New interest has recently been awakened in old controversies concerning
the relations of Christianity and Buddhism. The so-called Theosophists
and Esoteric Buddhists are reviving exploded arguments against
Christianity as means of supporting their crude theories. The charge of
German sceptics, that Christianity borrowed largely from Buddhism, is
made once more the special stock in trade of these new and fanatical
organizations. To this end books, tracts, and leaflets are scattered
broadcast, and especially in the United States and Great Britain.
Professor Max Müller says, in a recent article published in _Longman's
New Review_: "Who has not suffered lately from Theosophy and Esoteric
Buddhism? Journals are full of it, novels overflow with it, and one is
flooded with private and confidential letters to ask what it all really
means. Many people, no doubt, are much distressed in their minds when
they are told that Christianity is but a second edition of Buddhism. 'Is
it really true?' they ask. 'Why did you not tell us all this before?
Surely, you must have known it, and were only afraid to tell it.' Then
follow other questions: 'Does Buddhism really count more believers than
any other religion?' 'Is Buddhism really older than Christianity, and
does it really contain many things which are found in the Bible?'" And
the learned professor proceeds to show that there is no evidence that
Christianity has borrowed from Buddhism. In this country these same
ideas are perhaps more widely circulated than in England. They are
subsidizing the powerful agency of the secular press, particularly the
Sunday newspapers, and thousands of the people are confronting these
puzzling questions. There is occasion, therefore, for a careful and
candid review of Buddhism by all leaders of thought and defenders of
truth.
In the brief time allotted me, I can only call attention to a few
salient points of a general character. In the outset, a distinction
should be drawn between Buddhist history and Buddhist legend, for just
at this point the danger of misrepresentation lies. It is true that the
Buddha lived before the time of Christ, and therefore anything of the
nature of real biography must be of an earlier date than the teachings
of Jesus; but whether the _legends_ antedate His life and doctrines is
quite another question. The Buddhist apologists all assume that they do,
and it is upon the legends that most of the alleged parallelisms in the
two records are based. How, then, shall we draw the line between history
and legend? The concensus of the best scholarship accepts those
traditions in which the northern and southern Buddhist records agree,
which the Council of Patna, B.C. 242, adopted as canonical, and which
are in themselves credible and consistent with the teachings of Gautama
himself. According to this standard of authority Gautama was born about
the sixth century B.C., as the son and heir of a rajah of the Sakya
tribe of Aryans, living about eighty miles north by northwest of
Benares. His mother, the principal wife of Kajah Suddhodana, had lived
many years without offspring, and she died not long after the birth of
this her only son, Siddartha. In his youth he was married and surrounded
by all the allurements and pleasures of an Oriental court. He, too,
appears to have remained without an heir till he was twenty-nine years
of age, when, upon the birth of a son, certain morbid tendencies came to
a climax, and he left his palace secretly and sought true comfort in a
life of asceticism. For six years he tried diligently the resources of
Hindu self-mortification, but becoming exhausted by his austerities,
almost unto death, he abandoned that mode of life, having apparently
become atheistic. He renounced the idea of merit-making as a means of
spiritual attainment, and he was sorely tempted, no doubt, to return to
his former life of ease. But he withstood the temptation and resolved to
forego earthly pleasure, and teach mankind what he conceived to be the
way of life, through self-control. He had tried pleasure; next he had
tried extreme asceticism; he now struck out what he called "The Middle
Path," as between self-indulgence on the one hand, and extreme bodily
mortification as a thing of merit on the other. This middle ground still
demanded abstinence as favorable to the highest mental and moral
conditions, but it was not carried to such extremes as to weaken the
body or the mind, or impair the fullest operation of every faculty.[80]
There can be no doubt that Gautama's relinquishment of Hinduism marked a
great and most trying crisis. It involved the loss of all confidence in
him on the part of his disciples, for when he began again to take
necessary food they all forsook him as a failure. It was while sitting
under the shade of an Indian fig-tree (Boddhi-tree) that this struggle
occurred and his victory was gained. There his future course was
resolved upon; there was the real birth-place of Buddhism as a system.
He thenceforth began to preach the law, or what he regarded as the way
of self-emancipation, and therefore the way of life. He first sought his
five followers, who had abandoned him, and succeeded in winning them
back. He gathered at length a company of about sixty disciples, whom he
trained and sent forth as teachers of his new doctrines. Yet, still
influenced by the old Hindu notions of the religious life, he formed his
disciples into an order of mendicants, and in due time he established an
order of nuns.
It was when Gautama rose up from his meditation and his high resolve
under the Bo-tree, that he began his career as "The Enlightened." He was
now a Buddha, and claimed to have attained Nirvana. All that has been
written of his having left his palace with the purpose of becoming a
saviour of mankind, is the sheer assumption of the later legends and
their apologists. Buddhism was an after-thought, only reached after six
years of bootless asceticism. There is no evidence that when Siddartha
left his palace he had any thought of benefiting anybody but himself. He
entered upon the life of the recluse with the same motives and aims that
have influenced thousands of other monks and anchorets of all lands and
ages--some of them princes like himself. Nevertheless, for the noble
decision which was finally reached we give him high credit. It seems to
have been one of the noblest victories ever gained by man over lower
impulses and desires. The passions of youth were not yet dead within
him; worldly ambition may be supposed to have been still in force; but
he chose the part of a missionary to his fellow-men, and there is no
evidence that he ever swerved from his purpose. He had won a great
victory over himself, and that fact constituted a secret of great power.
Gautama was about thirty-five years of age when he became a Buddha, and
for forty-five years after that he lived to preach his doctrines and to
establish the monastic institution which has survived to our time. He
died a natural death from indigestion at the age of eighty--greatly
venerated by his disciples, and the centre of what had already become a
wide-spread system in a large district of India.
