1. Shâkjamuni--the family name of Buddha, the originator of
Buddhism. It means "Hermit of the tribe of Shâkja," the Shâkja
being one of the earliest Indian dynasties of which there are any
records. His great-grandfather was Gajasena, whose son Sinahânu married
Kâkkanâ, also of the Shâkja lineage. Their son Shuddhodana married
Mahâpragâpatî (more commonly called by her subsequently received name
of Mâja = "the creative power of the godhead") a daughter of Angana,
Kâkkanâ's brother, and became the father of Buddha [4].
According to the Mahavansha, Gajasena was descended from Ixvâku,
through the fabulous number of eighty-two thousand ancestors! He was
also wont to call himself Shramana-Gautama, to mark his alliance with a
certain priestly family of Brahmans and thereby disarm any animosity on
their part toward his teaching. He was also called Shâkjasinha = "Lion
of the tribe of Shâkja," to show that he belonged to the warrior caste.
He was brought up as heir to the crown, and was trained in the use of
arms and in all matters appertaining to the duties of a ruler. At the
age of sixteen he was married, and we have the names of his three
wives--Utpalavarnâ, Jashodharâ, and Bhadrakâkkanâ. Up to the age
of twenty-eight he lived a life entirely devoted to the pursuit of
pleasure, his time being passed between the respective attractions
of three splendid palaces built for him by his father. At about this
age he appears to have grown weary of this desultory kind of life,
and one day, meeting in his walks with an old man, a sick man, a
corpse, and a priest, he was led to turn his thoughts upon the evils
and the evanescence of life. Rambling on instead of returning home he
sat down to rest under the shade of a gambu-tree, and here he found
fresh food for his melancholy reflections in the miserable condition
of the country people living around. The legend says the Devatâ,
or gods, appeared to him in the shape of these suffering people in
order further to instruct him in his new views of existence. In all
probability his previous mode of life never having brought him in
contact with the actual miseries of the needy this sight appeared to
him in the light of an apparition.
The result of his deliberations was the resolve to withdraw to a
place of solitude, where he might be free to consider by what means
human beings could be relieved from their miseries [5].
With this view he forsook his family and his palatial residences, and
having laid aside his rich clothing he wandered forth unknown to all,
begging his food by the way till he found the retirement he sought
in the hermitages of various Brahmans of Gajâshira, a hill in the
neighbourhood of Gaja [6], whence he is sometimes called Gajashiras.
He first placed himself under the teaching of the Brahman Arâda
Kâlâma, afterwards under that of another called Rudraka, who was so
struck with the progress he made in the acquisition of every kind of
knowledge that he soon associated him with himself in the direction
of his disciples. Five of these (four of them belonging to the royal
Shâkja family), Âgnâta, Ashvagit, Bhadraka, Vashpa, and Mahârâta,
grew so much attached to him and his views that they subsequently
became the first followers of his separate school of teaching.
Having after some years exhausted the satisfaction he found in the
pursuit of study he set out restlessly on a new search after happiness,
followed by the five disciples I have named, and retired with them to
a more exclusive solitude still, where for six years he gave himself
up to unbroken contemplation amid the most rigid austerities. After
this he seems to have somewhat alienated his companions by relaxing
his severe mode of life, for they forsook him about this time and
took up their abode in the neighbourhood of Vârânasî [7], where they
continued to live as he had shown them at the first [8].
This mode of life even he, however, does not appear to have altered
except in the matter of abridging his fasts, for his habitual
meditations went on as before, and they were believed to have so
illumined his understanding that he finally received the appellation
of Buddha = "the enlightened one," while from his favourite habit
of making these meditations under the shade of the ashvattha,
the "trembling leaf" fig-tree, that tree, which has acquired so
prominent a place in Buddhist records, legends, and institutions,
came to be called the bodhiruma, literally, "tree of knowledge," and
it has even been distinguished by naturalists from the ficus indica,
of which it is a variety, by the title of ficus religiosa. It became
so inseparable an adjunct of Buddhism that wherever the teaching of
Shâkjamuni was spread this tree was transplanted too [9].
