Chapter M: M.-W (5)

‘Reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, the hearing of the Law at the right time, this is the greatest blessing.’

‘Patience and lowly speech, association with religious men, recitation of the Law at the right time, this is the greatest blessing.’

‘Self-mortification and chastity, discernment of the noble truths, perception of Nirvāṇa, this is the greatest blessing.’

In the Aṅguttara (II. iv. 2) it is said that no adequate return can be made by children to parents ‘even by menial service.’ With Gautama, to honour father and mother was better than to worship the gods of heaven.

Many other examples might be given. Not only was a man forbidden to kill, he was never to injure.

Then in the Rājovāda Jātaka we have the story of the one king ‘who overcomes the strong by strength, the soft by softness, the good by goodness, and the wicked by wickedness;’ and of the other king ‘who conquers anger by calmness, the wicked by goodness, the stingy by gifts, the liar (alika-vādinam) by truth.’

Other precepts require a man to exercise charity and respect towards all aged persons, teachers, servants, and animals. He was to set an example of self-sacrifice.

It is recorded of Gautama Buddha that on one occasion he plucked out his own eyes, and that on another he cut off his own head, and that on a third he cut his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a hawk.

Yet we repeat that with all this apparently sublime morality no true idea of sin, as displeasing to a Holy God, was connected with the infraction of the moral code. Nor did a Buddhist always avoid harming others from any true reverence for life. He was to cherish the life of others, but his chief motive was the fear that by not doing so he would entail the misery of continuous life on himself; and his chief motive for avoiding anger was that it was incompatible with that equanimity, which ought to characterize every wise man who aimed at the extinction of his own personality.

The ease with which charitable acts might be performed is amusingly illustrated by a story told in Huc’s travels in Tibet. A certain zealous fellow-traveller (who considered that it was quite possible to be at the same time a good Buddhist and a good Christian) invited the French missionaries to co-operate with him in performing charitable acts to commemorate the termination of a fatiguing journey, especially by providing worn-out travellers, like themselves, with horses. The missionaries pleaded their own poverty, but to their surprise were told that they were only required to draw horses on paper, which were taken to the edge of a precipice, thrown up into the air, and, certain formularies being recited, were carried away by the wind and changed into real horses by the power of Buddha.

Let us by no means, however, shut our eyes to the praiseworthy feature of the Buddhist system mentioned at page 125—its recognition of the need of inner purity and sanctification—an inner Buddhism of the heart, without which even a monk was no true Buddhist. Of course the Law could be observed superficially without any real heart-belief or heart-purity.

When the inner heart-condition of a Buddhist is described, he is said to be walking on one of four paths (ćattāro Maggā), and is then called Ariyo (= Ārya), ‘worthy of reverence’ (distinguished from Pṛithag-jana, ‘an ordinary professing Buddhist’). To avoid confounding these paths with the eightfold path (p. 44) it would be better to speak of them as four stages of inner sanctification. Dhyāna, ‘meditation,’ of four kinds, is the chief means of entering and passing through these stages (p. 32), which once entered can never be abandoned.

The first stage is that of the man—be he monk or layman—who is just converted, by an inner awakening, to true heart-Buddhism. This man has freed himself from the first three fetters—namely, delusion of self, doubts about the Buddha’s doctrine, and dependence on external rites (p. 127). He is called Sotāpanno, ‘one who has entered the stream’ (Srota-āpanna), _inevitably_ carrying him onwards—though not necessarily in the same body—to the calm ocean of Nirvāṇa, and his state is called Sotāpatti. He can only be re-born as a god or man, but not in the four lower births (p. 121).

Mark that the doctrine of ‘perseverance’ is a remarkable feature in this phase of the Buddhist system.

The second stage is that of the man who has nearly freed himself from the first five fetters, but has a sufficient number left to cause one more birth on the earth. He is called Sakad-āgāmī (Sakṛid-āg°).

The third stage is that of the man who is quite free from the first five fetters. Such a man can only be re-born in a Brahmā heaven, from which he reaches Nirvāṇa. He is therefore called An-āgāmī, ‘one who will not come back to earth.’

The fourth stage is that of the completely freed man who attains Arhatship (Arahattaṃ) in this life, and will at death experience no re-birth. There is, of course, a difference between one who has only just entered each stage of the journey and one who has reached the terminus. And this Arhatship is open to all (even to women), though only likely to be attained by true monks or true nuns. The name Arhat (Pāli Arahā, in Ceylon Rahat), ‘most deserving’ (root _arh_), is significant of the highest merit; for the Arhat is perfect, freed from all pain (nishkleṡa), from all the ten fetters, from all attachment to existence (upādāna) whether on earth or in heaven, and from all re-creative Act-force. He has already entered Nirvāṇa, and while still living he is dead to the world. He is the Jīvan-mukta, ‘emancipated living man,’ of the Yoga. By the force of the fourth Dhyāna, he has gained the Abhijñās (Abhiññā), or ‘transcendent faculties of knowledge,’ the inner eye, inner ear, knowledge of all thoughts, and recollection of previous existences, and the extraordinary powers over matter called Iddhi (= Ṛiddhi). In short he is Asekha, ‘one who has nothing to learn.’

Although, theoretically, a layman and even beings existing in other spheres, might enter the stream leading to Arhatship (see p. 90) without becoming monks, yet it is evident that as a rule it was only likely to be entered by persons who renounced the world and led a celibate monastic life.

But of Arhats there are three grades:—

First, the simple Arhat (described above), who has attained perfection through his own efforts and the doctrine and example of a supreme Buddha, but is not himself such a Buddha, and cannot teach others how to attain Arhatship, though he associates with others.

