THE VIHARA OF TRUTH
The town of Bágh, begun in a little valley, had gradually spread, up
an open hillside looking toward the southeast, and over and beyond
the jungle, to the Narmáda plain. The great Viharas were two or three
miles south of the village, built, all nine of them, in the flat of a
ravine, with wooded hillsides rising abruptly on either side. It was
not until the morning after their view from the hilltop that Hushka
and Oman made their appearance here. They had arrived in Bágh at dusk
the evening before, unusually wearied by an unusual day’s toil. Now,
after passing the night in Bágh, they had come, in the glow of a June
morning, fiercely hot, but filled with that glorifying sense of summer
that cannot be burnt away even by the deadly rays of an Indian sun, to
begin the Vassa season.
Along the path from the town, and through the ravine itself, they
met with what seemed to Oman, brought up to regard Buddhism as a
dead faith, a surprising number of Bhikkhus, all, apparently, like
themselves, returning from the pilgrimage. And Oman further wondered
by what feat of perfect calculation they had managed to arrive from
their wanderings on this particular day. As a matter of fact, some that
they passed had been in the neighborhood for a week or more; and others
would continue to arrive through the next week. There were perhaps a
hundred and fifty men in all, including fourteen or fifteen novices;
and there were few here who could remember a time when there had been
more in the valley. Yet tradition told a great tale. For, whereas now,
all these men lived in a single Vihara, the last in the row of the
great buildings, in the days of the past every one of the nine huge
monasteries had been filled to overflowing, and twenty-five hundred men
had passed their Vassa in the ravine.
Happily, to-day, none cared to dwell on the memory of old glories.
The Brethren were all busy greeting one another, and giving hasty
account of incidents of their various pilgrimages; for, through the
winter months, the Buddhists of Bágh were scattered over all Malwa, as
far north as Rajputana, and southward, through the plains, nearly to
the great ghats. Hushka was never alone, for he was one of the most
important and also one of the most popular monks of the Samgha. Oman,
indeed, following at his master’s heels, felt aggrieved and neglected.
He occupied himself in observation, finding high cause for wonder in
the vast, empty buildings lining the valley. They were immensely long,
narrow for their width, and built entirely of stone cut from the great
quarries near the river. Their verandas were wide, roofed and pillared
with stone; but the shade-mats of straw had long since rotted and
fallen away, and the interior of the mighty monuments stood open and
empty, deserted by their builders and their faith.
Gradually the two approached the last of the line of monasteries,
which, as Hushka had told him, was called the Vihara of Truth, and was
the only one still inhabited. This place presented a very different
appearance from that of its silent neighbors. As they came near the
central doorway, Hushka left off his conversation with a friend,
and turned to Oman. Taking him by the hand, he led him up the step,
to the spot where stood a large man, wearing a white cloak over his
yellow robes, and further marked by an air of extreme dignity and
condescension. Oman had observed his statuesque figure some moments
previously, and saw that, though he never moved from his place, every
Bhikkhu that approached made haste to go to him, to bow and receive his
greeting.
“That is the Sugata, the master of the Vihara, who has almost attained
to Arahatship, and remains in meditation throughout the period of
pilgrimage,” murmured Hushka in Oman’s ear, just before they reached
the great man.
Oman felt a thrill of reverence, and looked again, hoping to perceive
new marks of holiness. All that his eyes could see, however, was
a tall, stout person, with a round, benign-looking face, plump
and smooth-shaven. The Sugata was smiling, and Oman, hungrily as
he searched, could find in that countenance no traces of divine
spirituality. However, the great One’s eight months of meditation
seemed to have agreed with him uncommonly well.
Before this irreverent thought had taken root in Oman’s mind, he was
led up by Hushka and presented to the mighty one as a Saddhiviharika
who had received first ordination three months before. The Sugata fixed
his eyes upon the young man, who ingenuously returned the look, as the
master addressed Hushka:
“He appears young. Is he of age?”
“Of eighteen years, sir.”
“Let him study well the Dharma, that, in a year, he may receive
Upasampada.”
With this, Oman’s audience appeared to be at an end; and, a little
relieved to be out of the neighborhood of such holiness, he followed
Hushka across the veranda to a square, arcaded cloister, where,
directly in front of the entrance, stood a man with an open bag before
him, containing coins. Hushka took from his girdle the alms-purse
that he had worn for eight months, and emptied its contents into the
receptacle, at the same time exchanging greetings with the almoner.
