CHAPTER XX

INDIA

III. _Buddhism_

In Buddhism the great movement of Indian religion works itself out to its ultimate conclusion and reaches a stage beyond which there can be no advance. Here we have a religion, if such it may be called, without a god, without prayer, without priesthood or worship; a religion which owes its great success, not to its theology, nor to its ritual, since it has neither, but to its moral sentiment and to its external organisation. Originating in the centre of India, and giving practical form to Indian ideas, it spread rapidly and widely both in the country of its birth and in neighbouring lands. It is now extinct in India, yet it numbers more adherents than any other religion. It has been divided since the Christian era into two great branches. Southern Buddhism is the religion of Ceylon, of Burmah, and of Siam; while Northern Buddhism extends over Tibet, China, and Japan, and the islands of Java and Sumatra.

The Literature.--These two branches of Buddhism have different literary traditions, though some works are common to both; and these literatures, differing from each other in language, also differ widely in contents and in spirit. The southern tradition, composed in Pali, the literary language of Ceylon, has recently been opened up to scholars, and has greatly changed their views of the origin and the true nature of this religion. The Canon of Southern Buddhism, which we might call the Pali Bible, is a literature about twice as large as the Bible of Europe, although if the repetitions in it were removed, it would be somewhat smaller than the Bible. It consists of three Pitakas, baskets or collections. The first is the Vinaya Pitaka, dealing with discipline, but including the Mahavagga, a history of the first beginnings of the order as the founder gathered it around him. The second is the Sutta Pitaka or collection of teachings. It contains the earliest account of the later life of the founder, books of meditation and devotion, collections of sayings by the Master, poems, fairy tales, and fables, stories about Buddhist saints, and so on. The third collection, the Abidhamma, contains speculations and discussions on various subjects. Much of these materials is not peculiar to Buddhism, there is much pre-Buddhistic speculation, and there are many stories which are not peculiar even to India. Along with all this, however, the books give us the earliest accounts of the life and of the death of the founder, and contain a representation written a century after his death, of what he was considered to have taught. The founder himself wrote nothing; but the work of composing books about him and his doctrine began early, and much of the canon is considered, especially by English scholars, to have been in existence during the first Buddhist century.[1] For many centuries they were preserved by memory alone.

[Footnote 1: The Buddhist literature given in the _Sacred Books of the East_ is as follows:

Vol. x. The Dhammapada, containing the quintessence of Buddhist morality, and the Sutta-nipata, giving teachings of Buddha on religion.

Vol. xi. Buddhist Suttas. Religious, moral, and philosophical discourses. Vol. xlix. Buddhist Mahayana Sutras.

Vol. xiii. Vinaya Texts. The Patimokha or order of discipline, and the beginning of the Mahavagga, containing an account of the opening of the ministry of the founder.

Vol. xvii. Vinaya Texts ii. Mahavagga continued. Kullavagga or discipline as established by the Master.

Vol. xx. Kullavagga continued.

Vols. xxii., xlv. contain Suttas of the religion of the Jainas.

Vols. xxxv., xxxvi. Questions of King Milinda.]

Was there a Personal Founder?--Senart in his _Essai sur la légende du Buddha_, and Kern in his _Het Buddhisme in Indie_, both hold that we have here to do with a sun-myth, and interpret the various features of the legend in a very ingenious way in accordance with that theory. This view has made few converts. Many incidents in the story are natural, and appear to be due to a real tradition; there is literary evidence of the early existence of the books, and the religion can be best understood if regarded as the work of a real personality of commanding greatness.[2]

[Footnote 2: Recent archæological discoveries, of which an account is given by Mr. Rhys Davids in the _Century Magazine_, April 1902, place it beyond doubt that the Buddha really existed, and that pious offices were paid to his ashes after his cremation by the members of his own clan as well as by others. Inscriptions brought to light in 1898 show that the Sakhya clan, of which he was a member, dwelt at the time of his death in what is now a frontier district of Nepal. Three years before that event they were driven from their old capital Kapilavastu; but they formed a new one fifteen miles further south, just beyond the present frontier of Nepal, and there they erected a _stupa_ or massive stone cairn, to guard the portion of the ashes of the Buddha which was committed to their keeping.]

Scholars, however, are agreed as to the difficulty of drawing the line between what is history and what is legend. Even in the early Pali accounts the hero has become a religious figure, he wears titles which lift him above mankind, and he has supernatural powers at his command. A laborious critical process must be undertaken, comparing the various narratives with each other and testing them in other ways, before the real history can be regarded as made out beyond question. The slight sketch of the story which we give does not aim at such critical correctness; we merely indicate the outline of a narrative which is one of the principal sources of the strength of the religion.