Secondly, and second in rank, but far above the simple Arhat, the Pratyeka-Buddha or Solitary Saint, who has attained perfection for himself and by himself alone, and not as a member of any monastic Order, nor through the teaching of any supreme Buddha (except in some former birth). This solitary hermit-like Arhat—a kind of concentration of isolated or selfish sanctity—is symbolized by a rhinoceros. He does not appear on earth at the same time with a supreme Buddha, and has not the same epithets (p. 23) applied to him.

Thirdly, the supreme Buddha or Buddha _par excellence_ (once a Bodhi-sattva), who, having by his own self-enlightening insight attained perfect knowledge (sambodhi), and having, by the practice of the transcendent virtues (p. 128) and through extinction of the passions and of all desire for life, become entitled to that complete extinction of bodily existence (pari-nirvāṇa), in which the perfection of all Arhatship must end, has yet delayed this consummation that he may become the Saviour of a suffering world—not in the same manner as the God-sent Saviour of Christianity, but by teaching men how to save themselves. This is the supreme Buddha, the founder of the whole monastic Order, immeasurably superior both to Pratyeka-Buddhas and to all mere Arhats.

He said of himself (Mahā-vagga I. 6, 8),—‘I am the all-subduer (sabbābhibhū); the all-wise; I have no stains; through myself I possess knowledge; I have no rival (paṭipuggalo); I am the chief Arhat—the highest teacher; I alone am the absolutely wise (Sambuddha); I am the Conqueror (Jina); all the fires of desire are quenched (sītibhūto) in me; I have Nirvāṇa (nibbuto).’ See p. 42 of this volume.

This seems a marvellous assumption on the part of one who never claimed to be other than a man; yet he had taken the idea from Brāhmanism, which held that its saints could surpass all gods (Brahmă only excepted).

Such supreme Buddhas, who are perfect knowers, and also perfect teachers of the truth, are only manifested on the earth at long intervals of time.

Gautama is the fourth Buddha of the present age (Bhadra-Kalpa). He was a Kshatriya; his three mythical predecessors—Kraku-ććhanda, Kanaka-muni, and Kāṡyapa—having been sons of Brāhmans. He is to be followed by the fifth Buddha, Maitreya (a name meaning ‘full of love towards all beings’), but not until the doctrine of Gautama has passed out of men’s memory after five thousand years (p. 181). In their previous existences Gautama and his predecessors were, (see pp. 98, 112,) Bodhi-sattvas[53], ‘beings who have knowledge (derived from intellect) for their essence,’ a name borne by all destined to become supreme Buddhas as well as by the first of Gautama’s successors, Maitreya.

This coming Buddha is, as we shall see hereafter, an object of universal reverence among later Buddhists of all sects as a kind of expected Messiah or Saviour. Often, indeed, he is more honoured than Gautama himself, because he is interested in the present order of things, as well as in the future, while Gautama Buddha and all his predecessors have passed away into non-being.

Twenty-four mythical Buddhas (the first being Dīpaṃkara, ‘Light-causer’) are held to have appeared[54] before Gautama in preceding cycles of time. Many particulars about them are given, including their birth-places, the length of their lives and their statures. Gautama himself is said to have met some of them during his transmigrations. Even the trees under which they achieved supreme wisdom are enumerated.

Sometimes the last six of the twenty-four are reckoned with Gautama Buddha as constituting seven principal Buddhas[55], who seem to have been grouped together to correspond with the Brāhmanical seven Manus of the present Kalpa. Usually, however, Gautama is held to be the last of twenty-five Buddhas.

Clearly, then, the principal lines of Buddhist moral teaching all converge to one focus—to the perfected Arhat or rather to a still brighter point of light in the perfect Buddha waiting for his reward—the nectar of the eternal state of complete Nirvāṇa.

And this compels us to attempt some explanation of Nirvāṇa. In the first place forty-six synonyms of it are given in the Abhidhānappadīpikā, e.g. Mokkha or Mutti, ‘deliverance,’ Nirodha, ‘cessation,’ Taṉhakkhaya (tṛishṇā-kshaya), ‘destruction of lust,’ Arūpa, Khema, Kevala, Apavagga, ‘emancipation,’ Nibbuti (= nirvṛiti), ‘quietude,’ Amata (Amṛita), ‘deathless nectar.’

The following is from Rhys Davids’ Jātaka (p. 4): ‘One day the wise Sumedhā fell a-thinking, thus:—“Grievous is re-birth in a new existence, and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are re-born. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death. It is right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless Nirvāṇa, which is tranquil, and free from birth, decay, sickness, grief, and joy.

‘“For as in this world there is pleasure—the opposite of pain—so where there is existence there must be its opposite, the cessation of existence; and as where there is heat there is also cold which neutralizes it, so there must be a Nirvāṇa that extinguishes (the fires of) lust and the other passions; and as in opposition to a bad and evil condition there is a good and blameless one, so where there is evil Birth there must also be Nirvāṇa, called the Birthless, because it puts an end to all re-birth.

‘“Just as a man who has fallen into a heap of filth, if he beholds afar off a great pond covered with lotuses of five colours, ought to seek that pond, saying, ‘By what way shall I arrive there?’ but if he does not seek it, the fault is not that of the pond; even so where there is the lake of the great deathless Nirvāṇa.”’

What, then, is the proper definition of Nirvāṇa (Pāli Nibbāna)? In venturing on an explanation of so controverted a term, I feel rather like a foolhardy person walking barefoot over thorny ground. Nevertheless I may fearlessly assert two things about it.

