CHAPTER I.

THE METAPHYSIC

OF

CHRISTIANITY

AND

BUDDHISM.

_A SYMPHONY._

BY

MAJOR-GENERAL DAWSONNE M. STRONG, C.B.

(_Late Indian Army_),

AUTHOR OF "SELECTIONS FROM THE BOSTĀN OF SÂDI,

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE."

"Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon."--_Bible._

LONDON:

WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET ST.

1899.

LOVINGLY DEDICATED

TO

MY WIFE

IN MEMORY OF OUR SOJOURN

IN

THE EAST.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

I. JESUS AND GOTAMA 1

II. GOD AND THE KOSMOS 33

III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA 55

IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA 82

V. SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS 103

AT THE MALAGAWA TEMPLE, CEYLON 113

APPENDIX:--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS OF BUDDHISTIC

LEGEND AND SCRIPTURE:--

1. The Last Words of Gotama Buddha to his

Favourite Disciple Ananda 115

2. Samsâra and Nirvana 116

3. Rejoice 118

4. The Goal 120

5. Buddha and the Herdsman 123

6. Buddha and the King 126

INTRODUCTION.

"Si notre foi diffère quant à la forme et aux dogmes, nos âmes restent

toujours d'accord sur un principe éternel et divin."--GEORGE SANDS.

An immense difficulty has to be encountered by those who have been

deeply impressed by the value and beauty of Christianity when they are

called upon to consider the claims of other faiths. Anyone who has had

within his experience and under his observation such an exceptional

case as that of a sincere Christian who, from childhood to old age,

has set before him the ideal Christ and the Christian conception of an

all-compassionate Father--a Christian whose inner light has been so

pure that no darkness of doubt has ever dimmed it, and no doctrinal

warfare has ever stained its radiance--he, I contend, has an almost

insuperable obstacle to overcome when he attempts to associate holiness

and purity, of the same supreme order, with the followers of other

religious systems which have been formulated for the comfort and

salvation of humanity.

It is doubtful if any ordinary adherent of the Christian faith, however

extensive his sympathies towards persons outside his own flock, has

ever been able to pass this barrier, which always seems to interpose

itself when search is made for a common bond of union with an alien

belief.

A man may have lived many a year in the East, and witnessed there, with

deep appreciation, the purity, the endurance, the touching self-denial

of the devout peasantry, and the beautiful charity of the poor towards

the poor; or he may have associated with saintly ascetics in India,

and with the yellow-robed and gentle _religieux_ of Ceylon; he may

have surveyed the famous temple of that fair island, in the intense

stillness of a tropical night, till all identity of self seemed to

vanish in the solemnity of the surroundings, and the only sound was

that of a monk's intoning voice heard from within the dungeon-like

apertures of the building, and the only light that of the fitful

fireflies amid the lofty and drooping foliage;--yet, in each and all of

these experiences, that aroma of holiness, so perceptible at times in

our own religious atmosphere, would somehow seem strangely absent to

the unacclimatized senses, and no halo would be distinguishable by a

vision which had been restricted by prejudice.

Still more difficult is it to rise to the same height of reverence

for a saintly and surpassing personality if it is presented in

sacred records other than those to which one has owned a prior

allegiance. Nevertheless, the discovery in other religious systems of

a correspondence with one's own particular persuasion must assuredly

tend towards the attainment of that attitude of mind commended by St.

Paul of "being all things to all men." To pave the way towards the

acquisition of this mental posture in relation to religious concepts is

the main object I have had in view in composing this small book.

It has been said that no age has more needed a departure in this

direction than our own. "On the one hand, sectarian hatred and

dogmatism almost obscure the great truths _common_ to all mankind; on

the other, merciless and destructive criticism, in undermining much

that used to be generally accepted, seems at times to threaten even the

foundations of truth."

Some people, however, maintain that there is an appreciable value

to be attached to all dogmatic declarations, and that those who are

working in strictly-confined theological grooves are contributing, as

specialists, to a knowledge of the whole. Even if these workers are

possessed of all the uncharitable qualities sometimes attributed to

the narrow-minded, yet they may be held deserving of encouragement

in view of the probability that the more their limited ideas become

exposed to the light by their enthusiastic endeavours to assert them as

final truth, the sooner will their imperfections be obliterated. The

fragmentary opinions they cling to will then be discovered to possess

no value except as constituent elements of the whole.

Others go the length of advocating that the flames of bigotry should be

fanned to furnace-heat in order that the feeding fuel may be the more

rapidly consumed.

In any case, the more apparent it becomes that every religion worthy

of the name springs from a root common to all, and is really, at

bottom, the one true cosmic religion, and that the variations are

superficial and unimportant in themselves, the greater will be the

advantages accruing to humanity in the political, social, and moral

spheres. In other words, the advantage to be derived from the study of

the obscure phases of religions lies in this--that, in so doing, our

minds are better able to grasp the solidarity of religious thought and

aspirations throughout the world. We are enabled to see more clearly

that all religious forms, and even formless philosophies, however crude

and idolatrous the former may appear to people of wide culture, and

however mystical and evasive the latter may be regarded by those of

narrow vision, are but the effects of one cause common to all.

When we have got rid, Buddhistically, of the idea of separateness,

or, in a Christian sense, have exercised self-suppression, we can

then proceed to eliminate the notion of separateness in religions and

philosophies. Thus, whether we are Determinists or Indeterminists,

we shall experience the sensation that, according to the law of

development, it is in the scheme of things for us to struggle forward

on our several paths, not in antipathy to, but hand in hand with, those

who make use of different modes of progression towards one identical

goal.

Missionary propagandism, under these conditions, will have the same

_raison d'être_, and our cherished symbolisms will in no wise suffer.

Holding this view, I have felt no misgivings as to the propriety of

placing side by side, as it were, the historical and radiant figures of

Jesus the Christ and Gotama the Buddha, and of indicating an analogy

between the essential features of the two systems of religion which

these great deliverers of a world on earth have fashioned and commended

for the acceptance of their fellow creatures.

Indeed, Buddhism should occupy a very large place in the affections

and admiration of all true Christians on account of the many points of

resemblance discernible in the characters and gospels of Gotama and

Jesus.

St. Augustine, the great vindicator of Christianity, clears the ground

for an assimilation of the two systems. He writes: "For the thing in

itself which is now called the Christian religion really was known to

the ancients, nor was wanting at any time, from the beginning of the

human race until the time that Christ came into the flesh, from which

the true religion which had previously existed began to be called

Christian; and this in our day is the Christian religion--not as having

been wanting in former times, but as having in later times received

this name."

Köppen says: "As, from the standpoint of Buddhism, all men--nay, all

beings--are brothers, children of one sin, sons of the same nonentity,

thus all religions of the globe appear to it as related, as sprung from

one source; all pursuing the same end, and arriving at the same goal.

The religious views, creeds, etc., etc. ... of all nations, Churches,

schools, sects, and parties, however diverse they may seem, are hence,

according to the conception of the believing Buddhist, not alien,

but inwardly akin. They are merely peculiar forms, modifications,

obscurations, degenerations of the same truth--of one law, one faith,

one redemption. For him there is only one doctrine and one Way; and

all religions belong, in one way or another, to this doctrine, and are

all on that Way."

Among the things that can never be shaken are the foundations of

Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, and other cognate religious

systems. Here and there, perchance, a steeple may come down with

a crash, a minaret may fall, a pagoda crumble into dust; but the

foundation-stones, laid beneath the surface, buried in mystery, and

encompassed by darkness, remain irremoveable, changeless, and eternal.

It is, then, in this brooding darkness which envelopes their occult

sources that we must take our stand; and not until we have grown into

and become one with the encircling gloom, and been subjectively steeped

in it, can we hope to understand or pronounce a fair judgment upon what

is the less obscure and objective.

The comparative study of religions requires approach with an open and

receptive mind, and a large amount of intuitive sympathy with all. It

cannot be fairly undertaken if the initial object of investigation is

to mould the one or the other to the shape of personal fancy.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, a most interesting exponent of Buddhism in relation

to Christianity, says that the study of an ancient religion is not

philosophy, but pure history. This may be true, in a sense; but, at

the same time, it is necessary that the records of the past should be

studied in a philosophical and synthetic spirit, with an Impressionist

rather than a pre-Raphaelite tendency. Mr. Lillie hardly makes due

allowance for the measure of failure which must accompany all human

efforts to do justice to a great idea, and perhaps overstrains the

theory that literary and philological analysis have had their day, and

that archæology and history should now reign supreme.

