INDIA
III. _Buddhism_
In Buddhism the great movement of Indian religion works itself out to
its ultimate conclusion and reaches a stage beyond which there can be
no advance. Here we have a religion, if such it may be called,
without a god, without prayer, without priesthood or worship; a
religion which owes its great success, not to its theology, nor to
its ritual, since it has neither, but to its moral sentiment and to
its external organisation. Originating in the centre of India, and
giving practical form to Indian ideas, it spread rapidly and widely
both in the country of its birth and in neighbouring lands. It is now
extinct in India, yet it numbers more adherents than any other
religion. It has been divided since the Christian era into two great
branches. Southern Buddhism is the religion of Ceylon, of Burmah, and
of Siam; while Northern Buddhism extends over Tibet, China, and
Japan, and the islands of Java and Sumatra.
The Literature.--These two branches of Buddhism have different
literary traditions, though some works are common to both; and these
literatures, differing from each other in language, also differ
widely in contents and in spirit. The southern tradition, composed in
Pali, the literary language of Ceylon, has recently been opened up to
scholars, and has greatly changed their views of the origin and the
true nature of this religion. The Canon of Southern Buddhism, which
we might call the Pali Bible, is a literature about twice as large as
the Bible of Europe, although if the repetitions in it were removed,
it would be somewhat smaller than the Bible. It consists of three
Pitakas, baskets or collections. The first is the Vinaya Pitaka,
dealing with discipline, but including the Mahavagga, a history of
the first beginnings of the order as the founder gathered it around
him. The second is the Sutta Pitaka or collection of teachings. It
contains the earliest account of the later life of the founder, books
of meditation and devotion, collections of sayings by the Master,
poems, fairy tales, and fables, stories about Buddhist saints, and so
on. The third collection, the Abidhamma, contains speculations and
discussions on various subjects. Much of these materials is not
peculiar to Buddhism, there is much pre-Buddhistic speculation, and
there are many stories which are not peculiar even to India. Along
with all this, however, the books give us the earliest accounts of
the life and of the death of the founder, and contain a
representation written a century after his death, of what he was
considered to have taught. The founder himself wrote nothing; but the
work of composing books about him and his doctrine began early, and
much of the canon is considered, especially by English scholars, to
have been in existence during the first Buddhist century.[1] For many
centuries they were preserved by memory alone.
[Footnote 1: The Buddhist literature given in the _Sacred Books of
the East_ is as follows:
Vol. x. The Dhammapada, containing the quintessence of Buddhist
morality, and the Sutta-nipata, giving teachings of Buddha on
religion.
Vol. xi. Buddhist Suttas. Religious, moral, and philosophical
discourses. Vol. xlix. Buddhist Mahayana Sutras.
Vol. xiii. Vinaya Texts. The Patimokha or order of discipline, and
the beginning of the Mahavagga, containing an account of the
opening of the ministry of the founder.
Vol. xvii. Vinaya Texts ii. Mahavagga continued. Kullavagga or
discipline as established by the Master.
Vol. xx. Kullavagga continued.
Vols. xxii., xlv. contain Suttas of the religion of the Jainas.
Vols. xxxv., xxxvi. Questions of King Milinda.]
Was there a Personal Founder?--Senart in his _Essai sur la legende du
Buddha_, and Kern in his _Het Buddhisme in Indie_, both hold that we
have here to do with a sun-myth, and interpret the various features
of the legend in a very ingenious way in accordance with that theory.
This view has made few converts. Many incidents in the story are
natural, and appear to be due to a real tradition; there is literary
evidence of the early existence of the books, and the religion can be
best understood if regarded as the work of a real personality of
commanding greatness.[2]
[Footnote 2: Recent archaeological discoveries, of which an account is
given by Mr. Rhys Davids in the _Century Magazine_, April 1902, place
it beyond doubt that the Buddha really existed, and that pious
offices were paid to his ashes after his cremation by the members of
his own clan as well as by others. Inscriptions brought to light in
1898 show that the Sakhya clan, of which he was a member, dwelt at
the time of his death in what is now a frontier district of Nepal.
Three years before that event they were driven from their old capital
Kapilavastu; but they formed a new one fifteen miles further south,
just beyond the present frontier of Nepal, and there they erected a
_stupa_ or massive stone cairn, to guard the portion of the ashes of
the Buddha which was committed to their keeping.]
Scholars, however, are agreed as to the difficulty of drawing the
line between what is history and what is legend. Even in the early
Pali accounts the hero has become a religious figure, he wears titles
which lift him above mankind, and he has supernatural powers at his
command. A laborious critical process must be undertaken, comparing
the various narratives with each other and testing them in other
ways, before the real history can be regarded as made out beyond
question. The slight sketch of the story which we give does not aim
at such critical correctness; we merely indicate the outline of a
narrative which is one of the principal sources of the strength of
the religion.