The first is, that the term Nirvāṇa was not originated by Gautama. It was an expression common to both Brāhmanism and Buddhism, and most of its synonyms such as moksha, apavarga, and nirvṛiti are still common to both. It was current in Gautama’s time, and certainly occurs in the Mahā-bhārata, parts of which are of great antiquity.

In the celebrated episode of that poem called Bhagavad-gītā[56], V. 24, we find the following:—

‘That Yogī who is internally happy, internally satisfied and internally illumined, attains extinction in the Supreme Being, and becomes that Being’ (Yo ’ntaḥsukho ‘ntarārāmas tathāntarjyotir eva yaḥ, | Sa Yogī Brahma-nirvāṇaṃ[57] Brahma-bhūto ’dhigaććhati).

The second point is that it would be about as unreasonable to expect that Nirvāṇa should always be explained in one way as to restrict Brāhmanism and Buddhism—two most elastic, comprehensive, and Protean systems, which have constantly changed their front to suit changing circumstances and varying national peculiarities at different epochs and in different countries—to one hard and fast outline.

It is certainly singular that although the term Nibbāna (Sanskṛit Nirvāṇa)—like some of the crucial theological terms of Christianity—has led to endless discussions, it does not occur often in the Pāli texts. The word Arahattam, ‘Arhatship,’ is more common.

Nirvāṇa, of course, originally means ‘the state of a blown-out flame.’ Hence its first meaning is properly restricted to the complete extinction of the three chief fires[58] of lust, ill-will, and delusion, and a total cessation of all evil passions and desires[59], especially of the desire for individual existence (name and form).

Following on this is the state of release from all pain and from all ignorance, accompanied by a sense of profound rest—a state achieved by all Arhats while still living in the world[60], and notably by the Buddha at the moment when he attained Buddhahood, forty-five years before his final Pari-nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa then is not necessarily the annihilation of all existence. It is the absence of kleṡa (p. 124), as in the Yoga system, and corresponds very much to the Brāhmanical Apavarga, described in the Nyāya, and defined by a commentator, Vātsyāyana, to be Sarva-duḥkha-ćheda (‘the cutting off of all pain’). In short, it is Arhatship.

But besides Nirvāṇa we have the expression Pari-nirvāṇa. This is not merely the blowing out of the fires of the passions but also the entire cessation of re-births, with extinction of all the elements or seeds of bodily existence. This took place when the Buddha died or ‘passed away’ after innumerable previous deaths. Practically, however, in Buddhism the death of every ordinary being amounts to this kind of Nirvāṇa; for, if there is no recollection of any former state of existence in the new being created by Karma, what is every death but utter personal extinction?

Now with regard to the Nirvāṇa of Arhatship, no one can have come in contact with the natives of India in their own country, without observing that for a genuine aristocratic Brāhman to allow others to see him give way to any passion, to exhibit any emotion or enthusiasm, is regarded as a proof of weakness.

We can easily understand, therefore, that when the Buddha exhorted his followers to strive after a wholly impassive condition, he addressed a sympathetic audience.

Long before his exhortations were heard in India, his fellow-countrymen held persons in the highest respect who claimed to have entirely suppressed their passions. The only peculiarity in Gautama’s teaching was that he made this object incumbent on all true Buddhists alike, without exception. And this state of absolute imperturbability is well indicated to the eye by the usual attitude of the images which, after Gautama’s death, were carved to represent him—an attitude of passionless composure, and dignified calm.

In the interesting Pāli work Milinda-praṡna (Milinda-pañho), containing a conversation on the subject of Nirvāṇa between King Milinda (Menander) and the monk Nāgasena (supposed to have lived about 140 B.C.), the latter compares it to the pure water which quenches fire, and to the fathomless Ocean freed from trouble and impurities, which no river, however vast, can fill to overflowing; and to the Air, which cannot be seen or explained, though it enters our bodies and fills us with life; and to Space, which is eternal and infinite, and beyond the power of man to conceive.

I trust I shall not shock my Indian friends if I illustrate this condition by a comparison of my own drawn from the animal creation. In crossing the Indian Ocean, when unruffled by the slightest breeze, I have sometimes observed a jelly-fish floating on the surface of the transparent water, apparently lifeless. The creature is evidently neither asleep nor awake. It certainly is not thinking about anything, and its consciousness is doubtful. All that can be affirmed about it is that it seems to be drinking in the warm fluid in a state of lazy blissful repose.

No Buddhist, at least, could look at such a sight without being reminded of this idea of Nirvāṇa—the idea of, so to speak, floating in perfect repose and peace and cessation from all pain, and all work, and even all thought, on a kind of ocean of half conscious, half unconscious beatitude. It is not consciousness, neither is it unconsciousness. It is symbolized by a full-blown, perfectly formed lotus—a frequent emblem of perfection—reposing on a calm mirror-like lake.

With regard to Pari-nirvāṇa[61]—the complete termination of migrations and passing away of all the elements of bodily existence—if this is to be distinguished from the Brāhmanical idea of absorption into an impersonal spirit—whereby the Ego of personal identity is destroyed—it is a distinction without much difference.

Strictly, however, in Buddhism the dissolution of the body leaves no surviving personality or individuality, and consequently Pari-nirvāṇa is not properly described either as absorption into a void (ṡūnya) or as annihilation. It is simply the absolute termination of a series of conscious bodily organizations. The Buddha himself evaded dogmatic definitions, and would probably have said:—it is not life, neither is it non-life; it may be compared to infinite space (ṡūnya) which is not to be comprehended or explained.

We should also bear in mind that although Nirvāṇa and Pari-nirvāṇa constitute the ultimate goal to which all the morality of a true Buddhist tends, they have no place either in the aims or thoughts of the ordinary adherents of Buddhism at the present day.