The legends of Buddhism are a very different thing from the brief sketch
which I have given, and which is based upon the earlier Buddhist
literature. These sprang up after Gautama's death, and their growth
extended through many centuries--many centuries even of the Christian
era. The legends divide the life of the Buddha into three periods: 1.
That of his pre-existent states. 2. That part of his life which extended
from his birth to his enlightenment under the Bo-tree. 3. The forty-five
years of his Buddhaship. The legends have no more difficulty in dealing
with the particular experiences of the pre-existent states than in
enriching and adorning the incidents of his earthly life; and both are
doubtless about equally authentic.
Gautama discarded the idea of a divine revelation; he rejected the
authority of the Vedas totally. He denied that he was divine, but
distinctly claimed to be a plain and earnest man. All that he knew, he
had discovered by insight and self-conquest. To assume that he was
pre-existently divine and omniscient subverts the whole theory of his
so-called "discovery," and is at variance with the idea of a personal
conquest. The chief emphasis and force of his teachings lay in the
assumption that he did simply what other men might do; for his mission
was that of a teacher and exempler merely. He was a saviour only in that
he taught men how to save themselves.
The pre-existent states are set forth in the "Jatakas," or Birth Stories
of Ceylon, which represent him as having been born five hundred and
thirty times after he became a Bodisat (a predestined Buddha). As a
specimen of his varied experience while becoming fitted for Buddaship,
we read that he was born eighty-three times as an ascetic, fifty-eight
as a monarch, forty-three as a deva, twenty-four as a Brahman, eighteen
as an ape; as a deer ten, an elephant six, a lion ten; at least once
each as a thief, a gambler, a frog, a hare, a snipe. He was also
embodied in a tree. But as a Bodisat he could not be born in hell, nor
as vermin, nor as a woman! Says Spence Hardy, with a touch of irony: "He
could descend no lower than a snipe."
Northern legends represent Buddha as having "incarnated" for the purpose
of bringing relief to a distressed world. He was miraculously
conceived--his mother's side in the form of a white elephant. All nature
manifested its joy on the occasion. The ocean bloomed with flowers; all
beings from many worlds showed their wonder and sympathy. Many miracles
were wrought even during his childhood, and every part of his career was
filled with marvels. At his temptation under the Bo-tree, Mara (Satan)
came to him mounted on an elephant sixteen miles high and surrounded by
an encircling army of demons eleven miles deep.[81] Finding him proof
against his blandishments, he hurled mountains of rocks against him, and
assailed him with fire and smoke and ashes and filth--all of which
became as zephyrs on his cheek or as presents of fragrant flowers. Last
of all, he sent his three daughters to seduce him. Their blandishments
are set forth at great length in the "Romantic Legend."
In the Northern Buddhist literature--embracing both the "Romantic
Legend"[82] and the "Lalita Vistara"--many incidents of Buddha's
childhood are given which show a seeming coincidence with the life of
Christ. It is claimed that his birth was heralded by angelic hosts, that
an aged sage received him into his arms and blessed him, that he was
taken to the temple for consecration, that a jealous ruler sought to
destroy him, that in his boyhood he astonished the doctors by his
wisdom, that he was baptized, or at least took a bath, that he was
tempted, transfigured, and finally received up into heaven. These will
be noticed farther on; it is only necessary to say here that the legends
giving these details are first at variance with the early canonical
history, and second, that they are of such later dates as to place most
of them probably within the Christian era.
_The Four Peculiar and Characteristic Doctrines of Buddhism._
1. Its peculiar conception of the soul. 2. Its doctrine of Trishna and
Upadana. 3. Its theory of Kharma. 4. Its doctrine of Nirvana.
1. The Skandas, five in number, constitute in their interaction what all
others than Buddhists regard as the soul. They consist of material
properties; the senses; abstract ideas; tendencies or propensities; and
the mental powers. The soul is the result of the combined action of
these, as the flame of a candle proceeds from the combustion of its
constituent elements. The flame is never the same for two consecutive
moments. It seems to have a perpetuated identity, but that is only an
illusion, and the same unreality pertains to the soul. It is only a
succession of thoughts, emotions, and conscious experiences. We are not
the same that we were an hour ago. In fact, there is no such thing as
being--there is only a constant _becoming_. We are ever passing from one
point to another throughout our life; and this is true of all beings and
all things in the universe. How it is that the succession of experiences
is treasured up in memory is not made clear. This is a most subtle
doctrine, and it has many points of contact with various speculations of
modern times. It has also a plausible side when viewed in the light of
experience, but its gaps and inconsistencies are fatal, as must be seen
when it is thoroughly examined.
2. The second of the cardinal doctrines is that of Trishna. Trishna is
that inborn element of desire whose tendency is to lead men into evil.
So far, it is a misfortune or a form of original sin. Whatever it may
have of the nature of guilt hangs upon the issues of a previous life.
Upadana is a further stage in the same development. It is Trishna
ripened into intense craving by our own choice and our own action. It
then becomes uncontrollable and is clearly a matter of guilt. Now, the
momentum of this Upadana is such that it cannot be arrested by death.
Like the demons of Gadara it must again become incarnate, even though it
should enter the body of a brute. And this transitional something, this
restless moral or immoral force which must work out its natural results
somehow and somewhere, and that in embodied form projects into future
being a residuum which is known as Kharma.
3. What, then, is Kharma? Literally it means "the doing." It is a man's
record, involving the consequences and liabilities of his acts. It is a
score which must be settled. A question naturally arises, how the record
of a soul can survive when the soul itself has been "blown out." The
illustration of the candle does not quite meet the case. If the flame
were something which when blown out immediately seized upon some other
substance in which the work of combustion proceeded, it would come
nearer to a parallel. One candle may light another before itself is
extinguished, but it does not do it by an inherent necessity. But this
flame of the soul, this Kharma, must enter some other body of god, or
man, or beast.
