This booklet needs no preface for those who are familiar with the sacred
books of Buddhism, which have been made accessible to the Western world
by the indefatigable zeal and industry of scholars like Beal, Bigandet,
Bühler, Burnouf, Childers, Alexander Csoma, Rhys Davids, Dutoit, Eitel,
Fausböll, Foucaux, Francke, Edmund Hardy, Spence Hardy, Hodgson, Charles
R. Lanman, F. Max Müller, Karl Eugen Neumann, Oldenberg, Pischel,
Schiefner, Senart, Seidenstücker, Bhikkhu Nyānatiloka, D.M. Strong,
Henry Clarke Warren, Wassiljew, Weber, Windisch, Winternitz &c. To those
not familiar with the subject it may be stated that the bulk of its
contents is derived from the old Buddhist canon. Many passages, and
indeed the most important ones, are literally copied in translations
from the original texts. Some are rendered rather freely in order to
make them intelligible to the present generation; others have been
rearranged; and still others are abbreviated. Besides the three
introductory and the three concluding chapters there are only a few
purely original additions, which, however, are neither mere literary
embellishments nor deviations from Buddhist doctrines. Wherever the
compiler has admitted modernization he has done so with due
consideration and always in the spirit of a legitimate development.
Additions and modifications contain nothing but ideas for which
prototypes can be found somewhere among the traditions of Buddhism, and
have been introduced as elucidations of its main principles.
The best evidence that this book characterizes the spirit of Buddhism
correctly can be found in the welcome it has received throughout the
entire Buddhist world. It has even been officially introduced in
Buddhist schools and temples of Japan and Ceylon. Soon after the
appearance of the first edition of 1894 the Right Rev. Shaku Soyen, a
prominent Buddhist abbot of Kamakura, Japan, had a Japanese translation
made by Teitaro Suzuki, and soon afterwards a Chinese version was made
by Mr. Ohara of Otzu, the talented editor of a Buddhist periodical, who
in the meantime has unfortunately met with a premature death. In 1895
the Open Court Publishing Company brought out a German edition by E.F.L.
Gauss, and Dr. L. de Milloué, the curator of the Musée Guimet, of Paris,
followed with a French translation. Dr. Federigo Rodriguez has
translated the book into Spanish and Felix Orth into Dutch. The
privilege of translating the book into Russian, Czechic, Italian, also
into Siamese and other Oriental tongues has been granted, but of these
latter the publishers have received only a version in the Urdu language,
a dialect of eastern India.
Inasmuch as twelve editions of the Gospel of Buddha have been exhausted
and the plates are worn out, the publishers have decided to bring out an
_édition de luxe_ and have engaged Miss Olga Kopetzky, of Munich, to
supply illustrations. The artist has undertaken the task methodically
and with great zeal. She has studied in the Ajanta caves the Buddhist
paintings and sculptures and other monuments of Gandhāra. Thus the
drawings faithfully reflect the spirit of the classical period of
Buddhist art.
For those who want to trace the Buddhism of this book to its
fountainhead, a table of reference has been added, which indicates as
briefly as possible the main sources of the various chapters and points
out the parallelisms with Western thought, especially in the Christian
Gospels.
* * * * *
Buddhism, like Christianity, is split up into innumerable sects, and
these sects not infrequently cling to their sectarian tenets as being
the main and most indispensable features of their religion. The present
book follows none of the sectarian doctrines, but takes an ideal
position upon which all true Buddhists may stand as upon common ground.
Thus the arrangement into a harmonious and systematic form is the main
original feature of this Gospel of Buddha. Considering the bulk of the
various details of the Buddhist canon, however, it must be regarded as a
mere compilation, and the aim of the compiler has been to treat his
material in about the same way as he thinks that the author of the
Fourth Gospel of the New Testament utilized the accounts of the life of
Jesus of Nazareth. He has ventured to present the data of the Buddha's
life in the light of their religio-philosophical importance; he has cut
out most of their apocryphal adornments, especially those in which the
Northern traditions abound, yet he did not deem it wise to shrink from
preserving the marvellous that appears in the old records, whenever its
moral seemed to justify its mention; he only pruned away the exuberance
of wonder which delights in relating the most incredible things,
apparently put on to impress while in fact they can only tire. Miracles
have ceased to be a religious test; yet the belief in the miraculous
powers of the Master still bears witness to the holy awe of the first
disciples and reflects their religious enthusiasm.
