Chapter XXXI: Part 31

On another occasion he is said to have brought back to her right mind a young mother whom sorrow had for a time deprived of reason. Her name was Kis[=a]gotam[=i]. She had been married early, as is the custom in the East, and had a child when she was still a girl. When the beautiful boy could run alone he died. The young girl in her love for it carried the dead child clasped to her bosom, and went from house to house of her pitying friends asking them to give her medicine for it. But a Buddhist convert thinking "she does not understand," said to her, "My good girl, I myself have no such medicine as you ask for, but I think I know of one who has." "Oh, tell me who that is?" said Kis[=a]gotam[=i]. "The Buddha can give you medicine; go to him," was the answer. She went to Gotama; and doing homage to him said, "Lord and master, do you know any medicine that will be good for my child?" "Yes, I know of some," said the teacher. Now it was the custom for patients or their friends to provide the herbs which the doctors required; so she asked what herbs he would want. "I want some mustard-seed," he said; and when the poor girl eagerly promised to bring some of so common a drug, he added, "you must get it from some house where no son, or husband, or parent or slave has died." "Very good," she said; and went to ask for it, still carrying her dead child with her. The people said, "Here is mustard-seed, take it"; but when she asked, "In my friend's house has any son died, or a husband, or a parent or slave?" They answered, "Lady! what is this that you say? the living are few, but the dead are many." Then she went to other houses, but one said "I have lost a son," another "We have lost our parents," another "I have lost my slave." At last, not being able to find a single house where no one had died, her mind began to clear, and summoning up resolution she left the dead body of her child in a forest, and returning to the Buddha paid him homage. He said to her, "Have you the mustard-seed?" "My lord," she replied, "I have not; the people tell me that the living are few, but the dead are many." Then he talked to her on that essential part of his system, the impermanency of all things, till her doubts were cleared away, she accepted her lot, became a disciple, and entered the "first path."

For forty-five years after entering on his mission Gotama itinerated in the valley of the Ganges, not going farther than about 250 m. from Benares, and always spending the rainy months at one spot--usually at one of the _viharas_,[8] or homes, which had been given to the society. In the twentieth year his cousin [=A]nanda became a mendicant, and from that time seems to have attended on the Buddha, being constantly near him, and delighting to render him all the personal service which love and reverence could suggest. Another cousin, Devadatta, the son of the r[=a]ja of Koli, also joined the society, but became envious of the teacher, and stirred up Ajatasattu (who, having killed his father Bimbisara, had become king of Rajagaha) to persecute Gotama. The account of the manner in which the Buddha is said to have overcome the wicked devices of this apostate cousin and his parricide protector is quite legendary; but the general fact of Ajatasattu's opposition to the new sect and of his subsequent conversion may be accepted.

The confused and legendary notices of the journeyings of Gotama are succeeded by tolerably clear accounts of the last few days of his life.[9] On a journey towards Kusin[=a]r[=a], a town about 120 m. north-north-east of Benares, and about 80 m. due east of Kapilavastu, the teacher, being then eighty years of age, had rested for a short time in a grove at P[=a]w[=a], presented to the society by a goldsmith of that place named Chunda. Chunda prepared for the mendicants a mid-day meal, and after the meal the Buddha started for Kusin[=a]r[=a]. He had not gone far when he was obliged to rest, and soon afterwards he said, "[=A]nanda, I am thirsty," and they gave him water to drink. Half-way between the two towns flows the river Kukusht[=a]. There Gotama rested again, and bathed for the last time. Feeling that he was dying, and careful lest Chunda should be reproached by himself or others, he said to [=A]nanda, "After I am gone tell Chunda that he will receive in a future birth very great reward; for, having eaten of the food he gave me, I am about to die; and if he should still doubt, say that it was from my own mouth that you heard this. There are two gifts which will be blest above all others, namely, Suj[=a]t[=a]'s gift before I attained wisdom under the Bo tree, and this gift of Chunda's before I pass away." After halting again and again the party at length reached the river Hiranyavati, close by Kusin[=a]r[=a], and there for the last time the teacher rested. Lying down under some Sal trees, with his face towards the south, he talked long and earnestly with [=A]nanda about his burial, and about certain rules which were to be observed by the society after his death. Towards the end of this conversation, when it was evening, [=A]nanda broke down and went aside to weep, but the Buddha missed him, and sending for him comforted him with the promise of Nirv[=a]na, and repeated what he had so often said before about the impermanence of all things,--"O [=A]nanda! do not weep; do not let yourself be troubled. You known what I have said; sooner or later we must part from all we hold most dear. This body of ours contains within itself the power which renews its strength for a time, but also the causes which lead to its destruction. Is there anything put together which shall not dissolve? But you, too, shall be free from this delusion, this world of sense, this law of change. Beloved," added he, speaking to the rest of the disciples, "[=A]nanda for long years has served me with devoted affection." And he spoke to them at some length on the kindness of [=A]nanda.