The apex of all the desires, the culminating point of all the ambition of the most religiously-minded Buddhists of modern times, points to a life in one of the heavens, while the great mass of the people aim only at escaping one of the hells, and elevating themselves to a higher condition of bodily existence in their next birth on this earth, and perhaps on that very part of this earth which is the scene of their present toils, joys, and sorrows.

It only remains for me to caution those who may be impressed with the beauty of some of the precepts of the moral code and its theory of perfection, as ending in Pari-nirvāṇa, against deducing therefrom too optimistic an estimate of the Buddhist system. Buddhist morality is like a showy edifice built on the sand. It is a thoroughly fair-weather structure, incapable of standing against flood, storm, and tempest.

It may be summed up in a few words as a scheme for the establishing of a paradox—for the perfecting of one’s self by accumulating merit with the ultimate view of annihilating all consciousness of self—a system which teaches the greatest respect for the life of others, with the ultimate view of extinguishing one’s own.

It must, in short, be clearly understood that if any comparison be instituted between Buddhism and Christianity in regard to the self-abnegation, or self-sacrifice which each claims to inculcate, the self to be got rid of in Buddhism is not the selfishness condemned by Christianity, but rather the self of individuality—the self of individual life, and personal identity.

To be righteous in a Christian sense a man must be God-like, and to be righteous in a Buddhistic sense a man must be Buddha-like; but the righteousness of the Buddhist is not the perfection of holiness by the extinction of sin committed against God, but the perfection of merit-making, with the view of earning happiness for himself in a higher state hereafter.

For every Buddhist is like a trader who keeps a ledger, with a regular debtor and creditor account, and a daily entry of profit and loss.

He must not take, make, or hoard money. He is forbidden to store up a money-balance in a worldly bank, but he is urged to be constantly accumulating a merit-balance in the bank of Karma.

In conclusion, let the Buddha enforce his own moral teaching in his own way, by allegory and illustration drawn from real life:—When asked by a Brāhman ‘why he did not plough and sow and earn his own bread?’ he replied to the following effect: ‘I do plough and sow and eat immortal fruit (Amata = Amṛita); my plough is wisdom (paṇṇā); my shaft is modesty; my draught-ox, exertion; my goad, earnest meditation (sati); my mind, the rein. Faith (saddhā) in the doctrine is the seed I sow; cleaving to life is the weed I root up; truth is the destroyer of the weed; Nirvāṇa and deliverance from misery are my harvest.’ (Kasi-bhāradvāja-sutta of the Sutta-nipāta.)

This may be compared with St. Luke viii. 11-15; but have we not here a contrast rather than a comparison?

Perhaps some may think that the contrast is not unfavourable to Buddhism. Nay, possibly some may complain that I have not enlarged sufficiently on the remarkable resemblance between certain moral precepts in the Buddhist code and in the Christian. I admit this resemblance—I admit that both tell us:—not to love the world; not to love money; not to show enmity towards our enemies; not to do unrighteous or impure acts—to overcome evil by good, and to do to others as we would be done by.

Nay, I admit even more:—I allow that some Buddhist precepts go beyond the corresponding Christian injunctions. For Buddhism prohibits all killing—even of animals and noxious insects. It demands total abstinence from stimulating drinks—disallowing even moderation in their use. It excludes all who aim at perfect sanctity from the holy estate of matrimony. It bids a man, if he strives after perfection, abandon the world and lead a life of monkhood. In fine, its morality is essentially a monkhood-morality. It enjoins total abstinence, because it dares not trust human beings to be temperate. How indeed could it trust them when it promises them no help, no divine grace, no restraining power?

The glory of Christianity is that having freely given that grace and that power to man, it trusts him to make use of the gift. It seems to speak to him thus:—Thy Creator wills to trust thee and to be trusted by thee; He has endowed thee with freedom of choice, and therefore respects thy liberty of action. He imposes no rule of total abstinence in regard to natural desires; He simply bids thee keep them within bounds, so that thy moderation may be known unto all men; He places thee in the world amid trials and temptations and says to thee, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’ and by its aid thou mayest overcome them all.

Yes, the grand difference between the morality of Buddhism and the morality of Christianity is not in the letter of the precepts, but in the principle and motive power brought to bear on their application.

Buddhism says:—Be righteous by yourselves, and through yourselves, and for the getting rid of all life in yourselves. Christianity says:—Be righteous through the power of God’s gift of eternal life in His Son. In a word, Buddhism founds its morality on self. Christianity founds its morality on Christ.

The Buddha said to his followers:—Take nothing from me, trust to no one but to yourselves.

Christ said, and says to us still:—Take all from me; take this free gift. Put on this spotless robe. Eat this Bread of Life. Drink this Living Water.

Think you that any one who receives a priceless gift, is likely willingly to insult the Giver of it? Think you that any one who accepts a snow-white robe is likely willingly to soil it by impure acts? Think you that any one who tastes life-giving Bread is likely to relish husks? or that any one who draws deep draughts at a living Well is likely to prefer the polluted water of a stagnant pool?

Beware, then, of judging by the mere letter; or, should you insist on so judging, bear in mind that everywhere the Buddha’s Law is a dead letter, because the Buddha is dead; just as the Sermon on the Mount would be a dead letter, if Christ were dead.

Finally, let me say to the admirers of Buddhism:—

If you insist on placing its moral code on the same level with that of Christianity, ask yourselves one plain question—Who would be the more likely to lead a godly, righteous, and sober life, a life of moderation and temperance, a life of holiness and happiness—the man who has learnt his morality from the dead, the extinct Buddha, or the man who draws his morality and his holiness from the living, the eternal, the life-giving Christ?

