PRACTISE AND SPECULATION.
/Mahâyânism/ perhaps can best be treated in two main divisions, as it
has distinctly two principal features in its doctrinal development. I
may call one the speculative phase of Mahâyânism and the other
practical. The first part is essentially a sort of Buddhist
metaphysics, where the mind is engaged solely in ratiocination and
abstraction. Here the intellect plays a very prominent part, and some
of the most abstruse problems of philosophy are freely discussed.
Speculative followers of Buddhism have taken great interest in the
discussion of them and have written many volumes on various
subjects.[36] {77} The second or practical phase of Mahâyânism
deals with such religious beliefs that constitute the life and essence
of the system. Mahâyânists might have reasoned wrongfully to explain
their practical faith, but the faith itself is the outburst of the
religious sentiment which is inherent in human nature. This practical
part, therefore, is by far more important, and in fact it can be said
that the speculative part is merely a preparatory step toward it.
Inasmuch as Mahâyânism is a religion and not a philosophical system,
it must be practical, that is, it must directly appeal to the inmost
life of the human heart.
_Relation of Feeling and Intellect in Religion._
So much has been said about the relation between philosophy and
religion; and there are many scholars who so firmly believe in the
identity of religion either with superstitions or with supernatural
revelation, that the denial of this assertion is considered by them
practically to be the disavowal of all religions. For, according to
them, there is no midway in religion. A religion which is rational and
yet practical is no religion. Now, Buddhism is neither a vagary of
imagination nor a revelation from above, and on this account it has
been declared by some to be a philosophy. The title “Speculative
Mahâyânism” thus, is apt to {78} be taken as a confirmation of such
opinion. To remove all the misconceptions, therefore, which might be
entertained concerning the religious nature of Mahâyânism and its
attitude toward intellectualism, I have deemed it wise here to say a
few words about the relation between feeling and intellect in religion.
There is no doubt that religion is essentially practical; it does not
necessarily require theorisation. The latter, properly speaking, is
the business of philosophy. If religion was a product of the intellect
solely, it could not give satisfaction to the needs of man’s whole
being. Reason constitutes but a part of the organised totality of an
individual being. Abstraction however high, and speculation however
deep, do not as such satisfy the inmost yearnings of the human heart.
But this they can do when they enter into one’s inner life and
constitution; that is, when abstraction becomes a concrete fact and
speculation a living principle in one’s existence; in short, when
philosophy becomes religion.
Philosophy as such, therefore, is generally distinguished from
religion. But we must not suppose that religion as the deepest
expression of a human being can eliminate altogether from it the
intellectual element. The most predominant rôle in religion may be
played by the imagination and feeling, but ratiocination must not fail
to assert its legitimate right in the co-ordination of beliefs. When
this right is denied, religion becomes fanaticism, superstition, fata
morgana, and even a menace to the progress of humanity.
{79}
The intellect is critical, objective, and always tries to stand apart
from the things that are taken up for examination. This alienation or
keeping itself aloof from concrete facts on the part of the intellect,
constantly tends to disregard the real significance of life, of which
it is also a manifestation. Therefore, the conflict between feeling
and reason, religion and science, instinct and knowledge, has been
going on since the awakening of consciousness.
Seeing this fact, intellectual people are generally prone to condemn
religion as barring the freedom and obstructing the progress of
scientific investigations. It is true that religion went frequently to
the other extreme and tried to suppress the just claim of reason; it
is true that this was especially the case with Christianity, whose
history abounds with regretable incidents resulting from its violent
encroachments upon the domain of reason. It is also true that the
feeling and the intellect are sometimes at variance, that what the
feeling esteems as the most valuable treasure is at times relentlessly
crushed by the reason, while the feeling looks with utmost contempt at
the results that have been reached by the intellect after much
lucubration. But this fatal conflict is no better than the fight which
takes place between the head and the tail of a hydra when it is cut in
twain; it always results in self-destruction.
We cannot live under such a miserable condition forever; when we know
that it is altogether due to a myopia on the part of our understanding.
The {80} truth is that feeling and reason “cannot do without one
another, and must work together inseparably in the process of human
development, since reason without feeling could have nothing to act
for and would be impotent to act, while feeling without reason would
act tyrannically and blindly--that is to say, if either could exist
and act at all without the other; for in the end it is not feeling nor
reason, which acts, but it is the man who acts according as he feels
and reasons”. (H. Maudsley’s _Natural Causes and Supernatural
Seemings_, p. vii). If it is thus admitted that feeling and reason
must co-ordinate and co-operate in the realisation of human ideals,
religion, though essentially a phenomenon of the emotional life,
cannot be indifferent to the significance of the intellect. Indeed,
religion, as much as philosophy, has ever been speculating on the
problems that are of the most vital importance to human life. In
Christianity speculation has been carried on under the name of
theology, though it claims to be fundamentally a religion of faith. In
India, however, as mentioned elsewhere, there was no dividing line
between philosophy and religion; and every teaching, every system, and
every doctrine, however abstract and speculative it might appear to
the Western mind, was at bottom religious and always aimed at the
deliverance of the soul. There was no philosophical system that did
not have some practical purpose.
Indian thinkers could not separate religion from {81} philosophy,
practice from theory. Their philosophy flowed out of the very spring
of the human heart and was not a mere display of fine intellectuation.