The oppression of solitude appears to have overcome Shâkjamuni at last,
and he consequently took the resolution of journeying to Vâranasî to
seek out his former companions. At their first meeting they were so
scandalized to see him look so well and hearty instead of emaciated
by austerities that they refused to pay him any respect. But
when he showed them that he had attained to the illumination of
a Buddha they accepted his teaching and put themselves entirely
under his guidance. The number of his disciples increased meantime
amazingly. As they lived by alms they received the name of Bhixu as
a term of reproach. Ere long we find him sending out sixty of them,
whom he invested with a certain high dignity he called Arhat [10],
to spread his teaching wherever they came. He himself wandered for
nineteen years over the central and eastern districts of the country,
teaching,--his agreeable presence and benevolence of manner, and,
the legends say, the wonderful things he did, winning him numerous
converts wherever he went [11]. Some gave themselves up to a life
of contemplation in the jungle, others associated themselves with
him in his travels. When the rainy season set in they had to find
shelter for the four months in such colleges of Brahmans or houses of
families as they found well inclined towards them. This Varshavasana,
as it was called, afforded them additional opportunity of making
known their ideas.
Shâkjamuni himself seems to have won over several kings to his way
of thinking; one of them, king of Pankâla, he made an Arhat; another,
the king of Koshala, stirred himself very much to awaken Shuddodana to
a sense of the merit of his son, sending to congratulate him because
one of whom he was progenitor had found the means by which mortals
might attain to unending happiness. For once, making an exception to
the proverb that a prophet meets with little honour in his own country,
fortune favoured him in this matter also, and his father, who violently
opposed his withdrawal from his due mode of life in the first instance,
sent eight messengers one after the other to beg him to come and adorn
his court with his wisdom. Each one of these, however, was so won by
his teaching that he never returned to the king, but remained at the
feet of Shâkjamuni. Last of all the king sent his minister Karka, who,
though he also adopted his views, prevailed on him to let him take
back the message that he would satisfy his father's requests. The
king meantime built a vihâra for him under a grove of his favourite
Njagrodha, or sacred fig-tree. His return home happened in the twelfth
year after his departure, but when he had made his teaching known
among his kindred he set out on his travels again, only returning at
intervals, as to any other vihâra, for the rainy season. A great many
of his family joined themselves to him, among them his son Râhula,
and his nephew Ânanda, who became one of his most celebrated followers.
In the twentieth year of his Buddhahood and the fifty-sixth of his
age, he was seized with a serious illness, during which he announced
his conviction that his end, or nirvâna, was at hand, that is,
his entering on that state which was the ultimate object which he
bid his followers strive to attain--the completion of all possible
knowledge and the consequent dissolution of personal individuality
[12]; further, that it should take place at Kushinagara, the capital
of the Malla people [13]. Soon after, he accomplished his prediction
by setting out for this place, visiting by the way many of the spots
where he had establishments of disciples, and arriving there in a
state of utter exhaustion and prostration. On this journey he made
more converts, but after his arrival gave himself up to contemplation
which he considered necessary to perfect his fifth or highest degree
of knowledge, until his death. This took place under a Shala-grove,
or grove of sal-trees. His body was by his own desire treated with the
honours only to be paid to a Kakravartin [14], or supreme ruler. After
burning his body the ashes were preserved in an urn of gold. His death
is reckoned to have taken place in the year 543 B.C. [15], according
to the Buddhists of Ceylon and Southern India generally. Those of the
northern provinces, the Japanese and Mongolians, have a very different
chronology, and place his birth about the year 950 B.C. The Chinese
are divided among themselves about it and say variously, 688, 1070,
and 1122 [16].
A great number of claimants demanded his ashes in memorial of him,
and finally, by the advice of a Brahman named Drona, they were
partitioned among eight cities, in each of which a kaitja, or shrine
[17], was erected to receive them. A great gathering of his followers
was held at Kushinagara, of which Kâshjapa was sanghasthavira, or
president, Buddha having himself previously designated him for his
successor. He had been a distinguished Brahman. It is said by one of
the exaggerations common in all Indian records that there were seven
hundred thousand of the new religionists present. Five hundred were
selected from among the most trustworthy to draw up the Sanghiti, or
good laws of Buddha. Then they broke up, determining to travel over
Gambudvîpa, consoling the scattered Bhixu for the loss of their master,
and to meet again at Râgagriha at the beginning of the month Ashâdha
(answering to the end of our June) for the Varshavasana.
