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Title: Buddhism and Christianity
A Parallel and a Contrast
Author: Archibald Scott
Release Date: January 15, 2022 [eBook #67171]
Language: English
Produced by: Heiko Evermann, David King, and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUDDHISM AND
CHRISTIANITY ***
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST
BEING
THE CROALL LECTURE FOR 1889-90
BY
ARCHIBALD SCOTT, D.D.
MINISTER OF ST. GEORGE’S PARISH, EDINBURGH
EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS
MDCCCXC
[_All rights reserved._]
PREFACE
In endeavouring to sketch in so limited a space even the most salient
features of the many-sided religion of Buddhism it is possible that here
and there I may have misrepresented it.
If so, I hope the fault will be attributed to inadvertence, or rather to
disadvantages under which I have worked. The sacred beliefs of any
section of mankind are entitled to receive at our hands not only justice
but kindly consideration, and a religion so vast and in some respects so
wonderful as Buddhism ought to have much to commend it to our sympathy.
Long and patient study of it has indeed greatly modified opinions
originally formed concerning it, but it has only tended to increase
respect for so earnest an effort of the intellect to solve the mystery
of human life and destiny. Even Christians may have something to learn
from Buddhists. The divers and seemingly antagonistic Churches of
Christendom help to educate and reform each other, and non-Christian
religions may perform a similar office to Christianity in bringing into
prominence some universal truths which its creeds have allowed to slip
into forgetfulness. Our perception and apprehension of what Christianity
really is will be all the clearer and firmer for an impartial study of
the system formulated so long ago by Gotama the Buddha.
The aim of the Lecture has not been to use the extravagances of Buddhism
as a foil to set off the excellencies of Christianity. That Christianity
as a religion is immensely superior to Buddhism goes without saying,
unless in the case of a very small and conceited and purblind minority.
I have tried by a fair exposition of what is best and highest in this
religion to discover its feeling after something better and higher
still, and to suggest rather than indicate the place which it occupies
in the religious education of humanity. As
“Man hath all which nature hath, but more,
And in that more lie all his hopes of good,”
so Christianity, while having in it in fuller measure and clearer form
every truth that has vivified any other religion, has in it, as the new
creation to which the long travail of the soul under every form of faith
has from the first been pointing, something peculiar and
contrasted—which is the Divine answer to all their aspirations. This we
do not need to demonstrate: indeed it may be a verity, as incapable of
demonstration as is that of the existence of Deity or the immortality of
the soul. It is sure eventually to be almost universally recognised, and
meanwhile, whether accepted or denied, we may say—_E pur si muove_.
* * * * *
Very gratefully would I acknowledge my profound obligations to all who
have instructed me in this subject. Though we no longer regard the
Saddharma-Pundarika and Lalita Vistara as good specimens of Buddhism, we
still venerate the great scholars who first introduced them to our
notice. The splendid productions of Burnouf, Foucaux, Köppen, Stanislas
Julien, Hodgson and Turnour; the excellent works of Spence Hardy,
Gogerly, Bigandet and H. H. Wilson, and, among the best of all, the
laborious and faithful Dictionary of Professor Childers, though several
of them are unfortunately out of print, are not likely to be soon out of
date. It is with pleasure that we find them so frequently quoted or
referred to by our latest and best authorities. Still, ever since
Professor Max Müller organised his truly catholic enterprise of the
translation of the Sacred Books of the East, he has brought us very
considerably nearer to real Buddhist teachers themselves. To praise the
scholarship of himself, and Oldenberg, and Rhys Davids, and Kern, and
Fausböll, and others of his _collaborateurs_, would be unwarrantable
presumption on my part; but as a humble disciple very willing to learn,
I am glad to have this opportunity of publicly expressing my
appreciation of the great services which in their editions of old
Eastern texts, and in these series of translations, they are rendering
to the cause of religion.
The lectures were drafted and in great part written before I read the
very valuable works of Sir Monier Williams on _Buddhism_ and of Dr.
Kellogg on the _Light of Asia and the Light of the World_. I specially
mention these books as likely to prove very useful guides to any one
desirous of prosecuting the subject of the present Lecture. In the notes
I have marked my indebtedness to them, and to many authors of what has
already become a great literature. Many others whose works have been of
service to me in a course of reading extending over many years are not
noted, simply because in the caprices of memory my peculiar obligations
to them could not at the time be recalled.
For in regard to Buddhism I do not profess to add any original
information to the stock already acquired. Others have extracted the ore
from these old and interesting fields, and minted it into gold and
silver. What has thus been rendered available many like myself can only
reduce into copper or bronze, but if only our work be faithfully done,
we may thus help in increasing the currency and in extending its
circulation. With this in view I accepted the honour which the Croall
Trustees conferred upon me in calling me to undertake this Lecture, and
if the only effect of my efforts be to stimulate other ministers of the
Church more advantageously situated to prosecute their researches to
much better purpose, no one will be more pleased than myself.
ARCHIBALD SCOTT.
EDINBURGH, _25th December 1889_.
CONTENTS
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY: NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF BUDDHISM AND
CHRISTIANITY.
Schopenhauer’s prediction as to the influence of Oriental studies upon
European religion and philosophy—New science of Comparative Theology—Its
value to the expounders of Christianity—Study of all religions binding
upon Christians—Special claims of Buddhism—Its duration and wide-spread
diffusion—The quality of its doctrinal and ethical system—The
correspondences between it and Christianity—Instructive parallels of
historical development—Resemblances, if granted or assumed, not to be
accounted for by theory of derivation—Renan—E. Burnouf—Ernest de
Bunsen—Both religions independent in origin, though analogous in
development—What the significance of this—True answer to be found, not
by examining alleged resemblances between the religions, but their
points of contradiction and contrast—Unity of humanity involves organic
unity of language and of religion—What is meant by organic unity and
development of religion—Declarations of Scripture—Christianity as the
universal religion has much in common with all—has something peculiar to
itself which it possesses in contrast—In this will be found not only its
superiority to all the rest, but the answer to all their cravings and
aspirations, _Pages 1-58_
LECTURE II.
THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AND THE
EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SCRIPTURES.
Both religions inherited and produced scriptures—Christian scriptures
criticised for eighteen centuries—Buddhist scriptures as yet only in
part available for examination—Admissions made by translators in regard
to them—Strong contrasts between two sets of scriptures, in respect of
authenticity and genuineness—Impossible to regard the two as of similar
canonical or authoritative value—In Buddhism only oral traditions for
centuries—Effect of the lack of a real canon in primitive
Buddhism—Effect of a fixed and written canon in the development of
Christianity—Antecedents of Buddhism—Vedic India—Brahmanic
India—Development of Brahmanic speculation—Its highest reach in
philosophical Brahmanism—The Upanishads—Pursuit of Atman—Antecedents of
Christianity—Patriarchal belief in Deity—Mosaic stage of religious
belief—The religion of Moses and the prophets too pure for the people
under the kings—Destruction of the kingdom—Effect of Captivity on the
prophets—on the people—Difference between the beliefs and hopes of the
Diaspora and those of the returned Palestinian Jews—Preparation of the
Empire and world beyond it for the dawn of Christianity, _Pages 59-125_
LECTURE III.
THE BUDDHA OF THE PITAKAS: THE CHRIST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Palestine at the birth of Christ—India at the birth of Gotama—Like, yet
unlike—Analogies in development of previous beliefs and
speculation—Contrasts—Gotama’s life and ministry contrasted with the
life and ministry of Jesus—The difference between their personal
relations to the religions which they founded—“I take refuge
in Buddha”—“I believe in Christ”—The supernatural in both
religions—Pre-existence, incarnation, and miracles ascribed to
Buddha—Sources of information as to these beliefs examined and compared
with the Gospel accounts—Relation of the miracles to each
religion—Nature of the miracles themselves—Growth of Buddhist legends
described by T. W. Rhys Davids—Implied growth of the Christian legends
examined—Essential contrasts manifest all through—Buddha can be
accounted for, but Christ is the Miracle of History, _Pages 126-191_
LECTURE IV.
THE DHARMA OF BUDDHA: THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.
Gotama’s discovery at Bohimanda—The Four Sacred Verities—The noble
Eightfold Way—His theory of life different from but not wholly
antagonistic to that of speculative Brahmanism—Existence not illusion,
but essentially evil—Transmigration—“Modern Buddhists’” defence of the
dogma—Contrast between it and Christian doctrine of the
Fall—Christianity in its sorest struggle with evil hopeful—Buddhism
hopeless—atheistic—materialistic, yet has its own way, not of victory,
but of retreat and escape—Doctrine of Karma analogous to Christian
doctrine of Heredity, yet really contrasted—Goal of all Buddhist
aspiration and effort—Nirvana, point-blank contradiction to Christian
goal, yet way to it analogous—Arhatship as essential in Buddhism as
holiness is in Christianity—Noble quality of Buddhist ethical code—Its
approach to the Christian rule—A law not for all—Its degrees or paths of
perfection—Uprightness—Meditation—Enlightenment—Christ’s way of
salvation and sanctification by the Holy Spirit through the
truth—Essential defects of Buddhist scheme, _Pages 192-252_
LECTURE V.
THE BUDDHIST SANGHA: THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The Church the fruit of Christianity, the Sangha the root out of which
Buddhism sprang—The Sangha not a Church but an Order—Different from the
many Orders then existing, yet with a likeness to them which it never
lost—Renunciation of secular life an indispensable qualification for
membership—Analogous to yet essentially different from Monachism in
Christianity, and in utter contrast to the idea and reality of the
Christian Church—The Sangha as theoretically open to all, and
propagandist in its purpose, a precursor of the Church—Actual
disqualifications for membership—Ceremonial of admission—The “outgoing”
from the world—Ceremonial of Confirmation—The “arrival”—The novitiate or
tutelage—The rule of the Sangha—No vows of obedience to
superiors—Stringent vows of poverty and chastity—Difference between a
Buddhist Vihara and a Christian monastery—Favourable features of
Buddhist monastic life—The Uposatha gathering—The Pâtimokkha
catechising—The Pavârâna invitation—Relation of women to the
Sangha—Institution of Order of Bikkhuni—The relation of the laity to the
Sangha—The Buddhist layman’s only possible “merit,” and his only hope,
_Pages 253-313_
LECTURE VI.
THE RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.
External diffusion—Both religions missionary—Vastly different in respect
of their messages—Buddhist endeavour to perpetuate a system—Christian
endeavour to set forth and interpret the facts of a miraculous
life—Effect of belief in Christ’s continued presence upon the
Church—Rapid diffusion of Christianity during the first four
centuries—Condition of Buddhism during a similar period—Spread of
Christianity after Constantine—Spread of Buddhism after Asoka—Difference
in the peoples affected by both religions—Inferences—Internal
history—Buddhism and Brahmanism—Christianity and Judaism—In Buddhism an
early abandonment of fundamental principles manifest—Recoil of human
nature from its Atheism into Polytheism and Tantrism—Degradation of
Southern and Northern Buddhism—Buddhism in Tibet—Christianity in
Abyssinia—History of Chinese Buddhism from fourth century A.D. analogous
to that of Christianity in Europe from same date—Deterioration of both
religions similarly indicated—Bôdiharma—Modern Neo-Buddhism—The
T’ien-t’ai School—Reformed Buddhism in China—in Japan—Its most modern
attitude—Difference between Buddhism and Christianity—Alike in
their tendency to deteriorate—Christianity alone manifests a
reforming and progressive power—Resources of Buddhism manifestly
exhausted—Christianity apparently in only an initial stage of
development, _Pages 314-386_
POSTSCRIPT, _Pages 387-391_
LECTURE I.
NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF THE TWO RELIGIONS.
Early in this century Schopenhauer, fascinated by the contents of the
Upanishads, which had been translated from the Persian into Latin by the
illustrious discoverer of the Zend-Avesta, ventured to predict that the
influence of the newly-found Sanskrit literature upon the philosophy of
the future would not be less profound than was that of the revival of
Greek upon the religion of the fourteenth century.[1] That century was
marked by the close of the mediæval age, and the beginning of the times
of Reformation in which we are privileged to live. The Reformation was
not an event, but the inauguration of a period. Its significance was far
deeper than that of a revolt from ecclesiastical superstition and
corruption. It meant a quickening of the human spirit, and a consequent
awakening of the human intellect, to which many forces other than the
leading religious ones, contributed; and its effects are visible not
simply in the changes which it immediately produced, but in the
revolution which is still actively progressing in all our social,
political, and religious relations. The movement designated by the
Reformation is manifestly far from having exhausted itself, and there
can be no question that its course has been greatly accelerated by the
studies to which Schopenhauer referred.
The re-discovery of India, lost to Europe for centuries after the
beginning of the Christian era, almost as completely as America was
hidden from it, was a fact of even greater import than the resurrection
of Greece. It was no wilderness of ruins which was thus disclosed, from
which only the shards of a long-buried civilisation could be exhumed,
but a living and cultured world, whose institutions were rooted in an
antiquity more profound than Greece could claim, and whose language and
manners and religion were separated from the West by far more than a
hemisphere. So totally unlike to the Western world was it, that the
labours and sacrifices of several generations of the finest intellects
of Europe were required before a key could be found to interpret its
significance. Since the days when Anquetil Duperron, after many
adventures and hardships, succeeded in breaking through the tangled
thicket which guarded its treasures, the scholars of all nations have
pressed into it, each one announcing, as he emerged, the dawn or the
progress of another Renaissance, whose meaning and direction and
ultimate issues only the rash will venture to predict or pretend to
foresee.
One of the first-fruits of their combined or independent researches is
the new science of Religion. By a careful collection, analysis, and
comparison of all the beliefs of mankind available, with the view of
eliciting what is peculiar to each, and what they all share in common,
its professors aim at discovering what may be the real nature and origin
and purpose of all religion.[2] As yet it should hardly be designated a
science, for though the elements for it undoubtedly exist, they are too
widely scattered to be of service for immediate induction. The materials
already collected have not been sufficiently sifted, and moreover, it
requires the assistance of other sciences, as yet too immature, to
render it effective support. The title may not be a “misnomer,”[3] but
only a somewhat inflated expression by which an age, rather wise in its
own conceit, proclaims the discovery of a new field of learning which it
means assiduously to cultivate. The discovery however is a solid one,
and the assiduity of those who would improve it is unmistakable; year by
year their numbers increase, their implements improve in quality, and
this generation may not pass away before an abundant harvest has been
reaped.
Another indication of the change that is coming over the world is the
attitude which Christian divines now assume toward other religions.
Fifty years ago the attempt to compare our Bible and our Creed with the
scriptures of other religions would have been regarded as a sacrilegious
surrender of what was holy to the dogs. This was due not so much to
prejudice on the part of the expounders of Christianity as to aversion
to the avowedly anti-christian spirit in which these researches were
prosecuted. The Comparative method was then frequently employed, as it
had been by the Encyclopædists of last century, for the purpose of
discrediting and degrading Christianity. The conclusion was often
foregone before the process began; and so it was natural that reverent
but timid minds jealous for their religion, and anxious to guard it from
insult, should decline such encounters. Now, however, orthodox
theologians are quite aware that in this matter they have to reckon with
other than the professed enemies of Christianity. The ablest advocates
of Comparative Theology are not only free from antichristian prejudice,
but they protest against it as inimical to the science itself.[4] It is
not infidelity, but Providence, that is forcing us to investigate the
origin of our religion, and to search its scriptures in the fuller light
which we now enjoy. We are being divinely taught that we cease to revere
a heavenly gift the moment we begin to idolise it; that the disposition
most fatal to ourselves, most dishonouring to our religion, is that
which would regard its scriptures as charmed relics too sacred to be
examined, and only to be brought by an undevout and apostate Church, in
the moment of its extreme peril, into the field of battle with the
Philistines. To shrink from the comparison of our Faith with the
religious beliefs of those whom we acknowledge to be bone of our bone,
and flesh of our flesh, is to manifest a cowardly lack of confidence in
its Author. It is at the judgment-bar of all the ages that He means to
make good His claim to be the Judge of all mankind. The more He is
tried, the more will His authority be confessed to be divine. He
certainly invited inspection and comparison, and He may have had other
than Hebrew scriptures in His view when He instructed us to “search
them, for they testify of Me.”[5]
The comparative study of other religions, so far from being prejudicial
to the claims of Christianity, will be helpful in establishing its
sublime pre-eminence among them, and in enabling us to discharge to
their adherents the duty which its Founder has imposed upon us. It may
modify considerably our theology, but it will strengthen our fundamental
beliefs. As a general rule, we may assert that the strength of a man’s
faith will be found to be in direct proportion to his knowledge of the
everlasting and unchangeable laws by which the universe is governed. It
is our theology alone that is assailed, and we are learning that
theology, as a system of reasoning upon materials furnished not only by
religion itself, but also by some other “ologies,” must be based on
other and higher authority than that of an infallible Council, or that
of a chapter whose significance was supposed to be unalterably fixed two
or three thousand years ago. The religion which revolted against the
assumption of the Scribe in our Lord’s day, and which disallowed the
claim of the Pope some three centuries ago to be the sole interpreters
of revelation, is not only testing the authenticity of the texts to
which the appeal was then made, but is inquiring into their actual
significance by collating them with the truths of another revelation as
divine. It is not that men want to get rid of dogma, for dogma of some
kind there must ever be. There will always be a vast deal which we must
believe, because there is much that can only thus be known; but a
satisfactory dogmatic foundation must henceforth be sought in facts
anterior to any scriptures, or to any church that would interpret them,
viz., in the elemental necessities and aspirations of our common human
nature. It has been wisely said that “the theology which fails to meet
the demands of the whole man is simply doomed.”[6] What is wanted
therefore for theology is some broad and solid basis, to be laid by
analysing, comparing, and co-ordinating all religious beliefs within our
reach. In each of them we may hope to find some truth—it may be very
feebly and very partially expressed—of no more value by itself than a
flake of gold found in an immense drift of sand or mass of quartz, but
yet of immense value as indicating the source from which it came and the
substance to which it claims affinity. All separate and imperfect truths
point towards some higher truth which will unite and fulfil and
interpret them. And so every religion, however erroneous it may be, is
prophetic—because found in a humanity that is essentially one—of a
universal religion, a faith which is not just one of the faiths of the
nations, but is the divine answer, unchanged and inexhaustible, to all
the aspirations of mankind. The study of other religions therefore, even
of those of the most degraded peoples, and of those most contradictory
of our own, is as binding upon us as is the study of our Bibles. For us
“history” has been truly said “to stand in the place of prophecy,”[7]
and it is only by gathering up and considering its testimony that we can
appreciate the worth of the treasure which has been given to us, that we
may communicate it to all the world.
Prominent among the religions that challenge our consideration is the
one which, following authorities acknowledged to be the best, we will
endeavour briefly to sketch and to expound. It is not an obsolete
system, appealing only to the poetic sentiment from a vanished past,
like the religion of Greece, but one which confronts us with vitality
sufficient to overshadow a considerable portion of the populous East.
Two thousand four hundred years have passed since it was first
proclaimed, and though it disappeared long ago from the land of its
birth, it still reigns in many kingdoms, and continues to spread its
influence in several directions in Central and Northern Asia. To tell
its story completely would be to write the history of nearly the whole
of China, India, and the countries that lie around or between them. Till
very recently it was generally computed that quite one-third of the
human family, though widely separated geographically and otherwise,
professed to find in Buddhism consolation sufficient to strengthen them
to do the work and endure the sufferings of life, and to confront with
calmness the necessity of death.
Were this computation correct, Buddhism would have to be accounted by
far the most widely accepted of all the religions of mankind. It has
however been seriously challenged by those whose experience and candour
are beyond question. According to their enumeration, Buddhism must rank
only fourth in the scale of numerical comparison among the great faiths
of the world, for instead of there being five hundred millions of
adherents, as we were previously led to believe, probably not more than
one hundred millions of professing Buddhists can be found in all the
world.[8] The question in dispute after all is one of only secondary
importance, for we can hardly conceive of any one other than some
democratic fanatic who would propose to settle the truth of a religion
by a reckoning of the suffrages which it could command. Numerical
statistics of religious adherence furnish only an indirect test even of
influence. It is impossible to indicate even geographically the range of
a religion. We are very properly reminded that “the influence of
Buddhism in India may be immense, though not a single Buddhist temple
exists in it, while its influence in China and Ceylon may be vastly
over-stated in figures, for many Chinese Buddhists may be called
Confucianists and Taoists, and many Singhalese worshippers at Buddha’s
shrines are far from being only or altogether Buddhists.”[9] Indeed
everywhere, though chiefly in Thibet, Nepaul, and Mongolia, the religion
which is called Buddhism is no more Buddhist than the survivals of Pagan
worship and belief which are found in some extreme forms of Romanism can
be called Christian.
The rapidity with which and the extent to which a religion has spread is
no certain indication of its capability to meet and satisfy the real
spiritual necessities of mankind. A religion may rapidly gain, and
retain for long, an ascendency over many men, without possessing any of
the qualities essential to its being recognised as the one religion of
all men. The catholicity of a faith is indicated not by the extent of
the supremacy which it has acquired, but by the quality of its contents.
Universal truths are not necessarily the truths which have won the
consent of the greatest numbers. The test of _quod ubique, semper, et ab
omnibus_, if thoroughly applied, would have established the truth of
many a degrading superstition in former times. “It is not that which is
common to barbarism and civilisation which is most truly human, but
precisely that in which civilisation differs from barbarism.”[10] The
divinity of a religion, instead of being attested by the readiness with
which it is accepted, may be indicated by the antagonism which it at
first evokes. Truth at no time depends upon majorities, at least in this
world, for here truth of any kind, when first proclaimed, instead of
meeting a generally friendly reception, has to win its victory by
conflict and lay in martyrdom the foundation of its throne.[11]
It is not on account of its adherents, however, nor of the superficial
extent of its supremacy—though such facts have indeed a very pathetic
significance—but it is in respect of the quality of its original faith,
that Buddhism is considered worthy of comparison with Christianity. We
must not be repelled by the childish superstitions and gross absurdities
with which it is incrusted, for in a religion so ancient and extensive
this is just what we might expect to find; nor should we be surprised at
the marvellous and grotesque legends which profess to relate its origin
and early history, for these, as Professor Müller has very properly
reminded us, “are the clouds, not alway rosy, that gather round the
sunrise of any religion.”[12] In the estimation of its severest critics,
Buddhism must occupy a grand and exalted place in the general history of
religions.[13] Among the various systems of the non-Christian world,
ancient or modern, none can compare with it in respect of its ethical
code, its spirit of toleration and gentleness, and its beneficent
influence upon many wild populations that have embraced it. Neither Zeno
nor Marcus Aurelius conceived a higher theory of morals, in which
justice and temperance were infused by kindness, than that which the
founder of Buddhism successfully reduced to practice. It was the most
natural of all things therefore, that it had only to be introduced to
the notice of Christendom to win for itself a degree of admiration
accorded to no other heathen faith.
We would be understating its claims, however, if we referred to it as
appealing only to our Christian consideration and sympathy. It has been
brought into the lists of criticism as the rival of Christianity. Modern
unbelief is forcing it upon our notice as a much truer philosophy of
existence and a more satisfactory theory of the universe than that
furnished by Christianity. We cannot let it alone, were it for no other
reason that it will not let us alone. In the civilised and
semi-civilised portions of the East its disciples have long ago ceased
to propagate it, and as a form of belief it may be said that there not
only has it reached the limits of its extension, but that its present
condition is one of “increasing disintegration and decay.”[14] Even in
the East, however, among the classes who have most come under the
influence of Western culture, the spirit of Buddhism shows considerable
vitality, and there its spirit is coming into constant and active
collision with Christianity every day. The educated or intelligent
Buddhist of Burmah or Siam tells us plainly that he will not give up his
ancient faith for Christianity; for notwithstanding the manifold and
manifest absurdities of his ancestral religion, he professes to find the
same in the forms in which Christianity has been presented to him. By
the light of our science we have helped him to weed out his old
superstitions, and he will not accept from us any new ones. In language
marvellously akin to that of the founder of Buddhism, he discards every
religion as involving the worship of deity, and he professes to find in
Suttas more ancient than our Gospels a morality as sublime, a charity as
comprehensive, and a system of faith sufficient to bear the strain of
all his necessities, whether present or future.[15] In short, Buddhism
as professed by a modern Oriental with any pretension to culture, is
almost identical with that paradoxical condition of thought or belief
which maintains, and indeed professes to be spreading in Christendom as
modern Agnosticism.
But it is not in an attitude of resistance only that Buddhism confronts
Christianity even in the East. In Ceylon, if we are to trust the _Times
of India_,[16] it numbers among its typical gains “a young highly
educated European lady and a clergyman of the English Church,” and
these, it is averred, “are not the first, and are not likely to be the
last of its direct converts from the Christian churches.” In Europe and
America also, not among the lower and less educated, but among the
higher ranks of society, among people affecting culture and new light,
are to be found not a few professing admirers, if not practical
followers, of Buddha and his law. The admiration of many of these
dilettanti may sometimes be found to be in exact proportion to their
ignorance of Buddhism. Their information is drawn almost exclusively
from such sources as are supplied by the romance of Sir Edwin Arnold and
works like those produced by Mr. Sinnett and Colonel Olcott;[17] but
even when we discount all these, we must own that here and there we find
some thoughtful and earnest people who profess to have come out from
bondage to the beggarly elements of the Church’s faith to gentle
Buddha’s better gospel of liberty. Mr. Alabaster’s _Modern Buddhist_
finds a co-religionist not only in the disciples of Feuerbach and Von
Hartmann, but in every “fervent atheist” who, acknowledging nothing in
the universe save man, and a system of unbending law in which he is
involved, and with which he is sometimes confounded, has been compelled
to deify humanity and to demand for its idol a service worthy of a
divine object of faith.
So another prediction of Schopenhauer’s, uttered in the beginning of the
century, seems to be repeated in many publications at its close. “In
India,” he affirmed, “our religion will never strike root; the primitive
wisdom of the human race will never be pushed aside by any incidents in
Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom will flow back upon Europe, and
produce a thorough change in our knowing and thinking.”[18] He certainly
laboured hard to bring about the fulfilment of his prophecy, preaching
Nirvana as the goal of moral effort, though confessing that his own
animal propensities allowed him no hope of attaining it. In his lifetime
his strenuous endeavours were unsuccessful, and he died in 1860 in
comparative neglect. Since then, and especially since the publication of
his book _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, the doctrine painfully
planted, has taken root in the congenial soil prepared for it by Comte
and his disciples. Spiritualism again—which, though originating only in
1848, in circumstances almost ludicrous, has spread so rapidly and
extensively that it now claims to count its converts by millions all
over the world—has obviously contributed to the dissemination and growth
of pseudo-Buddhist ideas. With a literature of over five hundred
psychological works—many of them voluminous and very costly—and with
forty-six periodicals regularly published in Europe and America, it not
only assails Christianity, but supports the doctrine that “the Reign of
Law has supplanted the Reign of God; that just as we have ceased to
embody the conception of the State in a person, it is time we should
cease similarly to embody the conception of the universe, for loyalty to
a personal ruler is an anachronism in the nineteenth century, and will
some day become extinct.”[19] Its apostles profess to find in the
Christian faith many signs of disintegration, and they look “to the
bloodless and innocent record of Buddhism for the reconstruction of true
religious faith upon a permanent basis.”[20] This they expound in a
so-called theosophy in phraseology largely borrowed from the New
Testament, but descriptive of a curious amalgam of later Buddhist and
Hindu doctrines utterly contradictory to the essential teaching of
Christianity.
Occultism, Esoteric Buddhism, which professes to supplant the religion
of Jesus, and to prepare the way of the twelfth of the Messiahs, whose
mission is to harmonise the perverted teaching of his predecessors,[21]
and thus establish the universal religion of humanity, is not likely to
occasion serious concern. It is just another of those instances in which
the diseases of a lower civilisation are communicated to one superior
and more robust. Just as plagues originating in the ruined or degraded
populations of the East have repeatedly desolated large portions of
Europe, where they found physical conditions favourable to their spread,
so there are mental and moral epidemics which, generated among inferior
religions, propagate themselves in the very highest, for reasons almost
similar. There are modern conditions which present very close affinities
to those out of which Buddhism arose. It has been truly called the
religion of despair, and it seems suited to that intellectual _ennui_ in
which many profess to live who find themselves confronted by problems
which they are unable to solve. The enervating agnosticism and
sentimental pessimism of our generation furnish the very soil in which
the germs of Buddhism are most likely to mature; but the spiritual life
of Christendom is too robust to succumb to its heresy of inertion and
moral defeat. The system of Buddha, even as laid out by himself, is not
at all likely to entrap any considerable number of Western
nineteenth-century thinkers; and this mongrel system of Neo-Buddhism,
though professing to be founded on that ancient creed, will only find
adherents among peculiar people. There is always a tendency in the most
advanced civilisation, on the part of some who are freed from the
necessity of industry, so essential to man’s mental and moral as well as
to his physical health, to revert to beliefs and customs peculiar to
earlier and inferior stages of culture. It is a curious and significant
fact,[22] that not among the working and professional classes, but among
the upper and fashionable ranks of modern society, such survivals of
ancient superstition as intercourse with spirits and palmistry are
chiefly now to be found. For such unstable souls as have been or may be
tempted to be drawn into these practices by an appeal to the authority
of the beautiful character limned for our generation in the _Light of
Asia_, I know no better restorative than a plain exposition of primitive
Buddhism. It will be seen then that this modern fungus is a growth
almost as foreign in its nature to real Buddhism as it is to true
Christianity. The degenerate Buddhism from which it borrows its largest
stock of ideas bears the same relation to the actual teaching of Buddha
that the Cabbala bear to the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the
doctrines which it counts upon as most popular and attractive are
precisely those which Buddha would have treated with his most withering
scorn.
There is yet another characteristic of this religion which has commended
it more to the unbelief than the belief of our age. Many agreements are
alleged to subsist between the contents of the New Testament and those
of the sacred books which profess to record the life and express the
teaching of Buddha. Its ancient Pitakas are said to be filled with
stories resembling the narratives of the Evangelists, with sayings which
recall the parables, and miracles reflecting the signs and wonders which
signalised the ministry of Jesus. It is averred that with the single
exception of the Crucifixion—and how immense is the significance of that
exception I shall endeavour in a subsequent lecture to show,—it would be
easy to find in them a parallel to almost every incident related in the
Gospel. Most startling of all are said to be the resemblances between
the central figures in both sets of scriptures. For Buddhism, as truly
as Christianity, has its ideal of a perfect human life, illustrated in
one who, like unto the Son of Man, went about doing good, and enforcing
by his example the pure morality which he preached, but who, most unlike
the Son of Man, without any sustaining belief in deity, or hope of
sympathy or help from any divine being, professed to have made good his
own salvation, and to teach all whom he could reach the way to work out
theirs.
When we come to examine its history, we find that it has followed a line
of development strikingly parallel to that of Christianity, and the
parallels thus furnished by its antecedents and progress, and by the
external and foreign influences which encountered and modified it, are
those which have the most interest and instruction for the student of
Religion. In order, however, to ascertain their significance, we must
examine these alleged correspondences of story and of doctrine; for
these have powerfully influenced a certain class of thinkers, as
supplying confirmation of a charge brought against our religion in
almost the beginning of its history, that after all there was nothing
original in Christ, and nothing new in His teaching. That resemblances
do exist, not only between the forms in which Buddhism confronts us in
some quarters of the world and the ritual and organisation of a large
section of the Christian Church, but between the contents of the
Buddhist scriptures as we have them now, and those of the New Testament,
all must admit. As we cast a hasty and general glance over them we see
how natural and how pardonable was the old rough and ready method of
accounting for them by the supposition of direct transference of the
various lineaments from the one to the other. The early Jesuit
missionaries did not hesitate to assert that the Buddhists, by
assimilating and incorporating the rites and doctrines of the primitive
missionaries, had succeeded in producing a caricature of Christianity.
In like manner, when in Central America—till then as independent of
Europe as if it had been separated not by untraversed oceans, but by the
immensities that divide the planets—the Spaniards found to their
amazement a most complex religion, with priests, and monasteries, and
temples adorned with the cross and statues of a goddess with an infant
in her arms, they could only explain the mystery by averring that it was
a gigantic mimetic ruse of the devil to lead the unhappy nations astray.
The suppositions in both cases are not likely to be seriously supported
now. Indeed, it is far more likely, as the author of _Ancient
Christianity_ and Dr. Prinsep and others have attempted to show, that in
the East we have to seek for the origin of several institutions and
rites once considered the peculiar growth of Greek or Latin
Christianity. There can be little doubt that as these religions spread
they would come in contact with and react upon each other.[23] It is
difficult in the present state of our knowledge to indicate their first
conjunction, or to trace their various intercommunications, but that
they have been mutually indebted to each other is sufficiently attested
by their histories. In later Hinduism and Buddhism and Lamaism there are
plain indications of the action of the Western upon the Eastern
religions. Romanism, on the other hand, has set its official seal upon
the relationship, by incorporating a legend of Buddha among its “Lives
of the Saints,” by canonising the founder of this most antichristian of
all religions, and by consecrating the 27th November as a day on which
he may be invoked for intercession.[24]
Though as yet the field is only opening out, and its exploration is only
beginning, there can be little doubt that it will be found that in their
advanced stages Buddhism and Greek and Latin Christianity have
contributed to each other’s resources; but it is quite another matter to
assert that the existence of the one religion accounts for the origin of
the other, and that Christianity, as the junior of the two, is simply “a
product of India spoiled in its route to Palestine.”[25] Those who
allege that the sources of Christianity may be discovered in Buddhism
are bound not to assume but clearly to trace and demonstrate the medium
of communication between the two. As yet the allegation, though
frequently made, appears to be incapable of proof. Renan’s picture of
“wandering Buddhist monks who overran the whole world, and converted on
the banks of the Jordan, by their garb and manners, people who did not
understand their language, like the Franciscan monks in later days,” is
only a pious imagination.[26] And so are the theories elaborated by M.
Emile Burnouf in the _Science of Religions_ and by M. Ernest de Bunsen
in his _Angel Messiah of the Buddhists_. Both these authors have
explained to their own satisfaction the derivation of Christianity from
old Indian or Aryan beliefs, which, transmitted through Parthia to the
Babylonian Jews, by them communicated to the Essenes John Baptist and
Jesus of Nazareth, and from them again passed on to the Therapeut
Stephen, were formulated in the plastic mind of Paul of Tarsus into the
Christian dogmas which we now revere. The scheme is devised with
thoroughly French precision, and the treatises in which it is
elaborated, full as they are of indications of great ingenuity and
laborious research, are interesting as any romance. For scientific
purposes, however, they have hardly more historic worth than a romance.
Based upon assumptions, they are constructed almost entirely of
hypotheses: when a difficulty emerges, it is solved by a supposition
which further on is confirmed by a “reasonable expectation” of something
else, so that by and by the supposition meets us as an established
result. They abound in analogies, some of which transgress as flagrantly
the laws of time as the theory once advanced that the story of Christ is
only a reflection of the legend of Krishna, seeing that belief in
Krishna did not arise in India till centuries after Christianity had
reached its shores. “The laws of language[27] are also violated as
openly as they were by the discovery that the mysterious word ‘Om’ of
the Upanishads is the equivalent of the ‘Amen’ in ancient Hebrew
worship.” It may be as possible by this method to prove the connection
between the Vedic and Levitical institutions, as it is possible to
establish the conclusion that the old Aryan symbol of the fire sticks is
the fontal idea of the Cross, or that the Vedic word “Agni” is
equivalent to the Latin “Agnus Dei.” Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter[28] and
Professor Kuenen[29] have most exhaustively and decisively exposed the
vanity of such speculations, which, on the whole, may be regarded as a
good confirmation of a saying uttered by Professor H. H. Wilson some
thirty years ago, in reference to those who would derive Christianity
from Indian sources, that “the disposition to draw impossible analogies
is not yet wholly extinct.”
