BUDDHA, THE “LIGHT OF ASIA.”
The Saviour of the World,
Lord Buddha--Prince Siddartha styled on earth--
In Earth and Heavens and Hells Incomparable,
All-honored, Wisest, Best, most Pitiful;
The Teacher of Nirvana and the Law.
EDWIN ARNOLD.
Je n’hésite pas à ajouter 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.--BARTHÉLEMY
SAINT-HILAIRE.
We now come to the study of the last of the systems of idol worship,
Buddhism. This is one of the most interesting of all. It stands at
once nearest to and farthest from Christianity. In its extent, it is
the greatest religion of the world. It includes four-tenths (nearly
one-half) of all the world’s population. The following figures indicate
the comparative strength of the different existing religions:
Parsees, 150,000.
Jews, 7,000,000 (being about ½ per ct. of total).
Greek Church, 75,000,000 „ „ 6 „ „
Roman Catholics, 152,000,000 „ „ 12 „ „
Other Christians, 100,000,000 „ „ 8 „ „
Hindus, 161,200,000 „ „ 13 „ „
Mohammedans, 155,000,000 „ „ 12½ „ „
Buddhists, 500,000,000 „ „ 40 „ „
Not included in
the above, Fetichists,
etc., 100,000,000 „ „ 8 „ „
------------- ---
Total, 1,250,350,000 100 „
[Illustration:
Briton Riviere ARA, Painter.
Illman Brothers, Engravers & Printers.
THE FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY.]
[Illustration: THE BRONZE IDOL OF BUDDHA, AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN.
Sixty-five feet high, thirty feet across the shoulders, six
hundred years old; covered with bronze plates, its interior
forming a temple. From an original photograph.]
It must be remembered, however, that very few of the 500,000,000
of Buddhists are Buddhists only. Many of the Chinese Buddhists are
Confucianists and Taoists as well. Many of the Ceylonese (or rather
Singhalese) Buddhists are devil-worshipers and star-worshipers as well.
So, also, one often sees in the Buddhist temples of Japan the Shinto
symbols. Indeed, the rapid and wide growth of Buddhism is due to the
readiness with which it tolerates other religions. To write the history
of Buddhism is to write the history of the hopes, and aspirations, and
most sacred feelings of nearly one-half the human race of modern times.
Buddhism has been received by both very savage and very civilized
peoples--the wild Nomad hordes of the cold northern lands of Tartary,
Thibet and Nepal; the cultured Chinese and Japanese, and the quiet
Siamese, Burmese and Ceylonese.
A religion of such wide acceptance by nations and individuals of such
different characters and circumstances, and which has controlled the
destinies of thousands of millions of souls during nearly twenty-three
hundred years, and which comes nearest to Christianity in the purity
of its morals and the benefits it proposes to confer upon the human
race, is certainly worthy of very careful attention. In studying it we
must carefully avoid either a wholesale condemnation or an unqualified
approval; we must recognize that there are both good and evil in it.
It is to be remembered, also, that we can only look upon Buddha’s
teachings after the lapse of ages, and from this long distance the
view is likely to be anything else than clear. Without a doubt the
doctrines of Buddha have been so perverted, that he would scarcely
recognize the religion that bears his name to-day. Then, too, being an
Oriental religion, we Western people cannot study it under as favorable
circumstances as the Eastern people. Oriental religions can be seen
best by Oriental eyes.
Buddhism is a reform upon Brahminism. It is of Hindu origin, and while
it has but little sway in the land of its birth, it retains the Hindu
cast in all its wanderings into other lands and its observances among
other peoples.
THE STORY OF GAUTAMA, THE FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM.
In giving these legends of the life of Gautama, it should be stated
that they are derived from the writings of Buddhists who lived long
after Gautama was dead. They are to be received, of course, with that
degree of credulity which would attend the legends of devoted disciples
of any such teacher. Those who have studied Buddhism in its native
land have collected these legends with great care, among whom one of
the most careful authors is Rev. Spence Hardy, who has collected and
commented on them with great candor.
At the end of the sixth century before Christ, a wise and good king
reigned in the capital city of his country, Kapila-vastu, about one
hundred miles north-east from the great city of Benares, in India.
Around this city the snow-crowned, giant peaks of the Himalayas towered
up in the clear blue of the Indian sky. The city was on the banks of
an insignificant river, the Rohini. The people lived from the produce
of their cattle and their rice-fields; they adhered to the Hindu
religion. The wife of King Suddhodana was named Maya, because of her
wondrous beauty. She was childless until her forty-fifth year. Little
Prince Siddartha was born under the shade of a satin-tree, in the year
552 B.C. In later years he was called the “Buddha.” At this time, in
addition to the name Siddartha, he received the name of Sakya-muni from
his family, and that of Gautama from his clan.