The Story of the Founder.--The founder's family name was Gautama, and
by that name he was commonly known during his lifetime. The personal
name given him as a child was Siddartha. Those who wished after his
death to speak of him with reverence called him Sakya-Muni, the Sage
of the Sakyas. These were a tribe who dwelt, at the period of the
story, _i.e._ half a millennium before Christ, in the country to the
north of the sacred Ganges, a few days' journey from the city of
Benares. Gautama's father, Suddhodana, was rajah (chief) of the
Sakyas; his residence was Kapilavastu, near Oude. The future sage
thus belonged to the Kshatriya class, and was accustomed to a
position of rank and ease. We hear little of his youth; he had been
married ten years, and his wife, whom he loved, had just brought him
a son, when, at the age of twenty-nine, he suddenly and secretly left
his home to devote himself to the religious life. He was led to this
step by witnessing various painful sights which caused him vividly to
realise the suffering which accompanies all existence, and made him
scorn a life of luxury. It was a time when many were seeking a better
way, and when a superior mind naturally turned to that retirement and
absorption in which it was believed that the key to life's pains and
mysteries was to be found. In the "Great Renunciation," as this act
is called, there is nothing we cannot understand. This lofty act,
however, was followed by a temptation; Mara, the spirit of evil,
urged him, but urged him in vain, to give up the purpose he had
formed. He then attached himself to Brahmanic ascetics, from whom he
learned their philosophy; and after this he devoted himself for six
years to a life of fasting and penance, the Brahmanic method for
drawing nearer the goal of the religious life. After this period he
gave up his fasting, not having profited by it as he had expected,
and returned to an ordinary diet. This change cost him the adhesion
of five disciples who had become attached to him, and had been filled
with wonder at his mortifications. But the loss was a small one
compared with the gain which was at hand. After a second great
spiritual struggle and a renewal of the temptation, he at last
reached that which he had long been seeking. Seated under a _ficus
religiosa_, the tree afterwards called the tree of knowledge, or the
Bo-tree, he rose in contemplation above all his temptations and
doubts till he beheld at length the true nature of things. From this
moment he was Buddha, Enlightened; he had the key of truth, and for
himself he was assured that sorrow and evil had lost all hold on him.
His doctrine had dawned in his mind. He had discovered the cause of
the sorrow which is so closely intertwined in man's life, and had
divined the way in which sorrow might be overcome. The method had
been found by which one could escape from the unending succession of
new lives, all painful, to which, according to the general belief of
the time, men were condemned. The words placed in the mouth of the
founder when he attained to Buddhahood tell their own tale. "Looking
for the Maker of this tabernacle, I have to run through a course of
many births so long as I do not find him; and painful is birth again
and again. But now, Maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen;
thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy rafters are
broken; thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, approaching the
eternal, has attained to the extinction of all desires."[3]
[Footnote 3: Dhammapada, _S. B. E._ x. 42.]
The great discovery being made, and duly pondered and realised, the
question arose, What was to be done with it? The Buddha shrinks from
the work of preaching it to others. Brahma himself is brought into
the story to encourage him to make his secret known to others, and to
assure him that many will receive it with great joy. The Blessed One
consents, and thus replies: "Wide open is the gate of the Immortal to
all who have ears to hear; let them send forth faith to meet it. The
teaching is sweet and good; because I despaired of the task, I spake
not to men before."[4] He turns his steps, guided by his own
supernatural knowledge, to the city of Benares, to seek the five
monks who had formerly abandoned him. On his way thither he meets a
naked ascetic who asks the reason of his cheerful mien; he answers
that he has overcome all foes, has reached emancipation by the
destruction of desire, and has obtained Nirvana. "To found the
kingdom of Truth I go to the city of the Kasis (Benares); I will beat
the drum of the Immortal in the darkness of this world." The account
which follows of the opening of the "kingdom of righteousness"
presents many analogies to the early stages of other spiritual
movements. The founder, immovably sure of himself and of his
doctrines, goes from place to place, spending the rainy season in
town, and preaching everywhere. It is at Benares that the "wheel of
the law" is first set in motion; there the first sermon was preached.
The circumstances are also narrated under which other sermons were
delivered, details being given as to time, place, the persons who
heard them, the incidents which occasioned them. His converts at
first are few and their names are recorded, but by degrees they
become more numerous. The more devoted of them become members of his
order, Bhikkus (for Bhikshus), mendicants; they forsake domestic
life, shave their heads, adopt the yellow dress and the alms-bowl.
They also are sent out to preach. "Go ye, O Bhikkus, and wander, for
the welfare of many, out of compassion for the world, for the gain
and for the welfare of gods and men. Let not two of you go the same
way. Preach, O Bhikkus, the doctrine which is glorious in the
beginning, glorious in the middle, glorious in the end, in the
spirit, and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect, and pure
life of holiness. There are beings whose mental eyes are covered with
scarcely any dust, but if the doctrine is not preached to them they
cannot attain salvation." The incidents narrated in this part of the
story are mostly connected with persons seeking admission to the
order, or persons requiring to be convinced; the doctrine and its
spread are everything. That spread takes place, as it is desired by
the Buddha, chiefly among the higher classes of society; a great
triumph is reached when Bimbisara, king of Magadha, becomes a patron
of the order, and some accounts tell of the conversion of the
Buddha's own father and mother. The work of the mission is of a
peaceful nature; the Buddha lives on good terms with the Brahmans and
with other teachers and their pupils. The only formidable opposition
he had to meet arose within the order. His cousin Dewadatta, who had
become a monk, wished to found a new order with much stricter rules
than those of the original one. The Buddha refused to attach
importance, as was proposed, to matters of clothes and food, or
living in the open air; to do so would have made his movement
narrower and less universal than he desired.
[Footnote 4: Mahavagga, _S. B. E._ xiii. 88.]
