wanting traces of another manner, which suggest
a terse and racy preacher going straight to the point and driving home
his meaning with homely instances.
Humour often peeps through the Buddha's preaching. It pervades the
Jâtaka stories, and more than once he is said to have smiled when
remembering some previous birth. Some suttas, such as the tales of the
Great King of Glory, and of King Mahâ Vijita's sacrifice[390], are
simply Jâtakas in another form—interesting stories full of edification
for those who can understand but not to be taken as a narrative of
facts. At other times he simply states the ultimate facts of a case and
leaves them in their droll incongruity. Thus when King Ajâtasattu was
moved and illuminated by his teaching, he observed to his disciples that
His Majesty had all the makings of a saint in him, if only he had not
killed that excellent man his own father. Somewhat similar is his
judgment[391] on two naked ascetics, who imitated in all things the ways
of a dog and a cow respectively, in the hope of thus obtaining
salvation. When pressed to say what their next birth would be, he opined
that if their penance was successful they would be reborn as dogs and
cows, if unsuccessful, in hell. Irony and modesty are combined in his
rejection of extravagant praise. "Such faith have I, Lord[392]" said
Sâriputta, "that methinks there never has been nor will be nor is now
any other greater or wiser than the Blessed One." "Of course, Sâriputta"
is the reply, "you have known all the Buddhas of the past." "No, Lord."
"Well then, you know those of the future." "No, Lord." "Then at least
you know me and have penetrated my mind thoroughly." "Not even that,
Lord." "Then why, Sâriputta, are your words so grand and bold."
There is much that is human in these passages yet we should be making a
fancy portrait did we allow ourselves to emphasize them too much and
neglect the general tone of the Pitakas. These scriptures are the
product of a school; but that school grew up under the Buddha's personal
influence and more than that is rooted in the very influences and
tendencies which produced the Buddha himself. The passionless,
intellectual aloofness; the elemental simplicity with which the facts of
life are stated and explained without any concession to sentiment, the
rigour of the prescription for salvation, that all sensual desire and
attachment must be cut off, are too marked and consistent for us to
suppose them due merely to monkish inability to understand the more
human side of his character. The Buddha began his career as an Indian
Muni, one supposed to be free from all emotions and intent only on
seeking deliverance from every tie connecting him with the world. This
was expected of him and had he done no more it would have secured him
universal respect. The fact that he did a great deal more, that he
devoted his life to active preaching, that he offered to all happiness
and escape from sorrow, that he personally aided with advice and
encouragement all who came to him, caused both his contemporaries and
future generations to regard him as a saviour. His character and the
substance of his teaching were admirably suited to the needs of the
religious world of India in his day. Judged by the needs of other
temperaments, which are entitled to neither more nor less consideration,
they seem too severe, too philosophic and the later varieties of
Buddhism have endeavoured to make them congenial to less strenuous
natures.
Before leaving the personality of the Buddha, we must say a word about
the more legendary portions of his biography, for though of little
importance for history they have furnished the chief subjects of
Buddhist art and influenced the minds of his followers as much as or
more than the authentic incidents of his career[393]. The later legend
has not distorted the old narrative. It is possible that all its
incidents may be founded on stories known to the compilers of the
Pitakas, though this is not at present demonstrable, but they are
embellished by an unstinted use of the supernatural and of the hyperbole
usual in Indian poetry. The youthful Buddha moves through showers of
flowers and an atmosphere crowded with attendant deities. He cannot even
go to school without an escort of ten thousand children and a hundred
thousand maidens and astonishes the good man who proposes to teach him
the alphabet by suggesting sixty-four systems of writing.