The Story of the Founder.--The founder's family name was Gautama, and by that name he was commonly known during his lifetime. The personal name given him as a child was Siddartha. Those who wished after his death to speak of him with reverence called him Sakya-Muni, the Sage of the Sakyas. These were a tribe who dwelt, at the period of the story, _i.e._ half a millennium before Christ, in the country to the north of the sacred Ganges, a few days' journey from the city of Benares. Gautama's father, Suddhodana, was rajah (chief) of the Sakyas; his residence was Kapilavastu, near Oude. The future sage thus belonged to the Kshatriya class, and was accustomed to a position of rank and ease. We hear little of his youth; he had been married ten years, and his wife, whom he loved, had just brought him a son, when, at the age of twenty-nine, he suddenly and secretly left his home to devote himself to the religious life. He was led to this step by witnessing various painful sights which caused him vividly to realise the suffering which accompanies all existence, and made him scorn a life of luxury. It was a time when many were seeking a better way, and when a superior mind naturally turned to that retirement and absorption in which it was believed that the key to life's pains and mysteries was to be found. In the "Great Renunciation," as this act is called, there is nothing we cannot understand. This lofty act, however, was followed by a temptation; Mara, the spirit of evil, urged him, but urged him in vain, to give up the purpose he had formed. He then attached himself to Brahmanic ascetics, from whom he learned their philosophy; and after this he devoted himself for six years to a life of fasting and penance, the Brahmanic method for drawing nearer the goal of the religious life. After this period he gave up his fasting, not having profited by it as he had expected, and returned to an ordinary diet. This change cost him the adhesion of five disciples who had become attached to him, and had been filled with wonder at his mortifications. But the loss was a small one compared with the gain which was at hand. After a second great spiritual struggle and a renewal of the temptation, he at last reached that which he had long been seeking. Seated under a _ficus religiosa_, the tree afterwards called the tree of knowledge, or the Bo-tree, he rose in contemplation above all his temptations and doubts till he beheld at length the true nature of things. From this moment he was Buddha, Enlightened; he had the key of truth, and for himself he was assured that sorrow and evil had lost all hold on him. His doctrine had dawned in his mind. He had discovered the cause of the sorrow which is so closely intertwined in man's life, and had divined the way in which sorrow might be overcome. The method had been found by which one could escape from the unending succession of new lives, all painful, to which, according to the general belief of the time, men were condemned. The words placed in the mouth of the founder when he attained to Buddhahood tell their own tale. "Looking for the Maker of this tabernacle, I have to run through a course of many births so long as I do not find him; and painful is birth again and again. But now, Maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy rafters are broken; thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, approaching the eternal, has attained to the extinction of all desires."[3]

[Footnote 3: Dhammapada, _S. B. E._ x. 42.]

The great discovery being made, and duly pondered and realised, the question arose, What was to be done with it? The Buddha shrinks from the work of preaching it to others. Brahma himself is brought into the story to encourage him to make his secret known to others, and to assure him that many will receive it with great joy. The Blessed One consents, and thus replies: "Wide open is the gate of the Immortal to all who have ears to hear; let them send forth faith to meet it. The teaching is sweet and good; because I despaired of the task, I spake not to men before."[4] He turns his steps, guided by his own supernatural knowledge, to the city of Benares, to seek the five monks who had formerly abandoned him. On his way thither he meets a naked ascetic who asks the reason of his cheerful mien; he answers that he has overcome all foes, has reached emancipation by the destruction of desire, and has obtained Nirvana. "To found the kingdom of Truth I go to the city of the Kasis (Benares); I will beat the drum of the Immortal in the darkness of this world." The account which follows of the opening of the "kingdom of righteousness" presents many analogies to the early stages of other spiritual movements. The founder, immovably sure of himself and of his doctrines, goes from place to place, spending the rainy season in town, and preaching everywhere. It is at Benares that the "wheel of the law" is first set in motion; there the first sermon was preached. The circumstances are also narrated under which other sermons were delivered, details being given as to time, place, the persons who heard them, the incidents which occasioned them. His converts at first are few and their names are recorded, but by degrees they become more numerous. The more devoted of them become members of his order, Bhikkus (for Bhikshus), mendicants; they forsake domestic life, shave their heads, adopt the yellow dress and the alms-bowl. They also are sent out to preach. "Go ye, O Bhikkus, and wander, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the world, for the gain and for the welfare of gods and men. Let not two of you go the same way. Preach, O Bhikkus, the doctrine which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, glorious in the end, in the spirit, and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect, and pure life of holiness. There are beings whose mental eyes are covered with scarcely any dust, but if the doctrine is not preached to them they cannot attain salvation." The incidents narrated in this part of the story are mostly connected with persons seeking admission to the order, or persons requiring to be convinced; the doctrine and its spread are everything. That spread takes place, as it is desired by the Buddha, chiefly among the higher classes of society; a great triumph is reached when Bimbisara, king of Magadha, becomes a patron of the order, and some accounts tell of the conversion of the Buddha's own father and mother. The work of the mission is of a peaceful nature; the Buddha lives on good terms with the Brahmans and with other teachers and their pupils. The only formidable opposition he had to meet arose within the order. His cousin Dewadatta, who had become a monk, wished to found a new order with much stricter rules than those of the original one. The Buddha refused to attach importance, as was proposed, to matters of clothes and food, or living in the open air; to do so would have made his movement narrower and less universal than he desired.