The beginning of the ministry is told in some detail, but of a long
period of the life only a few scattered incidents are given. There is
a detailed account of the three last months of the life. The Buddha
is now eighty years of age, and in the Maha-paranibbana Sutta[5] the
tale of his migrations and preachings is carried on according to the
same scheme as in the accounts of his early days. During the rainy
season, however, when he has reached the age of eighty, he has an
illness, and sees he cannot live long. This he tells his monks,
exhorting them with urgency to be true to the teaching and the order,
and to shed the light abroad. His end is hastened by a meal of pork
set before him by a goldsmith, a man of low caste, who hospitably
entertained him. After this his face shines with a heavenly radiance,
and as the end approaches many heavenly signs appear. The Buddha is
fully conscious that he is about to leave the world, and that his
death is an event of supreme interest to the heavenly powers, whom he
believes to be thronging around to watch his last hours. He is
solicitous, however, to soothe the grief of his friends, large
numbers of whom also are around him, and to give them such counsels
and such incentives to a faithful upholding of the cause as he yet
may. They ask about his obsequies, and he claims that the remains of
such an one as he is, of a Tathagata, "one who has attained
perfection," should be treated as men treat the remains of a king of
kings. He recognises the kindness of Ananda, his most intimate
disciple, and tries to comfort him by encouraging him to be earnest
in effort, so that he too may soon be free from evils. He directs his
disciples generally not to mourn too much at his removal as if they
were being deserted. The truths which he has set forth, and the rules
of the order he has laid down for them, are to be their teacher after
he is gone. He asks if any of them has any doubt or misgiving as to
the Buddha, or the truth, or the faith, or the way. If so, they are
to inquire freely, so that they may not reproach themselves
afterwards for not having consulted him while still among them. The
brethren, however, are silent, though addressed again and again in
the same way. In the whole assembly there is not one who has any
doubt or misgiving. Even the most backward of these brethren has
become converted (lit. "entered into the current"); he is no longer
liable to be born to a state of suffering, but is assured of eternal
salvation.
[Footnote 5: _S. B. E._ vol. xl.]
"Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren and said, 'Behold now,
brethren, I exhort you,' saying, 'Decay is inherent in all things
that have come into being. Work out your salvation with diligence!'
"This was the last word of the Tathagata!"
His death or Nirvana forms the era of Buddhist chronology, and the
date has now been approximately fixed with some certainty; it took
place somewhere in the decade 482-472 B.C.
Is Buddhism a Revolt against Brahmanism?--Before proceeding to
discuss the religion to which this somewhat monkish narrative forms
the preface, it is necessary to say a few words on the relation which
that religion is now supposed to hold to the general history of
Indian piety. It was customary, till recently, to regard Buddha as a
great reformer, and his religion as a great revolt against that which
it found prevailing in India. He is credited with having preached
atheism as a reaction against the burdensome worship of too many
gods, with having instituted a great social movement consisting in
the abolition of caste, with having openly denied the authority of
the Vedas, till then unchallenged, and with having rebuked the pride
of Brahmanism by making his order of mendicants the representatives
of his religion. None of these assertions can now be upheld. Instead
of having been a tremendous reaction against Brahmanism it is seen
that Buddhism was the natural outgrowth of that system. The closer
knowledge of both, gained by the opening up of the sacred books of
India, tends to show that much that was formerly thought distinctive
of Buddhism was in reality inherited from Brahmanism. We saw in
dealing with the earlier form of Indian religion that a form of piety
had been struck out in it which made the ascetic independent of
sacrifice, priesthood, even of the gods, all save the one God who is
in all things. In that phase of Indian religion the authority of the
Vedas had already been impugned, an inner discipline had taken the
place of outward worship, the saint had learned to forsake the world.
This turn of religious thought produced all the phenomena of Buddhism
before the period of Gautama. The sannyasin (_vide sup._, chapter
xix.) of Brahmanism is also called bhikku, mendicant; the rules of
the older ascetics are closely similar to those of the Buddhist monk;
their very outfit, their cloak and alms-bowl, are the same.
A circumstance which shows very clearly how far Buddhism was from
bearing the character of a revolt, is the occurrence at the same time
and in the same district of India of another movement of a very
similar nature. Jainism is an Indian religion so like Buddhism as to
have been considered by many to be a sect of the latter. It also has
an order of monks with robes and with a rule like those of the
Buddhist fraternity. It also has a human founder on whom many of the
same titles are conferred as on Gautama, and who is afterwards
deified and worshipped. Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, is, like
Gautama, the son of a royal house; and the Jainist and the Buddhist
legend have many features in common. Was the legend of Mahavira,
then, a sectarian version of the legend of Gautama, did no such
person exist, at least as the founder of a religious body? So it was
formerly considered; but it has now been discovered that the Buddhist
scriptures themselves bear witness to the actual existence of
Mahavira in the lifetime of Gautama, who once had an encounter with
him and confuted him. It appears then that two similar movements were
going on close together at the same time. They were independent of
each other; the two rules differ in important particulars. Jainism
carries to a much greater length than Buddhism the "ahimsa," or
prohibition of the destruction of life; the Jainists practise
austerities which Buddhism discards, and in the philosophies of the
two systems there are far-reaching discrepancies. On the other hand,
both Buddhism and Jainism borrow from Brahmanism most of their
practices and institutions; both are developments of the way of
salvation struck out not by Brahmans alone, but by men of other
castes and other views, when faith in the old national gods was
growing dim.