This synod lasted seven months. Its chief work was the compilation of
the Tripitaka--"the three baskets" or "vessels" supposed to contain
all Shâkjamuni's teaching: 1. The Sutra-pitaka, containing the
conversation of Shâkjamuni (of these I have had occasion to speak
in another place [18]); 2. The Vinaja-pitaka, containing maxims by
which the disciple's life was to be guided; and the Ahidharma-pitaka,
containing an exposition of religious and philosophical teaching. The
first was under the revision of Ânanda; the second under that of Upâli;
and the third under that of Kâcjapa. The Tripitaka also bears the name
of Sthavira, because only such took part in its compilation; also "of
the five hundred," because so many were charged with its compilation.
It is important, however, to bear in mind, because of the monstrous
exaggerations and extravagant incidents subsequently introduced [19]
that these were only compilations preserved by word of mouth; the art
of writing was scarcely known in India at this time. "After the Nirvâna
of Buddha, for the space of 450 years, the text and commentaries and
all the words of the Tathâgato were preserved and transmitted by wise
priests orally. But having seen the evils attendant upon this mode of
transmission, 550 rahats of great authority, in the cave called Alôka
(Alu) in the province of Malaya, in Lankâ, under the guardianship
of the chief of that province caused the sacred books to be written
[20]." As this "text and commentaries" are reckoned to consist of
6,000,000 words, and the Bible of about 500,000, we may form some
idea of the impossibility of so vast a body of language being in any
way faithfully preserved by so treacherous a medium as memory.
Megasthenes (Fragm. 27, p. 421, b.) and Nearchos (Fragm. 7,
p. 60, b.) particularly mention that the Indians had no written
laws, but their code was preserved in the memory of their judges;
thus testifying to the practice of trusting to memory in the most
important matters. Schwanbeck (Megast. Ind. p. 51) remarks that
the Sanskrit word for a collection of laws--Smriti--means also
memory. J. Prinsep (in his paper on the Inscriptions of the Rocks
of Girnar, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Beng. vii. 271) is inclined to
think some of the rock-cut inscriptions are as early as 500 B.C.;
which would show they had some knowledge of a written character then;
Lassen, however, is of opinion that this is altogether too early;
but there seems no doubt that there are some both of and anterior to
the reign of Ashoka, 246 B.C. Megasthenes indeed mentions that he had
heard they used a kind of indurated cotton for writing on. But the
use, neither of this material nor of a written character, could have
been very common or extended, for Nearchos (Strabo, xvi. § 67) wrote,
"It is said by some, the Indians write on indurated cotton stuff,
but others say they have not even the use of a written alphabet."
Though thus disfigured and overlaid as time went by, the great
intention which Shâkjamuni himself seems to have had in view in the
preparation of his doctrine was to destroy the exclusiveness of the
Brahmanical castes, and that most especially in its influence on
the future and final condition of every man, and thus he accepted
men of all castes, even the very lowest [21], and the out-caste
too, among not only his disciples but among his priesthood. It was
thus in its origin a system of morals rather than of faith. It was
full of maxims inculcating virtue to be pursued--not indeed out of
obedience to the will of a Divine and all perfect Creator--but with
the object of escaping the necessity of the number of re-births
taught by the Brahmans and of sooner attaining to nirvâna. It set
up, therefore, no mythology of its own [22], nor put forward any
statement of what gods were to be honoured. Nevertheless it was
grafted on to the mythology prevailing at the time, and many of
the gods then honoured are incidentally mentioned in the Sutra as
accepted objects of veneration. The Vêda, or sacred teaching of
the Brahmans, is quoted in almost every page [23]. The gods who
thus come in for mention in the simple Sutra are the following
[24]:--The three gods of the later mythology bear here the names of
(1) Brahmâ and Pelâmaha; (2) Hari, Ganârdana, Nârâjana, and Upêndra
(it is important to note that the name of Krishna does not appear at
this period at all); (3) Shiva and Shankara. Indra was now placed at
the head of gods of the second rank. We have also Shakra, Vâsava,
and Shakipati, called the husband of Shaki. Of the other Lôkapâla,
Kuvera and Varunna are named. It is doubtless only by accident that
more do not find mention. Of the demigods Visvakarman, the Gandharba,
Kinnara, Garuda, Jaxa the Serpent-god, Asura, and Danava, along with
other evil genii and serpent-gods. The most often named--particularly
in the colloquies between Buddha and his disciples--is Indra with
the adjunctive appellation of Kaushika. Indra was at the time of
Shâkjamuni himself the favourite god; the other great gods had
not yet received the importance they afterwards acquired, nor had
any thing like the idea of a trine unity or equality been broached
[25] as we shall presently see; even these allusions were but scanty
[26]. It was long before the whole Brahmanical system of divinities
came to form an integral part of the Buddhist theosophy [27].