In connection with the placing of too great a reliance upon the

"letter" of venerated records, a warning--serious enough if we

appropriate it to ourselves--has issued from the pen of the Rev. Spence

Hardy, who, in a passage of his book, entitled _Eastern Monachism_

(p. 166), emphasizes with tremendous force the precarious position of

those who take their stand solely upon sacred books. "The priests of

India," he writes, "are encompassed by weapons that may be wrested

from their hands and used to their own destruction. When it is clearly

proved to them that their venerated records contain absurdities and

contradictions, they must of necessity conclude that their origin

cannot have been divine; and, the foundations of the system being thus

shaken, the whole mass must speedily fall, leaving only the unsightly

ruin as a monument of man's folly, when he endeavours to form a

religion from the feculence of his own corrupt heart or the fancies of

his own perverted imagination."

It may be apposite here to demonstrate how far short of the Pauline

standard the cultivated European critic falls, by referring to some

remarks of the Rev. Prof. Bruce in one of his Gifford Lectures[A] of

last year, in which he treats of Gotama's views concerning the moral

order of the universe. Of the two leading doctrines of Buddhism, Karma

is called by him "fantastic" and Nirvana "morbid"; and, not content

with such a contemptuous dismissal of these remarkable conceptions, he

proceeds to say: "The well-being of the race demanded warriors, brave

in the field of battle against evil, not monks, immured in cloisters

and passing their lives in poverty, wearing the yellow robe of a

mendicant order."

[A] _Vide Glasgow Herald_, January, 1898.

This rhetorical flourish may have sounded very effective and convincing

as a peroration, and have produced the desired result of clearing

the lecturer from any possible imputation of sympathy with Buddhism,

except as an ethical system of considerable excellence; but such a

summing-up of Buddhism is neither more nor less than a throwing of

dust in the eyes of beholders, and is, in my opinion, very far removed

from the dispassionate survey one would expect from a Gifford Lecturer.

Alighting on such a misrepresentation of his religious system, a

Buddhist would naturally feel aggrieved, and his belief in our

self-adopted reputation for fair-play all round might be rudely shaken.

"Karma" is undoubtedly one of the so-called mysteries of Buddhism; but

is it in any sense more fantastic than any other religious mystery? Is

this theory of the transmigration of character (as it has been somewhat

loosely described) more fanciful in its conception than that of the

transmigration of the soul, a "vaguely-apprehended, feebly-postulated

ego," to a dim locality such as heaven? Then, again, it may be asked,

what is there so objectionable in a quiet, unobtrusive resistance to

evil, that it should prompt the lecturer to magnify the importance of a

crude aggressiveness?

It is by no means true that Buddhist monks are usually immured in

cloisters; they, in fact, move about freely as examples, within human

limits, of the highest morality, and they chiefly occupy themselves

(as in Burma) with the education of children.[B] General Forlong, in

his _Short Studies in the Science of Comparative Religions_, says:

"Gotama's religion widened from Jaino-Buddhism into one of work and

duty towards his fellows; his instructions to the order of monks were

to the following effect: that they were not to _beg_ from door to door,

but only to accept gifts in return for services performed; and this was

their service--to be an example to all men."

[B] Those who have not yet read that pathetically beautiful book, _The

Soul of a People_, by H. Fielding, are referred to chapters x. and

xi., wherein are set forth the true characteristics, functions, and

aspirations of the Buddhist monkhood in Burma.

Condemnation of these monks for passing their lives in poverty sounds

strangely inappropriate coming from the lips of a Christian professor;

and, as to the well-being of the race not demanding the wearing of

yellow garments, one might reasonably ask if it demanded the wearing

of a black gown. We must, in all fairness, I think, credit Gotama with

possessing a large measure of that "Light which lighteth _every man_

that cometh into the world."

Sir Edwin Arnold, I believe, refers to the mysteries of Buddhism as

"blank abstractions," but I do not suppose he regards them as more

"blank" than the mysteries of other religions. All mysteries are, in

a sense, blank abstractions, and the blanker they are the nearer the

truth; and what religion is without them? It may be conceded, however,

that such a conception as "Ultimate Reality" upon which to fall back in

time of need might prove to some minds a more comfortless one than that

presented by the "Compassionate Father" of the Christian God-idea. But

even this Christian symbolism has an element of mystery in it.

Then there is the poetic phase of anthropomorphism, which is not

altogether to be despised from an æsthetic point of view. Such as the

Mohammedan Allah, who is described with exquisite imagery in the Bostān

of Sâdi as a beautiful cup-bearer at Sufistic banquets,

"So fair, They spill the wine and stare,"[C]

which recalls the anthropomorphic Deity of the Psalms:--

"In His hand is a cup, and the wine is red."

[C] Author's translation of _Bostān of Sâdi_.

Another picture of great poetical merit is that of the Incarnate

Saviour of the Mexicans, who does not ascend to heaven on his departure

from the earth, but sets forth upon the wide ocean in a wizard bark of

serpent skins for the fabled shores of the kingdom of his Father.

Dr. Paul Carus, in his preface to _The Gospel of Buddha_, says: "A

comparison of the many striking agreements between Christianity and

Buddhism may prove fatal to a sectarian conception of Christianity,

but will in the end only help to mature our insight into the essential

nature of Christianity, and so elevate our religious convictions.

It will bring out that nobler Christianity which aspires to be the

cosmic religion of universal truth.... It will serve both Christians

and Buddhists as a help to penetrate further into the spirit of their

faith, so as to see its full width, breadth, and depth."

The theological formation which has gradually developed into what may

be called the crust of creeds, and which has probably now reached

its limits of hardening, is seen, from day to day, under varying

influences, to be cracking into wider and deeper fissures. The curious

inquirer now possesses ample opportunities of looking below the surface

and observing some of the conditions that have, in the course of ages,

given rise to the accretions.

The deeper we look, or the further our horizon recedes, the greater

perhaps is the sense of bewilderment and isolation; yet so to wander

is, at any rate, to be free; and we need not just at present fear

that ultimate knowledge is nescience, when our vision will no longer

be bounded by any horizon, and when even vision itself will at last

disappear.

As it has been stated of science, so it may be affirmed of all inquiry,

"that at a certain stage of its development a degree of vagueness best

consists with fertility."

Christianity and Buddhism possess three prominent features--"the

metaphysical," "the ethical," and "the biographical." As the two

latter have been so exhaustively contrasted in connection with these

systems, I have confined myself in the following pages chiefly to a

consideration of their mystical relationship.

D. M. S.

_Caledonian United Service Club, Edinburgh.

February, 1899._

SANSCRIT AND PALI TERMS USED.

{Includes everything of which impermanence may be

{predicated, or, which is the same thing, everything

SAMSKĀRA {which springs from a cause. (Childers.)

SANKHĀRA {Gestaltungen--Oldenberg's _Buddha_, German edition.

{Conformations--English translation of Oldenberg's

{_Buddha_.

SKANDHAS The five attributes or elements of being--form, sensation,

perception, discrimination, and consciousness.

BHIKKHU {Mendicant, monk, friar.

BHIKSHU {

AKĀSA Space.

{The ocean of Birth and Death, transiency, worldliness,

SAMSĀRA {the restlessness of a worldly life, the agitation of

{selfishness, the vanity fair of life. (Paul Carus.)

MAHĀYĀNA The great vehicle--viz., of salvation.

HINĀYĀNA The little vehicle--viz., of salvation.

KARMA Action, work, the law of action, retribution, results of

deeds previously done, and the destiny resulting

therefrom. (Paul Carus.)

ERRATUM.

For Professor Oldenberg's _Buddhism_ read everywhere Professor

Oldenberg's _Buddha: His Life, His Doctrine, His Order_.

CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM.

CHAPTER I.

JESUS AND GOTAMA.

"For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos;

are ye not carnal?"--BIBLE.

In any attempt to appreciate the relationship of Christianity to

Buddhism it is important to bear in mind, not only the differences

which have characterized the process of their evolution, but also to

recognize that the two religions are, in their origin, distinct as

to time and _locale_; that they developed on different soils, and

have borne fruit of very different kinds; and that the races which

subsequently appropriated them as religious systems were in many

respects dissimilar, and lived under widely divergent conditions.