About midnight Subhadra, a brahmin philosopher of Kusin[=a]r[=a], came to ask some questions of the Buddha, but [=A]nanda, fearing that this might lead to a longer discussion than the sick teacher could bear, would not admit him. Gotama heard the sound of their talk, and asking what it was, told them to let Subhadra come. The latter began by asking whether the six great teachers knew all laws, or whether there were some that they did not know, or knew only partially. "This is not the time," was the answer, "for such discussions. To true wisdom there is only one way, the path that is laid down in my system. Many have already followed it, and conquering the lust and pride and anger of their own hearts, have become free from ignorance and doubt and wrong belief, have entered the calm state of universal kindliness, and have reached Nirv[=a]na even in this life. O Subhadra! I do not speak to you of things I have not experienced. Since I was twenty-nine years old till now I have striven after pure and perfect wisdom, and following the good path, have found Nirv[=a]na." A rule had been made that no follower of a rival system should be admitted to the society without four months' probation. So deeply did the words or the impressive manner of the dying teacher work upon Subhadra that he asked to be admitted at once, and Gotama granted his request. Then turning to his disciples he said, "When I have passed away and am no longer with you, do not think that the Buddha has left you, and is not still in your midst. You have my words, my explanations of the deep things of truth, the laws I have laid down for the society; let them be your guide; the Buddha has not left you." Soon afterwards he again spoke to them, urging them to reverence one another, and rebuked one of the disciples who spoke [v.04 p.0687] indiscriminately all that occurred to him. Towards the morning he asked whether any one had any doubt about the Buddha, the law or the society; if so, he would clear them up. No one answered, and [=A]nanda expressed his surprise that amongst so many none should doubt, and all be firmly attached to the law. But the Buddha laid stress on the final perseverance of the saints, saying that even the least among the disciples who had entered the first path only, still had his heart fixed on the way to perfection, and constantly strove after the three higher paths. "No doubt," he said, "can be found in the mind of a true disciple." After another pause he said: "Behold now, brethren, this is my exhortation to you. Decay is inherent in all component things. Work out, therefore, your emancipation with diligence!" These were the last words the Buddha spoke; shortly afterwards he became unconscious, and in that state passed away.

AUTHORITIES ON THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA.--Canonical P[=a]li (reached their present shape before the 4th century B.C.); episodes only, three of them long: (1) _Birth_; text in _Majjhima Nik[=a]ya_, ed. Trenckner and Chalmers (London, P[=a]li Text Society, 1888-1899), vol. iii. pp. 118-124; also in _Anguttara Nik[=a]ya_, ed. Morris and Hardy (P[=a]li Text Society, 1888-1900), vol. ii. pp. 130-132. (2) _Adoration of the babe_; old ballad; text in _Sutta Nip[=a]ta_, ed. Fausböll (P[=a]li Text Society, 1884), pp. 128-131; translation by the same in _Sacred Books of the East_ (Oxford, 1881), vol. x. pp. 124-131. (3) _Youth at home_; text in _Anguttara Nik[=a]ya_, i. 145. (4) _The going forth_; old ballad; text in _Sutta Nipata_, pp. 70-74 (London, 1896), pp. 99-101; prose account in _D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya_, ed. Rhys Davids and Carpenter (P[=a]li Text Society, 1890-1893), vol. i. p. 115, translated by Rhys Davids in _Dialogues of the Buddha_ (Oxford, 1899), pp. 147-149. (5) _First long episode_; the going forth, years of study and penance, attainment of Nirv[=a]na and Buddhahood, and conversion of first five converts; text in _Majjhima_, all together at ii. 93; parts repeated at i. 163-175, 240-249; ii. 212; _Vinaya_, ed. Oldenberg (London, 1879-1883), vol. i. pp. 1-13. (6) _Second long episode_; from the conversation of the five down to the end of the first year of the teaching; text in _Vinaya_, i. 13-44, translated by Oldenberg in _Vinaya Texts_, i. 73-151. (7) _Visit to Kapilavastu_; text in _Vinaya_, i. 82; translation by Oldenberg in _Vinaya Texts_ (Oxford, 1881-1885), vol. i. pp. 207-210. (8) _Third long episode_; the last days; text in _D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya_ (the _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na Suttanta_), vol. ii. pp. 72-168, translated by Rhys Davids _in Buddhist Suttas_ (Oxford, 1881), pp. 1-136. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts: (i) _Mah[=a]vastu_ (probably 2nd century B.C.); edited by Senart (3 vols., Paris, 1882-1897), summary in French prefixed to each volume; down to the end of first year of the teaching. (2) _Lalita Vistara_ (probably 1st century B.C.); edited by Mitra (Calcutta, 1877); translated into French by Foucaux (Paris, 1884); down to the first sermon. (3) _Buddha Carita_, by A['s]vaghosha, probably 2nd century A.D. edited by Cowell (Oxford, 1892); translated by Cowell (Oxford, 1894, S.B.E. vol. xlix.); an elegant poem; stops just before the attainment of Buddhahood. (These three works reproduce and amplify the above episodes Nos. 1-6; they retain here and there a very old tradition as to arrangement of clauses or turns of expression.) Later P[=a]li: The commentary on the _J[=a]taka_, written probably in the 5th century A.D., gives a consecutive narrative, from the birth to the end of the second year of the teaching, based on the canonical texts, but much altered and amplified; edited by Fausböll in _J[=a]taka_, vol. i. (London, 1877), pp. 1-94; translated by Rhys Davids in _Buddhist Birth Stories_ (London, 1880), pp. 1-133. Modern Works: (i) Tibetan; _Life of the Buddha_; episodes collected and translated by W. Woodville Rockhill (London, 1884), from Tibetan texts of the 9th and 10th centuries A.D. (2) Sinhalese; episodes collected and translated by Spence Hardy from Sinhalese texts of the 12th and later centuries, in _Manual of Buddhism_ (London, 1897, 2nd edition), pp. 138-359. (3) Burmese: _The Life or Legend of Gaudama_ (3rd edition, London, 1880), by the Right Rev. P. Bigandet, translated from a Burmese work of A.D. 1773. (The Burmese is, in its turn, a translation from a P[=a]li work of unknown date; it gives the whole life, and is the only consecutive biography we have.) (4) Kambojian: _Pathama Sambodhian_; translated into French by A. Leclère in _Livres sacrés du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1906).