As far as the history of Buddhism can be traced it presents no actual
point of contact with either Syria or Egypt or Europe. Even after it
became a missionary religion its progress was never westwards, and at no
period did it reach further in this direction than the region now known
as Afghanistan. The civilisation of the West offered no opportunity for
its enthusiasm, and none of the great Western cities appear in its
records. In the few scattered extracts which survive of the writings of
those Greeks who visited India during or subsequent to the period of
Alexander’s invasion, there is no indication of a knowledge of Buddhism,
nor any allusion to Buddha by name. We have to come down to the times of
Clement of Alexandria[30] and of Bardesanes the Syrian before we have
any tangible evidence of the slightest acquaintance on the part of the
West with Buddhism. The first writer mentions Buddha by name, the second
distinguishes his monks from the Brahmans, and gives some details as to
their customs, but it is impossible from their statements to conjecture
how much they knew of the faith to which they alluded, and most absurd
to infer from them that they were affected with the slightest admiration
for it.[31]
If Christianity be the offspring of Buddhism, or even if Buddhism
exercised any direct influence upon its earliest development, some
indications of that influence should be traceable in the Jewish and
Greek literature of that period. Yet in spite of the most searching
examination none have as yet been found, and it is not at all likely
that they ever will be found.[32] Our religion was well advanced in its
course before we find in the works of its defenders any sign of
acquaintance with the Buddhist legend, or any expression of suspicion,
as on the part of Cyril and Ephraim of Jerusalem in the fourth century,
that the taint of some of the heresies which had infected the Church
might be traced to its contagion. Then, unfortunately for the
ingeniously constructed theory that the doctrines were secretly
transmitted by the channel already indicated till they reached St. Paul
through Stephen the Therapeut, the only passage on which the existence
of Therapeuts in Apostolic times could be founded has been recently
proved to be a spurious interpolation in the writings of Philo of a
treatise forged several centuries after his death.[33] Research can find
no trace of Therapeuts in Alexandria nor anywhere else till Monachism
had become the fashion in the Christian Church. Bishop Lightfoot has
convincingly proved that the theory of the transmission of Christian
doctrine from the Buddhists of India through the Babylonian Jews to the
Essenes has not the slightest trace of evidence to support it, but that,
on the contrary, the weight of evidence and probability is all against
it.[34] Again, any one who compares the Gospel account of the life of
the Baptist with the description given in Josephus[35] of the manners
and tenets of the Essenes will find that just as the Essenes owed
nothing to Buddha, so Christ, and even John Baptist, owed nothing to
them. Though similar in a few external points, the Baptist’s preaching
and manner of living were essentially antagonistic to those of the
little Jewish sect which had severed itself not only from Jewish society
but from Jewish hopes. The teaching of Christ, again, whose manner of
life, notoriously in contrast to that of His herald, was throughout a
powerful though silent contradiction to every doctrine which the Essenes
held, and it would be extravagant to assert that He owed to it even an
illustration of His own.[36] It may be safely asserted that the theory
of the derivation of Christianity from Buddhism breaks down at every
point at which it is tested. We may dismiss it in the words of Professor
Kuenen, that the “so-called connection between Essenism and Christianity
cannot bear serious inquiry for a moment,” and in those of the learned
Bishop,[37] “that though the Essenes may have had some connection with
Persia, their system was antagonistic to that of Buddhism in everything
save the spirit of despair which called both into existence.”
The whole supposition of Burnouf and De Bunsen, and writers of the
school to which they belong, is based upon a most exaggerated and indeed
fictitious estimate of the Indian contribution to the sum of human
knowledge. It assumes that India was the cradle of all wisdom, and that
from that favoured land of primeval light went forth from time to time
the apostles of religion and the expounders of all philosophy. Yet
history reveals not the slightest trace of any such propaganda westward
before the coming of Christ, and though centuries after we have slight
notices of Indian travellers to the West, we do not find a missionary
among them. We have historic evidence, however, of the Western races
reaching India certainly before the coming of Christ, and probably long
before the birth of the founder of Buddhism, and we can hardly suppose
that races with enterprise and intelligence sufficient to discover and
conquer the Hindus would appear only before them as beggars to receive
their alms. We forget that the wave of Aryan humanity that poured
downward into India really deflected from the path of progress, and that
under climatic and other unfavourable conditions, and through
intermixture with inferior races, it stagnated, while that which
proceeded westward improved the more the farther it advanced. We have a
tolerably clear idea of the civilisation of Western Asia in the time of
Solomon, whose navy is supposed to have traded with India. It
comprehended capitals with magnificent buildings, public works, and
well-guarded highways; commerce protected and encouraged; law
administered; religion observed, and learning cultivated. What Indian
civilisation meant at the same period we can only conjecturally infer
from the literature that is extant, but we have clearer glimpses of it
five centuries later as the home of a mixed race, geographically severed
from the rest of the world, living in village settlements, which only
here and there were large enough to be called towns, divided into clans
whose wealth consisted chiefly in pasture and tillage lands, and flocks
and herds.[38] A kingdom in the sense in which Solomon would have used
the word did not exist. In respect of civilisation Palestine was far
ahead of India, and in respect of religious development, its theology,
though greatly tainted with heathen superstitions, was sufficiently pure
and strong to save the Hebrew from requiring instruction at the wattle
huts of a race that confounded God with His works. If Ophir be the name
of an Indian port, then Solomon’s navy brought back from it gold, and
ivory, and curious things indicated by Sanskrit words for which the
Hebrew chronicler could find no equivalent. The sailors may have picked
up a few fables and riddles and proverbs, but surely in regard to
religion and philosophy, the superior and stronger race would be more
likely to impart of their abundance to the lower and weaker than to
enrich themselves out of their poverty.
When we come to the Greek invasion we move on more solid ground, and we
can handle events which have left permanent and very traceable effects;
but in the historic notices that remain, we have no trace of Hindu
influence upon Greek civilisation. Instead of Greek religion and
philosophy being enriched by the Indian, the opposite is more likely to
have been the case. The invasion of Alexander must have originated a
host of new thoughts in India, which may yet be traced in the works of
the prolific Buddhist scholars, who are said to have lived in the Punjab
during the period of the Greek domination.[39] It is alleged with fair
show of reason to have given rise to some new products, such as the art
of writing, a currency in coin, stone sculpture, none of which have as
yet been traced in India in any previous period.[40] The appearance in
India of the drama, the epic, of new views of mathematics, astronomy,
physics, are all said to be subsequent to and consequences of the Greek
invasion. And this is what we might expect, for all through the
historical ages the Hindu, instead of enriching Western nations, has
been a needy borrower from them. He has always been more ready to absorb
than impart, ever greedy of foreign ideas, and ever ready to be modified
by external culture. The beneficent influence of India is indeed
traceable in China, whose science it undoubtedly improved, and whose
literature it has greatly enriched; but with the exception of the cipher
so useful in our arithmetical notation, it is questionable whether India
has contributed to the stock of Western wisdom one single religious or
philosophic or scientific truth.[41]
The wealthy are more likely to lend to than to borrow from the poor; the
wise more likely to teach, though they do sometimes learn from the less
instructed. The strong may be infected by the diseases of the feeble,
but generally the contagion of health radiates from the more robust to
the weaker vitalities. The “power” which the touch of the East has “made
to go forth from us”[42] no doubt flows back in quickened life upon
ourselves. As these Oriental studies proceed, the tables will perhaps be
turned upon the school that would derive all our philosophy and religion
from old Indian sources. We have seen that two successive waves of
Western life flowed eastwards upon the shores of India. Another rich
stream of Semitic thought in pre-Buddhistic times, represented by such
religious teachers as the second Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel,
reached the Tigris, and we may ask, Was the Indus unknown to them? We do
not assert that they knew it, but surely it was just as easy for a Jew
to reach India as for Burnouf or de Bunsen’s Buddhists to reach Babylon.
It was just as probable that a Jewish pedlar found his way eastward
through Parthia to India, with other and more precious goods in his
possession than the Babylonian wares in his pack, as it was that Renan’s
wandering Buddhist monk found his way to the Jordan. Later on there is a
tradition—and though it is only a tradition, what a find to Messieurs
Renan, Burnouf, and de Bunsen would one similar Buddhist tradition
be!—that one of the original twelve apostles of Jesus evangelised a
portion of the western shores of India. So, founding on all these data,
only assuming—as we are entitled to assume—that the East was well
connected with the West by the sea routes from Arabia and by the land
route through Persia, and remembering that there is nothing so volatile
and permeating as thought, is the speculation so very extravagant that
old Indian philosophy and religion, though following their own course,
may have been modified and purified by contact with the thoughts of the
West? What if the conjecture be hazarded that from the West a thousand
years B.C. was communicated the theistic impulse which produced what is
best in the Upanishads—the truth, viz., of the unity which is behind and
above all variety, the One Absolute into which all thought and all being
is resolved?[43] What if it be some day asserted that the teaching of
the Hebrew prophets before the Diaspora, as to the worthlessness of
sacrifice to put away sin and to promote communion with God, may have
insinuated itself into the reveries of Indian ascetics in their forest
retreats, and made the teaching of reformers like Buddha possible? And
what if to St. Thomas may be indirectly traced that influence which made
later Buddhism differ so materially from the primitive, and approach in
the similarities of its legends so close to the Gospel narratives? Dr.
Kellogg already proclaims that “it may be affirmed with certainty that
no man can show that the legend of Buddha, in a form containing any
coincidence which could be held to argue a borrowing from it by
Christians, was in existence before the Christian era”; “that all the
various versions of the legend in any language date from a time later
than the Christian era”; “that the chief Sanskrit authority for it
cannot be proved in the judgment of the most competent critics to have
existed in its present form nearly as far back as the Christian era”;
and though he does not allege any actual transference from the Gospel to
the Buddha legend, he avers with justifiable confidence that the
opportunity for “such a transference before the Sanskrit version assumed
its present form is an indubitable fact.”[44]
These suggestions, though just as worthy of consideration and support as
the theory that Christianity is either an offshoot of Vedic Brahminism
or a direct product of Buddhist speculation, need not be discussed at
present. We may content ourselves with the conclusions formed by our
most reliable authorities, that Buddhism and Christianity in their
origin and earliest development were perfectly independent of each
other. The births of their founders were separated by centuries, and the
spheres of their ministry by almost the whole extent of Asia. While thus
sundered by the conditions of both time and space, they were still more
so by their intellectual peculiarities and antecedents. The Indian
differed very widely from the Jew in his way of looking at and reasoning
about things. He would be very differently impressed by the same or
similar phenomena, and he would communicate his impressions by a very
different method. Geographically India was shut up from the rest of the
world, and the Aryans who went down into it were left in a manner hardly
paralleled by other peoples to develop their own life out of itself, and
according to its own laws. In far less favourable circumstances, and far
removed from the educational stimulus of contact with alien or cognate
nations, they came to stand alone as a people scarcely intelligible by
others. The Jews, on the other hand, were early brought into the stream
of human movement. Mingled with many peoples, sent from land to land,
they became in spite of their passionate love for their own country the
cosmopolitans of the world. Consequently when the two races came in
contact, the circles of thought and feeling in which they moved could
hardly be said to touch. Solomon’s sailors, as regards religious or
philosophical treasures, could neither give nor take away. They had
almost nothing in common with the strange people whom they met. The
Sanskrit words which they took home to designate the peculiar products
obtained in Ophir indicated how helpless they would have been to
understand the metaphysics of India even had they inquired about them.
The natives of Western India a thousand years before Christ were as
helpless to understand the Jew. You have only to compare a prophecy of
Israel of the eighth century B.C. with the earliest of the Upanishads to
find how widely separated at that date was the Semite from the Aryan of
India. Even when their own kinsmen visited them, when the descendants of
sires who had occupied the same cradle and had heard the same stories
told over them in the one primeval home, met for deadly strife in the
wars of Alexander on the plains of the Punjab, they were aliens in
almost everything. Later on, when Christian missionaries, anxious to
teach them better ways, succeeded in influencing their religious
conceptions, the Hindus always modified what of our faith they adopted.
The question how far the early proclamation of the Gospel in India
influenced the development of Hinduism is by the best of judges
considered not yet settled,[45] but even those who affirm the reality of
this influence admit that Hinduism did not so much incorporate the
doctrines as assimilate the ideas of Christianity. The ultimate decision
of this question, however, does not in any way affect the one before us.
We may be almost certain that the great mass of Indian speculation on
man and his relations to the infinite, for many centuries before our
era, was developed originally from the resources of the Indian mind
quite apart from foreign influences. The same assertion will hold good
as to the rise of Greek philosophy and of the Christian religion. Not
one of the three can be understood without careful reference to their
particular antecedents, but they can never be accounted for by any
theory of derivation of the one from the other.
It is the fact of this complete independence of each other in origin,
coupled with their analogous development, and the many supposed
agreements in their systems, which makes the study of Buddhism so
interesting. What does this signify? What important law in providence
does it indicate or illustrate? Our best guides content themselves with
calling attention to the analogies, and they are chary as yet of drawing
inferences from them. The wisdom of such caution is apparent when we
find that the supposed coincidences require to be examined and
discussed. Most of them have been found to be superficial and
accidental, and, when probed, very essential and fundamental contrasts
are discovered beneath them. Now to judge correctly concerning these
religions we must try not their analogies but their contradictions. The
analogies may be only seeming, and the contrasts may be very real and
profound. On every point that is truly characteristic the two religions
may be separated as widely as the zenith is from the nadir. All
religions are parallel in their tendencies, and every approach to truth
must inevitably produce resemblances in religious belief. The
resemblances may indicate the aspirations of a moral and religious
nature common to all men; and in what is peculiar to Christianity, what
it possesses in contrast, may be found the divine answer to these
aspirations. The two religions may proceed in parallel lines, but on
very different planes, and from quite opposite directions. Thus the
morality of Buddhism so deservedly admired is in no sense peculiar to
Buddhism, for much of it was taught in India before Buddha appeared, and
in China before his law was proclaimed in it. It is the natural
outgrowth of the moral sense of mankind where circumstances are
favourable to its development. But high as the law of Buddha is, it only
“approaches, swings toward,” as Oldenberg tells us, but never reaches or
touches the law of Christ.[46] There is in the Christian Gospel
something which the Buddhist system plainly lacks, and which Buddhism
out of any evolution of its own inherent energy could never produce.
Christianity seems to be superior to it, not in the sense that the
infant is superior to the embryo, but as man is superior to the animal,
which yet may be said of very necessity to precede him. The lower
organism in creation, though not accounting for the higher, may reach
out after and indicate the necessity for it, and the higher by
fulfilling the lower will interpret it. Just as the mineral, vegetable,
and animal world all point to some higher creative fact, which in man is
to sum up and perfect them, so the many lower religions of the human
race all point to a higher, which is to annul and fulfil them. No theory
of evolution has yet accounted for man. He appears in the universe as a
new creature while part of a very old system of creation, and related to
all its inferior forms. So Christianity, in one sense as old as human
history, and related to every form of religion by which man has tried to
satisfy his spiritual cravings, may not be elaborated out of any of them
as their products, but confronts us as a new fact of history to satisfy
and complete them.
This conclusion is one which many students of the science of religion
are not prepared to accept. To them Christianity is simply one of the
natural religions, and at best their highest but necessary outgrowth.
Just as they allege that the origin of man is to be found in the lowest
type of the savage, so they seek for the genesis of his religious
consciousness in his lowest animal wants and fears, and they profess to
trace the development of that consciousness from its first almost
shapeless forms, through the monstrosities of Fetichism, then of
Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism, till it finds its ultimate culmination
in Christ. Now Christianity is indeed a natural religion; were it
otherwise, it would cease to be divine. It supplies all man’s natural
wants, and it satisfies and educates all man’s natural aspirations.
While, however, there is nothing _un_natural in it, we aver that there
is something supranatural in its ideal, fitting it to answer the
necessities of a being who has in him all that nature has, and a great
deal more. Man is a being akin on one side of his nature to both the ape
and the worm, but he is also what they are not. “The pressure of the
infinite on his senses” awakens feelings, and originates a train of
thought in which he soon becomes conscious of relations to a higher than
nature his inferior, and to other than men his equals. There is that in
him which once it is aroused refuses to believe that what he sees or
handles or tastes is all, and that there can be no higher being than
himself. If his own most perfect machine does not express all his
intelligence, he cannot believe that all possible intelligence is
comprehended and expressed in the world of nature. Behind and beyond all
these physical arrangements of the world, which seem fully to meet the
lower wants of his being, he feels that there must be higher
arrangements corresponding to his peculiar wants. Just because he finds
every appetite has its corresponding object, and every organ implies an
element for which it is fitted,—so that if there be an eye there must be
light, and if lungs there must be air,—so this feeling or instinct which
impels him to seek the unknown Power, “for whose sake he feels
constrained to do what he does not like to do, or to abstain from what
he would like to do,”[47] is the pledge not only that He exists, but
that he has already and always been found by Him, as One who understands
perfectly his thoughts and wants, and is freely communicating with him.
It is not in the anthropoid ape that we may hope to find the origin of
man, and it is not in the terror of the savage cowering before the
majesty and mystery of nature that we are likely to find the genesis of
his religion. Even if anthropology succeeded in proving that savagery
was the first type in which humanity was expressed, and that its bestial
rites inspired by terror was the first form of human religion, it would
not then have accounted for their origin. The gulf between the religious
savage and the non-religious speechless ape would remain as vast as
ever. The first manifested beginning of a work may be rude enough, “as
is the rough block which receives the first stroke of the sculptor who
has designed to produce a statue; but the real beginning,” as we have
been eloquently reminded, “is in the plan of the artist, and to perceive
his ideal we have to wait for the final result.”[48] It is in the end
therefore that we may be said to find and understand the author. So the
origin of man, and the genesis of his religion, is more likely to be
indicated by that divine fiat which one of the ancient authors of
Genesis has dared to formulate, “Let us make man in our image, and after
our likeness.” According to that conception, man is a creature, neither
equal with, nor perfect as the Being who conceived him, but having
affinity with his Creator, and from the very first manifesting capacity
and potentiality of indefinite progress to be gained by the divine
education to which he is everlastingly subjected.
It is not in the plan of our lecture to discuss these momentous
questions, or to enter the lists against the representatives of the
sciences of Anthropology or Religion. Anthropology is not sufficiently
advanced to scatter the mystery that surrounds the cradle of the human
race: and it would be rash for the apostles of the other science to
maintain that they have succeeded in tracing the lines of that process,
out of which Christianity or even Buddhism is alleged to have evolved
from the shapeless superstitions of the primitive savage, before they
confront us as facts in the history of human thought. Observation and
experience alike seem to counsel greater caution in making our
deductions and drawing our inferences. Indeed there seems to be almost
as much evidence in favour of the theory of degradation as there is in
favour of that of evolution. There is no inherent tendency in human
society to pass ever on and ever up to something better and nobler. No
race, by its own inherent strength, seems to have raised itself from
barbarism into anything that can be called true civilisation; but we
have abundant proof in the Aztecs of former generations, and the negroes
of the Black Republic in the present day, that races can terribly
decline. A state of civilisation is very difficult to keep, as well as
difficult to gain.[49] And so far as observation goes, savage life and
religion appear to be “not the dawning of a society about to rise, but
the fading remains of one sinking in storms, overthrown and shattered by
overwhelming catastrophes.” Humboldt and Niebuhr, quoted by Whately in
his lecture on the Origin of Civilisation, both protest as strongly as
he did himself against those who profess to find in the wreck of the
civilised and religious man his original representative,[50] and our
best authority in the science of religion assures us that Fetichism, far
from being the initial of an upward course, marks the very last stage in
the downward course of religion.[51] It should content us, in the
present state of our knowledge, to find that humanity is capable both of
development and degradation. Savagery and civilisation are not separated
from each other by impassable barriers: savagery is at least a
possibility to a civilised race;[52] civilisation is not beyond the
reach of the savage. On the surface of the very highest civilisation
many things appear which are also to be seen in the lowest: and just as
in the lowest organisms certain rudimentary traces are found of members
which are perfected in organisms above them, so the very lowest savagery
seems to exhibit an upward tendency. In the same way the very purest
religions have clinging to them traces of the lowest superstitions. Not
in Buddhism only, but even in Christianity, we find forms of Animism and
Fetichism; but the question whether both religions first manifested
themselves in these lower forms, with which they are still partly
incrusted, must not be held to be settled in the affirmative because
these traces of them exist. Instead of being survivals which they have
not yet sloughed off or outgrown, they may be parasitical growths
indicating degradation and disease.
Though the researches hitherto prosecuted have not resulted in the
discovery of a law regulating the development of religion,[53] they all
point to a common religious faculty peculiar to man, and indicate that
the religious instinct is co-extensive with the human race. Nothing, it
is true, in the nature of things forbids the discovery of tribes
absolutely without religion; but as matter of fact, no such have been
found. And as Tylor remarks, “those who assert the contrary disprove
their theories by the facts which they allege in support of them.”[54]
Now, if we find in all sections of humanity, even far apart from each
other, the same groping after an Author and Governor of our being, and
the same forecasting of our destiny, though in most contradictory, and,
alas! often fearfully perverted ways, we may safely infer as a
fundamental truth that humanity, though broken up into many fragments,
is really an organic unity, and that the Christian dogma simply
expresses a scientific fact, “that God hath made of one all nations on
the face of the earth.”
If the organic unity of humanity be granted, the organic unity of
language and of religion too would seem to be deducible from it as
simple corollaries. But we must be careful in defining wherein this
organic unity consists. We may assume that in regard to language it does
not consist in a perfect primitive speech, broken up at later times into
numberless forms to be used richly and copiously by some civilised, but
scantily by barbarous peoples.[55] In regard to religion it does not
mean a complete compendium of truth supernaturally given to the fathers
of the human race, from which, while all men have erred more or less,
some have fearfully fallen away. Such a view, though held generally
once, would be condemned by Christian theologians now as irreligious in
principle, for it would seek for the roots of religion not in the nature
of man, but in some external enactment, and would make religion, which
is essentially spontaneous, to be something mechanical or compulsory in
action.[56] The unity of language does not consist in a common
vocabulary, but in a common faculty which all men have of expressing
their feelings and their thoughts; and the unity of religion does not
consist in a number of fundamental beliefs which all men have in common;
but in the universal instinct to believe in, and reverence and obey, a
power higher and better than ourselves. The faculty, the instinct in
each case is one; yet it has been developed, if we are to use that word,
in very different degrees. In some tribes the faculty of reckoning is so
weak, that they have numerals only to five, and their vocabulary is so
poor as to express only objects around them or their own sensuous wants.
In the same way in some peoples the religious faculty is so stunted as
almost to be amorphous. It exists as it were in embryo; in other peoples
it perplexes us by the monstrosities in which it is expressed, but the
monstrosity, as we are reminded,[57] may mark a further growth which
also points onward to something more complete, and may be in itself a
type of things not seen as yet. Observation therefore seems to detect a
religious tendency in process of evolution, and if so, the only question
is as to whether that tendency develops by its own inherent power, or by
a process of education intelligently conducted; in other words, whether
man grows into his religion, or whether he is instructed in it by the
revelation of a mind higher than his own.
The New Testament writers, while proclaiming the organic unity of
humanity, proclaim as clearly that the organic development of religion
proceeds under Divine control. The phrase “organic development of
religion” may only be a modern way of designating that long continuous
process by which God reveals His mind and will for the education of the
human race, which culminated when He “who at sundry times and in divers
manners,” in various ways and in different measures, “spake unto the
fathers by the prophets,” spoke unto us by His Son. Holy Scripture from
first to last is consistent in its teaching as to this. It tells of a
Divine Spirit not operative only in one race or in one part of the world
during a few centuries of its history, but striving with human souls
always and everywhere. It tells us that God never left the world without
a witness of Himself; it reminds us of prophets—certainly not all of the
one nation—who, trained to grasp and to proclaim moral and spiritual
truths, were sent to lead among their fellow-men lives so pure and
unselfish as profoundly to affect the moral progress of the whole human
race. In a word, it reveals Deity not as apart from man and uninterested
in him, but as an everlasting agent in human history,—working out an
eternal purpose hid as a mystery from all ages, but now manifested in
the last times to us; the purpose of gathering together not only the
scattered and alienated nations, but “all things which are in heaven and
which are on earth in One,” even in Christ.
The proclamation of this universality of the Divine purpose is one of
the chief distinctive characteristics of Christianity. Its canonical
Scriptures from beginning to end contradict the Jewish heresy, that God,
though He has made of one all nations, has only taken one or two under
His protection, and has no care for the rest. They tell us that God
cares for the sparrow that flits over the heads of the most degraded of
the human race, and for the worm that crawls under their feet; and by
implication they warn us that to assert that He who has provided for the
wants of the reptile and the bird has made no provision for the
spiritual wants of those whom He is said to have made in His image, is
blasphemy more heinous than ever heathen or atheist has uttered. “The
same Lord over all is rich in mercy unto all,” and “He is not far from
any one” of them. He has left none “without a witness.” Though He has
given some more than others, He has left no one without something. The
religious instinct in some He has specially trained and illuminated, not
because He regards them as favourites—for He is no respecter of
persons—but because through them He would work out His beneficent plan
for all. A few are indeed chosen, but that many may be called, and when
one individual or one people is selected and peculiarised, it is that
through them all nations may be blessed.
St. Paul, quoting to the Athenians from one of their own poets, reminded
them that “we are all His offspring,” and as such we are all divinely
cared for. It is true that He does not deal with all after the same
fashion, and His dealings will always be perplexing if we apply to them
only the standard of man and the measures of time; but if we remember
that “He is God, and not man,” that “His years are throughout all
generations,” and that we “can see only a portion of His ways,” we may
trust that by-and-by He will show that He has wasted neither His own
patience nor His creatures’ strength. For though He may not be dealing
with us after the same fashion, He is dealing with all toward the same
blessed end, the end which He has revealed in Christ, through whom, and
by whom, and in whom, all men and things are to be reconciled.
We can only judge of His purpose by what of it has been disclosed.
Humanity, essentially and fundamentally one, exhibits most manifold
variety. While the unity of the race secures its sympathy with all its
members, in its variety there is secured its indefinite expansion and
progress. No family could always keep together in one spot: the
differences of disposition and character among its members demand their
separation as the condition of harmony. The family of man is a scattered
one, not merely to prevent jealousy and hostility between its members,
but to promote their education. The training of the race seems to
proceed on principles somewhat analogous to those which we ourselves
have adopted in the education of our children. We never could hope to
educate a large number of children of various ages and mental
capacities, by keeping them all in one class; so we break them up, and
isolate, and grade them, and train some of them specially for the sake
of all, that they may be their leaders and teachers. Even so, we find
nations widely separated by natural barriers, that the characteristic
energies of each may be developed, till the time comes when one or other
of them is needed for the elevation or reformation of the rest. That the
division of nations and the separate training of nations entered deeply
into the counsels of Providence, may be learned by a glance at the
configuration of the world, and the influences which are exercised by
soil and climate and circumstance upon any single nation. The blessed
effect of this division may be seen by the slightest survey of history
in the corrective, educative, redemptive influence which they have
exercised upon each other.[58] And yet a survey of the history of the
last eighteen centuries will just as plainly indicate a Divine purpose
of drawing the nations toward unity. Babel may mark the Divine purpose
of the primeval economy, and Pentecost may be the sign of the present.
The wonder in the plain of Shinar was, that through diversity of speech
men were ceasing to understand each other. The wonder in Jerusalem was,
that men of the most widely separate nationalities heard, each in their
own tongue, Christian evangelists proclaim the marvellous works of God.
Religion, which up till the coming of Christ, had proved a repellent and
divisive force, began at that time to prove an attractive, harmonising,
and transforming power. A new spring-tide dawned upon man’s religious
conceptions, and truths after which all had been groping, but which none
had attained to, emerged grandly into prominence. The Fatherhood of the
One living and eternal God, the Divine Son, in whom all men are
brethren, and the Holy Spirit, dealing with every man, working upon him
and in him to conform him to the likeness of the highest and best, began
to be revealed; and the more that revelation is accepted the more the
reconciliation of the race advances.
It is not our interest, therefore, to sever Christianity from all
connection with the manifold forms in which the religious instinct and
faculty of man has found expression. If it could be proved that our
religion stands in no relation to anything which men in other religions
thought or believed, it would be discovered defective, and we would have
to abandon the claim that it is the universal religion of humanity. To
assert that all previous religious ideas must be expunged as erroneous
or false, so that an entirely new message might be written, is to
contradict the evangelical doctrine as to the nature of Christ and the
purpose of His mission to the world. The New Testament writers assert
that Christ is the source of all the truth that was ever uttered, the
inspirer of all the goodness that was ever seen, and that He is the
stimulator and educator of man’s every reaching out after God. The
noblest thinkers, it is true, failed to comprehend the truth, and their
highest religion failed to satisfy them; but we must not think of them
as divinely permitted to fail to teach us the glory of Christ as the
ultimate revelation of God. Here, as in all similar cases, failure was
rather a partial success; for by the effort to reach it the mind was
trained to receive and grasp the reality when it was disclosed. Some one
has said that all pre-Christian religions are just Christ partially—very
very partially—realised. Certainly they all point to Him, and but for
Him they would have been abortive. They all suggest Him, in respect that
they each claim something to satisfy and unite them. Christianity thus
proves itself Divine, not in being absolutely different from, nor even
in being vastly superior to, but in the fact that it harmonises and
completes them. Instead, therefore, of being scared by the resemblances
to Christianity which we meet in other religions, we should be thankful
for their discovery. The early Apologists were not frightened when
Celsus,[59] in the second century, submitted his alleged parallels to
Christian doctrine and ethics, in order to prove that what Christians
called revelation had already been attained by the unassisted efforts of
heathen minds. Anticipating the language of the eighteenth century
Deists, he proclaimed that “Christianity was as old as creation.” His
parallels were often found to be defective, and many of them had only to
be looked at to show the immense superiority of the Christian
quotations. Augustine turned them against himself, when he showed that
to claim entire originality for Christianity, to deny the existence of
any light before Christ came, and the possibility of any silent
universal revelation through reason and conscience, was to contradict
His Messiahship. To ignore what God had done before, would have cut Him
off from God and man. We would expect the Son of Man to confirm the
deepest convictions of the human race. We would expect the Son of God to
claim and utilise all the truth God’s Spirit had spoken in ages past.
“Siquis vera loquitur, prior est quam ipse veritas? O Homo, attende
Christum, non quando ad te venerit, sed quando te fecerit.”[60]
The more of Christian doctrine and ethics we find in other religions,
the more Divine will Christianity appear. There is not a truth which has
verified and sustained any other religion which is not found in
Christianity, in fuller amount and in clearer form. Christianity differs
from all other religions, not because it is a purer system of moral
truth, but because it is the manifestation of a Divine life, and because
in that life it reveals the _power_ which alone can reconcile the
knowing with the doing of duty. It professes only to have one original,
one distinctive element; but how much is involved in that profession?
for this original is Christ Himself, and all its doctrines and precepts
are vital only because of their connection with Christ. Whole libraries
of moral and doctrinal anthologies would not make up for the
obliteration of His likeness from the religious consciousness of the
world: “It would be like consoling ourselves for the loss of the sun by
the kindling of ten thousand artificial lamps.”[61] He confronts the
ages, as the One to whom all religions point, of whom all true prophets
of the human race have unconsciously testified. They, like the Founder
of this great religion, whose alleged resemblances will be found, as we
examine them, to be rather point-blank contradictions and contrasts to
the Christian doctrines and story, may have indeed been burning and
shining lights, and men were willing for a season to rejoice in their
light. They were “not that Light,” but as voices crying in the night for
its arising they came to “bear witness of it”: the Light not of Asia
only, nor yet only of Europe, but the “Light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.”
Footnote 1:
_Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Pref. xiii.
Footnote 2:
Professor Max Müller, Gifford Lectures for 1888, on _Natural
Religion_, p. 11.
Footnote 3:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, 1881, “On the Origin and Growth
of Religion as illustrated by some points in the History of Indian
Buddhism,” p. 10.
Footnote 4:
Max Müller, _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 38.
Footnote 5:
John v. 39.
Footnote 6:
Baring Gould, _Origin and Development of Religious Belief_, vol. i. p.
121.
Footnote 7:
Westcott, _Victory of the Cross_, pp. 3, 6.
Footnote 8:
T. W. Rhys Davids estimates the number at five hundred millions
(_Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 6). The previous general estimate was
about four hundred millions; but Dr. A. J. Happer, missionary at
Canton for forty-five years, reduces this number to seventy-three
millions. Sir Monier Williams, in his recent book on Buddhism, quoting
Professor Legge’s introduction to _Travels of Fa-Hian_, calculates the
number at one hundred millions, and claims for Christianity, with its
four hundred and thirty millions of adherents, the numerical
preponderance over all others.
Footnote 9:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp. 4, 7; Sir Monier Williams,
_Buddhism_, p. 171.
Footnote 10:
Dr. Caird, _Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion_, Croall
Lectures, 1878-9, pp. 82 _seq._; T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures,
1881, _On the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by
Buddhism_, p. 7.
Footnote 11:
To draw proper inferences from statistics of the spread and supremacy
of a religion, we must first investigate the circumstances in which it
was propagated, and the intellectual and moral conditions of the
peoples whom it has converted. If it has gained only the belief of
_one_ section of the human race, it is evidently not entitled to rank
with another which proves itself influential among _all_ sections. A
religion dominant only over _inferior_ races is manifestly of less
value than another which, while satisfying the wants of the lowest and
most degraded peoples, is yet fulfilling the spiritual aspirations of
the _highest_. The first, if in any way related to the second, can
only be so as preparatory and prophetic of the mission which the
second alone can accomplish.
Footnote 12:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. Introd.
Footnote 13:
Köppen, _Die Religion des Buddha_, s. 231; J. Barthelemy
Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha_, etc., pp. 78, 144, 181; Spence Hardy,
_Manual of Buddhism_, p. 358.
Footnote 14:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. xv, Introd.
Footnote 15:
Alabaster, _Modern Buddhist; in the Wheel of the Law_, p. 73; Trübner
and Co., 1871.
Footnote 16:
5th April 1885. In the Madras _Times_ for October 29, 1886, a meeting
of the Society for the Propagation of True Religion is advertised, for
reading and exposition of the Bhagavad-Gita.
Footnote 17:
_The Light of Asia_; _The Occult World_; _Esoteric Buddhism_;
_Theosophy of Archaic Religions_.
Footnote 18:
_Parerga_, 3d ed. i. 59.
Footnote 19:
_Westminster Review_, New Series, vol. xlviii. p. 469.
Footnote 20:
Gerald Massey, _Light_, 16th June 1883.
Footnote 21:
Among these are reckoned Adam, Fohi, Laotze, Jesus, Mohammed, and
Jenghiz Khān.—Kinnealy, _Commentary on the Apocalypse_, p. 685.
Footnote 22:
Pember, _Earth’s Earlier Ages_, p. 326.
Footnote 23:
H. H. Wilson, _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 376; Huc and Gabet, _Travel in
Tartary and Thibet_; translated by Mrs. p. Sinnett and W. Hazlitt.
Footnote 24:
_Buddhist Birth Stories_, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids, vol. i
Introd. p. xli.
Footnote 25:
Foucher de Careil, _Hegel et Schopenhauer_, p. 306.
Footnote 26:
_Vie de Jésus_, p. 98, 4th ed.; Paris, 1863.
Footnote 27:
The Buddhists, as Professor Kuenen remarks, do not believe in angels,
and they have no _Messiah_. Tathagata, which Mr. de Bunsen translates
“The Coming One,” _i.e._ Messiah, means “One _who has gone_” or “has
arrived at” (Nirvana), like his predecessors. So Oldenberg, Rhys
Davids, Bigandet, Edkins, Rajendralal Mitra: see too Dr. Kellogg,
_Light of Asia and the Light of the World_, pp. 106, 107.
Footnote 28:
See for these and other curious instances his article on “The
Obligations of the New Testament to Buddhism,” _Nineteenth Century_,
Dec. 1880.
Footnote 29:
_Natural and Universal Religions_, Hibbert Lectures, 1882.
Footnote 30:
_Strom._ i. 15; Porphyry, _de Abstin._ iv. 17.
Footnote 31:
Schwanbeck, _Megasthenes Indica_, p. 20; Lassen, _Ind.
Alterthumskunde_, 209; H. H. Wilson, _Essays_, ii. p. 314 _seq._;
Reinaud, _Relations Politiques et Commerciales de l’Empire Romain avec
l’Asie Central_, Paris, 1863; Priaulx, _Travels of Apollonius and the
Indian Embassies to Rome_, Paris, 1873.