Only by regarding these religions as growing apart, and in no manner

connected in this sense, can we ultimately arrive at a just and logical

estimate of the character of the founders.

It is not by confounding their sources at the start, or by attempting

to prove that the one system is a product of the other, that we can in

the end draw closer the bonds which seem to unite them. A consideration

of almost equal weight is that of the dual nature of the great

personalities of Jesus and Gotama. We must not confuse the significance

of the term "God" with the man Jesus, nor the mystical principle

embodied in the title "Buddha" with the personal and human Gotama. Both

Jesus as God and Gotama as Buddha are dual personalities, and combine

in themselves tangible and intangible realities. The former is to be

regarded as man and God, the latter as Gotama and Buddha.

But, while wishing to emphasize the fact of the independent origin of

Christianity and Buddhism, I have no intention of combating the fact

that a spurious Buddhism had, in the garb of Essenism, established a

footing in Palestine at a date anterior to the Christian era, and that,

under the influence of St. John the Baptist, the recognized leader of

the Essenes, a way was prepared and made ready for the great light

which was to shine forth afresh in the majestic humanity of Jesus. The

presence of Essene Buddhists in Palestine at that date is a matter

of history, and has been clearly established by prominent Oriental

scholars. Moreover, the Church of England itself has, through the

medium of some of its most reliable authorities, openly acquiesced in

the fact.

The Essenes, who were, from the second century before Christ

onwards, domiciled in the Holy Land, although virtually Buddhists, do

not seem to have preserved intact the tenets of Gotama, though the

ethics remained unadulterated. They retained many of the qualities

of the monastic Buddhists, such as asceticism, brotherly love, a

rare benevolence towards mankind in general, and the still rarer

consideration for animal life. Nor was any departure made from the vows

of chastity, the belief in the transitory nature of things, and in

their attitude of non-resistance to evil. It was rather with regard to

metaphysical obscurities that they wandered from the strict teaching of

Gotama; and we cannot wonder that such was the case when we remember

the doubts, difficulties, and uncertainties that must have beset

the paths of these followers of Gotama when they had no longer the

Enlightened One to point to them the way of truth.

Especially do they seem to have gone astray in the matter of the

doctrine of the soul. This they described "as coming from the subtlest

ether, and as lured by the sorcery of nature into the prison-house of

the body." The Essenes derived their Buddhistic tenets and practices

directly from Gnosticism, which is said to have prevailed in Alexandria

two centuries before the birth of Christ, and its existence in that

city owed its origin to the importation of Buddhism from India,

constant communication having been established in those days between

Egypt and the West Coast of India as far north as the mouths of the

Indus.

Further, the edicts of King Asoka go to prove that at about this time

he was on intimate terms and in frequent correspondence with the

Greeks; also, that during his reign and under his royal patronage

Buddhist missionaries found their way to Egypt, and there scattered the

seed from which arose the Gnostics, or Therapeuts, and the kindred sect

of the Essenes.

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in his _Buddhism in Christendom_, p. 75, writes:

"The most subtle thinker of the modern English Church, the late

Dean Mansel, boldly maintained that the philosophy and rites of the

Therapeuts of Alexandria were due to Buddhist missionaries who visited

Egypt within two centuries of the time of Alexander the Great. In this

he has been supported by philosophers of the calibre of Schelling

and Schopenhauer and the great Sanscrit authority Lassen. Renan, in

his work _Les Langues Sémétiques_, also sees traces of this Buddhist

propagandism in Palestine before the Christian era. Hilgenfeld, Mutter,

Bohlen, King, all admit the Buddhist influence. Colebrooke saw a

striking similarity between the Buddhist philosophy and that of the

Pythagoreans. Dean Milman was convinced that the Therapeuts sprung from

the 'contemplative and indolent fraternities' of India."

When we travel back from Essenism to Gnosticism we approach nearer

geographically and conceptionally to the source from which they both

originated. Gnosticism, however, presumes to tell us more than Gotama

chose to reveal as to the beginnings of things, and enters into details

about various spiritual emanations which are at variance with any

inferences that can be legitimately drawn from early Buddhism.

In the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, under "Gnosticism," we read: "The

Supreme Being, according to Gnosticism, was regarded as wholly

inconceivable and indescribable; as the Unfathomable Abyss; the

Unnameable. From this transcendant source existence sprang by emanation

in a series of spiritual powers. It was only through these several

powers that the Infinite passed into life and activity, and became

capable of representation. To this higher world was given the name of

Pleroma, and the divine powers composing it in their ever-expanding

procession from the Highest were called Æons."

Jesus, according to the Gnostic conception, was one of these higher

Æons or Buddhas "proceeding from the Kingdom of Light for the

redemption of this lower Kingdom of Darkness."

If the above was whittled down to the bare statement that the

Boundless, to be made perceptible, had to become active and creative,

and that thus it happened that the Boundless was manifested by and in

the universe, Gnosticism, on this point, would not greatly differ from

what was probably in the mind of Gotama when he pointed out that the

Uncreated or Unproduced must have existence, otherwise the created, the

produced, could not be.

In face of the historically-established fact that Buddhism had reached

Palestine before the Christian era had commenced, and that Buddhistic

influences were widely disseminated throughout the Holy Land when Jesus

arose upon the scene, I wish to maintain that Jesus, although nurtured

in the mixed society of ceremonial and Essenic Jews, cannot be claimed

as belonging to the Essenes or any other sect _after_ he emerged from

his long retirement and commenced his ministry. During the time of his

withdrawal from publicity it must be assumed that he was growing in

wisdom, and continued to do so until the perfect enlightenment came to

him, when the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and he knew himself to

be the Son and symbol of God, and, as such, capable of revealing the

mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to those who had ears to hear and

eyes to see. This view, or reading, of the Scriptures was the cardinal

tenet of the adoptionist Christology of the Paulician school in Armenia.

Jesus, as human, was undoubtedly begotten, not made, and died. Jesus,

as divine, became so, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh,

but by taking of the _manhood_ into God--first the natural, after that

the spiritual, as St. Paul says. Jesus, as God, was immortal.

Jesus, as a perfected soul on earth, was a presentation of the

Logos, in the sense given to this term by Dr. Paul Carus, "as forms

of speech," which, containing in words eternal truth, is the most

important part of the human soul, when soul is regarded as the

formative factors of the various forms and their relations that have

been evolving, and are constantly evolving and re-evolving. Jesus was,

in this respect, altogether independent of his _entourage_, although

a part of it in all other relations. He utilized what was good and

answered his purpose in the tenets of the several sections of the

society in which he moved. He was an eclectic, and stood midway between

mystical and anti-mystical Israel.

The Essenes, as already stated, derived their doctrines and customs

chiefly from the Gnostics of Egypt, and the origin of the latter has

been traced to the propagation of Buddhism by Indian missionaries sent

to Egypt in the time of King Asoka.

Now, Gotama Buddha was, in point of time, an earlier presentation of

Logos; and, as Gotama's influences were at work in Palestine when Jesus

appeared, it follows in the natural course of things that Jesus, as a

presentation of this same Logos, or Bodhi, would have shown a stronger

leaning towards the tenets and practices of the Essenes than towards

those of the ceremonial Jews.

The position of Jesus in Palestine closely corresponded with that

of Gotama in Hindustan. Gotama was isolated between the ceremonial

Brahmin class and the extreme mystical party. He also assimilated, as

Jesus did, in furtherance of his mission, some of the tenets of each

party, with certain modifications. He shocked the ceremonialists by

showing disdain for rites as rites, and estranged himself from the

extreme mystical party by refusing to give his imprimatur to factitious

asceticism. In the same manner Jesus ignored some of the Essenic

restrictions by partaking of wine and animal food.

Brahmanism suffered corruption through the acquisition by the priests

of wealth and power. To the endowment of the Christian Church, and the

elevation of its priests to temporal sway by the Emperor Constantine,

has been attributed the beginning of the decadence of the Christian

ideal. The decline of true Buddhism in India was due in a great measure

to the munificence of King Asoka, who erected and enriched monasteries

and other religious institutions. This led ultimately to many serious

abuses, as well as to deviations from the precepts which Gotama had

endeavoured to inculcate.

In Palestine, at the commencement of the Christian era, the ceremonial

Jews or Pharisees,[D] though a numerically small section, were the

dominant party of Judaism, and were represented by dignitaries of an

overbearingly proud demeanour. Suppressed by them, the spirituality of

the Essene Buddhists was thrown into the shade, and, when the voice

crying in the wilderness was no longer to be heard and the commanding

personality of St. John the Essene disappeared from the scene, Essenism

as an organization came to an end.

