In endeavouring to perform the very honourable task assigned to me, I
have had to contend all along with the difficulty of comprising in six
what would require many more lectures properly to relate. Much which was
actually prepared I have been forced to omit, consoling myself with the
thought that, after all, I had simply to lecture and not to write a
compendious treatise, and that it was my business to sketch as
truthfully as I could what it was simply impossible, within the limits
prescribed, adequately to depict. It was originally my intention to give
in parallel quotations the alleged similarities between the contents of
the Pitakas and the New Testament, but the conditions of time and space
compelled me to be content with references to specimens of them in the
_Sacred Books of the East_, from which any ordinary English reader may
be able to form a judgment concerning them. Moreover, when well on with
the work, I discovered that a much more thorough examination of
Professor Seydel’s _Buddhist-Christian Harmony_ than I could profess to
make had already been published by Professor Kellogg of Allegheny, U.S.,
in his book on the _Light of Asia and the Light of the World_. An Indian
missionary of eleven years’ experience, and the author of an excellent
Grammar of the Hindi language, can write upon this subject, not only
with greater authority, but to much better purpose, than one who only
knows Indian books through the medium of European translations, and who
has not seldom been compelled to take on trust what he felt strongly
inclined to question. If Dr. Kellogg’s book is not extensively read in
this country, it certainly deserves to be.
Our sketch has been confined to Buddhism as a religion and as an ethical
system. The philosophy which has grown out of it, and especially the
psychology which lies at the base of its original dogmas, would require
a large volume to expound. A great field is open here for those who have
the ability and the leisure to cultivate it; and though good work has
already been done in it, we may be convinced that, until this psychology
has been more thoroughly investigated, we must continue in uncertainty
as to what original Buddhism was. Though much has been written upon the
origin and growth of Buddhism, the first authoritative words are only
now beginning to be spoken by the learned translators of the Pali texts;
and though they have dispelled illusions and corrected false impressions
not a few, we cannot affirm that there is a strong consensus of opinion
among them as to the life and teaching of the founder of Buddhism. One
is greatly impressed by the modest hesitation with which they have
presented their views, but this very diffidence makes one fear that we
may be attributing to Buddha sayings which he never uttered, or that we
have drawn from them inferences which he would have disowned.
In working out a sketch like this, the temptation constantly besetting
one is to compare or contrast actual Buddhism with ideal Christianity.
I have endeavoured to bear in mind that our modern religion may in many
features grossly misrepresent that of its Divine Author, and, indeed,
that “Christianity has all along been much embarrassed in being obliged
to apologise for Christendom.”[401] In like manner I have tried to make
plain the great distinction between the original system of Buddha and
that which very soon came to be known by his name. An Oriental will
certainly misjudge Christianity if he derives his knowledge of it from
mediæval theology or from some nineteenth-century sermons; and we may
unconsciously commit the same mistake in ascribing to the primitive
dogmas the interpretation put upon them by its later schools.[402] I
have read several books in which this mistake was flagrant, and I should
be extremely sorry to follow their bad example. In the present state of
our knowledge, however, and until the earliest texts have been
accurately ascertained, and sifted, and classified, this, to a certain
extent, is inevitable, and therefore excusable. If I have failed in my
attempt to portray accurately even the salient features of this great
religion, it has been from no desire to caricature it. The days have
surely passed when it could be said that we were “too infatuated by a
sense of the superiority of our own to make a fair survey of other
religions.”[403] It is our duty, and it will be for our interest, to do
justice to them, and, instead of being content with the schoolboy’s
endeavour to prove them false, we should seek carefully among the ruins
of the most degraded of them for all the elements of truth we can
discover. It is in this direction that we must proceed if we would find
solid foundations for a true Christian theology, and the more we address
ourselves to the work the more likely shall we be to convince the Church
of the proper value of the Faith deposited in its keeping, and to rouse
it to realise its destiny and fulfil its glorious mission to the world.
In correcting these sheets for the press, I have often been sensible of
my great obligations to a very highly valued personal friend, whose
goodness was as remarkable as his learning. May I be forgiven if, in
gratitude for his kind and generous help in these very studies, given
now long ago, I desire to keep alive the memory of this justly esteemed
Sanskrit scholar, by adding this little stone to his cairn, and adorning
my book with the name of Dr. John Muir.
Footnote 401:
_Eternal Atonement_, by Dr. R. D. Hitchcock, p. 157.
Footnote 402:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 196.
Footnote 403:
Quinet, _Le Génie des Religions_, p. 13.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the
Edinburgh University Press_.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the lectures in which they are
referenced.