CHAPTER III.
PRACTISE AND SPECULATION.
/Mahâyânism/ perhaps can best be treated in two main divisions, as it has distinctly two principal features in its doctrinal development. I may call one the speculative phase of Mahâyânism and the other practical. The first part is essentially a sort of Buddhist metaphysics, where the mind is engaged solely in ratiocination and abstraction. Here the intellect plays a very prominent part, and some of the most abstruse problems of philosophy are freely discussed. Speculative followers of Buddhism have taken great interest in the discussion of them and have written many volumes on various subjects.[36] {77} The second or practical phase of Mahâyânism deals with such religious beliefs that constitute the life and essence of the system. Mahâyânists might have reasoned wrongfully to explain their practical faith, but the faith itself is the outburst of the religious sentiment which is inherent in human nature. This practical part, therefore, is by far more important, and in fact it can be said that the speculative part is merely a preparatory step toward it. Inasmuch as Mahâyânism is a religion and not a philosophical system, it must be practical, that is, it must directly appeal to the inmost life of the human heart.
_Relation of Feeling and Intellect in Religion._
So much has been said about the relation between philosophy and religion; and there are many scholars who so firmly believe in the identity of religion either with superstitions or with supernatural revelation, that the denial of this assertion is considered by them practically to be the disavowal of all religions. For, according to them, there is no midway in religion. A religion which is rational and yet practical is no religion. Now, Buddhism is neither a vagary of imagination nor a revelation from above, and on this account it has been declared by some to be a philosophy. The title “Speculative Mahâyânism” thus, is apt to {78} be taken as a confirmation of such opinion. To remove all the misconceptions, therefore, which might be entertained concerning the religious nature of Mahâyânism and its attitude toward intellectualism, I have deemed it wise here to say a few words about the relation between feeling and intellect in religion.
There is no doubt that religion is essentially practical; it does not necessarily require theorisation. The latter, properly speaking, is the business of philosophy. If religion was a product of the intellect solely, it could not give satisfaction to the needs of man’s whole being. Reason constitutes but a part of the organised totality of an individual being. Abstraction however high, and speculation however deep, do not as such satisfy the inmost yearnings of the human heart. But this they can do when they enter into one’s inner life and constitution; that is, when abstraction becomes a concrete fact and speculation a living principle in one’s existence; in short, when philosophy becomes religion.
Philosophy as such, therefore, is generally distinguished from religion. But we must not suppose that religion as the deepest expression of a human being can eliminate altogether from it the intellectual element. The most predominant rôle in religion may be played by the imagination and feeling, but ratiocination must not fail to assert its legitimate right in the co-ordination of beliefs. When this right is denied, religion becomes fanaticism, superstition, fata morgana, and even a menace to the progress of humanity.
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The intellect is critical, objective, and always tries to stand apart from the things that are taken up for examination. This alienation or keeping itself aloof from concrete facts on the part of the intellect, constantly tends to disregard the real significance of life, of which it is also a manifestation. Therefore, the conflict between feeling and reason, religion and science, instinct and knowledge, has been going on since the awakening of consciousness.
Seeing this fact, intellectual people are generally prone to condemn religion as barring the freedom and obstructing the progress of scientific investigations. It is true that religion went frequently to the other extreme and tried to suppress the just claim of reason; it is true that this was especially the case with Christianity, whose history abounds with regretable incidents resulting from its violent encroachments upon the domain of reason. It is also true that the feeling and the intellect are sometimes at variance, that what the feeling esteems as the most valuable treasure is at times relentlessly crushed by the reason, while the feeling looks with utmost contempt at the results that have been reached by the intellect after much lucubration. But this fatal conflict is no better than the fight which takes place between the head and the tail of a hydra when it is cut in twain; it always results in self-destruction.
We cannot live under such a miserable condition forever; when we know that it is altogether due to a myopia on the part of our understanding. The {80} truth is that feeling and reason “cannot do without one another, and must work together inseparably in the process of human development, since reason without feeling could have nothing to act for and would be impotent to act, while feeling without reason would act tyrannically and blindly--that is to say, if either could exist and act at all without the other; for in the end it is not feeling nor reason, which acts, but it is the man who acts according as he feels and reasons”. (H. Maudsley’s _Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings_, p. vii). If it is thus admitted that feeling and reason must co-ordinate and co-operate in the realisation of human ideals, religion, though essentially a phenomenon of the emotional life, cannot be indifferent to the significance of the intellect. Indeed, religion, as much as philosophy, has ever been speculating on the problems that are of the most vital importance to human life. In Christianity speculation has been carried on under the name of theology, though it claims to be fundamentally a religion of faith. In India, however, as mentioned elsewhere, there was no dividing line between philosophy and religion; and every teaching, every system, and every doctrine, however abstract and speculative it might appear to the Western mind, was at bottom religious and always aimed at the deliverance of the soul. There was no philosophical system that did not have some practical purpose.
Indian thinkers could not separate religion from {81} philosophy, practice from theory. Their philosophy flowed out of the very spring of the human heart and was not a mere display of fine intellectuation. If their thinking were not in the right direction and led to a fallacy which made life more miserable, they were ever ready to surrender themselves to a superior doctrine as soon as it was discovered. But when they thought they were in the right track, they did not hesitate to sacrifice their life for it. Their philosophy had as much fire as religion.