Oman, looking on, understood that it was upon this money, received on
the pilgrimages, that the Bhikkhus lived in their monastery through the
Vassa season.
Hushka’s exchange of courtesies ended in the question as to where he
should find one Mahapra. Informed that he was in the Uposatha hall, the
monk went back, Oman still at his side, and, passing into the veranda
again, turned down it to the right, and, some distance farther on,
entered a room so vast that Oman stopped upon its threshold, staring.
Here, near the door, was gathered quite a throng, engaged in lively
altercation with one of their number, whose lean face wore a perturbed
and strained look. At sight of him Hushka began to laugh.
“It is, this year, Mahapra’s lot to assign the cells,” he explained to
Oman. And, leaving the young man where he was, Hushka himself plunged
into the crowd.
So long a time elapsed before he emerged, that Oman, tired and
bewildered by so much that was new, squatted down on the floor, to
the left of the entrance, to wait. Finally Hushka returned to him, a
look of satisfaction on his face; and, signing Oman to follow, walked
rapidly across the hall, through a small door at the end into the
cloister, across this open space, and finally down a narrow passage
that ended in another open square surrounded by small doors. Here
Hushka stopped, looking round him till he found a door inscribed with a
certain letter. This he threw open.
“Behold, Oman,” said he, “here is your home. This is the square of
novices, and I have got you a cell with an outer window. It will be
well that you should remain here for a time. The Vihara will be all
confusion to-day. But, if you come forth, do not forget the letter of
your door.”
Then, without further ado, Hushka turned and hurried away, having
himself much to accomplish before nightfall. Oman, peremptorily left
alone, looked around him, at his new abiding-place. The room was
extremely small, considering the size of the Vihara. Opposite the door
was a small window, with a straw shade rolled up from it and bound
round with a string. From the window could be seen a strip of hillside,
where the light of noon glared over shadowless gray earth, dotted here
and there with clumps of stunted bushes. This, with a bit of deep blue
sky, was his view. The furniture of the room consisted of a straw bed
with a sleeping-mat, an earthen water-jug, another jar, and, under the
window, on a low, stone platform a foot square, a small bronze image
of the Buddha. The stone walls of the cell were nearly covered with
carvings and bright-colored frescoes, which, crude as they were, gave
the room an air of comfort and furnishing.
Oman, accustomed to absolute simplicity, looked around him highly
satisfied with his dwelling-place. He was not, however, so well pleased
at the prospect of spending the whole afternoon without food; for his
breakfast had been scanty, and the morning long. Nevertheless, Hushka
had bidden him remain here, and Hushka’s slightest wish was law. So,
calling up some of the Vedic fortitude of his childhood’s fasts, he
remained for an hour or more gazing out of the window, considering some
of the features of the new life; and then, since there seemed nothing
better to do, let down the curtain over his window, threw himself upon
his bed, and, in a few moments, had lost himself in sleep.
* * * * *
The first week of the Vassa life passed without order, in a jumbling
way. Then, suddenly, as if by magic, everything changed, and existence
ran as if by clockwork. Without knowing how it had all come about,
the novices found their studies begun, and perceived that they were
living under stringent laws. Only Oman, among the twenty youths that
had received the Pabbagga ordination, found nothing to chafe him in
the rules of the day, which were enforced with a rigor that defied
disobedience. It was a long time, indeed, before the young Brahman,
occupied with the unusual joys of companionship and congenial work,
awoke to the fact of how much was being accomplished by himself and by
those around him.
At dawn—which was early enough at this time of year—the whole Vihara
was roused by the clanging of a bell, which rang till the most
persistent sleeper could no longer retain his drowsiness. Then monks
and novices alike made the prescribed ablutions and put on the outer
robe. After this came half an hour of meditation, each one sitting
alone in his open cell, while masters of the day passed through the
corridors at irregular intervals to make sure that meditation did not
lapse into sleep. This over, the whole company repaired to the Uposatha
hall, and, seating themselves on the floor in orderly rows, repeated
in concert the creed and prayers for the day. Now came a scramble to
the refectory, where a meal was served:—a meal such as could scarcely
have been duplicated in any Rajah’s palace. For if the Bhikkhus were
accustomed to begin the Vassa with yellow robes hanging on their
emaciated frames, they were sure of setting forth on their pilgrimage
in October well fortified for the rigors of the fasting season.