[D] An indiscriminate denunciation of the Pharisees is, I think,

unjustifiable. They must be held deserving of commendation in so far

as they were guided by conscience to a close adherence to the letter

of that Law which had been delivered to them by the Almighty, through

Ezra the Lawyer, for strict and undeviating observance.

To contend with these ceremonialists of Palestine and the corrupt

Brahmanism of India, and to further the success of their respective

missions in the face of these formidable forces, both Jesus in the one

case and Gotama in the other realized the expediency of initiating a

mode of proselytism which, by the humble bearing and unworldly aspect

of its agents, would differentiate it from the arrogant and exclusive

methods of the priestly classes. The missionaries whom these new lights

sent forth into the world to propagate the doctrine of salvation

received explicit instructions not to provide themselves with gold or

silver, or change of raiment and shoes; in fact, they were to pose as

examples of that humility and forbearance which was the keynote, in

their ethical significance, of the two systems as formulated for the

redemption of humanity. In both cases the spell of this evangelism

was soon to be lost in a resurgence of the very evils it was intended

to suppress--the pride of ecclesiasticism and the ascendancy of

ritual--under the widening shadows of which the underlying truths of

symbolism became obscured.

As told in the story of the Great Renunciation, Gotama goes into

retirement at an early age; Jesus also becomes a recluse. It is

probable that he spent the years elapsing between his adolescence

and the commencement of his ministry among the Essenes, who dwelt in

caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where he would have found ample

opportunity for meditation, as well as genial companionship at hand, if

desired.

Jesus and Gotama both issued from their retreats and mystic

communions, impregnated with a deep sympathy for a suffering world,

for the weary and heavy laden. They both accentuated with the same

fervour of conviction the futility of laying up treasure upon earth,

and pointed to the same mysterious heaven where true joy alone was to

be found. But none of the dicta of Gotama have approached, either in a

doctrinal sense or in uncompromising severity, the declaration of the

Prophet of Nazareth as to the absolute necessity of renouncing the most

sacred family ties before acceptance could be possible as a true and

faithful disciple: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and

mother, and wife, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life too,

he cannot be my disciple."

The use of vehement declamations of this nature was probably forced

upon the speaker by the condition of those days, when it was more than

ever necessary to draw a sharp line and to emphasize the depth of the

chasm that must divide followers of the ideal from those in thrall to

the material. It has been remarked by Mr. Lillie that, if Jesus had had

to deal with people in a later or more advanced state of civilization,

other methods and other language would in all probability have been

used to suit the altered conditions.

The attitude towards relations which Jesus, in the above-quoted

passage, seems to have expected a disciple to assume may receive some

elucidation from a story told in Visuddhi-Maga, which is headed by the

translator, Mr. H. C. Warren,[E] "And Hate Not his Father and Mother."

The story, briefly related, is to this effect:--

A young man left his father's house, and, having joined the Buddhist

order of mendicants, was lost sight of by his parents. The mother

sorrowed for the long absence of her son.

[E] _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 434.

Meanwhile the young monk had been allotted a cell in a certain

monastery. But it so happened that this cell had been provided at the

expense of his father, who was a devout layman. When the father heard

that the cell had been occupied, he set forth to visit the occupant,

and, as was customary, to beg him to seek his alms at his house for

a space of three months. The young monk appeared at the door of the

cell, in his yellow robe and with shaven head, and, unrecognized by his

father, accepted the invitation to receive alms at the house of the

layman.

Day after day he attended at the threshold of his father's house, and

took food from the hands of his parents. Still the mother continued to

grieve for her long-absent son, accounting him dead.

One day, as the monk was returning towards the monastery, after parting

on the road with his mother, the latter's brother, an elder, overtook

her. She fell at her brother's feet, weeping and lamenting for her son.

"Then thought the elder: 'Surely this lad, through the moderateness of

his passions, must have gone away without announcing himself.' And he

comforted her, and told her the whole story. The lay woman was pleased,

and, lying prostrate, with her face in the direction in which her son

had gone, she worshipped, saying: 'Methinks the Blessed One must have

had in mind a body of priests like my son when he preached the course

of conduct customary with the great saints, showing how to take delight

in the cultivation of content.... This man ate for three months in

the house of the mother who bore him, and never said, 'I am thy son,

and thou art my mother.'... For such a one _mother and father_ are no

hindrances, much less any other lay devotees."

On one occasion, when I was privileged to attend an ordination service

at Kandy, I was much struck with an incident which occurred at this

time-old ceremony. At the conclusion of the service, when the melodious

intoning of the celebrants had ceased to reverberate in the solemn

ruins of the dimly-lighted aisle, the young initiate was placed at

the bottom of the row of monks, who were seated, cross-legged, in the

nave of the temple. During the service the lay spectators had been

railed off at the entrance, which faced the shrine, beneath which the

chief abbot presided. But, when the newly-ordained monk had assumed a

sitting posture in the place assigned to him, the railing was removed,

and his female relations--perhaps his "beloved one" among them--came

forward and prostrated themselves at his feet. The initiate sat with

downcast eyes, unmoved by the demonstration, recalling to mind one of

those statues of Buddha in which the countenance is represented with

that abstracted yet compassionate expression so characteristic of the

Perfect One. Then also was brought to my recollection that saying of

Jesus recorded in the Gospel when he turned towards his mother and

exclaimed: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"

It may, I think, be indisputably affirmed that the deep insight

of these great reformers into the problems of life, the profound

impression they made upon a vain world, their sublimated ideas, their

superhuman influences, their stainless lives--that all these proclaim

them to have been veritable embodiments of the mystic Sophia and one

with God. Separated only by the time appointed for their appearance in

the world, they were both presentations of the same Logos, called in

Buddhistic terminology "Bodhi" or Intelligence. Whether there was a

difference between the quality of presentation in the cases of Jesus

and Gotama, whether the one produced a more flamboyant light than the

other, and in what respects and how the media differed, are questions

that can only be answered by Christians and Buddhists themselves,

according to the light that is in them.

In the person of Jesus the human became divine. It was not a case of

the conversion of the godhead into the flesh.

The whole of the so-called Athanasian Creed, read in the light of

positive psychology, appears to be a statement of many important

truths, and, for all we know, it may be literally true that, unless

a man makes this creed his own and acts up to it, he cannot be saved

in the sense indicated. The creed is applicable to the needs of the

whole world, and, therefore, is rightly called the Catholic faith.

Unfortunately its patristic terminology has led the unenlightened to

conclude that it is exclusive and sectarian; consequently, many earnest

Christians have evinced an inclination to reject it, and efforts have

been made to have it expunged from the Liturgy of the Church of England.

Although it may be accepted as a true statement that the typical Hindu

mind, which ranges over such a vast area of speculation, will never

be induced by missionary zeal to confine itself within the apparently

limited formulæ of Christian doctrine, it must not be overlooked that

even the symbolism of Christianity represents and covers a shoreless

ocean in which thought can disport itself without ever coming into

contact with the limitations of the concrete. The Hindu mind binds

itself, as it has been said of Art, to no creeds, no articles of faith,

no schemes of salvation, no confessions. It cannot by its very nature.

The unconditioned is its country, its native land, its home.

Christ rose from the dead, as the purified soul of man will at last be

detached from the conditioned, though still remaining a quality of the

conditioned. The Christ principle, the Comforter, or the Holy Ghost,

does not, with the ascension of Christ, leave us comfortless, but stays

with us to the end.

With regard to the posthumous appearance of Jesus and all phenomena

of a like nature, it is not easy to find room in positive psychology

for such a thing as a docetic body; yet it would seem absolutely

needful for the logical expansion of such a science to include, as a

speculative possibility, the seeming existence of loose integrations

of matter with apparent form and outline, of vaporous counterparts of

animal organisms, of aspects of matter not familiar to mankind, having

a place in the general scheme of the apparitional world.[F]

[F] Maimonides and the Kabbalists speak of Genii--semi-material

beings whose bodies are of fire, air, water, mixed with fine earth

and visible at times to man. _Vide Bible Folk-Lore_ (p. 190), by the

author of _Rabbi Jeshua_.

