CHAPTER XV

MYTHOLOGY IN HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM

1

The later phases of Buddhism, described as Mahâyâna, show this feature

among many others, that the supernatural and mythological side of

religion becomes prominent. Gods or angels play an increasingly

important part, the Buddha himself becomes a being superior to all gods,

and Buddhas, gods and saints perform at every turn feats for which

miracle seems too modest a name. The object of the present chapter is to

trace the early stages of these beliefs, for they are found in the Pali

Canon, although it is not until later that they overgrow and hide the

temple in whose walls they are rooted.

It may be fairly said that Buddhism is not a miraculous religion in the

sense that none of its essential doctrines depend on miracles. It would

seem that such a religion as Mormonism must collapse if it were admitted

that the Book of Mormon is not a revelation delivered to Joseph Smith.

But the content of the Buddha's teaching is not miraculous and, though

he is alleged to have possessed insight exceeding ordinary human

knowledge, yet this is not exactly a miracle and it is a question

whether an unusual intelligence disciplined by meditation might not

attain to such knowledge. Still, though the essence of the doctrine may

be detachable from miracles and even be scientific, one cannot read very

far in the Vinaya or the Sutta Pitaka without coming upon unearthly

beings or supernatural occurrences.

The credibility of miracles is to my mind simply a question of evidence.

Any extraordinary event, such as a person doing a thing totally foreign

to his character, is improbable _a priori_. But the law does not allow

that the best of men is incapable of committing the worst of crimes, if

the evidence proves he did. Nor can the most extraordinary violation of

nature's laws be pronounced impossible if supported by sufficient

evidence, only the evidence must be strong in proportion to the

strangeness of the circumstances. But I cannot see that the uniformity

of nature is any objection to the occurrence of miracles, for as a rule

a miracle is regarded not as an event without a cause, but as due to a

new cause, namely the intervention of a superhuman person. Many of the

best known miracles are such that one may imagine this person to effect

them by understanding and controlling some unknown natural force, just

as we control electricity. Only evidence is required to show that he can

do so. But on the other hand the weakness of every religion which

depends on miracles is that their truth is contested and not

unreasonably. If they are true, why are they not certain? Of all the

phenomena described as miracles, ghosts, fortune telling, magic,

clairvoyance, prophesying, and so on, none command unchallenged

acceptance. In every age miracles, portents and apparitions have been

recorded, yet none of them with a certainty that carries universal

conviction and in many ages contemporary scepticism was possible. Even

in Vedic times there were people who did not believe in the existence of

Indra[714].

It is clear that some miracles require more evidence than others and

many old stories are so fantastic that they may justly be put aside

because those who reported them did not see, as we can, what

difficulties they involve and hence felt no need for caution in belief.

Among ancient Indians or Hebrews tales of seven headed snakes or of

stopping the sun did not arouse the critical spirit, for the phenomena

did not seem much more extraordinary than centipedes or eclipses. Only

those who understand that such stories upset all we know of anatomy and

astronomy can realize their improbability and the weight of evidence

necessary to make them credible. The most important distinction in

miracles (I use the word as a popular description of extraordinary

events which is readily understood though hard to define) is whether

they are in any way subjective, that is to say that they depend in the

last resort on an impression produced in certain, but not all, human

minds or whether they are objective, that is to say that all witnesses

would have seen them like any other event. A man rising into the air

would be an objective miracle if it were admitted that this levitation

was as real as the flight of a bird, and very strong evidence would be

necessary to make us believe that such a movement had really been

executed. But the case is different if we are dealing with the

conviction of an enthusiast that he rose aloft or even with the

conviction of his disciples, that they, being in an ecstasy, saw him do

so. There is no reason to doubt the subjective reality of

well-authenticated visions and as motives and stimuli to action they may

have real objective importance. Miracles of healing are not dissimilar.

A man's mind can affect his body, either directly through his conviction

that certain physical changes are about to take place or indirectly as

conveying the influence of some powerful external mind which may be

either calming or stimulating. That some persons have a special power of

healing nervous or mental diseases can hardly be doubted and I am not

disposed to reject any well-authenticated miraculous cure, believing

that sudden mental relief or acute joy can so affect the whole frame

that in the improved physical conditions thus caused even diseases not

usually considered as nervous may pass away. But though there is no

reason to discredit miracles of healing, it is clear that they are not

only exaggerated but also distorted by reporters who do not understand

their nature. Those who chronicle the cures supposed to be effected at

Lourdes at the present day keep within the bounds of what is explicable,

but a Hindu who had seen a cripple recover some power of movement might

be equally ready to believe that when a man's leg had been cut off the

stump could grow into a complete limb.

The miraculous events recorded in the Pitakas differ from those of later

works, whether Mahayanist literature or the Hindu Puranas and Epics,

chiefly in their moderation. They may be classified under several heads.

Many of them are mere embroidery or embellishment due to poetical

exuberance, esteemed appropriate in those generous climates though

repugnant to our chilly tastes. In every country poetry is allowed to

overstep the prosaic borders of fact without criticism. When an English

poet says that—

The red rose cries She is near, she is near:

And the white rose weeps She is late:

The larkspur listens, I hear, I hear:

And the lily whispers, I wait--

no one thinks of criticizing the lines as absurd because flowers cannot

talk or of trying to prove that they can. Poetry can take liberties with

facts provided it follows the lines of metaphors which the reader finds

natural. The same latitude cannot be allowed in unfamiliar directions.

Thus though a shower of flowers from heaven is not more extraordinary

than talking flowers and is quite natural in Indian poetry, it would

probably disconcert the English reader[715]. An Indian poet would not

represent flowers as talking, but would give the same idea by saying

that the spirits inhabiting trees and plants recited stanzas. Similarly

when a painter draws a picture of an angel with wings rising from the

shoulder blades, even the very scientific do not think it needful to

point out that no such anatomical arrangement is known or probable, nor

do the very pious maintain that such creatures exist. The whole question

is allowed to rest happily in some realm of acquiescence untroubled by

discussions. And it is in this spirit that Indian books relate how when

the Buddha went abroad showers of flowers fell from the sky and the air

resounded with heavenly music, or diversify their theological

discussions with interludes of demons, nymphs and magic serpents. And

although this riot of the imagination offends our ideas of good sense

and proportion, the Buddhists do not often lose the distinction between

what Matthew Arnold called Literature and Dogma. The Buddha's visits to

various heavens are not presented as articles of faith: they are simply

a pleasant setting for his discourses.

Some miracles of course have a more serious character and can be less

easily separated from the essentials of the faith. Thus the Pitakas

represent the Buddha as able to see all that happens in the world and to

transport himself anywhere at will. But even in such cases we may

remember that when we say of a well-informed and active person that he

is omniscient and ubiquitous, we are not misunderstood. The hyperbole of

Indian legends finds its compensation in the small importance attached

to them. No miraculous circumstance recorded of the Buddha has anything

like the significance attributed by Christians to the virgin birth or

the resurrection of Christ. His superhuman powers are in keeping with

the picture drawn of his character. They are mostly the result of an

attempt to describe a mind and will of more than human strength, but the

superman thus idealized rarely works miracles of healing. He saves

mankind by teaching the way of salvation, not by alleviating a few

chance cases of physical distress. In later works he is represented as

performing plentiful and extraordinary miracles, but these are just the

instances in which we can most clearly trace the addition of

embellishments.

2

The elaboration of marvellous episodes is regarded in India as a

legitimate form of literary art, no more blameable than dramatization,

and in sacred writings it flourishes unchecked. In Hinduism, as in

Buddhism, there is not wanting a feeling that the soul is weary of the

crowd of deities who demand sacrifices and promise happiness, and on the

serener heights of philosophy gods have little place. Still most forms

of Hinduism cannot like Buddhism be detached from the gods, and no

extravagance is too improbable to be included in the legends about them.

The extravagance is the more startling because their exploits form part

of quasi-historical narratives. Râma and Krishna seem to be idealized

and deified portraits of ancient heroes, who came to be regarded as

incarnations of the Almighty. This is understood by Indians to mean not

that the Almighty submitted consistently to human limitations, but that

he, though incarnate, exercised whenever it pleased him and often most

capriciously his full divine force. With this idea before them and no

historical scruples to restrain them, Indian writers tell how Krishna

held up a mountain on his finger, Indian readers accept the statement,

and crowds of pilgrims visit the scene of the exploit.

The later Buddhist writings are perhaps not less extravagant than the

Puranas, but the Pitakas are relatively sober, though not quite

consistent in their account of the Buddha's attitude to the miraculous.

Thus he encourages Sâgata[716] to give a display of miracles, such as

walking in the air, in order to prepare the mind of a congregation to

whom he is going to preach, but in other narratives[717] which seem

ancient and authentic, he expresses his disapproval of such performances

(just as Christ refused to give signs), and says that they do not

"conduce to the conversion of the unconverted or to the increase of the

converted." Those who know India will easily call up a picture of how

the Bhikkhus strove to impress the crowd by exhibitions not unlike a

modern juggler's tricks and how the master stopped them. His motives are

clear: these performances had nothing to do with the essence of his

teaching. If it be true that he ever countenanced them, he soon saw his

error. He did not want people to say that he was a conjurer who knew the

Gândhâra charm or any other trick. And though we have no warrant for

doubting that he believed in the reality of the powers known as iddhi,

it is equally certain that he did not consider them essential or even

important for religion.

Somewhat similar is the attitude of early Buddhism to the spirit

world—the hosts of deities and demons who people this and other spheres.

Their existence is assumed, but the truths of religion are not dependent

on them, and attempts to use their influence by sacrifices and oracles

are deprecated as vulgar practices similar to juggling. Later Buddhism

became infected with mythology and the critical change occurs when

deities, instead of being merely protectors of the church, take an

active part in the work of salvation. When the Hindu gods developed into

personalities who could appeal to religious and philosophic minds as

cosmic forces, as revealers of the truth and guides to bliss, the

example was too attractive to be neglected and a pantheon of

Bodhisattvas arose. But it is clear that when the Buddha preached in

Kosala and Magadha, the local deities had not attained any such

position. The systems of philosophy then in vogue were mostly not

theistic, and, strange as the words may sound, religion had little to do

with the gods. If this be thought to rest on a mistranslation, it is

certainly true that the _dhamma_ had very little to do with _devas_. The

example of Rome under the Empire or of modern China makes the position

clearer. In neither would a serious enquirer turn to the ancient

national gods for spiritual help.

Often as the Devas figure in early Buddhist stories, the significance of

their appearance nearly always lies in their relations with the Buddha

or his disciples. Of mere mythology, such as the dealings of Brahmâ and

Indra with other gods, there is little. In fact the gods, though freely

invoked as accessories, are not taken seriously[718], and there are some

extremely curious passages in which Gotama seems to laugh at them, much

as the sceptics of the eighteenth century laughed at Jehovah. Thus in

the Kevaddha sutta[719] he relates how a monk who was puzzled by a

metaphysical problem applied to various gods and finally accosted Brahmâ

himself in the presence of all his retinue. After hearing the question,

which was Where do the elements cease and leave no trace behind? Brahmâ

replies, "I am the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme, the Mighty, the

All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Controller, the Creator, the

Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the

Father of all that are and are to be." "But," said the monk, "I did not

ask you, friend, whether you were indeed all you now say, but I ask you

where the four elements cease and leave no trace." Then the Great Brahmâ

took him by the arm and led him aside and said, "These gods think I know

and understand everything. Therefore I gave no answer in their presence.