LECTURE VII.
_Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India._

In the preceding Lectures I have confined myself chiefly to the consideration of what may be called _true Buddhism_ as taught by its Founder and developed by his immediate followers and disciples during the first two or three centuries of its existence in the land of its birth, India.

To attempt an explanation of all the subsequent phases of Buddhism would, as I have before stated, require the command of unlimited time. All I can hope to accomplish in the concluding Lectures is to give a very general idea of the nature of the changes Buddhism underwent before it died out in India, and of its corruptions in some of the countries bordering on India and in North-eastern Asia.

And I may add that those who desire correct views on this subject, ought not to trust to mere inferences and theories founded on a critical perusal of the so-called Sacred Books of the Buddhists. For it is certain that without any practical experience of what Buddhism has become in modern times—I mean such an experience as can only be gained by residing or travelling in countries where Buddhism now prevails—the mere study of its ancient scriptures is likely to be misleading.

At the same time book-knowledge is indispensable, and it is essential to bring to the study of later Buddhism a scholarlike acquaintance with Sanskṛit and Pāli. Even a knowledge of Tibetan ought to be added. Nor ought the inquirer to be ignorant of the science of comparative religion, seeing that the principles of that science may throw light on many difficult questions.

For example, a student of comparative religion will be prepared to expect that all religious systems will diverge more or less from their original type in the hands of enthusiastic disciples, who are ever inclined to amplify their master’s teaching and to explain it differently according to each man’s peculiar temperament and mental bias, until in the end the original deposit of simple doctrine becomes overlaid with layer upon layer of adventitious matter.

Nor will he be surprised to find that the tendency of every religious movement is towards deterioration and disintegration. Nor will it appear strange to him that the chief conservative force is antagonism. As time goes on disagreements among the followers of any great leader seem to be inevitable, and always lead to sectarian divisions and subdivisions. Yet it is this opposition of religious parties that usually operates to mitigate the worst extremes of corruption, and tends to bring about re-forming movements.

Even the progress of Christianity—as history shows too well—furnishes illustrations of the law of deterioration, disintegration, and re-formation. At all events, it is certain that no study of the New Testament is likely to give a true idea of the varying condition of the Christian religion as exhibited at the present day in different parts of the world.

But here it is important to caution the student of religions against forcing a comparison between two systems of doctrine like Christianity and Buddhism, which are radically and essentially opposed to each other.

The unchristianlike incrustations and divisions which have marred the original teaching of the Head of our religion exist _in spite_ of Christianity. They are not the result of any development of its first principles; whereas, on the contrary, the corruptions and schisms of Buddhism are the natural and inevitable outcome of its own root-ideas and fundamental doctrines.

In proof of this let us revert for a moment to the insight we have gained into the origin of Buddhism.

It will be seen that the most remarkable feature of the Buddha’s teaching, so far as it has been stated in the preceding Lectures, was that he altogether ignored the existence in human nature of any spiritual aspirations, affections, or instincts higher than or distinct from the natural aspirations, affections, and instincts of humanity; and of any force outside of human nature capable of aiding a man’s own efforts in his struggle for salvation. Not that he reviled, or poured contempt on the religion prevalent among his fellow-countrymen, but that he found no place in his system for an external Ruler and Controller of the Universe, and would have stultified his own teaching had he acknowledged a Supreme Creator, guiding and upholding all things by His will, and always at hand to co-operate with His creatures and listen to their supplications.

If it were possible, in short, to condense into a categorical statement the scattered utterances of a man whose teaching was rarely dogmatic, we might affirm that it was to the effect that for any man to depend on a Being higher than himself, or to centre the noblest affections of his nature on a merciful, just, and holy God, whose presence he yearned for, whose aid he prayed for, and to whose image he longed to be assimilated—was a mere delusion, though perhaps a harmless one. He therefore set aside every supposed supernatural revelation as useless and incapable of proof. He prescribed no prayer, he enjoined no form of worship, he established no real church, and instead of a priesthood or clergy, ordained to aid men in their progress heavenwards or to console them in the trials of life, he founded an Order of Monks pledged to denounce human life as not worth living, and bound to abstain from all participation in human affairs.

It is true that he deserves commendation for having substituted moral conduct for useless superstitious rites, but his moral code had no other aim than the suppression of lusts and desires (p. 139, note 2), and his peculiar stoical philosophy had no other object than the removal of the ignorance which obstructed the path to true knowledge—the knowledge that all life is fraught with pain and misery, and not worth perpetuating.

It is admitted, too, that its moral precepts were of a high order; but it promised man no divine aid in observing them, it supplied him with no motive power except the selfish hope of benefiting himself in future states of corporeal existence, and it provided no remedy in case his attempts to obey its injunctions ended in failure. How, indeed, could it do any of these things when its only idea of sin was not the infraction of God’s law, but the commission of an act fraught with evil consequences to the doer?

Furthermore, it was guilty of the inconsistency of bidding a man cherish a fellow-feeling for others and diligently engage in all good works, while it made his true salvation depend on his giving up all love for wife and children, and setting before himself, as his final goal, a condition of absolute indifference and inactivity.

What, therefore, I am at present concerned to point out is that, if the essential doctrines of primitive Buddhism were of the character thus summarized, a rebound from one extreme to another became inevitable, and that such a reaction was due to the very nature of the original teaching of its Founder. In point of fact it was not a development that took place, but a recoil—like the recoil of a spring held down for a time by a powerful hand and then released. And this resulted from the simple working of the eternal instincts of humanity, which insisted on making themselves felt notwithstanding the unnatural restraint to which the Buddha had subjected them; so that every doctrine he taught developed by a kind of irony of fate into a complete contradiction of itself.