(T. W. R. D.)

[1] _Note on the Date of the Buddha._--The now generally accepted date of the Buddha is arrived at by adding together two numbers, one being the date of the accession of Asoka to the throne, the second being the length of the interval between that date and that of the death of the Buddha. The first figure, that of the date of Asoka, is arrived at by the mention in one of his edicts of certain Greek kings, as then living. The dates of these last are approximately known; and arguing from these dates the date of Asoka's accession has been fixed by various scholars (at dates varying only by a difference of five years more or less) at about 270 B.C. The second figure, the total interval between Asoka's accession and the Buddha's death, is given in the Ceylon Chronicles as 218 years. Adding these two together, the date of the Buddha's death would be 488 B.C., and, as he was eighty years old at the time of his death, the date of his birth would be 568 B.C. The dates for his death and birth accepted in Burma, Siam and Ceylon are about half a century earlier, namely, 543 and 623 B.C., the difference being in the date of Asoka's accession. It will be seen that the dates as adopted in Europe are approximate only, and liable to correction if better data are obtainable. The details of this chronological question are discussed at length in Professor Rhys Davids' _Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon_ (London, 1877), where the previous discussions are referred to.

[2] See report of _Rex_. v. _Neuhaus_, Clerkenwell Sessions, September 15, 1906.

[3] The various legends of Mara are the subject of an exhaustive critical analysis in Windsisch's _Mara and Buddha_ (Leipzig, 1895).

[4] Bigandet, p. 49; and compare _Jataka_, p. 67, line 27.

[5] _Vinaya Texts_, i. 97-99; cf. _Jataka_, vol. i. p. 82, lines 11-19.

[6] _Samyutta_, i. 105.

[7] Cf. Big. p. 99, with Hardy, _M.B._ p. 191. The Pali name is _aditta-pariyaya_: the sermon on the lessons to be drawn from burning. The text is _Vinaya_, i. 34 = _Samyutta_, iv. 19. A literal translation will be found in _Vinaya Texts_, i. 134, 135.

[8] These were at first simple huts, built for the mendicants in some grove of palm-trees as a retreat during the rainy season; but they gradually increased in splendour and magnificence till the decay of Buddhism set in. See the authorities quoted in _Buddhist India_, pp. 141, 142.

[9] The text of the account of this last journey is the _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na Suttanta_, vol. ii. of the _D[=i]gha_ (ed. Rhys Davids and Carpenter) The translation is in Rhys Davids' _Buddhist Suttas_.

BUDDHAGHOSA, a celebrated Buddhist writer. He was a Brahmin by birth and was born near the great Bodhi tree at Budh Gay[=a]; in north India about A.D. 390, his father's name being Kes[=i]. His teacher, Revata, induced him to go to Ceylon, where the commentaries on the scriptures had been preserved in the Sinhalese language, with the object of translating them into P[=a]li. He went accordingly to Anuradhapura, studied there under Sanghap[=a]la, and asked leave of the fraternity there to translate the commentaries. With their consent he then did so, having first shown his ability by writing the work _Visuddhi Magga_ (the Path of Purity, a kind of summary of Buddhist doctrine). When he had completed his many years' labours he returned to the neighbourhood of the Bodhi tree in north India. Before he came to Ceylon he had already written a book entitled _N[=a]nodaya_ (the Rise of Knowledge), and had commenced a commentary on the principal psychological manual contained in the _Pitakas_. This latter work he afterwards rewrote in Ceylon, as the present text (now published by the P[=a]li Text Society) shows. One volume of the _Sumangala Vil[=a]sin[=i]_ (a portion of the commentaries mentioned above) has been edited, and extracts from his comment on the Buddhist canon law. This last work has been discovered in a nearly contemporaneous Chinese translation (an edition in P[=a]li is based on a comparison with that translation). The works here mentioned form, however, only a small portion of what Buddhaghosa wrote. His industry must have been prodigious. He is known to have written books that would fill about 20 octavo volumes of about 400 pages each; and there are other writings ascribed to him which may or may not be really his work. It is too early therefore to attempt a criticism of it. But it is already clear that, when made acceptable, it will be of the greatest value for the history of Indian literature and of Indian ideas. So much is uncertain at present in that history for want of definite dates that the voluminous writings of an author whose date is approximately certain will afford a standard by which the age of other writings can be tested. And as the original commentaries in Sinhalese are now lost his works are the only evidence we have of the traditions then handed down in the Buddhist community. The main source of our information about Buddhaghosa is the _Mah[=a]vamsa_, written in Anur[=a]dhapura about fifty years after he was working there. But there are numerous references to him in P[=a]li books on P[=a]li literature; and a Burmese author of unknown date, but possibly of the 15th century, has compiled a biography of him, the _Buddhaghos' Uppatti_, of little value and no critical judgment.