Footnote 32:
The question of the disciples in John ix. 2, concerning the man who
was born blind, “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind?” is alleged by Professor Seydel (_Das Evangelium von Jesu
in seinen Verhältnissen zu Buddha-Sage und Buddha-Lehre_) to indicate
an idea introduced into the Gospel from a foreign source, as the
doctrine of the pre-existence of souls was then unknown among the
Jews. Meyer in his critical and exegetical Handbook to St. John’s
Gospel has shown that no one required to go outside the sphere of
Jewish thought for an explanation of this part of the disciples’
question. In addition to his quotations from the Rabbinical books
illustrating this Jewish belief, Kuenen in his brief criticism of
Seydel adduces another from the Wisdom of Solomon viii. 20, as also
rendering the Buddhist derivation of this “thought quite superfluous”
(Hibbert Lectures, 1882, Appendix). Many instances of agreement in
thought and phraseology with the Gospels in passages in Buddhist works
are adduced by Dr. Kellogg, _Light of Asia, etc._, p. 137 _seq._, and
are satisfactorily accounted for by the similarity of circumstances
under which Buddha and the Saviour taught and the condition of men
which they both perceived and described.
Footnote 33:
Lucius, _Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der
Askese_, Strassburg, 1880; also _Der Essenismus in seinem Verhältniss
zum Judenthum_, Strassburg, 1881.
Footnote 34:
Dissertation in Commentary on _Colossians_, pp. 119, 157.
Footnote 35:
_Jewish Wars_, ii. 8. 2-13; _Antiq._ xiii. 5. 9; xv. 10. 4, 5; xviii.
1. 2-6.
Footnote 36:
Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. i. p. 325.
Footnote 37:
Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 203.
Footnote 38:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde_,
translated by W. Hoey, 1882, p. 6; Williams and Norgate.
Footnote 39:
Dr. Joseph Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 250, 343; Trübner, 1880.
Footnote 40:
Fergusson, _Tree and Serpent Worship_, Introduction, p. 77.
Footnote 41:
This must be read in the light of Professor Max Müller’s _What can
India teach us?_
Footnote 42:
Luke viii. 46.
Footnote 43:
Even Kuenen and Wellhausen assume as established that Monotheism shows
itself with unmistakable distinctness in Hebrew prophecies of the
eighth century B.C. (Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 119; _Theological
Review_, 1874, pp. 329, 336; _Encyc. Brit._, art. ISRAEL). Professor
H. Schultz maintains that Monotheism was established in Israel from
the time of Moses downward, among the leaders of thought at least.
(_Alttest. Theolog._, 2d ed., 1878, pp. 440, 457.)
Footnote 44:
_Light of Asia and Light of the World_, pp. 40, 102, 161.
Footnote 45:
Weber, _Indische Studien_, vol. i. p. 400; J. Muir, _Sanskrit Texts_,
p. xxxiv; Lorinser, _Bhagavadgitâ_, Appendix, translated by Muir in
_Ind. Antiq._ vol. ii. p. 283.
Footnote 46:
_Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde_, translated by Wm.
Hoey, 1882, p. 292.
Footnote 47:
Müller, Gifford Lectures, _Natural Religion_, p. 169.
Footnote 48:
Dr. Caird, _Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion_, p. 343 _seq._
Footnote 49:
Sir A. Mitchell, Rhind Lectures for 1876 and 1878, _The Past in the
Present_, pp. 207, 214; Edinburgh, Douglas, 1880.
Footnote 50:
Whately, _Political Economy_, p. 68.
Footnote 51:
Max Müller, Gifford Lectures, _Natural Religion_, p. 54.
Footnote 52:
The savagery of a great city is in some aspects more awful than that
of Africa.
Footnote 53:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 10.
Footnote 54:
Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 380.
Footnote 55:
Müller, _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 41; _Chips from
a German Workshop_, vol. ii. p. 254.
Footnote 56:
Fairbairn, _Studies in Religion and Philosophy_, p. 13.
Footnote 57:
Baring Gould, _Origin and Development of Religious Belief_, vol. i. p.
109.
Footnote 58:
“Nations,” says Professor Goldwin Smith, “redeem each other. They
preserve for each other principles, truths, and hopes, and aspirations
which, committed to the keeping of one, might become extinct for ever.
They thus not only raise each other again when fallen, but they
prevent each other from falling.”—_Lectures on the Study of History_,
delivered in Oxford 1859-61, p. 71.
Footnote 59:
Celsus, quoting our Lord’s saying, Matt. xix. 24, and the exhortation
to forgive our enemies, Matt. v. 43, 45, alleged they were transferred
and coarsely perverted from Plato, _de Legibus_, and _Crito_.—Origen,
_contra Celsum_, Book vi. chaps. 15, 16, and Book vii. chap. 61.
Footnote 60:
_Enarr. in Psalm._ cxl. 6. Clement of Alexandria regarded Greek
philosophy as a προπαιδεία or preparatory discipline for the reception
of Christian truth, _Strom._ vi. chap. 8, and as a step to something
higher, ὑποβάθραν οὖσαν τῆς κατὰ Χριστὸν φιλοσοφίας, _Strom._ vi.
chap. 17.
Footnote 61:
Trench, Hulsean Lectures for 1846, p. 153.
LECTURE II.
THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AND THE
EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SCRIPTURES.
It should be an advantage to the study of Buddhism that even in its
origin it confronts us as the religion of a people sufficiently advanced
in civilisation to be able to formulate their metaphysical conceptions
and present us with their religious beliefs organised in a system. Like
Christianity it not only inherited but also produced a considerable and
very miscellaneous literature, whose contents throw valuable light upon
the past from which it emerged and upon the course which it followed,
and like Christianity it has left its stamp on most of the institutions
of the peoples among whom it was successfully propagated. When all these
sources of information have been properly investigated, we may hope that
the story of the rise and progress of Buddhism in the East will be
revealed with something at least of the clearness with which the history
of Christianity is disclosed by the literature and art of the West.
To trace, however, the dawn and spread of Buddhism with anything like
historical accuracy for the first six or seven hundred years of its
course, is a task as yet beyond the literary ability of the times. It is
doubtful whether the materials for such a work have as yet been
collected, and he would be a bold man who would claim for the task of
sifting what has already been furnished more than an earnest beginning.
Not even Saint-Hilaire would now repeat the assertion so confidently
made thirty years ago,[62] that “no new discoveries can change our
conclusions regarding it”; for during the past generation the effect of
fuller information has been not only to modify, but in several instances
to revolutionise the theories formed concerning it. Discoveries are
multiplying every year; and, though the knowledge thus acquired serves
often more to reveal difficulties than to solve them, we may be thankful
that the examination of them is engaging the attention of the highest
order of scholarship, and hopeful, yea, even confident that since so
many of the ablest and most patient minds are turned in this direction,
the aggregate of progress will speedily be immense.
All that we know of Buddhism, and all that we are likely to know of it,
is to be gathered from its own Scriptures; and a comparison of these
with the Christian Scriptures reveals at the very outset a difference
amounting to a vast contrast between them. The original Scriptures of
Christianity have been before the tribunal of the world’s keenest and
most hostile criticism for 1800 years; but we are only now beginning to
make the acquaintance of the Scriptures of Buddhism, which have hardly
been subjected to any cross-questioning worthy of the name. Those who
have ventured to assail have only published their inability to
understand them, and those most competent to criticise may be pardoned
if they handle tenderly the fragments which they are collecting and
translating for our use. The services which they are thus rendering to
religion as well as to science are very great. Previously we had only
anthologies extracted often without reference to date or authorship or
connection to judge from, but now these learned pundits are furnishing
us with books containing not only the wisdom and beauties of Eastern
literature, but its follies and blemishes as well. Omitting only what is
obscene and offensive to the moral sense,[63] they are giving us
specimens of several strata of Oriental thought and belief, vertically
and thoroughly cut, from which a correct understanding of the essential
features of this very peculiar religion may with considerable
probability be ascertained.
Only a portion of the Buddhist Scriptures are as yet available, and
these we are certainly not at liberty to place side by side as of equal
evidential value with the contents of the New Testament. It is said that
two thousand manuscripts of the New Testament, or of portions of it,
have been discovered, several of which are of great antiquity, and
notwithstanding the immense number of various readings on points of
detail, the text of the oldest corresponds substantially with that of
the books as we have them to-day. We are informed, however, on the best
authority, that “all Indian manuscripts are comparatively modern, that
no manuscript written one thousand years ago is now existent in India,
and that it is almost impossible to find one written five hundred years
ago; for most manuscripts which claim to be of that date are merely
copies of old ones, the dates of which are repeated by the
copyists.”[64] It is admitted, moreover, that the literary honesty of
these Indian translators and copyists is very questionable, that the
books of the Buddhists have undergone wholesale textual alterations,
that none of the Sanskrit works as yet known to us are unadulterated
specimens of transmitted doctrines, that the oldest and most reliable
authorities for the life of Buddha exaggerate greatly events which are
said to have happened, and ascribe to him long discourses of which the
writers themselves were the composers.[65] In respect, therefore, of
literary accuracy and faithfulness of purpose, these old compilers and
re-editors of the Buddhist books are far below the standard which
criticism has inexorably applied to the versionists of the Christian
Scriptures.
The faithfulness of our English versions is vouched for by the names of
the translators, and yet they admit that their translations are only
approximations.[66] From the very nature of the case they must be so.
The East is very far distant from the West; its ways are not our ways;
its thoughts are not our thoughts. Some one has said that “the _Iliad_
is separated from the _Rig Veda_ by an interval of several
civilisations”; and if so, how vast must be the gulf separating Vedic
and even Buddhist metaphysicians from the British philosopher of to-day!
It is simply impossible for the most impartial translator to put himself
in the place of the ancient Indian sage, and to prevent his own
preconceptions from insinuating themselves among the data with which he
has to deal. He has to express, as we have been reminded, “a lower order
of ideas in a higher order of terms, and use words suggesting a wealth
of analysis and association quite foreign to the thought to be
reproduced. Translation from a lower to a higher language is thus a
process of elevation.”[67] In reading these translations and the books
founded upon them, we have constantly to guard against giving to such
terms as “sin,” “lust,” “salvation,” “law,” “church,” and many others,
our Christian conceptions of them. We are often perplexed whether the
phrases employed, and even the very titles of the treatises, be really
the equivalents of the ancient texts and titles, or nineteenth century
conceptions of what they may be made to mean. A European scholar
inheriting the results of ages of Christian culture may be more likely
to interpret the reach of an old Buddhist expression than the monk who
first used it; but he is always in danger of confounding that reach with
his own firm grasp of truth, and of expressing his conceptions by
phraseology which, if it could be explained to the ancient, would be
rejected by him as inconsistent with his original meaning.
Another strong contrast between the two sets of scriptures emerges when
we attempt to fix the dates at which the earliest Buddhist works were
produced. The New Testament is admitted by authorities who cannot be
accused of prejudice in favour of Christianity and even by antichristian
critics, to contain the actual writings of some of the original
disciples of Jesus. The very latest of the books which compose it was in
circulation within a century after His death, while the great bulk of
them were accepted before half a century had passed as the testimonies
of those who were eye-witnesses of the rise of our religion.[68] M.
Renan admits that the three Synoptical Gospels are the “tender
remembrances and simple narratives of the first and second generations
of Christians, written in substantially their present form by the men
whose names they bear.”[69] The epistle of St. James and several of the
epistles of St. Paul are almost now unanimously accepted as the products
of the first generation. Mons. E. Burnouf therefore may safely aver that
“the history of Christian doctrine and worship bears the crown over all
others in respect that its records are complete.”[70] What of these
records are comprised in the New Testament, though tried by the severest
of tests, continues to-day as they were eighteen centuries ago delivered
to the Church. Though the various readings in the mss. are said to be
counted by 200,000, hardly one of them can be said to affect a
fundamental doctrinal or historical statement; and so outstanding and
distinct is their canonical character that it requires no external
authority, but only comparison with them, to disclose what of early
Christian literature is to be regarded as apocryphal.
The evidence on which Orientalists have to rely in fixing the date of
the Buddhist scriptures is confessedly such “that we must not be
surprised if those who are accustomed to test historical and
chronological evidence in reference to Greece and Rome declined to be
convinced by it.”[71] For centuries after the death of Buddha his
followers assure us that they had no written books constituting their
rules of faith and manners. The earliest written collection of which in
their own records we have any historical trace is that of Ceylon, and
all that can be said of it is “that there is nothing improbable” that
part of it may have been reduced to writing about the first century
B.C., but the whole was only fixed about 420 A.D. The Nepaulese
collection is said to date only from the first Christian century; but it
is not alleged that the whole of the works now in it were even then in
existence. According to their own tradition, they had no written
biography of Buddha till about the first century of our era, and no one
who has examined that narrative or read the opinions expressed by
Orientalists as to the date when it was produced—opinions so divergent
as to indicate a difference of several centuries—would ever dream of
employing it as evidence of what is alleged in it to have happened. It
is simply impossible, therefore, to regard the Buddhist’s Pitakas as if
they were of similar authoritative value with the New Testament, for, in
fact, in respect of canonical worth they do not deserve to be ranked
with much of our later patristic literature.
A very high antiquity, however, is claimed by Buddhists for these
collections. According to the Dipavanso, their earliest available
chronicle, dating only from the fifth century A.D., the doctrines orally
communicated by Buddha to his disciples were by them immediately after
his death revised and classified under the three divisions of Vinaya,
Abhidharma, and Sutta, in which they have always since then been
preserved. This collection having passed through the crucible of a
council held at Vaisali a hundred years later, was fixed as canonical at
another held in the reign of Asoka about 242 B.C. It is urged that a
canon, to be authoritative, does not require to be written, and that
Indians claim for one orally transmitted higher authority than for one
transcribed. The art of writing was probably unknown in India in
Buddha’s time, and so, thrown back upon their resources, memory was by
the Indians cultivated to an extent which enabled them to dispense with
methods deemed by nearly all other peoples to be essential to accuracy.
Eminent Orientalists therefore, while regarding the account of the first
council as apocryphal, are yet inclined to admit—from the identity of
the threefold division in all the schools that have been tested, from
the similarity of the titles of the contents of all the various
collections, and especially from the quality of the writings
themselves—that the tradition recorded in the Dipavanso is well founded,
and that considerable portions of the Vinaya and Sutta literature may
date from a hundred years after the death of Buddha.
In assuming so much, however, these scholars by no means believe that
they have found in these texts the actual teaching of Buddha in an
unadulterated condition. While not thinking it possible to impugn the
substantial accuracy of the Vinaya texts, though given in Pali
translations of the lost dialect in which they were originally preached,
they tell us that the oldest of the Sutta texts are “not his teachings
nor the teachings of his immediate disciples, who could not have spoken
of him in the manner in which he is there described. They are only
founded on his teachings, and record existing beliefs as to the
doctrines which he actually taught.”[72] For “the fundamental and
original doctrines they may be accepted as fairly trustworthy
authorities,” but for the facts of his life they are even at the best
very questionable guides. Nearer to the origin of Buddhism and of the
person of its founder we are not likely to get than in the book entitled
by its translator the Sutta of the Great Decease; but he confesses that
even in it we are standing on anything but solid ground, and that we are
only able to catch a distant and most uncertain glimpse of the figure of
the great Teacher as he comes out at rare intervals from the mist of
legends which, designed to adorn and magnify, have in reality diminished
and obscured his real personality.
For our knowledge of Buddhism, therefore, we have for centuries only
oral traditions to rely upon. Of these traditions only a portion may be
traced approximately to the times of Buddha, and of the fragments which
can possibly be traced not one contains a narrative nor any historical
reference to passing events. On the contrary, our knowledge of the
origin of Christianity is derived not from fragments of oral tradition,
but from a set of canonical writings, many of them traceable close to
the generation that witnessed Christ’s death, in which the story of His
ministry is set in historical relation to the age in which He appeared,
and His peculiar doctrines are so fixed that any addition to them is at
once recognised as spurious. Between the extremes of criticism as to the
period covered by the life of Christ there is a difference of only half
a dozen years; but there is a difference in Buddhist traditions of more
than a thousand years as to the date of Buddha’s birth, and even
European scholars, after carefully sifting traditions and writings, have
only been able approximately to fix dates for his death ranging over a
period of 175 years.[73]
For historical accuracy, therefore, the traditions are as worthless as
they are for any photographic presentation of the various persons who
figure in them. In truth we have in them neither chronology nor
biography. Events and actors are equally indistinct; we have only a
background without any perspective, and pasteboard puppets projected
against it which might be designated by any name whatever. Even in
respect of transmission of doctrine, oral tradition was found very early
to have failed. The reason given in their chronicles for resorting to
writing is confession sufficient that they considered that method of
preserving the deposit of the faith a safer one.[74] So divergent had
the renderings and so corrupt had the texts become—“for even the monks
of the great council were blamed for turning the religion upside down,
for distorting the sense and teaching of the five Nikayas, for casting
aside that Sutta and Vinaya, and making imitations of them changing this
to that[75]—that the profoundly wise priests, foreseeing the perdition
of the people (from the perversion of the doctrines), and in order that
the religion might endure for ages, wrote the same in books.”[76] Before
this time the many schisms which had arisen were powerful illustrations
of the evils which the “profoundly wise” transcribers deplored, and of
that falling away from the original creed which this religion had
already suffered for lack of a secured basis of faith.[77]
For the want of an authoritative standard told very severely against the
early history of Buddhism. Its rapid and widespread extension was due,
not so much to the natural development of its own principles as to its
assimilation of the external and foreign influences with which it came
in contact. Its advance was the result more of compromise than of
conquest.[78] It welcomed or tolerated, at least it could not or did not
defend itself against the introduction of many parasitical germs which
were destined to arrest its growth and pass into its life. As the ivy
covers and adorns the oak only to suck away with its million mouths its
strength, so the popular beliefs which Buddhism incorporated from
without, as well as the defections from the original teaching which took
place within it, produced very soon upon it alterations so extensive
that its founder would have disclaimed or would have been really unable
to recognise it as his own.
No temptation happened to Buddhism, however, but such as is common to
all the higher religions. As far as observation and experience go, the
lower types of religion continue unchanged; but those that confront us
upon a higher level are in a perpetual flux, in which change does not
always indicate progress. Instead of tracing their path by the
superstitions which they have outgrown, their course may be indicated by
those which they have incorporated. Man, in his exodus of faith, is
always tempted to go back to the condition from which he has emerged, or
to fall away to the religions by which he is surrounded. Mosaism and
Christianity had to pass through this trial, and certainly they did not
pass through it unscathed. They suffered from the corruption of popular
superstitions and of Pagan rites, all of which, as in the case of
Buddhism, were defended by an appeal to tradition. Just as every
Buddhist innovator was ready with some forgotten saying or Sutta alleged
to have been delivered by the “Blessed One,” sometimes miraculously
preserved through the ages till the necessity for the revelation arose,
so the Popes and the Fathers of Christendom were never at a loss for
authorities when, professing to develop and define, they in reality were
adding to the faith and the worship and the claims of the Church.
But Christianity from the very earliest possessed what Buddhism for a
long period lacked. In its canonical writings it conserved not only a
check upon this apostasy, but a security for reformation. Mechanical
though it seems, there was a providence in the early committal to
writing of such books as compose our Bibles. In the fact that their
successive disclosures of truth were thus registered there is more
significance than at first appears. It is admitted by all that man’s
progress depends in no small degree on his ability to secure and hand
down the treasures of his wisdom and experience. The art of writing is
thus recognised to be one of the most moving powers in the world. The
nations that have depended upon it for the transmission of knowledge
inherited or acquired, have certainly made more progress in religion and
civilisation than those that have neglected or despised it. It is
significant that the writers of the Bible have all recognised this
condition of human progress, and that many of them have represented
themselves as instructed by the Divine authority, from whom they profess
to have received their communications, to make them permanent in popular
language and in plain written form.[79]
In the history of the Hebrews there is not a single recorded instance of
religious reformation in which the law and the testimony, or the scrolls
of the prophets, did not play an important part. In like manner the New
Testament, which embodies the ideals and perpetuates the standard which
is to regulate its course, not only saved Christianity from the perils
which threatened its earliest spread, but has often rescued it from the
degradation into which it has fallen. Canonical books may only give, as
it has been said, “the reflected image of the real doctrines of the
founder of a religion, an image always blurred and distorted by the
medium through which it has to pass”;[80] but in the case of the New
Testament the Church has never developed, or thought it possible to
develop, a purer reflection. Advance as it may, the Church never can
outgrow the ideals of its youth, and change what it pleases, it never
can improve them. Whenever the Church assumed supremacy over its law,
and whenever tradition superseded its testimony, it yielded to the
disintegrating influences of heathenism. It was rapidly lapsing into
polytheism when Mohammed rose with a spurious and mutilated version of
the Scriptures to recall it to the witness of true Scriptures to the
unity and sovereignty of God. Later on, when sinking through formalism
into superstition and sorcery almost as degrading as any Indian, Luther,
by the re-discovery of the Greek Testament, brought about a reformation
which not only saved Europe, but has created a new Western and Southern
world. In every revival and every advance which has taken place since
then there may be traced, directly or indirectly, the regenerative
influences of the Christian originals. On its human side the Christian
Church will always be in danger of losing its pure conceptions and noble
aims in grosser forms of belief and in lower ambitions; but high over
all its degradation towers in its early Scriptures the majesty and
spirituality of its Divine authority, and we have only to look up to be
first convicted, then attracted and redeemed. The purest sections of the
Christian Church, the surest and the first to outgrow all unworthy
expressions of Christianity, are those which adhere most closely to the
original rule of faith and worship. It is quite possible that we “may be
only too apt to make a fetich of our sacred books”;[81] but somehow the
Christian communities that most revere their sacred books show that they
are least likely to fall into this danger. The more we obey the
Scriptures, the less likely are we to idolise them. The New Testament,
so far from attaching any mystical or talismanic value to its contents,
tells us that the letter killeth, and the spirit alone giveth life. It
is otherwise with the Buddhist Tripitaka. Its authors claim meritorious
efficacy not only for the repetition of its sentences, but for the very
sound of its words, “as if they were capable of elevating every one who
hears them to heavenly abodes in future existence.” Sir Monier Williams
has illustrated this by a legend long current, not in northern Buddhist
countries, but in Ceylon, where a purer Buddhism prevails. According to
it, two monks were heard by five hundred bats reciting in a cave the law
of Buddha, and they by merely hearing gained such merit that in death
they were re-born as men, and ultimately through successive re-births
were raised to the fellowship of the gods.[82] Of course this is simply
a legend, a thing of hay or straw that has got mixed with the purer
primitive faith; but it indicates that the course of the current flows
in quite an opposite direction from the faith which allows itself to be
dominated and guided by the canon of Holy Scriptures.
The quality of the contents of the two sets of writings is not under
discussion, but we cannot help remarking one characteristic of the
Christian Scriptures which is not likely to emerge in our longest
acquaintance with the Buddhist books. No one ever expects that the
genuineness of the contents of the Tripitaka will ever be discussed with
anything like the intensity and acerbity with which we have discussed
the genuineness of the books of the Bible. The long and fierce
contendings that have been waged over each portion of the Gospels will
never take place over any of the Suttas. We have been working for five
centuries to secure a proper English translation of the Holy Bible, and
we are not satisfied with it yet: does any one expect a similar
expenditure of labour to secure a proper version of the Tripitaka? It is
possible that scholarship will by and by exhaust this particular field
of Oriental research, and “having catalogued its discoveries will put
them aside and proceed to more interesting studies”; but though men have
quarrelled about and questioned the Holy Scriptures for eighteen
centuries they are not likely to come to a term of their hostility or
curiosity. The ceaseless endeavour to disprove, refute, shows that we
cannot get rid of them. There must be something either in the history of
their production or the quality of their contents, or the range of their
influence, which separates them from all sacred books of the type of the
Buddhist Tripitaka. Certainly we cannot conceive it possible that any of
these so-called Bibles of other religions will ever among any civilised
people supplant the Christian Bible. “One chapter of Isaiah,” says
Quinet,[83] “has more in it than a whole Republic of Plato.” One Psalm
of David will outweigh all the religious lore of the Vedas. One sentence
of Moses, “The Lord our God is one Lord: I the Lord am holy,” is worth
all the speculations of the devout and learned authors of the
Upanishads. Not that the Republic, the Vedas, the Upanishads are to be
despised. On the contrary, the more they are studied the more likely is
the Bible to be revered, for the truth that is in them is only prophetic
of truth which could not then be revealed and received. We may outlive
and outgrow the teaching of these wise ancients, but we have not yet
transcended the originals of Christianity, and it is not at all likely
that we ever shall. There is an end to the perfection of all other
systems, but here is “a commandment exceeding broad,” “whose line has
gone through all the earth, and its word to the end of the world.”
From this slight notice of the literature which Buddhism has produced
let us proceed to glance at the literature which it inherited, with the
view of catching a glimpse of the conditions out of which it arose. As
with man’s language, so is it with his other distinctive birthright: we
can only understand a religion when we have ascertained its antecedents.
Christianity emerged from a previous religion of which it professed to
be the complement. Our Lord appeared among a people whose spiritual
history extended over several thousand years. They had a sacred canon,
professing to register the successive Divine revelations made to their
ancestors, which was fixed as we have it now at least two, and perhaps
more, centuries before He came. Instead of breaking with the past He
acknowledged and appropriated it; instead of abrogating their law, He
fulfilled it; instead of disowning their prophets He claimed them as His
witnesses. In prosecuting His mission He brought upon Himself the fierce
antagonism of the existing Church, whose leaders in less than three
years succeeded in having Him crucified; but His constant appeal was to
their ever-venerated Scriptures. His apostles again record and expound
the incidents of His ministry and His death as realising the
pre-intimations of their ancient rites, and as fulfilling all their
prophecies; and all along faith in the Divine origin of Christianity is
never supposed to be weakened but to be greatly confirmed by an appeal
to the religion which it annulled and supplanted.
Now Buddhism grew out of Brahmanism, but however divergent their
relations eventually became, it was originally accepted as a natural
consequence of it. Unlike Christianity and Judaism, there was for long
no trace of serious antagonism between the Brahmans and many generations
of the successors of Buddha. Brahmans formed a considerable portion of
his followers, and in regard to his teaching, his doctrines, where not
identical, were not likely to offend them. St. Paul scandalised the
Pharisees by preaching that outward Jewish connection marked by the seal
of circumcision profited nothing, but long before Buddha’s time Brahman
teachers had declared, as he did, to that most exclusive of the Indian
elect, that the true Brahman was not a person born within the sacred
caste, but only the thoughtful and self-controlled man:[84] that a bad
mind and wicked deeds are what defile a man, and that no outward
observances can purify him.[85] Buddha has been designated as the best
and wisest and greatest of Hindus; “a reformer of Hinduism who ignored
its superstitions and follies, and sought to elevate and refine its
dogmas.”[86] It is now considered very questionable whether the
difference between the two systems ever grew into hostility involving
persecution of the new religion by the old. The two streams of Hindu
belief seem for long in their course in India to have flowed peaceably
side by side, and if Buddhism eventually disappeared from India as a
separate and distinct system, it was not altogether because it was
crushed by persecution, but because it returned to enrich and modify the
religion from which it originally parted.[87]
Buddhism was thus an offspring of Brahmanism, but Brahmanism was itself
the product of a religion older still. Behind Buddhism lies a great and
undefined past, a past with no history in the proper sense of the word,
and absolutely without chronology; but out of this vast and nebulous era
there has been extracted a rich traditional literature, and Oriental
scholars working on principles similar to those by which geologic
periods are determined,[88] are endeavouring by an examination of the
various civilisations reflected in that literature to establish the
leading stages in the growth of prehistoric Indian thought. The sacred
books of India disclose sufficiently in outline the social and religious
progress of the people from a period of great antiquity. No one can tell
when the oldest fragments of them were originally composed, but some of
them are said to have been in circulation among the Aryans when one
immigrant contingent of them had arrived at the confluence of Jumna with
the Ganges,[89] and if so, they image for us the life and beliefs of a
people who must have been contemporaries with Moses some fifteen
centuries at latest before the coming of Christ.
It is now asserted that this Aryan immigration had been preceded from
the same quarter by an earlier one, in a past so very remote that the
Indians had lost completely the memory of it, and that by the time this
second wave had reached the north-west Gangetic tracts, the first had
pushed its way as far east as the delta, where first vanquishing it
finally amalgamated with the aboriginal tribes. It is supposed that from
out of this earliest section arose the natural ancestors of Buddha,
while in the second and intellectually superior section we must look for
the religious teachers from whom his spiritual lineage is to be
traced.[90] For with them were introduced the Vedas, revealing the
earliest forms of civilisation and religion in that great section of the
human family to which we ourselves belong. We see pictured in the
Rig-Veda a people who, in complexion, manner, and rites, were at first
as distinct from the native Indian races as were the Israelites from
those of Canaan. Patriarchal in their institutions, pastoral or
agricultural in their pursuits, they confront us as a primitive but
certainly not a barbarous folk. Nurtured by the invigorating climate and
magnificent scenery of an ancestral home “on the very roof of the
world,” they had reached a social condition in which, in a language
fitly called “polished,” or “carefully made” (Sanskrita), they were as
fitly called “Aryan” or “noble.” They practised the arts of Jabal and
Jubal, venerated their sages and poets, and called their wives and
daughters by names of beauty and grace like that of Naamah. Their
religion, though polytheistic, was not inspired by dread of evil spirits
or awe of ancestral shades, but by wonder of the world around them and
their own awakening instincts. Man in these ancient fragments, as in the
first pages of our Bible, is evidently a creature transcending the
savage, and made in a diviner image than the type from which it is
maintained he must have sprung. Instead of consorting with or
worshipping the animals, he exercises dominion over them; he questions
himself and the heavens and the earth concerning their origin and
author, and with some divine authentic instinct which he has never lost,
he seems to be growing into the feeling that not only the trinity of
supernatural powers which he worshipped, but his very self, are the
children of some primordial and eternal Dyaus, the father of all.
While the earliest light that falls upon our ancestors reveals them as a
religious people, whose worship, simple and rudimentary as it was,
indicated a sense of inferiority, and also, as one who ought to know
informs us, “some sense of flaw in the relationship, some concept of sin
and guilt,”[91] to the deities worshipped, it is to be noted that gods
and men were felt to be too much akin to allow of spiritual aspiration,
or of high moral significance in man’s religious acts. The ethical or
rather spiritual elements so vital to the Biblical conceptions of
religion may not be quite foreign to the earliest Veda, but they are
scantily, if at all, represented in it. No prayer can be said to have
ever been directed to obtain forgiveness, or growth in goodness, in the
Bible sense. The sinner was for the most part only a defaulter in
respect of offerings, and his guilt was that of a person who refused to
render homage. That the gods might be able to watch over and enrich
mankind, they had to be fed and sustained. The worshipper was thus in a
certain degree necessary to the worshipped. The sense of submissive
gratitude to the Deity which meets us in the earliest fragments of the
Bible is not expressed, for religion was conceived of as a kind of
exchange in which men purchased a right to divine help by service
rendered, and “each man satisfied his higher instinct according to his
own conception of the character of the being on whose favour his welfare
was thought to depend.”[92]
Centuries later, in another strata of sacred literature, composed in
prose, dogmatic and liturgic in character, and designated Brahmanas,[93]
we behold the same branch of the Aryan family in a further stage of
their history. Their patriarchal age has vanished, and their heroic
seems passing into the aristocratic and hierarchic. Caste has appeared
as the invariable attendant upon conquest, when the victor is separated
from the vanquished by language, complexion, and religion. It is not so
much caste, however, in the ordinary sense of the word, as class,
sternly prohibiting marriage not only with the aboriginal tribes, but
between persons of unequal rank, and anticipating the organisation of
European society in the middle ages. In the nobles, who were subordinate
only to the Church, the burghers or merchants socially distinct from and
inferior to the nobles, and in the villeins or serfs of the conquered
territories, we have an exact parallel to the old Indian system, in
which Sudra, Vaisya, Kshatrya, all formed steps in a social pyramid, on
the top of which the Brahman was throned.[94]
Thus early in the history of the Indian people emerged that sacerdotal
institution which was to exercise so powerful and eventually so sinister
an influence upon their religious progress. In Vedic times the father of
the family and the rajah of the clan were the celebrants of the
religious rites, but as life became more complicated ceremonies became
more laborious, and men who had preserved the knowledge of the old
hymns, and the religious formularies which had died out from the common
people, gradually took the rajah’s place. As thought widened, men
refused to be satisfied with guardian deities that could be fed with
rice and butter. The sense of human law reflected itself in the
conception of divine rulers governing men, and penalties inflicted by
man for wrong-doing suggested expiation for the infringed laws of deity.
This idea of sacrifice, of which there is said to be no trace in the
flesh feasts of earlier times, becomes prominent in the offerings of the
period. “The shedding of blood, the burning of a limb of the victim in
the fire, by some at least was believed to atone for transgression, and
it is probable that at one time the religious instinct expressed itself
in human sacrifice.[95]” In any case, the development of the idea of the
great efficacy of sacrifice as a means of compelling the gods to do the
will of the worshipper—yea, of elevating the worshipper to their
privileges and rank,—must soon have had the effect of making a
priesthood, at first only helpful, to be necessary as the sole agents
between man and deity. By preserving the memory of what had faded from
the vulgar, by transmitting to their families a lore which became the
more sacred the more it was forgotten, the professional liturgists or
sacrificers, at first satirised by the poets as was the Romish friar by
the minstrel in the middle ages, imperceptibly grew into an order whose
privileges were more exclusive and whose pretensions were higher than
were ever asserted in Israel by the descendants of Aaron. Among the
Hebrews the priesthood was never allowed to gain complete ascendency.
Its representatives were subordinated to the king, who was the fountain
of all law, and they were kept in check by the prophets as the ministers
of Divine revelation; but the Brahmans came to be regarded as not only
the guardians of religion, but the teachers of all knowledge and the
source of all authority. They owned no superior, were subject to no law
in the state: each one was a pope in himself, more independent of the
crown and the commonwealth than a Christian pope ever pretended to be,
and had a faith in his personal infallibility which no Christian pope
affected to have. In India there resulted from the ascendency all the
evils that were manifested in Judaism and in Latin Christianity; and in
India far worse results were produced. For, left to themselves as
superior beings apart from the actual world, who never could err, they
gave their minds that licence which too often in the history of thought
has been confounded with liberty, and, as always happens when
self-restraint is disregarded, the result in this instance was the
production, not of a system of philosophy, but a crude conglomerate of
incongruous phantasies more resembling a chaos than a cosmos.[96]
Let us not suppose that the Brahmans were originally, or even
eventually, the vain and greedy and self-seeking bigots which the name
unfortunately suggests to a European. They gained the ascendency because
they cultivated the power to rise; they represent what many are inclined
to revere as the ideal aristocracy, that of Intellect. They were not
ignorant priests, but learned philosophers, from whom sprung again and
again the reformers who headed the revolt from an overdone ritual, and
from a faith which expressed itself wholly in metaphysical speculations.
By them were excogitated the Upanishads and the laws of Manu, two of the
most wonderful literary productions of mankind. From there too came the
great epic poems of the Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata, poems in some
respects equal to the Homeric, and in cleverness of purpose, which is
said to be that of arresting the progress of Buddhism, equalling
anything which the Society of Jesus ever produced to counteract the
Reformation. In its complexity and adaptability and many-sidedness
Brahmanism is unrivalled by any human system, and the men who first gave
it expression and directed its earliest movements must rank among the
most original and daring of thinkers.
But they were Indians living in the period beginning about the tenth
century B.C., in a land as completely cut off from the rest of the world
as they were severed from the practical life of their countrymen. They
had the same earnest and inquisitive mind which their westward-moving
kinsmen had inherited with them from their trans-Himalayan ancestors,
but in them it had to work out its advances in more adverse conditions.
The tribes that went westward marched along the uplands, in zones of
climate and through scenery and conditions stimulating effort, both
mental and physical. Consequently they went on improving their beliefs,
till they apprehended the truth which lies at the base of all true
systems of faith, the immortality of the soul, and developed a
philosophy which represents man’s most successful attempt to grasp that
divine unity after which man in his polytheism is ever feeling. It was
otherwise with the branch that went southwards. They had to live under
physical conditions not conducive to energy, under burning skies which
repressed, and on soils which rendered industry unnecessary. As they
gained ascendency over the aborigines the vices of the vanquished race
told fatally upon them. Their sensual worship, customs like polygamy and
sutteeism, ascetic practices and sorcerous rites, took possession of
them; and, most marked of all, a belief very widely spread among the
lower tribes of mankind so terribly bewitched them that to this day the
Indian mind has never been able to break away from its fascination.