Just as in the case of other famous men, many marvelous stories are
told concerning his miraculous birth, and the precocious wisdom and
power of the infant prince. At his birth, the legends say, ten thousand
worlds were filled with light, the blind received their sight, the deaf
heard, the lame walked, the imprisoned were set free, the trees burst
forth in blossom, the air was filled with sweet songs of birds, and
even the fires of hell were for the time being extinguished. On the
fifth day after his birth, at the “name-choosing festival,” 108 Brahmin
priests met to select the most fitting name. One of them, the most
learned in divination, predicted that he will be a “Buddha,” who will
remove the veils of sin and ignorance from the world. Gautama is the
name by which he is most commonly known among the southern Buddhists.
Buddha, or, more properly, the Buddha, means the Enlightened One,
and is an official title, just as we say Jesus, the Christ, or the
Anointed One. During his youth Gautama is noted for his prowess, and
for teaching even his masters in the arts and sciences. He has, so the
legends go on to say, most magnificent equipages and many servants.
He is early married to his cousin. He devotes himself to study and
meditation, and his relatives charge him with neglecting to train
himself in manly exercises. Gautama, being told of their murmurings,
appoints a day by beat of drum to prove his skill against all comers.
At the trial he surpasses the cleverest bowmen, and exhibits wonderful
strength and skill in his feats of horsemanship. In his twenty-ninth
year, Gautama abandons his home to devote himself entirely to the study
of religion and philosophy.
He had been accustomed to say, “Nothing is stable on earth, nothing
is real. Life is like the spark produced by the friction of wood. It
is lighted, and it is extinguished; we know not whence it came and
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 to it, I
could bring light to man; if I were free myself, I could deliver the
world.” With this hope, and being moved thereto by four incidents, he
gave himself, as we have just said, to seeking the light of the world.
These were but ordinary events, and yet they had a great effect upon
Gautama.
GAUTAMA’S FOUR VISIONS.
One day when the prince, with a large retinue, was driving 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 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 was driving 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 was driving 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: “O 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 forever!” 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 was driving 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 abandoning
his proposed ride returned to the city.
THE GREAT RENUNCIATION.
We now come to a most touching incident in Gautama’s life. Moved by
the visions of which we have just spoken, Gautama determines to seek
the solitude of the hermit’s hut. His life had been full of intense
yearning which had never been satisfied. Not all the comfort and
prosperity about him could drive away his desire to obtain peace. To
him, life was a great enigma, and he determined to solve it. He was not
dissatisfied, but, rather, unsatisfied. His determination to retire
from active life was, however, by no means easy. For his wife and
his only son, Rahula, he felt the warmest affection. It was to be a
difficult task to break these ties.
At midnight, he summoned his charioteer, Channa, to bring his horse to
the palace gate. While Channa was gone to the stable, Gautama turned
back to take a last look at his wife and child. The princess lay asleep
upon her couch, surrounded with flowers, and her hand was embracing her
little one. Gautama saw that he could not take the child up in his arms
without disturbing the mother, and he was afraid that she might succeed
in shaking his resolution, did she plead with him.
“So with his brow he touched her feet, and bent
The farewell of fond eyes, unutterable
Upon her sleeping face, still wet with tears;
And thrice around the bed in reverence,
As though it were an altar, softly stepped
With clasped hands laid upon his beating heart,
‘For never,’ spake he, ‘lie I there again!’
And thrice he made to go, but thrice came back,
So strong her beauty was, so large his love:
Then, o’er his head drawing his cloth, he turned,
And raised the purdah’s edge:
* * * * *
“Then, lightly treading where those sleepers lay,
Into the night Siddartha passed: its eyes,
The watchful stars, looked love on him; its breath,
The wandering wind, kissed his robe’s fluttered fringe;
The garden-blossoms, folded for the dawn,
Opened their velvet hearts to waft him scents,
From pink and purple censers; o’er the land,
From Himalaya unto the Indian Sea,
A tremor spread, as if earth’s soul beneath
Stirred with an unknown hope; and holy books--
Which tell the story of our Lord--say, too,
That rich celestial music thrilled the air
From hosts on hosts of shining ones, who thronged
Eastward and westward, making bright the night--
Northward and southward, making glad the ground.