Further, unless we doggedly refuse to rely on the published experiences

of eminent and trustworthy men, such as Mr. Myers and his associates,

the case of Mrs. Piper must be taken _au sérieux_. Those who accept an

animistic solution have undoubtedly cleared a fence, but there still

remains an obstacle before them in the shape of the definition of

"spirit."

In seeking for an interpretation that will harmonize with the general

tenor of Buddhistic philosophy and positive psychology, it is incumbent

that the irrefragable "Law of Causation," _à l'œuvre_ in the phenomenal

world, should be taken into account, and any attempted effort of

explanation of unfamiliar powers, such as those exhibited by mediums,

demands that a place should be found for them in the mosaic of cause

and effect. Mediumistic powers, it seems to me, are merely an extension

of the faculty of expression-reading. Efferent nerves discharge

impressions which can be read. Everyone, more or less, can read the

expressions of a face, and learn thereby, to a limited and imperfect

extent, the thoughts of an individual. In the case of the medium, the

terminal organs of the afferent nerves being hyper-sensitive, the

medium is able to do more than read in a general way the thought of a

person by the impression conveyed through the discharge of the efferent

nerves of a person. A medium, therefore, receives, in proportion to the

degree of hyper-sensitiveness possessed by the terminal organs of the

afferent nerves, the intimate knowledge harboured in the brain-cells of

another person, which is constantly being discharged by the efferent

nerves of that person. These powers, which I relegate to the realm of

causation, must not be confounded with "Bodhi," or "Logos," which is

not subject to any phenomenal law.

The founder of the Brahmo Somaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, idealized Christ

as a universal principle in these striking sentences:--

"As the sleeping Logos did Christ live potentially in the Father's

bosom, long, long before he came into this world of ours.... Wherever

there is intelligence, in all stages of life, where there is the least

spark of instinct, there dwells Christ, if Christ is the Logos. In

this right and rational view do not the Fathers all agree? Do they

not speak of an all-pervading Christ? Do not they bear unequivocal

testimony to Christ in Socrates? Even in barbarian philosophy and in

all Hellenic literature they saw and adored their Logos, Christ.... I

deny and repudiate the little Christ of popular theology, and stand up

for a greater Christ, a fuller Christ, a more eternal Christ, a more

universal Christ.

"I plead for the eternal Logos of the Fathers, and I challenge the

world's assent.

"This is the Christ who was in Greece and Rome, in Egypt and in

India. In the bards and the poets of the Rig-Veda was he. He dwelt in

Confucius and in Sakya Muni (Gotama Buddha). This is the true Christ,

whom I can see everywhere, in all lands and in all times, in Europe and

in Asia, in Africa, in America, in ancient and modern times. He is not

the monopoly of any nation or creed. All literature, all science, all

philosophy, every doctrine that is true, every form of righteousness,

every virtue that belongs to the Son, is the true subjective Christ,

whom all ages glorify. He is pure intelligence (Bodhi), the word of

God, mighty Logos. Scattered in all schools of philosophy and in all

religious sects, scattered in all men and women of the East and the

West, are multitudinous Christ-principles and fragments of Christ-life,

one vast and identical Sonship diversely manifested."

The writer of an article in a review[G] says that the expression,

Logos, is introduced "with startling suddenness by St. John in the

exordium of his Gospel, and that there is nothing in the Old Testament

or in the Synoptic Gospels to prepare the way for it, or to explain

it." He inclines, the writer says, to attribute the introduction of the

idea by St. John to the influence of Philo-Judæus, who elaborated it

from the account of the Creation given in Genesis, to such an extent

that he came to call the Logos, or intermediary power, the Son of God.

Philo, after profound meditation, to quote his own words, "heard even

a more solemn voice from my soul, _accustomed often to be possessed by

God and to discourse of things which it knew not_, which, if I can,

I will recall." Philo, the writer says, must have "observed that the

Mosaic cosmogony leaves the _modus operandi_ of creation in obscurity.

The account given is '_God said_, Let there be light,' and so on.

Thus the spoken word of God is represented as the efficient cause of

creation. But to attribute speech to the Most High was manifestly a

concession to the frailty of the human intellect."

[G] "St. John and Philo-Judæus," by W. E. Ball (_Contemporary Review_,

January, 1898).

Mr. W. E. Ball concedes that the Logos-idea was prevalent in the

East long before the time of the Evangelist, and in this connection he

refers to the Vedic vach or speech. This notion also possibly emanated

from a cosmogony similar to that found in Genesis. He proceeds to say

"that the editors of the Septuagint deliberately set themselves to

soften down those passages in the earlier books of the Bible which

were conceived to be most open to the charge of anthropomorphism. A

single example will suffice. In Exodus xxiv. 9-11 it is related that

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders, ascended Mount

Sinai '_and saw the God of Israel_.' The Hebrew text is clear beyond

dispute; but in the Septuagint the passage reads, 'and saw the place

where the God of Israel stood.'" Then we are referred to the "one

living and true God, who, according to the Christian articles of faith,

is without body, parts, or passions." As, however, in the Christian

Scriptures it was recorded that he had been seen and conversed with,

it became necessary to assume an emanation or intermediary power for

this speaking and visible phase of God; hence, first, the unpersonified

Logos of Philo, and afterwards the Logos made flesh in the person of

Jesus according to St. John. The writer thinks that, however much the

conception of Philo in the direction of a Logos as the Son of God

may be minimized in its importance (on account of Philo's silence on

the divine human as a Messiah) with reference to its bearing upon

the writings of St. John, there is no doubt that Philo supplied "a

theological vocabulary for the expression of Johannine and Pauline

doctrine." "St. John grasped Philo's conception of the word as not

only the revelation of the _silent_ God, but also as a reflection

of the invisible God." "Jesus never described himself as the son

of God." Such endeavours, however, as the above to fix the genesis

and growth of an idea from a concrete statement in a book, and to

hypothecate its translation from one leader of thought to another,

leaves out of reckoning the possibility of ideas finding a place in

individual minds by means of a mystical faculty, or what is commonly

called revelation. This mystical faculty is the power of sublimating

ideas, a power, evolved from materialities, that, at a certain stage

of thought, produces a capacity for abnormal insight into the nature

of things, a capacity that can be developed by training; that is to

say, when the faculty of knowledge becomes so far removed from the

mechanical influences of the brain that its connection with the nervous

system may be considered to be on the verge of absolute severance.

This faculty is due to no individualized external power, but is simply

a development from the totality of things, their inherent qualities,

their relationship and interactions.

Both Philo and St. John may be credited with the possession of a

certain amount of this abnormal power, and considered as presentations

of Logos, but not in the same perfection as Jesus and Gotama. "Bôdhi,"

Dr. Paul Carus says, "is that which conditions the cosmic order of

the world and the uniformities of reality. Bôdhi is the everlasting

prototype of truth, partial aspects of which are formulated by

scientists in the various laws of nature. Above all, Bôdhi is the

basis of the Dharma; it is the foundation of religion; it is the

objective reality in the constitution of being from which the good law

of righteousness is derived; it is the ultimate authority for moral

conduct."

It is evident from historical sources that there were many Buddhists

living at and after the time of Gotama, when traditions and legends

accumulated, who had not assimilated his doctrines in their entirety

and purity. So it was in the case of Jesus, whose followers and

interpreters arrived at various conclusions in respect of his teaching.

Some who have emancipated themselves from the "letter that kills," and

have acquired the power of grasping realities, have conceived the true

position of Jesus and Gotama to have been that of clairvoyants, and,

consequently, it is not to be expected that a complete mastery of the

meaning of their communications would ever be attainable by ordinary

human knowledge. This latter conclusion, in respect of Jesus, is most

clearly established by passages to be found in the New Testament.

Jesus and Gotama laboured under the same difficulty: they knew

more than was translatable into language, or communicable to their

followers. Parables were attempted as media for imparting a glimmering

of this knowledge to the ignorant and obtuse. Professor Oldenberg says:

"When we try to resuscitate, in our own way and our own language, the

thoughts that are embedded in the Buddhist teaching, we can scarcely

help forming the impression that it was not a mere idle statement which

the sacred texts present to us, that the Perfect One knew much more

which he thought inadvisable to say than what he esteemed it profitable

to say."