We now proceed to discuss the Buddhist system, taking it as it
appears in the early books, which tell us at least what was believed
in the fourth century B.C. to have been the ideas and intentions of
the founder. The following is the formula in which the convert
expressed his desire to be admitted to the order: "I take shelter in
the Buddha, I take shelter in the Dhamma (doctrine), I take shelter
in the Samgha (order)."
1. The Buddha.--This confession of faith is directed to a triad of
which the Buddha is the first member. Now the title Buddha was not
invented by Buddhism, but belongs to earlier Indian thought, which
held that from time to time, in a specially favoured age, an
Enlightened One and Enlightener, an omniscient and perfect teacher,
visited the world. Of these there had been in former ages
twenty-four, and the followers of Gautama held him to be the
twenty-fifth, but not the last. The application to Gautama of this
title removed him, to the believer, from the ranks of ordinary men,
and was the signal for a constantly increasing exaltation of his
person. In adhering to the Buddha, therefore, the convert is not
bowing to a mere man, but to one in whom a new type of deity is on
the way to be realised. He is a man; there is a record of his human
life, in which he made a great renunciation, abandoning, out of
compassion for men's sufferings, a position of lordly ease for that
of the mendicant. In this way he is a saviour not too exalted for the
pious heart to love and follow. Having found out in his own
experience the way of peace, and opened up that way for others, he is
a pattern and an encouragement as well as a lawgiver to the earnest
soul; and the personal relation which may thus be enjoyed with the
founder is one great secret of the success of the religion. On the
other hand, he is more than a man. The belief grew up very early that
he was not born in the ordinary way, but that his birth had been his
own voluntary act, and that his great renunciation consisted in his
choosing, out of compassion for men, to enter human life and to bear
the burden of its sufferings. In this way a religion which originally
had no gods and no worship began to supply itself with these. Some
scholars hold that it was among the lay community, among men not
thoroughly initiated into Buddhist thought, and failing to find in
the new faith what their former religions had afforded, that the
deification of the Buddha and the worship of him began; it may
certainly be doubted whether the religion could have lived long or
spread far if these deficiencies had not been early supplied.
2. The Doctrine.--The life of the founder gives us the key to his
doctrine. We see at once that that doctrine was not negative but
positive and constructive. Neither was it socially of a revolutionary
character, nor did it deny any part of the existing religion. We
never read that Gautama's teaching was assailed by the Brahmans as
unsound; it was centuries after his death that antagonism broke out
between the order and the upholders of other systems. Nor again did
the teaching put forward a new philosophy. On certain points which we
shall notice there is a development of thought in it; but this was
not obtruded.
In fact the doctrine is not a speculation at all, but a way of
salvation which is preached for its own sake, and carefully guarded
from being mixed up with speculative or religious controversy. The
Buddha is one who has found out a new way to be saved, and he comes
forward to preach what he has discovered, and that alone. Other
matters he leaves as they are. "All his discourses savour of
redemption as all the sea is salt." Other men may draw inferences as
to the relation his doctrine bears to the position of the Brahmans,
or to the sacrifices, or to existing beliefs; he does not draw these
inferences, he feels no need to do so.
The doctrine professes to be an answer to a definite problem--the
problem of pain. It is the most characteristic thing about both the
founder and the doctrine, that they start from the universal
existence of pain, to seek a remedy for it; they are inspired
therefore from the first by a dark view of human life, and by the
sentiment of compassion. It was the impression made on the young
prince, of the general prevalence of suffering, that drove him forth
from the palace to be a sannyasin or devotee. In a striking sermon he
uses the figure of fire to indicate how universal is the rule of pain
in all parts of nature and of human life. "All is burning; the eye is
burning, and all it looks on and all it remembers of what it has
seen"; so it is with each of the senses, so also with the mind. The
fire is that of passion, of malice, of illusion, of birth, of age, of
death, of pain, despondency, and despair. But the nature of the
complaint from which man suffers, and also the remedy for it, are
described most clearly in the "Four Noble Truths" set forth in the
opening sermon at Benares. In these memorable utterances the teacher
expresses himself according to the rules of the medical art, first
setting forth the nature of the disease, then its cause, then how it
takes end, and lastly, the means to be adopted in order that it may
do so.
1. The Noble Truth of _Suffering_. Birth is suffering, decay is
suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. Presence of
objects we hate is suffering, separation from objects we love is
suffering, not to obtain what we desire is suffering. Briefly, the
fivefold clinging to existence is suffering.
2. The Noble Truth of the _Cause of Suffering_. Thirst that leads to
rebirth, accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here
and there. This thirst is threefold, namely, thirst for pleasure,
thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity.
3. The Noble Truth of the _Cessation of Suffering_. It ceases with
the complete cessation of this thirst, a cessation which consists in
the absence of every passion, with the abandoning of this thirst,
with the deliverance from it, with the destruction of desire.
4. The Noble Truth of the _Path which leads to the Cessation of
Suffering_. The holy eightfold Path; that is to say, Right Belief,
Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means of
Livelihood, Right Endeavour, Right Memory, Right Meditation.