Again, the question arises, How can responsibility be transferred from
one to another? How can the heavy load of a man's sin be laid upon some
new-born infant, while the departing sinner has himself no further
concern in his evil Kharma, but sinks into non-existence the moment his
"conformations" are touched with dissolution? Buddhism acknowledges a
mystery here; no real explanation can be given, and none seems to have
been attempted by Buddhist writers. To be consistent, Gautama, in
denying the existence of God and of the soul as an entity, should have
taught the materialistic doctrine of annihilation. This, however, he
could not do in the face of that deep-rooted idea of transmigration
which had taken entire possession of the Hindu mind. Gautama was
compelled therefore to bridge a most illogical chasm as best he could.
Kharma without a soul to cling to is something in the air. It alights
like some winged seed upon a new-born set of Skandas with its luckless
boon of ill desert, and it involves the fatal inconsistency of investing
with permanent character that which is itself impermanent.
But the question may be asked, "Do we not admit a similar principle when
we speak of a man's influence as something that survives him?" We
answer, "No." Influence is a simple radiation of impressions. A man may
leave an influence which men are free to accept or not, but it is quite
a different thing if he leaves upon a successor the moral liabilities of
a bankrupt character. Gautama's own Kharma, for example, ceased to exist
upon his entering Nirvana; there was no re-birth; but his influence
lives forever, and has extended to millions of his fellow-men.
The injustice involved in the doctrine of Kharma is startling. The
new-born soul that inherits its unsettled score has no memory or
consciousness that connects it with himself; it is not heredity; it is
not his father's character that invests him. This Kharma may have
crossed the ocean from the death-bed of some unknown man of another
race. The doctrine is the more astonishing when we consider that no
Supreme Being is recognized as claiming this retribution. There is no
God; it is a vague law of eternal justice, a law without a law-giver or
a judge. There can therefore be no pardon, no commutation of sentence,
no such thing as divine pity or help. The only way in which one can
disentangle himself is by breaking forever the connection between spirit
and matter which binds him with the shackles of conscious being.
4. Nirvana. No doctrine of Buddhism has been so much in dispute as this.
It has been widely maintained that Nirvana means extinction. But T.W.
Rhys Davids and others have held that it is "the destruction of malice,
passion, and delusion," and that it may be attained in this life. The
definition is quoted from comparatively recent Pali translations.[83]
Gautama, therefore, reached Nirvana forty-five years before his death.
It is claimed, however, that insomuch as it cuts off Kharma, or
re-birth, it involves entire extinction of being upon the dissolution of
the body.[84] It is held by still others that Nirvana is a return to the
original and all-pervading Boddhi-essence. This theory, which is really
a concession to the Brahmanical doctrine of absorption into the infinite
Brahma, has a wide following among the modern Buddhists in China and
Japan. It is a form of Buddhist pantheism.
As to the teaching of Gautama on this subject, Professor Max Müller,
while admitting that the meta-physicians who followed the great teacher
plainly taught that the entire personal entity of an arhat (an
enlightened one) would become extinct upon the death of the body, yet
reasons, in his lecture on Buddhistic Nihilism, that the Buddha himself
could not have taught a doctrine so disheartening. At the same time he
quotes the learned and judicial Bishop Bigandet as declaring, after
years of study and observation in Burmah, that such is the doctrine
ascribed to the great teacher by his own disciples. Gautama is quoted as
closing one of his sermons in these words: "Mendicants, that which binds
the teacher to existence is cut off, but his body still remains. While
his body still remains he shall be seen by gods and men, but after the
termination of life, upon the dissolution of the body, neither gods nor
men shall see him." T.W. Rhys Davids expresses the doctrine of Nirvana
tersely and correctly when he says: "Utter death, with no new life to
follow, is, then, a result of, but it is not, Nirvana."[85] Professor
Oldenberg suggests, with much plausibility, that the Buddha was more
reticent in regard to the doctrine of final extinction in the later
periods of his life; that the depressing doctrine had been found a
stumbling-block, and that he came to assume an agnostic position on the
question. In his "Buddha,"[86] Professor Oldenberg, partly in answer to
the grounds taken by Professor Max Müller in his lecture on Buddhistic
Nihilism, has very fully discussed the question whether the ego survives
in Nirvana in any sense. He claims that certain new translations of Pali
texts have given important evidence on the subject, and he sums up with
the apparent conclusion that the Buddha, moved by the depressing
influence which the grim doctrine of Nirvana, in the sense of
extinction, was producing upon his disciples, assumed a position of
reticence as to whether the ego survives or not. The venerable Malukya
(see p. 275) is said to have plied the Master with questions. "Does the
perfect Buddha live on beyond death, or does he not? It pleases me not
that all this should remain unanswered, and I do not think it right. May
it please the Master to answer me if he can. But when anyone does not
understand a matter, then a straightforward man says, 'I do not know
that.'" The Buddha replies somewhat evasively that he has not undertaken
to decide such questions, because they are not for spiritual
edification.
The question, What is Nirvana? has been the object of more extensive
discussion than its importance demands. Practically, the millions of
Buddhists are not concerned with the question. They find no attraction
in either view. They desire neither extinction nor unconscious
absorption into the Boddhi essence (or Brahm). What they anticipate is
an improved transmigration, a better birth. The more devout may indulge
the hope that their next life will be spent in one of the Buddhist
heavens; others may aspire to be men of high position and influence. The
real heaven to which the average Buddhist looks forward is apt to be
something very much after his own heart, or at least something indicated
by the estimate which he himself places upon his own character and life.