Jesus withheld all explanation as to how evil came into the world. He

dealt with it as a fact. He did not even theorize about the origin of

evil. He taught, on the principle of his well-known saying, "He that

hath ears to hear let him hear." "A careful regard to audience is

traceable in his use of apocalyptic language about his second coming;

it is to Jews only--the Twelve, or the high priest, or the Sanhedrin,

or Nathaniel, the 'Israelite indeed'--that he speaks of cleft heavens,

cloud chariots, and attendant troops of angels. With the Roman governor

he avoids Jewish metaphors" (_Encyclopædia Britannica_, "Eschatology").

Both Jesus and Gotama must have realized the hopelessness of

imprinting their so-called esoteric teaching (which underlay and

intertwined with the ethical) upon the understanding of those who

had not cultivated noumenal instincts. Gotama had need, even on

his death-bed, to explain everything all over again to his closest

companion, the beloved disciple Ananda. In how many ways Jesus

endeavoured to convey the meaning of the kingdom of God to his hearers!

Yet to this day how few have grasped a fraction of its import. The

meaning must be felt rather than understood by the intellect. In fact,

it is necessary to become a Parsifal to do so ("for not many wise men

after the flesh are called"). Also, one must get as far as possible

away from the bondage of the intellect, which handicaps one in the

attempt. A full knowledge of such mysteries cannot be attained until

the machinery of the brain is left a considerable distance behind;

until ideas are no longer in positive connection with the neural

vibrations of the brain. The clock cannot hear what is going on around

it for the noise of its ticking. Plotinus says: "To reach the ultimate

goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of

motion, and the desire of the soul is for motionless rest, which

belongs to the One."

Neither Jesus nor Gotama committed themselves to writing; hence we are

entirely dependent, in our judgment of the purport of their mission,

upon the general tenour of communications vouchsafed to us by the

special correspondents of their era. It is upon these synoptists

and other recorders that people build their theories, and pile up

interpretations in various very restricted senses.

But defining is truly dethroning in the cases of Jesus and Gotama. Like

the dove in the Song of Solomon, they abide in the clefts of the rocks,

in the secret places of the stairs. The suppliant can only satisfy his

thirsty soul with an invocation: "Let me see thy countenance, let me

hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely!"

Theism, Atheism, Deism, and many other 'isms must be cast out of our

minds into the bottomless pit before we can hope to place our trembling

feet within even the threshold of their presence. There, perforce, we

must arrest our progress, lost in transcendent wonder. This, as Carlyle

says, is worship in its highest sense.

No allusion was made either by Jesus or Gotama to the miraculous

circumstances said to have attended their nativity; and, although there

exist no data for the assumption that the historians of the latter

were inspired writers like those of the New Testament, the messianic

halo with which Buddhist tradition has encircled the figure of Gotama

tends to bring together the personalities of the two reformers into

closer pictorial relationship. But this blending of the portraiture

cannot be taken in any sense as a help towards wheeling into line

the psychological forces in the field of inquiry. Nevertheless, the

interest attaching to these traditions as coincidental, and the

consideration that the date of the Buddhist chronicles is anterior to

that of the New Testament, render them worthy of brief notice.

M. Ernest de Bunsen[H] says: "Among a circle of Indians prophecies

were accredited which announced the incarnation of an angel, called

the Anointed or Messiah, who should bring to earth the Wisdom or Bôdhi

from above, and establish the kingdom of heavenly truth and justice. He

would be of royal descent, and genealogies would connect him with his

ancestors. The 'Blessed One,' the 'God among Gods,' and the 'Saviour

of the World' was, according to Buddhistic records, incarnate by the

Holy Ghost, of the royal Virgin Maya, and he was born on Christmas Day,

the birthday of the Sun, for which reason the Sun became the symbol of

Gotama Buddha. To be like Gotama is to reach the ideal[I] which has

been set to humanity, and to be like God. Salvation does not depend on

any outward act, but on a change or renewal of the mind, or a reform

of the inner nature, or faith in the innate guiding power of God, of

which the celestial Buddha, incarnated in Gotama, was held to be the

highest organ. The saving faith, therefore, was brought by, and centred

in, the incarnate Angel-Messiah, the Saviour of the World. Salvation is

by faith, and faith comes by the Maya, the Spirit or Word of God, of

which Gotama, the Angel-Messiah, was regarded as the divinely-chosen

and incarnate messenger, the Vicar of God, and God himself on earth.

According to Chinese-Buddhistic writings, it was the Holy Ghost, or

Shing-Su, which descended on the Virgin Maya. The effect produced by

this miracle is thus summed up in the most ancient Chinese life of

Buddha which we at present possess, translated between A.D. 25 and 190:

'If the child born from this conception be induced to lead a secular

life, he shall become a universal monarch; but if he leaves his home,

and becomes a religious person, then he shall become Buddha, and shall

save the world.'"

[H] _The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians_, pp. 25,

32.

[I] "Jesus is the father of all those who seek in dreams of the ideal

the repose of their souls" (Renan).

Dr. Paul Carus, in his _Buddhism and its Christian Critics_, pp.

150-51, says: "According to the orthodox Buddhist conception, there

is no doubt about it that the incarnation of Buddha, in the person of

Gotama Siddharta, has passed away. Gotama has died, and his body will

not be resurrected. But Buddha continues to live in the body of the

Dharma--_i.e._, the law or religion of Buddha; and, in so far as he is

the truth, he is immortal and eternal."

"The whole world may break to pieces, but Buddha will not die. The

words of Buddha are imperishable."

The idea of the appearance of a periodical Messiah was extant

throughout the Jaino-Buddhist times, thousands of years before Gotama

Buddha entered upon his mission in the field of religious reformation.

"Millions of Buddhists still believe that their Lord will come again to

redeem his people, appearing as Maitri."[J] The twenty-three Buddhas

who preceded Gotama--"the immortal saints universally acknowledged

by the Jains as coming to earth in divers ages to aid and bless

mankind"--have been recorded, with their names, fathers' names, and

symbols, reaching as far back, it has been calculated, as 6,000 B.C.

"The Blessed One said: 'The Buddha that will come after me will be

known as Maitrâiya, which means he whose name is Kindness.'"

[J] _Vide_ General Forlong's _Short Studies in the Science of

Comparative Religions_.

The conception of a mystical Trinity was introduced into both the

Christian and Buddhist systems of belief at a late stage of their

development. In the case of Buddhism it arose from the simple formula:--

"I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge

in the Sangha"--

that is, in the Prophet, the Law, and the Church. These afterwards were

interpreted to stand for the Self-Existent, the Son (Logos) or Sophia

(Wisdom), and the Holy Ghost (or uniting principle).

Gotama has also been said to possess three personalities, and every

one of them is of equal importance.[K] "There is the Dhârma Kâya;

there is the Nirmâna Kâya; there is the Sambhôga Kâya. _Buddha_ is

the all-excellent truth, eternal, omnipresent, and immutable; this

is the Sambhôga Kâya, which is in a perfect state of bliss. _Buddha_

is the all-loving teacher, assuming the shape of the beings whom he

teaches; this is the Nirmâna Kâya, his apparitional body. _Buddha_

is the all-blessed dispensation of religion; he is the spirit of the

Sangha and the meaning of the commands which he has left us in his

sacred word, the Dhârma; this is the Dhârma Kâya, the body of the most

excellent law."

[K] _Vide Gospel of Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 227.

"It was proclaimed," says Mr. Lillie, "that Gotama possessed a

superfluity of good Karma, or Righteousness, which was available for

all men to partake of, whereby salvation might be had." He quotes from

the Bible as a parallel to this idea: "By the righteousness of one the

free gifts came upon all men unto justification of life"; also: "By the

obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

To be saved by "the blood" in a realistic sense is another way very

much accentuated by St. Paul. To be saved through "faith in the blood"

has been taken to mean, by some interpreters, through faith in the

genealogy, or divine stock, from which Jesus traced his descent, as

well as through "faith in the life" (which is the blood)--that is, by

following the life-example of the Son, in contradistinction to the

idea of salvation through a materialistic reliance on the details of a

violent death.

The doctrine of Predestination, which holds such a prominent

position in Christian theology, cannot be excluded altogether from a

consideration of Buddhistic philosophy, in which, however, it bears

a somewhat different signification. Although both Jesus and Gotama

made use of the language of "free-will" as we talk of to-morrow, which

never is, one is forced to conclude that, by virtue of their position

as manifestations of the Logos, they were both aware of the scientific

certainty of the non-existence of what is commonly understood as

"free-will." The very fact of the law of causation being the pivot

around which Buddhist philosophy revolves seems to assure us that this

was, in the knowledge of Gotama, the central law of the Kosmos, and

such that it could not be affected by the will of an individual who

was not an independent individual, but simply part and parcel of the

molecular contents of the apparitional world.