But I do not know the answer to your question and you had better go and

ask the Buddha." Even more curiously ironical is the account given of

the origin of Brahmâ[720]. There comes a time when this world system

passes away and then certain beings are reborn in the World of Radiance

and remain there a long time. Sooner or later, the world system begins

to evolve again and the palace of Brahmâ appears, but it is empty. Then

some being whose time is up falls from the World of Radiance and comes

to life in the palace and remains there alone. At last he wishes for

company, and it so happens that other beings whose time is up fall from

the World of Radiance and join him. And the first being thinks that he

is Great Brahmâ, the Creator, because when he felt lonely and wished for

companions other beings appeared. And the other beings accept this view.

And at last one of Brahmâ's retinue falls from that state and is born in

the human world and, if he can remember his previous birth, he reflects

that he is transitory but that Brahmâ still remains and from this he

draws the erroneous conclusion that Brahmâ is eternal.

He who dared to represent Brahmâ (for which name we might substitute

Allah or Jehovah) as a pompous deluded individual worried by the

difficulty of keeping up his position had more than the usual share of

scepticism and irony. The compilers of such discourses regarded the gods

as mere embellishments, as gargoyles and quaint figures in the cathedral

porch, not as saints above the altar. The mythology and cosmology

associated with early Buddhism are really extraneous. The Buddha's

teaching is simply the four truths and some kindred ethical and

psychological matter. It grew up in an atmosphere of animism which

peopled the trees and streams and mountains with spirits. It accepted

and played with the idea, just as it might have accepted and played with

the idea of radio-activity. But such notions do not affect the essence

of the Dharma and it might be preached in severe isolation. Yet in Asia

it hardly ever has been so isolated. It is true that Indian mythology

has not always accompanied the spread of Buddhism. There is much of it

in Tibet and Mongolia but less in China and Japan and still less in

Burma. But probably in every part of Asia the Buddhist missionaries

found existing a worship of nature spirits and accepted it, sometimes

even augmenting and modifying it. In every age the elect may have risen

superior to all ideas of gods and heavens and hells, but for any just

historical perspective, for any sympathetic understanding of the faith

as it exists as a living force to-day, it is essential to remember this

background and frame of fantastic but graceful mythology.

Many later Mahayanist books are full of dhâraṇîs or spells. Dhâraṇîs are

not essentially different from mantras, especially tantric mantras

containing magical syllables, but whereas mantras are more or less

connected with worship, dhâraṇîs are rather for personal use, spells to

ward off evil and bring good luck. The Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Chuang[721]

states that the sect of the Mahâsanghikas, which in his opinion arose in

connection with the first council, compiled a Pitaka of dhâraṇîs. The

tradition cannot be dismissed as incredible for even the Dîgha-Nikâya

relates how a host of spirits visited the Buddha in order to impart a

formula which would keep his disciples safe from harm. Buddhist and

Brahmanic mythology represent two methods of working up popular legends.

The Mahâbhârata and Puranas introduce us to a moderately harmonious if

miscellaneous society of supernatural personages decently affiliated to

one another and to Brahmanic teaching. The same personages reappear in

Buddhism but are analogous to Christian angels or to fairies rather than

to minor deities. They are not so much the heroes of legends, as

protectors: they are interesting not for their past exploits but for

their readiness to help believers or to testify to the true doctrine.

Still there was a great body of Buddhist and Jain legend in ancient

India which handled the same stories as Brahmanic legend—e.g. the tale

of Krishna—but in a slightly different manner. The characteristic form

of Buddhist legend is the Jâtaka, or birth story. Folk-lore and sagas,

ancient jokes and tragedies, the whole stock in trade of rhapsodists and

minstrels are made an edifying and interesting branch of scripture by

simply identifying the principal characters with the Buddha, his friends

and his enemies in their previous births[722]. But in Hinayanist

Buddhism legend and mythology are ornamental, and edifying, nothing

more. Spirits may set a good example or send good luck: they have

nothing to do with emancipation or nirvana. The same distinction of

spheres is not wholly lost in Hinduism, for though the great philosophic

works treat of God under various names they mostly ignore minor deities,

and though the language of the Bhagavad-gîtâ is exuberant and

mythological, yet only Krishna is God: all other spirits are part of

him.

The deities most frequently mentioned in Buddhist works are Indra,

generally under the name of Sakka (Śakra) and Brahmâ. The former is no

longer the demon-slaying soma-drinking deity of the Vedas, but the

heavenly counterpart of a pious Buddhist king. He frequently appears in

the Jâtaka stories as the protector of true religion and virtue, and

when a good man is in trouble, his throne grows hot and attracts his

attention. His transformation is analogous to the process by which

heathen deities, especially in the Eastern Church, have been accepted as

Christian saints[723]. Brahmâ rules in a much higher heaven than Sakka.

His appearances on earth are rarer and more weighty, and sometimes he

seems to be a personification of whatever intelligence and desire for

good there is in the world[724]. But in no case do the Pitakas concede

to him the position of supreme ruler of the Universe. In one singular

narrative the Buddha tells his disciples how he once ascertained that

Brahmâ Baka was under the delusion that his heaven was eternal and cured

him of it[725].

3

All Indian religions have a passion for describing in bold imaginative

outline the history and geography of the universe. Their ideas are

juster than those of Europeans and Semites in so far as they imply a

sense of the distribution of life throughout immensities of time and

space. The Hindu perceived more clearly than the Jew and Greek that his

own age and country were merely parts of a much longer series and of a

far larger structure or growth. He wished to keep this whole continually

before the mind, but in attempting to describe it he fell into that

besetting intellectual sin of India, the systematizing of the imaginary.

Ages, continents and worlds are described in detailed statements which

bear no relation to facts. Thus, Brahmanic cosmogony usually deals with

a period of time called Kalpa. This is a day in the life of Brahmâ, who

lives one hundred years of such days, and it marks the duration of a

world which comes into being at its commencement and is annihilated at

its end. It consists of 4320 times a million years and is divided into

fourteen smaller periods called manvantaras each presided over by a

superhuman being called Manu[726]. A manvantara contains about

seventy-one mahâyugas and each mahâyuga is what men call the four ages

of the world[727]. Geography and astronomy show similar precision. The

Earth is the lowest of seven spheres or worlds, and beneath it are a

series of hells[728]. The three upper spheres last for a hundred Kalpas

but are still material, though less gross than those below. The whole

system of worlds is encompassed above and below by the shell of the egg

of Brahmâ. Round this again are envelopes of water, fire, air, ether,

mind and finally the infinite Pradhâna or cause of all existing things.

The earth consists of seven land-masses, divided and surrounded by seven

seas. In the centre of the central land-mass rises Mount Meru, nearly a

million miles high and bearing on its peaks the cities of Brahmâ and

other gods.

The cosmography of the Buddhists is even more luxuriant, for it regards

the universe as consisting of innumerable spheres (cakkavâlas), each of

which might seem to a narrower imagination a universe in itself, since

it has its own earth, heavenly bodies, paradises and hells. A sphere is

divided into three regions, the lowest of which is the region of desire.

This consists of eleven divisions which, beginning from the lowest, are

the hells, and the worlds of animals, Pretas (hungry ghosts), Asuras

(Titans)[729] and men. This last, which we inhabit, consists of a vast

circular plain largely covered with water. In the centre of it is Mount

Meru, and it is surrounded by a wall. Above it rise six devalokas, or

heavens of the inferior gods. Above the realms of desire there follow

sixteen worlds in which there is form but no desire. All are states of

bliss one higher than the other and all are attained by the exercise of

meditation. Above these again come four formless worlds, in which there

is neither desire nor form. They correspond to the four stages of Arûpa

trances and in them the gross and evil elements of existence are reduced

to a minimum, but still they are not permanent and cannot be regarded as

final salvation. We naturally think of this series of worlds as so many

storeys rising one above the other and they are so depicted[730] but it

will be observed that the animal kingdom is placed between the hells and

humanity, obviously not as having its local habitation there but as

better off than the one, though inferior to the other, and perhaps if we

pointed this out to the Hindu artist he would smile and say that his

many storeyed picture must not be taken so literally: all states of

being are merely states of mind, hellish, brutish, human and divine.

Grotesque as Hindu notions of the world may seem, they include two great

ideas of modern science. The universe is infinite or at least

immeasurable[731]. The vision of the astronomer who sees a solar system

in every star of the milky way is not wider than the thought that

devised these Cakkavâlas or spheres, each with a vista of heavens and a

procession of Buddhas, to look after its salvation. Yet compared with

the sum of being a sphere is an atom. Space is filled by aggregates of

them, considered by some as groups of three, by others as clusters of a

thousand. And secondly these world systems, with the living beings and

plants in them, are regarded as growing and developing by natural

processes, and, equally in virtue of natural processes, as decaying and

disintegrating when the time comes. In the Aggañña-Sutta[732] we have a

curious account of the evolution of man which, though not the same as

Darwin's, shows the same idea of development or perhaps degeneration and

differentiation. Human beings were originally immaterial, aerial and

self-luminous, but as the world gradually assumed its present form they

took to eating first of all a fragrant kind of earth and then plants

with the result that their bodies became gross and differences of sex

and colour were produced.

No sect of Hinduism personifies the powers of evil in one figure

corresponding to Satan, or the Ahriman of Persia. In proportion as a

nation thinks pantheistically it is disinclined to regard the world as

being mainly a contest between good and evil. It is true there are

innumerable demons and innumerable good spirits who withstand them. But

just as there is no finality in the exploits of Râma and Krishna, so

Râvaṇa and other monsters do not attain to the dignity of the Devil. In

a sense the destructive forces are evil, but when they destroy the world

at the end of a Kalpa the result is not the triumph of evil. It is

simply winter after autumn, leading to spring and another summer.

Buddhism having a stronger ethical bias than Hinduism was more conscious

of the existence of a Tempter, or a power that makes men sin. This power

is personified, but somewhat indistinctly, as Mâra, originally and

etymologically a god of death. He is commonly called Mâra the Evil

One[733], which corresponds to the Mrityuh pâpmâ of the Vedas, but as a

personality he seems to have developed entirely within the Buddhist

circle and to be unknown to general Indian mythology. In the thought of

the Pitakas the connection between death and desire is clear. The great

evils and great characteristics of the world are that everything in it

decays and dies and that existence depends on desire. Therefore the

ruler of the world may be represented as the god of desire and death.

Buddha and his saints struggle with evil and overcome it by overcoming

desire and this triumphant struggle is regarded as a duel with Mâra, who

is driven off and defeated[734].

Even in his most mythological aspects, Mâra is not a deity of Hell. He

presides over desire and temptation, not over judgment and punishment.