See _Mah[=a]vamsa_, ch. xxxvii. (ed. Turnour, Colombo, 1837); "Gandhavaramsa," p. 59, in _Journal of the P[=a]li Text Society_ (1886); _Buddhghosuppatti_ (text and translation, ed. by E. Gray, London, 1893); _Sumangala Vil[=a]sin[=i]_, edited by T. W. Rhys Davids and J. E. Carpenter, vol. i. (London, P[=a]li Text Society, 1886). (T. W. R. D.)

BUDDHISM, the religion held by the followers of the Buddha (_q.v._), and covering a large area in India and east and central Asia.

_Essential Doctrines._--We are fortunate in having preserved for us the official report of the Buddha's discourse, in which he expounded what he considered the main features of his system to the five men he first tried to win over to his new-found faith. There is no reason to doubt its substantial accuracy, not as to words, but as to purport. In any case it is what the compilers of the oldest extant documents believed their teacher to have regarded as the most important points in his teaching. Such a summary must be better than any that could now be made. It is incorporated into two divisions of their sacred books, first among the _suttas_ containing the doctrine, and again in the rules of the society or order he founded (_Samyutta_, v. 421 = _Vinaya_, i. 10). The gist of it, omitting a few repetitions, is as follows:--

"There are two aims which he who has given up the world ought not to
follow after--devotion, on the one hand, to those things whose
attractions depend upon the passions, a low and pagan ideal, fit only
for the worldly-minded, ignoble, unprofitable, and the practice on the
other hand of asceticism, which is painful, ignoble, unprofitable.
There is a Middle Path discovered by the Tath[=a]gata[1]--a path which
opens the eyes, and bestows understanding, which leads to peace, to
insight, to the higher wisdom, to Nirv[=a]na. Verily! it is this Noble
Eightfold Path; that is to say, Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right
Speech, Right Conduct, Right Mode of Livelihood, Right Effort, Right
Mindfulness, and Right Rapture.

"Now this is the Noble Truth as to suffering. Birth is attended with
pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful. Union
with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the
pleasant; and any craving unsatisfied, that too is painful. In brief,
the five aggregates of clinging (that is, the conditions of
individuality) are painful.

"Now this is the Noble Truth as to the origin of suffering. Verily! it
is the craving thirst that causes the renewal of becomings, that is
accompanied by sensual delights, and seeks satisfaction now here, now
there--that is to say, the craving for the gratification of the senses,
or the craving for a future life, or the craving for prosperity.

[v.04 p.0688] "Now this is the Noble Truth as to the passing away of
pain. Verily! it is the passing away so that no passion remains, the
giving up, the getting rid of, the being emancipated from, the
harbouring no longer of this craving thirst.

"Now this is the Noble Truth as to the way that leads to the passing
away of pain. Verily! it is this Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say,
Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right speech, conduct and mode of
livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Rapture."

A few words follow as to the threefold way in which the speaker claimed to have grasped each of these Four Truths. That is all. There is not a word about God or the soul, not a word about the Buddha or Buddhism. It seems simple, almost jejune; so thin and weak that one wonders how it can have formed the foundation for a system so mighty in its historical results. But the simple words are pregnant with meaning. Their implications were clear enough to the hearers to whom they were addressed. They were not intended, however, to answer the questionings of a 20th-century European questioner, and are liable now to be misunderstood. Fortunately each word, each clause, each idea in the discourse is repeated, commented on, enlarged upon, almost _ad nauseam_, in the _suttas_, and a short comment in the light of those explanations may bring out the meaning that was meant.[2]

The passing away of pain or suffering is said to depend on an emancipation. And the Buddha is elsewhere (_Vinaya_ ii. 239) made to declare: "Just as the great ocean has one taste only, the taste of salt, just so have this doctrine and discipline but one flavour only, the flavour of emancipation"; and again, "When a brother has, by himself, known and realized, and continues to abide, here in this visible world, in that emancipation of mind, in that emancipation of heart, which is Arahatship; that is a condition higher still and sweeter still, for the sake of which the brethren lead the religious life under me."[3] The emancipation is found in a habit of mind, in the being free from a specified sort of craving that is said to be the origin of certain specified sorts of pain. In some European books this is completely spoiled by being represented as the doctrine that existence is misery, and that desire is to be suppressed. Nothing of the kind is said in the text. The description of suffering or pain is, in fact, a string of truisms, quite plain and indisputable until the last clause. That clause declares that the _Up[=a]d[=a]na Skandhas_, the five groups of the constituent parts of every individual, involve pain. Put into modern language this is that the conditions necessary to make an individual are also the conditions that necessarily give rise to sorrow. No sooner has an individual become separate, become an individual, than disease and decay begin to act upon it. Individuality involves limitation, limitation in its turn involves ignorance, and ignorance is the source of sorrow. Union with the unpleasant, separation from the pleasant, unsatisfied craving, are each a result of individuality. This is a deeper generalization than that which says, "A man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." But it is put forward as a mere statement of fact. And the previous history of religious belief in India would tend to show that emphasis was laid on the fact, less as an explanation of the origin of evil, than as a protest against a then current pessimistic idea that salvation could not be reached on earth, and must therefore be sought for in a rebirth in heaven, in the _Brahmaloka_. For if the fact--the fact that the conditions of individuality are the conditions, also, of pain--were admitted, then the individual there would still not have escaped from sorrow. If the five ascetics to whom the words were addressed once admitted this implication, logic would drive them also to admit all that followed.