In these statements there are some things which we can readily
understand, but also some things which are not so easy. It is a
thought with which Christians are familiar, that desire is the parent
of all sorts of pain and disappointment, that the assertion of the
self, the putting forward of personal wishes and claims, involves
suffering. And we read in the Gospels that the way to escape from
such suffering is to cease from desire, no longer to be anxious about
what this world can give us or take from us, and not to lay up
treasures. Buddhist doctrine has its moral basis in the perception of
the vanity of all human effort and desire, and in the conviction that
the true riches for man cannot consist in any of those goods to which
the heart naturally clings. Where that perception does not exist,
where the first of the Noble Truths is not accepted as beyond all
question, Buddhism can have no hold. So far the doctrine is easy to
follow. But in the second of the Truths we find that the cause of
suffering is sought in the history of the human person as Indian
thought conceives it. Man suffers because he has been born again, has
suffered a rebirth, and the cause of his rebirth is the thirst which
has been felt or even nourished in a previous existence. The thought
that suffering is due to desire is not presented simply, as it is in
our Gospels, but in connection with a doctrine of man's life and of
the connection of one generation with another, which is quite strange
to us, but apart from which primitive Buddhism held that its doctrine
of suffering could not be understood. The Buddha, after discovering
the doctrine, is at first in doubt whether or not he will preach it;
and the cause of his doubt is that he is not sure if men will be able
to understand the law of causality and the chain of existence, on
which he himself meditated a whole night after his enlightenment, and
his discovery of which he regards as a great part of his achievement.
This chain of causation is stated in a long series of asserted
processes, in which the connection between one generation and
another, and the transmission from life to life of the melancholy
heritage of desire and sorrow, is obscurely and enigmatically traced.
The beginning of all is ignorance (of the four truths); from
ignorance proceed the "samkharas" or forms of production, from these
in turn consciousness, the senses, contact, sensation, thirst, and so
on to birth and the miseries of life. Suffering is destroyed by
tracing this sequence over again in a negative way, so that, the
first member of it being destroyed, each subsequent member is
destroyed in turn.
It is no wonder that the founder doubted whether this doctrine of
causation would be generally understood; for it is in fact an attempt
to reconcile two opposite views of the nature of the human person. In
the first place we find in early Buddhism the thought that there is
no such thing as a self in the human being; a man is made up of
various bundles of attributes and sensations called _skandhas_, but
he himself is none of these. There is no persistent substratum of a
self under these activities and forms, any more than there is a
carriage in addition to the wheels, shafts, nails, etc., of which a
carriage is composed. The Buddhist is called on to give up the belief
in a permanent ego; only where the various parts come together is the
man there. This is the well-known denial of the soul in this
religion; the soul is nothing but the "name and form" of a chance
collocation of elements. It is hard to know where this doctrine came
from; Kern says it is derived from the science of dissection, others
compare it with the doctrine of Heraclitus, taught about the same
time in Greece, that all things are in constant flux, nothing
permanent. The last words of the Master assert that decay is
universal; and the doctrine of the skandhas is a corollary from that
principle; if all the elements of which the human person is made up
are in process of decay, then the self cannot be a substantial and
persistent thing. That doctrine, however, does not go well together
with the belief in the universality and inexorableness of suffering.
If there is no self, must not consciousness come to an end when the
elements fall asunder which chance has brought together, and must not
the hour of death be also the hour of complete emancipation? This,
however, it was impossible to hold in India at the time of Gautama;
the belief in transmigration was too firmly fixed, he never thought
of disputing it. That belief indeed is what chiefly makes the
suffering of the world so lamentable. To Indian eyes the pain
actually in the world was magnified a hundred-fold by the dark
imagination of its connection with the past and with the future. What
a man suffered was the result of acts done in many former lives, all
spent in the vain misery of desire; and the sad prospect was extended
before him that death would not end his pains, but that he would be
born again and again to suffer ever anew so long as desire continued.
But if this is the case, then the soul would seem to be a durable and
persistent thing which is able to go through many lives and much
suffering without being brought to an end. On the theory of
transmigration the soul is not a mere shadow-name of an aggregation
of qualities, but the one durable thing which survives when all that
is accidental and temporary falls away from it. The doctrine of the
Skandhas and that of transmigration are thus opposed, and the
doctrine of the _nidanas_ or the chain of causation is the bridge
which satisfied Gautama's own mind, but which he was doubtful about
presenting to others, to bring them into harmony. He aimed at showing
by his catalogue of these obscure processes how the actions done in a
life set up a tendency to a corresponding existence in another life
which begins after the former one ends. Though there is no soul to be
transmitted, the moral effects of former lives are transmitted to
their successors.
The essential doctrine of the Buddha, however, is determined by the
belief in transmigration. His cry of triumph at the time of his
enlightenment is to the effect that the long series of suffering
existences through which he has passed has now come to an end, and
that he will not be born again. And what he preaches with constant
iteration is the misery of this awful succession of births to renewal
of suffering, and the infinite blessedness of escaping from this
cycle. The disciple, when converted, is to be able to say: "Hell is
destroyed for me, and rebirth as an animal or a ghost or in any place
of woe. I am converted, I am no longer liable to be reborn in a state
of suffering, and am assured of eternal salvation."
Now it rests with a man's own acts to end his sufferings. The chain
of causation which ends with suffering begins with ignorance. The
ignorance which is meant is that of the four noble truths, of the way
of salvation. Let a man cease from ignorance, let him accept the
Noble Truths and the insight they convey into the cause of suffering,
then by ceasing to thirst, or to burn, or in our own language by
turning his mind away from all desire, believing that what he does
will be effective for his salvation, he sets up a chain of causation
in an opposite direction, and having destroyed ignorance he may rest
assured that he has destroyed suffering too and is in the right way.