This is the function of Yama, the god of the dead, and one of the

Brahmanic deities who have migrated to the Far East. He has been adopted

by Buddhism, though no explanation is given of his status. But he is

introduced as a vague but effective figure—and yet hardly more than a

metaphor—whenever it is desired to personify the inflexible powers that

summon the living to the other world and there make them undergo, with

awful accuracy, the retribution due for their deeds. In a remarkable

passage[735] called Death's Messengers, it is related that when a sinner

dies he is led before King Yama who asks him if he never saw the three

messengers of the gods sent as warnings to mortals, namely an old man, a

sick man and a corpse. The sinner under judgment admits that he saw but

did not reflect and Yama sentences him to punishment, until suffering

commensurate to his sins has been inflicted.

Buddhism tells of many hells, of which Avîci is the most terrible. They

are of course all temporary and therefore purgatories rather than places

of eternal punishment, and the beings who inhabit them have the power of

struggling upwards and acquiring merit[736], but the task is difficult

and one may be born repeatedly in hell. The phraseology of Buddhism

calls existences in heavens and hells new births. To us it seems more

natural to say that certain people are born again as men and that others

go to heaven or hell. But the three destinies are really parallel[737].

The desire to accommodate influential ideas, though they might be

incompatible with the strict teaching of the Buddha, is well seen in the

position accorded to spirits of the dead. The Buddha was untiring in his

denunciation of every idea which implied that some kind of soul or

double escapes from the body at death and continues to exist. But the

belief in the existence of departed ancestors and the presentation of

offerings to them have always formed a part of Hindu domestic religion.

To gratify this persistent belief, Buddhism recognized the world of

Petas, that is ghosts or spirits. Many varieties of these are described

in later literature. Some are as thin as withered leaves and suffer from

continual hunger, for their mouths are so small that they can take no

solid food. According to strict theology, the Petas are a category of

beings just above animals and certain forms of bad conduct entail birth

among them. But in popular estimation, they are merely the spirits of

the dead who can receive nourishment and other benefits from the living.

The veneration of the dead and the offering of sacrifices to or for

them, which form a conspicuous feature in Far Eastern Buddhism, are

often regarded as a perversion of the older faith, and so, indeed, they

are. Yet in the Khuddaka-pâṭha[738], which if not a very early work is

still part of the Sutta Pitaka, are found some curious and pathetic

verses describing how the spirits of the departed wait by walls and

crossways and at the doors, hoping to receive offerings of food. When

they receive it their hearts are gladdened and they wish their relatives

prosperity. As many streams fill the ocean, so does what is given here

help the dead. Above all, gifts given to monks will redound to the good

of the dead for a long time. This last point is totally opposed to the

spirit of Gotama's doctrine, but it contains the germ of the elaborate

system of funeral masses which has assumed vast proportions in the Far

East.

4

What then is the position of the Buddha himself in this universe of many

worlds and multitudinous deities? European writers sometimes fail to

understand how the popular thought of India combines the human and

superhuman: they divorce the two aspects and unduly emphasize one or the

other. If they are impressed by the historical character of Gotama, they

conclude that all legends with a supernatural tinge must be late and

adventitious. If, on the other hand, they feel that the extent and

importance of the legendary element entitles it to consideration, they

minimize the historical kernel. But in India, reality and fancy, prosaic

fact and extravagant imagination are found not as successive stages in

the development of religious ideas, but simultaneously and side by side.

Keshub Chunder Sen was a Babu of liberal views who probably looked as

prosaic a product of the nineteenth century as any radical politician.

Yet his followers were said to regard him as a God, and whether this is

a correct statement or not, it is certain that he was credited with

superhuman power and received a homage which seemed even to Indians

excessive[739]. It is in the light of such incidents and such

temperaments that we should read the story of the Buddha. Could we be

transported to India in the days of his preaching, we should probably

see a figure very like the portrait given in the more sober parts of the

Pitakas, a teacher of great intelligence and personal charm, yet

distinctly human. But had we talked about him in the villages which lay

along his route, or even in the circle of his disciples, I think we

should have heard tales of how Devas visited him and how he was wont to

vanish and betake himself to some heaven. The Hindu attributes such

feats to a religious leader, as naturally as Europeans would ascribe to

him a magnetic personality and a flashing eye.

The Pitakas emphasize the omniscience and sinlessness of the Buddha but

contain no trace of the idea that he is God in the Christian or

Mahommedan sense. They are consistently non-theistic and it is only

later that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas become transformed into beings about

whom theistic language can be used. But in those parts of the Pitakas

which may be reasonably supposed to contain the ideas of the first

century after the Buddha's death, he is constantly represented as

instructing Devas and receiving their homage[740]. In the Khuddaka-pâṭha

the spirits are invited to come and do him reverence. He is described as

the Chief of the World with all its gods[741], and is made to deny that

he is a man. If a Buddha cannot be called a Deva rather than a man, it

is only because he is higher than both. It is this train of thought

which leads later Buddhists[742] to call him Devâtideva, or the Deva who

is above all other Devas, and thus make him ultimately a being

comparable with Siva or Vishnu.

The idea that great teachers of mankind appear in a regular series and

at stated intervals is certainly older than Gotama, but it is hard to

say how far it was systematized before his time. The greatness of the

position which he won and the importance of the institutions which he

founded naturally caused his disciples to formulate the vague traditions

about his predecessors. They were called indifferently Buddha, Jina,

Arhat, etc., and it was only after the constitution of the Buddhist

church that these titles received fixed meanings.

Closely connected with the idea of the Buddha or Jina is that of the

Mahâpurusha or great man. It was supposed that there are born from time

to time supermen distinguished by physical marks who become either

universal monarchs (cakra-vartin) or teachers of the truth. Such a

prediction is said to have been made respecting the infant Gotama and

all previous Buddhas. The marks are duly catalogued, as thirty-two

greater and eighty[743] smaller signs. Many of them are very curious.

The hair is glossy black: the tongue is so long that it can lick the

ears: the arms reach to the knees in an ordinary upright position: the

skin has a golden tinge: there is a protuberance on the skull and a

smaller one, like a ball, between the eyebrows. The long arms may be

compared with the Persian title rendered in Latin by Longimanus[744] and

it is conceivable that the protuberances on the head may have been

personal peculiarities of Gotama. For though the thirty-two marks are

mentioned in the Pitakas as well-known signs establishing his claims to

eminence, no description of them has been found in any pre-Buddhist

work[745], and they may have been modified to suit his personal

appearance. At any rate it is clear that the early generations of

Buddhists considered that the Master conformed to the type of the

Mahâpurusha and attached importance to the fact[746]. The Pitakas

repeatedly allude to the knowledge of these marks as forming a part of

Brahmanic training and in the account of the previous Buddha Vipassî

they are duly enumerated. These ideas about a Great Man and his

characteristics were probably current among the people at the time of

the Buddha's birth. They do not harmonize completely with later

definitions of a Buddha's nature, but they show how Gotama's

contemporaries may have regarded his career.

In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding

Gotama[747], namely Vipassî, Sikhî, Vessabhû, Kakusandha, Konâgamana and

Kassapa. The last three at least may have some historical character. The

Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, who visited India from 405 to 411 A.D., saw

their reputed birthplaces and says that there still existed followers of

Devadatta (apparently in Kosala) who recognized these three Buddhas but

not Gotama. Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konâgamana in Nepal

with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved. In the

Majjhima-Nikâya[748] we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples

and Gotama once gave[749] an extended account of Vipassî, whose teaching

and career are represented as almost identical with his own. Different

explanations have been given of this common element. There is clearly a

wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its

exponents in all ages. But are we to believe that the stories, true or

romantic, originally told of Gotama were transferred to his mythical

forerunners or that before his birth there was a Buddha legend to which

the account of his career was accommodated? Probably both processes went

on simultaneously. The notices of the Jain saints show that there must

have been such legends and traditions independent of Gotama. To them we

may refer things like the miracles attending birth. But the general

outline of the Buddha's career, the departure from home, struggle for

enlightenment and hesitation before preaching, seem to be a reminiscence

of Gotama's actual life rather than an earlier legend.

There is an interesting discourse describing the wonders that attend the

birth of a Buddha[750], such as that he passes from the Tusita heaven to

his mother's womb; that she must die seven days after his birth: that

she stands when he is born: and so on. We may imagine that the death of

the mother is due to the historical fact that Gotama's mother did so

die, while the other circumstances are embellishments of the old Buddha

and Mahâpurusha legend. But the construction of this sutta is curious.

The monks in the Jetavana are talking of the wondrous powers possessed

by Buddhas. Gotama enters and asks what is the subject of their

discourse. They tell him and he bids Ânanda describe more fully the

wondrous attributes of a Buddha. Ânanda gives a long list of marvels and

at the end Gotama observes, "Take note of this too as one of the

wondrous attributes of a Buddha, that he has his feelings, perceptions

and thoughts under complete control[751]."

No passage has yet been adduced from the suttas mentioning more than

seven Buddhas but later books, such as the Buddha-vaṃsa and the

introduction to the Jâtaka, describe twenty-five[752]. There are

twenty-four Jain Tîrthankaras and according to some accounts twenty-four

incarnations of Vishnu. Probably all these lists are based on some

calculation as to the proper allowance of saints for an aeon. The

biographies of these Buddhas are brief and monotonous. For each sage

they record the number of his followers, the name of his city, parents,

and chief disciples, the tree under which he attained enlightenment, his

height and his age, both in extravagant figures. They also record how

each met Gotama in one of his previous births and prophesied his future

glory. The object of these biographies is less to give information about

previous Buddhas than to trace the career of Gotama as a Bodhisattva.

This career began in the time of Dîpankara, the first of the twenty-five

Buddhas, incalculable ages ago, when Gotama was a hermit called Sumedha.

Seeing that the road over which Dîpankara had to pass was dirty, he

threw himself down in the mire in order that the Buddha might tread on

him and not soil his feet. At the same time he made a resolution to

become a Buddha and received from Dîpankara the assurance that ages

afterwards his wish would be fulfilled. This incident, called praṇidhâna

or the vow to become a Buddha, is frequently represented in the frescoes

found in Central Asia.

The history of this career is given in the introduction to the Jâtaka

and in the late Pali work called the Cariyâ-piṭaka, but the suttas make

little reference to the topic. They refer incidentally to Gotama's

previous births[753] but their interest clearly centres in his last

existence. They not infrequently use the word Bodhisattva to describe

the youthful Gotama or some other Buddha before the attainment of

Buddhahood, but in later literature it commonly designates a being now

existing who will be a Buddha in the future. In the older phase of

Buddhism attention is concentrated on a human figure which fills the

stage, but before the canon closes we are conscious of a change which

paves the way for the Mahâyâna. Our sympathetic respect is invited not

only for Gotama the Buddha, but for the struggling Bodhisattva who,

battling towards the goal with incredible endurance and self-sacrifice

through lives innumerable, at last became Gotama.

It is only natural that the line of Buddhas should extend after as well

as before Gotama. In the Pitakas there are allusions to such a posterior

series, as when for instance we hear[754] that all Buddhas past and to

come have had and will have attendants like Ânanda, but Metteya the

Buddha of the future has not yet become an important figure. He is just

mentioned in the Dîgha Nikâya and Buddha-Vaṃsa and the Milinda Pañha

quotes an utterance of Gotama to the effect that "He will be the leader

of thousands as I am of hundreds," but the quotation has not been

identified.