If their thinking were not in the right direction and led to a fallacy
which made life more miserable, they were ever ready to surrender
themselves to a superior doctrine as soon as it was discovered. But
when they thought they were in the right track, they did not hesitate
to sacrifice their life for it. Their philosophy had as much fire as
religion.
_Buddhism and Speculation._
Owing to this fact, Buddhism as much as Hinduism is full of abstract
speculations and philosophical reflections so much so that some
Christian critics are inclined to deny the religiosity of Buddhism.
But no student of the science of comparative religion would indorse
such a view nowadays. Buddhism, in spite of its predominant
intellectualism, is really a religious system. There is no doubt that
it emphasises the rational element of religion more than any other
religious teachings, but on that account we cannot say that it
altogether disregards the importance of the part to be played by the
feeling. Its speculative, philosophical phase is really a preparation
for fully appreciating the subjective significance of religion, for
religion is ultimately subjective, that is to say, the essence of
religion is love and faith, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is the
expression of the Bodhi which {82} consists in _prajñâ_[37]
(intelligence or wisdom) and _karunâ_ (love or compassion). Mere
knowledge (not _prajñâ_) has very little value in human life. When
not guided by love and faith, it readily turns out to be the most
obedient servant of egoism and sensualism. What Tennyson says in the
following verses is perfectly true with Buddhism:
“Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
“But on her forehead sits a fire;
She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
“Half grown as yet, a child, and vain--
She cannot fight the fear of death.
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain
“Of demons? fiery-hot to burst
All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.
“A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain, and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With Wisdom, like the younger child.”
{83}
But it must be remembered that Buddhism never ignores the part which
is played by the intellect in the purification of faith. For it is by
the judicious exercise of the intellect, that all religious
superstitions and prejudices are finally destroyed.
The intellect is so far of great consequence, and we must respect it
as the thunderbolt of Vajrapani, which crushes everything that is mere
sham and false. But at the same time we must also remember that the
quintessence of religion like the house built on the solid rock never
suffers on account of this destruction. Its foundation lies too deeply
buried in human {84} heart to be damaged by knowledge or science. So
long as there is a human heart warm with blood and burning with the
fire of life, the intellect however powerful will never be able to
trample it under foot. Indeed, the more severely the religious
sentiment is tested in the crucible of the intellect, the more
glorious and illuminating becomes its intrinsic virtue. The true
religion is, therefore, never reluctant to appear before the tribunal
of scientific investigation. In fact by ignoring the ultimate
significance of the religious consciousness, science is digging its
own grave. For what purpose has science other than the unravelling of
the mysteries of nature and reading into the meaning of existence? And
is this not what constitutes the foundation of religion? Science
cannot be final, it must find its reason in religion; as a mere
intellectual exercise it is not worthy of our serious consideration.
_Religion and Metaphysics._
The French sociologist, M. Guyau, says in his _Irreligion of the
Future_ (English translation p. 10):
“Every positive and historical religion presents three distinctive and
essential elements: (1) An attempt at a mythical and non-scientific
explanation of natural phenomena (divine intervention, miracles,
efficacious prayers, etc.), or of historical facts (incarnation of
Jesus Christ or of Buddha, revelation, and so forth); (2) A system of
dogmas, that is to say, of symbolic ideas, of imaginative beliefs,
forcibly {85} imposed upon one’s faith as absolute verities, even
though they are susceptible of no scientific demonstration or
philosophical justification; (3) A cult and a system of rites, that is
to say, of more or less immutable practices regarded as possessing a
marvelous efficacy upon the course of things, a propitiatory virtue. A
religion without myth, without dogma, without cult, without rite, is
no more than that somewhat bastard product, ‘natural religion,’ which
is resolvable to a system of metaphysical hypotheses.”
M. Guyau seems to think that what will be left in religion, when
severed from its superstitions and imaginary beliefs and mysterious
rites, is a system of metaphysical speculations, and that, therefore,
it is not a religion. But in my opinion the French sociologist shares
the error that is very prevalent among the scientific men of to-day.
He is perfectly right in trying to strip religion of all its ephemeral
elements and external integuments, but he is entirely wrong when he
does this at the expense of its very essence, which consists of the
inmost yearnings of the human heart. And this essence has no affinity
with the superstitions which grow round it like excrescences as the
results of insufficient or abnormal nourishment. Nor does it concern
itself with mere philosophising and constructing hypotheses about
metaphysical problems. Far from it. Religion is a cry from the abysmal
depths of the human heart, that can never be silenced, until it finds
that something and identifies itself with it, which reveals the
teleological {86} significance of life and the universe. But this
something has a subjective value only, as Goethe makes Faust exclaim,
“Feeling is all in all, name for it I have none.” Why? Because it
cannot objectively or intellectually be demonstrated, as in the case
with those laws which govern phenomenal existences,--the proper
objects of the discursive human understanding. And this subjectivity
of religion is what makes “all righteousnesses as filthy garments.” If
religion deprived of its dogmas and cults is to be considered, as M.
Guyau thinks, nothing but a system of metaphysics, we utterly lose
sight of its subjective significance or its emotional element, which
indeed constitutes its _raison d’être_.
* * *
Having this in view we proceed to see first on what metaphysical
hypothesis speculative Mahâyâna Buddhism is built up; but the reader
must remember that this phase of Mahâyânism is merely a preliminary
to its more essential part, which we expound later under the heading
of “Practical Mahâyânism,” in contradistinction to “Speculative
Mahâyânism.”