Chapter C: Heavens of formless entities (10)

The real use of bells in Burmese temples is to draw the attention of the deities and spirits (Naths) to the act of worship, and so secure the due registering of prayer-merit. When a man has finished his repetitions, he strikes the bell with a piece of wood or other sacred implement lying near, and the more noise he makes the better. Mr. Scott informs us that every large pagoda has dozens of bells of all sizes, hanging outside, and one or two inside the central shrine. They are constantly dedicated by religious people, and thus multiplied _ad infinitum_.

The form of dedication is inscribed on every bell, and is in the Pāli language, though instances of the vernacular occur.

The following is a portion of a remarkable inscription in the vernacular (Shway Yoe, i. 243, abridged):—

This bell was moulded with great care and much expense, and is humbly
offered by Moung San Yah and his wife, who seek refuge in the
boundless mercy of the pitiful Buddha, in the majesty of the eternal
law, and in the examples of the venerable assembly. They humbly strive
to gain merit for themselves. May the good Naths look smilingly on
them. May the Naths who dwell in the air and the earth defend their
two fat bullocks—which plough the fields—from evil creatures. May the
guardian Naths of the house and of the city keep Chit Oo, their son,
and little Mah Mee, their darling daughter, from harm.

The weight of the bell is generally added to the dedication.

There is a fine Burmese bell in the Indian section of the South Kensington Museum. It has a long Pāli inscription, a portion of the translation of which I here give:—

‘Without charity you cannot attain to Nirvāṇa’—so it is written in the
Pāli Texts.

I, the giver of this bell, was staying in the sweet-smelling town of
Ma-oo—of which I collect the taxes for the king—and with me was my
wife—my life’s breath—like to the pollen of a lily, from whom I will
not be separated in all the existences which are to come, and out of
which we hope soon to escape. We adore Buddha, that we may embark in
the golden raft of the Noble Path, which will lead us to the final
plunge into Nirvāṇa. We two, brother and sister (that is, husband and
wife), have given this bell as an offering. The exact weight of the
bell is 2500 kyats. We took our own weight in gold and silver and
bright copper and other metal, and mixed them well together, in the
year 1209 (1847 A.D.).

Now I will record all the alms I gave and what I erected within the
sacred enclosure. I gave a sacred flag-staff (see p. 380 of these
Lectures), the price of which, with all expenses in putting up, was
500 rupees. At the foot of it I built four small pagodas. Outside I
built a monastery and a rest-house. Such are all the offerings. May I
be freed from the Four states of Punishment, from the Three Great
Calamities (war, famine, and plague), from the Eight Evil Places, from
the Five Enemies, from unfortunate times and seasons, and from bad
people. May I escape all these when I die.

All the merits I have gained, may they be shared with my parents,
teachers, and all my relations; with kings, queens, nobles, and all
people in the thirty-one places of habitation throughout the universe.
(See p. 121 of these Lectures.)

Under the head of miscellaneous objects, we may note the seven precious minerals or substances to which allusion has frequently been made. They are gold, silver, pearl, sapphire or ruby, cat’s eye, diamond, and coral (Childers); but they vary, and some authorities substitute lapis lazuli for pearl. In Hindūism there are nine precious substances (nava-ratna).

We may also enumerate here the seven treasures belonging to every universal monarch. These are:—1. a wheel which, being set in motion by the monarch, rolls before him to establish the Law in his dominions; 2. an elephant; 3. a flying horse (see p. 523); 4. a jewel which on the darkest night illuminates the earth for seven miles round (p. 381); 5. a good queen or wife; 6. a good minister or servant, who has the power of discovering hidden treasures; 7. a good general (compare Alabaster’s ‘Wheel of the Law,’ p. 81).

_Supplementary Remarks on the Connexion of Buddhism with Jainism[276]._

Having during the progress of the foregoing Lectures, incidentally mentioned the subject of Jainism, I ought not to conclude them without explaining some of the chief points of difference between the system of the Jainas (conveniently contracted into Jains) and that of the Buddhists. The Jains in India, according to their own reckoning, number 1,222,000; but this is incorrect, for by the last Census they only number half a million. A great authority (Sir William Wilson Hunter) confirms this. (See his ‘Gazetteer’ and ‘Indian Empire.’)

Most scholars in the present day are of opinion that the Jaina Teacher Vardhamāna Mahā-vīra (Nātaputta) and Gautama Buddha were contemporaries, and that Jains were an independent sceptical sect, probably a little antecedent to the Buddhists, and were their rivals. At any rate it seems certain that the Nigaṇṭhas[277] or Dig-ambara Jains, that is, a sect of naked ascetics, existed before the Buddha’s time, and that the Tripiṭaka alludes to them.

Probably Vardhamāna Mahā-vīra (usually called Mahā-vīra) was merely a reformer of a system previously founded by a teacher named Pārṡva-nātha. Not much is known of the latter, though he is greatly honoured by the Jains. His images are ‘serpent-canopied’ like those of Buddha (p. 480). His pupils are called Pāsāvaććijja (for Pārṡvāpatyīya, ‘belonging to the descendants of Pārṡva’). They were only bound by four vows, whereas Mahā-vīra’s teaching imposed five vows.

We have seen that Gautama Buddha, in the fifth century B.C., came to the conclusion that bodily austerities were useless as a means of obtaining liberation. His main idea seems to have been that liberation from the painful cycle of continued re-births, that is, from Saṃsāra, was to be obtained by means of knowledge (Bodhi), evolved out of the inner consciousness through meditation (dhyāna) and intuition; whereas, in contradistinction to this Buddhist idea, the main idea of the Jain teacher Mahā-vīra seems to have been that liberation was to be obtained through subjugation of the passions and through mortification of the body (tapas). The term Jina, ‘conqueror,’ is used in both systems, but Gautama Buddha was a Jina or conqueror through profound abstract meditation, whereas Mahā-vīra was a Jina through severe bodily austerity.

In fact, the Jains, like all other ascetics, were impressed with the idea that it was necessary to maintain a defensive warfare against the assault of evil passions, by keeping under the body and subduing it. They had also a notion that a sense of shame implied sin, so that if there were no sin in the world there would be no shame. Hence they argued rather illogically that to get rid of clothes was to get rid of sin; and every ascetic who aimed at sinlessness was enjoined to walk about naked, with the air or sky (Dig) as his sole covering (Dig-ambara).

In the Kalpa-sūtra of the Jains we read that Mahā-vīra himself began his career by wearing clothes for one year and one month, and after that he walked about naked. Now Gautama Buddha was an opponent of Jain asceticism, and it seems to me probable that one of the chief points on which he laid stress was that of decent clothing. In the Dhamma-pada (141) occurs the sentiment that ‘Nakedness cannot purify a mortal who has not overcome desires.’ And again, in the Sekhiyā Dhammā we have ‘properly clad’ ‘must a monk itinerate.’ (See p. 473 of these Lectures.)

It is recorded in the Vinaya (Mahā-vagga I. 6. 7-9) that Upaka, a man of the Ājīvaka sect of naked ascetics, founded by Gosāla (said to have been a pupil of Mahā-vīra), met the Buddha just after his enlightenment, and noticing his bright countenance, asked him who had been his teacher? He replied, ‘Having gained all knowledge, I am myself the highest teacher.’ Thereupon the naked ascetic shook his head and went another road.

Clearly these naked Nigaṇṭhas, disciples of the Jain Teacher Mahā-vīra, were no friends of the Buddha. It seems to me even possible that Gautama’s great rival, Deva-datta (see pp. 405, 406), may have belonged to a Dig-ambara sect who opposed the Buddha on questions of stricter asceticism, especially in the matter of clothing; for in ancient sculptures Deva-datta is generally represented naked or nearly so, and is usually in close proximity to his cousin Gautama Buddha, who, in marked contrast to the other, is always clothed. Evidently the question of dress was a crucial one, and in process of time a party seems to have arisen, even among the Dig-ambara Jains, opposed to strict asceticism in this particular.

This party ultimately formed themselves into a separate sect, calling themselves Ṡvetāmbaras, that is, ‘clothed in white garments.’ It is well known that in early Buddhism two similar parties arose, the strict and the lax. But the two Buddhist parties were ultimately reunited. The second council is supposed to have settled the controversy.

Dr. Jacobi has shown that the separation of the two Jain sects must have taken place (according to the traditions of both parties) some time before the first century of our era.

It appears probable that the strict Dig-ambaras preceded the more lax Ṡvetāmbaras, though each sect claims to be the oldest. The two Jain sects have remained separate to the present day, though in all essential points of doctrine and discipline they agree.

When I was last in India, in 1884, I ascended the two hills, Pārasnāth (for Pārṡva-nāth) and Ābū—both of them most sacred places in the estimation of the Jains, and covered with their temples. My ascent of the former has been already described (p. 509). I also visited Delhi, Jaypur, Ājmere, and some other chief Jain stations. Jaypur is the stronghold of the Dig-ambara Jains, and two intelligent Dig-ambara Paṇḍits, named Phaṭe Lāl and Syojī Lāl, visited me there. We conversed for a long time in Sanskṛit, and I asked them many questions about their religion, and the points in which they differed from the Ṡvetāmbara sect.

Three chief differences were stated to be: First, the Ṡvetāmbaras object to entirely nude images of any of the twenty-four Jinas or Tīrthaṃ-karas accepted by both sects. Hence all Ṡvetāmbara statues ought to have some appearance of a line round the middle of the body, representing a strip of cloth. In one respect the images of the Jinas differ from those of the Buddhas. They have a jewel-like mark on the breast. This is especially conspicuous in Pārṡva-nāth. They are also of different colours, and have symbols (generally animals, such as a deer, tortoise, pig) connected with them.

Secondly, the Ṡvetāmbaras admit women into their order of ascetics just as Buddhists have their Bhikkhunīs, or nuns; whereas the Dig-ambaras, for obvious reasons, do not admit women.

Thirdly, the Ṡvetāmbaras have distinct sacred books of their own, which they call Aṅgas, ‘limbs of the Law,’ eleven in number, besides others, making 45 Āgamas, 11 Aṅgas, 12 Upāṅgas, 10 Pāinnas (Prakīrṇaka), 4 Mūlas, 6 Ćhedas, 1 Anuyoga-dvāra, and 1 Nandi. Dr. Bühler places the composition of the Aṅgas in the third century B.C. Dr. Jacobi places them at the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century. They are written in Jain Prākṛit (sometimes called Ardha-Māgadhī, a later form than Pāli), with Sanskṛit commentaries. The Dig-ambaras substitute, for the Aṅgas, later works, also written in more modern Prākṛit (probably in the fifth or sixth century after Christ), and maintain that the Ṡvetāmbara Canon is spurious. Both sects have valuable Sanskṛit works in their sacred literature.

I now add a few characteristics of both sects of Jains as distinguishing them from Buddhists.

I need scarcely notice the fact that the Jains of the present day keep up Caste. The two Jain Paṇḍits who came to me at Jaypur were Brāhmans, and wore the Brāhmanical thread. I believe this to be a mere modern innovation, which does not properly belong to the Jain system.

More important are the following points:—The Jain saints, or prophets, are called by a peculiar name Tīrthaṃ-kara, ‘ford-makers,’ i. e. making a ford across the troubled river of constant births or transmigrations (Saṃsāra) to the Elysium of Nirvāṇa; whereas the name Tīrthaṃ-kara with the Buddhists means a ‘heretical teacher.’ Then there are twenty-four Jain Tīrthaṃ-karas, whereas there are twenty-five Buddhas. Of the twenty-four Jain saints, the twenty-third and twenty-fourth—Pārṡva-nāth (pp. 509, 529) and Mahā-vīra—are the only historical personages. The others, beginning with Ṛishabha, are mythical.

Next, the Jains have no Stūpas or Dāgabas (p. 504) for preserving the relics of their saints.

Still more important is the point that the Jains believe in separate individual souls (Jīva), whereas the Buddhists deny the existence of souls. Souls, according to the Jains, may exist in stocks, stones, lumps of earth, drops of water, particles of fire. In Buddhism there is, as we have seen, no true metempsychosis, but rather a connected series of metamorphoses, and this stops at animals; whereas the metempsychosis of Jainism extends to inorganic matter.

With regard to the moral code two or three points may be noticed. The Jaina ‘three jewels’ are Right-belief, Right-knowledge, and Right-conduct, whereas the Buddhist Tri-ratna consists in the well-known Triad—the Buddha, the Law, and the Monkhood.

Then as to the five chief Moral Prohibitions—the fifth with Jains is: ‘have no worldly attachments;’ whereas with Buddhists it is: ‘drink no strong drink.’ I believe the Buddhists to have been the first to introduce total abstinence from strong drinks into India. The Jains, too, lay even more stress than the Buddhists on the first prohibition:—Kill no living creature. They strain water before drinking, sweep the ground with a silken brush before sitting down on it, never eat in the dark, often wear muslin before their mouths to catch minute insects, and even object to eating fruits containing seed.

Another interesting difference is that Jainism makes Dharma and Adharma, good and evil, or rather merit and demerit, two out of its six real substances—its fundamental and eternal principles (Astikāya)—the other four being matter (pudgala), soul (jīva), space and time. The Jains reject the Buddhist theory of the five Skandhas (see p. 109).

Lastly, the prayer-formula of the Jains differs from the well-known ‘three-refuge’ formula of the Buddhists (‘I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Law, and the order of Monks’) thus: ‘Reverence to the Arhats, to the Siddhas, to the Aćāryas, to the Upādhyāyas, to all the Sādhus’ (Namo Arihantāṇaṃ namo Siddhāṇaṃ namo Ayariyāṇaṃ namo Uvajjhāyāṇaṃ namo loe sabba-sāhūṇaṃ).

Time will not permit me to notice minor differences, such as the Jain rule that the hair should be painfully torn off, instead of cut off, etc.

Certainly Jainism, when viewed from the stand-point of Christianity, is even a colder system than Buddhism, and has even less claim to be called a religion. Yet no system can show a greater number of temples. Every Jain who is noted for his piety builds a small temple. He never repairs the temples of others. At Pālitāna in Kāthiāwār, there is a whole city of Jain temples. Nor is it at all necessary that every temple built to hold a Jain saint should possess either priests or worshippers. What is aimed at is the acquisition of merit by the performance of pious acts.

I must conclude by expressing my opinion that Indian Jainism is gradually drifting back into the current of Brāhmanism, which everywhere surrounds it and attracts it. Jainism, like Buddhism, came out from Brāhmanism, and into Brāhmanism it is destined to return.

LECTURE XVIII.
_Buddhism contrasted with Christianity._

In the previous Lectures I have incidentally contrasted the principal doctrines of Buddhism with those of Christianity.

It will be my aim in this concluding Lecture to draw attention more directly and more in detail to the main points of divergence between two systems, which in their moral teaching have so many points of contact, that a superficial study of either is apt to lead to very confused ideas in regard to their comparative excellence and their resemblance to each other.

And first of all I must remind those who heard my earlier Lectures of the grand fundamental distinction which they were intended to establish—namely, that Christianity is a religion, whereas Buddhism, at least in its earliest and truest form, is no religion at all, but a mere system of morality and philosophy founded on a pessimistic theory of life.

Here, however, it may be objected that, before we exclude Buddhism from all title to be called a religion, we ought to define what we mean by the term ‘religion.’

Of course, it will be generally acknowledged that mere morality need not imply religion, though—taking the converse—it is most undeniably true that religion must of necessity imply morality.

Unquestionably there have been great philosophers in ancient times who have lived strictly moral lives without acknowledging any religious creed at all. Many excellent men, too, exist among us in the present day, who resent being called irreligious, and yet hold no definite religious doctrines, and decline to accept any system which commits them to absolute belief in anything except an eternal Energy or Force.

Clearly the definition of the word ‘religion’ is beset with difficulties, and its etymology is too uncertain to help us in explaining it[278]. We shall, however, be justified if we affirm that every system claiming to be a religion in the proper sense of the word must postulate the eternal existence of one living and true God of infinite power, wisdom, and love, the Creator, Designer, and Preserver of all things visible and invisible.

It must also take for granted the immortality of man’s soul or spirit, and the reality of a future state and of an unseen world. It must also postulate in man an innate sense of dependence on a personal God—a sense of reverence and love for Him, springing from a belief in His justice, holiness, wisdom, power, and love, and intensified by a deep consciousness of weakness, and a yearning to be delivered from the presence, tyranny, and penalty of sin.

Then, starting from these assumptions, it must satisfy four requisites.

First, it must reveal the Creator in His nature and attributes to His creature, man.

Secondly, it must reveal man to himself. It must impart to him a knowledge of his own nature and history—what he is; why he was created; whither he is tending; and whether he is at present in a state of decadence downwards from a higher condition, or of development upwards from a lower.

Thirdly, it must reveal some method by which the finite creature may communicate with the infinite Creator—some plan by which he may gain access to Him and become united with Him, and be saved by Him from the consequences of his own sinful acts.

Fourthly, such a system must prove its title to be called a religion by its regenerating effect on man’s nature; by its influence on his thoughts, desires, passions, and feelings; by its power of subduing all his evil tendencies; by its ability to transform his character and assimilate him to the God it reveals.

It is clear, then, that tried by such a criterion as this, early Buddhism could not claim to be a religion. It failed to satisfy these conditions. It refused to admit the existence of a personal Creator, or of man’s dependence on a higher Power. It denied any eternal soul or Ego in man. It acknowledged no external, supernatural revelation. It had no priesthood—no real clergy; no real prayer; no real worship. It had no true idea of sin, or of the need of pardon (p. 124), and it condemned man to suffer the consequences of his own sinful acts without hope of help from any Saviour or Redeemer, and indeed from any being but himself.

The late Bishop of Calcutta once said to me, that being in an outlying part of his diocese, where Buddhism prevailed, he asked an apparently pious Buddhist, whom he happened to observe praying in a temple, what he had just been praying for? He replied, ‘I have been praying for nothing.’ ‘But,’ urged the Bishop, ‘to whom have you been praying?’ The man answered, ‘I have been praying to nobody.’ ‘What!’ said the astonished Bishop, ‘praying for nothing to nobody?’ And no doubt this anecdote gives an accurate idea of the so-called prayer of a true Buddhist. This man had not really been praying for anything. He had been merely making use of some form of words to which an efficacy, like that of sowing fruitful seed in a field, was supposed to belong. He had not been praying in any Christian sense.

Here, however, an objector might remind me that according to my own showing, various developments of Buddhism modified and even contradicted the original creed, and that what has been here said about prayer, is only strictly applicable to early Buddhism as originally taught in the most ancient texts.

I grant this—I grant that expressions of reverence for the Buddha, the Law, and the Monkhood, developed into expressions of wants and needs, and that these expressions, gradually led on to the offering of actual prayers to deified Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas.

I admit that we ought to judge of Buddhism as a whole. We ought to give full consideration to its later developments, and the gradual sliding of its atheism and agnosticism into theism and polytheism. We are bound to acknowledge that Buddhism, as it extended to other countries, _did_ acquire the character of a theistic religious system, which, though false, had in it some points of contact with Christianity.

Nevertheless, admitting all this, and taking into account all that can be said in favour of Buddhism as a religious system, it will be easy to show how impossible it is to bridge over the yawning chasm which separates it from the true religion.

It is, indeed, one of the strange phenomena of the present day, that even educated people who call themselves Christians, are apt to fall into raptures over the precepts of Buddhism[279], attracted by the bright gems which its admirers delight in culling out of its moral code, and in displaying ostentatiously, while keeping out of sight all its dark spots, all its trivialities and senseless repetitions[280]; not to speak of all those evidences of deep corruption beneath a whited surface, all those significant precepts and prohibitions in its books of discipline, which indeed no Christian could soil his lips by uttering[281].

It has even been asserted that much of the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and in other parts of the Gospel narratives, is based on previously current moral teaching, which Buddhism was the first to introduce to the world, 500 years before Christ[282]. But this is not all. The admirers of Buddhism maintain that the Buddha was not a mere teacher of the truths of morality, but of many other sublime truths. He has been justly called, say they, ‘the Light of Asia,’ though they condescendingly admit that Christianity as a later development is more adapted to become the religion of the world.

Let us then inquire, for a moment, what claim Gautama Buddha has to this title—‘the Light of Asia?’

Now, in the first place those who give him this name forget that his doctrines only spread over Eastern Asia, and that either Confucius, or Zoroaster, or Muhammad might equally be called ‘the Light of Asia.’

But was the Buddha, in any true sense, a Light to any part of the world?

It is certainly true that the main idea implied by Buddhism is intellectual enlightenment. Buddhism, before all things, means enlightenment of mind, resulting from intense self-concentration and introspection, from intense abstract meditation, combined with the exercise of a man’s own reasoning faculties and intuitions.

Of what nature, then, was the so-called Light of Knowledge that radiated from the Buddha? Was it the knowledge of his own utter weakness, of his original depravity of heart, or of the origin of sin? No; the Buddha’s light was in these respects profound darkness. He confessed himself, in regard to such momentous questions, a downright Agnostic. The primary origin of evil—the first evil act—was to him an inexplicable mystery.

Was it, then, a knowledge of the goodness, justice, holiness, and omnipotence of a personal Creator? Was it a knowledge of the Fatherhood of God? No; the Buddha’s light was in these respects also mere and sheer darkness. In these respects, too, he acknowledged himself a thorough Agnostic. He admitted that he knew of no being higher than himself.

What, then, was the light that broke upon the Buddha? What was this enlightenment which has been so much written about and extolled? All that he claimed to have discovered was the origin of suffering and the remedy of suffering. All the light of knowledge to which he attained came to this:—that suffering arises from indulging desires, especially the desire for continuity of life; that suffering is inseparable from life; that all life is suffering; and that suffering is to be got rid of by the suppression of desires, and by the extinction of personal existence.

Here, then, is the first great contrast. When the Buddha said to his converts, ‘Come (ehi), be my disciple,’ he bade them expect to get rid of suffering, he told them to stamp out suffering by stamping out desires (see pp. 43, 44). When the Christ said to His disciples, ‘Come, follow Me,’ He bade them expect suffering. He told them to glory in their sufferings—nay, to expect the perfection of their characters through suffering.

It is certainly noteworthy that both Christianity and Buddhism agree in asserting that all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, in suffering, in tribulation. But mark the vast, the vital distinction in the teaching of each. The one taught men to be patient under affliction, and to aim at the glorification of the suffering body, the other taught men to be intolerant of affliction, and to aim at the utter annihilation of the suffering body.

What says our Bible? We Christians, it says, are members of Christ’s Body—of His flesh and of His bones—of that Divine Body which was once a suffering Body, a cross-bearing Body, and is now a glorified Body, an ever-living, life-giving Body. Hence it teaches us to honour and revere the human body; nay, almost to deify the human body.

A Buddhist, on the other hand, treats every kind of body with contempt, and repudiates as a simple impossibility, all idea of being a member of the Buddha’s body. How could a Buddhist be a member of a body which was burnt to ashes—which was calcined,—which became extinct at the moment when the Buddha’s whole personality became extinguished also?

But, say the admirers of Buddhism, at least you will admit that the Buddha told men to avoid sin, and to aim at purity and holiness of life? Nothing of the kind. The Buddha had no idea of sin as an offence against God, no idea of true holiness (see p. 124). What he said was—Get rid of the demerit of evil actions and accumulate a stock of merit by good actions.

And let me remark here that this determination to store up merit—like capital at a bank—is one of those inveterate propensities of human nature, one of those irrepressible and deep-seated tendencies in humanity which nothing but the divine force imparted by Christianity can ever eradicate. It is for ever cropping up in the heart of man, as much in the West as in the East, as much in the North as in the South; for ever re-asserting itself like a pestilent weed, or like tares amidst the wheat, for ever blighting the fruit of those good instincts which underlie man’s nature everywhere.

Only the other day I met an intelligent Sikh from the Panjāb, and asked him about his religion. He replied, ‘I am no idolater; I believe in One God, and I repeat my prayers, called “Jap-jee,” every morning and evening. These prayers occupy six pages of print, but I can get through them in little more than ten minutes.’ He seemed to pride himself on this rapid recitation as a work of increased merit.

I said, ‘What else does your religion require of you?’ He replied, ‘I have made one pilgrimage to a holy well near Amritsar. Eighty-five steps lead down to it. I descended and bathed in the sacred pool. Then I ascended one step and repeated my Jap-jee with great rapidity. Then I descended again to the pool and bathed again, and ascended to the second step and repeated my prayers a second time. Then I descended a third time, and ascended to the third step and repeated my Jap-jee a third time, and so on for the whole eighty-five steps, eighty-five bathings and eighty-five repetitions of the same prayers. It took me exactly fourteen hours, from 5 p.m. one evening to 7 a.m. next morning, and I fasted all the time.’

I asked, ‘What good did you expect to get by going through this task?’ He replied, ‘I hope I have laid up an abundant store of merit, which will last me for a long time.’

This, let me tell you, is a genuine Hindū notion. It is of the very essence of Brāhmanism, of Hindūism, of Zoroastrianism, of Confucianism, of Muhammadanism. It is even more of the essence of Buddhism. For, of all systems, Buddhism is the one which lays most stress on the accumulation of merit by good actions, as the sole counterpoise to the mighty force generated by the accumulation of demerit through evil actions in present and previous forms of life. Nor did the Buddha ever claim to be a deliverer from guilt, a purger from the taint of past pollution. He never pretended to set any one free from the penalty, power, and presence of sin—from the bondage of sinful acts and besetting vices. He never professed to furnish any cure for the leprosy of man’s corrupt nature—any medicine for a dying sinner[283]. On the contrary, by his doctrine of Karma he bound a man hand and foot to the inevitable consequences of his own evil actions with chains of adamant. He said, in effect, to every one of his disciples, ‘You are in slavery to a tyrant of your own setting up; your own deeds, words, and thoughts in your present and former states of being, are your own avengers through a countless series of existences.

“Your acts your angels are for good or ill,
Your fatal shadows that walk by you still.”

‘If you have been a murderer, a thief, a liar, impure, a drunkard, you must pay the penalty in your next birth—perhaps as a sufferer in one of the hells[284], perhaps in the body of a wild beast, perhaps in that of some unclean animal or loathsome vermin, perhaps as a demon or evil spirit. Yes, your doom is sealed. Not in the heavens, O man, not in the midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thyself in the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou find a place where thou canst escape the force of thine own evil actions[285]. Thy only hope of salvation is in thyself. Neither god nor man can save thee, and I am wholly powerless to set thee free.’

And now, contrast the few brief words of Christ in his first recorded sermon[286]. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He hath sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.’

Yes, in Christ alone there is deliverance from the bondage of former transgressions, from the prison-house of former sins; a total cancelling of the past; a complete blotting-out of the handwriting that is against us; an entire washing away of every guilty stain; the opening of a clear course for every man to start afresh; the free gift of pardon and of life to every criminal, to every sinner—even the most heinous and inveterate.

Still, I seem to hear some admirers of Buddhism say: We admit the force of these contrasts, but surely you will allow that in the moral law of Buddha we find precepts identically the same as those of Christianity—precepts which tell a man not to love the world, not to love money, not to hate his enemies, not to do unrighteous acts, not to commit impurities, to overcome evil by good, and to do to others as we would be done by?

Well, I admit all this. Nay, I admit even more than this; for many Buddhist precepts command total abstinence in cases where Christianity demands only temperance and moderation. The great contrast, as I have already explained, between the moral precepts of Buddhism and Christianity, is not so much in the letter of the precepts, as in the power brought to bear in their application.

Buddhism, I repeat, says: Act righteously through your own efforts, and for the final getting rid of all suffering, of all individuality, of all life in yourselves. Christianity says: Be righteous through a power implanted in you from above, through the power of a life-giving principle, freely given to you, and always abiding in you. The Buddha said to his followers: ‘Take nothing from me, trust to yourselves alone.’ Christ said: ‘Take all from Me; trust not to yourselves. I give unto you eternal life, I give unto you the bread of heaven, I give unto you living water.’ Not that these priceless gifts involve any passive condition of inaction. On the contrary, they stir the soul of the recipient with a living energy. They stimulate him to noble deeds, and self-sacrificing efforts. They compel him to act as the worthy, grateful, and appreciative possessor of so inestimable a treasure.

Still, I seem to hear some one say: We acknowledge this; we admit the truth of what you have stated; nevertheless, for all that, you must allow that Buddhism conferred a great benefit on India by encouraging freedom of thought and by setting at liberty its teeming population, before entangled in the meshes of ceremonial observances and Brahmanical priestcraft.

Yes, I grant this; nay, I grant even more than this. I admit that Buddhism conferred many other benefits on the millions inhabiting the most populous part of Asia. It introduced education and culture; it encouraged literature and art; it promoted physical, moral, and intellectual progress up to a certain point; it proclaimed peace, good will, and brotherhood among men; it deprecated war between nation and nation; it avowed sympathy with social liberty and freedom; it gave back much independence to women; it preached purity in thought, word, and deed (though only for the accumulation of merit); it taught self-denial without self-torture; it inculcated generosity, charity, tolerance, love, self-sacrifice, and benevolence, even towards the inferior animals; it advocated respect for life and compassion towards all creatures; it forbade avarice and the hoarding of money; and from its declaration that a man’s future depended on his present acts and condition, it did good service for a time in preventing stagnation, stimulating exertion, promoting good works of all kinds, and elevating the character of humanity.

Then again, when it spread to outlying countries it assumed the character of a religion; it taught the existence of unseen worlds; it permitted the offering of prayers to Maitreya and other supposed personal saviours; it inculcated faith and trust in these celestial beings, which operated as good motives in the hearts of many, while the hope of being born in higher conditions of life, and the desire to acquire merit by reverential acts, led to the development of devotional services, which had much in common with those performed in Christian countries. Nay, it must even be admitted that many Buddhists in the present day are deeply imbued with religious feelings, and in no part of the world are the outward manifestations of religion—such as temples and sacred objects of all kinds—so conspicuous as in modern Buddhist countries.

But if, after making all these concessions, I am told that, on my own showing, Buddhism was a kind of introduction to Christianity, or that Christianity is a kind of development of Buddhism, I must ask you to bear with me a little longer, while I point out certain other contrasts, which ought to make it clear to every reasonable man, how vast, how profound, how impassable is the gulf separating the true religion from the false philosophy, and from the later religious systems developed out of it.

And first, observe that Buddhism has never claimed to be an exclusive system. It has never aimed at taking the place of other religions. On the contrary it tolerates all, and a Buddhist considers that he may be at the same time a Hindū, a Confucianist, a Tāoist, a Shintoist, and even, strange to say, a Christian.

A Christian, on the other hand, holds as a cardinal doctrine of his religion, that there is only one Name under heaven given among men, whereby any human being can be saved. To be at the same time a believer in Christ and a believer in Buddha implies an utter contradiction in terms.

Then it need scarcely be repeated here that Christ is before all things a majestic example of a great historic personality. Any really historical, matter-of-fact account of the life of Buddha, like that of the life of Christ by the four Evangelists, may be looked for in vain through all the Buddhist scriptures. The Buddha’s biography is mixed up with such monstrous legends, absurd figments, and extravagant fables, that to attempt the sifting out of any really historical element worthy of being compared with the pregnant simplicity—the dignified brevity of the biography of Christ, would be an idle task.

Still we may note two or three obvious points of comparison and contrast.

And perhaps the most important is, that Christ constantly insisted on the fact that He was God-sent, whereas the Buddha always described himself as self sent. How indeed could the Buddha have said ‘the great I AM hath sent me unto you[287]’ when he had no belief in the eternal existence of any Ego at all? Not even in the reality of his own individuality.

All that he affirmed of himself was that he came into the world to be a teacher of perfect wisdom, by a force derived from his own acts. By that force alone he had passed through innumerable bodies of gods, demi-gods, demons, men, and animals, until he reached one out of numerous heavens, and thence by his own will descended upon earth and entered the side of his mother in the form of a white elephant (see pp. 23, 477). Let those who speak of his ‘virgin-mother’ bear this in mind.

Christ, on the other hand, made known to his disciples, that He was with His Father from everlasting, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’ Then in the fulness of time, He was _sent_ into the world by His Father, and was born of a pure virgin, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the likeness and fashion of men.

Next let us note a vast contrast in the fact that Christ was sent from heaven to be born on earth in a poor and humble station, to be reared in a cottage, to be trained to toilsome labour as a working-man; whereas the Buddha came down to be born on earth in a rich and princely family; to be brought up amid luxurious surroundings, and finally to go forth as a mendicant-monk, depending upon others for his daily food and doing nothing for his own support.

Then, again, Christ as He grew up showed no signs of earthly majesty in his external form, whereas the Buddha is described as marked with certain mystic symbols of universal monarchy on his feet and on his hands, and taller and more stately in frame and figure than ordinary human beings (see pp. 476, 501).

Then, when each entered on his ministry as a teacher, Christ was despised and rejected by kings and princes, and followed by poor and ignorant fishermen, by common people, publicans, and sinners; Buddha was honoured by kings and princes, and followed by rich men and learned disciples.

Then Christ had all the treasures of knowledge hidden in Himself, and made known to His disciples that He was Himself the Way, and the Truth,—Himself their Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption. Buddha declared that all enlightenment and wisdom were to be attained by his disciples, not through him, but through themselves and their own intuitions; and that, too, only after long and painful discipline in countless successive bodily existences.

Then in regard to the miracles which both the Bible and the Tripiṭaka describe as attestations of the truth of the teaching of each, contrast the simple and dignified statement that ‘the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them[288],’ with the following description of the Buddha’s miracles in the Mahā-vagga (I. 20, 24)[289]: ‘At the command of the Blessed One the five hundred pieces of fire-wood could not be split and were split, the fires could not be lit up and were lit up, could not be extinguished and were extinguished. Besides he created five hundred vessels with fire. Thus the number of these miracles amounts to three thousand five hundred.’

Then, although each made use of missionary agency, the one sent forth his high-born learned monks as missionaries to the world at the commencement of his own career, giving them no divine commission; the other waited till the close of His own ministry, and then said to His low-born, unlearned disciples, ‘As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you’ (St. John xx. 21).

Then, when we come to compare the death of each, the contrast reaches its climax; for Christ was put to death violently by wicked men, and died in agony an atoning death, suffering for the sins of the world at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind in Jerusalem about one hundred and twenty disciples after a short ministry of three years. Whereas the Buddha died peacefully among his friends, suffering from an attack of indigestion at the age of eighty, leaving behind many thousands of disciples after forty-five years of teaching and preaching.

And what happened after the death of each? Christ, the Holy One, saw no corruption, but rose again in His present glorified body, and is alive for evermore—nay, has life in Himself ever flowing in life-giving streams towards His people. The Buddha is dead and gone for ever; his body, according to the testimony of his own disciples, was burnt more than 400 years before the Advent of Christ, and its ashes were distributed everywhere as relics.

Even according to the Buddha’s own declaration, he now lives only in the doctrine which he left behind him for the guidance of his followers.

And here again, in regard to the doctrine left behind by each, a vast distinction is to be noted. For the doctrine delivered by Christ to His disciples is to spread by degrees everywhere until it prevails eternally. Whereas the doctrine left by Buddha, though it advanced rapidly by leaps and bounds, is, according to his own admission, to fade away by degrees, till at the end of 5000 years it has disappeared altogether from the earth, and another Buddha must descend to restore it. (Compare Postscript at end of Preface, p. xiv.)

Then that other Buddha must be followed by countless succeeding Buddhas in succeeding ages, whereas there is only one Christ, who can have no successor, for He is alive for ever and for ever present with His people: ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’

Then observe that, although the Buddha’s doctrine was ultimately written down by his disciples in certain collections of books, in the same manner as the doctrine of Christ, a fundamental difference of character—nay, a vast and impassable gulf of difference—separates the Sacred Books of each, the Bible of the Christian and the Bible of the Buddhist.

The characteristic of the Christian’s Bible is that it claims to be a supernatural revelation, yet it attaches no mystical talismanic virtue to the mere sound of its words. On the other hand, the characteristic of the Buddhist Bible is that it utterly repudiates all claim to be a supernatural revelation; yet the very sound of its words is believed to possess a meritorious efficacy capable of elevating any one who hears it to heavenly abodes in future existences. In illustration I may advert to a legend current in Ceylon, that once on a time 500 bats lived in a cave where two monks daily recited the Buddha’s Law. These bats gained such merit by simply hearing the sound of the words, that, when they died, they were all re-born as men, and ultimately as gods.

Then as to the words themselves, contrast the severely simple and dignified style of the Bible narrative, its brevity, perspicuity, vigour, and sublimity, its trueness to nature and inimitable pathos, with the feeble utterances, the tedious diffuseness, and I might almost say ‘the inane twaddle’ and childish repetitions of the greater portion of the Tripiṭaka (see note 2, p. 541).

But again, I am sure to hear the admirers of Buddhism say: Is it not the case that the doctrine of Buddha, like the doctrine of Christ, has self-sacrifice as its key-note? Well, be it so. I admit that the Buddha taught a kind of self-sacrifice. I admit that he related of himself that, on a particular occasion in one of his previous births[290], he plucked out his own eyes, and, that on another, he cut off his own head as a sacrifice for the good of others; and that again, on a third occasion, he cut his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a hawk[291]. Yet note the vast distinction between the self-sacrifice taught by the two systems. Christianity demands the suppression of selfishness; Buddhism demands the suppression of self, with the one object of extinguishing all consciousness of self. In the one, the true self is elevated and intensified. In the other, the true self is annihilated by the practice of a false form of non-selfishness, which has for its real object, not the good of others, but the annihilation of the Ego, the utter extinction of the illusion of personal individuality.

Furthermore, observe the following contrasts in the doctrines which each bequeathed to his followers:—

According to Christianity:—Fight and overcome the world.

According to Buddhism:—Shun the world, and withdraw from it.

According to Christianity:—Expect a new earth when the present earth is destroyed; a world renewed and perfected; a purified world in which righteousness is to dwell for ever.

According to Buddhism:—Expect a never-ending succession of evil worlds for ever coming into existence, developing, decaying, perishing, and reviving, and all equally full of everlasting misery, disappointment, illusion, change, and transmutation.

According to Christianity, bodily existence is subject to only one transformation.

According to Buddhism, bodily existence is continued in six conditions, through countless bodies of men, animals, demons, ghosts, and dwellers in various hells and heavens; and that, too, without any progressive development, but in a constant jumble of metamorphoses and transmutations (see p. 122).

Christianity teaches that a life in heaven can never be followed by a fall to a lower state.

Buddhism teaches that a life in a higher heaven may be succeeded by a life in a lower heaven, or even by a life on earth or in one of the hells.

According to Christianity, the body of man may be the abode of the Holy Spirit of God.

According to Buddhism, the body whether of men or of higher beings can never be the abode of anything but evil.

According to Christianity:—Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, and expect a change to glorified bodies hereafter.

According to Buddhism:—Look to final deliverance from all bodily life, present and to come, as the greatest of all blessings, highest of all boons, and loftiest of all aims.

According to Christianity, a man’s body can never be changed into the body of a beast, or bird, or insect, or loathsome vermin.

According to Buddhism, a man, and even a god, may become an animal of any kind, and even the most loathsome vermin may again become a man or a god.

According to Christianity:—Stray not from God’s ways; offend not against His holy laws.

According to Buddhism:—Stray not from the eight-fold path of the perfect man, and offend not against yourself and the law of the perfect man.

According to Christianity:—Work the works of God while it is day.

According to Buddhism:—Beware of action, as causing re-birth, and aim at inaction, indifference, and apathy, as the highest of all states.

Then note other contrasts.

According to the Christian Bible:—Regulate and sanctify the heart, desires, and affections.

According to the Buddhist:—Suppress and destroy them utterly, if you wish for true sanctification.

Christianity teaches that in the highest form of life, love is intensified.

Buddhism teaches that in the highest state of existence, all love is extinguished.

According to Christianity:—Go and earn your own bread, support yourself and your family. Marriage, it says, is honourable and undefiled, and married life is a field on which holiness may grow and be developed. Nay, more—Christ Himself honoured a wedding with His presence, and took up little children in His arms and blessed them.

Buddhism, on the other hand, says:—Avoid married life; shun it as if it were ‘a burning pit of live coals’ (p. 88); or, having entered on it, abandon wife, children, and home, and go about as celibate monks, engaging in nothing but in meditation and recitation of the Buddha’s Law—that is to say—if you aim at the highest degree of sanctification.

And then comes the important contrast that in the one system we have a teaching gratifying to the pride of man, and flattering to his intellect; while in the other we have a teaching humbling to his pride, and distasteful to his intellect. For Christianity tells us that we must become as little children, and that when we have done all that we can, we are still unprofitable servants. Whereas Buddhism teaches that every man is saved by his own works and by his own merits only.

Fitly, indeed, do the rags worn by the monks of true Buddhism symbolize the miserable patchwork of its own self-righteousness.

Not that Christianity ignores the necessity for good works; on the contrary, no other system insists on a lofty morality so strongly; but never as the meritorious instrument of salvation[292]—only as a thank-offering, only as the outcome and evidence of faith.

Lastly, we must advert again to the most momentous—the most essential of all the distinctions which separate Christianity from Buddhism. Christianity regards personal life as the most sacred of all possessions. Life, it seems to say, is no dream, no illusion. ‘Life is real, life is earnest.’ Life is the most precious of all God’s gifts. Nay, it affirms of God Himself that He is the highest Example of intense Life—of intense personality, the great ‘I AM that I AM,’ and teaches us that we are to thirst for a continuance of personal life as a gift for Him; nay, more, that we are to thirst for the living God Himself and for conformity to His likeness; while Buddhism sets forth as the highest of all aims the utter extinction of the illusion of personal identity—the utter annihilation of the Ego—of all existence in any form whatever, and proclaims as the only true creed the ultimate resolution of everything into nothing, of every entity into pure nonentity.

What shall I do to inherit eternal life?—says the Christian. What shall I do to inherit eternal extinction of life?—says the Buddhist.

It seems a mere absurdity to have to ask in concluding these Lectures:—Whom shall we choose as our Guide, our Hope, our Salvation, ‘the Light of Asia,’ or ‘the Light of the World?’ the Buddha or the Christ? It seems a mere mockery to put this final question to rational and thoughtful men in the nineteenth century: Which Book shall we clasp to our hearts in our last hour—the Book that tells us of the dead, the extinct, the death-giving Buddha, or the Book that reveals to us the living, the eternal, the life-giving Christ?

POSTSCRIPT.

Since the printing of my concluding Lecture, it has occurred to me that I ought to make a few remarks in regard to a very prevalent error—the error that Buddhism still numbers more adherents than any other religion of the world. For these remarks the reader is referred to the Postscript at the end of the Preface (p. xiv).

Footnotes

[1]‘Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., by George Smith, C.I.E., LL.D.’
London: Hodder and Stoughton; published first in 1879, and a popular
edition in 1881.