The Buddhas enumerated are supreme Buddhas (Sammâ-sam-buddha) but there

is another order called Pacceka (Sanskrit Pratyeka) or private Buddhas.

Both classes attain by their own exertions to a knowledge of the four

truths but the Pacceka Buddhas are not, like the supreme Buddhas,

teachers of mankind and omniscient[755]. Their knowledge is confined to

what is necessary for their own salvation and perfection. They are

mentioned in the Nikâyas as worthy of all respect[756] but are not

prominent in either the earlier or later works, which is only natural,

seeing that by their very definition they are self-centred and of little

importance for mankind. The idea of the private Buddha however is

interesting, inasmuch as it implies that even when the four truths are

not preached they still exist and can be discovered by anyone who makes

the necessary mental and moral effort. It is also noticeable that the

superiority of a supreme Buddha lies in his power to teach and help

others. A passionless and self-centred sage falls short of the ideal.

[Footnote 1: The frontier seems to be about Long. 65° E.]

[Footnote 2: See Coedes's views about Śrîvijaya in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1918, 6.

The inscriptions of Rajendracola I (1012-1042 A.D.) show that Hindus in

India were not wholly ignorant of Indian conquests abroad.]

[Footnote 3: But the Japanese syllabaries were probably formed under

Indian influence.]

[Footnote 4: Probably the Christian doctrine of the atonement or

salvation by the death of a deity is an exception. I do not know of any

Indian sect which holds a similar view. The obscure verse Rig Veda x.

13. 4 seems to hint at the self-sacrifice of a deity but the hymn about

the sacrifice of Purusha (x. 90) has nothing to do with redemption or

atonement.]

[Footnote 5: It is possible (though not, I think, certain) that the

Buddha called his principal doctrines _ariya_ in the sense of Aryan not

of noble. But even the Blessed One may not have been infallible in

ethnography. When we call a thing British we do not mean to refer it to

the ancient Britons more than to the Saxons or Normans. And was the

Buddha an Aryan? See V. Smith, _Oxford History of India_, p. 47 for

doubts.]

[Footnote 6: This is not altogether true of the modern temple ritual.]

[Footnote 7: It is very unfortunate that English usage should make this

word appear the same as Brahman, the name of a caste, and there is much

to be said for using the old-fashioned word Brahmin to denote the caste,

for it is clear, though not correct. In Sanskrit there are several

similar words which are liable to be confused in English. In the

nominative case they are:

(1) Brâhmanah, a man of the highest caste.

(2) Brâhmanam, an ancient liturgical treatise.

(3) Brahma, the Godhead, stem Brahman, neuter.

(4) Brahmâ, a masculine nominative also formed from the stem Brahman and

used as the name of a personal deity.

For (3) the stem Brahman is commonly used, as being distinct from

Brahmâ, though liable to be confounded with the name of the caste.]

[Footnote 8: For some years most scholars accepted the opinion that the

Buddha died in 487 B.C. but the most recent researches into the history

of the Saisunâga dynasty suggest that the date should be put back to 554

B.C. See Vincent Smith, _Oxford History of India_, p. 52.]

[Footnote 9: This is sometimes rendered simply by desire but _desire_ in

English is a vague word and may include feelings which do not come

within the Pali _tanhâ_. The Buddha did not reprobate good desires. See

Mrs Rhys David's _Buddhism_, p. 222 and _E.R.E._ s.v. Desire.]

[Footnote 10: It is practically correct to say that Buddhism was the

first universal and missionary religion, but Mahâvira, the founder of

the Jains and probably somewhat slightly his senior, is credited with

the same wide view.]

[Footnote 11: It may be conveniently and correctly called Pali Buddhism.

This is better than Southern Buddhism or Hînayâna, for the Buddhism of

Java which lies even farther to the south is not the same and there were

formerly Hînayânists in Central Asia and China.]

[Footnote 12: See Finot, _J.A._ 1912, n. 121-136.]

[Footnote 13: There is no Indian record of Bodhidharma's doctrine and

its origin is obscure, but it seems to have been a compound of Buddhism

and Vedantism.]

[Footnote 14: This is proved by coins and also by the Besnagar

inscription.]

[Footnote 15: I do not think that this view is disproved by the fact

that Patañjali and the scholiasts on Pânini allude to images for they

also allude to Greeks. For the contrary view see Sten Konow in _I.A._

1909, p. 145. The facts are (_a_) The ancient Brahmanic ritual used no

images. (_b_) They were used by Buddhism and popular Hinduism about the

fourth century B.C. (_c_) Alexander conquered Bactria in 329 B.C. But

allowance must be made for the usages of popular and especially of

Dravidian worship of which at this period we know nothing.]

[Footnote 16: Few now advocate an earlier date such as 58 B.C.]

[Footnote 17: His authorship of _The Awakening of Faith_ must be

regarded as doubtful.]

[Footnote 18: Much of the Ramayana and Mahabharata must have been

composed during this period, both poems (especially the latter)

consisting of several strata.]

[Footnote 19: _E.g._ the Vyûhas of the Pâncarâtras, the five Jinas of

the Mahayanists and the five Sadâśiva tattvas. See Gopinâtha Rao,

_Elements of Indian Iconography_, vol. III p. 363.]

[Footnote 20: I draw a distinction between Śâktism and Tantrism. The

essence of Śâktism is the worship of a goddess with certain rites.

Tantrism means rather the use of spells, gestures, diagrams and various

magical or sacramental rites, which accompanies Śâktism but may exist

without it.]

[Footnote 21: According to _Census of India_, 1911, _Assam_, p. 47,

about 80,000 animists were converted to Hinduism in Goalpara between

1901 and 1911 by a Brahman called Sib Narayan Swami.]

[Footnote 22: It is said that in Burma Hindu settlers become absorbed in

the surrounding Buddhists. _Census of India_, 1911, I. p. 120.]

[Footnote 23: The life and writings of Vasubandhu illustrate the

transition from the Hina-to the Mahayana. In the earlier part of his

life he wrote the Abhidharmakośa which is still used by Mahayanists in

Japan as a text-book, though it does not go beyond Hinayanism. Later he

became a Mahayanist and wrote Mahayanist works.]

[Footnote 24: As already mentioned, I think Śâktism is the more

appropriate word but Tantrism is in common use by the best authorities.]

[Footnote 25: In India proper there are hardly any Buddhists now. The

Kumbhipathias, an anti-Brahmanic sect in Orissa, are said to be based on

Buddhist doctrines and a Buddhist mission in Mysore, called the Sakya

Buddhist Society, has met with some success. See _Census of India_,

1911, i. pp. 122 and 126.]

[Footnote 26: See the quotation in Schomerus, _Der Śaiva Siddhânta_, p.

20 where a Saiva Hindu says that he would rather see India embrace

Christianity than the doctrine of Śankara.]

[Footnote 27: Some think that the sect called Nimávats was earlier.]

[Footnote 28: The determination of his precise date offers some

difficulties. See for further discussion Book v.]

[Footnote 29: The Kadianis and Chet Ramis in the N.W. Provinces are

mentioned but even here the fusion seems to be chiefly between Islam and

Christianity. See also the article Râdhâ Soârai in _E.R.E._]

[Footnote 30: According to the Census of 1911.]

[Footnote 31: There are curious survivals of paganism in out of the way

forms of Christianity. Thus animal sacrifices are not extinct among

Armenians and Nestorians. See _E.R.E._ article "Prayer for the Dead" at

the end.]

[Footnote 32: The Buddhism of Siam and Burma is similar but in Siam it

is a mediæval importation and the early religious history of Burma is

still obscure.]

[Footnote 33: Although stability is characteristic of the Hinayana its

later literature shows a certain movement of thought phases of which are

marked by the Questions of Milinda, Buddhaghosa's works and the

Abhidhammattha Sangaha.]

[Footnote 34: _E.g._ the way a monastic robe should be worn and the

Sîmâ.]

[Footnote 35: I believe this to be the orthodox explanation but it is

open to many objections.

(1) It is a mere phrase. If to create means to produce something out of

nothing, then we have never seen such an act and to ascribe a sudden

appearance to such an act is really no explanation. Perhaps an act of

imagination or a dream may justly be called a creation, but the relation

between a soul and its Creator is not usually regarded as similar to the

relation between a mind and its fancies.

(2) The responsibility of God for the evil of the world seems to be

greatly increased, if he is directly responsible for every birth of a

child in unhappy conditions.

(3) Animals are not supposed to have souls. Therefore the production of

an animal's mind is not explained by this theory and it seems to be

assumed that such a complex mind ag a dog's can be explained as a

function of matter, whereas there is something in a child which cannot

be so explained.

(4) If a new immortal soul is created every time a birth takes place,

the universe must be receiving incalculably large additions. For some

philosophies such an idea is impossible. (See Bradley, _Appearance and

Reality_, p. 502. "The universe is incapable of increase. And to suppose

a constant supply of new souls, none of which ever perished, would

clearly land us in the end in an insuperable difficulty.") But even if

we do not admit that it is impossible, it at least destroys all analogy

between the material and spiritual worlds. If all the bodies that ever

lived continued to exist separately after death, the congestion would be

unthinkable. Is a corresponding congestion in the spiritual world really

thinkable?]

[Footnote 36: This seems to be the view of the Chândogya Up. VI. 12. As

the whole world is a manifestation ol Brahman, so is the great banyan

tree a manifestation of the subtle essence which is also present in its

minute seeds.]

[Footnote 37: The Brihad Ar. Up. knows of samsâra and karma but as

matters of deep philosophy and not for the vulgar: but in the Buddhist

Pitakas they are assumed as universally accepted. The doctrine must

therefore have been popularized after the composition of the Upanishad.

But some allowance must be made for the fact that the Upanishads and the

earliest versions of the Buddhist Suttas were produced in different

parts of India.]

[Footnote 38: Yet many instances are quoted from Celtic and Teutonic

folklore to the effect that birds and butterflies are human souls, and

Caesar's remarks about the Druids may not be wholly wrong.]

[Footnote 39: Several other Europeans of eminence have let their minds

play with the ideas of metempsychosis, pre-existence and karma, as for

instance Giordano Bruno, Swedenborg, Goethe, Lessing, Lavater, Herder,

Schopenhauer, Ibsen, von Helmont, Lichtenberg and in England such

different spirits as Hume and Wordsworth. It would appear that towards

the end of the eighteenth century these ideas were popular in some

literary circles on the continent. See Bertholet, _The Transmigration of

Souls_, pp. 111 ff. Recently Professor McTaggart has argued in favour of

the doctrine with great lucidity and persuasiveness. Huxley too did not

think it absurd. See his _Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics,

Collected Essays_, vol. IX. p. 61. As Deussen observes, Kant's argument

which bases immortality on the realization of the moral law, attainable

only by an infinite process of approximation, points to transmigration

rather than immortality in the usual sense.]