The threefold division of craving at the end of the second truth might be rendered "the lust of the flesh, the lust of life and the love of this present world." The two last are said elsewhere to be directed against two sets of thinkers called the Eternalists and the Annihilationists, who held respectively the everlasting-life-heresy and the let-us-eat-and-drink-for-tomorrow-we-die-heresy.[4] This may be so, but in any case the division of craving would have appealed to the five hearers as correct.

The word translated "noble" in Noble Path, Noble Truth, is _ariya_, which also means Aryan.[5] The negative, un-Aryan, is used of each of the two low aims. It is possible that this rendering should have been introduced into the translation; but the ethical meaning, though still associated with the tribal meaning, had probably already become predominant in the language of the time.

The details of the Path include several terms whose meaning and implication are by no means apparent at first sight. Right Views, for instance, means mainly right views as to the Four Truths and the Three Signs. Of the latter, one is identical, or nearly so, with the First Truth. The others are Impermanence and Non-soul (the absence of a soul)--both declared to be "signs" of every individual, whether god, animal or man. Of these two again the Impermanence has become an Indian rather than a Buddhist idea, and we are to a certain extent familiar with it also in the West. There is no Being, there is only a Becoming. The state of every individual is unstable, temporary, sure to pass away. Even in the lowest class of things, we find, in each individual, form and material qualities. In the higher classes there is a continually rising series of mental qualities also. It is the union of these that makes the individual. Every person, or thing, or god, is therefore a putting together, a compound; and in each individual, without any exception, the relation of its component parts is ever changing, is never the same for two consecutive moments. It follows that no sooner has separateness, individuality, begun, than dissolution, disintegration, also begins. There can be no individuality without a putting together: there can be no putting together without a becoming: there can be no becoming without a becoming different: and there can be no becoming different without a dissolution, a passing away, which sooner or later will inevitably be complete.

Heracleitus, who was a generation or two later than the Buddha, had very similar ideas;[6] and similar ideas are found in post-Buddhistic Indian works.[7] But in neither case are they worked out in the same uncompromising way. Both in Europe, and in all Indian thought except the Buddhist, souls, and the gods who are made in imitation of souls, are considered as exceptions. To these spirits is attributed a Being without Becoming, an individuality without change, a beginning without an end. To hold any such view would, according to the doctrine of the Noble (or Aryan) Path, be erroneous, and the error would block the way against the very entrance on the Path.

So important is this position in Buddhism that it is put in the forefront of Buddhist expositions of Buddhism. The Buddha himself is stated in the books to have devoted to it the very first discourse he addressed to the first converts.[8] The first in the collection of the _Dialogues of Gotama_ discusses, and completely, categorically, and systematically rejects, all the current theories about "souls." Later books follow these precedents. Thus the _Kath[=a] Vatthu_, the latest book included in the canon, discusses points of disagreement that had arisen in the community. It places this question of "soul" at the head of all the points it deals with, and devotes to it an amount of space quite overshadowing all the rest.[9] So also in the earliest Buddhist book later than the canon--the very interesting and suggestive series of conversations between the Greek king Menander and the Buddhist teacher N[=a]gasena. It is precisely this question of the "soul" that the unknown author takes up first, describing how N[=a]gasena convinces the king that there is no such thing as the [v.04 p.0689] "soul" in the ordinary sense, and he returns to the subject again and again.[10]

After Right Views come Right Aspirations. It is evil desires, low ideals, useless cravings, idle excitements, that are to be suppressed by the cultivation of the opposite--of right desires, lofty aspirations. In one of the Dialogues[11] instances are given--the desire for emancipation from sensuality, aspirations towards the attainment of love to others, the wish not to injure any living thing, the desire for the eradication of wrong and for the promotion of right dispositions in one's own heart, and so on. This portion of the Path is indeed quite simple, and would require no commentary were it not for the still constantly repeated blunder that Buddhism teaches the suppression of all desire.

Of the remaining stages of the Path it is only necessary to mention two. The one is Right Effort. A constant intellectual alertness is required. This is not only insisted upon elsewhere in countless passages, but of the three cardinal sins in Buddhism (_r[=a]ga_, _dosa_, _moha_) the last and worst is stupidity or dullness, the others being sensuality and ill-will. Right Effort is closely connected with the seventh stage, Right Mindfulness. Two of the dialogues are devoted to this subject, and it is constantly referred to elsewhere.[12] The disciple, whatsoever he does--whether going forth or coming back, standing or walking, speaking or silent, eating or drinking--is to keep clearly in mind all that it means, the temporary character of the act, its ethical significance, and above all that behind the act there is no actor (goer, seer, eater, speaker) that is an eternally persistent unity. It is the Buddhist analogue to the Christian precept: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

Under the head of Right Conduct the two most important points are Love and Joy. Love is in P[=a]li _Mett[=a]_, and the _Metta Sutta_[13] says (no doubt with reference to the Right Mindfulness just described): "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let him cultivate love without measure towards all beings. Let him cultivate towards the whole world--above, below, around--a heart of love unstinted, unmixed with the sense of differing or opposing interests. Let a man maintain this mindfulness all the while he is awake, whether he be standing, walking, sitting or lying down. This state of heart is the best in the world."

