Christianity, we are told, inaugurated the religion of humanity and
human brotherhood. But the Buddhists taught a religion of humanity and
universal brotherhood before the Christian era; and not only taught the
religion, but put it into practice, which the Christians never succeeded
in doing, and cannot do to-day.
And, moreover, the Buddhists did not spread their religion of
humanity and brotherhood by means of the sword, and the rack, and the
thumb-screw, and the faggot; and the Buddhists liberated the slave, and
extended their loving-kindness to the brute creation.
The Buddhists do not depend for the records of their morality on books.
Their testimony is written upon the rocks. No argument can explain away
the rock edicts of King Asoka.
King Asoka was one of the greatest Oriental kings. He ruled over a vast
and wealthy nation. He was converted to Buddhism, and made it the State
religion, as Constantine made Christianity the State religion of Rome.
In the year 251 B.C., King Asoka inscribed his earliest rock edict.
The other edicts from which I shall quote were all cut more than two
centuries before our era. The inscription of the Rupuath Rock has the
words: "Two hundred and fifty years have elapsed since the departure of
the teacher." Now, Buddha died in the fifth century before Christ.
The Dhauli Edict of King Asoka contains the following:
Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience,
I again declare; not less so is the laborious ambition of
dominion by a prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven.
Confess and believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience.
From the Tenth Rock Edict:
Earthly glory brings little profit, but, on the contrary,
produces a loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is difficult
to peasant and to prince, unless by a supreme effort he gives
up all.
This is from the Fourteenth Edict:
Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, values alone the harvest
of the next world. For this alone has this inscription been
chiselled, that our sons and our grandsons should make no new
conquests. Let them not think that conquests by the sword
merit the name of conquests. Let them see their ruin, confusion,
and violence. True conquests alone are the conquests of _Dharma_.
Rock Edict No. 1 has:
Formerly in the great refectory and temple of King Piyadasi,
the friend of the Devas, many hundred thousand animals were
daily sacrificed for the sake of food meat... but now the
joyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward not
a single animal shall be put to death.
The Second Edict has:
In committing the least possible harm, in doing abundance of
good, in the practice of pity, love, truth, and likewise purity
of life, religion consists.
The Ninth Edict has:
Not superstitious rites, but kindness to slaves and servants,
reverence towards venerable persons, self-control with respect
to living creatures... these and similar virtuous actions
are the rites which ought indeed to be performed.
The Eighth Edict has:
The acts and the practice of religion, to wit, sympathy,
charity, truthfulness, purity, gentleness, kindness.
The Sixth Edict has:
I consider the welfare of all people as something for which
I must work.
The Dhauli Edict has:
If a man is subject to slavery and ill-treatment, from this
moment he shall be delivered by the king from this and other
captivity. Many men in this country suffer in captivity,
therefore the stupa containing the commands of the king has
been a great want.
Is it reasonable to suppose that a people possessing so much wisdom,
mercy, and purity two centuries before Christ was born could need to
borrow from the Christian ethics?
Mr. Lillie says of King Asoka:
He antedates Wilberforce in the matter of slavery. He antedates
Howard in his humanity towards prisoners. He antedates Tolstoy
in his desire to turn the sword into a pruning-hook. He antedates
Rousseau, St. Martin, Fichte in their wish to make interior
religion the all in all.
King Asoka abolished slavery, denounced war, taught spiritual religion
and purity of life, founded hospitals, forbade blood sacrifices, and
inculcated religious toleration, two centuries before the birth of
Christ.
Centuries before King Asoka the Buddhists sent out missionaries all over
the world.
Which religion was the borrower from the other--Buddhism or
Christianity?
Two centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon the rocks these
words:
I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with
me in creed, that they, following after my example, may with
me attain unto eternal salvation. And whoso doeth this is
blessed of the inhabitants of this world; and in the next
world endless moral merit resulteth from such religious charity
--_Edict XI_.
How many centuries did it take the Christians to rise to that level of
wisdom and charity? How many Christians have reached it yet?
But the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, for it existed
among forms of life very much earlier and lower than the human, and has,
indeed, been a powerful factor in evolution.
Speaking of "The Golden Rule" in his _Confessions of Faith of a Man of
Science_, Haeckel says:
In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as
self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance
derived from our animal ancestors. It had already found a
place among the herds of apes and other social mammals; in a
similar manner, but with wider scope, it was already present
in the most primitive communities and among the hordes of the
least advanced savages. Brotherly love--mutual support,
succour, protection, and the like--had already made its
appearance among gregarious animals as a social duty; for
without it the continued existence of such societies is
impossible. Although at a later period, in the case of man,
these moral foundations of society came to be much more highly
developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown,
is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the
higher vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among
the higher articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.), also, the
development of social relations and duties is the indispensable
condition of their living together in orderly societies. Such
societies have for man also been the most important instrument
of intellectual and moral progress.
It is not to revelation that we owe the ideal of human brotherhood, but
to evolution. It is because altruism is better than selfishness that it
has survived. It is because love is stronger and sweeter than greed that
its influence has deepened and spread. From the love of the animal for
its mate, from the love of parents for their young, sprang the ties of
kindred and the loyalty of friendship; and these in time developed
into tribal, and thence into national patriotism. And these stages of
altruistic evolution may be seen among the brutes. It remained for Man
to take the grand step of embracing all humanity as one brotherhood and
one nation.
But the root idea of fraternity and mutual loyalty was not planted by
any priest or prophet. For countless ages universal brotherhood has
existed among the bison, the swallow, and the deer, in a perfection to
which humanity has not yet attained.
For a fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity I recommend the
reader to two excellent books, _The Martyrdom of Man_, by Winwood Reade
(Kegan Paul), and _Mutual Aid_, by Prince Kropotkin (Heinemann).
But the Christian claims that Christ taught a new gospel of love, and
mercy, and goodwill to men. That is a great mistake. Christ did not
originate one single new ethic.
The Golden Rule was old. The Lord's Prayer was old. The Sermon on
the Mount was old. With the latter I will deal briefly. For a fuller
statement, please see the R.P.A. sixpenny edition of Huxley's _Lectures
and Essays_, and _Christianity and Mythology_, by J. M. Robertson.
Shortly stated, Huxley's argument was to the following effect:
That Mark's Gospel is the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, and that
Mark's Gospel does not contain, nor even mention, the Sermon on the
Mount. That Luke gives no Sermon on the Mount, but gives what may be
called a "Sermon on the Plain." That Luke's sermon differs materially
from the sermon given by Matthew. That the Matthew version contains one
hundred and seven verses, and the Luke version twenty-nine verses.
Huxley's conclusion is as follows:
"Matthew," having a _cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or
wrongly it is impossible to say--to Jesus among his materials,
thought they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse
and put them in a place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians
of the highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches
which never were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of
statesmen and warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented
by "Matthew" would have been grievously astonished to find that
any one objected to his following the example of the best models
accessible to him.
But since Huxley wrote those words more evidence has been produced. From
the Old Testament, from the Talmud, and from the recently-discovered
_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ (a pre-Christian work) the origins of
the Sermon on the Mount have been fully traced.
Agnostic criticism now takes an attitude towards this sermon which may
be thus expressed: