Chapter IX: Part 9

While obedience to a superior was not exacted, the law of poverty and chastity was as obligatory upon the Buddhist monk as on the members of the Christian Orders. Francis of Assisi could not more highly have eulogised poverty as “the way to salvation, the nurse of humility, the root of perfection,” than did the Indian monks who compiled the Buddhist scriptures. “In supreme felicity live we, though we call nothing our own. Feeding on happiness, we are like the gods in the regions of light.”[286] Food a monk could receive, but not ask for, and of what he so received he could only have one meal a day. Gold or silver he could on no account accept, though he might accept its equivalents in food or medicine. If like Achan’s wedge it was found to have been secreted by any covetous member, one of the brethren had to hide it away in the jungle, in a place which could not again be recognised. Bitter controversies regarding this prohibition seem to have exercised the primitive Sanghas, and though it was successfully maintained for long, concessions in relation to it were eventually agreed upon. These however proved as fatal to the prosperity of the Buddhist, as similar concessions proved to that of the Western monastic establishments. They were seeds of evil which speedily grew up into thickets of trouble. The individual member professed to observe the original law and maintain the principle that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of his goods,” but the several fraternities came speedily to abound in lands and property of every kind, so that in the East as in the West it may be said the monasteries fell, because crushed with their weight of wealth.

Even while the primitive rule was observed the mendicants could easily procure what of the necessaries of food and shelter and clothing they required; the jungle gave them all the shelter they needed, though it exposed them to frequent perils of being poisoned by snake-bites, and devoured by beasts. The rains put an end periodically to their peregrinations, and gathered the twos and threes who had been associating together into common retreat in the viharas. These originally were intended to be only temporary shelters from the annual floods, but as by degrees the system extended into distant regions, they became permanent institutions, each one a centre of influence in its own territory, like the abbeys in the original dioceses of mediæval Europe.

Life in a Buddhist vihara two thousand years ago must however have been very different from life in a monastic establishment in the middle ages. Labour, as we have seen, of no kind was allowed, either among them or for them. “A monk who digs the earth or causes it to be dug is liable to punishment.”[287] Scant time was allowed for sleep, and when there were no books to read or transcribe, the studies or literary occupations of the West were out of the question. All the intellectual energies were claimed for the repetition of such sacred works as they knew, and for the committing to memory of others which they had only acquired. Examination of self, meditation on the five principal themes which occupied the place of prayer or devotion in their system, was expected to absorb the most of the day. Notwithstanding its intervals of instruction and discussion, it must have been a very vacant life indeed, lacking entirely the worship, and most of the duties, which rendered monastic life in Christendom, if not always profitable, at least supportable.

Two outstanding features of it, however, compare very favourably with some forms of the ascetic life both in India and Europe. In the Buddhist Sanghas would be witnessed neither the slovenliness nor the dirtiness which has often been associated with the life of those who have renounced the world and have professed to despise its pleasant things. Around them,

“Besmeared with mud and ashes, crouching foul,
In rags of dead men, wrapped about their loins,”[288]

were many solitaries endeavouring to gain perfection or exhibit it, in types more conform to Nebuchadnezzar in his madness or the demoniacs who had their dwellings in the tombs. Buddha condemned uncleanliness in all its forms. The robes which he enjoined his monks to wear may have been made up of rags picked up from a dunghill or from a cemetery, but they were scrupulously washed, properly dyed, and carefully mended. The ground all round the vihara, as well as its floors within, had to be swept every day, and its every item of furniture had to be punctually dusted and garnished. His monks were Pharisees in regard to the washing of hands and bowls and other utensils, and they anticipated our modern demand for proper ventilation.[289] A Buddhist mendicant of the days of King Asoka might prove a good model of personal neatness and domestic tidiness for many a Christian minister in these days of Queen Victoria. He belonged to an Order originally founded by a man who was in every sense a gentleman, and which for long numbered among its members many noble and even princely men. Inheriting their instincts, he stoutly maintained their traditions, that “neither plaited hair, nor dirt, nor lying on the earth, nor rubbing with dust, can purify a mortal who has not overcome desires”; “that he who, though well dressed, exercises tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with all other beings, he is indeed a Brahmana, a Sramana, a Bikkhu.”[290]

Again, in these old pictures of Buddhist Sangha life, there is no reflection of that insane passion for suffering which marked the gaunt and self-mutilated Yogis around them, and which also distinguished many of the ascetics of Christendom. The flagellations, and lacerations, and macerations which at one time became popular in European monasteries, and which made even a man like the founder of the Franciscan Order refuse food and sleep for days together, spend whole nights in winter up to the neck in snow or water, put ashes in the meals which had been cooked for him, would not for an hour have been tolerated; yea, they would have been laughed out of the world by Buddha and his monks. Wherever they went, they encountered grievous companies of

“Eyeless and tongueless, sexless, crippled, deaf:
The body by the mind being thus stripped
For glory of much suffering, and the bliss
Which they shall win,”[291]

but they never seem to have been tempted to give way to this intoxication which was supposed to make men gods. Self-denial was essential, but severe austerities and bodily penance were strongly discouraged. “Blooming, well-fed, with healthy colour and skin,” is the description often given in the old texts of a model Bikkhu. Buddha, when first met by the Brahman sages after his illumination, surprised them by the serenity of his countenance, the purity and brightness of his complexion. Among the first salutations addressed to the brethren on their return from their wanderings was the question whether they had been well fed.[292] It is true some Buddhist saints might be found sitting for days in the burning sun, oblivious to its fiery torments, but these must have been exceptions, for there is no mistaking either the teaching or the life of Buddha himself. All these extravagant cruelties, by which men have abused or sought to destroy the most beautiful organism and the most perfect instrument which has ever been produced in this world, were by him regarded as foolish and dangerous, and as debasing as the sensualism which they sought to avoid.

Though we have hitherto referred to the Buddhist Order, it is hardly correct to think of it as just one community. Though theoretically the Sangha of Buddha was the ideal unit, practically it never became so. After his decease there was no central governing power to direct and inspire the whole organisation. The patriarchs, of whom a long succession is given, were not hierarchs in the Greek or Latin sense.[293] They were simply outstanding Arhats, the heroic defenders and apostles of the system. Primitive Buddhism was represented not by one but by many Sanghas, for each brother as he went forth became the centre of a new fraternity. Its original cultus was based on the idea that community of aim would suffice to gather the knots of people who lived near each other for mutual confession and instruction and discipline. So they continued a custom which had come down from their Vedic ancestors, who, in the four days of the lunar month, when the moon is new, or full, or half-way between the two, celebrated the fast preparatory to the offering of the intoxicating Soma. The Buddhists had neither fast, nor sacrifice, nor offering, nor any form of religious worship whatever, but in these days they gathered for careful examination of themselves in the light of the Prohibitions, for public confession one to another, and for discipline. For these weekly gatherings the manual of the Pâtimokkha or Disburdenment was composed, it is averred, by Buddha himself.[294] To this public catechising and purgation of the Roll all the brethren had to come; even a sick man was only excused when he could assure the assembly, through a sponsor, that he was clean of fault, and if no brother was available for this office the assembly had to adjourn to meet at his couch. Its president, who also summoned the brethren, was the monk of the longest standing among them. So far it seemed to anticipate our principle of Presbyterian parity, but, like Convocation, it was an exclusively ecclesiastical gathering, for neither nun, nor novice, nor layman was allowed to be present. Like our presbyteries when applying their privy censures, they expected to be “alone.” Then, when all were reverentially placed, in presence of no heart-searching God, but before one another, there was recited by the president the order of confessional, according to the rule that if there was no transgression there was no interruption, and silence indicated innocence.

First came the recitation of the gravest offences: the four Pârâgikâ renounced upon their admission, commission of any one of which involved expulsion from the Order. Then came the list of the less serious transgressions—Samghâdisesas, involving temporary degradation, and lastly that of the Pâkittya, or venial faults, which were atoned for by simple confession. It was a lengthy, minute, ill-arranged form of inquisition, more comprehensive and rigid than any catechism of the confessional which Romanism ever devised.[295] It out-phariseed the Pharisees in its trivialities and repetitions and straining out of gnats, and no manual of the cloister ever discovered, could equal its disgusting details of every conceivable form of unnatural vice supposed to be perpetrable by the brethren.[296] It reads more like a suggestion to sin than a defence against temptation. We can understand from it alone, how impossible it was for Buddhism to live up to its true principles, how incapable it was of urging on the steady moral progress of the race, and of even realising the example of its founder. Life’s whole strength was wasted in watching against petty and artificial transgressions, so that none was available for the prosecution of real duty. Yet if deliverance was to come by the law, the most trivial details of action had to be tried; but here, as elsewhere, by the law was only the knowledge of sin, and that not as an offence against an infinitely Holy One, but only as a misfortune, or at worst an imprudence, a stumbling-block placed by man himself in the way of advancing his interest.

At the close of the rainy season, when the brethren were making ready for their wanderings, another solemn conference for self-purgation was held. In this exercise of the Pâvârana or Invitation no one known to be under the burden of scandal could take part, but all who were consciously clean, from the oldest to the youngest, invited the brethren to name any offence which during their common retreat they might have noted in their conduct. “I invite, venerable ones, the Order; if ye have seen anything offensive on my part, or have heard anything, or have any suspicion about me, have pity upon me, and name it. If I see it, I will make amends.”[297] It may be asked whether such an institution as this could ever have flourished in Christendom, although the purest of our Churches might adopt it with profit. These Buddhist brethren could not pray the one for the other, but they could confess their faults one to another by a simpler and more effective method than has ever been attempted by the confessional. That institution in Christendom has tended more to corrupt and degrade than to purify and elevate society, for it has interfered with the divinely instituted and much more ancient confessional of home. In its secrecy, sealed by affection to father or mother, or brother or sister, can be told out the things that burn within; and no priest or ecclesiastic can usurp this parental or brotherly function without injuring what they must earnestly desire to protect. This confessional, however, of the one to the whole little brotherhood, making them watch for and consider one another, must have tended to mutual edification. It seems of all the observances of the Sangha to have most nearly realised one great purpose of the Church, that of being helpful to each other’s salvation. St. Paul and St. James would have felt at home in such a conference. They would probably have warned the brethren against judging one another, and they would have instructed them that only One whose knowledge is perfect, because His love is infinite, could try the lives of men; but they would have commended them for this honest endeavour to fulfil one of the precepts of the perfect law of liberty: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

The part played by woman in the early history of Buddhism was analogous to that assumed by woman in relation to primitive Christianity. Women were among the most zealous supporters of Buddha, ministering to him of their substance. Subsequently, as in the case of the Christian Church, the largest proportion of the wealth which was lavished in such marvellous munificence upon the Order came from female votaries. Evidently in those days in India the position of woman was not so degraded and helpless as it afterwards became. Women in old Indian literature are seen to be much more on an equality with men; they are not only represented as receiving scholastic instruction, but even to them as authoresses some of the Vedic hymns were ascribed.[298] At any rate, women appear in almost every Buddhist episode, and they move about with a freedom which contrasts strangely with the seclusion and restraint in which in India they have lived for ages. In the character of Buddha there seems to have been much that was peculiarly attractive to the best type of women, and at least one of these stands forth with very clearly marked individuality.[299] His mother is only a shadow in the legends, and we can only conjecture what the parent of so good and gentle a man must have been. But his wife confronts us with so much that is womanly in the picture that we feel she must have been drawn from life. Very pathetic and tender is the graphic account of her first interview with him, upon his return as the illustrious Buddha to his father’s house.[300] When all came to do him honour, Yasodhara did not come, for she said, “If I am of any value in his eyes, he will come himself, and I can welcome him better here.” Buddha, noting her absence, went attended by two of his disciples to the place where she was, and he warned his companions not to prevent her should she seek to embrace him, although no member of the Order could touch or be touched by a woman. And when she saw him, a mendicant in yellow robes, with shaven head and face—though she knew it would be so—she could not contain herself, but fell at his feet, which she held, passionately weeping. Then remembering the great and impassable gulf which he had fixed between them, she rose and stood at his side. His father sought to apologise for her, telling how in the greatness of her love she mourned and afflicted her soul for loss of him, and refused to be comforted. She became his disciple; and when afterwards, much against his inclination, he admitted women into a separate branch of the Order, the poor wife, whom he had not only widowed, but had bereft of her only child, “passed into the silent life,” as one of the first of Buddhist nuns.

All candid readers of the early Buddhist scriptures will admit that Buddha must not only have been gentle in disposition but pure in character. From male and female disciples alike he demanded chastity, in the Christian conception of the virtue. In the reported discourses of Buddha there is the same absence of direct denunciation of the vices that corrupt society which is observable in the Gospels; but the impression made by the reading of both narratives, is that of characters so far removed from such vices, that people in their presence or under their influence could not even think of them. In both narratives we have presentations of “women who were sinners” in relation to Buddha and Christ, but it will be confessed that the effect produced upon us is very different in each case. The Indian episodes lack the stirrings of the depths of spiritual feeling, the creative word of command exorcising the lust, and unsealing the long congealed fountains of penitence, which confront us so prominently in the scenes of the gospel. Buddha was a pure man, demanding purity from all who would be saved, but demanding it only as moralists have demanded it all along. There did not radiate from him that blending of horror of sin and of pity for sinners which makes the influence of Christ upon the wickedness and infirmities of men to be unique in its regenerative power. Had Christ insisted upon purity just as Buddha did, the world would have profited little by the teaching. Unquestionably the mission of Buddha, though intended to make for chastity, has not purified Eastern Asia from the gross and unnatural vices to which all along it has been prone.

For Buddha’s conception and estimate of woman was very inferior to that of Christ.[301] She was regarded by him through the medium of the traditional prejudice of her inferiority to man in every respect. To him, as to Plato, women, of all snares which the tempter spreads for man, were the most dangerous. Not only was the very smallest love for them to be destroyed, but they were to be avoided, not to be spoken to, not looked upon,[302] not to be helped even when in distress. Of their future as women in the life hereafter he had no hope,[303] and the only reward which he could hold out to them for obedience or benevolent service, the very highest object of aspiration which he could present, was that they might be re-born as men in another stage of existence. His disciple Ananda did good service when he wrung from him permission to form the order of Nuns,[304] for a nun might hope for salvation; but alas for woman and for the progress of society if she had no other gospel to trust in than that which Buddha preached!

His ideal of purity was from the first vitiated by his celibate views of life, and from these views human nature has always revolted in proportion to the honesty with which men have striven to realise them. Celibacy, when dominant or prevalent, has only produced a more vicious and unnatural condition of society than that from which it attempted to escape. The Son of Man represented nobler traditions, and taught far sublimer doctrine. Woman, though different from, and in some respects weaker, is in others higher and purer than man, and altogether his consort. The pure love of the man for the woman was recognised by Christ as one of the most sanctifying influences in life; and marriage, the most sacred of all Divine institutions, as the bond which more than any other keeps society together, obtained His special benediction, and was committed by Him to His Church to guard as the palladium of social freedom and dignity. Notwithstanding its many defections, the Church has never been permitted to lose sight of the Lord’s ideal. Even in the days of corrupted faith, when its laudation of virginity was most extravagant, its unmistakable tendency was to acknowledge the true dignity of the wife.[305] A recent writer professes to be unable “to see that Christianity has had any favourable effect on the position of women—on the contrary, it tended rather to lower their character and contract the range of their activities.”[306] It is noticeable that his facts or quotations are drawn from a period when asceticism had deeply tainted the Church, and that they cannot be held to represent the tendency of the teaching of Christ. The unmistakable influence of His religion has been to ennoble family relations, and to secure woman in her true position as the companion and helpmeet of man. It has been stated by one who cannot be regarded as a special pleader, that what most differentiates the European from the Hindu branch of the Aryan race, is that the first has steadily carried forward, for the elevation of woman, the series of reforms[307] from which the other, though going a little way, recoiled. No one need fear to assert that the chief factor in these reforms, sometimes carried against the resistance and opposition of the Church, was the spirit of Christianity. In proportion as the example of Christ has been honoured, and His teaching has been accepted and obeyed, the emancipation of woman and the recognition of her real rights have been secured. In any case it is certain that the religion of Buddha, though probably not intended to perpetuate the inferior position characteristic of woman in the East, has succeeded neither in lifting her out of it, nor in preventing her from lapsing more deeply into it.

The time for discovering the worth of woman had not come in Buddha’s age, and we must remember his antecedents and surroundings before we condemn his estimate of or his relations to her. If the tradition be reliable, he prophesied, upon yielding to Ananda’s intercession, that because of women holy living would not long be preserved. They would prove in the fair field of his Order what “the disease of mildew proved to be in a field of rice.”[308] So though he admitted them to a separate branch of the Order, he placed them under very stringent regulations, and thoroughly under the tutelage of the monks. “A nun, though admitted a nun a hundred years ago, must bow reverentially before a monk, though only admitted to-day.” She must not pass the rainy season in a district in which monks were not residing; she must report herself twice a month to the Sangha for confession and instruction; she must give the Pavâranâ invitation, and she must, if guilty of offence, atone for it before both monks and nuns. She could only be admitted after a two years’ novitiate; under no circumstances must she revile or rebuke a monk; yea, on no occasion whatever must she charge him with any offence.[309] Between them and the superior sex the strictest separation was maintained from the first. The brother who was to teach and exhort them was never allowed to enter their nunnery, unless a sister was very ill. For a monk to journey alone with a nun, to cross a river in the same boat with one, to sit alone with a nun, with or without witnesses, was a very grave offence.[310] In short, in the Buddhist Sangha women were only tolerated at the best, and they were very severely guarded and restrained, as creatures not at all calculated to influence any one for good, and who could only be prevented or tamed from doing mischief or harm.[311]

The Sangha, as a brotherhood and sisterhood leading a celibate life, coupled with abstinence from labour and from active services of charity, was simply vicious in its tendency, and it proved one of the most obstinate hindrances to the realisation of Buddha’s best ideas, and one of the most powerful factors in the degradation of his religion. Human nature was too strong to submit to such artificial restrictions; so very early there gathered around him and his monks many who would not abandon their families and their callings, though they took refuge in Buddha, and proved the reality of their devotion by faithful service of the Order and practice of the Law. These were the votaries, “upasaka” (masc.), “upasika” (fem.), corresponding with the lay associates of the great Mendicant Orders of Christendom. Converted to the observance of the precepts, they could only, as long as they continued in the world, be sustained by a very faint and far-off hope of deliverance. Theoretically they might attain to sainthood, and from “this shore” of common life, in most exceptional cases they might “pass across the dominion of death,” and reach to the other shore.[312] The father of Buddha is said to have done so on his deathbed, and another is recorded in the legends as having gained Nirvana.[313] As a rule, however, it was reckoned impossible for them to gain what was considered as so barely possible for the Order of Mendicants, that only one or two even of them did actually gain it here. Pious votaries, however, could hope for a happy re-birth, and for strength of merit to be acquired; in some hereafter sufficient to enable them eventually to pluck the fruit of Nirvana. For such lay associates no ceremony of initiation was required; only in presence of a monk the candidates made profession that they took refuge in Buddha and Dharma and Sangha. They had to observe certain precepts and prohibitions; had to renounce any trade involving the making or selling of arms, or the killing of animals; they had to abstain from all traffic in and use of intoxicating drinks, and to put far away from them all falsehood, and theft, and unchastity. To seal this, however, no formal vow was demanded of the votary, and to maintain them in their obedience no pastoral supervision was accorded. When they transgressed, even in the matter of scandalous living, there was neither censure nor discipline, and when they offended by injuring the Order or insulting one of its members, the only penalty inflicted was the refusal of their invitations to dine, and the withdrawal from them of the alms-bowl.[314] Into the Uposatha assemblies they dared not intrude, and from the very slightest share of the business of the Order they were strictly excluded.[315] They could only listen to the preaching of the monks, whom they could feed, and lodge, and endow with houses and lands; and all the reward they could hope for, was the prospect of acquiring in some future life merit sufficient to enable them to renounce the world and become mendicants like them. For the present they were not inside, but only about, the circle of the Sakkya-putta-Samanas; he was not a member of the family, but only a servitor and a slave.[316] The elect, the disciples in deed and in truth, the heirs of salvation, were exclusively the monks; and the Upâsaka at the best was one for whom it was good “continuously to dispense rice milk, and honey lumps, if he had a longing for joy, whether he desired heavenly joy or coveted only human prosperity,”[317] His merit was most likely to be acquired by being useful to the good, who served him by accepting his offerings,[318] and taught him—though to a purpose undreamed of by St. Paul when he quoted his Saviour’s saying—that in his case, at least, it was “more blessed to give than to receive.”

It is to the lasting honour of Buddha that he converted the Sangha into a propaganda for preaching to all his way of salvation. He did not, for he could not, conceive of that better society which our Lord has created in the Holy Catholic Church. It is true, alas! that the actual or visible Church has often caricatured, and has never yet properly represented, its Lord’s ideal; but it has never been permitted wholly to lose sight of that Kingdom whose citizenship is free to all who believe and repent, and of that royal priesthood of which all are members who trust in the one sacrifice and prevailing intercession of the Great High Priest of our profession. If the visible Church has failed to convert, or even to attract, the members of the Buddhist Sanghas, it is because of something wrong in its methods, or false in its presentation; for notwithstanding its failure, it possesses in the great gospel of the Divine Fatherhood intrusted to its keeping, potentialities for gathering all mankind into the only brotherhood which will satisfy their heaven-born aspirations. The manifestation of it may still be a far-off Divine event, and to bring it about God may employ many agencies other than those which the Church as at present organised may be willing to recognise or to use; but once that holy brotherhood is manifested, He alone will be found at the head of it, who on His way to His agony, and to the cross on which He was to reveal to the uttermost the love of the Creator for the human race, paused by the brook Kedron, and made this supplication mingle with the ripple of its waters and the whispers of the olives of Gethsemane, “I pray ... that they all may be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us.”

Footnote 244:

_Sangha_, originally an assembly (of disciples gathered around a Hindu
sage). In Buddhism, the entire fraternity (like the Order of Francis
or Dominic).—Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 176.

Footnote 245:

Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 275.

Footnote 246:

Kullavagga, vi. 2, 3, 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx..

Footnote 247:

Weber, _Indian Literature_, p. 306.

Footnote 248:

Dhammapadda, 141; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.;
Pâtimokkha Sekhiyá Dhammâ, 1, 2, 3, 4; _ibid._ vol. xiii. p. 59.

Footnote 249:

Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, iii. 65; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.

Footnote 250:

Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, p. 279.

Footnote 251:

Mahavagga, i. 11; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.

Footnote 252:

_Ibid._ i. 12; _ibid._ vol. xiii.

Footnote 253:

_Ibid._ viii. 27. 5; _ibid._ vol. xvii.; Kullavagga, vi. 1. 3; _ibid._
vi. 9. 2; _ibid._ vol. xx.

Footnote 254:

Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 251 _seq._ The doctrine that it bore
nobler fruit is expressly contradicted by some. See Âpastamba, pres.
ii. pat. ix. khan. 23; also pres. ii. pat. ix. k. 24. 15; _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. ii. pp. 156, 159.

Footnote 255:

The way of “Works”—ceremonial and sacrificial religion; the way of
“Faith”—devotion (heart) to the deities without works; the way of
“Knowledge,” or true enlightenment.—Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_,
p. 95.

Footnote 256:

Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha, etc._, p. 152.

Footnote 257:

Not without protest, however, by fathers and doctors of the Church.
See Hermas, _Simil._ v.; Clem. _Strom._ iii.; Tertullian, _De
Jejunio_, p. 123 _seq._; _De Pallio_, p. 181 _seq._

Footnote 258:

Gieseler, _Eccles. Hist._ vol. i. pp. 289 _seq._; Neander’s _Church
Hist._ vol. iii. pp. 305 _seq._

Footnote 259:

Hom. on St. Matth. 69, 70.

Footnote 260:

Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, vol. i. p. 319; Neander’s _Church
History_, vol. iii. pp. 338, 339.

Footnote 261:

Cassian, _Collationes_, ii. 5-8; _De Instit. Monachi_, x.; _De
capitalibus vitiis_, quoted by Farrar, _Lives of the Fathers_, vol.
ii. p. 224; Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, ii. 510.

Footnote 262:

_Monks of the West_, vol. i. p. 27.

Footnote 263:

Sutta Nipâta, 75-81; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. p. ii.

Footnote 264:

Theod. _Eccles. Hist._ lib. iv. cap. 26.

Footnote 265:

“They prayed for the whole world.”—Chrysost. H. 78, _In Johannem_.

Footnote 266:

Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 317, 318.

Footnote 267:

Mahavagga, viii. 15; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xvii.

Footnote 268:

“I am not aware of any instances in which the pariah of the age is
mentioned as a member of the Order.” “According to Buddhist dogmatics,
a good Sudra or Vaisya could only hope to be re-born as a Kshatrya,
and this clearly indicates that the distinctions of castes had by no
means vanished or become worthless in Buddha’s consciousness”
(_Buddha, etc._, p. 156).

Footnote 269:

Mahavagga, i. 39. 76; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.

Footnote 270:

Christianity does not, as Goethe averred, “prefer what is despised and
feeble,” but as in God’s eyes nothing is despised and abject, so, in
fellowship with the Father, Christ cherished the maimed and lame and
blind, though hated of the soul of the natural man, and this
disposition will ever be a “mark” or “note” of the true Church of
Christ.

Footnote 271:

Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 284; Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures,
1881, p. 155.

Footnote 272:

Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 181, 182.

Footnote 273:

_The Scotsman_, August 17th, 1889.

Footnote 274:

E. Burnouf, _Science des Religions_, p. 94.

Footnote 275:

Mahavagga, i. 49. 6.

Footnote 276:

_Ibid._ i. 54. 5; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.

Footnote 277:

Mahavagga, i. 7. 10-15; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.

Footnote 278:

Mahavagga, i. 29.

Footnote 279:

_Ibid._ i. 76. 1-10.

Footnote 280:

_Buddhism_, p. 80; Dr. Rhys Davids states that a new or cloister name
was given on admission, in exchange for the family one (Hibbert
Lectures, p. 39), but Professor Oldenberg alleges that this is
supported only by solitary cases (_Buddha, etc._, p. 353 note).

Footnote 281:

Mahavagga, i. 30. 1-4; also _ibid._ vi. 14. 6; and Kullavagga, vi.
1-2.

Footnote 282:

Mahavagga, i. 78. 1-5.

Footnote 283:

Mahavagga, i. 79. 1-3.

Footnote 284:

Mahavagga, i. 25. 1-24, for the duties of novice to his Upagghâya;
_ibid._ i. 32, Kullavagga, viii. 13, 14, for his duties to his
Âkariya. The duties to both are the same, but the Upagghâya seems to
have been the more important of the two tutors.

Footnote 285:

Dr. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 169.

Footnote 286:

Dhammapada, 200; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.

Footnote 287:

Pâtimokkha; Pakittiyá Dhammâ, 10; said to be because he might kill or
harm some living creature.

Footnote 288:

Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_, p. 95.

Footnote 289:

Kullavagga, v. vi. viii. _passim_; Mahavagga, i. 25. 15.

Footnote 290:

Dhammapada, 141, 142; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.

Footnote 291:

Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_, pp. 95, 96.

Footnote 292:

Mahavagga, i. 31. 4.

Footnote 293:

Introduction to Dhammapada, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. p.
xliv: a long list quoted from the _Northern Scripture_ by Dr. Edkins
in _Chinese Buddhism_.

Footnote 294:

The question was thrice put, “Are ye pure?” Mahavagga, ii. 1-36.

Footnote 295:

See for a specimen the Kullavaga, v. 21; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xx.

Footnote 296:

Bishop of Colombo, in _Nineteenth Century_, July 1888.

Footnote 297:

Mahavagga, iv. 1. 18; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.

Footnote 298:

Weber, _Indische Studien_, x. 118; Metrical translations by Dr. John
Muir, p. 250, where Professor Eggeling is quoted.

Footnote 299:

Mahâ-pagâpati the Gotami, his aunt and nurse (Kullavaga, x. 1) whose
entreaty, through Ananda, led him to found the Order of Bikkhuni,
seems more than a name. Visâkhâ, “the rich and bountiful,” is another
type of votary (Mahavagga, viii. 15).

Footnote 300:

_Buddhist Jataka Stories_, translated by Rhys Davids, pp. 87, 90;
Bigandet, _Life of Gaudama_, old ed., pp. 156, 168.

Footnote 301:

Dhammapada, 284; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.

Footnote 302:

Book of the Great Decease, v. 23; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.

Footnote 303:

Eitel, _Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 10.

Footnote 304:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 3, 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.

Footnote 305:

Clement of Alexandria gives prominence to the value of marriage and of
the family life, _Strom._ vii., _Paedag._ iii. So Tertullian, _Ad
Uxorem_, ii. c. 8.

Footnote 306:

Principal Donaldson, _Contemporary Review_, Sept. 1889.

Footnote 307:

Sir Henry S. Maine, _Early History of Institutions_, p. 341.

Footnote 308:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 6.

Footnote 309:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 27.

Footnote 310:

Pâtimokkha; Pakittiyâ Dhammâ, 6, 7, 27, 66, 67.

Footnote 311:

“You are not, O monks, to bow down before women, to rise up in their
presence, to stretch out your joined hands towards them, nor to
perform towards them those duties that are proper to them (from an
inferior to a superior).”—Kullavagga, x. 3. 1. “Giving honour unto the
wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the
grace of God.”—1 Peter iii. 1-7.

Footnote 312:

Dhammapada, 85, 86; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.

Footnote 313:

T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 125; Spence Hardy,
_Eastern Monachism_, p. 199.

Footnote 314:

The bowl was “turned down” in relation to him, and his house became an
unlawful resort.—Kullavagga, v. 20. 3; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xx.

Footnote 315:

Sir Monier Williams states that though votaries did not confess to
monks, the four days were observed by them.—_Buddhism_, p. 84.

Footnote 316:

Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 162 note.

Footnote 317:

Mahavagga, vi. 24. 1-6.

Footnote 318:

Kullavagga, vi. 1-5; _ibid._ vi. 4. 10.

LECTURE VI.
THE TWO RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.

I.—External Diffusion.

In His apostles, and the disciples who gathered round them, endowed with the memory of His words and deeds, two simple sacraments, and a promise that He would be with them to the end of the æon, while they fulfilled His commission to evangelise and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the continuance of the Church which our Lord had founded was secured. Buddha left behind him neither sacrament to signify and seal the benefits which he had conferred, nor any promise of personal fellowship with or interest in his followers; but he was survived by the Monastic Order which he had founded, by a law containing the essentials of his system, and a form of discipline containing the customs to be observed in their assemblies, and the rules to which all the brethren were to be subject. Though the personal guide to Nirvana was lost to them, they still in the law possessed his way to it, and by observing the law, and following his way, they would fulfil his last stirring exhortation,[319] “Be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves, O monks.”

So much importance being attached to the law, his disciples, immediately after his decease, according to the tradition, set about collecting the materials of it, in his remembered discourses, decisions, and in all that he said; and this labour of recalling, determining, and perpetuating his teaching seems to have occupied them for several generations. There is no trace of any corresponding anxiety on the part of the Christian Church to collect the words of the Lord Jesus. The Gospels are not the earliest of our scriptures, and they were produced more for the edification of Jewish and Gentile converts, than to secure for the Church a standard of belief and of discipline. The function of the Church was not so much to recall and perpetuate the teaching of its Lord as to interpret the significance of His life, and death, and resurrection. No written or remembered instructions were required, for the apostles believed that they had Himself to tell them on every occasion what they should do and teach. From the very first they prayed to Him in full assurance that He heard and answered them. They believed that He had shown Himself to some of them, and that He was witnessed for in all of them by a new possession. The Gentile world had been familiar with the μανία of the medium through whom a Divine oracle was supposed to be given, and with the _rabies_ of the howling priests of the goddess Cybele, but the Christians professed to be inspired by the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. In some instances this inspiration manifested itself in extravagant forms and in mysterious utterances,[320] but those who were most under its control had complete possession of themselves; their speech was intelligible, and sober, and most convincing, making “manifest the secrets of the heart.”

Unquestionably this belief in the presence of Christ in the Spirit—whether truly founded or not—was universal in the Church. All the utterances of primitive Christianity, the scriptures of its apostles, the treatises of its fathers and doctors, and all the monuments of the first ages, bear witness not to a Christ who once lived and had died, but who was living triumphant and glorified, reigning for them, and in them to reign. Unquestionably also in this belief was the hiding of that power which enabled the Church to confront the whole world, endure the full weight of its persecutions, and finally win the victory over it. It also explains the appearance in the Church, from the first, of that succession of persons who, because of their strongly marked individualities, gave both direction and impetus to its progress. Buddhism, though both its southern and northern scriptures record a patriarchal succession, and though probably not deficient in highly cultured disciples, seems to have lacked from the very first men who had genius to organise or intellect to command its forces. Its own early writings disclose a movement which very speedily congealed, because ruled only by a remembered law, interpreted by very adulterated traditions. Christianity represents quite a different movement; it was not the perpetuation of a system, but the development of a new inspiration, of a life manifested in Christ and communicated to all who believed on Him. Consequently it never was without its heroes, whom it had the power to produce; and consequently also it never could stiffen into a tradition, for where its leaders attempted to fix it, in either confession or in ritual, it was sure to evade them. It has been appropriately described as “the most changeable of religions,”[321]—mutable in its forms, immutable in its essence. For Christianity is not a system either of philosophy or theology; it is a perpetually reforming spirit, fed by faith in One who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

Both religions entered the world as missionaries bent upon its conversion, and though Buddhism was afterwards to eclipse Christianity in the superficial extent of its conquests, the annals of the primitive Church record a much more rapid extension. The early development of Christianity, even taking into account the circumstances which helped or facilitated its progress, remains one of the marvels of history. In the New Testament the Church is seen to have gained a footing almost wherever the waves of the Diaspora had reached. St. Paul found Christians not only in Rome, but in little Puteoli, and his letters imply that there were churches in Spain and in southern Gaul. St. Peter wrote from Babylon to a wide circle of Christian communities gathered out of the regions of Asia Minor.[322] There seem to have been even then churches in most of the chief cities, and in a multitude of minor towns all over the Empire; and there is no reason to distrust the tradition, that before the last of the apostles fell asleep, the gospel had called multitudes living far beyond the bounds of the Empire to make good their citizenship in the kingdom of God.

The churches may have been small in respect of membership, for the rapid diffusion of Christianity by no means involved the conversion _en masse_ of the people. Facts will hardly bear out the glowing testimony of Gregory Thaumaturgus, who found in the populous metropolis of a large province only seventeen Christians, and in twenty-five years reported that he could find only seventeen heathens.[323] With Gibbon we may have to discount as “splendid exaggeration” the testimony of Tertullian, “Hesterni sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus.” Still the direct testimony of Tacitus as to the multitude of Christians in Rome, the evidence of the Catacombs, and many other indications, point to the conclusion that the rapid numerical increase of Christians was as singular as was the territorial diffusion of their religion. The whole Empire must have been sensibly leavened, and the converts must for long have been gathered from other than the lower classes of society, before the conversion of Constantine became possible. Emperors—even Roman ones—follow in such matters, and do not lead their subjects; and so we may be sure what had at first been glad tidings to the slaves and the poor must for some time have become the consolation of many a noble Pudens and Linus, and of many a Claudia of royal descent, before it could be recognised as the religion of the State.[324]

Many circumstances undoubtedly contributed to this result. A consolidated empire, with nearly all the representative nations fused into a union, comprising all the existing elements of culture and forces of civilisation; the great Roman highways, with means of easy communication so abundant as to be surprising to us; the widespread understanding of the two leading languages, making virtually of one speech a great section of the most important part of the world; the innumerable communities of Jews, everywhere tolerated, and “cutting channels through the adamantine mass of heathen society,”[325] immensely aided the missionary activities of the apostles and their followers. Moreover, the moral and religious condition of the Empire, the bankruptcy of the old faith, the despair and confusion and perplexity of people, everywhere seeking mightier or better deities than they knew, everywhere trembling “between the two immensities of terror,” rendered possible the victory of Christianity. Multitudes were thus prepared to welcome a Deliverer who had come in the name, not of Jupiter Maximus Tonans, but of the Father in heaven, to give peace in this world’s tribulations, and sure hope of joy in the world beyond it.[326] And yet all this, even when added to Gibbon’s five causes, will not account for the historical puzzle, that a faith, originating in a manger in a Syrian cattle-shed, brooded over for thirty years of a life of poverty and toil, preached for three, with the result of being almost universally rejected, and quenched to all appearance in the blood of crucifixion, should immediately after the death of its Founder have broken out all over the Roman world. Converting its agents from farms, and harbours, and prisons, it called them to martyrdom; for it sent them—poor “weavers, and shoe-makers, and fullers, and illiterate clowns”—to proclaim “barbarous dogmas,” and “extravagant hopes,” “universally detested” by Jew and Gentile, and to bear the full weight of a prolonged series of persecutions involving indescribable tortures and disgrace.[327] Yet somehow it never paused for a moment, never abated one iota of its claim, till in the course of a few generations it was found upon the throne. We never will explain this wonder by showing how, as a system of ethics, or as a new theory of life, it found the condition of the world favourable to its reception. The correlation of the state of the world to the new faith has been claimed as providential,—an indication of a Divine purpose making all things work together, for this manifestation of a new power or principle of life in society, which as yet has had no historical counterpart.[328]