Hence Shâkjamuni, as well as his contemporary and earliest succeeding
disciples, lived for the most part [28] on good terms with the
Brahmans, some of whom were among the most zealous in securing the
custody of some part of his ashes. But they were not long ere they
perceived that as this new teaching developed itself its tendency
was to supersede their order. Then, a life and death struggle for the
upper-hand ensued which lasted for centuries, for while the Buddhists
were on the one side fighting against the attempted extermination, on
the other side they were spreading their doctrines over an ever-fresh
field by the journeyings of their missionaries, a proceeding the more
exclusive Brahmans had never adopted. This went on till by the one
means and the other Buddhism had been almost entirely banished from
Central India, where it took its rise, but had established itself
on an enduring basis as remote from its original centre as Ceylon,
Mongolia, China, Japan, the Indian Archipelago, and perhaps even Mexico
[29]. This state of things was hardly established before the 14th
century [30]. But from information on the condition of religion in
India preserved by the Chinese pilgrim Fahien, who traversed a great
part of Asia, A.D. 399-414, Buddhism had already at that time suffered
great losses, for at Gaja itself the temple of Buddha was a deserted
ruin. From the writings of another Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Thsang,
whose travels took place in the 7th century, it would seem that the
greatest Brahmanical persecution of the Buddhists did not take place
before 670 [31]. That it had cleared them out of Central India by the
date I have named above is further confirmed by Mâdhava, a writer of
the 14th century, quoted by Professor Wilson, who "declares that at
his date not a follower of Buddha was to be found in all Hindustan,
and he had only met some few old men of that faith in Kashmir." "At
the present day," adds Wilson, "I never met with a person who had met
with natives of India Proper of that faith, and it appears that an
utter extirpation of the Buddha religion in India Proper was effected
between the 12th and 16th centuries." Nevertheless it is the system
of religion which next after the Catholic Church counts the greatest
number of followers.
Dr. Gützlaff (in his "Remarks on the Present State of Buddhism," in
"Journ. of R. As. Soc." xvi. 73.) tells us two-thirds of the population
of China is Buddhist. In Ungewitter's Neueste Erdebeschreibung,
the whole population is stated from native official statistics
at 360,000,000; whence it would follow that there are 240,000,000
Buddhists in China alone; probably, however, the Chinese figures are
to some extent an exaggeration.
Before concluding this brief notice of Buddhism it remains to say
a few words on the later developments of the system which have too
often been identified with its original utterances.
It does not appear to have been before the 10th century that Shâkjamuni
was reckoned to be an incarnation of a heavenly being; at least the
earliest record of such an idea is found in an inscription at Gaya,
ascribed to the year 948 [32], while much of his own teaching bears
traces of a lingering belief in a great primeval tradition of the unity
of the Godhead and the promise of redemption [33], as well as the great
primary laws of obedience and sacrifice more perfectly preserved to us
in the inspired writings committed to the Hebrews. The history of the
deluge, as given by Weber from the Mahâ Bhârata, is almost identical
in its leading features with the account in Genesis, bearing of course
some additions. A great ship was laden with pairs of beasts, and seeds
of every kind of plants, and was steered safely through the floods by
Vishnu under the form of a great fish, who ultimately moored it on the
mountain Naubandhana, one of the Himâlajas in Eastern Kashmere. The
early Vêda hymns, too, had thus spoken of the Creation, "At that time
there was neither being nor no being; no world, no air, nor any thing
beyond it. Death was not, neither immortality; nor distinction of
day and night. But It (tad) respired alone, and without breathing;
alone in Its self-consciousness (Svadha, which hence came to be used
for 'Heaven'). Besides It was nothing, only darkness. All was wrapt
in darkness, and undistinguishable fluid. But the bulk thus enveloped
was brought forth by the power of contemplation. Love (Kama) was first
formed in Its mind, and this was the original creative germ [34]." And
the Vêda was, we have seen, adopted in the main by Shâkjamuni; but the
development of his views came to imply that there was no Creator at
all, existences being only a series of necessary evolutions [35]. And
when later a Creator came again to be spoken of, the term was involved
in the most inconceivable contradictions [36]. A distinguished Roman
Orientalist also writes:--"The Vêda, and principally the Jazur-Vêda and
the Isa-Upanishad, contain not only many golden maxims, but distinct
traces of the primitive Monotheism. But these books exercise little
influence on the religion of the people, which is a mass of idolatry
and superstition; moreover, they are themselves filled with the most
absurd stories and fables. The Jazur-Vêda, which is the freest from
these defects, is a comparatively recent production, and the author
has manifestly drawn upon not only both Old and New Testament, but
also the Koran [37]."