The burden he has inherited he will not need to carry any farther,
but will, when he dies, lay down for ever.
When we look at the fourth Noble Truth, which tells what a man has to
do in order to obtain this salvation, we are at first surprised.
After the deep earnestness with which the nature of the disease and
the cause and cure of the disease have been stated, we expect that
stronger practical measures will be asked for than these eight forms
of moderation. Christianity speaks of cutting off the right hand,
plucking out the right eye, in order to cut off desire: and the
Brahmanic method of union with the Deity was, as we have seen, that
of the most extreme self-mortification united with contemplation.
This Brahmanic method, the _yoga_ by which the devotee sought to
escape from all the accidents of being and to make himself one with
the great Self, the Buddha had tried for six years; but he had given
it up for a year when the hour of his enlightenment struck, and he
explicitly condemns for others the path he had found unprofitable for
himself. It is one of two extremes, both to be avoided, "The one
extreme is a life devoted to pleasures and lusts; this is degrading,
sensual, vulgar, profitless; the other is a life given to
mortifications; this is painful, ignoble, and profitless. By avoiding
these two extremes the Tathagata has gained the knowledge of the
Middle Path, which leads to insight, wisdom, calm, to Nirvana." The
way, therefore, to escape from the Karma, the moral retribution which
works inexorably in one life the result stored up in previous lives,
is that of a careful and unintermitted self-discipline, which does
not run to extremes, but practices, with perfectly clear purpose and
self-possession, the needful virtues mentioned in the fourth of the
Noble Truths. What are these? There is to be--
1. Right belief, without superstition or delusion.
2. Right aspiration, after such things as the thoughtful and
earnest man sets store by.
3. Right speech, speech that is friendly and sincere.
4. Right conduct, conduct that is peaceable, honourable, and pure.
5. Right means of livelihood, _i.e._ a pursuit which does not
involve the taking or injuring of life.
6. Right endeavour, _i.e._ self-restraint and watchfulness.
7. Right memory, _i.e._ presence of mind, not forgetting at any
time what one ought to remember; and
8. Right meditation, _i.e._ earnest occupation with the riddles of
life.
This is the path; there are four stages of it--
1. The stage of him who has entered the path.
2. The stage of him who has yet to return once to life.
3. The stage of him who returns not again, but may be born again as
a superior being; and
4. The stage of the worthy, holy one, the _Arahat_, who is free
from desire for existence, and also from pride and
self-righteousness, and who is saved and has obtained holiness,
even in this life.
An Arahat is not equal to a Buddha; the former is himself saved, but
the perfect Buddha is able by his perfect knowledge to save others.
Of Buddhas, however, there are not many. One becomes an Arahat by a
life of strenuous and untiring discipline. Ten fetters are to be
broken by which a man is kept from freedom; self-deception is one of
them, trust in sacrifice another, and the list embraces both sensual
and intellectual weaknesses. One must watch and be sober; every act,
however trivial, is to be done with full self-consciousness and
earnestness. One must remember that he is engaged in a great and a
hard work, and must resolutely "swim upstream," estimating at its
proper value every affection and temptation that would hold him back.
The body is to be contemned, and all natural ties; emotion is to be
uprooted from the heart so that the proper state of entire calm and
undisturbedness may be maintained. Then one is an Arahat, a true
Brahman. This manner of life requires withdrawal from the world; the
true salvation can only be attained by him who has left his home for
the houseless life. But Buddhism has also a general moral code for
those who have not taken this step; the keeping of it will not save
them directly; from the life they are now leading that is impossible,
but it is a beginning; it will make it easier for them to become
Arahats and attain salvation in some future existence. For all it is
good to be free from desire; as all desire contains in itself a germ
of death, there is no approach to salvation except in this direction.
Buddhist Morality.--Towards fellow-men Buddhist morality is based on
the notion of the equality of all; respect is to be paid to all
living beings. The five rules of righteousness which are binding on
all followers of the Buddha are:
1. Not to kill any living being.
2. Not to take that which is not given.
3. To refrain from adultery.
4. To speak no untruth.
5. To abstain from all intoxicating liquors.
To these are added five more for members of the order, who are also
required to refrain from all sexual intercourse, viz.:
1. Not to eat after mid-day.
2. Not to be present at dancing, singing, music, or plays.
3. Not to use wreaths, scents, ointments, or personal ornaments.
4. Not to use a high or a broad bed.
5. To possess no silver or gold.
These commandments, like those of the Decalogue, are negative in
form; but in the Buddhist scriptures a positive moral ideal is
inculcated on all, which is grave and attractive in its character,
and is sustained by a strong though quiet enthusiasm. We find here a
delicate conscientiousness as to the relations to be cultivated with
one's fellow-men; the widest toleration is enjoined, a toleration
extending to all beings, to all opinions. Hatred is to be repaid by
love, life is to be filled with kindness and compassion. The
Dhammapada and the Sutta-nipata deserve to be read by all who care
for the unseen riches of the soul. By their simple earnestness, their
quaint use of parable and metaphor, and their mingling of the
homeliest things with the highest truths, these books take rank among
the most impressive of the religious books of the world. We give only
a few jewels from this treasury.
From the Dhammapada.--Earnestness is the path of immortality
(Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are in
earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded
on what we have thought, it is made up of what we have thought. If a
man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a
shadow that never leaves him.