The principal scenes in this legend are as follows. The Bodhisattva,
that is the Buddha to-be, resides in the Tusita Heaven and selects his
birth-place and parentage. He then enters the womb of his mother Mâyâ in
the shape of a white elephant, which event she sees in a dream. Brahmans
are summoned and interpret the vision to mean that her son will be a
Universal Monarch or a Buddha. When near her confinement Mâyâ goes to
visit her parents but on the way brings forth her son in the Lumbini
grove. As she stands upright holding the bough of a tree, he issues from
her side without pain to her and is received by deities, but on touching
the ground, takes seven steps and says, "I am the foremost in the
world." On the same day are born several persons who play a part in his
life—his wife, his horse, Ânanda, Bimbisâra and others. Asita does
homage to him, as does also his father, and it is predicted that he will
become a Buddha and renounce the world. His father in his desire to
prevent this secludes him in the enjoyment of all luxury. At the
ploughing festival he falls into a trance under a tree and the shadow
stands still to protect him and does not change. Again his father does
him homage. He is of herculean strength and surpasses all as an archer.
He marries his cousin Yasodharâ, when sixteen years old. Then come the
four visions, which are among the scenes most frequently depicted in
modern sacred art. As he is driving in the palace grounds the gods show
him an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a monk of happy countenance.
His charioteer explains what they are and he determines to abandon the
world. It was at this time that his son was born and on hearing the news
he said that a new fetter now bound him to worldly life but still
decided to execute his resolve. That night he could take no pleasure in
the music of the singing women who were wont to play to him and they
fell asleep. As he looked at their sleeping forms he felt disgust and
ordered Channa, his charioteer, to saddle Kaṇṭhaka, a gigantic white
horse, eighteen cubits long from head to tail. Meanwhile he went to his
wife's room and took a last but silent look as she lay sleeping with her
child.
Then he started on horseback attended by Channa and a host of heavenly
beings who opened the city gates. Here he was assailed by Mâra the
Tempter who offered him universal empire but in vain. After jumping the
river Anomâ on his steed, he cut off his long hair with his sword and
flinging it up into the air wished it might stay there if he was really
to become a Buddha. It remained suspended; admiring gods placed it in a
heavenly shrine and presented Gotama with the robes of a monk.
Not much is added to the account of his wanderings and austerities as
given in the Pitakas, but the attainment of Buddhahood naturally
stimulates the devout imagination. At daybreak Gotama sits at the foot
of a tree, lighting up the landscape with the golden rays which issue
from his person. Sujârâ a noble maiden and her servant Pûrṇâ offer him
rice and milk in a golden vessel and he takes no more food for seven
weeks. He throws the vessel into the river, wishing that if he is to
become a Buddha it may ascend the stream against the current. It does so
and then sinks to the abode of the Nâgas. Towards evening he walks to
the Bodhi-tree and meets a grass-cutter who offers him grass to make a
seat. This he accepts and taking his seat vows that rather than rise
before attaining Buddhahood, he will let his blood dry up and his body
decay. Then comes the great assault of the Tempter. Mâra attacks him in
vain both with an army of terrible demons and with bands of seductive
nymphs. During the conflict Mâra asked him who is witness to his ever
having performed good deeds or bestowed alms? He called on the earth to
bear witness. Earthquakes and thunders responded to the appeal and the
goddess of the Earth herself rose and bore testimony. The rout of Mâra
is supposed to have taken place in the late evening. The full moon[394]
came out and in the three watches of the night he attained
enlightenment.
The Pali and early Sanskrit texts place the most striking legendary
scenes in the first part of the Buddha's life just as scribes give
freest rein to their artistic imagination in tracing the first letter
and word of a chapter. In the later version, the whole text is coloured
and gilded with a splendour that exceeds the hues of ordinary life but
no incidents of capital importance are added after the
Enlightenment[395]. Historical names still occur and the Buddha is still
a wandering teacher with a band of disciples, but his miracles
continually convulse the universe: he preaches to mankind from the sky
and retires for three months to the Tusita Heaven in order to instruct
his mother, who had died before she could hear the truth from her son's
lips, and often the whole scene passes into a vision where the ordinary
limits of space, time and number cease to have any meaning.