[Footnote 40: The chemical elements are hardly an exception. Apparently

they have no beginning and no end but there is reason to suspect that

they have both.]

[Footnote 41: I know well-authenticated cases of Burmese and Indians

thinking that the soul of a dead child had passed into an animal.]

[Footnote 42: Or again, when I wake up in the morning I am conscious of

my identity because innumerable circumstances remind me of the previous

day. But if I wake up suddenly in the night with a toothache which

leaves room for no thought or feeling except the feeling of pain, is the

fact that I experience the pain in any way lessened if for the moment I

do not know who or where I am?]

[Footnote 43: I believe that a French savant, Colonel Rochas, has

investigated in a scientific spirit cases in which hypnotized subjects

profess to remember their former births and found that these

recollections are as clear and coherent as any revelations about another

world which have been made by Mrs Piper or other mediums. But I have not

been able to obtain any of Col. Rochas's writings.]

[Footnote 44: I use the word _soul_ merely for simplicity, but Buddhists

and others might demur to this phraseology.]

[Footnote 45: But for a contrary view see _Reincarnation, the Hope of

the World_ by Irving S. Cooper. Even the Brihad Aran. Upan. (IV. 4. 3.

4) speaks of new births as new and more beautiful shapes which the soul

fashions for itself as a goldsmith works a piece of gold.]

[Footnote 46: The increase of the human population of this planet does

not seem to me a serious argument against the doctrine of rebirth for

animals, and the denizens of other worlds may be supplying an increasing

number of souls competent to live as human beings.]

[Footnote 47: Perhaps Russians in this as in many other matters think

somewhat differently from other Europeans.]

[Footnote 48: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 427. The chapter

contains many striking instances of these experiences, collected mostly

in the west.]

[Footnote 49: Compare _St Teresa's Orison of Union_, W. James, _l.c._ p.

408.]

[Footnote 50: Indian devotees understand how either Śiva or Krishna is

all in all, and thus too St Teresa understood the mystery of the

Trinity. See W. James, _l.c._ p. 411.]

[Footnote 51: Turîya or caturtha.]

[Footnote 52: Indians were well aware even in early times that such a

state might be regarded as equivalent to annihilation. Br. Ar. Up. II.

4. 13; Chând. Up. VIII. ii. 1.]

[Footnote 53: The idea is not wholly strange to European philosophy. See

the passage from the _Phaedo_ quoted by Sir Alfred Lyall. "Thought is

best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things

trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—when she

has as little as possible to do with the body and has no bodily sense or

feeling, but is aspiring after being."]

[Footnote 54: Mr Bradley _(Appearance and Reality_, p. 498) says "Spirit

is a unity of the manifold in which the externality of the manifold has

utterly ceased." This seems to me one of the cases in which Mr Bradley's

thought shows an interesting affinity to Indian thought.]

[Footnote 55: But also sometimes _purusha_.]

[Footnote 56: Even when low class yogis display the tortures which they

inflict on their bodies, their object I think is not to show what

penances they undergo but simply that pleasure and pain are alike to

them.]

[Footnote 57: The sense of human dignity was strongest among the early

Buddhists. They (or some sects of them) held that an arhat is superior

to a god (or as we should say to an angel) and that a god cannot enter

the path of salvation and become an arhat.]

[Footnote 58: Cf. Bosanquet, _Gifford Lectures_, 1912, p. 78. "History

is a hybrid form of experience incapable of any considerable degree of

being or trueness. The doubtful story of successive events cannot

amalgamate with the complete interpretation of the social mind, of art,

or of religion. The great things which are necessary in themselves,

become within the narrative contingent or ascribed by most doubtful

assumptions of insight to this actor or that on the historical stage.

The study of Christianity is the study of a great world experience: the

assignment to individuals of a share in its development is a problem for

scholars whose conclusions, though of considerable human interest, can

never be of supreme importance."]

[Footnote 59: The Chinese critic Hsieh Ho who lived in the sixth century

of our era said: "In Art the terms ancient and modern have no place."

This is exactly the Indian view of religion.]

[Footnote 60: _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, pp. 525-527 and

_A Pluralistic Universe_, p. 310.]

[Footnote 61: And in Russia there are sects which prescribe castration

and suicide.]

[Footnote 62: This, of course, does not apply to Buddhism in China,

Japan and Tibet.]

[Footnote 63: This is not true of the more modern Upanishads which are

often short treatises specially written to extol a particular deity or

doctrine.]

[Footnote 64: Mahâparinibbâna sutta. See the table of parallel passages

prefixed to Rhys Davids's translation, _Dialogues of the Buddha_, II.

72.]

[Footnote 65: Much the same is true of the various editions of the

Vinaya and the Mahâvastu. These texts were produced by a process first

of collection and then of amplification.]

[Footnote 66: The latter part of Mahâbhârata XII.]

[Footnote 67: Though European religions emphasize man's duty to God,

they do not exclude the pursuit of happiness: e.g. Westminster Shorter

Catechism (1647). Question 1, "What is the chief end of man? _A._ Man's

chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever."]

[Footnote 68: Mrs Rhys Davids has brought out the importance of the will

for Buddhist ethics in several works. See _J.R.A.S._ 1898, p. 47 and

_Buddhism_, pp. 221 ff. See also Maj. Nik. 19 for a good example of

Buddhist views as to the necessity and method of cultivating the will.]

[Footnote 69: Kaush. Up. III. 8.]

[Footnote 70: The words are kâmacâra and akâmacâra. Chand. Up. 8. 1-6.]

[Footnote 71: Mahâvag. I. 6. _E.g._ Ajâtasattu (Dig. Nik. 2, _ad fin._)

would have obtained the eye of truth, had he not been a parricide. The

consequent distortion of mind made higher states impossible.]

[Footnote 72: But all general statements about Hinduism are liable to

exceptions. The evil spirit Duḥsaha described in the Mârkandeya Purâna

(chaps. L and LI) comes very near the Devil.]

[Footnote 73: I can understand that the immediate reality is a duality

or plurality and that the one spirit may appear in many shapes.]

[Footnote 74: _E.g._ Chand. Up. V. 1. 2. Bri. Ar. Up. I. 3. In the

Pâñcarâtra we do hear of a jñânabhraṃsa or a fall from knowledge

analogous to the fall of man in Christian theology. Souls have naturally

unlimited knowledge but this from some reason becomes limited and

obscured, so that religion is necessary to show the soul the right way.

Here the ground idea seems to be not that any devil has spoilt the world

but that ignorance is necessary for the world process, for otherwise

mankind would be one with God and there would be no world. See Schrader,

_Introd. to the Pâncarâtra_, pp. 78 and 83.]

[Footnote 75: The Śatapatha Brâhmana has a curious legend (XI. 1. 6. 8

ff.) in which the Creator admits that he made evil spirits by mistake

and smites them. In the Kârikâ of Gauḍapâda, 2. 19 it is actually said:

Mayaishâ tasya devasya yayâ sammohitaḥ svayam.]

[Footnote 76: He does not say this expressly and it requires careful

statement in India where it is held strongly that God being perfect

cannot add to his bliss or perfection by creating anything. Compare

Dante, _Paradiso_, xxix. 13-18:

Non per aver a sè di bene acquisto,

ch' esser non può, ma perchè suo splendore

potesse risplendendo dir: subsisto.

In sua eternità di tempo fuore,

fuor d' ogni altro comprender, come i piacque,

s'aperse in nuovi amor l' eterno amore.]

[Footnote 77: The history of Japan and Tibet offers some exceptions.]

[Footnote 78: There are some exceptions, _e.g._ ancient Camboja, the

Sikhs and the Marathas.]

[Footnote 79: But there are other kinds of worship, such as the old

Vedic sacrifices which are still occasionally performed, and the burnt

offerings (homa) still made in some temples. There are also tantric

ceremonies and in Assam the public worship of the Vishnuites has

probably been influenced by the ritual of Lamas in neighbouring Buddhist

countries.]

[Footnote 80: This position is of great importance as tending to produce

a similar arrangement of religious paraphernalia. The similarity

disappears when Buddhist ceremonies are performed round Stûpas out of

doors.]

[Footnote 81: As explained elsewhere, I draw a distinction between

Tantrism and Śâktism.]

[Footnote 82: It does not seem to me to have given much inspiration to

Rossetti in his _Aatarte Syriaca_.]

[Footnote 83: But in justice to the Tantras it should be mentioned that

the Mahâ-nirvâṇa Tantra, x. 79, prohibits the burning of widows.]

[Footnote 84: See _Asiatic Review_, July, 1916, p. 33.]

[Footnote 85: _E.g._ Vijayanagar, the Marathas and the states of

Rajputana.]

[Footnote 86: According to the census of 1911 no less than 72 per cent.

of the population live by agriculture.]

[Footnote 87: The chief exceptions are: (_a_) the Tibetan church has

acquired and holds power by political methods. It is an exact parallel

to the Papacy, but it has never burnt people. (_b_) In mediæval Japan

the great monasteries became fortified castles with lands and troops of

their own. They fought one another and were a menace to the state. Later

the Tokugawa sovereigns had the assistance of the Buddhist clergy in

driving out Christianity but I do not think that their action can be

compared either in extent or cruelty with the Inquisition. (_c_) In

China Buddhism was in many reigns associated with a dissolute court and

palace intrigues. This led to many scandals and great waste of money.]

[Footnote 88: See for instance Huxley's striking definition of Buddhism

in his _Romanes Lecture_, 1893. "A system which knows no God in the

western sense; which denies a soul to man: which counts the belief in

immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin: which refuses any

efficacy to prayer and sacrifice: which bids men look to nothing but

their own efforts for salvation: which in its original purity knew

nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular

arm: yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with

marvellous rapidity and is still with whatever base admixture of foreign

superstitions the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind." But

some of this is too strongly phrased. Early Buddhism counted the desire

for heaven as a hindrance to the highest spiritual life, but if a man

had not attained to that plane and was bound to be reborn somewhere, it

did not question that his natural desire to be reborn in heaven was

right and proper.]

[Footnote 89: It may of course be denied that Buddhism is a religion. In

this connection some remarks of Mr Bradley are interesting. "The

doctrine that there cannot be a religion without a personal God is to my

mind entirely false" (_Essays on Truth and Reality_, p. 432). "I cannot

accept a personal God as the ultimate truth" (ib. 449). "There are few

greater responsibilities which a man can take on himself than to have

proclaimed or even hinted that without immortality all religion is a

cheat, all morality a self-deception" (_Appearance and Reality_, p.

510).]

[Footnote 90: Mahâvaṃsa, xii. 29, xiv. 58 and 64. Dîpavaṃsa, xn. 84 and

85, xiii. 7 and 8.]

[Footnote 91: _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, Amiel.]

[Footnote 92: This definition of orthodoxy is due to St Vincent of

Lerins. _Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est._]

[Footnote 93: I know that this statement may encounter objections, but I

believe that few Indians would be surprised at the proposition that God

is all things. Some might deny it, but as a familiar error.]

[Footnote 94: But orthodox Christianity really falls into the same

difficulty. For if God planned the redemption of the world and we are

saved by the death of Christ, then the Chief Priests, Judas, Pilate and

the soldiers who crucified Christ are at least the instruments of

salvation.]