_Buddhism and Speculation._
Owing to this fact, Buddhism as much as Hinduism is full of abstract speculations and philosophical reflections so much so that some Christian critics are inclined to deny the religiosity of Buddhism. But no student of the science of comparative religion would indorse such a view nowadays. Buddhism, in spite of its predominant intellectualism, is really a religious system. There is no doubt that it emphasises the rational element of religion more than any other religious teachings, but on that account we cannot say that it altogether disregards the importance of the part to be played by the feeling. Its speculative, philosophical phase is really a preparation for fully appreciating the subjective significance of religion, for religion is ultimately subjective, that is to say, the essence of religion is love and faith, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is the expression of the Bodhi which {82} consists in _prajñâ_[37] (intelligence or wisdom) and _karunâ_ (love or compassion). Mere knowledge (not _prajñâ_) has very little value in human life. When not guided by love and faith, it readily turns out to be the most obedient servant of egoism and sensualism. What Tennyson says in the following verses is perfectly true with Buddhism:
“Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
“But on her forehead sits a fire; She sets her forward countenance And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire.
“Half grown as yet, a child, and vain-- She cannot fight the fear of death. What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain
“Of demons? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first.
“A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain, and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With Wisdom, like the younger child.”
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But it must be remembered that Buddhism never ignores the part which is played by the intellect in the purification of faith. For it is by the judicious exercise of the intellect, that all religious superstitions and prejudices are finally destroyed.
The intellect is so far of great consequence, and we must respect it as the thunderbolt of Vajrapani, which crushes everything that is mere sham and false. But at the same time we must also remember that the quintessence of religion like the house built on the solid rock never suffers on account of this destruction. Its foundation lies too deeply buried in human {84} heart to be damaged by knowledge or science. So long as there is a human heart warm with blood and burning with the fire of life, the intellect however powerful will never be able to trample it under foot. Indeed, the more severely the religious sentiment is tested in the crucible of the intellect, the more glorious and illuminating becomes its intrinsic virtue. The true religion is, therefore, never reluctant to appear before the tribunal of scientific investigation. In fact by ignoring the ultimate significance of the religious consciousness, science is digging its own grave. For what purpose has science other than the unravelling of the mysteries of nature and reading into the meaning of existence? And is this not what constitutes the foundation of religion? Science cannot be final, it must find its reason in religion; as a mere intellectual exercise it is not worthy of our serious consideration.
_Religion and Metaphysics._
The French sociologist, M. Guyau, says in his _Irreligion of the Future_ (English translation p. 10):
“Every positive and historical religion presents three distinctive and essential elements: (1) An attempt at a mythical and non-scientific explanation of natural phenomena (divine intervention, miracles, efficacious prayers, etc.), or of historical facts (incarnation of Jesus Christ or of Buddha, revelation, and so forth); (2) A system of dogmas, that is to say, of symbolic ideas, of imaginative beliefs, forcibly {85} imposed upon one’s faith as absolute verities, even though they are susceptible of no scientific demonstration or philosophical justification; (3) A cult and a system of rites, that is to say, of more or less immutable practices regarded as possessing a marvelous efficacy upon the course of things, a propitiatory virtue. A religion without myth, without dogma, without cult, without rite, is no more than that somewhat bastard product, ‘natural religion,’ which is resolvable to a system of metaphysical hypotheses.”
M. Guyau seems to think that what will be left in religion, when severed from its superstitions and imaginary beliefs and mysterious rites, is a system of metaphysical speculations, and that, therefore, it is not a religion. But in my opinion the French sociologist shares the error that is very prevalent among the scientific men of to-day. He is perfectly right in trying to strip religion of all its ephemeral elements and external integuments, but he is entirely wrong when he does this at the expense of its very essence, which consists of the inmost yearnings of the human heart. And this essence has no affinity with the superstitions which grow round it like excrescences as the results of insufficient or abnormal nourishment. Nor does it concern itself with mere philosophising and constructing hypotheses about metaphysical problems. Far from it. Religion is a cry from the abysmal depths of the human heart, that can never be silenced, until it finds that something and identifies itself with it, which reveals the teleological {86} significance of life and the universe. But this something has a subjective value only, as Goethe makes Faust exclaim, “Feeling is all in all, name for it I have none.” Why? Because it cannot objectively or intellectually be demonstrated, as in the case with those laws which govern phenomenal existences,--the proper objects of the discursive human understanding. And this subjectivity of religion is what makes “all righteousnesses as filthy garments.” If religion deprived of its dogmas and cults is to be considered, as M. Guyau thinks, nothing but a system of metaphysics, we utterly lose sight of its subjective significance or its emotional element, which indeed constitutes its _raison d’être_.
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Having this in view we proceed to see first on what metaphysical hypothesis speculative Mahâyâna Buddhism is built up; but the reader must remember that this phase of Mahâyânism is merely a preliminary to its more essential part, which we expound later under the heading of “Practical Mahâyânism,” in contradistinction to “Speculative Mahâyânism.”