An infusion of the revealed doctrines taught by Christianity was
also received into it from the teaching of the missionaries of the
first ages after the birth of Christ, though similarly disfigured and
overwrought. To distinguish the influence of the one and the other
would be a fascinating study, but one too vast for the limits of the
present pages. When we come presently to the history of Vikramâditja
we shall find it presents us with a striking idea of the facility with
which various ideals can be heaped upon one personality; this will
serve as a key to the mode in which an unenlightened admiration for the
story of our Divine Redeemer's life on earth may be supposed to have
induced the ascribing of His supernatural manifestations to another
being, already accepted as Divine. It is true that certain appearances
of Vishnu and Shiva on earth would seem to have been believed
before the Christian era; and apart from the Indian writings, the
dates of which are so difficult to fix, the testimony of Megasthenes
(the Historian of Seleucus Nicanor, who wrote B.C. 300) is quoted in
proof that at his time such incarnations were already held. But the
passages in Megasthenes, by the very fact that he identifies Vishnu
with Hercules, tend only to demonstrate a belief in a different kind
of manifestation of Divine power. Those who labour most to prove
that the Brahmanical idea of incarnation preceded the Christian have
to allow that it was only subsequently to the spread of Christian
teaching that it was fully developed. Thus Lassen writes, "I have,
therefore (i. e. in consequence of the allusions in Megasthenes), no
hesitation in maintaining that the dogma of Vishnu's incarnations
was in existence 300 years before the birth of Christ; still,
however, it only received its full development at a subsequent period
[38]." And in another place, speaking of the Avatâra (incarnations)
of Vishnu, in the persons of the heroes of the epic poems, he adds,
"this dogma is unknown (fremd) to the Vêda, and the few allusions
to such an idea existing in some of its myths, and which were later
reckoned among the incarnations of Vishnu, show that in the earliest
ages the recurring appearance in man's nature of 'the preserving god'
for the destruction of evil was not yet invented. [39]" And even of
the early epic poems he writes, that though such ideas are introduced,
yet the heroes still maintain their individuality. They are actuated
and indwelt by Vishnu, but they are not he. This, it will be seen,
is very different from the Christian dogma of the Incarnation.
Whether the extremely interesting and ancient tradition be genuine
(as maintained by Tillemont) or not, that Abgarus, king of Edessa,
sent messengers to our Lord in Judæa, begging Him to come and visit him
and heal him of his sickness, and that our Lord in reply sent him word
that He must do the work of Him Who sent Him and then return to Him
above, but that after His Ascension He would send an Apostle to him,
and that in consequence of this promise St. Thomas received the far
East for the field of his labours--and, however much be chronologically
correct of the mass of records and traditions which tell that this
Apostle travelled over the whole Asian continent, from Edessa to Tibet,
and perhaps China--it would appear to be intrinsically probable and
as well attested as most facts of equally remote date, that both this
Apostle and Thaddæus, one of the seventy-two disciples, preached the
Gospel in countries east of Syria, and that his successors, more or
less immediate, extended their travels farther and farther east. It
is mentioned in Eusebius (Book v. c. 10), that S. Pantæus, going to
India to preach the Gospel early in the 3rd century (Eusebius himself
wrote at the end of the same century), met with Brahmans who showed
him a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which they said
had been given to their forerunners by St. Bartholomew [40]. Lassen
himself allows, that in all probability certain Brahmans, at a very
early date, fell in with Christian teachers, and brought them back
home with them. Further, that the idea of there being any merit in
bhakti, or pious faith, and a development in the teaching concerning
the duty of prayer may be traced to this circumstance. Nor does he
deny that when in 435, Eustathius, Bp. of Antioch, with the help
of Thomas Kama, a rich local merchant, went to found a mission at
Mahâdevapatma (Cranganore), he found Christians who dated their
conversion from St. Thomas living there. His further efforts to
disprove that St. Thomas himself penetrated very far east, and that the
early Christian establishments at Taprobane and Ceylon were founded
by Persian Christians, though far from conclusive, tend as far as
they go but to support all the more the theory of an admixture of
Christian with Brahmanical and Buddhist teaching; because, the less
pure the source of teaching the more likely it was to have resulted in
producing such an admixture in place of actual conversion. Nor does the
circumstance on which he lays much weight, that the Brahmans resented
the inroads of Christian teaching on their domain, even with severe
persecutions, at all afford any proof that there were not Brahmanical
teachers, who either through sincere admiration (for which they were
prepared by their early monotheistic tradition), or from a conviction
of the advantage to be derived in increase of influence by its means,
or other cause, may have thought fit, or been even unconsciously led
to incorporate certain ideas of the new school with their own.