The morning meal at an end, monks and novices separated, and the
succeeding hours were occupied with varying tasks. The novices repaired
to the smaller audience hall, where they were taken in charge by
one of the four masters. Squatting in an orderly row on the floor,
they listened in decorous silence to the reading of passages of the
law, and then to a long lecture expounding all that had been read,
with paraphrases by certain of the more notable commentators. This
ordinarily occupied from two to three hours, after which followed
lessons in the Dharma, the novices themselves being called upon to
interpret chapters previously learned by rote. Then came a period of
silent contemplation of the longed-for state: the cessation of desire
and the extinction of feeling. This over, the second meal was served,
and after it came relaxation, the novices being allowed to watch the
distribution of the remains of the meal among the poor of the village
who, at this hour, came crowding to the Vihara gates. This was the one
period of unrestrained liberty in the day; and novices were permitted
to indulge themselves in games and amusements forbidden to the doubly
ordained.
By three o’clock this was over; and the two following hours were spent
in the library, in the perusal of sacred manuscripts, of which the
Vihara of Truth owned a large number. Of all the day’s occupations this
was, to Oman, the most deeply engrossing. He had a great advantage over
most of his companions, in being able to read easily both in Sanscrit
and the older Pâli; for the scholarship of his youth had not left him.
The working day was ended by the most difficult task of all:—three
hours of silent meditation on some tenet announced at the time. At
first, to those unaccustomed to it, these three hours seemed as long as
the eight months of the Sugata’s retirement; and the novices whispered,
and yawned, and eyed each other, and let their minds wander, till the
length of their penances became startling. But gradually the time
seemed shorter, the habit of abstract thought more fixed, until it was
sometimes a surprise to hear the great bell ringing out the close of
day, when all save penitents were commended to seek a needed rest.
This daily program was varied every two weeks, on Uposatha days, by the
ceremony of the recitation of the Patimokkha; which meant the reading
of lists of misdeeds punishable, the special penance for each offence,
and, finally, a general confession and fixing of penances. The whole
thing usually lasted from six to eight hours, and was very tiresome.
But the remainder of the day was a holiday, when rules were abandoned,
and monks and novices allowed to mix indiscriminately.
Such was the outline of Vihara life, which, in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, differed little from that maintained in the first
Buddhist monastery eighteen hundred years before. The circumstances
of the day were unvaried; but the details, for the individuals
living the life, were never the same. The occupations held infinite
possibilities, being perfectly adaptable to moods. The meditation that
one day seemed to stretch out into infinity, passed rapidly on the
next. If the incidents of the life of Gautama set forth in one day’s
reading were dull and dreary, on the next the excerpt might sound like
a fairy story, and the reading-hour prove all too short. For those
of dull, phlegmatic temperament, perhaps there was not, after all,
much difference. But Oman Ramasarman was everything but phlegmatic. A
creature of strange moods, stirred by many feelings incomprehensible
to the multitude, devoted to the working out of a mighty expiation,
as unknown to himself as it was to his companions, his four months of
Vihara life were a momentous period with him. He very soon came to
an understanding of what this wisely regulated existence might hold
for him. He perceived that here he might build a foundation for that
resignation to the actual that he needed so terribly to attain; and
forthwith he set himself, with all the determination of which he was
capable, to attain to a full appreciation of the worth of the Buddhist
teaching.
From the books of his religion Oman extracted much food for thought,
on which he dwelt during the hours of meditation. From the very first,
these periods of silence had been pregnant. In them, now, he found
answers to his infinite, unasked questions. They, first of all, had
awakened him to the import of the days. Perhaps, since Gautama’s first
conceptions of his great creed, there had been no proselyte so apt for
the faith as this poor, bewildered subject of a pitiless judgment.
Within Oman’s body two natures, both human, both filled with direst
cravings of humanity, had long struggled for supremacy. Now he had been
removed from the old life, where he beheld sense worshipped on every
side, and found himself in a community which taught, as an inviolable
law, the renunciation of all sense gratification as the only road to
happiness. A sudden austerity, born of the brain, began to work in
Oman’s heart. Self-denial and abnegation became a passion with him. It
was with deep delight that he graved upon his mind such verses as these:
“That middle path of knowledge which the Tathagata has gained, which
leads to wisdom and conduces to calm, is the holy eightfold path: right
belief, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right means of
livelihood, right endeavor, right memory, right meditation. This is the
path that conduces to Nirvâna.”