This belief in transmigration, with the pessimism which is its
inevitable concomitant, was wholly absent from their ancient Vedic
faith. At intervals from the times of Pythagoras it has infected the
religion and philosophy of the Western Aryans, but never to any extent
or with any serious result. Its true habitat and breeding-place, like
that of the cholera, is among the degraded and broken-down populations
of the East. It was communicated from the native Indian races to the
Hindus, who unfortunately were prepared to receive it through the
depressing and degenerating influences of tropical life on a
northern-born family. Anyway, while their more fortunate brethren were
eagerly groping after, in their westward progress, the truth of
immortality, and thirsting for more life and fuller, they in their fat
Gangetic plains, wearied of life as something not worth having, yet
dreading death because it was appointed unto man not once but many times
to die, were seeking some way of deliverance from this inherited curse.
And the Brahmans professed to point to it. Their earliest popular
conception of deliverance was simply that of re-birth in a happier
world, perchance secured by sacrificial rites and religious acts, but
such a conception could not long satisfy, and eventually it gave way in
the higher class of minds to nobler views. In India, as elsewhere, men
soon became conscious of the more solid security of merit procured by a
life of justice and mercy. Man’s future was in his own and not in the
hands of a priest: its happiness or misery would be no accident, but the
sure result of good or evil done here and now. Therefore the wise man
endeavoured laboriously and continuously to collect merit by good deeds,
“as the white ant builds her house, for with these as his guide he could
hope to traverse a gloom hard to be crossed.”
But by and by even this belief ceased to satisfy them, for how could man
hope to liberate himself from the bondage of endless change as long as,
seeking only a happier existence, he was content to be a citizen of the
changeable? Let him seek reunion with Brahma, of which he is an
emanation. So here again, while the Westerns were finding the path which
would lead them from polytheism to theism, and were growing into nobler
conceptions of what the individual self should be, the speculative
ascetics of the East, in a life of meditation far apart, were trying to
subside rather than rise into Brahma the Absolute as a river reunites
with the ocean. In their earlier Brahmanas their fathers knew nothing of
Brahma as deity, and at no time did Brahma mean to the Indian what deity
meant to the Western Aryan. Polytheism in India never became theism in
the old Greek sense, nor even Pantheism in our nineteenth-century sense.
The mysterious all-pervading Presence was indeed early detected by the
Indians as the “Breath” of all things, but the name employed by them to
distinguish it signified only the universal self. In no sense was it the
conscious author, but only the irrepressible source of things because
reflected upon by illusion. Brahma Atman was neither the infinitely
intelligent nor the perfectly blessed, in our sense of the word. It was
simply thought without cognition, beatitude without consciousness. “The
Hindu never thinks of asserting that Brahma knows or even has
consciousness, but always that Brahma is knowledge.” “It is simply
impersonal being, absolute unity contrasted with disruption, from which
existence, as an emanation wholly and only evil, because originating in
a mistake, must move through endless cycles of change, until the way of
escape be discovered and followed by which the erratic spark may be
absorbed in the central fire.”[97]
Such a speculation was manifestly an advance upon Vedic materialism,
which sought to bring down the gods to the side of man as useful
guardians, and upon early Brahmanism which sought by sacrifice to force
them to do man’s will, and by and by to elevate man to their level. In
endeavouring, however, to abstract its disciples from the superstitions
of the priests, it tampered with the foundations of religion. It never
attempted to propitiate the gods—for, even if superior to man, they were
as much involved in the labyrinth of transmigration as he was
himself,—but it professed in a universe of illusion to have discovered
the only real. It dared to name the Absolute; so, withdrawing from the
world, it practiced austerities for the sake of illumination, gave
itself up to meditation to reduce the personal self to an abstraction,
and endeavoured thus to escape from the necessity of existence in time
and space into “passionless, characterless being.”
All this is expounded in the Upanishads, the special scriptures of
philosophical Brahmanism.[98] Though translated by Professor Max Müller,
and lucidly interpreted by Professor Gough, readers of ordinary
philosophical culture find them very hard to understand, and in spite of
the high commendation of them by Rammohun Roy and Schopenhauer, they
will be inclined to question whether these “beginnings of thought,”
“conceptions hardly formed,” though essential to a proper knowledge of
Indian philosophy, “should be ranked among the outstanding productions
of the human mind.”[99] Throughout their long and most tedious verbiage,
however, one dominant idea is ever discoverable—that the chief end of
the wise man is to know, not the forms of things, but the great self of
all things, and seek his deliverance not by practice of religion but by
pursuit of Gnosis.[100] Religion would indeed secure rewards, but they
would only be transient; religion might regulate and modify the course
of migration, but only Gnosis could break its adamantine chain. “The
vision of Atman is the only deliverance, for by it all ties are
loosened”; “the vision of the self is the light of the world, to which
only the purest minds attain.” To reach it not only the bonds of desire
must be broken, but of ignorance too. “For Atman is highly exalted above
all reverence and effort, above holiness and unholiness.” “It, the
uncreated, is beyond all good and evil,” and upon rewards and
punishments, upon both good and evil, the sage must turn his back, for
he alone who knows the Universal is free, from Karman and from Kâma
(action and desire) which hold captive the self in the net of the
impermanent.[101]
This is said to be the last outcome of Brahmanic belief, and “indeed the
highest point reached by Indian philosophy.”[102] Manifestly, it can
never be designated a gospel. It was a deliverance impossible for the
many, and possible only for the few; a promise not to the suffering
millions, but to the mystic and the sage, and to them it came not with
the hope of a nobler character to be attained, and of a purer, higher
life to be reached, but only with that of a dreamless repose—“the sleep
eternal in an eternal night”—when the soul ceases to be soul, merged
“like the weariest river” in a shoreless and waveless sea. And this was
the system in which the wisest and saintliest in Buddha’s days were
nurtured. He was no Brahman by caste, but as pure Kshatrya he would be
instructed in his youth by Brahmans, and in early manhood he for long
consorted with them. He had mental capacity, and spiritual energy, more
than adequate to the task of comprehending as fully as they did their
very abstruse theosophies. From their speculation he derived much of his
terminology, like Karma and Nirvana; and even Buddha, words which, till
recently, it was considered he had to coin. Many doctrines which were
once regarded as peculiarly his own were taught in their jungle schools
by learned Brahmans centuries before he was born. Without the Brahmans
he could not have been produced, and yet his system will be found to be
original and distinct. They furnished the phraseology in which he
expressed himself, the methods by which he wrought, the institutions
like that of the wandering Bikkhu, by which his system was spread; but
in essentials we will find that his teaching was not only different from
but antagonistic to theirs, and that, had the principles which he
enunciated been truly accepted and consistently carried out, this
noblest of the Reformers of Hinduism would have reformed it out of
existence.
During this pre-Buddhistic era, much longer, perhaps, than is generally
supposed, another process of development was going on among one section
of the Semitic stock, in a small handbreadth of a land on the eastern
shore of the Mediterranean. The several stages of that development have
also been unconsciously recorded in a literature so peculiar in its
motive, and method, and character, as to separate it from the national
literatures of all the world. It is not that it claims to be inspired,
for the same claim is advanced by the Indian, and indeed by or for every
collection of religious writings extant; but while in the literature of
India we see represented the struggles of man to reach the Deity, that
of Palestine professes to represent the endeavour of Deity to reach and
to communicate with men. Intensely patriotic as a people, the sacred
literature of the Hebrews is essentially religious. Their historians are
not permitted to record, and the poets are not allowed to sing their own
national achievements, but only the mighty works and the praises of
Jehovah their God. The shame of their many defeats, and of their final
destruction, is ascribed always to their own sin, but any national
success or prosperity is due to the Divine favour. Alike through all
their victories and disasters, an Almighty Hand is acknowledged to be
shaping their destiny, and to be working out a purpose which, often
entirely hidden, and at best only very imperfectly understood by them,
is seen toward the close of their sad and eventful history, to
comprehend the larger destinies of mankind in a salvation of God which
“all the ends of the earth” were to see.
The relative antiquity of the Hebrew and Indian scriptures is not a
matter which we are called upon to discuss. It is possible that some
hymns in the Rig-Veda may be older than anything which we possess in the
Bible, but it is almost absolutely certain that most of the books of the
Hebrew Bible were in circulation as scriptures, and that the whole of it
was in the shape in which we have it now, before any ancient Indian
sacred book was reduced to writing. The Pentateuch, in the form in which
we have it now, is probably not the most ancient of the Hebrew writings.
It appears to be a very composite production, containing works of
different authors, written originally at different places and at
different times. The most destructive criticism, however, admits that it
embodies very ancient traditions—many of them not peculiar to the
Hebrews,—which were open to a succession of very talented narrators.
These traditions may indicate their derivation from a once common
ancestral home, or acquirement by later contact with foreign nations,
but they are in nowise incorporations; for in the Hebrew books they are
not only presented in forms far more refined, but they are employed to
suggest or to unfold a spiritual teaching quite beyond the capacity of
the peoples among whom it is alleged they originated. No one denies that
we have in the Pentateuch writings as old as the time of Moses, and
probably fragments of writings much older still. Ewald[103] ascribes an
important portion of it to the times of the later judges, another still
more important section to a priest of Solomon’s reign, and the Book of
Deuteronomy to the time of Hezekiah. Even if we are compelled to accept
later dates than these, it follows that they are older than any
Upanishad, or even any of the Brahmanas. There was a Law, a Book of the
Covenant, a Book of Origins, in currency probably before the authors of
any of the Brahmanas was born; and even if we are to regard the contents
of these works as only traditional, we may surely assume that the Hebrew
traditions are as credible as the Indian. It is quite true “that
religion exists long before it is expressed in a canon, and that law
runs and rules long before it is written in a code,”[104] but in regard
to accuracy neither suffers from being so definitely registered.
Hitherto the maxim affecting such matters has been, and for a long time
henceforth we may be certain it will be, not _litera locuta_, but
_litera scripta manet_.
Again, we are not called upon to maintain in this lecture the
chronological exactness or the historical faithfulness of the sacred
annals of Israel; all that is asserted is that in them we have as
faithful a mirror of the ages which they profess to reflect as we have
in the Indian. The characters in the scenes which they produce are
neither puppets nor shadows, but very living and substantial realities.
The personages at least are men whose idiosyncrasies are sharply but
naturally defined, and whose speech, and manners, and conduct, and
beliefs, accord wonderfully well with the places and the periods in
which they meet us. We have to examine the Hebrew annals however, not to
verify the details of ancient transactions which they record, but simply
to ascertain the beliefs which they contain and illustrate. The truth or
the error of these beliefs we need not discuss, for the beliefs
themselves are facts of great importance, and so are the consequences
that flowed from them; and when we compare these beliefs with those
which we have been considering, we will find a development parallel
indeed, but of an entirely different class of ideas or religious
thoughts.
In the Rig-Veda we have reflected the immigration of a higher race into
what has been called the Holy Land of India. The Rig-Veda dates from
about the times of the Exodus or the invasion of the Holy Land of
Palestine. The Hebrew traditions, like the Indian, tell of an earlier
immigration of their fathers into the same Palestine some five centuries
previous. When we examine the narratives in which this earlier
immigration is recorded, we find the patriarchs moving along among
similar conditions, but representing a much higher level of religious
thought than the Aryans when they reached the Ganges. Though everywhere
living among nature-worshippers, and though showing the taint of that
worship in their own conduct, their religion is neither that of
physiolatry nor idolatry.[105] Abraham was not a polytheist; he came out
of Ur of the Chaldees—whether that be a designation of a geographical
region or a description of a religious state—not as one who trembled
before the forces of Nature, afraid to inquire what they meant or whence
they came; not as one who had discovered behind them the Infinite Self,
out of which, because of ignorance or illusion, he and they had
emanated, but as a man who believed in a Personal Deity who had created
and continued to control them, and who, though El-Elion and Shaddai, yet
watched over and communicated with Abraham as his best of friends. We
need not ascribe to the patriarch an intelligence which he did not
possess. God may have been in his thought too much the almighty
Protector of himself and of his descendants—for in that age the family
of the chief would be all-important, and the idea even of the nation had
not yet germinated,—but that he apprehended God under a strictly moral
aspect is vouched for by his life, as the founder of a new epoch to
which his latest descendant looked back with thankfulness.[106] We may
not be able to prove that Abraham’s conception of Deity was monotheistic
in our conception of the word. It lacked the sublimity of Isaiah’s
conception and the definiteness of that of Moses. There was naturally a
great deal of darkness clinging about it, but his ideas of duty and
religion and worship were far higher than entered the thoughts of a
Vedic or Brahmanic sage. The rite of Blood Covenant, universal in the
Semitic tribes, he felt divinely impelled to offer Godward; and the same
impulse is said to have led him to offer in proof of his allegiance to
his unseen and almighty Friend the sacrifice of his only son. But there
was unmistakably imparted by Abraham to the ancient rite of circumcision
a far higher and more spiritual idea, and it is noteworthy that while
the spiritual part of his awful sacrifice was accepted, the slaying of
the son was rejected, with the effect of stamping, in the very morning
of Hebrew history, the Divine abhorrence upon that form of propitiation
to which the unrestrained instinct of man has everywhere been prone. His
worship, his sacrifice, his whole service, instead of being regarded as
a means of making Deity serviceable to man, or of raising man to the
comfortable condition of Deity, meant the surrender of the heart and of
the whole life to His will, not as only mightier, but juster and more
merciful than he was himself, and therefore perfectly worthy of trust
and love. And so it is plain that whether the patriarchs represent a
race fallen because of sin, from purer knowledge and more intimate
communion with God, or one providentially educated from the very lowest
animalism, they indicate a religious stage to which the greatest things
became possible. They are stammering at least the glorious Name,
comprised in three letters, whose significance millennial ages of study
can never exhaust. They believe in God, who, behind and beyond Nature,
and greater than it, is revealing Himself as one infinitely worthy of
their allegiance and adoration, and their faith becomes righteousness.
When we reach the Mosaic period we find that though clouds and darkness
are round the throne of the Eternal, the light that streams from it into
the minds of men reveals, just more clearly, the same one living and
true God. According to the Book of Origins, a period of four hundred and
eighty years separated the patriarchal from the Mosaic age, and during
that period the Hebrew tribes had first been sheltered, and then for
long enslaved, by the most civilised of all peoples in the ancient
world. Astonished by the grandeur of Egypt, they at last succumbed to
its religion; and while oppression in the pent-up Egyptian cities
deteriorated fearfully their physical condition, slavery and idolatry
wrought with terrible effect upon their character. They came out of
Egypt a cowardly horde, leprous in body, childish and brutish in their
disposition. Their children however entered Palestine, more than a
generation after, a powerful and consolidated and victorious force,
whose fear was upon all the surrounding tribes; and their annals ascribe
all this to revival and reformation due to Divine revelation and
training under the plastic genius of one of Egypt’s wisest men, and one
of the greatest prophets of the human race.
The oldest Hebrew historian states that Moses wrote two tables of the
Covenant, and one entire, though small, Book of Laws besides; and though
it were proved to universal satisfaction that he never wrote anything
else than the Ten Words, and the preface[107]: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God is one,” it will be admitted that no one in all the old world
has ever contributed more than he did to man’s stock of the highest of
all knowledge. The truth communicated by the patriarchs in the word
Creator was of supreme moment and promise for the human race, for by it
man was saved from the sin and folly of confounding the Deity with His
works. The idea of a Creator occurs indeed in the Vedas,[108] but not as
an idea that ever got hold of the popular mind, or ever ripened into the
conception of Creator which we have in the Bible. The Brahman expounders
of Vedic thought made deity the sum of all that is, a being that is ever
becoming, a universe that is never completed. The Hebrew, on the
contrary, conceived of the universe as God’s work—not God. It was but a
part of His ways, and as nothing before Him. In the Indian creed
emanation continues indefinitely, and their sacred books record a
never-ending genesis. In the Hebrew Bible two pages suffice to relate
the genesis of the world and man. Between the deities of the Vedas and
the Jehovah of Moses there is no natural progression, and we never in
any series, however prolonged, can reach from the one to the other. The
Indian deities are simply one with Nature, and like its forces they are
multitudinous, capricious, evanescent; but the Deity of Moses is One,
Supreme, Invisible, not to be likened to anything we can see or
hear—eternal as One who alone is, and causes to be: “I Am that I Am!”
The effect of such a belief was to raise all men who learned of Moses
above the worship and tyranny of Nature, before which so many of the
tribes of mankind have prostrated themselves. It made them regard the
animal creation especially as existing not for their adoration but for
their use; and Nature itself and all its forces as powers to be studied,
subdued, and governed. The germs of man’s faith in his own
imperishableness, implanted from the first, began to sprout the moment
he found himself capable of knowing and serving this Eternal and
Invisible One as the Author and Controller of his being.
Comparisons are often instituted between the Mosaic ethical code and
that of other religions, with the view of showing that there is nothing
peculiar in it, and that instead of being fuller it appears to be even
defective when placed side by side with some of them. The peculiarity of
the Mosaic code is in its first table, which nearly all the others lack.
The Mosaic is an interpretation of the law written in men’s hearts by
the light of religion: it is the manifestation of religious truth as the
real foundation of ethics. Morality has so long been associated with
religion in our thought that we speak at times as if it had been always
so; but among no ancient people, save among the Hebrews, did any
worshipper expect morality from their deities. On the contrary, they
conceived of them as having all their own appetites and passions and
vices, so that as civilisation advanced men were often far nobler and
purer than the gods which they worshipped. When we remember that
physiolatry, from its lowest to its highest form, tolerates and even
consecrates the vilest impurities by its worship, we can realise what a
new and creative power was communicated when the conviction had laid
hold of man that Deity is one who is Himself all that man ought to be,
one who can only be propitiated by righteousness and appeased by truth.
Human progress became not only possible then, but it was secured. So
pure an idea of God meant a loftier idea of man. It involved the poorest
and the humblest of men in vast responsibilities, and therefore it
implied for them rights and dignities equal to those of the highest of
men; for the supreme all-holy Lord God was no respecter of persons, and
the beggar on the dunghill was in His eyes as precious as the prince
upon the throne.[109]
From the period when Vedic speculation first began its course to that in
which it produced its earliest Upanishad, these moral and spiritual
truths were not kept secret among the philosophic few, but were
prophesied in the gates and streets of every Hebrew city. No one can say
that they were thankfully received and loyally obeyed by the people of
Israel; on the contrary, their whole history represents the struggle of
a stubborn and rebellious race against a revelation too pure and
spiritual to be acceptable to them. Their religion was always higher
than themselves, but while towering above them, it perpetually hovered
round them, contradicting their most cherished inclinations, and
condemning their most deeply rooted habits. The invisible God, of whom
no likeness was to be tolerated, who was not to be worshipped even in
the greatest of His works, was too far removed from their sympathies. It
took centuries of severe handling to uproot their strong tendency to
Nature-worship; yea, the Divine detestation of it had to be branded in
the national conscience by their final overthrow. Eventually, however,
the truth got rooted in the mind of a “remnant” of them that God is not
to be worshipped under any symbol, and cannot be enshrined in temples
made with hands; that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; that in
gifts and offerings He takes no pleasure, but that He dwells with the
meek and lowly, and finds a pleasing sacrifice in the contrite spirit
and broken heart. The divinity of the revelation seems attested by the
fact that it continued all throughout their history above them, rebuking
and condemning, but never suffering them altogether to fall away from
it. And this is still its relation to ourselves: it is a creed
contradicting our life, a Divine law in direct opposition to all that
claims to be popular; for where even yet is the Christian who can be
said fully to realise all that is summed up in the truth, “God is not to
be worshipped by man as though He needed anything;” “God is a spirit,
and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”?
The universality as well as the purity and spirituality of this
fundamental article of the Hebrew faith separates it from and elevates
it above the Indian beliefs. Nature-worship has always been local and
ethnic in its range; the gods of the hills are not the gods of the
valleys, and the deities of Assyria command no reverence in Egypt. To
the Hebrew was first communicated the catholic faith that the one Lord
over all is rich in mercy unto all. The treasure was received, it is
true, in an earthen vessel, by a people who could only apprehend as
children what we are expected to hold in the comprehensions of men.[110]
In patriarchal times by the people generally the One Lord was conceived
of too much as just the protector of the family. In Mosaic times the
great and terrible God who avenged Himself on Egypt was thought of too
much as the champion of the tribes. Under David and the kings He was too
much the sovereign of the nation and of the Holy Land; and so it was
down to the times of the Captivity. All throughout this period, however,
there were perpetual protests against this attempt to ethnicise a faith
essentially catholic. They were reminded that the Holy One was Lord over
all the earth; that though they were a peculiar people, they were not
His only people. The prophets of other nations were brought to testify
to them; their own prophets were sent to warn the heathen that they
should not die. All through their history they were admonished that
their gift was too large for their little nation to contain; that it was
theirs only in proportion as it was imparted or shared, and that as a
nation they could only exist if all nations were blessed in them.
Alas however for them, all this seemed in vain in its effect upon the
nation at large; the treasure was forgotten in their estimate of the
vessel; their own destiny loomed largest in their conceptions of
Providence. It was not the holy Lord God who was to have universal
dominion, but they His favourites, and therefore their king would reign
over all lands and keep his feet on the neck of their foes. Out of this
fatal error, and out of the childish superstition akin to it, that
material prosperity was the sole or chief reward of devotion, came all
their unbelief and apostasy, and so when the succession of prophets had
in vain testified to them that the Lord alone was to be exalted—that
before Him, not before them, must all peoples bow,—the threatenings long
uttered were fulfilled: the nation was shattered, its palladium, the
temple, was destroyed, and they were driven beyond the Euphrates.
Then however ensued a course of events which must be regarded as among
the greatest surprises of history; for just when they and their religion
might have been expected to vanish as completely as the ten tribes
previously deported had vanished, they are found to be preserved; and
the worship of Jehovah, instead of being extinguished by the dominant
worship of Babylon, is seen to emerge in the course of two generations
more vigorous and considerably purer than ever it had been before. It
was during the Exile that the real nature of the religion of Israel, as
one adapted and destined to enlighten and sanctify far more than a
single people, began to be truly discerned.[111] The Jewish people had a
great deal to learn from Babylon and Persia, and they returned to their
own land with clearer conceptions of immortality, the resurrection, the
spiritual world and judgment to come, than any of their forefathers had
gained. Scholars, however, who enlarge upon their indebtedness to their
conquerors, seem to forget how much they had to communicate to them. In
the psalms of the pre-Exilian period, and in the doctrines of Moses and
the prophets, they carried with them a treasure richer than the whole
wisdom of the East. So though they learned much from Babylon, they also
learned in it to appreciate the gifts which they had previously
despised. Sorrow and penitence helped to clear their spiritual vision,
and prepared them for the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.
They learned that though banished from the Holy Land they were not
thereby cast out—as their fathers imagined—from the presence of Jehovah;
that, though the temple had been destroyed and sacrifice had been
suspended, God could still be worshipped with sincerity and truth. The
teachings of their prophets brought home with conviction to them the
oracles of their earlier seers, that obedience was better than
sacrifice, and contrition than sin-offering,—“that he that doeth
repentance, it is imputed to him as if he went to Jerusalem, built a
temple and altar, and wrought all the sacrifices of the law.”[112]
With the destruction of the temple there arose the synagogue, which,
with its reading of the Law and the Prophets, its chanting of the
Psalms, its offering of prayer, and the giving heed to the voices of the
elders, represented a far higher and more spiritual service than temple
courts reeking with sacrifices and steaming with incense. It is true
that they were still fascinated by the material splendours of the former
days; for after their return they restored Jerusalem, rebuilt the
temple, and re-appointed its services. A revival led to a reformation,
which, following the old lines as closely as possible, assumed the form
of a retrogression rather than advance. The new energies of the nation
were repressed by a Levitical domination as rigid and intolerant as
Brahmanism ever was in India. It was not the spirit of the Living God
but the hand of the long dead Moses that was to rule their conscience
and mould their history. The consequence was just what might have been
anticipated. Human nature revolted from subjugation to a system which
had served its day. Religion, where it was earnest, stiffened into
formalism, and formalism in many cases congealed into hypocrisy, and, as
inevitably happens, intellect raised its protest against this
irreligious religion in many anti-religious and even atheistic forms.
Meanwhile synagogues rose all over the land, promoting doctrine rather
than ritual, stimulating rather than repressing discussion, and thus
conserving and propagating the truths that prepared the ways of the
Lord. Only a handful however, had returned; the majority of the exiles
prospered and multiplied, and, unlike the ten tribes, were not absorbed
among the Gentiles. At the beginning of the Christian era, for one Jew
living in Palestine there would be a hundred living beyond it, not only
in Babylonia, but in Greece, and Egypt, and Italy, and all over the
Empire. There were many Jews in Spain, in Britain, and in the dark
territories beyond the Danube; and though they adapted themselves to
foreign ways, and became all things to all men, in regard to their
religion and their intimate connection with Jerusalem they still
continued to be Jews.[113] As their nationality declined their faith
arose. By and by, not content with the heathen toleration for their
religion as only one of the many in the world, they began to spread it
abroad. Judaism, with the temple and the Levitical law, would in
Palestine eventually have petrified, but the Diaspora, with the
Synagogue and the Septuagint, enabled Israel to play their proper parts
as the religious teachers of mankind. Proselytism gradually became very
vigorous and successful; devout men and women everywhere, unable to find
peace of conscience in the intoxicating and demoralising rites of Pagan
temples, turned from them to take hold of the skirts of the man who was
a Jew. In a manner and to an extent which even the youthful Isaiah never
could have dreamed, Jerusalem began to attract out of every nation under
heaven the kind of people who were found in its streets at
Pentecost,—Parthians and Medes, and dwellers in Pontus and Arabia, and
the eunuch of far distant Ethiopia.[114]
As we have noticed the highest outcome of Vedic thought in pursuit of
Atman, let us also notice the highest development of Hebrew belief in
their hope of Messiah, whose germs are traceable in their faith from the
first. For example, one of the earliest and most lasting effects of
their conception of Deity was the conviction of their own unworthiness
and inability to live in the presence of the holy God. Though they were
to be a kingdom of priests for other nations, they dared not enter into
the relationship which priest implied. They required a mediator like
Moses, who could speak to the Holy One for them, and receive for them
His message. Their whole worship was based on this feeling, and the
purer and higher rose their conceptions of God, the more intense became
their self-abasement. Between Him and the noblest of His creatures there
was an impassable gulf. Though He was far, far off from them, He was far
too near—so near that they could not go anywhither from His presence,
and yet in their dread there was a yearning to come near to Him and to
see Him face to face. The Brahman aspired to lose himself in the
Absolute, in the pure light of characterless knowledge; the Hebrew,
mastered by the personality of God, longed to see Him as He is. And
never more earnest was this longing in the Hebrew to behold the beauty
of the Lord, and to be satisfied with His likeness, than in the times of
his deepest self-humiliation and keenest contrition. “I pray Thee,
pardon the _iniquity_ of Thy people;” “I beseech Thee, show us Thy
_glory_;” “and these two pangs so counter and so keen,” shame and
reverence akin to dread, aspiring love, were to prove not only the
purification of their own faith, but the birth-throe of a better hope
for the world.
For their dread and shame sprang from their consciousness of their own
evil, and their aspiration from an instinct which whispered that evil,
though deeply ingrained in, was not essential to the being of man. Their
sense of sin was very poignant, more so than in the case of any other
people. The Hindus had a conception of merit, but a very poor and weak
conception of sin. They were more impressed by life’s suffering than by
the taint of which it was only the consequence. But the Hebrews felt the
shame and the curse of that taint as no people ever felt it. They had
quite a vocabulary to express the many shades and degrees of the feeling
of it; yet in their speculations they were led to believe that this
taint was not inherent in their nature nor ineradicable from it. There
was a time when sin was not; there might be a time when it would not be.
The dominion of evil was an interlude, and though terribly prolonged in
human experience, it might have an end. That was the central ideal of
the Fall which they pictured on the first page of their Bible, and
conserved in their seventh-day Sabbath.[115] In the fact of man’s
creation they felt that his redemption was involved, and so the Hebrew
dread of and longing for God were reconciled by a hope that though to
man belongeth shame, to God belongeth mercy as the God of salvation.
There was another and a better covenant than that which had been
concluded with their ancestors at Sinai, or with the first father of
their tribes long before. It was made not with Moses or Abraham for
Israel, but for all nations with a Divine Mediator, who, behind all that
was of man, though yet the seed of the woman, would, in a way that
neither Moses nor any of the prophets could understand, eventually make
an end of sin.
The history and the literature of the Hebrews would be a perplexing
enigma without this hope. Like their faith, it was too pure and
spiritual for them to receive, and to the very latest it always appears
with something of the defilement of their religious condition clinging
to it. During the Exile, however, this hope became purer and stronger,
and the imagery in which they embodied it became more evangelical and
spiritual than that employed by earlier poets and prophets. The section
of the Hebrews that returned to Palestine held it in increased strength,
but with the old national taint upon it. Their own restoration and the
favour of Persia kindled anew the foolish dreams of their ancestors,
and, alas! when Persia disappointed them, and its favour was supplanted
by oppression, and the kingdom, instead of rising Phœnix-like out of its
ashes, became the battlefield or the gage of foreign nations, there
broke out in Palestine the bitterest plague of unbelief and apostasy
that had ever assailed the nation. For idolatry, for overlaying or
corrupting the worship of Jehovah, their forefathers had often been
severely chastised, but no prophet had as yet complained of a temple
deserted and an altar defiled by unworthy offerings. And this was
because men professed to have discovered in the destruction of their
national hopes that after all religion was vain, and there was no profit
in serving God.
Any one who has intelligently read Malachi, or the sayings of Agur the
proverb-collector,[116] or the Book of Ecclesiastes, will see to what a
depth of scepticism, if not indeed of atheism, their perverted Messianic
hopes had brought the Jews of Palestine. We appreciate the criticism
which regards Coheleth, so alien to the healthy and joyous spirit of the
Hebrew religion, as the natural outgrowth of this period.[117] When
faith in Israel’s imperishable kingdom seemed to be completely wrecked,
when ministers of religion led the revolt from it, and unrighteous
rulers and corrupt society made life in Palestine, as in Rome in Nero’s
day, not worth the living, it is not to be wondered that this one which
has survived, but that “many books”[118] should have been written to
echo the cry, “All is vanity.” We may listen to it as a note of despair
from a pessimist in whose people religion had died, because disappointed
political ambition had shown them that “no earthly good” came of serving
God; or we may read it as the protest of some healthy-minded Jew against
that orthodox asceticism which after the Captivity invaded religion, and
led to the rise of Pharisaism and Essenism. In any case, it seems to
mark the proper close in Palestine of an age of national perverted faith
and hope. The Essenes like the Indian ascetics had hope neither for the
nation’s recovery nor for the establishment anywhere of a kingdom of
God. The Pharisees, on the contrary, had hope, but it was the old
political hope, and in them, though Egyptian and Syrian and Greek and
Roman had trodden the nation under foot, and though the Maccabees had
suffered and poured out their blood in vain, it seemed to grow stronger
and stronger. Ready to believe any impostor, and to rise at the faintest
call, their fanaticism more than once betrayed the people into
ineffectual and most sanguinary revolts; but it had one result that was
not wholly evil, for they drew after them the multitudes to the desert,
when the thunder of the Baptist’s cry reached Jerusalem, “The kingdom of
God is at hand.”[119]
So was it in Palestine; but among the Diaspora all over the Empire the
hope of Messiah assumed a purer and more catholic form. Everywhere it
was strong, but the broader horizons by which they were surrounded saved
them from the delusions which intoxicated the Palestinian Jew. In
classical literature there are tokens that it had filtered into Gentile
minds. It was undoubtedly vague and shadowy even at its brightest, but
in the Sibyl and Pollio its fulfilment signified something more
important than a successful revolution in Palestine. It meant mighty
changes impending that would bring good to all the world, the augury of
a star that would soon glimmer in the eastern horizon, and grow and
brighten till it would be seen to be not a light for Asia only, but the
Sun of Righteousness with healing in His beams for every nation under
heaven.
We have thus been following two lines of religious movement, perfectly
independent of each other, far apart geographically, still further apart
in the beliefs which inspired them. We have seen how the melody of joy
and health which the Indians brought with them from our common primeval
home ended in a sigh of despair. Individual existence, at first so full
of wonder and delight, lost soon its freshness and glory, and came to be
felt to be such a burden that emancipation from it by absorption into
the Absolute was hailed as a boon. The human mind, leaving its childhood
behind it, and advancing to question itself and the universe, after a
season of movement and sense of freedom and power, somehow lost or
missed the way. Oppressed in the toils of the jungle, and wandering ever
further from practical life as it proceeded, it lay down vanquished,
longing only to be at rest and in quiet as infants that never saw the
light.
The other line of development marks not the course of a speculation, but
the growth of a faith laying hold of mankind with creative and
transforming power. This faith, never dissociated from, but seeking to
dominate and reform actual life, condemned inertion, and fostered hope
for a race working out its salvation, because convinced that God is
working in them both to will and to do. We see a light streaming from
above into the darkness of man, paining and blinding at first the organs
which it seeks to purify. We see a struggle on the part of the creatures
to bring the Most High down to their level, and make Him their servant,
and a striving of the Divine Spirit to train them as children. We see a
mighty Hand laid ever on a peculiar people, at times so softly that they
hardly felt it, at times with conscious guiding and sustaining power; at
times chastising them sorely by the sword of the enemy and the
heart-hunger of exile, but never giving them over unto death. Not for
forty years, but for twice forty generations we see Him leading and
humbling and proving them, till in the souls of the aptest—though only
“a remnant” of them—He had rooted ideals of human destiny which never
can perish. Then, that all might be ready in the fulness of time, He
scattered them among the nations, and lo! when required they are
everywhere, crying in the crowded capitals of the East and of the West,
in the darkness of the North and the brightness of the South, “Prepare
ye in the desert an highway for the Lord.”
Footnote 62:
Introduction to _Le Bouddha et sa Religion_; Paris, 1858.
Footnote 63:
Müller, Introd. to _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. p. xxi.
Footnote 64:
A. Burnell, _Indian Antiq._, 1880, p. 223, quoted by Prof. Max Müller
in Introduction to vol. x. of _Sacred Books of the East_, p. xi.
Footnote 65:
Frankfurter, Appendix to Wordsworth’s Bampton Lectures for 1881; _The
One Religion_, p. 340; Eitel _Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 44; Edkins,
_Chinese Buddhism_, p. 232.
Footnote 66:
Prof. Max Müller, Introduction to vol. i. of _Sacred Books of the
East_, p. xxvii.
Footnote 67:
A. E. Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads, etc._, p. 5; Trübner’s
Oriental Series.
Footnote 68:
This statement is hazarded, notwithstanding the recent reply of the
author of _Supernatural Religion_ to Bishop Lightfoot’s Essays. It
will be generally conceded that he has adopted an untenable position,
and that, though his rejoinder to the learned Bishop may be a vigorous
assault, it is weak criticism. Sanday’s work on _The Gospels in the
Second Century_ is on the whole a better reply than the Bishop’s to
the allegations of the author of _Supernatural Religion_, whose
extreme scepticism of literary evidence is quite equalled by his
dogmatic extravagance of statement.
Footnote 69:
_Vie de Jésus_, Introd. pp. xv, xvii, 4th ed.; Paris, 1863.
Footnote 70:
_Science de Religions_, pp. 12, 20.
Footnote 71:
Professor Max Müller, Introd. to Dhammapada, _Sacred Books of the
East_, vol. x. p. x.
Footnote 72:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii. p. 37; Introd., vol. xi. p. xx.
Footnote 73:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 27.
Footnote 74:
Mahavansa, by Turnour; Dipavansa, xx. 20, quoted by Professor Max
Müller in _Sacred Books of the East_, vols. x. p. xxiv, and xiii. p.
xxxv.