Let us take a few examples:—

Buddhism, we know, started with the doctrine that all idea of marriage, or of happy home-life, was to be abandoned by wise men—by all who aimed at becoming true Buddhists (in direct contradistinction, we may note, to the primary Christian truth that it is not good for created man to be alone, and that therefore his Creator created a help meet for him—a truth confirmed in a remarkable manner by the Founder of the Christian Church when He gave the first sign of His divine commission at a marriage ceremony).

What, then, followed on the Buddha’s original unnatural teaching in regard to marriage?

Of course an immediate result was that, although according to the Buddha’s ordinance any one who aimed at perfect sanctity was bound to lead a celibate life, the rule against marriage was admitted to be inapplicable to the majority of human beings living in the world. The mass of the people, in short, were necessarily offenders against the primary law of Buddhism. Though called lay-Buddhists, they were not ‘wise men’ in the Buddhist sense of the term (pp. 86, 88). There is even evidence that among certain monkish communities in Northern countries the law against marriage was soon relaxed. It is well known that at the present day Lamaseries in Sikkim and Tibet swarm with the children of monks, though called their nephews and nieces[62]. And far worse than this, Buddhism ultimately allied itself with Tāntrism or the worship of the female principle (ṡakti), and under its sanction encouraged the grossest violations of decency and the worst forms of profligacy.

It was the same in regard to the unnatural vow of poverty. Monasteries and Lamaseries now possess immense revenues, and monks are often wealthy men.

Then again, what resulted from the Buddha’s ignoring the existence of a God, and telling his disciples to abstain from depending on any Being higher than what man himself could become? Of course this was opposed to every man’s innermost sense of his own needs and of his own nature. For man is so constituted that he cannot be happy without loving and trusting a Being higher than himself—a Being who takes the initiative in loving His creatures and is the proper object of their loftiest affections. Nor can man in his secret heart regard either himself or any one of his fellow-men as a being worthy of his highest adoration. Nor can he set his affections on a blank or an abstraction. And so, in spite of the Buddha’s teaching, his followers would act on their own convictions. They would believe in beings higher than themselves, and in a personal Creator knowable and lovable by themselves, and knowing and loving His creatures. Nay, they ultimately converted the Buddha himself into the very God he denied, calling him ‘The chief god of all the gods’ (Devātideva).

Again, what was the effect of the Buddha’s leading men to believe that all supernatural revelation was unneeded—that all enlightenment came from within, and that every man was competent to think out true knowledge for himself by the exercise of his own reasoning powers, in the way that the Buddha himself had done?

Of course the result was that the generality of men who shrank from the effort of thinking out truth for themselves, and were wholly destitute of any faculty for doing so, insisted on believing in a revelation from an external power, and ended in attributing infallibility to the Buddha’s own teaching, and worshipping the Law of Buddhism—as a visible embodiment of their deceased teacher—with all the ardour of enthusiastic bibliolatrists.

Furthermore, what followed on the Buddha’s denying that any prayer, however earnest, could have any power to modify the operation of natural laws?

Of course men longed for some form of supplication to a higher power, and so the Buddha’s disciples not only composed prayer-formularies, but invested the mere letters and syllables of such forms with an efficacy which no other body of religionists has ever thought of attributing to prayer of any kind.

They not only repeated mystical sentences, which were called prayers, though really mere charms, believing that an occult virtue was inherent in the words, but invented a method of manufacturing such sentences (Dhāraṇī) like marketable commodities.

They fabricated prayers, in fact, by machinery, inscribing them on wheels or on rolls inserted in cylinders, which in the present day are made to revolve by hand or by the force of water and wind, and will possibly, with the spread of science, be impelled by steam-power, so that each revolution may count for an infinite number of repetitions, and be set down to the credit of the owner or manager of the mechanism.

Yet again, what was the inevitable consequence of the Buddha’s rejection of the doctrine that any benefit could accrue to human beings from religious services conducted by regularly ordained priests, and of his instituting in their stead an Order of Monks, who were little better than a community of drones, contributing nothing to the wealth of the world, doing nothing of any utility to any one, and taught to regard inaction as the path of true wisdom?

Naturally, men craved for spiritual helpers, guides, and intercessors, and so by degrees these very monks conducted elaborate religious services, and a complicated hierarchy was organized in Tibet, even more intricate and far-reaching in its ramifications than that of the modern Romish Church.

And once more, what resulted from the Buddha’s objection to provide visible images and material objects of worship, with a view to stimulate devotion or aid meditation?

Of course concrete and objective Buddhism of some kind became a necessity. It became essential to make concessions to the weakness and infirmity of human nature, which required external aids, and declined to be devoted to an ideal void, or to meditate on a pure abstraction. Even the Founder of Buddhism himself seems to have felt, as we shall see, that his hold on the memory of his followers would depend on their venerating certain objects and symbols after his death. Unhappily for the purity of Buddhism, but quite in conformity with the inveterate tendencies of humanity, the Buddha’s disciples pushed veneration of external objects to an extreme. They were not contented with mere reverence shown to the relics of the Buddha’s burnt body and the shrines containing them. They worshipped the tree under which he attained Buddhahood, the seat on which he sat, the prints of his feet, his shadow supposed to be impressed on rocks, the utensils he used, the books containing the Law, the wheel which symbolized both the propagation and the character of his doctrine, and finally bowed down before carved representations of his body and images of all kinds. It is remarkable that in Buddhist countries idols are far more numerous than among any other idolatrous people in the world.

Lastly, what resulted from the Buddha’s teaching that the ultimate end to which men’s efforts ought to be directed was Nirvāṇa—that is, the total extinction of all individual existence and personal identity?