Often elsewhere four such states are described, the Brahma Vih[=a]ras or Sublime Conditions. They are Love, Sorrow at the sorrows of others, Joy in the joys of others, and Equanimity as regards one's own joys and sorrows.[14] Each of these feelings was to be deliberately practised, beginning with a single object, and gradually increasing till the whole world was suffused with the feeling. "Our mind shall not waver. No evil speech will we utter. Tender and compassionate will we abide, loving in heart, void of malice within. And we will be ever suffusing such a one with the rays of our loving thought. And with that feeling as a basis we will ever be suffusing the whole wide world with thought of love far-reaching, grown great, beyond measure, void of anger or ill-will."[15]

The relative importance of love, as compared with other habits, is thus described. "All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and glory. Just as whatsoever stars there be, their radiance avails not the sixteenth part of the radiance of the moon. That takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and glory--just as in the last month of the rains, at harvest time, the sun, mounting up on high into the clear and cloudless sky, overwhelms all darkness in the realms of space, and shines forth in radiance and glory--just as in the night, when the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines out in radiance and glory--just so all the means that can be used as helps towards doing right avail not the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love."[16]

The above is the positive side; the qualities (_dhamm[=a]_) that have to be acquired. The negative side, the qualities that have to be suppressed by the cultivation of the opposite virtues, are the Ten Bonds (_Samyojanas_), the Four Intoxications (_[=A]sav[=a]_) and the Five Hindrances (_N[=i]varanas_).

The Ten Bonds are: (1) Delusion about the soul; (2) Doubt; (3) Dependence on good works; (4) Sensuality; (5) Hatred, ill-feeling; (6) Love of life on earth; (7) Desire for life in heaven; (8) Pride; (9) Self-righteousness; (10) Ignorance. The Four Intoxications are the mental intoxication arising respectively from (1) Bodily passions, (2) Becoming, (3) Delusion, (4) Ignorance. The Five Hindrances are (1) Hankering after worldly advantages, (2) The corruption arising out of the wish to injure, (3) Torpor of mind, (4) Fretfulness and worry, (5) Wavering of mind.[17] "When these five hindrances have been cut away from within him, he looks upon himself as freed from debt, rid of disease, out of jail, a free man and secure. And gladness springs up within him on his realizing that, and joy arises to him thus gladdened, and so rejoicing all his frame becomes at ease, and being thus at ease he is filled with a sense of peace, and in that peace his heart is stayed."[18]

To have realized the Truths, and traversed the Path; to have broken the Bonds, put an end to the Intoxications, and got rid of the Hindrances, is to have attained the ideal, the Fruit, as it is called, of Arahatship. One might fill columns with the praises, many of them among the most beautiful passages in P[=a]li poetry and prose, lavished on this condition of mind, the state of the man made perfect according to the Buddhist faith. Many are the pet names, the poetic epithets bestowed upon it--the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amidst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the supreme, the transcendent, the uncreated, the tranquil, the home of peace, the calm, the end of suffering, the medicine for all evil, the unshaken, the ambrosia, the immaterial, the imperishable, the abiding, the farther shore, the unending, the bliss of effort, the supreme joy, the ineffable, the detachment, the holy city, and many others. Perhaps the most frequent in the Buddhist text is Arahatship, "the state of him who is worthy"; and the one exclusively used in Europe is Nirv[=a]na, the "dying out"; that is, the dying out in the heart of the fell fire of the three cardinal sins--sensuality, ill-will and stupidity.[19]

The choice of this term by European writers, a choice made long before any of the Buddhist canonical texts had been published or translated, has had a most unfortunate result. Those writers did not share, could not be expected to share, the exuberant optimism of the early Buddhists. Themselves giving up this world as hopeless, and looking for salvation in the next, they naturally thought the Buddhists must do the same, and in the absence of any authentic scriptures, to correct the mistake, they interpreted Nirv[=a]na, in terms of their own belief, as a state to be reached after death. As such they supposed the "dying out" must mean the dying out of a "soul"; and endless were the discussions as to whether this meant eternal trance, or absolute annihilation, of the "soul." It is now thirty years since the right interpretation, founded on the canonical texts, has been given, but outside the ranks of P[=a]li scholars the old blunder is still often repeated. It should be added that the belief in salvation in this world, in this life, has appealed so strongly to Indian sympathies that from the time of the rise of Buddhism down to the present day it has been adopted as a part of general Indian belief, and _J[=i]vanmukti_, salvation during this life, has become a commonplace in the religious language of India.

_Adopted Doctrines._--The above are the essential doctrines of [v.04 p.0690] the original Buddhism. They are at the same time its distinctive doctrines; that is to say, the doctrines that distinguish it from all previous teaching in India. But the Buddha, while rejecting the sacrifices and the ritualistic magic of the brahmin schools, the animistic superstitions of the people, the asceticism and soul-theory of the Jains, and the pantheistic speculations of the poets of the pre-Buddhistic _Upanishads_, still retained the belief in transmigration. This belief--the transmigration of the soul, after the death of the body, into other bodies, either of men, beasts or gods--is part of the animistic creed so widely found throughout the world that it was probably universal. In India it had already, before the rise of Buddhism, been raised into an ethical conception by the associated doctrine of _Karma_, according to which a man's social position in life and his physical advantages, or the reverse, were the result of his actions in a previous birth. The doctrine thus afforded an explanation, quite complete to those who believed it, of the apparent anomalies and wrongs in the distribution here of happiness or woe. A man, for instance, is blind. This is owing to his lust of the eye in a previous birth. But he has also unusual powers of hearing. This is because he loved, in a previous birth, to listen to the preaching of the law. The explanation could always be exact, for it was scarcely more than a repetition of the point to be explained. It fits the facts because it is derived from them. And it cannot be disproved, for it lies in a sphere beyond the reach of human inquiry.