Footnote 75:
_Buddhist Birth Stories_, vol. i. p. lvii; Trübner’s Oriental Series.
Footnote 76:
Weber, _Indian Literature_, p. 294; _ibid._
Footnote 77:
We may safely assert that in the mass of Buddhist literature already
available nothing has been found, nor is anything at all likely to be
found, corresponding in character and evidential value to the
Christian Scriptures. What would the New Testament have been, asks
Professor Müller, “if the spurious Gospels, the pseudo-apostolic and
post-apostolic productions, the debates of the Councils, the
commentaries of the Fathers, and the lives of the saints, had all been
bound and mixed up with it”? (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i.,
Introd., pp. xv, xvi.) And yet this is a parallel to the confusion
represented by the so-called Buddhist Bible. In truth, it is not a
Bible, but a library, containing not only the earliest treatises, but
the commentaries upon them made in later ages, and extracts and
repetitions from itself so extensive and numerous that were they
omitted this portentous collection—four times as voluminous as our
Christian Bible—would be found to be much shorter than it. When the
original Bible of Buddhism has been disinterred from this pile it will
be found to resemble almost in nothing our New Testament, but it may
present many analogies to the Talmud and Targums, and perhaps some
very interesting resemblances to isolated portions of the Old
Testament. As far as it has been translated to us, the Tripitaka
contain neither prophecy nor history; but one division of it presents
suggestive coincidences with portions of the apocryphal Scriptures;
and scholars may find a comparison of some of the texts of Job,
Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes with those of the Dhammapada and some of
the Suttas an agreeable and not unprofitable study, without in the
least being tempted to transfer their allegiance from the Hebrew to
the Indian sages.
Footnote 78:
Eitel, _Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 6; Hunter, “Historical Aspects of
Indian Geography,” _Scot. Geog. Mag._, Dec. 1888.
Footnote 79:
Rogers, _Superhuman Origin of the Bible_, Lecture v.
Footnote 80:
Professor Max Müller, _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p.
103.
Footnote 81:
Professor Müller, Gifford Lectures, _Natural Religion_, p. 564.
Footnote 82:
_Record of Missionary Conference in London_, 1888, vol. i. p. 39; also
his _Buddhism_, p. 558.
Footnote 83:
_Le Génie des Religions._
Footnote 84:
Sutta Nipata, translated by Fausböll in vol. x. of _Sacred Books of
the East_, Part ii. pp. 23, 76, 109, 113.
Footnote 85:
_Ibid._ vol. x., _ibid._ Part ii. p. 40. We are also reminded that a
man is not a Bikkhu because he puts on yellow robes, unless he has
cleansed himself from evil (Dhammapada, i. 9, 10).
Footnote 86:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp. 5, 145.
Footnote 87:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, pp. 162, 163.
Footnote 88:
Émile Burnouf, _Science de Religions_, p. 24.
Footnote 89:
M. Vivien de St. Martin, _Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales_.
Footnote 90:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 10.
Footnote 91:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. p. xxii.
Footnote 92:
Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, vol. ii. p. 338; Weber, _Indian
Literature_, p. 38; Sir Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life
in India_, p. 18.
Footnote 93:
See Satapatha-Brâhmana, translated by Professor Eggeling in vols. xii.
and xxvi. of _Sacred Books of the East_. Max Müller places the age of
these books within the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.
Footnote 94:
E. Quinet, _Le Génie des Religions_, p. 185; Paris, 1857.
Footnote 95:
Sir Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 24,
referring to the Aitareya-Brahmana, vii. 13.
Footnote 96:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 15; T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures,
p. 25.
Footnote 97:
Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, pp. 41, 42.
Footnote 98:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. i. and xv. No one has dated any of
the Upanishads earlier than 600 B.C., and some of them are very late.
Footnote 99:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i. p. lxvi.
Footnote 100:
Svetâsvatara-Upanishad, iii. 7, iv. 14, 16, v. 13, vi. 7, 9, _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xv.
Footnote 101:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 47, 48; Gough, _Phil. Upan._ pp. 61,
67.
Footnote 102:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 28.
Footnote 103:
_History of Israel_, vol. i. pp. 41, 47.
Footnote 104:
Gifford Lectures, _Natural Religion_, p. 563.
Footnote 105:
It is significant that in the beginning of the Bible Nature-worship
seems stamped as accursed in its symbol, the serpent, and that the
whole Bible from beginning to end is a Divine protest against that
worship in all its forms. Mankind in all ages is tempted to become as
the gods, and in a low condition he has almost everywhere succumbed to
the temptation. He feasts his gods, compels them to serve him, is
really higher than they, and thus he degrades himself or falls from
the ideal of one made in the image and after the likeness of God.
Footnote 106:
Ewald, _History of Israel_, vol. i. pp. 320-322.
Footnote 107:
Some ascribe it to the Deuteronomist, ch. vi. 4.
Footnote 108:
Professor Müller finds the first traces of a Maker or Creator in the
Vedic deity Tvashtar, the carpenter—the clever workman, even smith,
forging bolts for Indra therein, Rig-Ved. iii. 55. 19. “Tvashtar, the
enlivener, endowed with many forms, has nourished the creatures and
produced them in many ways; all these worlds are his.” Of another god,
latterly called Pragâpati, he quotes Rig-Ved. x. 81. 2, as one who,
“creating the earth, disclosed the sky by his power.” Very
significantly, however, he reminds us that the same poet loses the
idea, and speaks of the secret of creation as undiscoverable.—Müller’s
_Natural Religion_, p. 245. Also Introd. to Upanishads, _Sacred Books
of the East_, vol. xv. p. xxiv.
Footnote 109:
Fairbairn, _Religion in History and in the Life of To-day_, pp. 39-51.
Footnote 110:
It was only by their very highest and greatest souls that the Godhead
was conceived in anything of its spiritual glory. To Abraham God was
the Creator, distinct from and greater than the earth and heavens
which He had made; to Moses He was a righteous Lawgiver, training upon
eagle-wings a peculiar people; to David He was a tender and wise
Shepherd of a foolish and helpless flock; to Isaiah and the later
prophets a Father dealing with rebellious people, whom He pities,
knowing whereof they were made. These conceptions, however, cannot be
said to have been those of the mass of the people.
Footnote 111:
Kuenen, _National Religions and Universal Religion_, Hibbert Lectures,
1882, p. 187.
Footnote 112:
Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. i. p. 275.
Footnote 113:
Jos. _Contra Ap._ ii. 30. 32; _Antiq._ xviii. 1. 1; _Jewish Wars_, ii.
8.
Footnote 114:
Uhlhorn, _Conflict of Christianity_, chaps. i. ii.; Jos. _Antiq._
xiii. 9. 1, and 11. 3, and _Contra Ap._ ii. 10. 39; Kuenen, _Religion
of Israel_, iii. 273 _seq._; Renan, _Les Apôtres_, pp. 253, 260.
Footnote 115:
The truth on which the Sabbath is founded is the majestic truth of a
completed creation, and one conform to the latest discoveries of
science. During the whole course of human observation no new creative
effort has been displayed in the production of a new type. The animal
and vegetable worlds stand to-day as man first beheld them. The
creative spirit has passed into the soul of man, in whose world is the
progress which nature has long ceased to manifest, and under whose
handling nature itself improves. But God, though resting from His
works of creation, is not in Scripture said to be resting from His
works of mercy: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”
Footnote 116:
“The words of Agur the son of Jakeh,” Proverbs xxxi. 1.
Footnote 117:
Hüber, _Der Pessimismus_, 1876, p. 8; Holdheim, Preface to vol. iii.
of _Predigten_, quoted by Cheyne, _Job and Solomon_, pp. 250-253.
Footnote 118:
Eccles. xii. 12.
Footnote 119:
Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. i. p. 276;
Keim, _Jesus of Nazara_, vol. i. pp. 316-325; Kuenen, _Religion of
Israel_, vol. iii. p. 177.
LECTURE III.
THE BUDDHA OF THE PITAKAS: THE CHRIST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
The condition of Palestine and the progress of events in it at the
beginning of the Christian era, are set in the clear light of history,
and defined by an accurate chronology. To the superficial observer it
appeared to be a prosperous land, for it was fertile and carefully
tilled, populous, and, in the northern regions especially, teeming with
the fruits of industry. It had reached the commercial stage of
civilisation, and everywhere, in well-built cities adorned with palatial
buildings, many of them the abodes of merchants who rivalled the Italian
nobles and Herodian princes in the costliness of their manner of living,
it yielded indications of the luxury which successful commerce brings in
its train. But as always happens when wealth abounds in a land, there
was a corresponding amount of poverty. While the rich were lavishing
fortunes upon selfish and gigantic follies, an increasing multitude,
born and bred in squalor, were struggling for very existence. In the
days of the Son of Man their numbers were vastly increased by political
troubles which disturbed trade and depressed agriculture. So to an eye
that looked beneath the surface this seemingly prosperous Palestine was
diseased and in a dangerous condition, for pauperism and discontent were
rapidly maturing the seeds of anarchy, and preparing for the successive
revolutions in which so many perished before the Roman eagles swept down
upon the carcass of a State politically dead, because morally and
socially corrupt.
Under the Herodian dominion, secured as it had been by the destruction
of an illustrious royal house and the sacrifice of their bravest
patriots, the sympathies of the people revolted from the throne to
cluster for a time around the temple; but just as the dignity of the
office of the high priest was rising in their estimation, successive
nominations to it by the king and procurator of men odious to the good
turned the tide in a different direction. The hierarchy was represented
by the Sadducees, a party small in number and far from popular. Though
wearing names of ancient and honoured families, they were obviously
careless alike of the sanctuary and of the interests of the nation.
Strict observers of the law of their Davidic ancestor, they rejected the
prevalent interpretations of it, and all the new-fangled doctrines
concerning angels and spirits, and the resurrection of the just, which
had been formulated since the Exile. Especially opposed to the belief
that the keeping of the law would procure for a man recompence in a
future state, they held that the law must be kept to the letter just
because it was God’s will, even though the soul died with the body.
Their wealth and position as the aristocracy brought them into
connection with the representatives of the great foreign powers of the
times, whose manners and fashions they copied; but the nearer they drew
to the Roman and Asmonean nobility the further they drew apart from the
people whom they never pretended to love, and who, equally alienated,
regarded them with similar dislike.
Withdrawn from the temple, the affections of people were freely given to
the synagogue leaders as the representatives and fosterers of the
national ideals and hopes. In these days every small town had its
synagogue, while in Jerusalem alone there were said to be four hundred
and eighty. These were not only places of worship, but schools in which
the Law was made the common possession of all without distinction, and
also arenas for exciting discussion, in which was nursed that love of
dialectics to which so many striking analogies exist both in India and
Greece. They were dominated by the Scribes, the sole copiers for the
ever increasing synagogues of the ancient Scriptures, and the true
interpreters of the law. Pedantic and self-important though they
generally were, they were revered so by the people for their piety and
gifts that from them were chiefly selected the members of the court of
the Sanhedrim, which represented all that was left to the nation of
executive power. Their Cabbala, revealing the secret doctrines to be
found in names, of which we have specimens in the writings of St.
Paul,[120] and the mystic significance of numbers, of which we have
traces in the Apocalypse, may be only interesting now as curiosities,
but we must never forget that they rendered undying service to the world
in preserving from corruption, by many arts carefully studied and
applied, the texts of Holy Scripture.[121]
The Pharisees, the Nazarites of the nation as their name implies, the
democratic antagonists of the aristocratic Sadducees, the staunch
opponents of the Gentile, the believers in the coming kingdom of the
just, were deservedly the most popular of all the religious sects in
Palestine. More liberal than the Sadducees in their interpretation of
the law in its bearing upon the people, they never thought of exacting
for faults or transgressions the ancient penalties; but they were far
more severe in their personal observance of it.[122] To the mass of them
it was a ladder by which they might climb into the kingdom of heaven;
and out of it, to make sure of this end, they evolved a most
comprehensive system of bye-laws, as sacred to them as the original
precepts by which every action and word and relation of life was
regulated. Pharisaism was just Brahmanism, and though more ethically
applied it was in its spirit and aim as selfish. Bent only upon
accumulating merit, in character it became eventually as morally impure.
Forgetting in their attention to petty details the weightier obligations
of life, disregarding their neighbours that they might provide for their
own recompence, the Pharisees became as a class so corrupt as to draw
upon them the most scathing of all the denunciations of our Lord.
More Pharisaic than the Pharisees, said to be an offshoot or secession
from them, the Essenes in their desert communities sought by the worship
of Jehovah in the spirit of the prophets, and yet apparently by prayers
to the sun, and by an ascetic and celibate life, to deliver the immortal
soul from material impurity, to educate it to enjoy the beatific vision,
and to prophesy the secret things of the future. In these communities of
pious people, the very flower of Judaism,[123] the only ray of light in
the deepening darkness, some may be pardoned in professing to find the
dawn of Christianity—not in its external arrangements, but its inward
dispositions and beliefs. In its avowal that morality was superior to
legal observance, in its endeavour to prepare the mind by calm to
receive the Divine instruction, in its sabbatic sanctification of all
days of the week, in its estimate of all work as religious, and of every
meal as sacramental, it pre-intimated the teaching of the coming gospel;
but while its arrangements may have suggested the monastic institutions
of Christendom, we can never regard it as the matrix of Christianity.
Its life was just the last flickering ray of Judaism, a bright gleam
irradiating the features of a moribund age, but not that of a new birth
with promise of a mighty future. It was not the rush of a new force into
the battle of the redemption of humanity, but the _sauve qui peut_ of a
rout which it believed to be universal. As pessimist as Brahmanism in
its views of life, though more Buddhist than Brahman in its methods, its
aim was the same—that of rescuing the individual from a world nigh unto
perdition and really not worth the saving.[124]
In the virtuous Pharisee and the pious Essene Judaism found its best
representatives;[125] but at most there were only six thousand
Pharisees[126] and four thousand Essenes[127] in all the nation, and,
alas! the majority of the Pharisees were not sincere; and the Essenes,
though really in earnest, had abandoned the nation to its fate. Among
the religious classes piety and morality had become so dissociated that
a man who in the matter of belief or of worship would strain at a gnat,
might in practice without condemnation swallow a camel. The result of
this fatal divorce between creed and conduct was seen in a social
corruption which augured everywhere the gathering of the storm-clouds of
retribution. At that time Greece was dead, and what was best in its
spirit had passed into Alexandria. There, blending with the more robust
spirit of the Hebrew religion, it was forming that Hellenism which,
though it never could account for the origin, was yet powerfully to
influence the unfolding of our religion. In Hellenism we have the
natural resultant of the conflux of Eastern and Western thought, which,
according to some, will explain the birth of Christianity. In it
certainly the Aryan and the Semite were seen contributing their very
best thoughts, and the product was—Philo; but Philo-Judæus is neither
St. Paul nor St. John, and the Christ of the Gospels is further beyond
him than the heavens are above the earth.
In Alexandria Greece might be said to live, but Rome was hopelessly
dying. Drunk with the cup of the sorceries of all nations, embruted with
every lust, it was staggering to a doom which neither law, even the best
conceived and most thoroughly administered, nor philosophy, even the
wisest and most consistently illustrated, could avert. The civilisation
of the Western world was marvellous: it was a world not only of poets
and artists, of brave soldiers and subtle statesmen, but of sound
moralists too; but civilisation, powerless to save, could only cover
with broidered robes the leprous body, or adorn with golden trappings
its bier, and morality could not restore what was sick unto death. When
Rome and Palestine were alike corrupt, there was no hope for the world
in man; yet when all help in man faileth, there never lacketh help in
God, and so, just when the night was blackest, and despair had seized on
all save a few aged people in the courts of Zion, and a few thoughtful
Magi in the distant East, lo! over a Babe in the cattle-crib of a leewan
in Bethlehem was descried the shining of the Star of Hope.
When we turn from Palestine to the holy land of Magadha, the cradle of
Buddhism in the sixth century B.C., we find no light of history
streaming upon it. All is dim and shadowy, with no chronology to define
events, and no incidents to distinguish personalities. It is like a land
of dreams to our modern conception, but it is not a chaos. We can trace
to a certain extent movements in it, and as we follow them there emerges
in outline sufficiently clear a real civilisation, which, though lacking
the stir and endeavour, the commerce and the art of the West, and really
inferior to it, is yet most interesting in its pathetic resemblances,
and all the more instructive that its beliefs and institutions were
formed out of antecedents and predispositions very different from any of
which the Western world had experience.
It is evident from the very cursory survey already made that religious
belief in India and in the West must have passed through phases
significantly similar. In both it proceeded from faith in a revealed
system of truth—in India in the inspired Vedas, in Palestine in the
inspired oracles. Human speculation in both cases was begotten, and for
long it was educated in faith in revelation, then beginning to
rationalise; in both cases it unintentionally undermined what at first
it only endeavoured to explain. Turning from ancient scrolls to the
study of the book of human nature, whose pages, though often tattered
and defiled, are always fascinating, it was staggered by the
contradiction between man’s ideals of goodness and justice and the
realities of human history. Out of this collision arose the Promethean
demand that the divine powers that govern life “should either explain or
abdicate.” In Palestine this wrestle with the inequalities of providence
originated early, and continued all along; but it was confined within
limits by faith in the personality of Deity as one so infinitely greater
than man that only a part of His ways could be understood. Indian
speculation never reached the approaches to this idea of God: it
wandered into a Pantheism of a grosser type than ever the West was
acquainted with, and once it reached that stage it could not stop. Just
as in Greece pantheism ripened into the materialism of the Epicurean and
the atheism of the Stoic, so in India, even before the days of Gotama,
may have begun that open revolt against Deity, in the perilous attempt
of reason to explain by itself the universe, with which his name has
since then been most closely associated.
The religious world in India in the times preceding his birth, like the
religious world of Palestine, had a hierarchy represented by the
Brahmans, the indispensable functionaries in all sacrificial services.
Corresponding to the Scribes were the Teviggi, the reciters and
expounders of the sacred and still unwritten books. The Rabbin had their
analogies in reforming Brahmans, who alone or in communities that had
gathered round them professed to teach the higher discipline which could
secure deliverance. If a multitude of sects be an indication of
intellectual movement, there was as much stir in Brahmanism as in
Judaism. In the Pali books there are mentioned as contemporaries of
Buddha six noted teachers of great schools, the most formidable of whom,
or at least the most hated of his soul, was the head of an ascetic sect
which, like the Essenes, had renounced the world to make good their own
salvation. This Niggantha sect, still represented in India by close upon
half a million of adherents in the district of Rajputana, claims not
only to have preceded the founder of Buddhism by two hundred and fifty
years, but to have anticipated the essentials of his system.[128] Its
philosophical and ethical doctrines are almost in accord with his, while
its cosmogony and ritual incline more towards those of Hinduism. Its
adherents apply to their founder the titles “Victor” or Jina, and
“Enlightened One” or Buddha, which many imagine were ascribed solely to
Gotama; but whether Buddhism sprang from it or gave birth to Jainism is
a question still undecided. The only solid fact as yet ascertained is
that from the earliest traceable period their mutual relations are
marked by that pronounced intolerance[129] which prevails when kinsfolk
quarrel.
Collision and antagonism between sects in India was neither so sharp nor
so fierce as in Palestine, and Buddha ministered in conditions much more
favourable to the propagation of his system than did Jesus Christ. The
Sadducean opponents of Christ represented a powerful hierarchy, the
Pharisees a popular democracy, and the Scribes an influential Sanhedrim,
with power of inflicting a sentence of death. The Essenes never mingle
in the scenes of the Gospel, and it is questionable if they are ever
referred to in them. Over all and dominating all was a most jealous and
vigilant Roman despotism, ever ready to turn even a religious quarrel to
its own account, so that it was the most natural of things that an
opposition thus represented should nip, as it were, Christianity in the
very bud by crucifying its Founder. In Magadha, however, it was
otherwise. The broad distinction was between Brahmans and Sramans,[130]
the latter a general title covering many secessions from Brahmanism, and
the popular favour was equally bestowed on both. The Brahmans, though
dominant, had not the power, and to their credit do not seem to have had
the will, to persecute. It was not from them, but from the scholastic
and conceited Teviggi and from the ascetic sects that Buddha encountered
most formidable opposition; and yet even in these cases opposition was
not rigid. It was a war not of blows, but of words, in which an appeal
to the secular arm or to force was out of the question. A new sect,
therefore, especially one that had donned the yellow robes and alms-bowl
of the mendicant, protesting against the debasing belief in the efficacy
of Brahmanic rites, or the virtue gained by extravagant Yogi
austerities, would obtain from the people at large more favour than
resistance or disdain.
The intellectual movement in India appears thus to have been extensive
and many-sided. In the multitude of sects there is a guarantee for
freedom,[131] and competition in the proclamation of truth is better
than monopoly; but in religion, as in trade, the competition of
over-multiplying sects tends to increase adulteration. So in early
Buddhist literature, while there is incontestable evidence of the
existence of honest instructors, there is also unquestionable evidence
of the abundance of quacks, who trifled with truth simply to make a gain
of it, and of shallow but clever professionals, who dealt with gravest
themes in the spirit of the mere debater.[132] So there, as in Palestine
in the days of Coheleth, through over-discussion the old faith was
rapidly evaporating. In the Brahmans, religion had degenerated into
formalism; in the Teviggi, into traditionalism. In the philosophic
Sramans it was in many instances passing into blank atheism; and among
the ascetics, into despair. While this was the condition of the learned
and of the few, the masses everywhere, like the Ammé Ha-árets in
Palestine, were wandering—no man caring for them—further and further
into the idolatries and sensualities of Hinduism. Morality was
perishing, the writing on the heart was getting more indistinct, and
conscience becoming more confused. Then, just as five centuries later,
when faith was almost gone, Christ came to restore it by communicating
new life, so when divine law was in danger of fading from the
consciousness of men, there arose one to assert its eternal supremacy;
preaching the creed of Coheleth without his fear of God, and enforcing
the keeping of the commandments, not as expressed in Vedas or
interpreted in Brahmanas, but as written in every fibre of the body and
every faculty of the being, as the only way to safety.
Who was he? Like the Author of Christianity, he has had to contend, as
it were, for the recognition of his personal existence. Even to-day it
is maintained that neither Christ nor Buddha ever existed, that they
were merely incarnations of popular conceptions, and that all the
legends concerning them can be reduced to a combination of anterior
mythological elements. These mythical theories, however, in regard to
the origin of Christianity, may be considered among the curiosities of
criticism;[133] and in regard to the origin of Buddhism, though more
justified by the confessed uncertainty as to dates, they have been
satisfactorily dispelled as another instance of refining overdone.[134]
Brahmanism and the successive phases of Hinduism can be traced to no
individual founder, but in investigating the origin of Buddhism we
breathe a very different atmosphere. There is a human and moral
character about it which the other Indian religions lack: something real
as in Mosaism, and palpable as in Islam.[135] We may rest assured that
Buddhism had for its founder a real person, and though our best
authorities have had to search for their facts through a vast amount of
fabulous materials, we may accept the dates which they have
approximately fixed for his birth and death, and the outlines which they
have sketched of his life and ministry.
Gotama, a name still found among the Rajput chiefs of Nagara, was born
in the north-eastern region of India, about a hundred miles from
Benares, about the year B.C. 557. His father, a Sakya, a name unknown in
any native Indian family, and said to indicate descent from a race of
northern nomad immigrants, was rajah of Kapila, and his mother was a
daughter of the family of Koli.[136] His principalities, of very limited
extent, seem to have been eventually swallowed up by the greater Indian
monarchies, for when Fa-Hian visited the country Kapila had become a
vast solitude, and there for ages its very name has perished from the
living speech of men. Even though his royal pedigree be an embellishment
of the later legends, there seems no reason to doubt that his father was
noble and rich according to the standard of the time, and sufficiently
independent of Brahman domination to train his son in his own way. It
seems not to have been in their studies, but in the exercises befitting
a warrior prince, that Gotama was educated, though a disposition
thoughtful and melancholy, and strongly sympathetic, appears to have
disinclined him from such a mode of life. Even as a youth the darker
sides of existence threw a shadow over him; the sufferings of mankind
were among his earliest impressions, and he brooded over them till his
mind, poisoned by the contemplation of them, threw its gloom over
everything around him, and made the very air hang heavy with the weight
of woe.
To one driven as he was to the conclusion that existence was a burden
rather than a blessing, death, according to the belief in which he had
been nurtured, could afford no relief; but hope seemed to dawn for him
as he thought of the happy yellow-robed sages who, freed from his
horror, were tranquil and dignified, abstracted alike from pleasure and
pain. So after a period of irresolution and struggle, in the very prime
of his manhood, he stole away from his wife and his new-born child, and
cast in his lot with the forest recluses. Having lived some time with
them, and having found that their ascetic discipline failed to satisfy
his aspirations, he left them, and joined two philosophic Brahmans, who
taught him the science of meditation in its lower and higher degrees.
Though he had profited so much by their instruction and discipline that
he rose in six years from being a disciple to a teacher, he confessed
that he had not found by their methods the imperishable and permanent
quietude which he coveted. So, abandoning all his disciples, he withdrew
into solitude, and plunged into fasting so rigorous that he nearly
destroyed himself; then, finding that the secret of deliverance was not
thus to be obtained, he returned, amid the contempt of his former
companions, to a more genial mode of life. Then, all alone in the
jungle, its manifold discomforts, the memories of home, and the
fruitlessness of all his endeavours, assailed him with the force of a
temptation to desist from the quest; but rallying all his powers for one
supreme effort, he eventually, under a banyan-tree at Bohimanda,
triumphed—awoke as one before whom all illusion had vanished, and who by
no divine illumination, but by his own personal energy, had attained to
knowledge of the causes of all things, and had at last become the
Buddha, the Enlightened One.
We need have no difficulty in accepting this outline of the man’s
spiritual history as substantially correct; and assuming it to be so, we
see at once that it is contrasted in every point with the early history
of Jesus of Nazareth. In the Indian narrative, _e.g._, we have long and
prolix details of the youth and manhood of Gotama; in the Christian
Gospels very few incidents, one pregnant saying, two or three words of
description, sum up the whole record of Christ’s biography till He
appeared before the Baptist. This silence is surely suggestive, for it
could not have been the result of ignorance or forgetfulness. “It is
silence, where, to a moral certainty,” as is indicated alike by the
apocryphal Gospels and the Buddhist legends, “men left to themselves
would have used much speech.” In the Gospels the things which we are
naturally curious to know are concealed from us, and there is disclosed
only the spiritual reality in which Christianity consists. Where He was,
how He looked, what He did during these long years of waiting and
preparation, the Evangelists have not told us; but they have revealed
enough to show what He was. Scenery and circumstances are as nothing,
because the life that was revealing itself in them was everything; and
of the unfolding of that life, the few and slight but most suggestive
touches of the Gospels enable us to form clearer conceptions than we are
ever likely to form of Gotama’s from the abundant incidents of the
Buddhist story.
Thus while the son of the Indian rajah did not require to keep from
himself anything that his heart desired, Jesus of Nazareth in the home
of Galilee had to deny Himself, and to endure in the commonest kind of
labour a hardness which the Indian youth, in the inertion of his class
and race, regarded as part of the curse of existence. Still, Jesus had
meat to eat which the other knew not of; He had bread enough and to
spare, while the other was perishing of hunger. Rich in poverty, while
Gotama was poor in his abundance, Jesus the carpenter appears highly
exalted in what the other would have called humiliation. There, while
Gotama, having everything which he could desire at his call, had
discovered that human life was worse than vanity, Jesus,
self-surrendered in faithful service of others, was learning how full of
blessedness and how rich in power of blessing the life of any man might
be. The angels of nature and providence, by the lilies of the field and
the children in the market-place, instructed him in a wisdom which no
Indian sage ever dreamed of; and though He saw the wretchedness of this
evil world as Gotama never saw it, and felt for the misery of men as
Gotama never could feel, He saw what even Buddha the Enlightened never
could descry, the face of a Father in Heaven not frowning in wrath but
yearning in pity over all. So, instead of repelling, the suffering and
evil of the world drew Jesus closer to it, till, finding His grace, not
as Gotama found His wisdom, in desire to be delivered from it, but in
the depth of His longing to save it, He gave Himself to it and for it,
as for a joy that was set before Him.
Again, the enlightenment of Gotama was the result of a painful struggle,
first between inclination and duty, and then with great perplexities of
duty, but in Christ it was painless and natural, like the growing of the
dawn into the day. His pure and at first joyous life unfolded itself
like a beautiful morning under the animating impulse of love to God and
to all His creatures. As He grew in consciousness of the heaven within,
He became more conscious of the disorder without, and more sensible of
His isolation in regard to it. As year by year the sense not of the
world’s misery but of its guilt increased within Him, there would also
increase the longing that it should be taken away. Very early the
conviction took possession of Him, that He was not here to win His own
way to deliverance, but to be about His Father’s business. Gradually the
Father’s business was revealed to Him, and when the preaching of the
Baptist had made it clear, without any wrestle like Gotama’s, Christ,
ever close to His Father, and ever clear in His duty, set Himself at
once to fulfil it.
It is often alleged that the temptation in the wilderness, which marked
the close of our Lord’s long period of silent preparation, is an exact
parallel to the fasting and temptation which preceded Gotama’s
enlightenment at Bohimanda. There is doubtless an external similarity
sufficient to arrest our attention, but the internal contrasts disclose
experiences of quite different characters. In the light of their
respective histories, these occurrences, though often referred to as
miraculous, were in reality most natural. They represent experiences of
which there could be no witnesses, and which, indescribable in plain
words, could only be suggested by a kind of parable. The temptations are
recorded not as they were presented to the persons tried, but in the
character which they assumed when their drift was discovered and their
aim was detected. Both were assailed by suggestions, raising in them a
tumult of emotion, which, if unresisted or yielded to, would in Gotama’s
case have been equivalent to abandonment of his quest for deliverance
for the sake of sensual indulgence offered by Mâra and his daughters,
and in the case of Christ, to refusal to live by obedience, to tempting
the Holy One of Israel, and to worshipping the splendid majesty of
wrong. The temptations were real, assailing the will, seeking to
paralyse or to change it; and their force in each case would be in
proportion to the depth and purity of the natures assailed. Gotama,
though unmistakably a man of high spiritual aspiration, was attacked by
sensual visions,[137] which could not possibly have been a temptation to
a nature like Christ’s. He had “to repel as evil what to other men would
have appeared as ideals of good, and had to turn away from what the
noblest of men would have cherished as innocent dreams or splendid
chances,”[138] because to His pure eyes they were Satanic temptations.
He suffered, being tempted, but His trouble and suffering were caused
neither by irresolution, nor vanity, nor fear, but by His own lowly
humility and to the sense of the exceeding greatness of His mission.
Gotama, sorely concerned about himself, went apart to fast and meditate
and wrestle for his own deliverance, but Christ went apart not to
fast—fasting was an unheeded incident in and not the aim of His
retirement, and in no perplexity about His own salvation, for that was
assured and made the basis of assault,—but that in quiet meditation He
might see more clearly the way by which the salvation of God could be
brought to mankind. Christ was forced to acknowledge that absolute
surrender to His Father’s will in His mission meant absolute antagonism
to the world, and He was tried by suggestions as to the mode of
prosecuting His mission, all the more seductive that they were confessed
to be natural. Might He not, as the Beloved of Heaven, to carry the
world along with Him, and to save multitudes from suffering, swerve just
a little from His high ideal, and accommodate His ways to suit their
prejudices? These temptations in the beginning continued His temptations
to the very close of His ministry. Not once, but all His life, as He
hungered for the sympathy and trust of those whom He sought to save, was
He tempted, as in Capernaum, when many fell away from Him, to “change
the stones into bread.” Not once only did He stand on “the battlements
of the temple,” nor once only was He offered “all the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them.” Again and again was He in peril when He
stood high in the opinion of the crowds, and heard them in their Hosanna
entreating Him, through His very sympathy with and love for them, to
gratify their wishes; yet in every case the temptation was rejected
without the slightest wavering the moment it was understood. “Get thee
behind me, Satan.” “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” “The cup
which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?”
For again, Christ conquered because from the beginning to the closing
agony He stood firm rooted in obedience and in submission to the will of
a Higher than self; but the Buddhist writers want to impress the very
opposite of this upon us in regard to Gotama’s victory. He is said to
have conquered Mâra by the force of his own will, and won his way to
light by his individual energy alone. After he became Buddha he
hesitated whether he would preach the way of deliverance to men, not
because, like Moses and the Hebrew prophets, he had no confidence in
himself and required the assurance of a divine strength not his own. He
had perfect assurance in himself, but he had no confidence at first in
the ability of others to comprehend and to follow him in a way so
difficult to find and so hard to tread.[139] He asked no deity to help
him, for he was greater and wiser than all the gods. In the legends
Brahma is said in intercession to have pressed him to preach the way,
and moved eventually by no intercession, but simply by his own pity for
men lost in the vortices of miserable existence, he went forth in no
strength but his own to preach and to teach in a ministry, not of shame
and humiliation and death, but one of great exaltation and honour.
This conception colours the narrative of his whole career. In the later
scriptures he is designated the Tathâgata (He who has gone or arrived at
Nirvana), the very reverse and point-blank contradiction of Christ the
Messiah, He who was sent. There was no higher to send him, no wiser to
teach. He came in his own name; but Jesus, as one sent by Him into the
world, went forth in the name of His Father. Though He made demands upon
the faith of the world compared with which the pretensions of Gotama are
trivial—for at the highest he only claimed to be Buddha the Enlightened,
while Christ spake of Himself as the “Light of the world,”—yet in
Christ’s claim there was ever a sense of dependence expressed or
implied, as of one who of His own self could do nothing, and who only
taught what His Father had showed Him. Both spake with authority, and
not as the scribes; both superseded the traditional domination of what
was said by men of old times with the emphatic “I say unto you”; but
there is a vast difference in the quality of this authority in the two
cases. The authority of Buddha sprang from his acknowledged intellectual
superiority, but the authority of Jesus sprang from spiritual insight.
The deliverances of Buddha were given after the manner of a Socratic
dialogue, and he won his converts and vanquished opponents by his
dialectic skill.[140] But in all the encounters of Christ with His
enemies there was no forcing of their reason to gain His end. His
replies and counter questions were brief and direct and incisive; they
were like the fiat of a king or the sentence of an unchallengeable
judge, from which reason and conscience alike confessed that there could
be no appeal.
Certainly in the two ministries was fulfilled a saying of Christ, “I am
come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come
in his own name, him will ye receive,” for after a very short period of
imperfect success the public career of Gotama became a continuous
victorious progress. Disciples, drawn mostly from the highest
classes—the Brahmans, the nobles, and the wealthy merchants—flocked
round him wherever he appeared. He journeyed followed by admiring
crowds, he had only to show himself to impress, and he had only to
preach to convince. The most stubborn resistance became fluid under his
spell, and those who approached to confute were sure to succumb to his
sweet reasonableness. He was supported by powerful rajahs, and those who
did not show him proper reverence were punished according to their
edicts. He was lodged in parks and gardens and palaces, several of which
were gifted to him for the use of his Order. Accessible always to people
of all castes, and of every condition, and of both sexes, he received
the attention of the courtesan, and shared her feast and accepted her
offering,[141] but he always maintained the nobility and purity of an
irreproachable character, and wherever he was found it was as the
prophet of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Rejoicing
through his long and honourable ministry, sometimes loath to die, as
foreseeing the troubles which would befall his Order after his decease,
he at last, when over fourscore years, in a sickness alleged to have
been induced by partaking too freely of some rich food, with the quiet
dignity and composure of a saint, fell asleep, and was buried with the
funeral obsequies which Indians then bestowed on the bodies of their
greatest kings.[142]
It would be impossible, in every respect, to find a more absolute
contrast to all this than the story of Jesus of Nazareth. If He was
popular, it was only for a little, and then only with the masses. The
aristocracy and the religious classes stood aloof, and soon entered into
a conspiracy to get rid of Him. He had a few disciples among them, like
Joseph of Arimathæa, and Nicodemus, and the family at Bethany, but the
words of the prophet accurately sum up the narratives of the Gospel,
that He was “despised and rejected of men.” To follow Him meant joining
in no triumphal procession, but in a struggle against storm and tide
which was sure to end in death. Suspected from the first, and speedily
denounced, He was watched and tracked and driven from place to place,
till at last the toils of the hunters closed successfully around Him,
and at the age of thirty-three He was crucified as a malefactor between
two robbers on Calvary.