There may be many transmigrations awaiting him, but he is chiefly
concerned for the next in order. The very last object to excite his
interest is that far-off shadow called Nirvana.
In estimating the conflict of Christianity with Buddhism we must not
take counsel merely of our own sense of the absurdity of Gautama's
teachings; we are to remember that in Christian lands society is made up
of all kinds of people; that outside of the Christian Church there are
thousands, and even millions, who, with respect to faith, are in utter
chaos and darkness. The Church therefore cannot view this subject from
its own stand-point merely. Let us glance at certain features of
Buddhism which render it welcome to various classes of men who dwell
among us in Western lands. First of all, the system commends itself to
many by its intense individualism. Paul's figure of the various parts of
the human frame as illustrating the body of Christ, mutual in the
interdependence of all its members, would be wholly out of place in
Buddhism. Even the Buddhist monks are so many units of introverted
self-righteousness. And individualism differently applied is the
characteristic of our age, and therefore a bond of sympathy is supplied.
"Every man for himself," appeals to modern society in many ways.
Again, Gautama magnified the human intellect and the power of the human
will. "O Ananda," he said, "be lamps unto yourselves; depend upon no
other." He claimed to have thought out, and thought through every
problem of existence, to have penetrated every secret of human nature in
the present, and in the life to come, and his example was commended to
all, that they might follow in their measure. So also our transcendental
philosophers have glorified the powers and possibilities of humanity,
and have made genius superior to saintliness.[87] There are tens of
thousands who in this respect believe in a religion of humanity, and who
worship, if they worship at all, the goddess of reason. All such have a
natural affinity for Buddhism.
Another point in common between this system and the spirit of our age is
its broad humanitarianism--beneficence to the lower grades of life. When
love transcends the bounds of the human family it does not rise up
toward God, it descends toward the lower orders of the animal world.
"Show pity toward everything that exists," is its motto, and the insect
and the worm hold a larger relative place in the Buddhist than in the
Christian view. The question "Are ye not of more value than many
sparrows?" might be doubtful in the Buddhist estimate, for the teacher
himself, in his pre-existent states, had often been incarnate in
inferior creatures. It is by no means conceded that Jesus, in asking his
disciples this question, had less pity for the sparrows than the Buddha,
or that his beneficence was less thoughtful of the meanest thing that
glides through the air or creeps upon the earth; but the spirit of
Christianity is more discriminating, and its love rises up to heaven,
where, beginning with God, it descends through every grade of being.
Yet it is quite in accordance with the spirit and aim of thousands to
magnify the charity that confines itself to bodily wants and
distresses, to sneer at the relief which religion may bring to the far
greater anguish of the spirit, and to look upon love and loyalty to God
as superstition. Is it any wonder that such persons have a warm side
toward Buddhism? Again, this system has certain points in common with
our modern evolution theories. It is unscientific enough certainly in
its speculations, but it gets on without creatorship or divine
superintendence, and believes in the inflexible reign of law, though
without a law-giver. It assigns long ages to the process of creation, if
we may call it creation, and in development through cycles it sees
little necessity for the work of God.
It can also join hands cordially with many social theories of the day.
The pessimism of Buddhists, ancient or modern, finds great sympathy in
the crowded populations of the Western as well as the Eastern world.
And, almost as a rule, Esoteric Buddhism, American Buddhism,
Neo-Buddhism, or whatever we may call it, is a cave of Adullam to which
all types of religious apostates and social malcontents resort. The
thousands who have made shipwreck of faith, who have become soured at
the unequal allotments of Providence, who have learned to hate all who
are above them and more prosperous than they, are just in the state of
mind to take delight in Buddha's sermon at Kapilavastu, as rehearsed by
Sir Edwin Arnold. There all beings met--gods, devas, men, beasts of the
field, and fowls of the air--to make common cause against the
relentless fate that rules the world, and to bewail the sufferings and
death which fill the great charnel-house of existence, while Buddha
voiced their common complaint and stood before them as the only pitying
friend that the universe had found. It was the first great Communist
meeting of which we have any record.[88] The wronged and suffering
universe was there, and all
"took the promise of his piteous speech,
So that their lives, prisoned in the shape of ape,
Tiger or deer, shagged bear, jackal or wolf,
Foul-feeding kite, pearled dove or peacock gemmed,
Squat toad or speckled serpent, lizard, bat,
Yea, or fish fanning the river waves,
Touched meekly at the skirts of brotherhood
With man, who hath less innocence than these:
And in mute gladness knew their bondage broke
Whilst Buddha spoke these things before the king."
There was no mention of sin, but only of universal misfortune!
In contrast with the deep shadows of a brooding and all-embracing
pessimism like this, we need only to hint at that glow of hope and joy
with which the Sun of Righteousness has flooded the world, and the
fatherly love and compassion with which the Old Testament and the New
are replete, the divine plan of redemption, the psalms of praise and
thanksgiving, the pity of Christ's words and acts, and his invitations
to the weary and heavy-laden. In one view it is strange that pessimism
should have comfort in the fellowship of pessimism, but so it is; there
is luxury even in the sympathy of hate, and so Buddhist pessimism is a
welcome guest among us, though our Communistic querulousness is more
bitter.