It was because it thus provided a moral cause that it was retained in Buddhism. But as the Buddha did not acknowledge a soul, the link of connexion between one life and the next had to be found somewhere else. The Buddha found it (as Plato also found it)[20] in the influence exercised upon one life by a desire felt in the previous life. When two thinkers of such eminence (probably the two greatest ethical thinkers of antiquity) have arrived independently at this strange conclusion, have agreed in ascribing to cravings, felt in this life, so great, and to us so inconceivable, a power over the future life, we may well hesitate before we condemn the idea as intrinsically absurd, and we may take note of the important fact that, given similar conditions, similar stages in the development of religious belief, men's thoughts, even in spite of the most unquestioned individual originality, tend though they may never produce exactly the same results, to work in similar ways.

In India, before Buddhism, conflicting and contradictory views prevailed as to the precise mode of action of _Karma_; and we find this confusion reflected in Buddhist theory. The prevailing views are tacked on, as it were, to the essential doctrines of Buddhism, without being thoroughly assimilated to them, or logically incorporated with them. Thus in the story of the good layman Citta, it is an aspiration expressed on the deathbed;[21] in the dialogue on the subject, it is a thought dwelt on during life,[22] in the numerous stories in the _Peta_ and _Vim[=a]na Vatthus_ it is usually some isolated act, in the discussions in the _Dhamma Sangani_ it is some mental disposition, which is the _Karma_ (doing or action) in the one life determining the position of the individual in the next. These are really conflicting propositions. They are only alike in the fact that in each case a moral cause is given for the position in which the individual finds himself now; and the moral cause is his own act.

In the popular belief, followed also in the brahmin theology, the bridge between the two lives was a minute and subtle entity called the soul, which left the one body at death, through a hole at the top of the head, and entered into the new body. The new body happened to be there, ready, with no soul in it. The soul did not make the body. In the Buddhist adaptation of this theory no soul, no consciousness, no memory, goes over from one body to the other. It is the grasping, the craving, still existing at the death of the one body that causes the new set of _Skandhas_, that is, the new body with its mental tendencies and capacities, to arise. How this takes place is nowhere explained.

The Indian theory of _Karma_ has been worked out with many points of great beauty and ethical value. And the Buddhist adaptation of it, avoiding some of the difficulties common to it and to the allied European theories of fate and predestination, tries to explain the weight of the universe in its action on the individual, the heavy hand of the immeasurable past we cannot escape, the close connexion between all forms of life, and the mysteries of inherited character. Incidentally it held out the hope, to those who believed in it, of a mode of escape from the miseries of transmigration. For as the Arahat had conquered the cravings that were supposed to produce the new body, his actions were no longer _Karma_, but only _Kiriy[=a]_, that led to no rebirth.[23]

Another point of Buddhist teaching adopted from previous belief was the practice of ecstatic meditation. In the very earliest times of the most remote animism we find the belief that a person, rapt from all sense of the outside world, possessed by a spirit, acquired from that state a degree of sanctity, was supposed to have a degree of insight, denied to ordinary mortals. In India from the soma frenzy in the _Vedas_, through the mystic reveries of the _Upanishads_, and the hypnotic trances of the ancient Yoga, allied beliefs and practices had never lost their importance and their charm. It is clear from the _Dialogues_, and other of the most ancient Buddhist records,[24] that the belief was in full force when Buddhism arose, and that the practice was followed by the Buddha's teachers. It was quite impossible for him to ignore the question; and the practice was admitted as a part of the training of the Buddhist Bhikshu. But it was not the highest or the most important part, and might be omitted altogether. The states of Rapture are called Conditions of Bliss, and they are regarded as useful for the help they give towards the removal of the mental obstacles to the attainment of Arahatship.[25] Of the thirty-seven constituent parts of Arahatship they enter into one group of four. To seek for Arahatship in the practice of the ecstasy alone is considered a deadly heresy.[26] So these practices are both pleasant in themselves, and useful as one of the means to the end proposed. But they are not the end, and the end can be reached without them. The most ancient form these exercises took is recorded in the often recurring paragraphs translated in Rhys Davids' _Dialogues of the Buddha_ (i. 84-92). More modern, and much more elaborate, forms are given in the _Yog[=a]vacaras Manual of Indian Mysticism as practised by Buddhists_, edited by Rhys Davids from a unique MS. for the P[=a]li Text Society in 1896. In the Introduction to this last work the various phases of the question are discussed at length.