But the grand and crowning distinction between the import and effect of
the two ministries emerged at the close. After Gotama died and his body
was burned, and his relics had been reverently gathered, and
distributed, and enshrined in costly dagobas erected in the various
scenes of his labours, there was an end of him. He had gone out into the
void, according to his own theory of the hereafter, and, no longer
capable of being of use to his disciples, he exhorted them to be “their
own refuge, their own law, and to work diligently out their
salvation.”[143] But when Jesus had been crucified there was manifestly
not an end, but rather a new beginning of His personal influence, a
rising in fuller power, a coming again with greater authority. From the
very morning of His ministry He took His death into His plan, as the
consummation of one stage of His mission, without which His plan would
have been a failure. All His teaching centred in His death, as a moral
and spiritual necessity in Divine providence. Instead of complaining of
it, He pointed to it as the seal of His Messiahship, “the cause for
which He was born, the end for which He came into the world,” “the hour”
of His glorification. The very setting of crime and passion which His
enemies sought to give to the manner of it only made it in His
estimation more divine. Instead of evading it He went straight to meet
it, when the time had come, as one who had a purpose to fulfil by it.
That purpose He announced to be the development of His personal
resources, the liberation of the creative energies of His being. As
uncrucified He might be weak, as crucified He would be so mighty as to
“draw all men unto Him.” The event amply fulfilled the prediction, for
shortly after the crucifixion Christ again confronted the world in
another form and in far greater power. The followers of Buddha went
forth testifying to his law, and they prefaced their preaching by the
invariable formula, “Thus have I heard, when the Blessed One lived in
——.” Their mission was simply to recall and declare and expound the
system of a master who had been absolutely lost to them, but the
apostles of Christ from the very first testified not of a doctrine, but
of Christ Himself, as one who having died still lived, was reigning in
mightier power, and would be with them always, even to the end of the
æon.
For we must bear in mind that Buddha and Christ stand in very contrasted
relations to the systems of belief which they each founded. Soon after
Buddha’s death, if not before it, the formula of admission into his
order began with the phrase, “I take refuge in Buddha,” which
consequently has been described by some as the “first article in the
Buddhist creed.” We must not for a moment however suppose that this
expression is of equal or even of similar significance to our
confession, “I believe in Christ.” Gotama in the whole course of his
preaching never asked his hearers for faith in himself as essential to
their emancipation. All that he demanded was obedience to the law,
disposition to enter, and determination to follow the paths which he had
discovered. He could not give them Nirvana, nor even bring them to it;
he could only tell them the way to it, which he had found, and as he had
succeeded so might they by their own individual energy.[144] We are thus
not free to explain Buddhism from and by the person of its founder; it
is perfectly explicable apart from him, as if he had never lived; but
apart from Christ, and without the light thrown upon it by His person,
Christianity would be an enigma. Christ from the first demanded faith in
Himself as essential to salvation.[145] Belief in what He taught was
always subordinated to trust in Himself. Consequently the apostles never
said, ‘Observe the precepts; follow the paths, and you will find the way
of escape,’ but always “Believe in (_or_ on) the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved.” They pointed to Him as the sole object of faith
and worship, as the only rule and example and inspiration. Their creed,
their theology, their ethical code, were not elaborated in systems; they
were all comprehended in a Person who required neither apologists nor
defenders, but only witnesses who would manifest and declare Him.
This must be borne in mind when we consider the miraculous elements
which are common to the presentation, given in both religions, of their
respective Authors. The story of Buddha, as we have hitherto followed
it, tells of a great renunciation, but of one that can hardly be called
unparalleled in the history of religion. He was probably neither the
first nor the last noble Indian youth who “for the sake of that supreme
goal of the higher life went out from all and every household gain and
comfort, to become a houseless wanderer.”[146] But the story as we have
it in the Buddhist books is very different.[147] Had any one asked a
yellow-robed missionary, about the time when the last Gospel was being
written, what he meant by the Buddha, he would have begun by telling of
one who, thousands of ages back, in the shining world of the gods, out
of pity for the miseries of men, resolved to become a Buddha that he
might teach them the way of deliverance, and who through many
transformations—in which he was baptized into all experiences, even
those of rat and a clod of earth—at last reached the point when, coming
down from heaven, and entering, in the form of a white elephant, the
side of the wedded wife[148] of a great king,[149] was born as Buddha.
He would tell of a mysterious baptism, when two full streams of perfumed
water fell from heaven upon him, while all the gods in all the worlds
raised in responsive harmony the heavenly song; of a holy sage who
descended from heaven to greet him with predictions of his glorious
career;[150] of many prodigies displayed by him in his illustrious
youth; of his mighty struggle with and victory over Mâra, Lord of all
Desires, and of his going forth as a great king, at the urgent request
of the great god Brahma, to preach Nirvana and deliver the world.
Then he would tell how when he set “a-rolling the wheel” of the “kingdom
of righteousness,”[151] he did so with such effect that not only
multitudes of men, but eighty thousand gods and angels, “hearing, each
in their own tongue, though the language was that of Magadha,”[152] were
by one sermon imbued with saving knowledge and converted; how during his
long and holy ministry, by discourses and parables and miracles, he
brought countless millions of men and women, and gods and sprites and
fairies, to find the right way; how the great devas came to worship or
to ask counsel from him;[153] how, inviolable and invincible, there
could not be found, either in this world or in the world of the devas,
Mâras, Brahmans, “any who could either scatter his thoughts or cleave
his heart”;[154] how he was transfigured,[155] and at last, when the
time was come, accompanied by a disciple very dear to him, how he lay
down like a king between two trees. Then when winds were hushed, and
streamlets silenced, and flowers from heaven shed their blossoms over
him like rain-drops, and a great earthquake rumbled, and the sun and
moon hid their faces, and the great Brahma lamented, rising through
light to light he achieved the full Nirvana.[156]
It is not wonderful that Christians who have only read or heard of the
statements current as to the remarkable coincidences between the
miraculous incidents recorded in the Buddhist legends and the Christian
Gospels should be perplexed, and that not a few of those who are
anti-Christian in their attitude should have almost jumped to the
conclusion that the biographers of the two lives must have known of each
other’s works and borrowed each other’s traditions. Examination of the
alleged coincidences, however, reveals that there is no occasion for the
perplexity in the one case, and no ground for the jubilation in the
other. By no honest process of manipulation can we turn the supposed
similarities into even probable identities. The incidents illustrate
very widely contrasted lives, and enforce dogmas utterly contradictory
to each other. If any one is desirous of ascertaining the coincidences
which are stated to exist, he will find them clearly set forth and
classified by Professor Seydel in his so-called Buddhist Harmony;[157]
and if he require any more than his own common sense to guide him to an
opinion concerning them, he had better consult the Appendix to Professor
Kuenen’s Hibbert Lectures on _National Religions and Universal
Religions_, Dr. Kellogg’s _Light of Asia and Light of the World_, and
Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter’s article in the _Nineteenth Century_, December
1880, “On the Obligations of the New Testament to Buddhism.” These
authorities will confirm the judgment which any unbiassed and
intelligent juryman would form, from considering the evidence adduced in
support of the theory of borrowing, and from a simple comparison of the
alleged parallels themselves, that Buddhism had not the smallest direct
influence on the origin of Christianity. So fundamentally unlike are the
alleged “similarities” that the hypothesis of the derivation of the
contents of the Gospels from Buddhist sources is as ridiculous as would
be the supposition that the Venus of Milo was copied from the rude idol
or hideous fetich of an aboriginal tribe.[158]
When the missionaries of the two religions first came into actual
contact has not yet been ascertained, and the influence of the Christian
ideals of self-oblivion upon the most essentially selfish system of
salvation ever promulgated to the world has yet to be traced. The
conception of self-renunciation which is set forth in the legends may
have originated in the memory of the kindness and gentleness and
goodness of one whose life was far nobler than his creed, and it may
have assumed greater strength and clearness when the teaching of the
Gospels came to be reflected upon it. It may or it may not, but of this
we may be positively certain, that the writers of the New Testament and
the composers of the earliest Buddhist traditions knew positively
nothing of each other’s productions. This is a conclusion accepted by
the very best authorities on the subject, and it is maintained with the
greatest firmness by those of them who discount the miraculous
occurrences found in the scriptures of both religions as only the fond
fancies which their affectionate disciples gradually wove around the
memories of their respective teachers. They hold that working
independently of each other, but under similar influences and in similar
conditions, it was simply natural that they should have come to adorn
with wonders somewhat alike in character the story of two lives so pure
and beneficial.
The learned author of the Hibbert Lectures for 1881 has made some very
interesting and important suggestions as to the rise of the Buddhist
legends, and as he seems to imply a similar growth of the “Christian
legend,” it may be advisable to consider both accounts in their relation
to the literary sources which profess to authenticate them. Let us
assume, therefore, that the Lalita Vistara was actually in circulation
about the beginning of the Christian era,[159] and let us take for
granted that one of the oldest Suttas,[160] professing to relate a
portion of Buddha’s ministry, was extant in the form in which we have
it, some three centuries earlier, or a century after Buddha’s death. A
comparison of these two productions reveals at once the fact that in the
earliest there is no reference to the divinity, pre-existence, or
supernatural birth of Buddha, and making allowance for the usual
exaggeration of language, that there are very few miraculous incidents
recorded in it. It has been asserted that Buddha never professed to work
a miracle. Certainly the fragments of his original teaching which
survive indicate that he would be the first to repudiate all such as
have been ascribed to him. Be that as it may, it is a literary fact that
in the supposed earliest books only a few miracles are recorded. We may
infer therefore that by the time they were composed his orthodox
disciples had not formed those conceptions of his person and mission
which their pious descendants later on learned to believe and to
proclaim.[161]
The Gospels are not the earliest Christian writings, and not several,
but many, “narratives concerning those matters which had been fulfilled
or established among” Christians, even as they “delivered them who were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,”[162] were probably in
circulation before the Gospels were written. Some of the Epistles of St.
Paul also, in all probability, preceded those collections of “the words
and deeds of the Lord”; but the substance of the three first Gospels was
very early produced, and we may be morally certain that they contain the
beliefs which the very first generation of Christians entertained
concerning Him. The truth of these beliefs is not now under discussion,
but only the fact of them, and the kind of people who were influenced by
them. It is averred “that the outward conditions in which Buddhism and
Christianity arose were similar, and so were the mental qualities of the
disciples of both religions”;[163] but the conditions were most
dissimilar in this respect, that Buddhism originated in the dimness of
an unhistoric age, and Christianity in an age and land so irradiated by
the light of history that we know more clearly what was happening then
and there than we do of what occurred in Europe a thousand years after.
The mental qualities of the disciples of both religions again seem to
have been most unlike. About Ananda and his companions we know really
nothing but the names, for they meet us in the Buddhist records as mere
lay figures, completely resembling one another, and with no
individuality to distinguish them.[164] We may assume, however, that
they belonged to one or other of the many sects of Brahmans or Sramans,
and if so, that they were dreamy and contemplative men, withdrawn from
practical life, and finding in the life of meditation a sphere more
congenial to them than the actual world of which they were parts. They
appear to have been directly and thoroughly unlike to the very marked
personalities represented by the Evangelists and the other apostles of
Christ, who were all drawn from practical life to be His followers. They
were the very reverse of speculative; they had little imagination and
almost no poetry in them; they were very dull of comprehension in regard
to truths higher than the few which they inherited, and very incredulous
about any unwonted occurrence said to have taken place outside the
little circle of their own observation. In their conscientious,
matter-of-fact way of looking at things they were the very last men to
dream dreams or weave legends around the memory of one whom they
revered; and we have their own confession, not of their slowness of
apprehension merely, but of their unbelief at first in regard to all
supernatural manifestations.
Now while the supernatural only rarely meets us in the most ancient
Buddhist productions, where we would naturally have expected it to have
predominated, it meets us in the very earliest writings of Christianity,
where we would not have expected it at all. Christ to His first
disciples and apostles was a miraculous being. The claim formulated in
St. John’s Gospel, which is probably the latest book in the New
Testament, is that advanced for Christ by St. Paul in his earliest
extant letter to the churches. The Christ of St. John is not a new
Person, but the same Divine Being of whom St. Paul says, “He being in
the form of God” was “found on earth in fashion as a man.” He may have
been all wrong as to the ground of his belief; he may have been an
epileptic, a visionary, a man subject to trances, whose intense
spiritual affinities disqualified him from judging calmly of matters of
history; but there is no mistake as to his own belief and that of the
other evangelists and writers of the New Testament. The teaching of St.
Paul and St. John concerning Christ is set forth in St. Matthew with a
clearness which no language can improve upon.[165] St. Mark dwells
primarily upon the humanity of Jesus, a most important fact, presenting
a historic basis without which Christian truth would have been little
more than a mystic speculation; but even in St. Mark that humanity is
not described as unfolding under conditions which are merely
normal.[166] The life to which he testifies is not just that of Jesus of
Nazareth, but of the Christ of God, who speaks with more than human
authority. The development which is traceable in the theology of the
Epistles is the expansion of the significance of the events recorded in
the Gospels. The latest writings may more fully interpret the teaching
of the earlier ones, but in them we find no other Gospels, but only
anathemas pronounced on those who pretend to have them. In them a larger
domain is seen expanding beneath our gaze, but it is visible only in the
light of the central figure that meets us in the first. Plainly,
therefore, while the earliest Buddhist witnesses account for their
master and his teaching in the ordinary ways, and while their successors
much later on in their attempts to embellish his portrait have produced
quite a different person from the man of whom they first testified, the
very earliest Christian writers could not account for Christ in any
other way than by regarding Him as a supernatural being, who did not
come into the world and did not leave it in the way of all other men. It
is possible that they may all have been deluded, but if so, they vouched
for their sincerity by their martyrdoms. The delusion, moreover, was at
least universally and most consistently maintained, and it is the first
instance in the history of mankind where a delusion has produced
intellectual activity and expansion so wonderful as to have changed the
current of history, and originated the great throbbing ever-enlarging
world of Christendom which confronts us now.
Another significant contrast between the two sets of writings is found
in the fact that while we can dissociate the miraculous elements from
the Buddhist Pitakas without detriment to their other contents, we find
it impossible to apply the same process with the like results to the New
Testament. No one questions that primitive Buddhism is improved by being
freed from the portents which subsequently gathered around it, for
primitive Buddhism is an intellectual and moral system, a theory of the
universe more likely to be obscured than elucidated by an appeal to the
supernatural. Christianity, however, while appealing both to intellect
and conscience, does so as the revelation of a life which, as a new
thing, might break through all men’s conceptions of what was ordinary or
necessary. The first appearance of life on this planet as an unwonted
phenomenon would be accompanied by manifestations miraculous to all who
only judged by experience of what had already been. So would be the
first appearance of man to those who judged of things by what was
possible to the actual animal world. That the manifestation of One who
had come that men might have life, and have it more abundantly, should
be accompanied with phenomena new and strange to mankind might have been
expected. Christ, as revealing an ideal of excellence to which things as
they are in nature, and men as they now are in society, do not conform,
will in truth contradict the present working of both. This at least is
the impression inevitably produced by the reading of the New Testament.
Its teaching is throughout founded upon, and it would be quite
unintelligible without reference to, the supernatural. To dissociate the
miraculous portions from the rest of its contents would be not only to
mutilate but to destroy it.[167] Not the theological and metaphysical
elements only, but even “the ethical, are so interwoven into one fibre
with the supernatural in the New Testament that it is impossible to
detach them without destroying the whole fabric.”[168] Verily a Gospel
without the miracles and all that accounts for them would be a very
strange book.
Another very distinctive feature in the New Testament accounts is
displayed in the character of the wonders there recorded. Indeed, this
distinguishing element is found in all the miraculous narratives of the
Bible. If it be true that the ancient writers or redactors of Scripture
have employed the legends of other nations to illustrate their works, it
must be conceded that they have immensely improved, and made a much
better use of them. The story of the creation of the world, of the
primeval paradise, and of the deluge, may be only myths common to
several nations, but somehow, while all other writers just lose
themselves in these myths, the Hebrews alone have laid hold of them to
enforce the sublimest views ever formulated in human speech concerning
the origin of the world and of man. The narratives of the Old Testament
are evidently not constructed to startle the reader with portents, but
to disclose the providential dealings of a holy and merciful God with
man to enlighten and save him. The Gospels in like manner are not
written to record miraculous occurrences, nor are miracles introduced to
glorify Christ: they are simply referred to as incidents in His
ministry. When we compare the prodigies ascribed to Buddha during the
many changes of his pre-existence, or during his ministry, with the
miracles of the Gospels, they are like the rough casts in clay or wood
made by a rude or childish people contrasted with the perfect
productions of nature in the world of animals or of men. They may endure
comparison with the portents found in the Apocryphal books, or in the
Lives of the Saints, but placed side by side with the Gospel miracles
they serve only to illustrate the difference between what is artificial
and grotesque, and what is original and natural. There is a marked
sobriety in the Gospel accounts totally lacking in the Buddhist legends.
The latter serve no other end but to exalt and magnify Buddha,[169] but
the Gospel miracles are all founded in some great human necessity which
they are intended to supply. The Buddhist marvels are simply produced to
startle us, the Christian are recorded as signs to instruct us. What a
gulf separates the conception of Buddha leaping high in air amid the
sounding of the bells of the heavens and the plaudits of all the gods,
just to prove that he was Buddha, from the account of Christ’s refusal
to work a miracle to win the adherence of the crowd, or give the sign
from heaven to vanquish Sadducean unbelief! The Gospel miracles are few
after all, but they all flow from and are in harmony with the original
idea of Christ as Messiah which is assumed in all the Gospels. The
mighty works done by Him are all such as might be expected to be done in
a world like this by the Son of a heavenly Father. The cure of all
manner of disease, the exorcism of all the evil spirits that have
afflicted humanity, the victory over death, the control of all the
forces of nature, were all in the scope of one who came hither to
establish the kingdom of God. Christ’s miracles were all signs of man’s
present and prophecies of his future relations to all the evils that
afflict him. They all remind us of the Divine original ideal that man,
perfectly obedient to God, must exercise dominion over His creatures in
this world. Man’s present antagonism to nature, and the disorder seen in
his own social relations, are alike due to his refusal to merge his will
in God’s, and the miracles of our Saviour are all prophecies that when
through obedience to or faith in God he shall be restored to holiness,
he will find his social and external relations improved, and will regain
over nature that spiritual authority which even already the winds and
the waves in part recognise and obey.[170]
Again, the New Testament writers claim for Christ what the early
disciples of Buddha never dreamed of claiming for their master, and they
insist upon their claim, though it is associated with the meanest and
apparently most contradictory of elements. It is not the glorification
but the humiliation of Christ which constitutes the marvel in the
Gospels. It was very natural that the Evangelists should imagine that
the angels should sing over the birth of a Saviour, but it was not
natural that they should conceive of them singing over a babe in a
manger. It was not wonderful, again, for Jews to believe that the coming
of their Messiah was divinely announced, but it is very wonderful that
they should believe that this annunciation was made to unknown
shepherds. It was certainly not in that way their Messiah was expected
to come. Had He come in the way they expected, the miracles might
naturally have been accounted for which they associated with His coming;
but, as matter of fact, it requires the miracle to account for their
belief in Him. And so it is all through in the Gospels. That the Messiah
should be discovered to be the Son of God need not surprise us, but that
the Son of God should be recognised by Jews in the form of a servant,
enduring patiently the contradiction of sinners, submitting to trial, to
torture, to death on the cross, is one of the greatest marvels in the
whole history of religion. This combination of glory and shame was a
difficulty in the way of faith, not a help or support of it. The claim,
we must remember, was not advanced for Christ by the Evangelists after
He died; it was formulated by Himself, and by Him it was asserted more
conspicuously, and with greater frequency and emphasis toward the close
of His earthly life. It was the only charge on which He was condemned;
all other accusations brought against Him broke down; but this one He
admitted—that He called Himself the Son of God. Questioned upon it, He
would not retract. “Thou sayest,” was all His reply, and for the saying
He was ordered to the cross. Yet upon the cross His assertion was
strengthened. Had He been a pretender, He would never have so comported
Himself before Pilate and Herod; had He been self-deluded, He never
would have said to His fellow-sufferer on Calvary: “To-day shalt thou be
with me in paradise.” The torture of crucifixion was sufficient to expel
the hallucinations of the maddest brain, but the Evangelists show that
while faith in His Messiahship was, during His crucifixion, fading even
from His disciples, in Himself it was stronger than ever, and at the
very last it was communicated to a dying robber, who trusted that He had
power to absolve him, and to open to him the gates of a better life.
Now, all this surely never could naturally have occurred to Jewish men
to conceive, and if their records be only fictions, the devout creations
of over fond imaginations, then their legends are miracles themselves.
Some one has said that it is possible to find in the Buddhist books a
parallel to every incident in the Gospels; if so, these parallels will
be found to be very far apart; but to the incident of the Crucifixion
there can be no parallel. That one historical event separates not only
the two systems of thought and belief, but marks off Christianity from
all other religions in the world. Till the crucifixion of Jesus was
accomplished, the idea of associating with Deity humiliation, and of
conceiving of God as dying the death of a slave upon the cross, would
have been regarded as the grossest impiety. The fundamental idea of the
Incarnation was not wholly foreign to the mind either of India or of
Greece; to the Jew it was not a natural thought, but one so anti-Semitic
that Jew and Moslem alike have rejected Christianity because of it;[171]
but the incarnation of Deity represented in the Gospels, the humiliation
of the Godhead implied in the Crucifixion, is an idea which never could
have originated in the mind of either Gentile or Jew. It is one of the
things of God which the natural man cannot conceive, a mystery hid from
all ages until it was revealed, and apparently, unless we admit the
reality of the revelation, we never can account for the faith.
The miraculous personality of Christ is thus the outstanding and
distinctive feature of the Christian writings. As the mists clear away
in the East, Buddha emerges more and more in the stature of a good and
great man, but Christ rises upon us as one who cannot be accounted for
according to the measure of any man, nor even that of an angel. It is
not as a teacher, a guide out of the difficulties of life, that He meets
us, but as a Revealer and Saviour. It is thus He has been accepted by
His disciples, and upon their faith He has reared His Church. It is thus
He conceived of Himself, and His conception is not more astounding than
are the simplicity and lowliness and meekness of His character. He is
Himself thus the miracle of miracles, wholly inexplicable on any human
theory devised to account for Him; and till that one miracle is solved,
all questions as to the miracles which are ascribed to Him can afford to
wait for their solution.
We have no desire to exaggerate the value of the miraculous elements in
Christianity, but it does not appear to be true wisdom that would
depreciate them or ignore them altogether. Miracles by many have been
wrongly considered, and they have been often expounded by the advocates
of Christianity in such a way as to create instead of removing
difficulties connected with the faith. On the other hand, many who
reject or refuse to consider them seem afflicted by a kind of mental
semeiophobia which in its own way may be as dangerous an affliction as
hydrophobia is. The proper way is to consider them in relation to the
nature and purpose of the Revelation with which they are associated. The
miracle may sometimes be found only in the form of the narrative, as a
hieroglyph whose purpose we are too lazy to search for, whose meaning we
are too stupid to elucidate. The theory that miracles are only
figurative expressions of spiritual truth is not true, as it is
generally expounded; but it has a truth in it which must never be
overlooked. Every miracle is a parable, and every parable is a miracle.
It is the spiritual reality revealed by both which gives them value, and
not the wonder in them by which we are at first arrested. Yet without
the wonder to arrest us we might never have received the revelation.
“What did the apostle mean,” asks Robert Elsmere,[172] “by death to sin
and self? what the precise idea attached by him to being risen with
Christ? Are this death and resurrection necessarily dependent upon
certain alleged historical events, or are they not primarily, and were
there not, even in Paul’s mind, two aspects of a spiritual process
perpetually re-enacted in the soul of man, and constituting the
veritable revelation of God? Which is the stable and lasting witness of
the Father? the spiritual history of the individual and of the world, or
the envelope of miracle to which hitherto mankind has attached such
importance?” The envelope certainly would be as worthless without the
message which it carries as a husk from which the kernel has dropped.
Would St. Paul, however, ever have conceived the spiritual truths
referred to, if they had not been suggested by historical facts? Could
he ever have conceived of a death to sin had the world never witnessed
the death of the Holy Christ upon the cross? Could he ever have dreamed
of rising again in the power of a new life if the tomb in the garden
nigh Golgotha had never been found empty of its crucified occupant? Is
he not just suggesting the significance of very exceptional historical
events? He may be wrong in his interpretation, but there can be no
mistake that the interpretation is founded upon the history, that it was
the event which originated his theory, and not his theory that produced
the story of the event. Christian theology, instead of giving this
miraculous character to the tragic story of the life and death of
Christ, has been called into existence by man’s endeavours to account
for it as a fact not only marvellous, but simply unique in the
experience of mankind.
It is not likely that the miraculous elements in the Christian religion
will be found to be “the produce of its primitive theology, which will
fade out of the conception of men as theology advances and becomes
purified.” The demonstration of this must not be assumed to be complete
because the miraculous is also found in other religions. We must be able
to account for it in all of them. It is, indeed, the natural tendency of
humanity to magnify and eventually to deify its heroes, to embellish
their careers with similar marvels, to apply to them figurative language
very liable to be misunderstood, which in later generations hardens into
erroneous beliefs. That Christians as well as Buddhists have done so is
sufficiently attested by the apocryphal Gospels, but we must not
conclude that because there are so many fictitious and counterfeit
wonders in currency there can be no real miracles. We must examine each
religion on its merits, and its miraculous elements in the light of
their purpose and of their actual genesis; and if we do so in the case
of Christianity, we will probably discover the one supernatural reality
from which the shadows in all other religions are reflected, and to
which they all point.[173]
Dr. Rhys Davids, in the Hibbert Lectures, informs us that the early
Buddhist conception of Gotama was dominated and transformed by two
ideals, neither of which had any necessary connection with the man
himself. One of them, due to political experience, made him finally
assume in the popular imagination the office of a Universal King; while
the other, due to philosophic speculation, invested him with the
attribute of Perfect Wisdom. The implied parallel between this
conception, coloured as it grew by the sun myths which it incorporated,
and the Christian conception of Jesus, suggested by the titles King of
Glory and Divine Word, is obvious to everybody. Yet examination of the
supposed similarities only reveals essential contrasts between the two
sets of beliefs. The political experiences in India which are referred
to occurred about two centuries after the death of Buddha. The victories
of Chandragupta, resulting in the consolidation of a kingdom such as
Indians had never before witnessed, combined with his patronage of the
Buddhist monks, may have suggested the idea of the universal monarch.
“His achievements recalled the nearly forgotten poetry of the Vedic
legends, while the new and popular ethics of Buddha invested him with a
righteousness which made him a worthy Lord of the Four Quarters (of the
Globe).” So in one of the Suttas, said to be early, and which may have
been assuming shape at this time, words like these are put in the mouth
of Buddha:—“I am a king, O Sela, an incomparable, religious king; with
justice I roll the wheel, the wheel that is irresistible.”[174] With
this conception of Cakka-vatti, a glorious king, was connected, avers
Dr. Rhys Davids, that of an age in which plenty and peace were to abound
as the fruits of righteousness.[175] The idea of a golden age is common
to most religions, and as the Western Aryans always preserved it, we may
conclude that the branch which reached India carried it thither with
them. Soon, however, as the belief in transmigration took possession of
them, they seem to have lost it. Their book of the generations of man
did not mount higher than the Fall; existence was essentially evil in
their thought, and belief in a golden age on earth, either in the past
or in the future, was quite inconsistent with the creed which Buddhists
inherited or created. The other branch of the Aryan stock so cherished
it that it adorns their most beautiful mythologies; but even with them
the golden age was always placed in the past, and the world, fallen from
good, was supposed to be degenerating from bad to worse. And so it is
that the fondest glances of even the happy Greek are not forward but
backward cast, and that sadness mingles with his most mirthful music.
It is possible at least that changes so favourable to the fortunes of
the new religion, and the social reforms which followed its extension,
may have awakened in the pious the memories of old Vedic faith; and that
the victories of Chandragupta may have suggested to the authors of the
Suttas the idea of the invincible Buddha advancing through the ages, as
the chariot-wheel of the sun disperses the clouds in the heavens. It is
certain, however, that neither Buddha nor his earliest disciples ever
dreamed of applying the title of Cakka-vatti to or of associating the
promise of a better time with himself. To old Vedic faith as supporting
his teaching or predicting his mission he never appealed; he ignored all
previous teaching: and indeed in ancient Indian teaching, uninspired by
either promise or hope, there is nothing prophetic. In the case of
Christianity it is quite the contrary. The conception of the Messiah as
the righteous and glorious King, under whose reign all the world would
be blessed, was not suggested by political experience two centuries
after the dawn of Christianity. It was formulated and predicted many
centuries before the coming of Christ. The Hebrew, like the Aryan, never
lost the memory of a happy past, but, unlike the Aryan, he placed his
paradise not only in the past but in the future. With far richer
materials at his command than the Aryan seems to have possessed for
painting a vanished golden age, the Hebrew poets made very sparing use
of them. A few paragraphs exhaust all they have to say as to the
traditions of a paradise that had been lost, but their whole Bible is
full of the hope of the good time which is coming to all the world. This
hope, centred as it was in their Messiah, Christianity from the very
first took up and promised to fulfil. The ministry of Jesus was scarcely
begun before it was associated with Him. Among the first questions asked
concerning Him was, “Is not this Messias?” Among the earliest
declarations made was, “We have found the Messias.” Very soon in His
career He confessed, “I that speak unto thee am He!” The Gospels and
Epistles would be unintelligible without this perpetual reference to
Messianic prediction; it is the golden thread which runs through all the
Old Testament and unites it with the New. In its Messianic hope, Old
Testament prophecy reached its highest and purest development, and the
New Testament claims that in Christ it is finding its fulfilment. It may
be alleged of course that the prophecy and the claim are alike
delusions, but the prophecy at least was a fact, and its application to
Christ was no legendary growth of a later generation, but the original
and essential testimony of the earliest Christian teachers.
The other conception of Perfect Wisdom represented by Buddha the
Awakened or Enlightened One is also confessedly an aftergrowth. The
earliest traces which we have of Gotama after his death disclose him as
a man who gained his knowledge by severe struggle, and who therefore, in
the estimation of his followers, was a “Jina” or conqueror. As time went
on, and his memory rose in the estimation of later generations, the
faithful, guided by their belief in transmigration, projected this
struggle for Buddhahood further and further into former stages of
existence, till at last the idea was conceived that he was only one of a
long series of Buddhas, of whom he was not to be the last. The
development of this interesting speculation, with its distinctions into
Buddhas who only save themselves—Paccekabuddhas—and the Sammâsambuddhas,
who appear at very rare intervals, able and willing to save to the
uttermost, need not here be traced. It is sufficient to note how unlike
and contradictory is this belief to that which dominates in our
religion. In Christ we have the _only_ Messiah, and He, having once
come, we do not look for another. The hope of the Christian is fixed
upon His coming again in glory; but it is the coming again of the _same_
Jesus. The unity of Deity colours and pervades all our thoughts of
Divine communications with mankind; “there is one God, and one Mediator
between God and man.” Consequently the doctrine of the Divine Word
formulated in connection with Christ in St. John’s Gospel represents a
very different set of ideas from the conception of Buddha as the Perfect
Wisdom, to whom all worlds and all times were open. That conception of
Buddha was probably an incorporation into the Buddhist creed from
foreign sources, but the idea of Christ as the Son, “unto whom all
things have been delivered by the Father,” so that “no one knoweth the
Son save the Father, neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,” was a common one among
the very earliest Christians of whom we have any trace. St. Matthew, St.
Mark, St. Paul, St. Luke all preach Christ, “unto whom has been
committed all knowledge and judgment,” “who is before all things, and in
whom all things consist,” “the image of the invisible God, in whom it
pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell.”[176]
And so it is not in the latest Gospel but in the earliest Scriptures
that we have the first indications of this doctrine as Christ the Word,
though in the latest, as we might expect, it is more clearly formulated
and more fully expounded. Written after the fall of Jerusalem, the
destruction of the ancient Church, and the recognition of the Gentiles
as fellow-heirs, by one who was quite conscious of the new intellectual
position which Christianity occupied in relation to the speculations of
Syria and Egypt, and of the dangers which thereby accrued to the faith,
its author took up a term very current at the time in theosophic and
metaphysical writings, and specially those of Philo, to set forth the
truth of the Life whose manifestation he had witnessed. That St. John
did not borrow the term from Philo is evident from the very different
use which he has made of it, and the very different purpose which he had
in view. By it Philo expressed the conception of Divine intelligence in
the abstract, while St. John employed it to suggest the concrete idea of
God’s personal action. Both found it in the Septuagint and the Hebrew
traditional lore;[177] but while Philo gave it a Greek, St. John adhered
to its Hebrew significance. The first chapter of St. John compared with
a page of Philo[178] will reveal at once the difference between them,
and convince us that the teaching of Philo concerning the Logos leads
further and further away from the idea of the incarnation which is the
foundation-truth of the teaching of St. John. His doctrine would be
quite unintelligible as an application or continuation of the doctrine
of Philo, but it is intelligible and consistent as the final
co-ordination of truths concerning the Divine Being disclosed in the Old
Testament viewed by a man whose antecedents and modes of thought were
very different from those of the Alexandrian sage.[179]
The ideas suggested by the “Angel of the Presence” in the historic and
prophetic books, by the “Word of the Lord” in the Psalms, and by
“Wisdom” in the Books of Wisdom, indicate the rays which converge in St.
John’s doctrine of the Christ. As one who tarried long after the first
generation of Christians had gone to their rest, as one who had not only
pondered longer, and in deeper silence, the Life he had seen manifested,
but who had found its interpretation in such providences as the
spreading of the Churches and the destruction of the State, he was abler
to meet the necessities of a wider age, by setting the truth in rounder
form and clearer light; but while he expands and expounds the teaching
of the first generation, he adds and introduces not a single element.
His testimony is identical with that proclaimed at the Resurrection,
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, and that Christ is the only
begotten Son of God.
It is not as one who has acquired truth by long struggle, not as one who
has fought or forced His way to light, that Christ presents Himself in
the Gospels, but as one who can say: “I am the way, the truth, the
life,” “the light of the world.” Yet along with this stupendous demand
upon the faith of humanity there is a humility and simplicity
undiscoverable in the Buddha of the Pitakas. Self-consciousness,
self-reliance, self-culture—these are the phrases most suggestive of the
system and of the life of the great Indian sage, while not
self-abasement, but self-oblivion, characterises the teaching and life
of Jesus of Nazareth. Identity with the Highest, manifested by absolute
surrender to Him, is the essence of the Revelation of Christ. Always is
the Father confessed to be the source of all grace and truth, and if the
Son asks to be glorified, it is that the Father may be glorified in Him.
We are certainly not contemplating similarities when we look at the
Buddha of the Suttas and the Christ of the Gospels, but contrasts more
widely separated than the soul is from the body. In Buddha we have a
historical personage, who can be thoroughly accounted for as the product
and outgrowth of his past, and of his environment; in Christ we have one
whom no philosophy of history has ever explained. Alone and
unapproachable, He meets us as one who is really human, because He has
become man, one who has arisen among men to save them, but because He
has come through and to them. He is not just one of the many, a son of
men, the product of a divinely-trained humanity, but the Son of Man, who
as Son of God, incarnated in the nature of all men, has become the Head
and Creator of a new humanity. Correct, improve, embellish as we may,
the portrait left us of the gentle teacher of Magadha, we never can lift
him up to that level which would justify his being worshipped or being
addressed, as Jesus of Nazareth has been by the consensus of all the
Christian ages, “Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ. Thou art the
everlasting Son of the Father.”
Footnote 120:
_E.g._ Sinai = Hagar (Gal. iv. 24-31); also Claudius = ὁ κατέχων (2
Thess. ii. 6, 7); Hausrath, _Life and Times of Jesus_, vol. i. p. 77.
Footnote 121:
Derenbourg, _Hist. de la Palestine d’après les Talmuds_, pp. 159, 202.