Of course men instinctively recoiled from utter self-annihilation, and so the Buddha’s followers ended in changing the true idea of Nirvāṇa and converting it from a condition of non-existence into a state of hazy beatitude in celestial regions, while they encouraged all men—whether monks or laymen—to make a sense of dreamy bliss in heaven, and not total extinction of life, the end of all their efforts.

But it was not only this natural and inevitable recoil to the opposite extreme that ultimately brought about an entire change in primitive Buddhism. Another cause must also be taken into account.

We have already explained the nature of the tie which bound Buddhism to Brāhmanism, from the first day on which Gautama sat as a disciple at the feet of the Brāhman philosophers Udraka and Āḷāra (p. 29). Now, although this tie was soon loosened, and although the Buddha struck out a line of his own, and a separation took place, yet the two systems stood on so much common ground that they were always ready to draw together again.

At all events, it is probable that one system never expelled the other, and that the constant attrition and contact which took place between Brāhmanism and Buddhism, led to a considerable splitting up of the original fabric of Buddhism, involving, of course, many divisions and subdivisions of Buddhistic thought, some of which were closely allied to the later developments of Brāhmanical philosophy.

In the Sarva-darṡana-saṅgraha four principal sects of Buddhism are enumerated, which must have taken root early on Indian soil.

These four were the Vaibhāshika, Sautrāntika, Mādhyamika, and Yogāćāra. Of these the first two with their subdivisions[63] were realistic, and were established—though not perhaps thoroughly formulated and systematized—in very early times, long before the council of Kanishka; while the two later schools are described as idealistic, the Mādhyamika being a Buddhistic form of the Vedānta philosophy, and the Yogāćāra agreeing generally with the Yoga system.

Indeed there is good evidence that Buddhism developed in India a greater number of schools and phases of thought than Brāhmanism itself. Some authorities enumerate eighteen divisions (corresponding perhaps to the eighteen original disciples, pp. 47-73) which existed in king Kanishka’s time—that is, in the first century of our era, while others specify thirty-two; and in the fourth century we find the Chinese traveller Fā-hien (p. 160) making allusion to as many as ninety-six (Dr. Legge’s translation, p. 62).

We cannot wonder then that the author of the Sarva-darṡana-saṅgraha expressed himself in rather strong language to the following effect:—

‘Though the venerated Buddha be the only one teacher, his disciples are manifold; just as when the sun has set, the thief and other evil doers, the theological student and others understand that it is time to set about their occupations, according to their several inclinations.’

Yet, after all, it was chiefly in the North, and in consequence of the council held by Kanishka, India’s greatest Buddhist king after Aṡoka[64] (see p. 69), that the original features of Buddhism underwent the greatest change and became overlaid with coating after coating of extraneous matter. It was there, in Northern regions, in the valley of the Indus, that the Protean system called Mahā-yāna arose, and grew, by the operation of the usual laws of accretion, conglomeration, disintegration, and reintegration, into a congeries of heterogeneous doctrines, including the worship of Bodhi-sattvas, deified saints, and personal gods.

Naturally the adherents of this wider method spoke disparagingly of the simpler system prevalent in the South, whose sacred books were the Tri-piṭaka of Ceylon written in the ancient vernacular (Pāli). That system they designated Hīna-yāna, ‘the defective method,’ not denying however that their own enlarged system grew out of and included the simpler one.

There arose, too, a third method, or ‘vehicle’ of salvation, called ‘the middle method’ (Madhyama-yāna). This, however, is not so well known, and, being a compromise between the other two, never gained many adherents, though it is still recognized in Tibet—the Tibetans often speaking of Tri-yāna, or ‘the three vehicles.’

At all events, it is only necessary for practical purposes to recognize the distinction of the Great and Little Vehicle—the Mahā-yāna[65] and the Hīna-yāna. And it may be stated generally that the inhabitants of Nepāl, Tibet, China, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Japan have always shown a preference for the Mahā-yāna, or ‘Great Vehicle,’ while the people of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam have always preferred the ‘Little Vehicle.’

At the same time, it is important to note that while the Buddhists of Northern countries are supposed to be disciples of the Mahā-yāna or Great Way of Salvation, the Buddhism of each Northern country differs greatly from that of the other, and that the countries nearest to India have still further complicated the Mahā-yāna system by adopting mystical doctrines, and introducing magic and other practices supposed to aid in the acquisition of supernatural powers.

It must also be borne in mind that, although the Mahā-yāna or Great Method originated on the Indus, and the Hīna-yāna or Little Method, on the Ganges, the two streams of teaching were not always confined to these two areas, even on Indian soil.

In point of fact they were often intermixed, and the changes thus brought about in Buddhism will become more evident by referring to the narratives of three well-known Buddhist travellers from China.

Buddhism was introduced into China between 58 and 75 of our era[66], but it was not till much later that Chinese pilgrims visited India—the holy land of Buddhism.

The first traveller of whom we have any record was a certain Chinese Buddhist monk named Fā-hien, who set out on a pilgrimage to India about the year 399 of our era, with the definite object of searching for and carrying back to China complete copies of the Vinaya or Rules of discipline for the Order. He wrote a very simple and straightforward account of his travels[67]—which lasted for fourteen years—and of his visits to all the spots in India held most sacred by Buddhists. He was followed by a Chinese traveller of less mark, named Sang Yun, who started about 518 A.D., and seems to have ended his journey at Peshawar, or at least not to have penetrated much further South. Peshawar, we know, was a great Buddhist centre, and there was a fine Stūpa there, containing the alms-bowl of Buddha. Then after another interval a much more celebrated Chinese pilgrim named Hiouen Thsang[68] started for India (A.D. 629-644). The narrative of his travels for about fifteen years is perhaps the best known and most commonly quoted of the three. In Chang Yueh’s preface[69] to these travels Hiouen Thsang is described as ‘a Doctor of the three Piṭakas, and is said to have translated 657 works from the original Sanskṛit. In all the districts through which he journeyed he learnt the dialects and investigated the deep secrets of religion.’

