meaning Enlightened,--was born at Kapilavastu, the capital of a kingdom of
the same name, situated at the foot of the mountains of Nepal, north of the
present Oude. His father, the king of Kapilavastu, was of the family of the
_S_akyas, and belonged to the clan of the Gautamas. His mother was
Mayadevi, daughter of king Suprabuddha, and need we say that she was as
beautiful as he was powerful and just? Buddha was therefore by birth of the
Kshatriya or warrior caste, and he took the name of _S_akya from his
family, and that of Gautama from his clan, claiming a kind of spiritual
relationship with the honoured race of Gautama. The name of Buddha, or the
Buddha, dates from a later period of his life, and so probably does the
name Siddhartha (he whose objects have been accomplished), though we are
told that it was given him in his childhood. His mother died seven days
after his birth, and the father confided the child to the care of his
deceased wife's sister, who, however, had been his wife even before the
mother's death. The child grew up a most beautiful and most accomplished
boy, who soon knew more than his masters could teach him. He refused to
take part in the games of his playmates, and never felt so happy as when he
could sit alone, lost in meditation in the deep shadows of the forest. It
was there that his father found him, when he had thought him lost, and in
order to prevent the young prince from becoming a dreamer, the king
determined to marry him at once. When the subject was mentioned by the aged
ministers to the future heir to the throne, he demanded seven days for
reflection, and convinced at last that not even marriage could disturb the
calm of his mind, he allowed the ministers to look out for a princess. The
princess selected was the beautiful Gopa, the daughter of Da_nd_apa_n_i.
Though her father objected at first to her marrying a young prince who was
represented to him as deficient in manliness and intellect, he gladly gave
his consent when he saw the royal suitor distancing all his rivals both in
feats of arms and power of mind. Their marriage proved one of the happiest,
but the prince remained, as he had been before, absorbed in meditation on
the problems of life and death. 'Nothing is stable on earth,' he used to
say, 'nothing is real. Life is like the spark produced by the friction of
wood. It is lighted and is extinguished--we know not whence it came or
whither it goes. It is like the sound of a lyre, and the wise man asks in
vain from whence it came and whither it goes. There must be some supreme
intelligence where we could find rest. If I attained it, I could bring
light to man; if I were free myself, I could deliver the world.' The king,
who perceived the melancholy mood of the young prince, tried every thing to
divert him from his speculations: but all was in vain. Three of the most
ordinary events that could happen to any man, proved of the utmost
importance in the career of Buddha. We quote the description of these
occurrences from M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire:
'One day when the prince with a large retinue drove through
the eastern gate of the city on the way to one of his parks,
he met on the road an old man, broken and decrepit. One
could see the veins and muscles over the whole of his body,
his teeth chattered, he was covered with wrinkles, bald, and
hardly able to utter hollow and unmelodious sounds. He was
bent on his stick, and all his limbs and joints trembled.
"Who is that man?" said the prince to his coachman. "He is
small and weak, his flesh and his blood are dried up, his
muscles stick to his skin, his head is white, his teeth
chatter, his body is wasted away; leaning on his stick he is
hardly able to walk, stumbling at every step. Is there
something peculiar in his family, or is this the common lot
of all created beings?"
'"Sir," replied the coachman, "that man is sinking under old
age, his senses have become obtuse, suffering has destroyed
his strength, and he is despised by his relations. He is
without support and useless, and people have abandoned him,
like a dead tree in a forest. But this is not peculiar to
his family. In every creature youth is defeated by old age.
Your father, your mother, all your relations, all your
friends, will come to the same state; this is the appointed
end of all creatures."
'"Alas!" replied the prince, "are creatures so ignorant, so
weak and foolish, as to be proud of the youth by which they
are intoxicated, not seeing the old age which awaits them!
As for me, I go away. Coachman, turn my chariot quickly.
What have I, the future prey of old age,--what have I to do
with pleasure?" And the young prince returned to the city
without going to his park.