Footnote 122:
Wellhausen, _The Pharisees and Sadducees_, pp. 8, 26-43; Greifswald,
1874.
Footnote 123:
Jos. _Antiq._ xiii. 5. 9, xv. 10. 4, 5; _Bell. Jud._ ii. 8. 2, 14.
Footnote 124:
Keim, _Jesus of Nazara_, vol. i. p. 392.
Footnote 125:
Delitzsch, _Jesus and Hillel_, pp. 31 _seq._; Pirké Abôth, Cambridge,
1877, _passim_.
Footnote 126:
Jos. _Antiq._ xvii. 4.
Footnote 127:
Philo, _Quod omnis Probus Liber_, p. 12.
Footnote 128:
Bühler, _Ind. Ant._ vol. vii. p. 143; Jacobi, “Mahâvira and his
Predecessors,” _Ind. Ant._ vol. viii. pp. 311-314; Kern, _History of
Buddhism in India_, vol. i. p. 143; Colebrooke’s _Essays_, vol. i. p.
380.
Footnote 129:
See “Jainism,” by Dr. Shoolbred—Report of the Missionary Conference,
1888, vol. i. p. 41; Wilson’s _Essays_, vol. i. p. 427 _seq._
Footnote 130:
“Sramana,” in Brahman speech, was a man who performed hard penances,
from _sram_, to work hard. There is another Sanscrit root, _sam_, to
quiet, and from it afterwards the popular etymology derived the word.
See Professor Max Müller’s translation of the Dhammapada in _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. x. p. 65 _note_.
Footnote 131:
There seems to have been four great divisions of Sramanas, with as
many as sixty-three philosophical systems represented by them. The
Brahmanas were also similarly divided. See Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books
of the East_, vol. xi. Part ii. pp. 15, 16, 88, 93.
Footnote 132:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 71.
Footnote 133:
See _Year-Book of Protestant Theology_ for 1883 for an account of the
views of Professor Loman of Amsterdam.
Footnote 134:
M. Senart, _Legend of Buddha_, Paris, 1875; Kern, _History of Buddhism
in India_: Schoebel. _Buddh. Actes de la Soc. Philol._; Paris, 1874,
vol iv. pp. 160 _seq._
Footnote 135:
Annual Report of the Asiatic Society; Paris, July 1875.
Footnote 136:
Cunningham, _Ancient Geog. of India_, vol. i. p. 147; Oldenberg,
_Buddha, etc._, p. 95; Beal, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 67.
Footnote 137:
“Mâra eat le démon de l’amour, du péché et de la mort,” says Burnouf
in his _Introduction to the Study of Indian Buddism_, p. 76; see also
Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part ii. p. 159, for
the popular conception of Buddha’s temptation; the arrows of Mâra are
“flower-pointed,” like Kama’s, the Hindu god of love. See Dhammapada,
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i. p. 17.
Footnote 138:
Geikie, _Life of Christ_, vol. i. p. 449.
Footnote 139:
Mahavagga, i. 5. 2; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xvii.
Footnote 140:
This is not the place to discuss the substance of their respective
teachings. Their aims seemed to be similar, for both proclaimed
freedom to be gained by the Truth, or saving knowledge, but their
conceptions of the knowledge that saves are as widely contrasted as
are their ideas of salvation. If we put the Sermon on the Mount side
by side with Buddha’s first sermon (translated in vol. xi. p. 146 of
_Sacred Books of the East_) we find contradiction in almost every
sentence. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is an utterance not only
foreign to but in direct antithesis to the preaching of Buddha. He has
no sympathy with the “poor in spirit,” if we take the phrase in the
light of the old Hebrew concept of it. His benediction is reserved for
the self-conscious and self-reliant, who are bent upon self-culture
and self-development. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, etc., and thy neighbour as thyself.” Buddha found no higher to
adore, and no other than self to consider. The moral precepts in his
law are based on no appeal to conscience, and are inspired by no sense
of duty. Others were regarded as the occasion for winning merit, and
kindness done to them was not done for their sake, but with the view
of securing the safety of the doer.
Footnote 141:
Dr. Oldenberg (_Buddha, etc._, p. 148) very properly remarks that
Ambapali the courtesan was no Mary Magdalene, and that she was not
regarded by Buddha as the woman that was a sinner was regarded by
Christ. Buddha had not Christ’s horror of sin, and therefore felt none
of His boundless pity for the frailty of its victims; of hatred of sin
in the Christian sense Buddhism knows nothing. Its highest virtue is
imperturbability, a serenity that is apathetic in regard to the most
outrageous wrong or the most heinous wickedness. Cariya Pitaka, iii.
15; also _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part ii. p. 151.
Footnote 142:
Bishop Bigandet, _Life of Gaudama_, p. 287; Professor H. Wilson,
_Essays_, vol. ii. p. 243; Wheeler, _History of India_, vol. iii. p.
139; Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 148; Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, in
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. pp. 71, 72.
Footnote 143:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, vi. 10, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. p.
114. Dr. Edkins, in _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 57, gives a version of an
appearance of Buddha after cremation to his mother, Máya, who came
down from heaven to see his coffin. Professor Childers finds no trace
in any Pali earliest literature of any belief in Buddha’s existence
after death (_Dictionary of Pali Language_, p. 472, note 1).
Footnote 144:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 322, 323; Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, p.
264.
Footnote 145:
In the Bhagavadgitá loving devotion for Krishna is demanded as the
only means of salvation; but Krishna-worship began very considerably
later than the origin of Christianity. Professor Müller admits
(Gifford Lectures, p. 99) that Christian influences were possible
then, but says that there is no necessity for admitting them. He cites
the passage from Bhagavad. ix. 29 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol.
viii. p. 34), “They who worship me with devotion or love, they are in
me, and I in them,” as an interesting parallel to John vi. 7 and xvii.
23, but we must remember that St. John’s words were circulating all
over the world for generations before these were penned.
Footnote 146:
Mahavagga, v. 1. 18.
Footnote 147:
The Lalita Vistara, of which there are many versions, is the chief
authority for the legends. In the _Buddhist Birth-Stories_, translated
by T. W. Rhys Davids, in Bigandet’s _Life of Gaudama_, and Spence
Hardy’s Manual (_Legends of the Buddhists_), in the _Romantic Legend_
of Sakya Buddha, translated by Professor S. Beal, will be found a
large and interesting miscellany of the prodigies connected with the
coming of Buddha.
Footnote 148:
A wife, not a virgin; _Romantic Legend_, pp. 32, 36, 37, 41.
Footnote 149:
Lalita Vistara, p. 63, Calcutta edition; _Buddhist Birth-Stories_, pp.
62, 68.
Footnote 150:
Nalaka Sutta, Sutta Nipâta, xi. 1. 20, 21; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. x. Asita, the aged ascetic, is said to have ascended to heaven
after his daily repast, and upon finding the gods in joyful commotion
he at length returned to see the new-born wonder (_Birth-Stories_, p.
69).
Footnote 151:
Title given by the translator of the Dhanima-Kakka-ppavatana Sutta, in
vol. xi. of _Sacred Books of the East_.
Footnote 152:
Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 187, quoting the Pujáwaliya,
said to be later than the thirteenth century A.D.
Footnote 153:
Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part ii. p. 17.
Footnote 154:
_Ibid._ vol. x. Part ii. pp. 31, 45.
Footnote 155:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, iv. 49, 50, _ibid._ vol. xi. p. 81.
Footnote 156:
Bigandet, _op. cit._ p. 323; Spence Hardy, _Manual_, p. 347;
Mahâparinibhâna Sutta, vi. 11-16.
Footnote 157:
_Das Evangelium von Jesu in seinen Verhältnissen zur Buddha-Sage und
Buddha-Lehre_; Leipzig, 1882.
Footnote 158:
Let any one compare the prediction of the so-called Indian Simeon, the
Nalaka Sutta, in vol. x. p. 125 of _Sacred Books of the East_, with
Luke ii. 25; the account of the Temptation by Mara, in the _Romantic
Legend_, pp. 204, 224, or in Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 183,
with Matt. iv. 1; the so-called Transfiguration in Mahâparinibhâna,
iv. 49, vol. xi. _Sacred Books of the East_, p. 81, with Matt. xvii.
1-8; the feast of the courtesan Ambopali, in Mahâparinibhâna Sutta,
ii. 16. 25, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. p. 30, with Christ’s
treatment of the Magdalene in Luke vii. 36, and he will see at once
how improbable and even absurd is the theory that the Evangelists
borrowed from the Buddhist compilers. That we are dealing with quite
an inferior order of facts is apparent when we compare one of the most
touching coincidences, Buddha’s last discourse to the Beloved Ananda
in Mahâparinibhâna Sutta, v. 34. 35, “Let not yourself be troubled,”
with John xiv. 1-6. In some of the miracles accompanying the birth and
temptations of Buddha, there are not only gross absurdities but
positive indecencies, which by the simplicity and modesty and
reticence of the Gospel narratives are powerfully condemned. See
_Lalita Vistara_, chaps. vi. and vii., and _Buddhist Birth-Stories_,
vol. i. pp. 58, 68.
Footnote 159:
This is a very great assumption indeed. Foucaux, its translator,
assigns it to the first century B.C., but T. W. Rhys Davids assigns it
to some Nepaulese poet “who lived between six hundred and a thousand
years after Buddha’s death” (Hibbert Lectures, pp. 197, 204). A
Chinese version is said to have been in existence about 70 A.D.
Rajendralal Mitra, its English translator, admits this in his
Introduction, p. 48, but whether that was a version, or another book
altogether, or how far it corresponded with the _Lalita Vistara_, no
scholar has been confident to say. Dr. Beal also mentions a life of
Buddha by Asvaghosha as probably in circulation about the middle of
the Christian era (_Chinese Buddhism_, p. 73).
Footnote 160:
Mahâparinibhâna Sutta, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids, _Sacred Books
of the East_, vol. xi.
Footnote 161:
The blessed Buddha rebuked Pindola Bhâradvâga (for having won a bowl
of sandalwood by performing a miracle), saying, “This is improper, not
according to rule, unsuitable, unworthy of a Samana, unbecoming, and
ought not to be done. How can you for the sake of a miserable wooden
pot display before the laity the superhuman quality of your miraculous
power of Iddhi?... This will not conduce either to the conversion of
the unconverted or to the increase of the converted” (Kullavagga, v.
8. 2). The danger of performing a miracle by power of Iddhi, for
self-glorification, is exemplified in the story of Devadatta in
Kullavagga, vii. 1. 2, 3. In the Mahavagga, Kullavagga, Sutta Nipâta,
and similar books, however, miracles are ascribed to Buddha, and
conversions attributed to their performance.
Footnote 162:
Luke i. 1.
Footnote 163:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 128.
Footnote 164:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 190.
Footnote 165:
Matthew xi. 27; xxviii. 16-20.
Footnote 166:
Mark i. 7-11; ii. 10-28; viii. 38; xii. 35-37.
Footnote 167:
Pressensé, _Vie de Jésus_, p. 373.
Footnote 168:
Cox, _Commentary on Job_, p. 19.
Footnote 169:
See Mahavagga, i. pp. 15-20, for specimens of the “three thousand five
hundred” wonders of Buddha. “The marvellous in the Gospels is but
sober good sense compared with what we find in ... the Hindu European
mythologies” (Renan, _Études d’histoire Relig._ pp. 177, 203).
Footnote 170:
Godet, _Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith_, pp. 118-161.
Footnote 171:
Dr. Dods, _Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ_, p. 201; Dr. Fairbairn,
_Studies in Religion as a Philosophy_, p. 36.
Footnote 172:
p. 58, one-vol. edition.
Footnote 173:
Trench, Hulsean Lectures, p. 150.
Footnote 174:
Sutta Nipâta, translated by Fausböll in vol. x. p. 102; parallel
suggested to John xviii. 37.
Footnote 175:
Hibbert Lectures, pp. 144-147.
Footnote 176:
Dorner, _Doctrine of the Person of Christ_, Introd. pp. 56-60, 64-70;
Liddon, Bampton Lectures, 1866, pp. 364-380; Lange, _Life of Christ_,
vol. i. pp. 121-124.
Footnote 177:
_E.g._ the Targums.
Footnote 178:
_E.g._ _De Opific. Mund._ i. 4; _De Mundi incor._ § 16, 17.
Footnote 179:
Sears, _Fourth Gospel_, pp. 220 _seq._; Westcott, _Introduction to St.
John_, pp. xvi, xvii; Dorner, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 327-332.
LECTURE IV.
THE DHARMA OF BUDDHA:[180] THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.
What was the discovery that rewarded Gotama’s long travail and conflict
under the Bo-tree at Bohimanda, and gained for him the title of Buddha,
the Awakened or Enlightened One? and what was the message of “glad
tidings” which since then has made so many millions of the human race
regard him as their Deliverer? We shall never obtain the answer to these
questions if we follow the legends and the later scriptures, although
they profess to give all the steps of the process by which he wrought
out his deliverance. These all date from a time when the seeds which he
had sown among the thorns of uncleansed superstitions, had grown up into
as gigantic and tangled a jungle of speculation as the world has ever
seen. Had he confronted his day and generation proclaiming as the result
of his laborious and painful inquiries the complicated metaphysical
system formulated in these books, he would have made few converts. He
might have become the head of another sect, the founder of another
school, but he never would have established a religion so extensive as
that which for so many centuries, and among so many peoples, has been
known by his name.
Following the Southern scriptures, and guided by the eminent Oriental
scholars who have made them available by translations, we may be able to
trace, in the wild growth of fancy which has grown up around them, the
leading lines of the original teaching. The real doctrine of Buddha did
not profess to be a philosophy inquiring into the ultimate ground of
things. He is represented as having despised philosophisings, and as
having inveighed against profitless questionings as earnestly as did St.
Paul against vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so
called.[181] His object was avowedly practical, and he kept silent when
asked concerning themes whose discussion did not tend to “illumination
and quiet.” Notwithstanding this, there must have been from the first,
even in the earliest forms of his teaching, ideas and thoughts beyond
the comprehension of the simple. For a while he hesitated, as we have
seen, to proclaim his discovery, because “the way” was too hidden for
men to know, and too hard, even when known, for them to follow. Like the
Jewish Scribe, he conceived that to the wise alone, and not to the
ignorant, belonged the law, and to the wise alone was reserved the hope
of final deliverance. To children, and to the uninstructed struggling
classes, the preaching was not made fully known, as really beyond them.
Unlike Christ, whose preaching was for all without exception, whose
gospel, though full of mystery, confers illumination even on babes, the
law of Buddha was in its entirety for the sages only, and instead of
conferring knowledge on those who obeyed it, it made knowledge a
condition of obtaining deliverance. Nevertheless, though the deductions
were within the grasp only of the few, his popularity proves that his
fundamental and principal dogmas must have been such as all could
understand, and they seem to have been published, as Saint-Hilaire
observes, in a language so “simple and vernacular” as to induce even the
children and the ignorant to enter the paths that lead to
deliverance.[182]
He entered upon his travail, in order to find a way of escape from the
endless cycles of unsatisfying change, and he believed that he had
discovered it. Leavening every part of his system is his impression of
the universality of suffering; and suffering, its origin, its
extinction, and the path or method that leads to its extinction, are the
so-called “four noble truths” which constitute in Buddhism the “Law of
the Wheel.” In Buddhism the wheel is the dominant symbol, corresponding
to the cross in Christianity, and he who would preach or roll onward the
wheel must present to the affectionate consideration of the hearers
these “four sacred verities”—the verity of suffering, the verity that
concupiscence is the cause of suffering, the verity that concupiscence
can be quenched in Nirvana, and the verity that the way that leads to
Nirvana is the sublime eightfold path of Buddha’s law. From his first
public discourse at Benares—corresponding to our Lord’s Sermon on the
Mount—on to his last words on the night on which he died, this, with
manifold amplifications, but ever as the one pathetic refrain, is the
substance of his teaching, “through not understanding and grasping
which, O monks, we have had to run and wander so long in weary paths,
both you and I.”[183]
The primitive creed of Buddhism was different from, though not wholly
antagonistic to, the popular creed or theory of life of Brahmanism.
Weighed by Brahmanism, existence was found wanting, as only illusion, a
specious something which truly was a mere nothing, and identity of the
personal with the universal self was the only reality. By Buddhism
existence was condemned, not as an illusion, but as wholly and solely
suffering.[184] “What think ye, O disciples: whether is more, the water
that is in the four great oceans, or the tears which have flown from
you, and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and wandered in this
long pilgrimage, and sorrowed and wept, because that which ye abhorred
was your portion, and that which ye loved was not your portion?”[185] It
was not “vanity of vanities!” but “misery of miseries! all is misery!”
Life was misery, because governed by the immeasurable and wretched past;
death was misery, because opening up an equally immeasurable and
wretched future. As long as man exists he must be miserable, unable to
“cease his wanderings,” and “still from one sorrow to another thrown.”
The only deliverance conceivable from this interminable evil would be to
break the bands of existence altogether. “Surely ’twere better not to
be.” And how “not to be” seems to have been the problem which Buddha
professed to solve.
May we not conclude with Saint-Hilaire that this, “his first dogma, was
his first fatal error”?[186] With all his intellectual ability he never
sought to emancipate himself from the superstition and nightmare of
transmigration. Though he had cast off all faith in the government of a
divine power, he never questioned the belief with which the lower
aboriginal races had infected the thought of his ancestors, that life
was governed by this law. It is averred that he found it necessary to
solve the conflict between his ideas of justice and the actual order of
things, which has exercised the human mind always and everywhere. A
modern Buddhist, fortunate in having Mr. Alabaster to introduce him to
the notice of an English-reading public, so propounds this belief, and,
purged from some of its errors, tries to vindicate it. “For the law of
perfect justice,” he says, “demands that human conditions should be
equalised, and that good and bad luck should be balanced sometime and
somewhere. If a good man be poor and wretched now, he must be reaping
the fruits of what he had sown in a previous stage of existence.”[187]
Yet surely this is a very superficial theory for an Oriental professing
Western culture to formulate. It is judging of life as children and
savages judge of it, by the evidence of the senses, and according to a
very inferior and inaccurate standard of good and evil. Poverty and
suffering, though confessedly painful, may not be regarded by a good man
as wholly evil in this world. Circumstances which the savage and the
child would covet as realising their dreams of paradise may be the
reverse of desirable to the mature and thoughtful man. The believers in
transmigration make no distinction between what is evil and what is
simply painful. Evil is not that which pains, but that which defiles and
degrades and destroys, and good is not just that which pleases, but that
which elevates and ennobles and purifies. The law of absolute justice
does not require, as the modern Buddhist demands, that human conditions
should be equalised, and that all men should be treated alike; for no
two human beings all the world over are absolutely alike; but it demands
that each should receive the treatment most conducive to his healthy
growth as a moral being, and what appears to sense as the harder lot may
commend itself to reason as the better portion of the man to whom it has
been assigned, because most suited to his need.
The dogma of transmigration is said to occupy in the Buddhist system a
position analogous to that of the Fall in our Christian theology; but in
reality the two are diametrically opposed, both in their essential ideas
and the consequences which flow from them. They are analogous only in
respect that they each profess to account for the conflict between man’s
ideal of himself and his actual condition. The existence of evil is
admitted by both, but the Buddhist believes that evil belongs to the
very essence of man, and therefore he can find no prospect of relief
from it, here or hereafter. For as long as the stream of existence
continues it will always fall below its source, and evil, according to
the inexorable rule of nature, will propagate only evil. The Hebrew,
however, did not conceive of it as essential to or as always in the
nature of man. His ancestral beliefs carry him beyond the Fall; his
pedigree starts with the most sublime of all theories of human origin
that has ever been formulated in human speech: “Let us make man in our
image and after our likeness, and let him have dominion over” the
creature. Dominion over nature man has not, for he is too much under its
dominion, and to this subjection much of his suffering is directly
traceable. The Hebrew professed to have the origin of this condition
revealed to him in a breach between man and his Maker, consequent upon
man’s self-assertion and selfish withdrawal of his life from the source
of life, which must involve suffering and death. So through all the
weary generations there is the same invariable sequence of sin entering
the world, and death by sin. And yet at his very worst the Hebrew
believed that it was once far better with the human race, and on this
belief he dared to rear the structure of his magnificent hope, that
mankind shall be restored to the original close relationship with God,
and therefore to a grander dominion over nature, and to a happier and
even more prosperous life than that of which his ancestors had dreamed
as their primeval state.
Whatever may be said of the doctrine of the Fall, belief in it is indeed
“a condition of hope,”[188] and the belief and the hope both spring from
their faith in God as Creator and Governor of the race, which
characterised the Hebrew prophets. Wherever that faith is lively, it not
only sustains man amid the sufferings of life, but it nerves him to
struggle with physical and moral evil to vanquish it. The purer the
faith the more resolute is the struggle; the holier the Deity becomes to
the thought of man the stronger becomes his conviction that life is a
blessing, and that all its struggles may conduce to peace. There is an
instinct which seems to suggest that there are worse things than
troubles, and that they may be blessings of no mean quality after all.
Christianity has made the startling revelation that suffering is not
peculiar to man, as the consequence of his perversity in traversing the
Divine order; for not only is Christ presented to us as the greatest
sufferer, but in Him God the highest and the holiest is disclosed as
involved in it, and as taking upon Himself the responsibilities and the
sufferings which our sin and need entail. But if in Christ there is
revealed the greatest sufferer, it is as one whose suffering is not in
vain. By suffering He conquers that which has produced it; by enduring
suffering He ends it; and He reigns and finds His blessedness in making
us partakers of His victory over it. So again Christianity, unlike other
religions which promise salvation _from_ suffering, offers salvation
_through_ suffering. It alone asserts the utility of suffering; others
regard it as evil, Christianity as evil overruled for good. Others
reckon it as a mere loss or waste, Christianity as something that may be
turned to profit as the condition and preparation for joy. Joy in the
Christian conception is not the reward of suffering, nor compensation
for suffering, but the fruit and issue of suffering which leads to it,
as travail leads to birth. So instead of evading or ignoring it, Christ
would have us recognise and acquiesce in it, and even be thankful for
it, as necessary not for our personal profit, but for the gain of
mankind. By His sufferings we are healed, and through our sufferings we
fill up what remains of His for the redemption of the world. Only
through “the long travail of ages yet to be” will there be born in the
evolution of God’s redemptive purpose that better race from which all
suffering shall have passed away, because disobedience will have had an
end. Fellowship in Christ’s sufferings has thus transfigured the
afflictions of all who believe in Him. Unlike the Indian, tortured by
endless change, without any evolution from low to higher, from evil or
imperfect to what is good and perfect, the Christian can endure
suffering not only patiently but also cheerfully, knowing that he is
suffering not just for his own sake, but that in ways mysterious he is
lightening the load of many, and helping to bring to an end the long
anguish of the whole creation.
But of this consolation which comes from faith in God the Creator, and
therefore the Redeemer of man from destruction, Buddha had deprived
himself. Unlike the Brahman who sought escape from the evils of
transmigration by a process of subsidence into the universal Self, he
professed to find no trace of this Absolute Self. The Brahman postulated
the Infinite and reasoned from it, but Buddha started from quite the
opposite pole. He professed to deal with life as he found it, and so
reasoning from man outward, he asserted that the necessity for
transmigration was involved, not in the illusion of Brahma, but in man’s
own character. Instead of being a natural or divine necessity, it was a
moral necessity created by man, which having its cause in his own action
could also by him be destroyed.
And so Pantheistic speculation, in this instance at least, ripened into
its proper fruit. The passage from conceiving Deity as characterless
passionless self, to discarding Deity altogether from human thought, is
a sure and generally a very rapid one. When we come to think of Deity as
of being diffused and dispersed, we will soon omit the thought
altogether in the recognition only of physical force. Brahmanic
speculation had resolved the deities of the ancient books into
abstractions, and Buddha recognised no such abstractions in the
government of human life. His creed was fundamentally atheistic, as
directly contradicting belief in a supreme ruler of the universe.[189]
Not that he denied the existence of the gods believed in by his
countrymen. On the contrary, he allowed them to continue in the popular
thought and speech, and even encouraged disciples who had not yet
reached the highest knowledge to try to acquire merit by virtue, so as
to secure after death a re-birth into their society. Similarly he
admitted the existence of devils or demons, and their influence for evil
upon man. All through his career he was beset by Mara, the sensual king
of all who submit to him; but Buddha was superior not only to Mara, but
to all the gods in the popular pantheon, for they, alike with the lowest
and the weakest of things, were subject to the law of transmigration.
Man might rise to a higher heaven than what they occupied; they might
fall to the lowest hell. “Their worlds must perish like that of man, and
if ever they attained to final salvation, it could only be by the same
way in which a worm might hope to reach it.”[190] Throwing his “plummet
down the broad deep universe,” he cried, “Gods many,” but no god able to
save. All alike with men were bound in fetters, because ignorant of the
truth he knew. Naturally, therefore, they are represented in the legends
as profiting by his preaching and as seeking unto him for instruction,
while those of them who refused, or could not walk in his ways, came to
be regarded with pity.[191]
In like manner his creed was as essentially materialistic. Man was no
spiritual being, but a bundle of Sankharas—a term, it is said, very
difficult to translate, but implying that person meant a mass of “forms”
or material qualities so changing as to be never the same for two
consecutive moments. Belief in a soul he regarded as a heresy, which he
distinctly classed with sensuality and belief in the efficacy of
sacrificial rites.[192] To the heart as the sixth sense he ascribed the
power of conceiving ideas without form, as the eye had the power of
perceiving objects; but this disappeared in dissolution as completely as
did the others, and what was re-born was not the soul but the quality,
the merit or demerit acquired. This startling assertion of Bishop
Bigandet’s[193] has been confirmed and amplified by others, specially by
Rhys Davids, and so the question at once suggests itself, now that the
governing ideas of Deity and the separate existence of the soul were
expelled from the human mind,—What was there left to give vitality and
coherence to his system as a religion? A kind of religion is conceivable
when something eternal and self-dependent is recognised, if not without
and above a man, at least within him; but here is a religion vast and
comprehensive springing from the determination to annihilate all
religion, asserting not simply that man is independent of all superior
beings, but that as the sum-total of groups of sensations, abstract
ideas, tendencies, and potentialities, nothing of his personality can
survive dissolution, and how are we to account for it?[194]
The answer is to be sought for in the working of that great moral
instinct which is at the root of the belief in transmigration. Though
there was no person, no soul to emigrate from the body, though the man
perished, there was something which he called the Karma—a word coined by
old Brahman sages long before him, though used by them in a different
sense—that survived.[195] The aggregate of the good and evil in the life
that had come to an end formed the seed of another existence, so that
each new individual and generation became the exact and inevitable
results of those that had preceded them. It was evidently a theory of
continuity as unscientific as it was unphilosophic. It could not be
called an evolution in any sense of the word, seeing it meant the
appearance in a new individual of the mental and physical acts of
another who had ceased to be. The assertion, again, that though there
was no “continuing consciousness,” no transience of soul in any sense
from one person to the other, the two persons are one, has been very
properly stigmatised as a “psychological absurdity.”[196] From the
first, though one of their stablest dogmas, this one was a difficulty to
the Buddhists themselves. Their learned men never professed to justify
it to reason, but accepted it as a mystery, in open contradiction to
their principle that everything was to be rejected which could not be
comprehended or explained. The common people again simply ignored it,
and adhered to the belief of their fathers in continuity of life and
personal identity for man in the future. The sages might refine, but the
moral sense of the masses could not escape from the conviction that the
evil which they had done must follow them, and the good which they would
do could not be interred with their bones. Even the speculation of the
sages was a telling confirmation of the truth that man cannot get rid of
himself. He may make a mock at God, may demand, If a man die can he live
again? or how differs the life of a man from the life of a beast? but he
cannot refine away his moral sense and the instinct of retribution which
is inwoven in his inmost being. Buddha acknowledged no moral government
of Deity, discarded the old belief that the same soul must receive the
reward of the deeds done in the body; he denied even to the soul a
separate existence from the perishable body; but he was haunted by the
ghost of personal identity. He felt absolutely certain that there was a
real connection of cause and effect between past and present and future,
and that each act of the soul must work out its full effect to the
bitter end.[197] So it was only by profession that God was mocked; men
were witnesses to themselves of a Sovereign Power forcing Himself upon
them, even when they tried to forsake Him, compelling them to receive
His thoughts when they would not think for themselves. So in primitive
Buddhism we have the strange paradox that out of Atheism there arose a
religion, with a demand upon conscience almost Christian, and asserting
as Christianity does the eternal necessity of righteousness and
truth.[198]
The analogy which has been suggested between the Buddhist dogma of Karma
and the Christian doctrine of heredity is a very interesting one. It is
strange that the law of heredity, so clearly indicated in the Bible,
should be proclaimed in our age as a modern discovery. Infidelity
formerly denounced the Bible for teaching that sin and its penalty were
transmitted from generation to generation, forgetting that but for
transgression the law of heredity could only and always entail good.
Laws are to be judged by their intention, and this one, designed to
secure and transmit the increment of good in each generation, is
manifestly perverted by conditions for which it is not responsible. The
law, however, which asserts itself in humanity by entailing on the
generations the blessing of good as well as the curse of evil, is now
being proclaimed and interpreted, not by divines, but by men of science
and philosophy. The twin truth of the unity of humanity, elemental in
the Hebrew and Christian religions, though formerly strangely forgotten
or denounced by infidelity, is also adopted as a professed discovery of
our century. We are all agreed that humanity is one, that each life is
part of a larger life, and so the injury of the part is the injury of
the whole. Sin could not enter humanity without dragging it down, and
holiness could not enter and conquer without lifting it up. If one could
appear in humanity without sin, not a link in the diseased chain, but
perfectly free from all taint of disease, is the supposition incredible
that he would have the effect upon humanity of a new creation? His
coming would imply the reversal of the drift toward evil and the
weakening of the inherited and accumulated tendency to depravity. It
would be a bringing under Divine influence of this mysterious principle
of heredity, with results for good which no human intellect can measure,
and establish a once greatly derided assertion, that as in one Adam,
that is, one kind of humanity, all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive.
Buddha had a clear apprehension of the truth of heredity, but he had not
the faintest conception of the unity of humanity. His theory of life was
essentially atomic. Humanity was not to him one whole, but a congeries
of individuals, each one an end to himself, and living just to himself.
The injury done to self by wrong-doing was always present to a
Buddhist’s thought, but the suffering thus caused to others was never
taken into account. He had no idea of the whole suffering in the one,
and consequently no sense of duty to mankind. Though believing in the
propagative power of good and evil, he did not work for the good of
coming generations, but solely for the rescue of the individual from the
whirlpool of suffering existence. It has been charitably suggested that
his aim finds its analogue in the offset to personal extinction so
winningly presented by “George Eliot” and Mr. John Morley, whereby
though dead and gone for ever in ourselves, we may “live again in minds
made better by our presence,” and “in pulses stirred to
generosity.”[199] Buddhism had no such hope; the age, the system itself,
were alike incapable of conceiving it. The time for that kind of
Positivism had not come. The human mind had to undergo long centuries of
Christian culture before it was possible for the nineteenth-century
agnostic poetess and philosopher thus to expound their creed, for modern
Positivism has been powerfully though indirectly influenced by the faith
which it contradicts, and, like many of the assailants of Christianity,
it owes to it the most of its strength and the best of its weapons.
Christianity, starting from the conception of man as no outgrowth of
nature, but a new creation in it, a being within and distinct from his
body as the driver is from the chariot,[200] has a theory of human
destiny contrasted utterly with that of Buddhism. Man’s teeth have been
set on edge because his fathers have eaten a sour grape, but the brand
of pain upon past transgressions helps him to conquer the taint
transmitted in the blood. Though he finds heavy temptation in inherited
tendencies, he finds in every temptation a way of escape in a call to
yield to other tendencies which are ever drawing his soul to goodness.
Sharing a confessedly sinful humanity, he may be partaker of a sinless
one, and thus, if evil reigns over him unto death, the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus can free him from it.
Buddhism had no such hope and goal for man; indeed, we may well wonder
that a pessimism more thorough than that of Brahmanism did not deprive
it of all hope and sink it into fatalism. Left alone to fight his way
through the universe, struggling in a maelstrom of forces with no help
for him in man, no hope of sympathy in God, a Buddhist would surely
despair. On the contrary, unlike the Moslem cowering under the thought
of relentless will, he accepted the situation with Christian
determination to improve it.[201] He could hope for deliverance, for
suffering had an origin, and if the cause could be removed then
suffering would end. The coils of misery could be unwound, the curse of
humanity could be abolished, if only man could procure for himself
emancipation from the necessity of Karma. Now this the true Buddhist
believed he could gain by the extinction of all desire. Plato adopting
the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, taught that the future
organism of the soul would depend upon the cravings which it had
fostered here.[202] Somewhat similarly Christians believe that the
future of the man will depend upon his most dominant present habits, and
that, disembodied, the spirit will gravitate unerringly to the society
which it has made of its kind. Buddhism, believing in no soul,
maintained that in the dying creature a particular thirst or cleaving to
existence caused the birth of another creature; and so he who would
escape from the chain of existence must endeavour, by vigorous
prosecution of the eightfold way, and the four paths or degrees of
perfection to which it led, to attain a state in which all craving for
continuity had ceased. Karma then would have no terror to him; he would
have reached a point whence he could look onwards without anxiety,
because he would be treading a path from which he never would stray. He
might still be a man, liable to suffering and subject to death, but one
purified and emancipated from all inheritance of evil, and fully assured
of Nirvana.
And what was Nirvana, the final refuge of the emancipated Buddhist? Ever
since the religion was known in Europe great diversity of opinion has
prevailed as to the meaning of this word. It was employed by the
Brahmans many centuries before Buddha’s day, and used by them and by
himself and his disciples in so great a variety of senses that even the
learned Rajendralala Mitra, in enumerating the sects into which orthodox
Buddhists are divided in regard to it, confessed some years ago that he
had given up in despair the attempt to ascertain its meaning.[203] The
researches and discoveries of later years have enabled the translators
of the texts to write with less hesitation as to its significance, and
we are entitled to accept as solid the results of their patient
investigations. To begin with, they tell us that it means the peace
which ensues when all passion has been subdued, and all selfish craving
has been extinguished. Though practically no Buddhist hopes to attain to
it here, but only to enter the paths leading to it, it may be reached,
not in anticipation only, but in fruition.[204] Buddha may be said to
have been in Nirvana forty years, for he entered it, not in the moment
of dying, but when he attained perfection. This first conception of it,
therefore, seems a marvellous anticipation of the faith of the
Christian, who finds his heaven and enters into his rest when he is
delivered from the φρόνημα τῆς σάρκος, from all selfish clutching at the
means of existence. In both religions, taken at their highest, the goal
of aspiration was not extinction of sorrow, but extinction of self-love:
in Buddhism the quenching of _trishna_, or _upádána_, “thirst,” in
Christianity the quenching of ἐπιθυμία, “lust,” “inordinate desire.” In
both religions the goal meant finality, a state in which there was an
end of death; and in both, moreover, it meant a change which no language
could define, and to which no known standard could apply. The Christian
believer tells us that he is passing from the visible to the invisible,
from the temporal to the eternal, and in like manner the Buddhist Arahat
would only be able to allude to the great change by negations, and as
the very opposite of all we know or at present conceive. The Christian
believes in the perseverance of the saints, and the Buddhist who has
really entered the path must sooner or later reach his prize.
But there the analogies end, while the contrasts between the two beliefs
are as irreconcilable as are their postulates. The postulates of
Christianity are the spiritual nature of man, and that his present evil
condition is not his normal one. Sin has gone extensively and deeply
into his being, for it is no mere superficial excrescence, a fault which
can be corrected, a smirch that can be washed away, but a leprosy in the
blood, which is the life. Cleansing is required and provided, but it is
the cleansing out of the whole corrupt nature by the transfusion into
the soul of a Divine life so pure, and so strong because of purity, that
it could not be holden of death. Life is the essential idea of Christian
salvation; it is the Divine gift bestowed by Christ, who came that we
might have life, and have it more abundantly. So while in the body we
groan, being burdened by a suffering flesh, it is not that we may be
unclothed, but clothed upon; not that the gift of life may be recalled,
but that it may be secured in its completeness. It is “more life and
fuller that we want.” Sanctification in the Christian conception means a
process of healing, and salvation means perfect health—the condition of
a creature freed from all inordinate desire, or desire for anything
forbidden, which is the root of all sin, and rejoicing in the untainted
bliss of being. Deathless, sinless life, the life of eternal
incorruption, “the perfect life of love, the rest of immortality,” that
is the Christian Nirvana.