I have only space left to touch upon two of the most important of
these identifications. And first the imitation of the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity. Lassen (i. 784 and iv. 570) fixes as late a date
as 1420-1445 for the introduction of the Trimurti worship, or, as
he expresses it, the bootless attempt to unite various schools by
propounding the equality and unity of the three great rival gods,
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who were the chief gods favoured by each
respectively. Devarâja of Vigajanagara erected the first temple to the
Trimurti about this date. Ganesha, the god of wisdom and knowledge,
appeared to his minister Laxmana and bid him build a temple on the
banks of the Penar to the Hiranjagarbha, called Brahma, Vishnu, and
Shiva; this is the first example of any inscription of honour paid
to the Trimurti [41].
Secondly, the worship of the god Crishna, whose name and attributes as
well as his substitution for Vishnu, the second god of the Trimurti,
present so many analogies with the teaching concerning our Divine
Lord [42]. Whatever difficulty there may be in fixing the date of the
origin of the great Pânkarâtra sect, there appears none in affirming
that the full development of its teaching in the direction of these
analogies was subsequent to the establishment of Christianity. This
is how A. Weber speaks of it [43]. Brahmans, who had travelled to
Alexandria, and perhaps Asia Minor, at a time when Christianity was
in its first bloom, brought back its teaching respecting a Supreme God
and a Christ whom they identified with and fastened upon their sage or
hero, who had already in some measure received Divine honours--Crishna
Devakiputra (Son of the divine woman). He also dwells on the influence
exercised by the teaching of Christian missionaries. The importance
given to Devaki would point to an incorporation of Christian
teaching concerning the Virgin Mary. Weber, in a paper entitled
"Einige Data auf das Geburtsfest Krishna's," instances many passages
in the Bavrishjottara-Purana (one of the latest Puranas), which it is
impossible to read without being reminded of the place of "the Virgin
and Child" in Christian tradition, and which find no counterpart in
earlier Indian writings. Similarly it was the later schools which
dwelt on the fact of his having Nanda the herdsman for his father,
seemingly suggested by our Lord's character of "the good Shepherd,"
because in the earlier Crishna Legends [44] this fact is sunk in the
view that (though sprung from the herdsmen) he was a warrior and a
hero. Nor was the teaching concerning this character of Crishna at all
rapid in its extension. Its chief seat, according to Lassen [45], in
what he expresses as "the earliest times," was Madura; but the first
date he mentions in connexion with it is 1017, when a Crishna temple
was destroyed by Mahmûd of Ghazna, Lalitâditja, king of Cashmere,
built him a temple containing a statue of solid silver, and he reigned
from 695 to 732; but the gold armour the image bore would point to
his warrior character still prevailing down to this time. Lassen even
finds [46] the introduction of the worship of Crishna [47] a subject
of opposition by certain Brahmans as late as the tenth century. The
great epic poem concerning him, the Gitagovinda, by Gajadeva (still
sung at the present day at the Resa festival), was not written till
the end of the 12th century [48]. In an inscription at Gajanagara,
not very far from Madura, Crishna is mentioned as an incarnation of
Vishnu, but the date of this is 1288; and the idea does not seem to
have reached Orissa till the end of the 15th century [49].