_Buddhist Texts. The Canonical Books._--It is necessary to remember that the Buddha, like other Indian teachers of his period, taught by conversation only. A highly-educated man (according to the education current at the time), speaking constantly to men of similar education, he followed the literary habit of his day by embodying his doctrines in set phrases (_s[=u]tras_), on which he enlarged, on different occasions, in different ways. Writing was then widely known. But the lack of suitable writing materials made any lengthy books impossible. Such s[=u]tras were therefore the recognized form of preserving and communicating opinion. They were catchwords, as it were, _memoria technica_, which could easily be remembered, and would recall the fuller expositions that had been based upon them. Shortly after the Buddha's time the Brahmins had their s[=u]tras in Sanskrit, already a dead language. He purposely put his into the ordinary conversational idiom of the day, that is to say, into P[=a]li. When the Buddha died these sayings were collected together by his disciples into what they call the Four Nik[=a]yas, or "collections." These cannot have reached their final form till about fifty or sixty years afterwards. Other sayings and verses, most of them ascribed, not to the Buddha, but to the disciples themselves, were put into a supplementary Nik[=a]ya. We know [v.04 p.0691] of slight additions made to this Nik[=a]ya as late as the time of Asoka, 3rd century B.C. And the developed doctrine, found in certain portions of it, shows that these are later than the four old Nik[=a]yas. For a generation or two the books so put together were handed down by memory, though probably written memoranda were also used. And they were doubtless accompanied from the first, as they were being taught, by a running commentary. About one hundred years after the Buddha's death there was a schism in the community. Each of the two schools kept an arrangement of the canon--still in P[=a]li, or some allied dialect. Sanskrit was not used for any Buddhist works till long afterwards, and never used at all, so far as is known, for the canonical books. Each of these two schools broke up in the following centuries, into others. Several of them had their different arrangements of the canonical books, differing also in minor details. These books remained the only authorities for about five centuries, but they all, except only our extant P[=a]li Nik[=a]yas, have been lost in India. These then are our authorities for the earliest period of Buddhism. Now what are these books?

We talk necessarily of P[=a]li _books_. They are not books in the modern sense. They are memorial sentences or verses intended to be learnt by heart. And the whole style and method of arrangement is entirely subordinated to this primary necessity. Each s[=u]tra (P[=a]li, _sutta_) is very short; usually occupying only a page, or perhaps two, and containing a single proposition. When several of these, almost always those that contain propositions of a similar kind, are collected together in the framework of one dialogue, it is called a _sullanta_. The usual length of such a suttanta is about a dozen pages; only a few of them are longer, and a collection of such suttantas might be called a book. But it is as yet neither narrative nor essay. It is at most a string of passages, drawn up in similar form to assist the memory, and intended, not to be read, but to be learnt by heart. The first of the four Nik[=a]yas is a collection of the longest of these suttantas, and it is called accordingly the _D[=i]gha Nik[=a]ya_, that is "the Collection of Long Ones" (_sci._ Suttantas). The next is the _Majjhima Nik[=a]ya_, the "Collection of the suttantas of Medium Length"--medium, that is, as being shorter than the suttantas in the D[=i]gha, and longer than the ordinary suttas preserved in the two following collections. Between them these first two collections contain 186 dialogues, in which the Buddha, or in a few cases one of his leading disciples, is represented as engaged in conversation on some one of the religious, or philosophic, or ethical points in that system which we now call Buddhism. In depth of philosophic insight, in the method of Socratic questioning often adopted, in the earnest and elevated tone of the whole, in the evidence they afford of the most cultured thought of the day, these dialogues constantly remind the reader of the dialogues of Plato. But not in style. They have indeed a style of their own; always dignified, and occasionally rising into eloquence. But for the reasons already given, it is entirely different from the style of Western writings which are always intended to be read. Historical scholars will, however, revere this collection of dialogues as one of the most priceless of the treasures of antiquity still preserved to us. It is to it, above all, that we shall always have to go for our knowledge of the most ancient Buddhism. Of the 186, 175 had by 1907 been edited for the P[=a]li Text Society, and the remainder were either in the press or in preparation.

A disadvantage of the arrangement in dialogues, more especially as they follow one another according to length and not according to subject, is that it is not easy to find the statement of doctrine on any particular point which is interesting one at the moment. It is very likely just this consideration which led to the compilation of the two following Nik[=a]yas. In the first of these, called the _Anguttara Nik[=a]ya_, all those points of Buddhist doctrine capable of expression in classes are set out in order. This practically includes most of the psychology and ethics of Buddhism. For it is a distinguishing mark of the dialogues themselves that the results arrived at are arranged in carefully systematized groups. We are familiar enough in the West with similar classifications, summed up in such expressions as the Seven Deadly Sins, the Ten Commandments, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Four Cardinal Virtues, the Seven Sacraments and a host of others. These numbered lists (it is true) are going out of fashion. The aid which they afford to memory is no longer required in an age in which books of reference abound. It was precisely as a help to memory that they were found so useful in the early Buddhist times, when the books were all learnt by heart, and had never as yet been written. And in the Anguttara we find set out in order first of all the units, then all the pairs, then all the trios, and so on. It is the longest book in the Buddhist Bible, and fills 1840 pages 8vo. The whole of the P[=a]li text has been published by the P[=a]li Text Society, but only portions have been translated into English. The next, and last, of these four collections contains again the whole, or nearly the whole, of the Buddhist doctrine; but arranged this time in order of subjects. It consists of 55 _Samyuttas_ or groups. In each of these the suttas on the same subject, or in one or two cases the suttas addressed to the same sort of people, are grouped together. The whole of it has been published in five volumes by the P[=a]li Text Society. Only a few fragments have been translated.