All three travellers give information in regard to the prevalence of Buddhism in India up to the seventh century of our era, and the narratives of two—Fā-hien and Hiouen Thsang—are invaluable for the light they throw on the changes which Buddhism underwent in the interval of their travels. Here and there the pilgrims exaggerate, especially when they venture on numerical statistics or write from hearsay; but on the whole their accounts may be accepted, and we learn that Hiouen Thsang found some monasteries in ruins which were flourishing in Fā-hien’s time, and that the Mahā-yāna had supplanted the earlier form of Buddhism, or rather co-existed with it in many parts of the South as well as of the North, and was to be found even in Ceylon[70].

And this brings us face to face with the greatest change of all—the total dying out of Buddhism in the place of its origin. How is it to be accounted for that no adherents of either the greater or lesser Buddhist systems—of either the Mahā-yāna or Hīna-yāna—are to be found in India at the present moment?

The problem is difficult of solution, and I can only offer a few suggestions for its elucidation.

In the first place, I think it may be confidently asserted that the disappearance of Buddhism from India was a very gradual process, and unattended by any serious or violent religious revolution.

We have already alluded to the tolerant, liberal, and eclectic spirit which has characterized Buddhism ever since the period of its first promulgation at Benares.

Such toleration of the doctrines and ideas of co-existing systems had its advantages, especially in the early stages of the Buddhistic movement. It certainly had a prophylactic effect in warding off violent attacks, and helped to promote the diffusion of Buddhism throughout the numerous countries to which it ultimately spread. In India itself, as we have already seen, Buddhism was never aggressive or combative. Its motto everywhere was persuasion and conciliation. Composure, tranquillity, and absence of acrimony were stamped on all its features. The very foundation on which it was reared—the very establishment of a celibate monastic Order, by means of which true knowledge was to be propagated—had in it something altogether agreeable to the spirit and usages of Brāhmanism.

We have seen, too, that the Buddha took care to show his respect for Brāhmanical traditions, even while promulgating a philosophical theory and preaching doctrines opposed to all sacerdotalism, priestly privileges, supernatural revelation, and Vedic ceremonial.

It does not, of course, follow that the great teacher, to whom the majority of Asiatic races have for centuries looked as their chosen example, had not the courage of his opinions, and was not competent to fill the rôle of a religious reformer.

The real fact was that he was too wise to enter upon any open crusade against inveterate customs and ideas. The peculiar calm of an Indian atmosphere, though occasionally disturbed by political storms sweeping from distant regions, has rarely been stirred by violent religious antagonisms. The various currents of Hindū religious life have flowed peacefully side by side, and reformers have generally done their work quietly. As for Gautama, there can be little doubt that his whole career was stamped with the impress of his early surroundings, and that he imbibed his tolerant ideas from the Brāhmanism in which he had been trained.

It has been usual to blame the Brāhmans for their arrogant exclusiveness, but their arrogance has been rather shown in magnifying their own caste-privileges and carrying them to an extravagant pitch, than in preventing any discussion of their own dogmas, or in resenting any dissent from them.

The very essence of Brāhmanism was tolerance. Every form of opinion was admissible under a system which made every person and every object in existence manifestations of the one Being, Brahmă.

The only delicate ground, on which it was dangerous for any reformer to tread, was caste. The only unpardonable sin was infringement of caste-rules. Nor was any one tempted to adopt the rôle of a violent agitator, when all were free to express any opinion they liked without hindrance, provided they took care to abstain from any act of interference with caste-privileges.

It does not appear, in short, that the preachers of either Buddhism, or Vaishṇavism, or Ṡaivism, or Ṡāktism, or of any form of these sectarian systems, ever incurred the special animosity of the Brāhmans or of each other, or ever indulged in very violent denunciations of each other’s religious doctrines.

In real truth, these systems of doctrine were all evolved out of Brāhmanism. They were, therefore, not only tolerated by Brāhmanism, but accepted as the inevitable outcome of its own pantheistic creed.

No doubt each received at first a strong stamp of individuality from its founder, marking it off from other systems, but with the lapse of years the deeper shades of difference grew fainter. Then it became a question which should become merged in the other. In such a competition between rival systems Buddhism had less chance of holding its own than either Vaishṇavism or Ṡaivism; for its root-ideas—as we have seen—were not rooted in the eternal instincts of human nature.

Buddhism, in fact, could never have maintained itself in India till the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era, had it not gradually, and to a great extent through interaction with Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism, dropped its unnatural pessimistic theory of life and its unpopular atheistic character, and accommodated itself to those systems.

But Buddhism in parting with its ultra-pessimism and its atheistic and agnostic ideas, lost its chief elements of individuality and its chief independent stand-point.

Vaishṇavism, on the other hand, was quite alive to its own interests, and had an eye to the spread of its own doctrines. It took care to adopt all the popular features of Buddhism. It vied with Buddhism in inculcating universal love, toleration, liberality, benevolence, and abstinence from injury. It preached equality, fraternity, and even in some cases the abolition of caste distinctions. It taught a succession of incarnations or rather descents (Avatāra[71]) of divine beings upon earth (as Buddhism taught a succession of Buddhas), and it even adopted the Buddha himself as one of the incarnations of Vishṇu.