'Another time the prince drove through the southern gate to
his pleasure garden, when he perceived on the road a man
suffering from illness, parched with fever, his body wasted,
covered with mud, without a friend, without a home, hardly
able to breathe, and frightened at the sight of himself and
the approach of death. Having questioned his coachman, and
received from him the answer which he expected, the young
prince said, "Alas! health is but the sport of a dream, and
the fear of suffering must take this frightful form. Where
is the wise man who, after having seen what he is, could any
longer think of joy and pleasure?" The prince turned his
chariot and returned to the city.
'A third time he drove to his pleasure garden through the
western gate, when he saw a dead body on the road, lying on
a bier, and covered with a cloth. The friends stood about
crying, sobbing, tearing their hair, covering their heads
with dust, striking their breasts, and uttering wild cries.
The prince, again calling his coachman to witness this
painful scene, exclaimed, "Oh! woe to youth, which must be
destroyed by old age! Woe to health, which must be destroyed
by so many diseases! Woe to this life, where a man remains
so short a time! If there were no old age, no disease, no
death; if these could be made captive for ever!" Then
betraying for the first time his intentions, the young
prince said, "Let us turn back, I must think how to
accomplish deliverance."
'A last meeting put an end to his hesitation. He drove
through the northern gate on the way to his pleasure
gardens, when he saw a mendicant who appeared outwardly
calm, subdued, looking downwards, wearing with an air of
dignity his religious vestment, and carrying an alms-bowl.
'"Who is this man?" asked the prince.
'"Sir," replied the coachman, "this man is one of those who
are called bhikshus, or mendicants. He has renounced all
pleasures, all desires, and leads a life of austerity. He
tries to conquer himself. He has become a devotee. Without
passion, without envy, he walks about asking for alms."
'"This is good and well said," replied the prince. "The life
of a devotee has always been praised by the wise. It will be
my refuge, and the refuge of other creatures; it will lead
us to a real life, to happiness and immortality."
'With these words the young prince turned his chariot and
returned to the city.'
* * * * *
After having declared to his father and his wife his intention of
retiring from the world, Buddha left his palace one night when all the
guards that were to have watched him, were asleep. After travelling
the whole night, he gave his horse and his ornaments to his groom, and
sent him back to Kapilavastu. 'A monument,' remarks the author of the
Lalita-Vistara (p. 270), 'is still to be seen on the spot where the
coachman turned back,' Hiouen-Thsang (II. 330) saw the same monument
at the edge of a large forest, on his road to Ku_s_inagara, a city now
in ruins, and situated about fifty miles E.S.E. from Gorakpur.[59]
[Footnote 59: The geography of India at the time of Buddha, and later
at the time of Fahian and Hiouen-Thsang, has been admirably treated by
M. L. Vivien de Saint-Martin, in his 'Memoire Analytique sur la Carte
de l'Asie Centrale et de l'Inde,' in the third volume of M. Stanislas
Julien's 'Pelerins Bouddhistes.']
Buddha first went to Vai_s_ali, and became the pupil of a famous
Brahman, who had gathered round him 300 disciples. Having learnt all
that the Brahman could teach him, Buddha went away disappointed. He
had not found the road to salvation. He then tried another Brahman at
Ra_g_ag_r_iha, the capital of Magadha or Behar, who had 700
disciples, and there too he looked in vain for the means of
deliverance. He left him, followed by five of his fellow-students, and
for six years retired into solitude, near a village named Uruvilva,
subjecting himself to the most severe penances, previous to his
appearing in the world as a teacher. At the end of this period,
however, he arrived at the conviction that asceticism, far from giving
peace of mind and preparing the way to salvation, was a snare and a
stumbling-block in the way of truth. He gave up his exercises, and was
at once deserted as an apostate by his five disciples. Left to himself
he now began to elaborate his own system. He had learnt that neither
the doctrines nor the austerities of the Brahmans were of any avail
for accomplishing the deliverance of man, and freeing him from the
fear of old age, disease, and death. After long meditations, and
ecstatic visions, he at last imagined that he had arrived at that true
knowledge which discloses the cause, and thereby destroys the fear, of
all the changes inherent in life. It was from the moment when he
arrived at this knowledge, that he claimed the name of Buddha, the
Enlightened. At that moment we may truly say that the fate of millions
of millions of human beings trembled in the balance. Buddha hesitated
for a time whether he should keep his knowledge to himself, or
communicate it to the world. Compassion for the sufferings of man
prevailed, and the young prince became the founder of a religion
which, after more than 2000 years, is still professed by 455,000,000
of human beings.[60]
[Footnote 60: Though truth is not settled by majorities, it would be
interesting to know which religion, counts at the present moment the
largest numbers of believers. Berghaus, in his 'Physical Atlas,' gives
the following division of the human race according to religion:
Buddhists 31.2 per cent.