By oneself evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is
left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong
to oneself; no one can purify another.
From the Sutta-nipata.--To live in a suitable country, to have done
good deeds in a former existence, and a thorough study of oneself,
this is the highest blessing.
As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child, her
only child, so also let every one cultivate a boundless friendly mind
towards all beings.
A Bhikku who has turned away from desire and attachment, and is
possessed of understanding in this world, has already gone to the
immortal place, the unchangeable state of Nirvana.
Nirvana.--Our account of the doctrine would appear incomplete if we
did not attempt to answer the question, What is Nirvana? It is, as
the last extract shows, the state of salvation in Buddhism. As we
have seen, it is the condition of the man who has escaped from the
series of rebirths, and will never be born again. It is attained even
in this life by the Arahat, in whom all desire and restlessness have
come to an end. On the other hand, it is said of such an one that he
enters Nirvana when he dies, as if it were a state not of this life,
but of the period beyond. Thus it has been much debated whether the
Buddhist (or rather Indian, for the notion is not peculiar to
Buddhism) Nirvana is extinction, annihilation, of which the quenching
of desire in this life is the prelude, or if it is a state of
negative or quiescent blessedness, on which the saint can enter here
and now, but which is only made perfect when he dies. But there are
two Nirvanas;--that of entire passionlessness attained in this life,
and the consummate Nirvana entered at death. The saint does not need
to wait for death for his redemption, nor must he hasten his death in
order to enjoy it fully; Buddha, by example and by precept, forbids
any such anticipation. Death seals that which was already won, there
is no return from the Nirvana of death to any further life. This,
however, does not amount to an assertion that the dead Arahat has no
life or knowledge in the beyond; he is freed from desire, but whether
his consciousness is altogether extinguished, Buddhism does not
decide, and regards as a vain speculation.
No Gods.--We shall speak afterwards of this view of redemption, which
is the key to the nature of the Buddhist religion. We remark here
that it is a redemption man achieves by his own efforts, without any
outward prop or aid. In this system there is no occasion for any
priests or sacrifices, for any prayers, or for any gods. There is no
ritual, because there is no object of worship, there is no sin in the
sense of offending a higher being. The gods are denied not because of
any speculative doubt of their existence, but because in that inner
world of moral effort which man has come to feel so supremely real
and important, they have no part to play. As all the gods faded away
in Indian speculation before Brahma, so Brahma's own turn has come to
fade away. The Buddhist speaks of the gods as if they existed, and he
makes no attack on the sacrifices; but no living god fills his heart.
The Buddha is greater than all the gods; his teaching is for the
benefit of gods as well as men. But the Buddha is not an object of
worship. If the Buddhist can be said to worship any higher power, it
is the moral order which never fails to reward men according to the
deeds done in this or former existences. That is for him a real and
tremendous, though impersonal power, and in contemplating it he may
be said to worship after a fashion. But he has no aid to look for
from any power in heaven or earth in working out his salvation.
Buddhism is the most autosoteric of all religions; it declares more
uncompromisingly than any other, that man must save himself by his
own efforts, and that no one can possibly stand in his place or
relieve him of any part of his great task. All that any one, even the
Buddha, can do for another, is to enlighten him, to open his eyes to
the true knowledge, and show him the narrow path on which he must
thenceforth walk.
3. The Order.--There were monks before Buddhism. That religion made
its appearance when Indian thought was at the stage of growth at
which monastic communities may be expected to arise. When religion
has ceased to be regarded as the affair of the nation or the tribe,
and is cherished as the affair of the individual, when the mind turns
from the sacrifices and ritual of public religion to cultivate
relations with a power known chiefly in the heart and soul, and when
religious duty has thus come to be recognised as a boundless and
all-embracing thing, not a service the hands and feet can discharge,
but the effort, never ending, still beginning, to make the whole
personality with all its acts and aims conform to the ideal, then it
is that men who are living for religion seek for such aid as they can
give each other, and find it in an order and a discipline. The rules
of the Buddhist Samgha or order are extant, and so are the rules of
the contemporary Jainist fraternity. The Samgha resembled the
Franciscan more than the other great Christian orders. The Bhikku on
joining it abandoned his family and property, assumed the yellow robe
and other scanty properties of the character, and lived thenceforth
by begging, and in strict subjection to the rules, in which every
detail of his food, his clothing, his residence, and his daily walk
and conversation, were laid down. The two great objects of the
society were mutual help in the religious life and the preaching of
the doctrine. Under the first head come the frequent meetings of
monks and the confessions they make to each other according to a
fixed form. There is no vow of obedience; the monk obeys the law, not
the human authority. In preaching they are to go one by one, and they
are to preach to all. To all who would hear it was the gate open to
this salvation. Here the Buddhist neglect of caste comes in. Buddhism
makes no general or formal declaration of the equality of all men,
nor is there any attack on the Brahman caste or any exaltation of the
lower castes. The order drew its recruits at first from the ranks of
the Brahmans. But the impelling motive of the new religion was
compassion, and genuine compassion is not to be restrained in
artificial limits. The salvation preached was fitted for all men. The
disease to be cured was one from which all suffer, and the cure was
one which all could at least begin to lay hold of. Thus Buddhism was
fitted to break through the barriers of caste, and to gather into one
religious community men of all castes alike. In the community, it was
held, these distinctions disappeared. Not birth but conduct there
made the true Brahman. The universalist tendency of the religion also
fitted it to spread to other lands. It was not limited by anything in
its teaching to the soil of India, nor to the territory of any
particular set of gods. So wide indeed is its toleration, that a man
may embrace it without giving up the faith in which he lived before.