As Gotama recognized that the mind and sense of humanity were so deeply

ingrained with the notion of free-will, he was constrained to use the

_argumentum ad hominem_, and outwardly base his ethical system on a

free-will which seemed natural to humanity to believe in, but which was

nevertheless a delusion.

The several passages in the New Testament in which the doctrine of

Predestination is plainly set forth are too well known to necessitate

their quotation here. St. Augustine says: "What happens of thee he

himself [God] works in thee. Never anything happens of thee which he

himself does not work in thee.... Never is anything done by thee unless

he works it in thee."[L]

[L] _Cf._ "I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and

create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things" (Bible).

The universal feeling that we possess "free-will" is no proof of

its reality, and only on the basis of the axiom that nothing is too

unscientific or extraordinary to be possible (which is sound enough)

can it be accepted as a possibility. Even Locke could not, for the life

of him, reconcile omniscience and free-will, although he believed in

both.

Taking free-will as a sensation, we must pronounce it to be just as

illusory as any other sensation, except as a sensation. On the other

hand, the Determinist view cannot be classified as a sensation, but is

rather a product of reason. Professor James says: "Genuine Determinism

affirms, not the impotence of free-will, but the unthinkability of

free-will."

St. Paul writes, with reference to sin: "It is no more I that do it,

but sin (or evil Karma) that dwelleth in me." And we are instructed in

some parts of the Christian Scripture that all good is of God, and not

of ourselves. Here, then, there appears to be a complete obliteration

of the idea of free-will in respect of actions either good, bad, or

indifferent; and in confirmation of this view it is necessary to

remember that the language of free-will was used for convenience

sake, that God is distinctly said "to have called those things which

be not as though they were." St. Paul says: "The creature was made

subject to vanity, not willingly." Possibly he may have had in mind

when he delivered this dictum the vanity, or vain conceit, of assuming

free-will.

If it be permissible to assert that we exercise no control, in the

sense of free-will, over the functions of our digestive organs,

which perform their work without our being sensibly conscious of it

(except in the case of abnormal disturbance), one would think the

assertion might be extended in regard to cerebral functions also. We

conceive thought to precede many of our actions, but if thought is the

non-spatial accompaniment of cerebral cell-action, and the latter is

no more amenable to the control of free-will than our digestive organs

are, then those actions which are the sequences of thought cannot be

"free-will" actions.

It is generally admitted that there are occasions when an individual

acts without exercising free-will; when, for instance, a man loses

his head, as the expression goes, in a sudden catastrophe. There are

also distinctly involuntary actions, such as blushing, turning pale,

perspiring, etc. It seems, then, that an individual only exercises

his will, according to general belief, under certain conditions. But

if free-will is acknowledged to be absent under some conditions, may

we not reasonably conclude that it may be absent altogether, and only

exists as an illusion of the senses?

Anyhow, circumstances--or, in other words, the molecular activities

of the universe--appear to be the dominant factor in determining our

actions. These activities, when working through cerebral cells, turn

out thoughts; when operating through the skin pores, they produce

perspiration.

Locke, in his chapter on "Power" (human understanding), seems to draw

very near to an admission of Determinism, but then flies away from

it, evidently alarmed by the spectre of irresponsibility. He labours

to demonstrate that uneasiness or desire determines the will to the

successive (so-called) voluntary actions whereof the greatest part of

our lives is made up, and by which we are _conducted_ through different

causes to different ends. This is, as far as it goes, unadulterated

Determinism.

Dr. Paul Carus defines freedom of will as the power to do that

which one wills, not as the freedom of a man to will what he wills.

Indeterminism he declares to be based upon error, because it attributes

to man an exceptional place in the universe. Man is supposed to be

exempt from the uniform and inexorable law of cause and effect which

rules in the universe. He says: "The decision of a free man depends

upon his character"; but character is only the result of innumerable

causes, which has become a cause upon which other effects follow,

according to the cosmic law of causation, which must include in its

impartial sway man as well as all other integrations of matter.

Determinism is morally safe, because man cannot escape from the

_feeling_ that he possesses free-will, which, nevertheless, is an

illusion, in the sense that "illusions are ideas that have not

originated from the data of experience."

In _Light_ (April 18th, 1898) there is quoted the following, as part

of a discourse on "The Evolution of Mind," delivered by Professor

Jordan: "The plant searches for food by a movement of the feeding parts

alone.... The tender tip is the plant's brain. If locomotion were

in question, the plant would need to be differently constructed. It

would demand the mechanism of the animal. The nerve, brain, and muscle

of the plant are all represented by the tender growing cells of the

moving tips. The plant is touched by moisture or sunlight. It 'thinks'

of them, and in so doing the cells that are touched and 'think' are

turned towards the source of the stimulus. The function of the brain,

therefore, in some sense exists in the tree, but there is no need in

the tree for a special sensorium."

A comment in _Light_ on this discourse runs as follows: "In higher

organisms the mind becomes more and more localized, until in the

higher animals it has a special organ--the brain, which, however, is

shut up in darkness and 'has no knowledge except such as comes to it

from the sense-organs through the ingoing or sensory nerves.' Being

filled with these impressions, some of which are actual sensations,

while others are memories of past sensations, _the brain must make a

choice_ among them by fixation of attention, if it is to act properly.

To find data for such a choice is the function of the intellect. This,

Dr. Jordan tells us, is the difference between mind and mere instinct,

or inherited habits. Mind chooses, instinct cannot, for it is but an

automatic mind-process inherited from generation to generation."

It must be remembered, however, that this faculty of choosing, said to

be possessed by the brain and acquired by a process of development, is

not free, but conditioned. The terminal organs of the afferent nerves

also may be said to possess this faculty of choice, yet limited by

their qualities and the nature of the external influences to which they

are submitted.

The admission of a faculty of choice does not involve the idea of

absolute freedom, nor need it disturb the Buddhist conception that

there exists nothing behind the organism in the shape of an ego-entity,

or soul, which chooses or remembers, and that there is no hidden agent

which prompts the conveyance of impressions.

If we admit this faculty of choice to be possessed by the brain and

terminal organs of the afferent and efferent nerves, it simply involves

the concession that the stored-up memories in the brain, and the

habits acquired by the muscular organism, as results of past external

influences, act in the _manner_ of choice; and in this sense only, it

would seem, can the notion of "freedom" be scientifically and logically

entertained.

If the faculty of choice, in this restricted sense, as the possession

of a pluricellular organism such as man, is accepted in confirmation

of the existence of "freedom," then we must accord the possession of

"freedom" to the simplest form of life. The cellule composed only of

protoplasm and a nucleus possesses the very same faculty.

M. Alfred Binet tells us of the highly-developed psychical functions

of the spermatozoid; how it searches out the locality of the

ovule situated at a distance; how, with a sense of direction, it

traverses the whole length of the intervening space, overcoming all

obstacles--which are many--in its path, to attain the desired object;

and he maintains that such actions cannot be explained by simple

irritability, nor by chemical affinity. The brain may possess this

faculty, and the power to carry into effect the choice, as qualities

of its mechanism; but there is no discrete entity behind the brain as

agent.

"Is it quite certain that, when consciousness seems to affirm that 'I

can choose so and so,' it means more than 'it is possible such and such

a choice will take place in my mind'? If it does not mean more than

this, its affirmation is not against Determinism" (_Mind_, April, 1898,

p. 191). Even if the faculty of choice is granted, it is limited in the

sense that choice does not always produce the effect chosen.

"Locke and Hume say 'Liberty is a power to act as _we_ choose.' But can

_we_ choose? Are _we_ the original causes of our choice? And what is

the power to which action is subjected? Must it not be subject to some

other power, and, therefore, not free, unless it is a self-existent

power?"

Enough has been said, perhaps, on this subject to explain the author's

position in assuming that both Jesus and Gotama must have been, by

necessity of their omniscience, well aware of the truth of Determinism.

Yet, having to deal with phenomenal beings, they were constrained to

treat them as such, and address them in phenomenal terms, and to lower

themselves to the level of those sensations from which the illusive and

unconquerable feeling of responsibility arises.

The fact of occult powers having been attributed to Jesus and Gotama

makes it necessary to include in this chapter a brief reference to the

subject of magic,[M] and to consider in what light we should regard

this art in connection with these two characters.