Christians 30.7 "
Mohammedans 15.7 "
Brahmanists 13.4 "
Heathens 8.7 "
Jews 0.3 "
As Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China from the
followers of Confucius and Lao-tse, the first place on the scale
belongs really to Christianity. It is difficult in China to say to
what religion a man belongs, as the same person may profess two or
three. The emperor himself, after sacrificing according to the ritual
of Confucius, visits a Tao-sse temple, and afterwards bows before an
image of Fo in a Buddhist chapel. ('Melanges Asiatiques de St.
Petersbourg,' vol. ii. p. 374.)]
The further history of the new teacher is very simple. He proceeded to
Benares, which at all times was the principal seat of learning in
India, and the first converts he made were the five fellow-students
who had left him when he threw off the yoke of the Brahmanical
observances. Many others followed; but as the Lalita-Vistara breaks
off at Buddha's arrival at Benares, we have no further consecutive
account of the rapid progress of his doctrine. From what we can gather
from scattered notices in the Buddhist canon, he was invited by the
king of Magadha, Bimbisara, to his capital, Ra_g_ag_r_iha. Many of his
lectures are represented as having been delivered at the monastery of
Kalantaka, with which the king or some rich merchant had presented
him; others on the Vulture Peak, one of the five hills that surrounded
the ancient capital.
Three of his most famous disciples, _S_ariputra, Katyayana, and
Maudgalyayana, joined him during his stay in Magadha, where he
enjoyed for many years the friendship of the king. That king was
afterwards assassinated by his son, A_g_ata_s_atru, and then we hear
of Buddha as settled for a time at _S_ravasti, north of the Ganges,
where Anathapi_nd_ada, a rich merchant, had offered him and his
disciples a magnificent building for their residence. Most of Buddha's
lectures or sermons were delivered at _S_ravasti, the capital of
Ko_s_ala; and the king of Ko_s_ala himself, Prasena_g_it, became a
convert to his doctrine. After an absence of twelve years we are told
that Buddha visited his father at Kapilavastu, on which occasion he
performed several miracles, and converted all the _S_akyas to his
faith. His own wife became one of his followers, and, with his aunt,
offers the first instance of female Buddhist devotees in India. We
have fuller particulars again of the last days of Buddha's life. He
had attained the good age of three score and ten, and had been on a
visit to Ra_g_ag_r_iha, where the king, A_g_ata_s_atru, the former
enemy of Buddha, and the assassin of his own father, had joined the
congregation, after making a public confession of his crimes. On his
return he was followed by a large number of disciples, and when on the
point of crossing the Ganges, he stood on a square stone, and turning
his eyes back towards Ra_g_ag_r_iha, he said, full of emotion, 'This
is the last time that I see that city.' He likewise visited Vai_s_ali,
and after taking leave of it, he had nearly reached the city of
Ku_s_inagara, when his vital strength began to fail. He halted in a
forest, and while sitting under a sal tree, he gave up the ghost, or,
as a Buddhist would say, entered into Nirva_n_a.