Lest the fundamental idea of the Buddha's doctrines be misunderstood,
the reader is warned to take the term "self" in the sense in which the
Buddha uses it. The "self" of man translates the word _ātman_ which can
be and has been understood, even in the Buddhist canon, in a sense to
which the Buddha would never have made any objection. The Buddha denies
the existence of a "self" as it was commonly understood in his time; he
does not deny man's mentality, his spiritual constitution, the
importance of his personality, in a word, his soul. But he does deny the
mysterious ego-entity, the _ātman_, in the sense of a kind of soul-monad
which by some schools was supposed to reside behind or within man's
bodily and psychical activity as a distinct being, a kind of
thing-in-itself, and a metaphysical agent assumed to be the soul.
Buddhism is monistic. It claims that man's soul does not consist of two
things, of an _ātman_ (self) and of a _manas_ (mind or thoughts), but
that there is one reality, our thoughts, our mind or _manas_, and this
_manas_ constitutes the soul. Man's thoughts, if anything, are his self,
and there is no _ātman_, no additional and separate "self" besides.
Accordingly, the translation of _ātman_ by "soul", which would imply
that the Buddha denied the existence of the soul, is extremely
misleading.
Representative Buddhists, of different schools and of various countries,
acknowledge the correctness of the view here taken, and we emphasize
especially the assent of Southern Buddhists because they have preserved
the tradition most faithfully and are very punctilious in the statement
of doctrinal points.
"_The Buddhist_, the Organ of the Southern Church of Buddhism," writes
in a review of _The Gospel of Buddha_:
"The eminent feature of the work is its grasp of the difficult subject
and the clear enunciation of the doctrine of the most puzzling problem
of _ātman_, as taught in Buddhism. So far as we have examined the
question of _ātman_ ourselves from the works of the Southern canon, the
view taken by Dr. Paul Cams is accurate, and we venture to think that it
is not opposed to the doctrine of Northern Buddhism."
This _ātman_-superstition, so common not only in India, but all over the
world, corresponds to man's habitual egotism in practical life. Both are
illusions growing out of the same root, which is the vanity of
worldliness, inducing man to believe that the purpose of his life lies
in his self. The Buddha proposes to cut off entirely all thought of
self, so that it will no longer bear fruit. Thus Nirvāna is an ideal
state, in which man's soul, after being cleansed from all selfishness,
hatred and lust, has become a habitation of the truth, teaching him to
distrust the allurements of pleasure and to confine all his energies to
attending to the duties of life.
The Buddha's doctrine is not negativism. An investigation of the nature
of man's soul shows that, while there is no _ātman_ or ego-entity, the
very being of man consists in his karma, his deeds, and his karma
remains untouched by death and continues to live. Thus, by denying the
existence of that which appears to be our soul and for the destruction
of which in death we tremble, the Buddha actually opens (as he expresses
it himself) the door of immortality to mankind; and here lies the
corner-stone of his ethics and also of the comfort as well as the
enthusiasm which his religion imparts. Any one who does not see the
positive aspect of Buddhism, will be unable to understand how it could
exercise such a powerful influence upon millions and millions of people.
The present volume is not designed to contribute to the solution of
historical problems. The compiler has studied his subject as well as he
could under the circumstances, but he does not intend here to offer a
scientific production. Nor is this book an attempt at popularizing the
Buddhist religious writings, nor at presenting them in a poetic shape.
If this _Gospel of Buddha_ helps people to comprehend Buddhism better,
and if in its simple style it impresses the reader with the poetic
grandeur of the Buddha's personality, these effects must be counted as
incidental; its main purpose lies deeper still. The present book has
been written to set the reader thinking on the religious problems of
to-day. It sketches the picture of a religious leader of the remote past
with the view of making it bear upon the living present and become a
factor in the formation of the future.
* * * * *
It is a remarkable fact that the two greatest religions of the world,
Christianity and Buddhism, present so many striking coincidences in the
philosophical basis as well as in the ethical applications of their
faith, while their modes of systematizing them in dogmas are radically
different; and it is difficult to understand why these agreements should
have caused animosity, instead of creating sentiments of friendship and
good-will. Why should not Christians say with Prof. F. Max Müller: "If I
do find in certain Buddhist works doctrines identically the same as in
Christianity, so far from being frightened, I feel delighted, for surely
truth is not the less true because it is believed by the majority of the
human race."