Also those four dread Regents of the Earth,
Descending at the doorway, two by two--
With their bright legions of Invisibles
In arms of sapphire, silver, gold and pearl--
Watched with joined hands the Indian Prince, who stood,
His tearful eyes raised to the stars, and lips
Close-set with purpose of prodigious love.
Then strode he forth into the gloom and cried,
‘Channa, awake! and bring out Kantaka!’
“‘What would my lord?’ the charioteer replied--
Slow-rising from his place beside the gate--
‘To ride at night, when all the ways are dark?’
“‘Speak low,’ Siddartha said, ‘and bring my horse,
For now the hour is come when I should quit
This golden prison, where my heart lives caged,
To find the truth; which henceforth I will seek,
For all men’s sake, until the truth be found.’”
Shortly after he had passed through the ponderous gate of the
city--which, it was said, took a thousand men to open it--he was met by
the evil god Mara. Mara knew that if Gautama proceeded, his power would
be lessened and so he sought to turn him back. He said to Gautama: “Be
entreated to stay, that you may possess the honors that are within
your reach; go not! go not!” To this Gautama replied: “A thousand or
a hundred thousand honors such as those to which you refer would have
no power to charm me to-day; I seek the Buddhaship; therefore, begone,
hinder me not.” Mara left him in great anger, determined to foil him.
GAUTAMA BECOMES AN ASCETIC.
Gautama then exchanged his clothes with a poor passer-by, cut off
his hair, and sent Channa, the charioteer back and became a begging,
homeless hermit. Several hermits had taken up their abode in the
caves of the Vindhya mountains; here they were at once surrounded by
the solitudes of nature and sufficiently near to a large city to get
their supplies. After coming to these caves he attaches himself to a
Brahmin teacher, and under his guidance seeks, by undergoing severest
penances, to gain superhuman power. After a little, he withdraws by
himself to the jungles, where he spends six years in fasting and
self-mortification. His severity of self-control gains him great fame,
and disciples gather about him. A fear that, lest after all his efforts
should be fruitless and that he should die, having gone wrong, made him
finally give up the attempt.
Now came the crisis of his life. The second struggle of Gautama was
most intense. He wandered back to a village to get his morning meal.
He sat down to eat it under a tree, known from that day to this as the
“Bo-tree,” or tree of Wisdom. There he remained through the long hours
of that day, debating with himself what next to do. The philosophy he
had trusted in seemed to be doubtful; the penance he had practiced so
long had brought no certainty, no peace; and all his old temptations
came back upon him with renewed force. For years he had looked at all
earthly good as vanity, worthless and transitory. Nay, more, he had
thought that it contained within itself the seeds of evil, and must
inevitably, sooner or later, bring forth its bitter fruit. But now to
his wavering faith the sweet delights of home and love, the charms of
wealth and power, began to show themselves in a different light and
to glow again with attractive colors. They were yet within his reach;
he knew he would be welcomed back, and yet--would there even then be
satisfaction? Were all his labors to be lost? Was there _no_ sure
ground to stand on? Thus he agonized in his doubt from the early
morning until sunset. But as the day ended the religious side of his
nature had won the victory; his doubt had cleared away; _he had
become a Buddha_, that is _an Enlightened One_; he had grasped,
as it seemed to him, the solution of the great mystery of sorrow, and
had learned at once its causes and its cure. He seemed to have gained
the haven of peace, and _in the power over the human heart of inward
culture, and of love to others_, to rest at last on a certitude that
could never be shaken. He renounced his penances, and from that time
declared that no good resulted from them. It was a grand theory of
_self-salvation_ that he had wrought out for himself--salvation by
self-control and love--without any rites, ceremonies, charming priestly
powers, without even the aid of the gods, man could save himself.
Like the later great reformer, Mohammed, Gautama the Buddha, had the
most perfect confidence in himself, his convictions and his mission;
this mission was “to set rolling the royal chariot-wheel of a universal
empire of truth and righteousness.” He went to Benares, and there, by
teaching, sought to spread the knowledge of his method of reaching a
perfect inward peace. In about three months he had gathered together
sixty disciples; these he sends forth to preach his faith. He himself
was accustomed to travel, preach and teach, except during the four
rainy months, from June to October, when he remained in one place,
instructing his declared disciples. Once he visited his old home, and
his wife, Yasodhara, became one of his disciples; she was the first of
the Buddhist nuns. Gautama died at the age of eighty years. His body
was burned with much pomp, and his disciples contended for the unburned
bones. They were divided in eight parts, and temple-mounds, called
_topes_, were built over each.
THE “LIGHT OF ASIA” AND THE “LIGHT OF THE WORLD.”