This is the simple story of Buddha's life. It reads much better in
the eloquent pages of M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, than in the turgid
language of the Buddhists. If a critical historian, with the materials
we possess, entered at all on the process of separating truth from
falsehood, he would probably cut off much of what our biographer has
left. Professor Wilson, in his Essay on Buddha and Buddhism, considers
it doubtful whether any such person as Buddha ever actually existed.
He dwells on the fact that there are at least twenty different dates
assigned to his birth, varying from 2420 to 453 B.C. He points out
that the clan of the _S_akyas is never mentioned by early Hindu
writers, and he lays much stress on the fact that most of the proper
names of the persons connected with Buddha suggest an allegorical
signification. The name of his father means, he whose food is pure;
that of his mother signifies illusion; his own secular appellation,
Siddhartha, he by whom the end is accomplished. Buddha itself means,
the Enlightened, or, as Professor Wilson translates it less
accurately, he by whom all is known. The same distinguished scholar
goes even further, and maintaining that Kapilavastu, the birthplace of
Buddha, has no place in the geography of the Hindus, suggests that it
may be rendered, the substance of Kapila; intimating, in fact, the
Sankhya philosophy, the doctrine of Kapila Muni, upon which the
fundamental elements of Buddhism, the eternity of matter, the
principles of things, and the final extinction, are supposed to be
planned. 'It seems not impossible,' he continues, 'that _S_akya Muni
is an unreal being, and that all that is related of him is as much a
fiction, as is that of his preceding migrations, and the miracles that
attended his birth, his life, and his departure.' This is going far
beyond Niebuhr, far even beyond Strauss. If an allegorical name had
been invented for the father of Buddha, one more appropriate than
'Clean-food' might surely have been found. His wife is not the only
queen known by the name of Maya, Mayadevi, or Mayavati. Why, if these
names were invented, should his wife have been allowed to keep the
prosaic name of Gopa (cowherdess), and his father-in-law, that of
Da_nd_apa_n_i, 'Stick-hand?' As to his own name, Siddhartha, the
Tibetans maintain that it was given him by his parent, whose wish
(artha) had been fulfilled (siddha), as we hear of Desires and
Dieu-donnes in French. One of the ministers of Da_s_aratha had the
same name. It is possible also that Buddha himself assumed it in after
life, as was the case with many of the Roman surnames. As to the name
of Buddha, no one ever maintained that it was more than a title, the
Enlightened, changed from an appellative into a proper name, just like
the name of Christos, the Anointed, or Mohammed, the Expected.[61]
Kapilavastu would be a most extraordinary compound to express 'the
substance of the Sankhya philosophy.' But all doubt on the subject is
removed by the fact that both Fahian in the fifth, and Hiouen-Thsang
in the seventh centuries, visited the real ruins of that city.
[Footnote 61: See Sprenger, 'Das Leben des Mohammed,' 1861, vol. i. p.
155.]
Making every possible allowance for the accumulation of fiction which
is sure to gather round the life of the founder of every great
religion, we may be satisfied that Buddhism, which changed the aspect
not only of India, but of nearly the whole of Asia, had a real
founder; that he was not a Brahman by birth, but belonged to the
second or royal caste; that being of a meditative turn of mind, and
deeply impressed with the frailty of all created things, he became a
recluse, and sought for light and comfort in the different systems of
Brahman philosophy and theology. Dissatisfied with the artificial
systems of their priests and philosophers, convinced of the
uselessness, nay of the pernicious influence, of their ceremonial
practices and bodily penances, shocked, too, by their worldliness and
pharisaical conceit, which made the priesthood the exclusive property
of one caste and rendered every sincere approach of man to his Creator
impossible without their intervention, Buddha must have produced at
once a powerful impression on the people at large, when breaking
through all the established rules of caste, he assumed the privileges
of a Brahman, and throwing away the splendour of his royal position,
travelled about as a beggar, not shrinking from the defiling contact
of sinners and publicans. Though when we now speak of Buddhism, we
think chiefly of its doctrines, the reform of Buddha had originally
much more of a social than of a religious character. Buddha swept away
the web with which the Brahmans had encircled the whole of India.