The main trouble arises from a wrong conception of Christianity. There
are many Christians who assume that Christianity alone is in the
possession of truth and that man could not, in the natural way of his
moral evolution, have obtained that nobler conception of life which
enjoins the practice of a universal good-will towards both friends and
enemies. This narrow view of Christianity is refuted by the mere
existence of Buddhism.
Must we add that the lamentable exclusiveness that prevails in many
Christian churches, is not based upon Scriptural teachings, but upon a
wrong metaphysics?
All the essential moral truths of Christianity, especially the principle
of a universal love, of the eradication of hatred, are in our opinion
deeply rooted in the nature of things, and do not, as is often assumed,
stand in contradiction to the cosmic order of the world. Further, some
doctrines of the constitution of existence have been formulated by the
church in certain symbols, and since these symbols contain
contradictions and come in conflict with science, the educated classes
are estranged from religion. Now, Buddhism is a religion which knows of
no supernatural revelation, and proclaims doctrines that require no
other argument than the "come and see." The Buddha bases his religion
solely upon man's knowledge of the nature of things, upon provable
truth. Thus, we trust that a comparison of Christianity with Buddhism
will be a great help to distinguish in both religions the essential from
the accidental, the eternal from the transient, the truth from the
allegory in which it has found its symbolic expression. We are anxious
to press the necessity of discriminating between the symbol and its
meaning, between dogma and religion, between metaphysical theories and
statements of fact, between man-made formulas and eternal truth. And
this is the spirit in which we offer this book to the public, cherishing
the hope that it will help to develop in Christianity not less than in
Buddhism the cosmic religion of truth.
The strength as well as the weakness of original Buddhism lies in its
philosophical character, which enabled a thinker, but not the masses, to
understand the dispensation of the moral law that pervades the world. As
such, the original Buddhism has been called by Buddhists the little
vessel of salvation, or Hīnayāna; for it is comparable to a small boat
on which a man may cross the stream of worldliness, so as to reach the
shore of Nirvāna. Following the spirit of a missionary propaganda, so
natural to religious men who are earnest in their convictions, later
Buddhists popularized the Buddha's doctrines and made them accessible to
the multitudes. It is true that they admitted many mythical and even
fantastic notions, but they succeeded nevertheless in bringing its moral
truths home to the people who could but incompletely grasp the
philosophical meaning of the Buddha's religion. They constructed, as
they called it, a large vessel of salvation, the Mahāyāna, in which the
multitudes would find room and could be safely carried over. Although
the Mahāyāna unquestionably has its shortcomings, it must not be
condemned offhand, for it serves its purpose. Without regarding it as
the final stage of the religious development of the nations among which
it prevails, we must concede that it resulted from an adaptation to
their condition and has accomplished much to educate them. The Mahāyāna
is a step forward in so far as it changes a philosophy into a religion,
and attempts to preach doctrines that were negatively expressed, in
positive propositions.
Far from rejecting the religious zeal which gave rise to the Māhāyana in
Buddhism, we can still less join those who denounce Christianity on
account of its dogmatology and mythological ingredients. Christianity
has certainly had and still has a great mission in the evolution of
mankind. It has succeeded in imbuing with the religion of charity and
mercy the most powerful nations of the world, to whose spiritual needs
it is especially adapted. It extends the blessings of universal
good-will with the least possible amount of antagonism to the natural
selfishness that is so strongly developed in the Western races.
Christianity is the religion of love made easy. This is its advantage,
which, however, is not without its drawbacks. Christianity teaches
charity without dispelling the ego-illusion; and in this sense it
surpasses even the Māhāyana: it is still more adapted to the needs of
multitudes than a large vessel fitted to carry over those who embark on
it: it is comparable to a grand bridge, a Mahāsetu, on which a child who
has no comprehension as yet of the nature of self can cross the stream
of self-hood and worldly vanity.
A comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and
Buddhism may prove fatal to sectarian conceptions of either religion,
but will in the end help to mature our insight into the true
significance of both. It will bring out a nobler faith which aspires to
be the cosmic religion of universal truth.
Let us hope that this Gospel of Buddha will serve both Buddhists and
Christians as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their
faith, so as to see its full height, length and breadth.
Above any Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Mahāsetu is the Religion of Truth.
Paul Carus.