[Footnote 95: Wm James, _Psychology_, pp. 203 and 216.]

[Footnote 96: I quote this epitome from Wildon Carr's Henri Bergson,

_The Philosophy of Change_, because the phraseology is thoroughly

Buddhist and appears to have the approval of M. Bergson himself.]

[Footnote 97: _Romanes Lecture_, 1893.]

[Footnote 98: _Appearance_, p. 298.]

[Footnote 99: Thus the Śvetâśvatara Up. says that the whole world is

filled with the parts or limbs of God and metaphors like sparks from a

fire or threads from a spider seem an attempt to express the same idea.

Br. Ar. Up. 2. 1. 20; Mund. Up. 2. 1. 1.]

[Footnote 100: _Appearance_, p. 244; _Essays on Truth_, p. 409;

_Appearance_, p. 413. Though the above quotations are all from Mr

Bradley I might have added others from Mr Bosanquet's _Gifford Lectures_

and from Mr McTaggart.]

[Footnote 101: "The plurality of souls in the Absolute is therefore

appearance and their existence not genuine ... souls like their bodies,

are as such nothing more than appearance—Neither (body and soul) is real

in the end: each is merely phenomenal." _Appearance_, pp. 305-307.]

[Footnote 102: Since I wrote this I have read Mr Wells' book _God the

Invisible King_. Mr Wells knows that he is indebted to oriental thought

and thinks that European religion in the future may be so too, but I do

not know if he realizes how nearly his God coincides with the Mahayanist

conception of a Bodhisattva such as Avalokita or Mañjuśri. These great

beings have, as Bodhisattvas, a beginning: they are not the creators of

the world but masters and conquerors of it and helpers of mankind: they

have courage and eternal youth and Mañjuśri "bears a sword, that clean

discriminating weapon." Like most Asiatics, Mr Wells cannot allow his

God to be crucified and he draws a distinction between God and the

Veiled Being, very like that made by Indians between Îśvara and

Brahman.]

[Footnote 103: The Malay countries are the only exception.]

[Footnote 104: Thus Motoori (quoted in Aston's _Shintō_, p. 9) says

"Birds, beasts, plants and trees, seas and mountains and all other

things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the

extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess are called

_Kami_."]

[Footnote 105: This impersonality is perhaps a later characteristic. The

original form of the Chinese character for T'ien Heaven represented a

man. The old Finnish and Samoyede names for God—Ukko and Num—perhaps

belong to this stage of thought.]

[Footnote 106: See the account of the Faunus message in this book.]

[Footnote 107: The chief exception in Sanskrit is the Râjataranginî, a

chronicle of Kashmir composed in 1148 A.D. There are also a few

panegyrics of contemporary monarchs, such as the Harshacarita of Bâṇa,

and some of the Puranas (especially the Matsya and Vâyu) contain

historical material. See Vincent Smith, _Early History of India_, chap.

I, sect. II, and _Pargiter Dynasties of the Kali Age_. The Greek and

Roman accounts of Ancient India have been collected by McCrindle in six

volumes 1877-1901.]

[Footnote 108: The inscriptions of the Chola Kings however (c. 1000

A.D.) seem to boast of conquests to the East of India. See Coedès "Le

royaume de Çrîvijaya" in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1918]

[Footnote 109: Very different opinions have been held as to whether this

date should be approximately 1500 B.C. or 3000 B.C. The strong

resemblance of the hymns of the Ṛig Veda to those of the Avesta is in

favour of the less ancient date, but the date of the Gathas can hardly

be regarded as certain.]

[Footnote 110: Linguistically there seems to be two distinct divisions,

the Dravidians and the Munda (Kolarian).]

[Footnote 111: The affinity between the Dravidian and Ural-Altaic groups

of languages has often been suggested but has met with scepticism. Any

adequate treatment of this question demands a comparison of the earliest

forms known in both groups and as to this I have no pretension to speak.

But circumstances have led me to acquire at different times some

practical acquaintance with Turkish and Finnish as well as a slight

literary knowledge of Tamil and having these data I cannot help being

struck by the general similarity shown in the structure both of words

and of sentences (particularly the use of gerunds and the constructions

which replace relative sentences) and by some resemblances in

vocabulary. On the other hand the pronouns and consequently the

conjugation of verbs show remarkable differences. But the curious Brahui

language, which is classed as Dravidian, has negative forms in which

_pa_ is inserted into the verb, as in Yakut Turkish, e.g. Yakut

_bis-pa-ppin_, I do not cut; Brahui _khan-pa-ra_, I do not see. The

plural of nouns in Brahui uses the suffixes _k_ and _t_ which are found

in the Finnish group and in Hungarian.]

[Footnote 112: See the legend in the Śat. Brâh. I. 4. 1. 14 ff.]

[Footnote 113: This much seems sure but whereas European scholars were

till recently agreed that he died about 487 B.C. it is now suggested

that 543 may be nearer the true date. See Vincent Smith in _Oxford

History of India_, 1920, p. 48.]

[Footnote 114: Pali Takkasila. Greek Taxila. It was near the modern

Rawal Pindi and is frequently mentioned in the Jâtakas as an ancient and

well-known place.]

[Footnote 115: Most of them are known by the title of Śâtakarṇi.]

[Footnote 116: But perhaps not in language. Recent research makes it

probable that the Kushans or Yüeh-chih used an Iranian idiom.]

[Footnote 117: Fleet and Franke consider that Kanishka preceded the two

Kadphises and began to reign about 58 B.C.]

[Footnote 118: He appears to have been defeated in these regions by the

Chinese general Pan-Chao about 90 A.D. but to have been more successful

about fifteen years later.]

[Footnote 119: Or Hephthalites. The original name seems to have been

something like Haptal.]

[Footnote 120: Strabo XV. 4. 73.]

[Footnote 121: _Hist. Nat_. VI. 23. (26).]

[Footnote 122: For authorities see Vincent Smith, _Early History of

India_, 1908, p. 401.]

[Footnote 123: The inscriptions of Asoka mention four kingdoms, Pândya,

Keralaputra, Cola and Satiyaputra.]

[Footnote 124: Hinduism is often used as a name for the mediaeval and

modern religion of India, and Brahmanism for the older pre-Buddhist

religion. But one word is needed as a general designation for Indian

religion and Hinduism seems the better of the two for this purpose.]

[Footnote 125: Excluding Burma the last Census gives over 300,000. These

are partly inhabitants of frontier districts, which are Indian only in

the political sense, and partly foreigners residing in India.]

[Footnote 126: Only tradition preserves the memory of an older and freer

system, when warriors like Viśvâmitra were able by their religious

austerities to become Brahmans. See Muir's _Sanskrit texts_, vol. I. pp.

296-479 on the early contests between Warriors and Brahmans. We hear of

Kings like Janaka of Videha and Ajâtaśatru of Kâśi who were admitted to

be more learned than Brahmans but also of Kings like Vena and Nahusha

who withstood the priesthood "and perished through want of

submissiveness." The legend of Paraśurâma, an incarnation of Vishnu as a

Brahman who destroyed the Kshatriya race, must surely have some

historical foundation, though no other evidence is forthcoming of the

events which it relates.]

[Footnote 127: In southern India and in Assam the superiors of

monasteries sometimes exercise a quasi-episcopal authority.]

[Footnote 128: Śat. Brâhm. v. 3. 3. 12 and v. 4. 2. 3.]

[Footnote 129: The Mârkaṇḍeya Purâṇa discusses the question how Kṛishṇa

could become a man.]

[Footnote 130: See for instance _The Holy Lives of the Azhvars_ by

Alkondavilli Govindâcârya. Mysore, 1902, pp. 215-216. "The Dravida Vedas

have thus as high a sanction and authority as the Girvana (i.e.

Sanskrit) Vedas."]

[Footnote 131: I am inclined to believe that the Lingâyat doctrine

really is that Lingâyats dying in the true faith do not transmigrate any

more.]

[Footnote 132: E.g. Brih.-Âr. III. 2. 13 and IV. 4. 2-6.]

[Footnote 133: This is the accepted translation of _dukkha_ but perhaps

it is too strong, and _uneasiness_, though inconvenient for literary

reasons, gives the meaning better.]

[Footnote 134: The old Scandinavian literature with its gods who must

die is equally full of this sense of impermanence, but the Viking

temperament bade a man fight and face his fate.]

[Footnote 135: But see Rabindrannath Tagore: Sadhana, especially the

Chapter on Realization.]

[Footnote 136: Cf. Shelley's lines in Hellas:—

"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever

From creation to decay,

Like the bubbles on a river

Sparkling, bursting, borne away."]

[Footnote 137: Nevertheless _deva_ is sometimes used in the Upanishads

as a designation of the supreme spirit.]

[Footnote 138: E.g. Brih.-Âr. Up. IV. 3. 33 and the parallel passages in

the Taittirîya and other Upanishads.]

[Footnote 139: The principal one is the date of Asoka, deducible from an

inscription in which he names contemporary Seleucid monarchs.]

[Footnote 140: _E.g._ a learned Brahman is often described in the Sutta

Pitaka as "a repeater (of the sacred words) knowing the mystic verses by

heart, one who had mastered the three Vedas, with the indices, the

ritual, the phonology, the exegesis and the legends as a fifth."]

[Footnote 141: There had been time for misunderstandings to arise. Thus

the S^{.}atapatha Brâhmana sees in the well-known verse "who is the God

to whom we shall offer our sacrifices" an address to a deity named Ka

(Sanskrit for _who_) and it would seem that an old word, _uloka_, has

been separated in several passages into two words, _u_ (a meaningless

particle) and _loka_.]

[Footnote 142: Recent scholars are disposed to fix the appearance of

Zoroaster between the middle of the seventh century and the earlier half

of the sixth century B.C. But this date offers many difficulties. It

makes it hard to explain the resemblances between the Gathas and the Rig

Veda and how is it that respectable classical authorities of the fourth

century B.C. quoted by Pliny attribute a high antiquity to Zoroaster?]

[Footnote 143: This applies chiefly to the three Samhitâs or collections

of hymns and prayers. On the other hand there was no feeling against the

composition of new Upanishads or the interpolation and amplification of

the Epics.]

[Footnote 144: The Hotri recites prayers while other priests perform the

act of sacrifice. But there are several poems in the Rig Veda for which

even Indian ingenuity has not been able to find a liturgical use.]

[Footnote 145: Thus the Pali Pitakas speak of the Tevijjâ or threefold

knowledge of the Brahmans.]

[Footnote 146: Or it may be that the ancestors of the Persians were also

in the Panjab and retired westwards.]

[Footnote 147: R.V. v. 3. 1.]

[Footnote 148: See the Gaṇeśâtharvaśîrsha Upan. and Gopinatha Rao.

_Hindu Iconography_, vol. I. pp. 35-67.]

[Footnote 149: See R.V. III. 34. 9. i. 130. 8; iv. 26. 2. vi. 18. 3; iv.

16. 13.]