The early scriptures of Buddhism, though preserving a tradition that in twelve years from the time in which the doctrine was first preached it had spread over sixteen kingdoms, disclose no such rapidity of diffusion. The kingdoms referred to are not to be regarded as kingdoms in our sense of the word, for in extent and influence they would not equal a German principality, and were probably only tribal communities. After the death of Buddha the many Sanghas that had arisen seem to have suffered for lack of a central governing power. If his Order is to be called a Church, it had manifestly no church-government. It had synods, and assemblies, and councils, but not one with the authority of an Œcumenical as representative of the whole. It was more Congregational than Presbyterian in its constitution, and for this very reason it was weak when compared with the compact organisation of Brahmanism, with which it competed for supremacy. Disorder and dissension are traceable in it from the first, and the early texts, though containing many admonitions against schism, warnings that offences must come, and woes upon those who would cause them, record no practical steps to prevent or remedy them.[329] Vigorous expansion was consequently not to be looked for, and for two centuries we may safely infer that Buddhism represented only a struggling sect, which, beyond the limits in which it was first preached, had made little, if indeed any, progress.

At the close of this period, when its literature was reaching a canonical form, and its manuals of discipline and common order were generally in use, it found its Constantine in the conqueror Chandragupta. In opposition to the Brahmans, who despised him for his low-caste origin, he seems to have lifted it from obscurity into the sunshine of really imperial favour. His grandson Asoka, who consolidated his conquests, proved its Theodosius, in not only greatly endowing it, but in establishing its supremacy. There were no quarrels between him and the Sanghas as to their independence, as afterwards between the Emperors and the Popes, for, like a true son of the Church, he acknowledged their authority. By obeying in appearance, he in reality became, what Buddhism since the death of its founder sorely needed, the head of the system, and under his wise and energetic rule, the religion emerged into a vigour which it was to maintain for centuries.

An earnest Buddhist, he seems to have been something better. He called himself Pryadarsi,[330] the “beloved of the gods,” and a Daniel indeed he appears to have been, raised up for the blessing of millions. His edicts—stone inscriptions found all over India—the first written testimonies which Buddhism left of itself,[331] all breathe a lofty spirit of righteousness and kindness and toleration, appealing to both Brahman and Buddhist, and commending themselves at this day, “to Jew and Christian and Moslem alike, as part of the universal religion of humanity.”[332] One of them refers to a council which he assembled at Patna, for the pacification and reformation of the Order. During its session the ancient collections of rules and dogmas were rehearsed, and as the list is considerably shorter than the contents of the Tripitaka, we may be sure that the Southern tradition that Buddha himself was the author of all the books comprising that collection has no foundation in fact.[333] A far more momentous act of this ancient council than the recension of the canon, was that of establishing the first great Buddhist missions. To a revived and reformed Order the suggestion of the pious king, that they should go forth and fulfil their great teacher’s original commission, was welcome. Their dissensions, as has often happened in Christendom, were due to their living to themselves. An army inactive in quarters, is more likely to quarrel or mutiny than one in service in the field. These good Buddhists wisely determined to carry the war of deliverance beyond them, and so into the Punjab, Kashmir, the Central Himalayan regions, over into the Malay Peninsula, went the missionaries, armed only with the words of the Law or the legends which had been floating round the memory of their master, and supported only by the offerings put into their alms-dish, to gain whatever victories they could in the fair conflict of reason with reason.[334]

In India they would of course be supported by imperial influence, and indeed the mission to Ceylon, headed by Mahinda, the son of Asoka, seems to have been accredited by royal embassy; but nowhere was Buddhism propagated as Islam subsequently was by Mohammed, or as Christianity was by Charlemagne, with an army at its back. Races ever ready to credit the supernatural would probably be more easily won by the wonders which were then being formulated in reference to Buddha; but whatever be the explanation of it, the success of these missionaries anticipated that of the apostles. In Ceylon there was founded a Sangha, which was destined to nurse and preserve the original creed in somewhat of its purity, when all the others betrayed and corrupted it. Surviving several changes of dynasty, that Sangha, 330 years after Buddha’s decease, is said to have reduced its canon to writing. The result has been somewhat contradictory to the theory, that it matters very little whether a canon be oral or written, for Southern Buddhism, having an authority to which it was thus earlier anchored, has held more closely to the original system, from which, having no such check for long, every section of Northern Buddhism has irrecoverably fallen away.