Once more, Buddhist occultism has found congenial fellowship in American
spiritualism. Of late we hear less of spirit-rappings and far more of
Theosophy. But this is only the same crude system with other names, and
rendered more respectable by the cast-off garments of old Indian
philosophy. There is a disposition in the more intellectual circles to
assume a degree of disdain toward the crudeness of spiritualism and its
vulgar familiarity with departed spirits, who must ever be disturbed by
its beck and call; but it is confidently expected that the thousands,
nay, as some say, millions, of American spiritualists will gladly
welcome the name and the creed of Buddha.[89] It will be idle therefore
to assume that the old sleepy system of Gautama has no chance in this
wide-awake republic of the West.[90]
I have already called attention to the special tactics of Buddhists just
now in claiming that Christianity, having been of later origin, has
borrowed its principal facts and its teachings. Let us examine the
charge. It is a real tribute to the character of Christ that so many
sects of false religionists have in all ages claimed Him either as a
follower or as an incarnation of their respective deities. Others have
acknowledged his teachings as belonging to their particular style and
grade. The bitter and scathing calumny of Celsus, in the first
centuries of our era, did not prevent numerous attempts to prove the
identity of Christ's teachings with some of the most popular
philosophies of the heathen world. Porphyry claimed that many of
Christ's virtues were copied from Pythagoras. With like concession
Mohammedanism included Jesus as one of the six great prophets, and
confessedly the only sinless one among them all. Many a fanatic in the
successive centuries has claimed to be a new incarnation of the Son of
God. Hindus have named Him as an incarnation of Vishnu for the Western,
as was Krishna for the Eastern World. As was indicated in the opening of
this lecture, the Theosophists are making special claim to Him,[91] and
are reviving the threadbare theory that He was a follower of Buddha.
So strong an effort is made to prove that Christianity has borrowed both
its divine leader and its essential doctrines from India, that a
moment's attention may well be given to the question here. One
allegation is that the Evangelists copied the Buddhist history and
legends in their account of Christ's early life. Another is that the
leaders of the Alexandrian Church worked over the gospel story at a
later day, having felt more fully the influence of India at that great
commercial centre. The two theories are inconsistent with each other,
and both are inconsistent with the assumption that Christ Himself was a
Buddhist, and taught the Buddhist doctrines, since this supposition
would have obviated the need of any manipulation or fraud at any point.
In replying as briefly as possible I shall endeavor to cover both
allegations. In strong contrast with these cheap assertions of
Alexandrian corruption and plagiarism is the frank admission of such
keen critics as Renan, Weiss, Volkmar, Schenkel, and Hitzig,[92] that
the gospel record as we have it, was written during a generation in
which some of the companions of Jesus still lived. Renan says of Mark's
Gospel that "it is full of minute observations, coming doubtless from an
eye-witness," and he asserts that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written
"in substantially their present form by the men whose names they bear."
These Gospels were the work of men who knew Jesus. Matthew was one of
the Twelve; John in his Epistle speaks of himself as an eye-witness.
They were written in a historic age and were open to challenge. They
were nowhere contradicted in contemporary history. They fit their
environment.
How is it with the authenticity of Buddhist literature? Oldenberg says,
"For the _when_ of things men of India have never had a proper organ,"
and Max Müller declares to the same effect, that "the idea of a
faithful, literal translation seems altogether foreign to Oriental
minds." He also informs us that there is not a single manuscript in
India which is a thousand years old, and scarcely one that can claim
five hundred years. For centuries after Gautama's time nothing was
written; all was transmitted by word of mouth. Buddhists themselves say
that the Pali canonical texts were written about 88 B.C.[93]
Any fair comparison of the two histories should confine itself to the
writings which are regarded as canonical respectively, and whose dates
can be fixed. No more importance should be attached to the later
Buddhist legends than to the "Apocryphal Gospels," or to the absurd
"Christian Legends" which appeared in the middle ages. The Buddhist
Canon was adopted by the Council of Patna 242 B.C. The legends which are
generally compared with the canonical story of Christ are not included
in that Canon, or at most very few of them. They are drawn from certain
poetical books written much later, and holding about the same relation
to the Buddhist Canon that the "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained"
of Milton bear to the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Who
would think of quoting "Paradise Lost" in any sober comparison of
Biblical truth with the teachings of other religions?[94]
Even the canonical literature, that which is supposed to contain the
true history and teachings of Buddha, is far from authoritative, owing
to the acknowledged habit--acknowledged even by the author of the
"Dhammapada" of adding commentaries, notes, etc., to original teachings.
Not only was this common among Buddhist writers, but even more
surprising liberties were taken with the narrative. For example: The
legend describing Buddha's leave-taking of his harem is clearly borrowed
from an earlier story of Yasa, a wealthy young householder of Benares,
who, becoming disgusted with his harem, left his sleeping dancing girls
and fled to the Buddha for instruction. Davids and Oldenberg, in
translating this legend from the "Mahavagga," say in a note, "A
well-known incident in the life of Buddha has evidently been shaped
after the model of this story;" and they declare that "_nowhere in the
'Pali Pitakas' is this scene of Buddha's leave-taking mentioned_."
As another evidence of the way in which fact and fiction have been mixed
and manipulated for a purpose, one of the legends, which has often been
presented as a parallel to the story of Christ, represents the Buddha as
repelling the temptation of Mara by quoting texts of "scripture," and
the scripture referred to was the "Dhammapada." But the "Dhammapada" was
compiled hundreds of years after Buddha's death. Besides, there were no
"scriptures" of any kind in his day, for nothing was written till two or
three centuries later; and worse still, Buddha is made to quote his own
subsequent teachings; for the "Dhammapada" claims to consist of the
sacred words of the "enlightened one." Most of the legends of Buddhism
were wholly written after the beginning of the Christian era, and it
cannot be shown that any were written in their present form until two or
three centuries of that era had elapsed. T.W. Rhys Davids says of the
"Lalita Vistara" which contains a very large proportion of them, and one
form of which is said to have been translated into Chinese in the first
century A.D., "that there is no real proof that it existed in its
present form before the year 600 A.D." The "Romantic Legend" cannot be
traced farther back than the third century A.D. Oldenberg says: "No
biography of Buddha has come down to us from ancient times, from the age
of the Pali texts, and we can safely say that no such biography was in
existence then." Beal declares that the Buddhist legend, as found in the
various Epics of Nepaul, Thibet, and China, "is not framed after _any_
Indian model of any date, but is to be found worked out, so to speak,
among northern peoples, who were ignorant of, or indifferent to, the
pedantic stories of the Brahmans. In the southern and primitive records
the terms of the legend are wanting. _Buddha is not born of a royal
family; he is not tempted before his enlightenment; he works no
miracles, and he is not a Universal Saviour._"
The chances are decidedly that if any borrowing has been done it was on
the side of Buddhism. It has been asserted that thirty thousand
Buddhist monks from Alexandria once visited Ceylon on the occasion of a
great festival. This is absurd on the face of it; but that a Christian
colony settled in Malabar at a very early period is attested by the
presence of thousands of their followers even to this day.