[Footnote 150: In one singular hymn (R.V. x. 119) Indra describes his

sensations after drinking freely, and in the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 5.

4. 9 and XII. 7. 1. 11) he seems to be represented as suffering from his

excesses and having to be cured by a special ceremony.]

[Footnote 151: In some passages of the Upanishads he is identified with

the âtman _(e.g._ Kaushitaki Up. III. 8), but then all persons, whether

divine or human, are really the âtman if they only knew it.]

[Footnote 152: A.V. IV. 16. 2.]

[Footnote 153: The Indian alphabets are admittedly Semitic in origin.]

[Footnote 154: See Mahâbhâr. I. xvii-xviii and other accounts in the

Râmâyaṇa and Purâṇas.]

[Footnote 155: It has also been conjectured that Sk. Asura=Ashur, the

God of Assyria, and that Sumeru or Sineru (Meru)=Sumer or Shinar, see

_J.R.A.S._ 1916, pp. 364-5.]

[Footnote 156: Ṛig V. I. 164. 46.]

[Footnote 157: For instance chap. III. of the Chândogya Upanishad, which

compares the solar system to a beehive in which the bees are Vedic

hymns, is little less than stupendous, though singular and hard for

European thought to follow.]

[Footnote 158: I presume that the strong opinion expressed in Caland and

Henri's _Agnishloma_ p. 484 that the sacrifice is merely a _do ut des_

operation refers only to the earliest Vedic period and not to the time

of the Brâhmaṇas.]

[Footnote 159: Thus both the Vedas and the Tantras devote considerable

space to rites which have for object the formation of a new body for the

sacrificer. Compare for instance the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (I. 18-21: II.

35-38: III. 2 and VI. 27-31) with Avalon's account of Nyâsa, in his

introduction to the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra pages cvii-cxi.]

[Footnote 160: There is considerable doubt as to what was the plant

originally known as Soma. That described in the Vedas and Brâhmanas is

said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong

smell, fiery taste and intoxicating properties. The plants used as Haom

(Hum) by the modern Parsis of Yezd and Kerman are said to be members of

the family Asclepiadaceae (perhaps of the genus Sarcostemma) with fleshy

stalks and milky juice, and the Soma tested by Dr Haug at Poona was

probably made from another species of the same or an allied genus. He

found it extremely nasty, though it had some intoxicating effect. (See

his _Aitareya Brdh-mana_ n. p. 489.)]

[Footnote 161: An ordinary sacrifice was offered for a private person

who had to be initiated and the priests were merely officiants acting on

his behalf. In a Sattra the priests were regarded as the sacrificers and

were initiated. It had some analogy to Buddhist and Christian monastic

foundations for reading sûtras and saying masses.]

[Footnote 162: The political importance of the Aśvamedha lay in the fact

that the victim had to be let loose to roam freely for a year, so that

only a king whose territories were sufficiently extensive to allow of

its being followed and guarded during its wanderings could hope to

sacrifice it at the end.]

[Footnote 163: R.V. x. 136 and x. 190.]

[Footnote 164: Even the Upanishads (_e.g._ Chând. III. 17, Mahânâr. 64)

admit that a good life which includes _tapas_ is the equivalent of

sacrifice. But this of course is teaching for the elect only. The

Brih.-Âran. Up. (V. ii) contains the remarkable doctrine that sickness

and pain, if regarded by the sufferer as _tapas_, bring the same

reward.]

[Footnote 165: So too in the Taittirîya Upanishad _tapas_ is described

as the means of attaining the knowledge of Brahman (III. 1-5).]

[Footnote 166: Any ritual without knowledge may be worse than useless.

See Chând. Up. I. 10. 11.]

[Footnote 167: See the various narratives in the Chândogya, Br.-Âran.

and Kaushîtaki Upanishads. The seventh chapter of the Chândogya relating

how Nârada, the learned sage, was instructed by Sanatkumâra or Skanda,

the god of war, seems to hint that the active military class may know

the great truths of religion better than deeply read priests who may be

hampered and blinded by their learning. For Skanda and Nârada in this

connection see Bhagavad-gitâ x. 24, 26.]

[Footnote 168: For the necessity of a teacher see Kâth. Up. II. 8.]

[Footnote 169: See especially the bold passage at the end of Taitt.

Upan. II. "He who knows the bliss of Brahman ... fears nothing. He does

not torment himself by asking what good have I left undone, what evil

have I done?"]

[Footnote 170: The word Upanishad probably means sitting down at the

feet of a teacher to receive secret instruction: hence a secret

conversation or doctrine.]

[Footnote 171: Some allusions in the older Upanishads point to this

district rather than the Ganges Valley as the centre of Brahmanic

philosophy. Thus the Brịhad-Âraṇyaka speaks familiarly of Gândhâra.]

[Footnote 172: Cat. Adyar Library. The Ṛig and Sâma Vedas have two

Upanishads each, the Yajur Veda seven. All the others are described as

belonging to the Atharva Veda. They have no real connection with it, but

it was possible to add to the literature of the Atharva whereas it was

hardly possible to make similar additions to the older Vedas.]

[Footnote 173: Debendranath Tagore composed a work which he called the

Brâhmî Upanishad in 1848. See Autobiography, p. 170. The sectarian

Upanishads are of doubtful date, but many were written between 400 and

1200 A.D. and were due to the desire of new sects to connect their

worship with the Veda. Several are Śaktist (e.g. Kaula, Tripurâ, Devî)

and many others show Śaktist influence. They usually advocate the

worship of a special deity such as Gaṇeśa, Sûrya, Râma, Nṛi Siṃha.]

[Footnote 174: Br.-Âran. VI. 1, Ait. Âran. II. 4, Kaush. III. 3, Praśna,

II. 3, Chând. V. 1. The apologue is curiously like in form to the

classical fable of the belly and members.]

[Footnote 175: Br.-Âran. VI. 2, Chând. V. 3]

[Footnote 176: Br.-Âran. II. 1, Kaush. IV. 2.]

[Footnote 177: The composite structure of these works is illustrated

very clearly by the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka. It consists of three sections each

concluding with a list of teachers, namely (_a_) adhyâyas 1 and 2, (_b_)

adh. 3 and 4, (_c_) adh. 5 and 6. The lists are not quite the same,

which indicates some slight difference between the sub-schools which

composed the three parts, and a lengthy passage occurs twice in an

almost identical form. The Upanishad is clearly composed of two separate

collections with the addition of a third which still bears the title of

_Khila_ or supplement. The whole work exists in two recensions.]

[Footnote 178: The Eleven translated in the _Sacred Books of the East_,

vols. I and XV, include the oldest and most important.]

[Footnote 179: Thus the Aitareya Brâhmana is followed by the Aitareya

Âraṇyaka and that by the Aitareya-Âraṇyaka-Upanishad.]

[Footnote 180: R.V. X. 121. The verses are also found in the Atharva

Veda, the Vâjasaneyi, Taittirîya, Maitrâyaṇi, and Kâṭhaka Saṃhitâs and

elsewhere.]

[Footnote 181: R.V. X. 129.]

[Footnote 182: IV. 5. 5 and repeated almost verbally II. 4. 5 with some

omissions. My quotation is somewhat abbreviated and repetitions are

omitted.]

[Footnote 183: The sentiment is perhaps the same as that underlying the

words attributed to Florence Nightingale: "I must strive to see only God

in my friends and God in my cats."]

[Footnote 184: It will be observed that he had said previously that the

Âtman must be seen, heard, perceived and known. This is an inconsistent

use of language.]

[Footnote 185: Chândogya Upanishad VI.]

[Footnote 186: In the language of the Upanishads the Âtman is often

called simply Tat or it.]

[Footnote 187: _I.e._ the difference between clay and pots, etc. made of

clay.]

[Footnote 188: Yet the contrary proposition is maintained in this same

Upanishad (III. 19. 1), in the Taittirîya Upanishad (II. 8) and

elsewhere. The reason of these divergent statements is of course the

difficulty of distinguishing pure Being without attributes from not

Being.]

[Footnote 189: The word union is a convenient but not wholly accurate

term which covers several theories. The Upanishads sometimes speak of

the union of the soul with Brahman or its absorption in Brahman (_e.g._

Maitr. Up. VI. 22, _Sâyujyatvam_ and _aśabde nidhanam eti_) but the soul

is more frequently stated to be Brahman or a part of Brahman and its

task is not to effect any act of union but simply to _know_ its own

nature. This knowledge is in itself emancipation. The well-known simile

which compares the soul to a river flowing into the sea is found in the

Upanishads (Chând. VI. 10. 1, Mund. III. 2, Praśna, VI. 5) but Śankara

(on Brahma S. I. iv. 21-22) evidently feels uneasy about it. From his

point of view the soul is not so much a river as a bay which _is_ the

sea, if the landscape can be seen properly.]

[Footnote 190: The Mâṇḍukya Up. calls the fourth state

_ekâtmapratyayasâra_, founded solely on the certainty of its own self

and Gauḍapâda says that in it there awakes the eternal which neither

dreams nor sleeps. (Kâr. I. 15. See also III. 34 and 36.)]

[Footnote 191: Bṛ.-Âraṇyaka, IV. 3. 33.]

[Footnote 192: Cf. Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, p. 244. "The

perfect ... means the identity of idea and existence, attended also by

pleasure."]

[Footnote 193: Tait. Up. II. 1-9. See too ib. III. 6.]

[Footnote 194: Bṛ.-Âran. III. 8. 10. See too VI. 2.15, speaking of those

who in the forest worship the truth with faith.]

[Footnote 195: Chândog. Up. IV. 10. 5.]

[Footnote 196: It occurs Katha. Up. II. v. 13, 15, also in the

Śvetâśvatara and Muṇḍaka Upanishads and there are similar words in the

Bhagavad-gîtâ. "This is that" means that the individual soul is the same

as Brahman.]

[Footnote 197: The Nṙisiṁhottaratapanîya Up. I. says that Îśvara is

swallowed up in the Turîya.]

[Footnote 198: But still ancient and perhaps anterior to the Christian

era.]

[Footnote 199: Śvet. Up. VI. 7.]

[Footnote 200: Śvet. Up. IV. 3. Max Müller's translation. The commentary

attributed to Śankara explains nîlaḣ pataṅgaḣ as bhramaraḣ but Deussen

seems to think it means a bird.]

[Footnote 201: Chând. Up. vi. 14. 1. Śat. Brâh. viii. 1. 4. 10.]

[Footnote 202: The Brahmans are even called low-born as compared with

Kshatriyas and in the Ambattha Sutta (Dig. Nik. iii.) the Buddha

demonstrates to a Brahman who boasts of his caste that the usages of

Hindu society prove that "the Kshatriyas are higher and the Brahmans

lower," seeing that the child of a mixed union between the castes is

accepted by the Brahmans as one of themselves but not by the Kshatriyas,

because he is not of pure descent.]

[Footnote 203: He had learnt the Veda and Upanishads. Brih.-Âr. iv. 2.

1.]

[Footnote 204: Chând. Up. v. 3. 7, Kaush. Up. iv., Brih.-Âr. Up. ii. 1.