One can add it without incongruity to one's former beliefs and
practices. The believer in Shang-ti can be a Buddhist as well as the
believer in Brahma.[6] The absence of any hierarchy or centralised
organisation enabled it to spread freely, and the very meagreness of
its doctrine, and its freedom from ritual, were also in its favour.
[Footnote 6: Millions of Buddhists in China and Japan are also
adherents of the other religions of these countries.]
Buddhism made Popular.--Buddhism proved able to spread over many
lands because it was so simple, and in its essence so moral and so
broadly human. But, like other faiths which have spread to many
lands, it assumed very different forms in different countries, and
the later form is often very different from the early simplicity.
Even at the outset it was not free from a strong infusion of magic;
the Arahat, like the Brahmanic ascetic before him, was believed to
obtain influence over the gods by his virtues, and thus a claim to
supernatural power is brought in, which agrees but ill with the
ethical doctrine. The religion, which at first ignored the gods and
bade each man trust to his own efforts for his highest good, became,
ere long, what a popular religion at the stage of progress prevailing
at that time necessarily was, namely, a worship of superior beings
and a method of obtaining benefits from them. The national gods were
discarded, but the deification of the founder early furnished a being
who could be worshipped. Legend grew luxuriantly round his birth and
early career; and he obtained the rank of the greatest of all the
gods. Former Buddhas who had lived in former ages still lived as
gods; and the divine family, being once founded, admitted of various
additions; even a popular deity, such as Indra, could be joined to
the growing circle. The chief scenes of the life of the founder
became holy places and objects of pilgrimage, where relics were
exposed for adoration. The growth of legend and of magic proceeded
more rapidly, and went to greater lengths, in Northern than in
Southern Buddhism; but in the land of its birth, too, Buddhism proved
unable to serve as a working religion without additions and
modifications entirely foreign to its true character. The profession
of Buddhism was combined even with the savage worship of the
non-Aryan tribes; Siva was identified with Buddha and then worshipped
instead of him, as also was Vishnu, and the perversion and
degradation of the religion prepared for its expulsion from the
country of its birth. That expulsion was probably brought about more
immediately by the advance of Mohammedanism in India, and took place
in the period of the early Middle Ages. We cannot speak here of the
strange guise Buddhism has assumed in the north of India, notably in
Tibet. The Lamaism of that country, with its perpetual living
incarnation of the divine Buddha in a succession of human
representatives, its hierarchical church strongly resembling in many
of its features the Church of Rome, and the prayer-flags and wheels
for the mechanical discharge of religious acts, have long been the
wonder of the world.
Conclusion.--It is not from what Buddhism is now in any of the
countries where it flourishes, and where it has votaries who profess
other religions also, that we can judge of what it really is, or
estimate its value as a product of the human mind. It is to early
Buddhism that we must look for this. What are we to judge of this
religion without gods, and based on the assertion that all life is
suffering, and that the chief good is altogether to escape from life?
It is not true to characterise it as a religion in which there is no
joy, and which deliberately refuses to have anything to do with joy.
The Arahat, in whom desire is vanquished, and who has no further
birth to anticipate, is filled with a deep joy and triumph as of a
victor who has conquered every foe; and those who are less advanced
in the path yet have their share in this enthusiasm, and are inspired
by it to continue the struggle. Still Buddhism is a sad religion. It
arrives in India when the Deity there believed in has deserted the
world, and tells man he is alone in it. There is no one to help him,
no one to assure him that the good cause in a wider sense--a cause
extending beyond his own personal life--is destined to succeed; there
is no upholder of any moral order beyond that which works itself out
in each individual experience. The result is that the believer does
not trouble himself about the world, but only about his own personal
salvation. This religion is not a social force, it aims not at a
Kingdom of God to be built up by the united efforts of multitudes of
the faithful, but only at saving individual souls, which in the act
of being saved are removed beyond all activity and all contact with
the world. Buddhism, therefore, is not a power which makes actively
for civilisation. It is a powerful agent for the taming of passion
and the prevention of vagrant and lawless desires, it tends,
therefore, towards peace. But it offers no stimulus to the
realisation of the riches which are given to man in his own nature:
it checks rather than fosters enterprise, it favours a dull
conformity to rule rather than the free cultivation of various gifts.
Its ideal is to empty life of everything active and positive, rather
than to concentrate energy on a strong purpose. It does not train the
affections to virtuous and harmonious action, but denies to them all
action and consigns them to extinction. This condemnation it has
incurred by parting with that highest stimulus to human virtue and
endeavour, which lies in the belief in a living God. By so doing it
ceased to fulfil the office of a religion for men, and though, for
historical purposes, we may class it among the religions of the
world, a system which leaves its adherents free not to worship at
all, or to find satisfaction for their spiritual instincts in the
worship of beings whom it regards with indifference, comes short of
the notion of religion, and is not properly entitled to that name.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED
Monier Williams, _Buddhism, in its connection with Brahmanism and
Hinduism, and in its contrast with Christianity_, 1889.
Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_ (S.P.C.K.).
Oldenberg's, _Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine and his Order_, 1882
(out of print). (Third German Edition, 1897.)
Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, 1860.
E. Hardy, _Der Buddhismus_.