One cannot help comparing Gautama, the Buddha, and Jesus, the Christ.
There is, beyond question, a great deal of both good and evil in
Buddha’s life and teaching. It is wise for us to recognize both good
and evil, and to “hold fast to that which is good.” We do not think
that it is placing Buddha on too high a ground when we say that he
stands nearest to Christ of all the founders of religions. We must not
confound the teachings of Buddha with the superstitious notions of his
followers of to-day. The present Buddhism of Asia is but little like
the Buddhism of Gautama’s teaching. Further, we must strip off the
legends, the additions of a later day, and seek to read the story of
his life that lies beneath them. In addition to this, we must try to
place ourselves in closest sympathy with our subject.
[Illustration: IDOL OF BUDDHA. HIS IDOLS ARE USUALLY OF THIS
SHAPE, PROPORTION AND POSITION, THOUGH INFINITELY VARIED IN
SIZE AND QUALITY.]
Thus we see the beauties of this life. Looked at in this way, we
discover a great deal in Buddha’s character to admire. Saint-Hilaire
says (we give a free translation from the French): “His life has no
stain. His constant heroism equals his conviction; and if the theory
which he extols is faultless, the personal example which he presents is
irreproachable. He is the finished model of all the virtues which he
preached; his teaching of self-denial, of charity, of an unchangeable
mildness, do not for a single instant receive the contradiction of a
different life. He abandons, at the age of twenty-nine years, the court
of his royal father to become a devotee and a mendicant; he prepares
silently his doctrines during six years of meditation and retreat; he
extends his faith only by the power of speech and persuasion, during
half a century; and when he dies in the arms of his disciples, it is
with the serenity of a sage who has lived well, and who is assured
that he has found the truth.” It is not our purpose to compare here
the teachings of Buddha and Christ, but simply the life. It is a
comparison that we would make, and not a contrast. Buddha’s self-denial
for the world’s good, his wondrously pure life, and the heavenliness
of his manners and of some of his teachings greatly resemble those of
Jesus Christ. Yet, after all, he stands a long way off. He is a light,
it is true, yet but feebly shining beside the light of the Sun of
Righteousness. To Christ, Gautama is but
“As moonlight is to sunlight, and as water is to wine.”
The Buddha was the son of a king; Jesus, the Christ, was the son of
a carpenter. The Buddha grew up in the midst of the splendors of a
court; Jesus, the Christ, was reared in a despised city, in an humble
home. Yet the aspect of the Buddha is that of a disciple, a learner,
an inquirer; that of the Christ is that of a master, a teacher. The
Buddha seems rather to be a subject, and the Christ the king. The
Buddha approaches the solution of the great problems of sin, suffering
and death from below. He walks as one in a maze, with uncertain
steps; he tries experiments; he goes from one teacher to another.
Finally, of a sudden, comes the answer to the problems with which
he has been puzzled; he throws the spectre with which he has been
grappling. The Christ approaches the great and grave questions, that
have been puzzling the world, as one who _has_ the answers in his
possession. He comes to teach, and not to learn; to settle, and not to
disturb. There is no hesitating uncertainty about His words or steps as
there is about the Buddha’s. In meeting temptation, the Buddha shows
weakness, where the Christ shows strength. The Buddha’s life was long;
the Christ’s was short. The Buddha gave, undoubtedly, many wholesome
precepts; but there is an element of kindly, self-forgetting love about
the Christ’s teachings that is absent from the Buddha’s. Indeed, this
is the emphatic point of superiority, that the Buddha kept constantly
before his disciples _their_ welfare; he taught how a man might
deliver _himself_ from suffering. The Christ makes self-salvation
but a part of His disciples’ work. The Buddha has next to nothing to
say about God; the Christ has all to say about God. The Christ seeks
to show how man’s life is attached to God at every point; he exhibits
the true character of God, presenting a picture infinitely superior to
that drawn by the hand of any of the founders of religions, or by the
highest imaginations of the purest men. In brief, the Buddha’s life and
teachings were unquestionably good, but the Christ’s unquestionably
better. This will be more apparent as, in the following chapters, we
study the working out of the Buddha’s teachings. We shall see how much
and how little they benefited the race. Let the test of time be applied
to the answers he brought to the puzzling problems of sin, suffering
and sorrow, and see if they have wrought out the good for which the
Buddha looked, hoped and prayed. We shall see a partial success and
a partial failure, and see the undoubted necessity of giving the
knowledge of the Gospel to the nations who have known nothing better
than that which Buddha had to tell.