The Kshatriyas seem to have regarded the doctrine of the two paths which

can be taken by the soul after death (_devayâna_ and _pitriyâna_, the

latter involving return to earth and transmigration) as their special

property.]

[Footnote 205: Literally set in front, præfectus.]

[Footnote 206: Śat. Brâh. ii. 4. 4. 5.]

[Footnote 207: Śat. Brâh. iv. 1. 4. 1-6.]

[Footnote 208: The legends of Vena, Paraśurâma and others indicate the

prevalence of considerable hostility between Brahmans and Kshatriyas at

some period.]

[Footnote 209: Brahmacârin, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, Sannyâsin.]

[Footnote 210: Thus in the Bṛih.-Âraṇ. Yajñavalkya retires to the

forest. But even the theory of three stages was at this time only in the

making, for the last section of the Chândogya Up. expressly authorizes a

religious man to spend all his life as a householder after completing

his studentship and the account given of the stages in Chând. ii. 21 is

not very clear.]

[Footnote 211: Śat. Brâh. xi. 5. 6. 8. Cf. the lists in the Chândogya

Upanishad vii. secs. 1, 2 and 7.]

[Footnote 212: In southern India at the present day it is the custom for

Brahmans to live as Agnihotris and maintain the sacred fire for a few

days after their marriage.]

[Footnote 213: See Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_, vol.

v. s.v.]

[Footnote 214: The Emperor Jehangir writing about 1616 implies that the

Aśramas, which he describes, were observed by the Brahmans of that time.

See his _Memoirs_, edited by Beveridge, pp. 357-359.]

[Footnote 215: Śat. Brâh. I. 7. 2. 1. Cf. Tait. Brâh. VI. 3. 10. 5.]

[Footnote 216: Such as those built by Jânaśruti Pautrâyaṇa. See Chând.

Up. IV. 1.]

[Footnote 217: Śat. Brâh. XI. 4. 1. 1.]

[Footnote 218: Śat. Brâh. ii. 2. 2. 6 and iv. 3. 4. 4.]

[Footnote 219: Śat. Brâh. iv. 3. 4. 2.]

[Footnote 220: Vishnu Pur. iii. 5.]

[Footnote 221: Śat. Brâh. iii. 8. 2. 24. Yâjñavalkya is the principal

authority cited in books i-v and x-xiv of this Brâhmaṇa, but not in

books vi-ix, which perhaps represent an earlier treatise incorporated in

the text.]

[Footnote 222: Or "in confidence." Śat. Brâh. xi. 3. 1. 4.]

[Footnote 223: Brih.-Âr. iii. 2. 13.]

[Footnote 224: In the Pali Pitaka the Buddha is represented as preaching

in the land of the Kurus.]

[Footnote 225: These are the Pali forms. The Sanskrit equivalents are

Parivrâjaka and Śramaṇa.]

[Footnote 226: See for instance Mahâv. II. 1 and III. 1.]

[Footnote 227: Dig. Nik. 1.]

[Footnote 228: See O. Schrader, _Stand der indischen Philosophie zur

Zeit Mahâvîras und Buddhas_, 1902.

See also Ang. Nik. vol. III. p. 276 and Rhys Davids' _Dialogues of the

Buddha_, I. pp. 220 ff. But these passages give one an impression of the

multitude of ascetic confraternities rather than a clear idea of their

different views.]

[Footnote 229: It finds expression in two hymns of the Atharva Veda,

XIX. 53 and 54. Cf. too Gauḍap. Kâr. 8. Kâlât prasûtim bhutânâm manyante

kâlacintakâh.]

[Footnote 230: Dîgha Nikâya II. The opinions of the six teachers are

quoted as being answers to a question put to them by King Ajâtasattu,

namely, What is gained by renouncing the world? Judged as such, they are

irrelevant but they probably represent current statements as to the

doctrine of each sect. The six teachers are also mentioned in several

other passages of the Dîgha and Maj. Nikâyas and also in the

Sutta-Nipâta. It is clear that at a very early period the list of their

names had become the usual formula for summarizing the teaching

prevalent in the time of Gotama which was neither Brahmanic nor

Buddhist.]

[Footnote 231: Dig. Nik. I. 23-28.]

[Footnote 232: A rather defiant materialism preaching, "Let us eat and

drink for to-morrow we die," crops up in India in various ages though

never very prominent.]

[Footnote 233: But possibly the ascetics described by it were only

Digambara Jains.]

[Footnote 234: See especially the article Âjîvikas by Hoernle, in

Hastings' _Dictionary of Religion_. Also Hoernle, _Uvâsagadasao_,

appendix, pp. 1-29. Rockhill, _Life of the Buddha_, pp. 249 ff.

Schrader, _Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahâvíras und

Buddhas_, p. 32. Sûtrakritânga II. 6.]

[Footnote 235: Makkhali lived some time with Mahâvira, but they

quarrelled. But his followers, though they may not have been a united

body so much as other sects, had definite characteristics.]

[Footnote 236: _E.g._ Śat. Brâh. v. 4. 4. 13. "He thus encloses the

Vaiśya and Śûdra on both sides by the priesthood and nobility and makes

them submissive."]

[Footnote 237: See Śânkhâyana Âraṇyaka. Trans. Keith, pp. viii-xi, 78

85. Also Aitareya Âraṇ. book v.]

[Footnote 238: Cf. the ritual for the Horse sacrifice. ['Sat]. Brâh,

xiii. 2. 8, and Hillebrandt, _Vedische Opfer_., p. 152.]

[Footnote 239: Supplemented by the Kauśika Sûtra, which, whatever its

age may be, has preserved a record of very ancient usages.]

[Footnote 240: _E.g._ I. 10. This hymn, like many others, seems to

combine several moral and intellectual stages, the level at which the

combination was possible not being very high. On the one hand Varuṇa is

the Lord of Law and of Truth who punishes moral offences with dropsy. On

the other, the sorcerer "releases" the patient from Varuṇa by charms,

without imposing any moral penance, and offers the god a thousand other

men, provided that this particular victim is released.]

[Footnote 241: _E.g._ VII. 116, VI. 105, VI. 83.]

[Footnote 242: _E.g._ V. 7, XI. 9.]

[Footnote 243: _E.g._ V. 4, XIX. 39, IV. 37, II. 8, XIX. 34, VIII. 7.]

[Footnote 244: A. V XI. 6.]

[Footnote 245: See, for instance, Du Bose, _The Dragon, Image and

Demon_, 1887, pp. 320-344.]

[Footnote 246: Aṭânâṭiya and Mahâsamaya. Dig. Nik. XX. and XXXII.]

[Footnote 247: See Crooke's _Popular Religion of Northern India_, vol.

II. chap. ii.]

[Footnote 248: In the Brahma-Jala and subsequent suttas of the Dîgha

Nikâya.]

[Footnote 249: See Rhys Davids' _Dialogues of the Buddha_, vol. I. p. 7,

note 4, and authorities there quoted.]

[Footnote 250: Krishna is perhaps mentioned in the Chând. Up. III. 17.

6, but in any case not as a deity.]

[Footnote 251: See, besides the translations mentioned below, Bühler,

_Ueber die indische Secte der Jainas_ 1887; Hoernle, _Metaphysics and

Ethics of the Jainas_ 1908; and Guérinot, _Essai de Bibliographie Jaina_

and _Répertoire d'Épigraphie Jaina_; Jagmanderlal Jaini, _Outlines of

Jainism_; Jacobi's article Jainism in _E.R.E._. Much information may

also be found in Mrs Stevenson's _Heart of Jainism_. Winternitz,

_Geschichte d. Indischen Literatur_, vol. II. part II. (1920) treats of

Jain literature but I have not been able to see it.]

[Footnote 252: In _J.R.A.S._ 1917, pp. 122-130 s.v. Venkateśvara argues

that Vardhamâna died about 437 B.C. and that the Nigaṇṭhas of the

Pitakas were followers of Parśva. His arguments deserve consideration

but he seems not to lay sufficient emphasis on the facts that _(a)_

according to the Buddhist scriptures the Buddha and Gosâla were

contemporaries, while according to the Jain scriptures Gosâla and

Vardhamâna were contemporaries, _(b)_ in the Buddhist scriptures

Nâtaputta is the representative of the Nigaṇṭhas, while according to the

Jain scriptures Vardhamâna was of the Ñata clan.]

[Footnote 253: The atoms are either simple or compound and from their

combinations are produced the four elements, earth, wind, fire and

water, and the whole material universe. For a clear statement of the

modern Jain doctrine about _dharma_ and _adharma_, see Jagmanderlal

Jaini, l.c. pp. 22 ff.]

[Footnote 254: Jîva, ajîva, âsrava, bandha, saṃvara, nirjarâ, moksha.

The principles are sometimes made nine by the addition of _punya_,

merit, and _pâpa_, sin.]

[Footnote 255: Paudgalikam karma. It would seem that all these ideas

about Karma should be taken in a literal and material sense. Karma,

which is a specially subtle form of matter able to enter, stain and

weigh down the soul, is of eight kinds (1 and 2) jñâna- and

darśana-varanîya impede knowledge and faith, which the soul naturally

possesses; (3) mohanîya causes delusion; (4) vedanîya brings pleasure

and pain; (5) ayushka fixes the length of life; (6) nâma furnishes

individual characteristics, and (7) gotra generic; (8) antarâya hinders

the development of good qualities.]

[Footnote 256: Kevalam also called Jñâna, moksha, nirvâṇa. The nirvâṇa

of the Jains is clearly not incompatible with the continuance of

intelligence and knowledge.]

[Footnote 257: Uttarâdhyâyana XXXVI. 64-68 in _S.B.E._ XLV. pp.

212-213.]

[Footnote 258: _S.B.E._ XLV. p. xxvii. Bhandarkar Report for 1883-4, pp.

95 ff.]

[Footnote 259: Somewhat similar seems to be the relation of Jainism to

the Vaiśeshika philosophy. It accepted an early form of the atomic

theory and this theory was subsequently elaborated in the philosophy

whose founder Kaṇâda was according to the Jains a pupil of a Jain

ascetic.]

[Footnote 260: _E.g._ see Acarânga S. I. 7. 6.]

[Footnote 261: They seem to have authority to formulate it in a form

suitable to the needs of the age. Thus we are told that Parśva enjoined

four vows but Mahâvîra five.]

[Footnote 262: When Gotama after attaining Buddhahood was on his way to

Benares he met Upaka, a naked ascetic, to whom he declared that he was

the Supreme Buddha. Then, said Upaka, you profess to be the Jina, and

Gotama replied that he did, "Tasmâ 'ham Upakâ jinoti." (Mahâvag. I. 6.

10.)]

[Footnote 263: The exact period is 100 billion sâgaras of years. A

sâgara is 100,000,000,000 palyas. A palya is the period in which a well

a mile deep filled with fine hairs can be emptied if one hair is

withdrawn every hundred years.]

[Footnote 264: See M. Bloomfield, _Life and Stories of Pârçvanâtha_

(1919).]

[Footnote 265: See the discussions between followers of Parśva and

Mahâvîra given in Uttarâdhyâyana XXIV. and Sûtrakritânga II. 7.]