Beginning as the destroyer of an old, he became the founder of a new
religion. We can hardly understand how any nation could have lived
under a system like that of the Brahmanic hierarchy, which coiled
itself round every public and private act, and would have rendered
life intolerable to any who had forfeited the favour of the priests.
That system was attacked by Buddha. Buddha might have taught whatever
philosophy he pleased, and we should hardly have heard his name. The
people would not have minded him, and his system would only have been
a drop in the ocean of philosophical speculation, by which India was
deluged at all times. But when a young prince assembled round him
people of all castes, of all ranks, when he defeated the Brahmans in
public disputations, when he declared the sacrifices by which they
made their living not only useless but sinful, when instead of severe
penance or excommunications inflicted by the Brahmans sometimes for
the most trifling offences, he only required public confession of sin
and a promise to sin no more: when the charitable gifts hitherto
monopolised by the Brahmans, began to flow into new channels,
supporting hundreds and thousands of Buddhist mendicants, more had
been achieved than probably Buddha himself had ever dreamt of; and he
whose meditations had been how to deliver the soul of man from misery
and the fear of death, had delivered the people of India from a
degrading thraldom and from priestly tyranny.
The most important element of the Buddhist reform has always been its
social and moral code, not its metaphysical theories. That moral code,
taken by itself, is one of the most perfect which the world has ever
known. On this point all testimonies from hostile and from friendly
quarters agree. Spence Hardy, a Wesleyan Missionary, speaking of the
Dhamma Padam, or the 'Footsteps of the Law,' admits that a collection
might be made from the precepts of this work, which in the purity of
its ethics could hardly be equalled from any other heathen author. M.
Laboulaye, one of the most distinguished members of the French
Academy, remarks in the 'Debats' of the 4th of April, 1853: 'It is
difficult to comprehend how men not assisted by revelation could have
soared so high, and approached so near to the truth.' Besides the five
great commandments not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery,
not to lie, not to get drunk, every shade of vice, hypocrisy, anger,
pride, suspicion, greediness, gossiping, cruelty to animals, is
guarded against by special precepts. Among the virtues recommended, we
find not only reverence of parents, care for children, submission to
authority, gratitude, moderation in time of prosperity, submission in
time of trial, equanimity at all times, but virtues unknown in any
heathen system of morality, such as the duty of forgiving insults and
not rewarding evil with evil. All virtues, we are told, spring from
Maitri, and this Maitri can only be translated by charity and love. 'I
do not hesitate,' says Burnouf,[62] 'to translate by charity the word
Maitri; it does not express friendship or the feeling of particular
affection which a man has for one or more of his fellow-creatures, but
that universal feeling which inspires us with good-will towards all
men and constant willingness to help them.' We add one more testimony
from the work of M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire:
'Je n'hesite pas a ajouter,' he writes, 'que, sauf le Christ
tout seul, il n'est point, parmi les fondateurs de religion,
de figure plus pure ni plus touchante que celle du Bouddha.
Sa vie n'a point de tache. Son constant heroisme egale sa
conviction; et si la theorie qu'il preconise est fausse, les
exemples personnels qu'il donne sont irreprochables. Il est
le modele acheve de toutes les vertus qu'il preche; son
abnegation, sa charite son inalterable douceur, ne se
dementent point un seul instant; il abandonne a vingt-neuf
ans la cour du roi son pere pour se faire religieux et
mendiant; il prepare silencieusement sa doctrine par six
annees de retraite et de meditation; il la propage par la
seule puissance de la parole et de la persuasion, pendant
plus d'un demi-siecle; et quand il meurt entre les bras de
ses disciples, c'est avec la serenite d'un sage qui a
pratique le bien toute sa vie, et qui est assure d'avoir
trouve le vrai.' (Page v.)
[Footnote 62: Burnouf, 'Lotus de la bonne Loi,' p. 300.]
* * * * *