2. From this exordium we must plainly gather that the original
collector of these Tales was himself a Madhjamika, since he begins his
work with an invocation of Nâgârg'una, founder of that school. He
calls him "second teacher" because his undertaking was, not to
supersede, but to develope and perfect the teaching of Shâkjamuni,
whom he himself reverenced as first teacher [50].
Nâgârg'una was the 15th Patriarch in the Buddhist succession, born
in South India, and educated a Brahman; he wrote a Treatise, in 100
chapters, on the Wisdom of the Buddhist Theology, and died B.C. 212
(Lassen, "Indische Alterthumskunde," ii., Appendix, p. vi.); but at
p. 887 of the same volume, and again at p. 1072, he tells us he lived
in the reign of Abhimanju, king of Cashmere, and that it was by the
assistance of his sage advice that the Buddhists were enabled for a
while successfully to withstand opposition dictated by the Brahmanical
proclivities of this king, whose date he fixes at 45-65 A.C. The
difference between the two dates arises out of that existing between
the computations of the northern and southern Buddhists [51]. In the
Raga-Tarangini, ii. v. 172-177 (a chronicle of Cashmere, written not
later than A.D. 1148) Nâgârg'una is thus alluded to: "When 150 years
had passed by, since sacred Shâkjamuni had completed his time in this
world of sufferers, there was a Bodhisattva [52], who was supreme head
of all the earth. This was Nâgârg'una, who possessed in himself the
power of six Archats [53].... Protected by Nâgârg'una the Buddhists
obtained the chief influence in the country."
Among the Chinese Buddhists he is called Lung-shu, which name Abel
Rémusat tells us was given him because after death he was taken up
into the serpent-Paradise [54].
The following legend has been told concerning the manner of
his conversion from Brahmanism; but it is probable that what is
historically true in it belongs to the life of another and much later
Buddhist patriarch.
A Samanaer [55] came wandering by his residence. Seeing it to be nobly
built, and pleasantly situated amid trees and fountains, and provided
with all that was needful and desirable for the life of man, made
up his mind to obtain admission to it. Nâgârg'una, before admitting
him, required to know whence, and what manner of man he was. On his
declaring himself a teacher of Buddhism the door was immediately
closed against him. Determined not to be so easily repulsed the
Samanaer knocked again and again, till Nâgârg'una, provoked by his
pertinacity, appeared on the terrace above, and cried out to him,
"It is useless for you to go on knocking. In this house is nothing."
"Nothing!" retorted the Samanaer; "what sort of a thing is that, pray?"
Nâgârg'una saw by this answer the man must be of a philosophical
turn of mind, and was thus induced to break his rule, which forbid
him intercourse with Buddhists, and let him in that he might have
more discourse with him. The Samanaer by degrees fascinated his mind
with the whole Buddhist doctrine, and ultimately told him that Buddha
had left a prophecy, saying, that long years after he had departed
this life there should arise a great teacher out of Southern India,
who by the wisdom of his teaching should renew the face of the earth;
that this prophecy he was destined to accomplish. Nâgârg'una believed
his words, and subsequently fulfilled them.
His peculiar school received the name of Mâdhjamika, because of
three prevailing interpretations of the earlier Buddhist teaching he
chose the one which steered its course midway (madhjana) between two
extremes, one of which held that the Buddhist nirvâna, implied the
return and absorption of the soul at death into the creative essence
whence it had emanated; and the other, its total annihilation.
He left his ideas to posterity in a treatise, bearing the name of
Kârikâ, denoting an exposition of a theory in verse [56]. Some idea
of its intricacy may be formed from the fact that the shortest edition
of it contains eight thousand sections; while the most complete has a
hundred thousand. His teaching was followed up by two chief disciples,
Ârjadeva, a Cingalese, and Buddhapâlita, and still holds sway in the
higher schools of Tibet, which accounts for the homage of the editor
of these Mongolian tales. He is honoured almost everywhere where
Buddhism is honoured; near Gajâ is a kaitja, or rock-cut temple,
called Nâgârgunî, probably commemorating some visit of his to the
shrine of Shâkjamuni.
3. The whole of Buddhist literature is spoken of by its followers as
contained in three "vessels," or "baskets"--tripîtaka (Wassiljew,
p. 118, quoted by Jülg); in Tibetian called samatog (Köppen, Die
Lamaische Hierarchie, p. 57).