In discussing the specific charge of copying Buddhist legends in the
gospel narratives, we are met at the threshold by insurmountable
improbabilities. To some of these I ask a moment's attention. I shall
not take the time to discuss in detail the alleged parallels which are
paraded as proofs. To anyone who understands the spirit of Judaism and
its attitude toward heathenism of all kinds, it is simply inconceivable
that the Christian disciples, whose aim it was to propagate the faith of
their Master in a Jewish community, should have borrowed old Indian
legends, which, by the terms of the supposition, must have been widely
known as such. And Buddhist apologists must admit that it is a little
strange that the Scribes and Pharisees, who were intelligent, and as
alert as they were bitter, should never have exposed this transparent
plagiarism. The great concern of the Apostles was to prove to Jews and
Gentiles that Jesus was the Christ of Old Testament prophecy. The whole
drift of their preaching and their epistles went to show that the gospel
history rested squarely and uncompromisingly on a Jewish basis. Peter
and John, Stephen and Paul, constantly "reasoned with the Jews out of
their own Scriptures." How unspeakably absurd is the notion that they
were trying to palm off on those keen Pharisees a Messiah who, though in
the outset at Nazareth he publicly traced his commission to Old
Testament prophecy, was all the while copying an atheistic philosopher
of India!
It is equally inconceivable that the Christian fathers should have
copied Buddhism. They resisted Persian mysticism as the work of the
Devil, and it was in that mysticism, if anywhere, that Buddhist
influence existed in the Levant. Whoever has read Tertullian's withering
condemnation of Marcion may judge how far the fathers of the Church
favored the heresies of the East. Augustine had himself been a Manichean
mystic, and when after his conversion he became the great theologian of
the Church, he must have known whether the teachings of the Buddha were
being palmed off on the Christian world. The great leaders of that age
were men of thorough scholarship and of the deepest moral earnestness.
Many of them gave up their possessions and devoted their lives to the
promotion of the truths which they professed. Scores of them sealed
their faith by martyr deaths.
But even if we were to accept the flippant allegation that they were all
impostors, yet we should be met by an equally insurmountable difficulty
in the utter silence of the able and bitter assailants of Christianity
in the first two or three centuries. Celsus prepared himself for his
well-known attack on Christianity with the utmost care, searching
history, philosophy, and every known religion from which he could derive
an argument against the Christian faith.
Why did he not strike at the very root of the matter by exposing those
stupid plagiarists who were attempting to play off upon the intelligence
of the Roman world a clumsy imitation of the far-famed Buddha? It was
the very kind of thing that the enemies of Christianity wanted. Why
should the adroit Porphyry attempt to work up a few mere scraps of
resemblance from the life of Pythagoras, when all he had to do was to
lay his hand upon familiar legends which afforded an abundance of the
very thing in demand?
Again, it is to be remembered that Christianity has always been
restrictive and opposed to admixtures with other systems. It repelled
the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria, and it fought for two or three
centuries against Gnosticism, Manichæism, and similar heresies: and the
assumption, in the face of all this, that the Christian Church went out
of its way to copy Indian Buddhism, must be due either to gross
ignorance or to reckless misrepresentation. On the other hand, it is in
accordance with the very genius of Buddhism to borrow. It has absorbed
every indigenous superstition and entered into partnership with every
local religious system, from the Devil Worship of Burmah and Ceylon to
the Taouism of China and the Shinto of Japan. In its long-continued
contact with Christianity it has changed from the original atheism of
Gautama to various forms of theism, and in some of its sects, at least,
from a stanch insistance on self-help alone to an out-and-out doctrine
of salvation by faith. This is true of the Shin and Yodo sects of
Japan. From recognizing no God at all at first, Buddhism had, by the
seventh century A.D., a veritable Trinity, with attributes resembling
those of the Triune God of the Christians, and by the tenth century it
had five trinities with One Supreme Adi-Buddha over them all. Everyone
may judge for himself whether these later interpolations of the system
were borrowed from the New Testament Trinity, which had been proclaimed
through all the East ten centuries before. Buddhism is still absorbing
foreign elements through the aid of its various apologists. Sir Edwin
Arnold has greatly added to the force of its legend by the Christian
phrases and Christian conceptions which he has read into it. Toward the
close of the "Light of Asia" he also introduces into the Buddha's sermon
at Kapilavastu the teachings of Herbert Spencer and others of our own
time.
But altogether the most stupendous improbability lies against the whole
assumption that Christ and his followers based their "essential
doctrines" on the teachings of the Buddha. The early Buddhism was
atheistic: this is the common verdict of Davids, Childers, Sir Monier
Williams, Kellogg, and many others. The Buddha declared that "without
cause and unknown is the life of man in this world," and he recognized
no higher being to whom he owed reverence. "The Buddhist Catechism," by
Subhadra, shows that modern Buddhism has no recognition of God.