“And this is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, decay
is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. Presence of
objects we hate, separation from objects we love, not to obtain what we
desire—all these are suffering. Briefly, the clinging to existence is
suffering.”
“Now hear the truth of the cessation of suffering: it will cease with
the cessation of thirst—a cessation which consists in the abandonment
of every passion. With deliverance from this thirst comes the
destruction of desire, the cessation of suffering.”
This was the subject on which, in his hours of contemplation, Oman
insistently dwelt. In his heart he knew that here lay his help; and
he felt it no wrong that he clung to one topic, disregarding many of
the others prescribed. The process of enforced and long-continued
meditation is a curious thing, and productive of strange results.
Thought is hardly governable, as volatile as a gas; and to keep
it fixed for any length of time upon a single point, requires a
power difficult of attainment. When it is gained, however, and then
persistently made use of, the character of the thinker is sure
to change in one of several ways; and it is axiomatic that, in a
meditative community, the individuals are never quite normal.
In Oman’s case, the effect of the silent hours, which began to be
visible after two months of Vihara life, was one of increasing dignity
and age. He had entered the Vihara a youth, of extremely boyish
appearance, with shyest manners. He had been thoroughly crude, and
so awkward before older men that he had given an early impression
of stupidity. Now all this was altered. He was quiet, grave-eyed,
thoughtful-looking; but his manner, filled with self-control, was
almost impressive. His grasp of the teachings of the Dharma had been
quick, his questions keen and pointed. Moreover, during the periods
of relaxation, he began to keep himself apart from his fellows, but
was often to be seen talking with his master, Hushka, or some one of
the older monks of Hushka’s faction. And it was among the novices, who
began to look up to him, that the idea first originated that Oman was
to receive his Upasampada at the end of the Vassa season, instead of
waiting the full year of novitiate.
By the first of August, with the Vassa half gone, Oman began to
perceive that he was happy:—happy as he had never believed happiness
itself could be. It seemed to him that he lacked no earthly joy.
Hushka, his Saint, the man he looked up to as the perfect model of
virtue and unselfishness, was one of his four masters; and Oman
was much with him. Apart from this companionship, he found that he
desired nothing. Solitude was not now loneliness. But though, with
the ineradicable instinct of the Brahman born, he kept himself aloof
from his fellow-novices, they seemed never to resent this, but rather
looked up to him as one of higher caste than they, and one that had,
consequently, a right to exclusiveness. Moreover, through the whole
Vihara, even by Sugata himself, Oman was spoken of as a scholar of
high promise, such a one as their decadent community now rarely saw.
Treated with respect on every hand, the memory of his old, marked days
growing dim within him, it seemed to Oman that his cup of happiness
was full. He was mastering the primal, the greatest difficulties of a
religion which, as it opened, became more and more beautiful to him. In
certain ecstatic hours he saw himself attaining to the highest state,
Arahatship, where pale Nirvana gleamed like a silver armor of repose
around the passionate soul. His nature was already under subjection;
and he no longer doubted that it was wholly conquerable. The way was
stretching out before him straight and smooth, the last boulder lifted
away, when, suddenly, out of the clear sky, came a thunder-bolt that
laid waste the fair country of his life, and left him standing alone,
terrified, a yawning chasm at his feet, the wilderness on either hand.
It happened very simply, and without any sort of preparation. He sat
one afternoon in the library, among a throng of monks and novices,
before him one of the Vinaya texts, the Mahavagga, a manuscript of
law rigidly adhered to by Buddhist and even by Jainist communities.
There, in the list of those creatures unfit to receive ordination, and
commanded to be driven from the Samgha if, unknowing, they had been
already ordained, he came upon the sixty-eighth section, wherein all
such as he were declared unfit for holiness, ineligible for Buddhism,
and therefore outlawed, absolutely, from the blessed life.[7]
[7] “Sacred Books of the East,” Max Müller edition, Vol. XIII, Vinaya
texts, Part I. Mahavagga, p. 222. (Trans. W. Rhys-Davids and H.
Oldenburg.)
He read the passage once, and then again, slowly. After that he leaned
a little farther over his book, no longer seeing the writing, hoping
only that none observed him. Stupidly he sat there, for an hour or
more, neither reading nor thinking, only conning over and over again
the two simple verses that had undone him. And when he had been
quiet for a very long time, an idea came, and he whispered it over,
lingeringly, wistfully, to himself: “I shall not confess. I shall not
confess; and so—they can never know.”