[Footnote 4: Mahavagga, _S. B. E._ xiii. 88.]

The beginning of the ministry is told in some detail, but of a long period of the life only a few scattered incidents are given. There is a detailed account of the three last months of the life. The Buddha is now eighty years of age, and in the Maha-paranibbana Sutta[5] the tale of his migrations and preachings is carried on according to the same scheme as in the accounts of his early days. During the rainy season, however, when he has reached the age of eighty, he has an illness, and sees he cannot live long. This he tells his monks, exhorting them with urgency to be true to the teaching and the order, and to shed the light abroad. His end is hastened by a meal of pork set before him by a goldsmith, a man of low caste, who hospitably entertained him. After this his face shines with a heavenly radiance, and as the end approaches many heavenly signs appear. The Buddha is fully conscious that he is about to leave the world, and that his death is an event of supreme interest to the heavenly powers, whom he believes to be thronging around to watch his last hours. He is solicitous, however, to soothe the grief of his friends, large numbers of whom also are around him, and to give them such counsels and such incentives to a faithful upholding of the cause as he yet may. They ask about his obsequies, and he claims that the remains of such an one as he is, of a Tathagata, "one who has attained perfection," should be treated as men treat the remains of a king of kings. He recognises the kindness of Ananda, his most intimate disciple, and tries to comfort him by encouraging him to be earnest in effort, so that he too may soon be free from evils. He directs his disciples generally not to mourn too much at his removal as if they were being deserted. The truths which he has set forth, and the rules of the order he has laid down for them, are to be their teacher after he is gone. He asks if any of them has any doubt or misgiving as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the faith, or the way. If so, they are to inquire freely, so that they may not reproach themselves afterwards for not having consulted him while still among them. The brethren, however, are silent, though addressed again and again in the same way. In the whole assembly there is not one who has any doubt or misgiving. Even the most backward of these brethren has become converted (lit. "entered into the current"); he is no longer liable to be born to a state of suffering, but is assured of eternal salvation.

[Footnote 5: _S. B. E._ vol. xl.]

"Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren and said, 'Behold now, brethren, I exhort you,' saying, 'Decay is inherent in all things that have come into being. Work out your salvation with diligence!'

"This was the last word of the Tathagata!"

His death or Nirvana forms the era of Buddhist chronology, and the date has now been approximately fixed with some certainty; it took place somewhere in the decade 482-472 B.C.

Is Buddhism a Revolt against Brahmanism?--Before proceeding to discuss the religion to which this somewhat monkish narrative forms the preface, it is necessary to say a few words on the relation which that religion is now supposed to hold to the general history of Indian piety. It was customary, till recently, to regard Buddha as a great reformer, and his religion as a great revolt against that which it found prevailing in India. He is credited with having preached atheism as a reaction against the burdensome worship of too many gods, with having instituted a great social movement consisting in the abolition of caste, with having openly denied the authority of the Vedas, till then unchallenged, and with having rebuked the pride of Brahmanism by making his order of mendicants the representatives of his religion. None of these assertions can now be upheld. Instead of having been a tremendous reaction against Brahmanism it is seen that Buddhism was the natural outgrowth of that system. The closer knowledge of both, gained by the opening up of the sacred books of India, tends to show that much that was formerly thought distinctive of Buddhism was in reality inherited from Brahmanism. We saw in dealing with the earlier form of Indian religion that a form of piety had been struck out in it which made the ascetic independent of sacrifice, priesthood, even of the gods, all save the one God who is in all things. In that phase of Indian religion the authority of the Vedas had already been impugned, an inner discipline had taken the place of outward worship, the saint had learned to forsake the world. This turn of religious thought produced all the phenomena of Buddhism before the period of Gautama. The sannyasin (_vide sup._,