It says (page 58): "Buddhism teaches the reign of perfect goodness and
wisdom _without a personal God_, continuance of individuality _without
an immortal soul_, eternal happiness without a local heaven, the way of
salvation without a vicarious saviour, redemption worked out by each one
himself without any prayers, sacrifices, and penances, without the
ministry of ordained priests, without the intercession of saints,
_without divine mercy_." And then, by way of authentication, it adds:
"These, and many others which have become the fundamental doctrines of
the Buddhist religion, were recognized by the Buddha in the night of his
enlightenment under the Boddhi-tree." And yet we are told that this is
the system which Christ and his followers copied. Compare this passage
with the Lord's Prayer, or with the discourse upon the lilies, and its
lesson of trust in God the Father of all! I appeal not merely to
Christian men, but to _any_ man who has brains and common-sense, was
there ever so preposterous an attempt to establish an identity of
doctrines?
But what is the evidence found in the legends themselves? Several
leading Oriental scholars, and men not at all biased in favor of
Christianity, have carefully examined the subject, and have decided that
there is no connection whatever. Professor Seydel, of Leipsic, who has
given the most scientific plea for the so-called coincidences, of which
he claims there are fifty-one, has classified them as: 1, Those which
may have been merely accidental, having arisen from similar causes, and
not necessarily implying any borrowing on either side; 2, those which
seem to have been borrowed from the one narrative or the other; and 3,
those which he thinks were clearly copied by the Christian writers. In
this last class he names but five out of fifty-one.
Kuenen, who has little bias in favor of Christianity, and who has made a
very thorough examination of Seydel's parallels, has completely refuted
these five.[95] And speaking of the whole question he says: "I think we
may safely affirm that we must abstain from assigning to Buddhism the
smallest direct influence on the origin of Christianity." He also says
of similar theories of de Bunsen: "A single instance is enough to teach
us that inventive fancy plays the chief part in them."[96]
Rhys Davids, whom Subhadra's "Buddhist Catechism" approves as the chief
exponent of Buddhism, says on the same subject: "I can find no evidence
of any actual or direct communication of these ideas common to Buddhism
and Christianity from the East to the West." Oldenberg denies their
early date, and Beal denies them an Indian origin of any date.
_Contrasts between Buddhism and Christianity._
Rhys Davids has pointed out the fact that, while Buddhism in some points
is more nearly allied to Christianity than any other system, yet in
others it is the farthest possible from it in its spirit and its
tendency. If we strike out those ethical principles which, to a large
extent, are the common heritage of mankind, revealed in the
understanding and the conscience, we shall find in what remains an
almost total contrariety to the Christian faith. To give a few examples
only.
1. Christ taught the existence and glory of God as Supreme, the Creator
and Father, the righteous Judge. His supreme mission to reconcile all
men to God was the key-note of all His ministry. By His teaching the
hearts of men are lifted up above all earthly conceptions to the worship
of infinite purity, and to the comforting assurance of more than a
father's care and love. Buddhism, on the contrary, knows nothing of God,
offers no heavenly incentive, no divine help. Leading scholars are
agreed that, whatever it may be now, the original orthodox Buddhism was
essentially atheistic. It despised the idea of divine help, and taught
men to rely upon themselves. While, therefore, Buddhism never rose above
the level of earthly resources, and contemplated only lower orders of
being, Christianity begins with God as supreme, to be worshipped and
loved with all the heart, mind, and strength, while our neighbors are to
be loved as ourselves.
2. Christ represented Himself as having pre-existed from the foundation
of the world, as having been equal with God in the glory of heaven, all
of which He resigned that He might enter upon the humiliation of our
earthly state, and raise us up to eternal life. He distinctly claimed
oneness and equality with the Father. Buddha claimed no such antecedent
glory; he spoke of himself as a man merely; the whole aim of his
teaching was to show in himself what every man might accomplish. Later
legends ascribe to him a sort of pre-existence, in which five hundred
and thirty successive lives were passed, sometimes as a man, sometimes
as a god, many times as an animal. But even these claims were not made
by Buddha himself--except so far as was implied by the common doctrine
of transmigration.
Furthermore, in relation to the alleged pre-existences, according to
strict Buddhist doctrine it was not really he who had gone before, it
was only a Kharma or character that had exchanged hands many times
before it could be taken up by the real and conscious Buddha born upon
the earth. Still further, even after the beginning of his earthly life
he lived for many years in what, according to his own teaching, was
heinous sin, all of which is fatal to the theory of pre-existent
holiness.
3. Christ is a real Saviour; His atonement claimed to be a complete
ransom from the penalty of sin, and by His teaching and example, and by
the power of the Holy Spirit, He overcomes the power of sin itself,
transforming the soul into His own image. Buddha, on the other hand, did
not claim to achieve salvation for any except himself, though Mr. Arnold
and others constantly use such terms as "help" and "salvation." Nothing
of the kind is claimed by the early Buddhist doctrines; they plainly
declare that purity and impurity belong to one's self, and that no one
can purify another.
4. Christ emphatically declared Himself a helper, even in this life:
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." He promised also to send his Spirit as a comforter, as a
supporter of his disciples' faith, as a guide and teacher, at all times
caring for their need; in whatever exigency his grace would be
sufficient for them. On the contrary, Buddha taught his followers that
no power in heaven or earth could help them; the victory must be their
own. "How can we hope to amend a life," says Bishop Carpenter, "which is
radically bad, by the aid of a system which teaches that man's highest
aim should be to escape from life? All that has been said against the
ascetic and non-worldly attitude of Christianity might be urged with
additional force against Buddhism. It is full of the strong, sweet,
pathetic compassion which looks upon life with eyes full of tears, but
only to turn them away from it again, as from an unsolved and insoluble
riddle." And he substantiates his position by quoting Réville and
Oldenberg. Réville reaches this similar conclusion: "Buddhism, born on
the domain of polytheism, has fought against it, not by rising above
nature in subordinating it to a single sovereign spirit, but by
reproving nature in principle, and condemning life itself as an evil and
a misfortune. Buddhism does not measure itself against this or that
abuse, does not further the development or reformation of society,
either directly or indirectly, for the very simple reason that it turns
away from the world on principle."