[M] Magic I define as the art of visualizing and utilizing those

aspects and qualities of matter that are not familiar to the normal

senses.

It has been remarked that the opposition to magic has seldom been

connected with sceptical doubts as to its reality, and that the

distinction drawn between white and black magic was due to the

assumption by the priestly class of the sole right to the exercise of

magic in their rites, and "hence magicians who were outside the pale

of priesthood were called sorcerers, or dealers in black magic." The

pages of the Christian Bible are aflame with magic, and, on opening the

Old Testament, one seems to stand on the threshold of an unmeasurable

cavern, where dreams the Great Magician that inhabiteth Eternity.

No one who has not made of magic, in its several branches, a close

study--who has not literally soaked in mysticism (that "powerful

solvent of definite dogma")--or who is not gnomic, intuitionally

"in the know" without study, can possibly pose as an authoritative

interpreter of God's Holy Word.

An authority on the Hermetic Philosophy says that astrology is to be

found "throughout the Bible, from the very first chapter of Genesis,

when the stars were set for _signs_ and seasons and days and years,

on to the Book of Revelation, where the wonder was seen in heaven,

the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and all

the great astrological problems in that book; and the great truth,

the Incarnation itself, announced by the star of the Epiphany.... All

the occult methods of divination more or less find their place in the

Bible and in the scheme of religion. The divination by Urim and Thummin

is a well-known form of clairvoyance which is practised now. Joseph's

divining-cup was merely a species of magic mirror, the form of which is

well known now, and is used by some clairvoyant seers. The use of music

by the prophet Elisha, when the kings of Israel and Judah went out

against Moab, is precisely the same as is now used by many Spiritualist

mediums and seers, though not with the same effect ordinarily. And so

one might go on with all the forms of divination. It can be clearly

proved that divination by cards was known and practised in Biblical

times by the Biblical prophets; all this showing that during the times

of the Old Testament, and with _commendation_ from the prophets, and

in use by the prophets, were modes of divination which postulated the

truth of the Hermetic science."

It stands to reason that Jesus as God, and Gotama as Buddha, must have

been acquainted with all the laws of nature, and, consequently, were

in full possession of so-called occult powers. The manifestations of

these powers enter more largely and distinctly, as true records, into

the life of Jesus than into that of Gotama. The acts of Jesus were one

continuous demonstration of occult power, and his disciples were, in a

lesser degree, gifted with the same powers.

That which is known as ceremonial magic was not made use of to any

extent by Jesus and Gotama as a method or means for the production of

these powers. This was not requisite with them, as it is in the case

of ordinary individuals, who must have recourse to those aids which

have been found by occultists, after long experience, to be the most

efficient means of attaining their object.

Clumsier methods have been used with a minimum amount of success; but,

if the operator desires to arrive at any degree of perfection in the

art, it is just as necessary for him to observe closely the rules laid

down by the ceremonialists of magic as it is for a gamekeeper to make

use of the accepted symbolism in the training of a retriever--that is,

if the object is to accomplish the undertaking with the least trouble

and the best results. Jesus and Gotama,[N] on account of their unique

position as being _en rapport_ with this power, had no occasion,

therefore, to resort to ceremonial magic.

[N] "Gotama, as Buddha, possessed an intuitive insight of the nature

of every object in the universe, a knowledge of the mind of all

beings, and of the finality of the stream of life" (_The Gospel of

Buddha_, by Paul Carus, p. 244).

The Indian saint Mozoomdar (whose acquaintance I had the privilege

of making in India), in his introductory remarks to _The Oriental

Christ_, a book published by him in 1883, points out how estimates of

character vary if viewed from different standpoints, and how, when

the singularity of a nature happens to lie in its manysidedness,

representations of it may be conflicting, but quite genuine and

correct. The whole of the introduction to this work shows such

remarkable and original insight into the character of Jesus, as judged

from an Oriental point of view, that I cannot forbear to give a few

quotations, more especially as they may tend to help forward the

purpose of this chapter by demonstrating how the personalities of Jesus

and Gotama are interchangeable under certain aspects in respect of

their mystic significance.

Early in the introduction the writer says: "It is held that the

celestial figure of the sweet Prophet of Nazareth is illumined with

strange and unknown radiance when the light of Oriental faith and

_mystic_ devotion is allowed to fall upon it. It is a fact that the

greatest religions of the world have sprung from Asia. It has, with

some accuracy, been said, therefore, that it is an Asiatic only

who can teach religion to Asiatics. In Christ we see not only the

exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature

is susceptible."

In the following very plain terms he distinguishes Christ as the Logos

of the Gospel of St. John, with which may be classified the "Bodhi," or

Intelligence of the Buddhists: "He was the thought and energy of God.

He was the plan of God. He was the light of divine reason and love, as

yet involved within the great impenetrable. In that sense the whole

universe was at one time merely the thought of the Infinite Being. And

every one of us has sprung from the formless ocean of divinity that

spread through all."

"John the Baptist," he writes, "had announced the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus pointed to it. Pointed where?... He pointed to the kingdom of

heaven in his own heart. He pointed to the inner sphere where his

disembodied spirit communed with the eternal spirit of life; and,

beholding God in him and himself in God, he exclaimed: 'I and my Father

are one.'... He also beheld his brethren in him, and cried: 'Abide in

me, and I in you.'"

This, the writer says, is pure Idealism, and Christ even idealized his

flesh and blood, and administered them to his disciples as a sacrament.

Finally, this enraptured saint of Hindustan places before the reader

two characters in illustration of the distinctions which may be said

to exist between Eastern and Western conceptions of Jesus: "One of

them is an elaborately learned man, versed in all the principles of

theology. His doctrine is historical, exclusive, and arbitrary.... He

insists upon plenary inspiration, becomes stern over forms, continually

descants on miracles ... condemns men to eternal darkness and death. He

continually talks of blood and fire and hell ... he hurls invectives

at other men's faith.... All scriptures are false which have grown up

outside of his dispensation, climate, and authority.... He is tolerated

only because he carries with him the imperial prestige of a conquering

race. Can this be the Christ that will save India?

"By his side another figure. He is simple, natural. He is a stranger

to the learning of books. Out of the profound, untaught impulses of

his soul he speaks.... His doctrines are the simple utterances of a

fatherhood which embosoms all the children of men, and a brotherhood

which makes all the races of the world one great family.... All nations

respond to his mystical utterances about heaven and earth.... His

self-immersed air, absent eyes ... which show that his spirit is far,

far away, point him out to be the Prophet of the East, the sweet Jesus

of the Galilean lake.

"Throughout the whole Eastern world the perfume of his faith and

devotion has spread. The wild genius of Mohammed knew and adored him

amid the sands of Arabia. The tender, love-intoxicated soul of Hafiz

revelled in the sweetness of Christ's piety amid the rosebuds and

nightingales of Persia. Look at this picture and upon that.... When we

speak of an Eastern Christ we speak of the incarnation of unbounded

love and grace; and when we speak of a Western Christ, we speak of

the incarnation of theology, formalism, ethical, and physical force.

Christ, we know, is neither of the East nor of the West; but men have

localized what God meant to make universal."

Happily there is no need to substantiate the fact of the immense

consolations derived by humanity from the Christian mode of regarding

the past, the present, and the future, with all its dazzling

possibilities, in the direction of a New Jerusalem; but it must,

indeed, seem strange to those nurtured amid Christian influences that

a religious system such as Buddhism, which does not recognize a God

or Soul or Immortality in the Occidental sense of these terms, should

claim to have as its product that _cœur léger_ temperament which is

said to be, and to have been, the distinctive characteristic of its

countless adherents.

When the mind wanders afar from the dogmatic of the scholiast, the

life of Jesus presents itself with a dramatic force of loveliness and

grandeur which, of its kind, cannot be surpassed; and the poetic pathos

of the New Testament, though not so resonant as that to be found in the

pages of such works as Job and the Prophets, possesses a pastoral charm

of its own at once soothing and stimulating.

In Buddhistic literature, and in the intensity of Buddhistic thoughts,

there are extraordinary and unrivalled beauties which are emphasized in

a remarkable manner, in the sympathetic rendering accorded to them by

such exponents as Professor Oldenberg and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn. One must

be insensitive to a degree if such writers and interpreters of Buddhism

do not succeed in striking a chord of overwhelming harmony throughout

the system.