Oldenberg, one of the most thorough of Pali scholars, says: "For the
lower order of the people, for those born to toil in manual labor,
hardened by the struggle for existence, the announcement of the
connection of misery with all forms of existence was not made, nor was
the dialectic of the law of the painful concatenation of causes and
effects calculated to satisfy 'the poor in spirit.' 'To the wise
belongeth this law,' it is said, 'not to the foolish.' Very unlike the
work of that Man who 'suffered little children to come unto Him, for of
such is the kingdom of God.' For children, and those who are like
children, the arms of Buddha are not opened."
5. Christ and his disciples set before men the highest motives of life.
The great end of man was to love God supremely, and one's neighbor as
himself. Every true disciple was to consider himself an almoner and
dispenser of the divine goodness to his race. It was this that inspired
the sublime devotion of Paul and of thousands since his time. It is the
secret principle of all the noblest deeds of men. Gautama had no such
high and unselfish aim. He found no inspiring motive above the level of
humanity. His system concentrates all thought and effort on one's own
life--virtually on the attainment of utter indifference to all things
else. The early zeal of Gautama and his followers in preaching to their
fellow-men was inconsistent with the plain doctrines taught at a later
day. If in any case there were those who, like Paul, burned with desire
to save their fellow-men, all we can say is, they were better than their
creed. Such was the spirit of the Gospel, rather than the idle and
useless torpor of the Buddhist order. "Here, according to Buddhists,"
says Spence Hardy, "is a mere code of proprieties, an occasional opiate,
a plan for being free from discomfort, a system for personal profit."
Buddhism certainly taught the repression of human activity and
influence. Instead of saying, "Let your light so shine before men that
they, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven,"
or "Work while the day lasts," it said, "If thou keepest thyself silent
as a broken gong, thou hast attained Nirvana." "To wander about like the
rhinoceros alone," was enjoined as the pathway of true wisdom.
6. Christ taught that life, though attended with fearful alternatives,
is a glorious birthright, with boundless possibilities and promise of
good to ourselves and others. Buddhism makes life an evil which it is
the supreme end of man to conquer and cut off from the disaster of
re-birth. Christianity opens a path of usefulness, holiness, and
happiness in this life, and a career of triumph and glory in the endless
ages to come. Both Buddhism and Hinduism are worse than other
pessimistic systems in their fearful law of entailment through countless
transmigrations, each of which must be a struggle.
7. Christ, according to the New Testament, "ever liveth to make
intercession for us," and the Holy Spirit represents Him constantly as
an ever-living power in the world, to regenerate, save, and bless. But
Buddha is dead, and his very existence is a thing of the past. Only
traditions and the influence of his example can help men in the struggle
of life. Said Buddha to his disciples: "As a flame blown by violence
goes out and cannot be reckoned, even so a Buddha delivered from name
and body disappears and cannot be reckoned as existing." Again, he said
to his Order, "Mendicants, that which binds the Teacher (himself) is cut
off, but his body still remains. While this body shall remain he will be
seen by gods and men, but after the termination of life, upon the
dissolution of the body, neither gods nor men shall see him."
8. Christ taught the sacredness of the human body. "Know ye not that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" said His
great Apostle. But Buddhism says: "As men deposit filth upon a dungheap
and depart regretting nothing, wanting nothing, so will I depart leaving
this body filled with vile vapors." Christ and His disciples taught the
triumphant resurrection of the body in spiritual form and purity after
His own image. The Buddhist forsakes utterly and forever the deserted,
cast-off mortality, while still he looks only for another habitation
equally mortal and corruptible, and possibly that of a lower animal.
Thus, through all these lines of contrast, and many others that might be
named, there appear light and life and blessedness on the one hand, and
gloom and desolation on the other.
The gloomy nature of Buddhism is well expressed in Hardy's "Legends and
Theories of Buddhism" as follows: "The system of Buddhism is
humiliating, cheerless, man-marring, soul-crushing. It tells me that I
am not a reality, that I have no soul. It tells me that there is no
unalloyed happiness, no plenitude of enjoyment, no perfect unbroken
peace in the possession of any being whatever, from the highest to the
lowest, in any world. It tells me that I may live myriads of millions of
ages, and that not in any of those ages, nor in any portion of any age,
can I be free from apprehension as to the future, until I attain to a
state of unconsciousness; and that in order to arrive at this
consummation I must turn away from all that is pleasant, or lovely, or
instructive, or elevating, or sublime. It tells me by voices ever
repeated, like the ceaseless sound of the sea-wave on the shore, that I
shall be subject to sorrow, impermanence, and unreality so long as I
exist, and yet that I cannot cease to exist, nor for countless ages to
come, as I can only attain nirvana in the time of a Supreme Buddha. In
my distress I ask for the sympathy of an all-wise and all-powerful
friend. But I am mocked instead by the semblance of relief, and am told
to look to Buddha, who has ceased to exist; to the Dharma that never was
in existence, and to the Sangha, the members of which are real
existences, but like myself are partakers of sorrow and sin."
How shall we measure the contrast between all this and the ecstacies of
Christian hope, which in various forms are expressed in the Epistles of
Paul; the expected crown of righteousness, the eternal weight of glory;
heirship with Christ in an endless inheritance; the house not made with
hands; the General Assembly of the first born? Even in the midst of
earthly sorrows and persecutions he could say, "Nay, in all things we
are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."