Buddhism, on the contrary, postulating the material nature of all
existence controlled by the universal law of transmigration, had no such
conception of final blessedness. Nirvana in its thought meant, indeed,
extinction in the first instance of all fleshly and selfish
dispositions; but the thirst, the “cleaving” (_tanhā_) which was to be
quenched, was not lust in the Christian sense, but the natural innocent
love of life, and Nirvana involved the extinction of that love, and of
life as the going out of a flame which had nothing else to feed upon.
Deliverance from this instinctive thirst for life is a specific germ of
which annihilation is the outcome. That Buddha so expounded it was long
questioned, and by many denied, but Dr. Oldenberg has sufficiently made
clear his attitude toward this dogma. He seems to have contented himself
with its first significance, to have evaded the necessity of deciding
the many discussions which were waged concerning the second as
profitless, and not tending to quietude and wisdom, and to have exhorted
his disciples to strive rather to enter the paths.[205] By the time,
however, the canonical books were produced, his disciples had not shrunk
from pushing his fundamental principles to their only logical
conclusion. The most ancient expositions of his doctrine disclose one
long theory of Nihilism as its only legitimate inference. If misery was
inseparable from existence, it followed that non-existence was a
blessing, and consequently man’s chief end was to aspire and strive to
reach that state in which the “very seed of existence has withered, the
lamp of life has burnt out for ever, and man can no more be born
again.”[206]
While this was the doctrine of the philosophers, the overwhelming
majority of Buddhists in every age and country have put a very different
meaning upon the word. Just as human nature has proved too strong in
them to accept their atheistic creed, so in popular estimation from the
first, Nirvana has meant not annihilation of existence, but extinction
of suffering. They did not comprehend its metaphysical significance, but
they longed, as all men do, for release from sorrow, and a happier life
when this is over, and they took refuge in Buddha, because his law
promised to convey them over the troubles of life into a blessed
hereafter. There might be higher things for the wise to gain, but the
simple were contented with this inferior portion, and indeed they chose
the better part. For surely the conception of deliverance from
suffering, involving extinction of the being that suffers, was as
childish as that of getting rid of a toothache by cutting off the
head.[207] Rightly were they led by the infallible instincts of our
moral being to believe that the end of righteousness must be rest, but
they wandered fearfully in conceiving of rest as nothingness, for the
“end of righteousness is peace, and the fruit of peace, quietness and
assurance for ever.”[208]
The great question with Buddha and his immediate disciples was not how
Nirvana, the goal of human aspiration, was to be defined, but how it was
to be attained. It was for him sufficiently expressed as the final
extinction of all the roots of sorrow, and he taught that this
consummation could only be reached by knowledge. Ignorance was the
ultimate ground of all suffering existence, but, as in Christianity, men
could know the truth, and the truth would set them free. According to
both religions, this knowledge could neither be transmitted by tradition
nor learned by a simple intellectual process. It implied a moral and
spiritual training, and was the fruit of obedience; but there again the
analogy ends, for the Buddhist’s idea of knowledge is as widely
contrasted with the Christian idea as is its idea of the Truth to be
known. In Christianity knowledge means Divine illumination or
revelation, the result of trustful surrender to Christ, the revealer of
the Father, and Himself the Truth. In Buddhism it meant a knowledge
gained by man himself, through a process of moral culture and
self-control.[209] In Christianity it was a grace that came through
obedience to a better Will; in Buddhism it meant simply obedience to a
Law. That law, moreover, had no commanding power to enforce it, and
involved no moral obligation in the Christian sense to obey it. It was
not a law like the law of Moses or the law of Christ, for it implied no
Lawgiver to make it binding. It was simply a rule, a method, discovered
by man, and followed because he found it expedient to follow it.
Adopting this method, observing this rule, persevering in this course, a
man would attain to knowledge of the truth of things, but this supposed
truth is the very contradiction of the truth as it is in Jesus, the
truth by which we are sanctified, and made wise unto salvation.[210]
This should be borne in mind when in translations of Buddhist books we
find such words as “holiness,” “saints,” “paths or degrees of
sanctification,” “righteousness,” and such like. The original words
represent conceptions different from and antagonistic to those suggested
by these words to us. But keeping this in view, we may well admire and
be thankful for the high purpose and clear moral insight which enabled
Buddha to discover and set forth his way to Nirvana. The strength and
glory of Buddhism, the secret of its original attractiveness, and of its
long continuance, is its ethical system. Its metaphysical creed may
represent a very puerile philosophy, its discipline of artificial
restraint may have been the reverse of emancipation, but its moral code,
in its simple and direct and powerful appeal to the conscience, is a far
nearer approach to the Gospel than that of Gentile Stoics or of Jewish
Scribes. Avoiding sensuality on the one hand as degrading, and
asceticism on the other as unprofitable, it mapped out a _via media_
that led far above that projected by any ancient school. It entered into
every domain of life, of thought and word and deed;[211] laid its
control, as Christianity does, on feeling and motive, and proclaimed
that the way to perfect peace was a way which no unrighteous man could
enter and no unclean man could tread.
It is very interesting to catch, behind all its superstitions and
idolatries, and crude and childish speculations, this glimpse of an
ideal like unto that of the Son of Man, calling and leading men to
righteousness, purity, and kindness, as their only refuge. To the old
Vedic religion, and to all the class of religions of which it is the
type, morality, as we have seen, was a stranger. It was the philosopher,
and not the priest, who in old times argued of righteousness,
temperance, and judgment to come. The Hebrew, as we have seen, was the
first and only ancient religion that demanded holiness of life as
indispensable to the worship of God, and Christianity, as was natural,
recognised this old law which men had from the beginning. But Buddhism
was the first system in which morality was substituted for religion. It
had neither priests, nor temples, nor prayers, but taught men to depend
for safety solely upon a life of virtue and wisdom and goodness. Though
it implied a change of heart amounting to conversion, this was due to
the operation of no regenerating spirit, but to perseverance in courses
within the reach of any one. Anticipating, therefore, theories of life
broached now-a-days as if they were new discoveries, its endeavour to
dissociate the human from the supernatural, and to substitute the
ethical for the religious, deserves very earnest study.
It meant man’s earnest resolve to work out his salvation with fear and
trembling, for there is no God within him working both to will and to do
of His good pleasure. It was an attempt to conceive of a morally
governed universe without a Governor. Professedly atheistic compared
with the religion out of which it arose, it has been properly described
to be “more theistic at its core than Brahmanism has ever been.”[212] It
did not trouble itself about the origin of man as an emanation from the
universal self, but it asserted the dignity of his nature as resting on
really a sounder basis. It refused to believe with the Hebrew that the
Creator had written the law on the tables of the heart, but it found the
law there written somehow, and read it almost as correctly. Like the
Christian apostle, its founder asserted that each man was a law unto
himself, the judge of his own action, and the arbiter of his fate. And
thus it came to pass that, without any conscious purpose of doing so, he
inaugurated a moral revolution which lasted for ages. It swept away an
enormous mass of superstitions from the Indian mind for centuries,
abolished many abuses, and modified more which it failed to overcome. It
has tended to civilise many barbarous races; and if among them Buddhism
has been able to bear the encumbrance of their hideous idolatries which
it assumed, it is because of the strong ethical foundation upon which it
rests. It is the ethical element in religion that is universal and
enduring, and there is a completeness and force and persuasiveness of
ethical teaching in Buddhism which all non-Christian religions lack;
there is a comprehensiveness of duty and gentleness which pre-intimate
clearly that universal Christian rule which makes it imperative that we
should not only duly consider all brethren who are human, but should say
to the worm, as within the scope of our benevolence, “Thou art my mother
and sister.”
Let us now examine more closely this way to Nirvana as expounded in the
Suttas of Buddha, and in relation to Christ’s way of salvation. The
Christian is very simple, but as it proceeds from a much deeper
conception of human need, its method of meeting it is very different. It
was not the suffering and misdirection of men that most deeply impressed
and most powerfully affected our Lord. He came to a race made in the
image of God, that had confessedly fallen from or had failed to realise
its ideal. It was lost, as sheep are lost, by inherent tendency to
wander; as coins are lost, by the neglect of others; as prodigals are
lost, by sensuality; and as Pharisees are lost, by self-righteousness.
It was diseased and perishing, struggling not in the coils of changeful
suffering, but in the clutch of an evil power which had taken possession
of it. Sorely needing, though not seeking redemption, unable to help
itself, He had come in the name of His Father, who willed not that any
should perish, to seek and save it. His formula of salvation was plain
enough for even babes to apprehend, for all He asked was that men should
turn to and believe in Him. They could not raise themselves, but they
could look toward Him, and find deliverance in the look, for by trust in
Him as the supreme object of love and worship, they would be lifted up
out of their evil state. The deepest tides of man’s being are those
which are swayed by his faith in and love of persons, and it was upon
faith, the commonest of all powers in our nature, that Christ relied for
the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of evil. He offered Himself
to man and for man, was lifted up for them on the cross in the beauty of
suffering holiness; and as love always attracts love, and as goodness
becomes a creative power in those who appreciate it, so all who believed
Him, trusted Him, clung to Him as the weak cling to the strong, were
uplifted, and changed, and transfigured. Love not only has a dominating
but an assimilating power. We become like those whom we fervently admire
and implicitly obey. Obedience in such a case is not an obligation, but
an inspiration; so though in Christianity we speak of the Law of Christ,
it is not as an external code to which we must conform, but as a power
communicated to and operative in us. It is a law of the _spirit of
life_, a grace and blessedness of disposition, which, springing from
gratitude, will manifest itself in holiness far exceeding the
righteousness of a law, because vivified by a charity and mercy as
boundless as that which it adores.
So when our Lord inaugurated His kingdom, He may be said to have
proclaimed in the Beatitudes His Law, for He then declared the
dispositions of those who would receive Him, and who as sons of men
trusting and following Him, would be saved and sanctified and glorified
by the Son of God. Now, though from his first sermon to the last Buddha
is represented as “instructing his disciples, inciting them, rousing
them, and gladdening them” by discoursing of blessedness, it was not of
blessedness in the gospel sense. It was the blessedness of the Old
Covenant, not of the New—the blessedness, not of them who love much
because they have been forgiven much, but of them who keep the law, and
tread “the path which opens the eyes, bestows understanding, leads to
peace of mind and full enlightenment”—the blessedness all who, walking
in the Noble Eightfold Way, must eventually reach Nirvana.[213]
It is almost impossible to explain all that is meant by the Noble
Eightfold Way, for translators differ very greatly as to the real
meaning of the terms employed, and even when they agree, they warn us
that the words, though similar to our own, do not suggest the same
realities. The word “righteousness” and even “morality” never can have
on the lips of a true Buddhist the same signification which they have on
ours; for righteousness, apart from the fear and love of God, is an
impossible conception to us, and so would unrighteousness, unless as a
sin or an offence against Him. Buddhism has no word for ‘sin’ in our
sense, and therefore no words for ‘holiness’ or ‘saint.’ “Sin is simply
pain, demerit, and a saint is one freed from what causes pain.” “A
righteous act is one accumulating merit, an unrighteous act one
producing suffering.”[214] The Eightfold Way, interpreted by the
legends, presents us with the Buddhist conception of the perfect man,
and were we to take its constituents as equivalents to the Christian
qualities suggested by the words, we should find outlined a character
which here or anywhere must be its own beatitude, but whose blessedness
is as completely beyond the reach of sinful man as flying is beyond the
power of a bird whose pinions are broken.
But Right Views or Belief, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Work,
Right Livelihood, Right Exercise, Right Mindfulness, and Right
Tranquillity, must be taken, not as we accept, but as Buddhists
understand, the phrases. By right belief they unquestionably meant
belief in Buddha and the Four Verities; right resolve included
abandonment of all domestic and social duties; right speech was the
recitation or publication of the dharma; right work was specially that
of a monk; right livelihood that of living on alms; right exercise
tended to the suppression of all individuality; right mindfulness was
habitual contemplation upon the impurity and impermanence of human
nature; and right tranquillity was ecstasy.[215] To have substituted
even this in the Hindu mind for a righteousness only ceremonial and
superstitious was indeed reformation; but as an idea of Perfection it is
manifestly not only different from, but greatly inferior to, the
Christian ideal. Perfection in the case of Buddhism meant extinction of
feeling and consciousness; in Christianity it meant harmonious and full
development of being and character. In Christianity perfection meant
conformity to an Exemplar outside and above it, the likeness of a child
to a Father in heaven; but Buddhism could conceive of no exemplar, and
the man who would be perfect must strive in entire self-dependence to be
so. In Buddhism the standard is purely human; in Christianity, while the
measure required is relative, the standard is divine. So in Buddhism the
Arhat is content, and we never hear from him the confession, “I count
not myself to have attained!” but in Christianity the more saintly the
life, the greater the discontent with it. The higher we rise the more
urgent is the desire to press on. Christianity therefore opens up the
avenue to perpetual improvement, and inspiring us with a motive to
progress which can never lose its power, it provides for the soul the
only rest that will satisfy it. “In life,” says Pascal, “we are ever
believing, we seek repose, but what we really crave is agitation.” “It
is the contest that pleases us, and not the victory; the pursuit and not
the possession.”[216] Absolute truth and goodness is the perfection of
divine blessedness; the never-ceasing pursuit of it is human
blessedness. The goal we can never reach, but the watchword, “Nearer, my
God, to Thee!” seems to solve for us the problem of human destiny, for
by directing us to the life of perpetual achievement, it assures us of a
never-ending blessedness.
The Buddhist goal of perfection and the law or way that led to it, was
by Buddha himself or his earliest disciples considered to be beyond the
power of many to attain to. His followers were soon ranged into classes
according to their ability to tread the paths which led to liberty. His
law, therefore, unlike the Ten Commandments of the Bible, which are
binding on all without distinction, was not a law for all men. Each one
was at liberty to take on him as many or as few obligations as he
pleased, according to his resolve to continue in the world, or to
abandon it, and having abandoned it according to his resolve to seek
after Arhatship and aspire to Nirvana.[217] Upon those who, conforming
outwardly, yet remained in their secular callings, was enjoined
abstinence from the five gross sins, of killing, theft, adultery,
falsehood, taking intoxicating drinks—already, with the exception of the
last, made binding on them by the Hindu religion. By refraining from
these, and by serving and maintaining the monks, even the laity could
win for themselves a happy re-birth into some world hereafter. Those
wiser ones, again,[218] who, convinced of the evil and danger of secular
life, had abandoned their homes, and entered the Order that by
meditation and abstraction they might further work out their
deliverance, bound themselves, in addition to observance of these five
commands, to eat only at stated times, to use neither perfume nor
ornament, to sleep only on mats on the ground, to abstain from dancing,
music, and worldly shows, to own and accept neither silver nor gold, and
to be perfectly chaste. For those wisest of all, who had not only
abandoned the world in order to lead the better life of the religious,
but who had strenuously resolved, in following the religious life, to
attain to Arhatship and Nirvana, there remained the much more severe
observance of what was called the “Seven Jewels of the Law,”[219] the
last and most important use to which the Noble Eightfold Way could be
put. For by earnestly struggling, meditating, mastering their precepts,
the “Ten Fetters” of Delusion, Doubt, Dependence on Ceremonial Rites,
Sensuality, Hatred, Love of life on Earth, Craving for life in Heaven,
Pride, Self-Righteousness, and Ignorance, would one by one be broken,
and long self-abnegation involved in the process would work out its full
reward.
It is to be observed that in all these classes or stages the practice of
virtue and the cultivation of purity were considered fundamental. In the
preaching ascribed to Buddha great stress is laid on Enlightenment, and
on Meditation, which leads to it; but at the base of all this system, as
the first indispensable factor in securing perfection, was Uprightness.
In the Suttas this formula constantly recurs: “Great is the advantage,
great the fruit of earnest contemplation when set round with upright
conduct. Great is the fruit, great the advantage of intelligence when
set round with earnest contemplation. The mind set round with
intelligence is free from the greatest evils, that is to say, from
sensuality, from individuality, from delusion, and from ignorance.“
Again, “Righteousness, earnest thought, wisdom and freedom sublime:
these are the truths realised by Gotama far-renowned.”[220] The
uprightness, or righteousness required, presents, as the Moral Law of
Scripture does, a much broader range of influence than the words would
indicate. In prohibiting lying, Buddha enjoined avoidance of all
offensive language, and of every word that could sever men. He also
instructed his disciples not only to avoid showing enmity to those who
hated them, but to overcome evil with good. Purity again in his regard
meant purity not of word and deed alone, but of thought and feeling. In
some respects his precepts go beyond the Moral Law. The command not to
kill included respect not for human beings only, but for every creature
that had life. He not only condemned drunkenness, but demanded total
abstinence as essential. The precept “Do not commit adultery” was
understood in our sense of it only by the laity; for the religious,
marriage was not an honourable estate, but one polluted and polluting.
Unlike the Moral Law, which recognises everything that is natural and
sanctifies it, the rule of Buddha in these respects was unnatural in its
restrictions. It pronounced common and unclean what God Himself has
cleansed; and, as always happens when men add to the commandments of God
in one direction, they are sure to take away from them in another. So
Buddha’s rule, though excellent in that it lays its control not on
conduct only, but on thought and feeling, is essentially negative and
defective. It does not cover man’s whole nature, nor provide for his
every possible relation. Ignoring God, it is therefore interpreted by no
positive and active principle of goodness. It is inspired by no sense of
duty, for it recognises in the universe no superior to whom anything is
due, and, unconscious of any benefit, it owns no gratitude. Consequently
unrighteousness, as an offence to or an outrage upon a better or kinder
being than self, is not in all its range of view. Unrighteousness is
only a calamity to be avoided or an imprudence not to be repeated.
Struggling to get out of the meshes of an evil net, the Buddhist might
bewail his mistake, his folly, or his feeble or ill-directed effort, but
he was totally unconscious of rebellion or ingratitude.[221]
Moreover, in a universe where Moi-même is the only god, and a man’s own
Nirvana his only goal, the primary motive of action can rise no higher
than fear or self-interest. Apparently strong, it is really essentially
weak in regard to the maintenance of proper relations to others demanded
by the second table of the Moral Law. The suffering caused to others
through his failure to fulfil the law, or by conscious transgression of
it, makes no impression on the Buddhist, except in as far as it
interferes with his pursuit of perfection. Others are regarded only as
occasions of acquiring merit. Instead of serving them as Christ enjoins
us to do, the Buddhist serves himself of them. It is a religion of every
man for himself. It has been likened to Positivism, but it falls far
short of it, as lacking the altruism which Positivism has borrowed from
Christianity.[222] Positivism refuses to do anything for the glory of
God, but it lays great stress upon the duty of living for humanity. It
makes the great mistake of supposing that the claims of God must be
distinct from or antagonistic to the interests of humanity. It does not
recognise that they are identical—that the more the life is reserved for
God, the more of it is communicated to our fellow-men, and that we must
love the Lord our God with all our hearts, before we can love our
neighbour as ourselves. The Positivist scheme of morals, however, is
vastly superior to that of Buddhism, for in it the goal is Nirvana,
without any reference to the good of any other, and the decided
advantage of any action consists wholly and solely in the consequences
to the actor himself.
Dr. Oldenberg has pointed out to us that the much-vaunted charity of
Buddhism, illustrated in the legends by the self-immolation of Buddha to
satisfy the hunger of a wild beast, though it “sways toward does not
even touch the law of Christian charity.”[223] Buddha’s Rule, though
benevolent to the extent that it would harm no one, and beneficent in
respect of doing good, knew nothing of Christianity’s enthusiastic
passionate desire to help and work for others.[224] It was the interest
of the true Buddhist to forgive his enemies and not to hate them,[225]
but he never considered himself bound to love them. It was good policy
for one pressing on to Arhatship to do good works, and he would go far
out of his way to do them; but he never went about doing good as one who
found his reward in the opportunity and power to do it. He was among men
not as one who ministers and gives his life to ransom others. His very
self-abnegation had egoism at its core. Between the Christian surrender
of self to God for the sake of others, and the Buddhist surrender to
others for the sake of self, there is a great gulf fixed. The first
springs from a sense of indebtedness, a consciousness of mercy
unmerited, but freely bestowed; but the other, having no sense of
forgiveness received, has no real mercy to show. The mercy of God is the
spring of all true human compassion, for he who truly receives it finds
it impossible to withhold it. It is, alas! bestowed upon many who are
too full of themselves to take it in, and in all such cases it is lost,
but in every heart that is conscious of it, it becomes a disposition to
show kindness that cannot be counted by acts, and that never will ask,
“How oft shall my brother offend me and I forgive him?” Buddhism was
friendly in its benevolence, but it never was actively charitable, in
taking upon it the infirmities and bearing the sicknesses of others. It
has no passionate desire to gather the wrecked and blighted of humanity
and to bind up their bleeding wounds and sores. On the contrary, in its
pursuit of Nirvana it passed by all such in the path of life, precisely
as the priest and Levite passed the wounded man on their way to Jericho.
It not only was selfish, but even cruel in this pursuit, for a woman in
difficulty or in distress was not to be helped by a passing monk. The
poor and the diseased and the lost were not to be considered, for they
were simply suffering the due reward of their deeds; but the
yellow-robed monks, healthy and shining-faced, were to be the recipients
of the bounty of the charitable and the proper objects of their
attention. One of its beatitudes runs thus: “Not to serve the foolish,
but to serve the wise; to honour those worthy of honour. This is the
greatest blessing.”[226] Almsgiving was indeed encouraged; but alms were
only to be bestowed upon the worthy—on the monk and Arhat—not on the
outcast and the leper, whose miserable condition indicated their
unworthiness. If the animal creation profited by their charity, which
they refused to their suffering fellow-men, it was from a selfish
motive: for the parent, or wife, or child, whom by Buddha’s rule they
were obliged to help, might be looking at them, for all they knew, out
of the eyes of the beast, and not to fulfil the precept would bring to
themselves both harm and loss.[227] Tested even socially, therefore, the
Rule of Buddha is defective, and this because it is not founded on
religion. The cause of God is eternally the cause of man. In the
Fatherhood of God is essentially involved the universal brotherhood of
man. Christ is before us as the representative of humanity, because He
is the representative of Deity. Refusal to acknowledge His supremacy
will disturb all human relationships and throw them into disorder. We
learn to do to others as Christ hath done to us; the sense of our
indebtedness will be the measure of our charity. For this end He has
chosen the poorest and the most wretched as His memorials, and He has
said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto Me.”
To do justice to Buddha’s way, however, we must remember that the path
of uprightness (_sila_) was only the first part of it. Without external
rectitude, inward integrity would be impossible; but external rectitude,
without self-concentration, would be a foundation without a structure.
“A man must endeavour to keep constant watch over his thoughts, for our
whole existence depends upon our thinking,”[228] was one of the noble
maxims of Buddhism. It is to its credit as a religion that it recognised
that only a small part of our real life can be expressed in words and
deeds, that the true sphere of morality and human temptation was within,
and that it instructed men to keep the heart with all diligence, for out
of it are the issues of life. Buddha seems to have felt, and to have in
part at least expressed, the contrast and conflict between the seen and
the unseen in our life. He recognised, it is true, no soul, and the
warfare between the flesh and the spirit was not found in his
philosophy, but he had to account for the antagonism which every one
feels between our animality and our humanity, between what is pressing
or dragging us down, and what in us struggles to be free. The mental and
moral qualities were of far more value than the physical; the invisible
was of more consequence, because more real, than the visible. The
“mindful and thoughtful man” was the man who “looked within and not
without,” and so Buddha’s insistence upon the “noble earnestness of
meditation” as indispensable to deliverance is a grand testimony to the
truth, which no philosophy of materialism can falsify, that we are far
more concerned with what we think and feel and imagine than with what we
touch and we taste, and that our thoughts and feelings go far more into
the weaving of our character than do our words and works.
It is alleged that in Pali literature the word for meditation
(_samadhi_), by which alone inner purity can be attained, bears to the
word for “uprightness” the same relation as that which faith in the New
Testament bears to works.[229] By uprightness, delusion is cleared away,
and by pondering constantly the five principal kinds of
meditations—Love, Pity, Joy, the Impurity of the Body, and the state of
Serene Indifference to what men think bad or good—the man was supposed
to be redeemed from all attachment.[230] It is very pathetic to note
this approach toward and yet rebound from the Christian conception of
the function of faith: for faith is the victory that overcometh the
world, with its lust of the flesh, its lust of the eye, and its pride of
life. It is that too which, because it looks to the unseen and eternal,
quenches all sordid or inordinate cleaving to life, which is the root of
so much evil and the cause of so much suffering. The apostles,
instructed of Christ, have taught us that God’s precious gift of life is
ours to use: that to keep it, to will to save and to find it, as if it
were an end and not a means, is to miss and to lose it; while to use it,
be willing to lose it for some higher good, is to keep it unto life
eternal. Now Buddha had a glimpse of this truth, that lust of existence
was the root of bitterness in humanity. He condemned as heresies the
worldly lust which says, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,”
and the lust of other-worldliness which dreams that the life beyond will
yield as good, or better pleasures than this one;[231] but the two last
of his five principal meditations show how far apart and far short of
the victory of faith was his idea of the victory of samadhi. The
apostles’ aim was to get rid of lust; but his aim was to get rid of
life. The apostles mortified the members which are upon the earth,
anger, wrath, malice, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, just that
the higher life, the life hid with Christ in God, might grow and
brighten; but Buddha, in “cleansing himself from all impurity, little by
little, moment by moment, piece by piece,”[232] sought to escape from
the last shadow of personal existence into the blessedness of absolute
unconsciousness, if not of utter extinction.
For this seems clearly revealed in the last or highest stage to which
the paths of uprightness and meditation were supposed to conduct, that
of enlightenment (_panna_) or spiritual abstraction, alleged to be
equivalent to prayer in other religions. The highest Christian
conception of prayer is that of communion with God; the highest Buddhist
conception of _panna_ is of a state of clairvoyance or ecstatic insight
in which “men hear with clear and heavenly ear, surpassing that of men,”
and “comprehend by their own hearts the hearts of other men,” and
“recall their own various states in former existences,” and “see with
pure and heavenly vision the procession of other beings as they pass
from life to life.”[233] Buddha evidently was believed by his disciples
to have possessed this power, and probably his own long fasting and
severe austerities, practised in the beginning of his career, acting
upon a highly nervous system, made him a believer in the reality of this
perfect insight and ecstasy of contemplation, and that it might be
acquired by all who were sufficiently persevering in pursuit of
Arhatship.[234] It must be observed, however, that he does not appear to
have regarded this as an experience to be enjoyed by the Arhat in
perpetuity; on the contrary, it was the condition preceding final and
eternal deliverance, and so it may be taken as the Buddhist conception
of Euthanasia.
The Christian in the highest and supreme moment of life aspires, if
conscious, after the beatific vision. It is no Brahmanic absorption into
the absolute that he desires, but likeness to and communion with God.
The consciousness of personality was never more intense, the conviction
was never stronger that he has been divinely created and trained as a
separate character. By long and prayerful use of the means of grace he
has sought to bring, and to keep himself under the control of the Holy
Spirit; and he hopes that the next change will completely free him from
every trace of “sensuality, delusion, and ignorance,” and purge away
from the soul the last taint of selfishness. By long and sore
experiences he has learned that selfishness is the evil root whence
spring all the suffering and sorrow that poison life. He can therefore
understand and sympathise with the Buddhist anathema upon
“individuality,” if by that is meant the endeavour to abstract our life
from the solidarity of humanity, to use it for our own ends, and to
grudge what of it God uses for the rest of His family. This is the
Christian conception of the cause of death and all its woe, and from
this a Christian saint ever prays and struggles to be free; but it is
not from “individuality” in this sense that the Buddhist Arhat seeks
deliverance. He is bent upon the very thing from which the Christian is
anxious to escape. He wants to isolate and withdraw his portion of life
from the sum of humanity, to abstract himself from the mass, to save his
own soul; and now that he nears the goal, his whole energies are
directed, not to purify and strengthen and ennoble the personal self for
better service, by minding what is pure and lovely, and by striving
unceasingly after what is right and true, but by crushing out every
feeling into apathy, every thought into vacuity, so as to get rid of
personality, identity, and the very faintest germ of life.[235]
And this is the goal of a race that has extended not only over the whole
range of the present, but over that of many existences; this is the
victory which crowns a fight that has continued throughout untold ages.
Truly there is something very pathetic in the conception of a struggle
after sainthood so prolonged, by one who, now a god, now an animal, now
a man, has never lost sight of his mark, and has ever pressed onwards to
it.[236] Probably we may have something to learn from it, by way of
correcting the idea that true moral and spiritual excellence,
perfection, saintliness, is the growth of a single life; but when the
goal is understood in its bare reality, as implying not destruction of
selfishness, but extinction of being, surely the reproachful question is
justified, “To what purpose is this waste?” After millennia of
transformation the nebula has formed into a star, and just at the point
when it can illumine an immensity, it disappears for ever from the
firmament. Unreckonable energy and thought have been expended upon the
production of a man, and just when he has reached the highest point of
perfection, and is most serviceable to the universe, he becomes of less
value than a vapour that vanishes away. Truly
“the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness; the fruit thereof dust,”
and man walketh in a vain show, he disquieteth himself in vain, if
Buddha’s way be the only path of deliverance from evil, and Nirvana his
only goal.
And so while we ought to be profoundly thankful for the intellectual
culture and moral earnestness that made Buddha, in spite of himself, the
reformer of Eastern Asia, it is manifest that even his best doctrines
represent very partial and one-sided truths, “dwelt upon with morbid
intensity, to the exclusion of every fact which might have modified
them.”[237] His fundamental error was his wild attempt to explain the
life of man independently of Divine control, and to guide man safely
through the perils and temptations of existence by an ethical system
founded on no appeal to an eternal principle of goodness without, but
solely to self-interest. The result, which has been to identify the
nature of man with that of the animals,[238] surely shows conclusively
that religion and morality can never be dissociated without damage to
both. A religion without morality must degrade. A system of morality
apart from religion will never upraise. Religion is for man simply
indispensable. Deity is a necessity to him, and deity he must have,
though he finds his god in a tree or makes it out of a stone. Man lives
by faith, faith in his higher self, faith in a higher than himself, who
alone can explain the conflict between his actual condition and the
ideals which he conceives. The modern Buddhist assumes that “religion is
the science of man, not the revelation of God, and he considers that
comprehensions of deity are of far less consequence than just ideas of a
man’s own self,”[239] but how can a man have a just idea of himself
apart from some idea of God? According to his idea of God will be his
estimate of himself. Buddhism, by ignoring God and preaching morality,
has certainly failed to make its adherents moral, and it has imparted to
what is noble in their morality the melancholy of despair.[240]
Ignoring God, it could only form, or could not emancipate itself from, a
false conception of man, as part of a material system of things; but
man, though considerably involved in a material system, never can be
interpreted by it. On the contrary, nature can only be interpreted or
properly understood in man as the lower in the higher. Man is an
antagonist of nature; he is for ever condemning its ways, coming into
collision with its laws, refusing to live its life. Out of this
collision emerges his religion, while his morality originates in the
conflict between his own sense of duty and its life of animal
instinct.[241] To conform to nature, he must become a brute, but he has
in him ideals and capacities transcending it, and by exercising these
capacities in pursuit of his ideals he finds his life. Buddha confessed
to an ideal, and wrought hard to realise it, but alas for humanity when
it finds no higher than self to reverence! Buddha’s theories of
self-culture and self-deliverance reduced to practice have proved most
miserable failures. It could not be otherwise; no man is likely to move
the ship in which he sits by puffing away at the sails, or to lift
himself out of the mire by simply pulling away at his boots; and no
philosophy of self-culture, self-control, or self-rescue, can succeed,
which ignores or refuses to acknowledge man’s instinct of worship. What
he most needs is not law, not a system of morality, not even an example
or model to copy, but inspiration. He knows already enough to condemn
himself, and he has examples which, though far from perfect, quite
suffice to confound him. The command to be perfect mocks him as truly as
a command to see would mock a man stone-blind. What he does want is a
powerful moral energy within him, for lack of which he has to confess
that he cannot do the good he would, but is ever doing the evil which he
would not. His real wretchedness is not his suffering and death, not
even his ignorance, as Buddha thought, but the continual and seemingly
ineffectual struggle between the animal and the man, the flesh and the
spirit. And Buddhism was powerless to help him here. It lacked the
steady support of the sense of duty to the highest and best, the
inspiration that comes from the faith that the highest and best is for
us, and is with us, and in us. Belief in God, as Bacon reminds us, is
“essential to the consciousness of our nobility and dignity, for
certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of
kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.” So
Buddhism in unduly exalting man to the level of deity has in reality
degraded him. It has indeed lifted wild races out of barbarism, but it
has failed to civilise them. It has certainly not destroyed ignorance,
and the worship of intelligence has not tended to its development and
diffusion among the peoples whom it has swayed. Judged even by an
ordinary standard, the monks of either Southern or Northern Buddhism are
rarely found to be enlightened men, while the vast portion of the
peoples among whom these monks are found are about the most ignorant of
all. And just as certainly has it failed to make men free; for religion
is the guarantee of freedom. “Where there is no place left in human
thought for deity, there will soon be none found for human
liberty.”[242] The basis of individual right is the recognition of a
divine and purely moral government of man. If there be no higher than
the highest man regarding us, we have only the right to live under the
power of the strongest, and the reign of terror must succeed to that of
order and law. The history of Buddhism and the miserable governments
associated with it are telling comments upon and confirmation of the
truth that belief in God is necessary to secure the rights of man.[243]
The progress of the human race will ever be in proportion to the
strength of its conviction that it is governed and considered and
sustained by a Power of infinite goodness ever making for righteousness.
Such a conviction means inspiration, stimulating endurance and hope, and
resolute struggle with evil in all its forms. In it is implied the
assurance that resistance can never be in vain, that failure at the very
worst is only partial success, and that all things work together for
good. The time for this gospel had not come when Buddha called upon the
people of India to “save themselves from this condition of
wretchedness,” and the result of his mighty and benevolent efforts shows
convincingly how urgent in human nature is the demand for a Faith which
will not only enlighten but enliven, which, recognising fully not only
the sufferings but the whole necessities of man, and creating strong
discontent with the world as we find it, and even disgust of human life
as it is, will quicken in us persevering and deathless efforts to reform
the one and to improve the other. Such a faith it is our privilege and
awful responsibility to communicate. Our religion is higher than our
grasp, for it is always above us. Alas! in too many cases it is higher
than our aim, for we are too inclined to let it slip, and drift on the
tides of things as they are; but mankind will never be satisfied with a
lower. “Après l’invention du blé ils ne veulent pas encore vivre du
gland.” “We needs must love the highest when we see it,” and we needs
must strive to become like the highest when we love it. The gospel
preaches consolation and hope to a suffering world, and promises grace
upon grace to every endeavour to heal and amend its condition. Christ
purifies and improves the life which we have by destroying only what is
evil, and by preserving and training and ennobling all that is truly
natural. Inexorably He demands the extinction of selfishness in all its
forms, and He will not even permit us in our prayers to think and ask
for ourselves. He reminds us that God is our Father in heaven, and what
He gives is for all His family. Sternly He denounces as sinful the
attempt to secure our own happiness here or in a better world hereafter;
but He offers the heaven and Nirvana which He found in assuming the
burdens of others, and in bearing their cross. So He assures us that it
is worth our while to live, even in a world groaning and travailing with
suffering, and that it will be worth our while, even in agony if we
must, to die. It is indeed a very evil world, but as long as we draw our
inspiration from Him we can live in it not only without damage but with
great profit. When we offer ourselves in His strength for its salvation
we will be saved from its sins. In the times of our deepest distress we
will have the peace which He left us, and when most severely beset and
cast down with sorrow because of what seems baffled endeavours, we have
only to think of that hope of ultimate victory which made Him to endure
to the end, to rise into
“that last large joy of all,
Trust in the goodness and the love of Him
Who, making so much well, will end all well.”
Footnote 180:
_Dharma_, an ancient Brahman term, meaning law or order; what holds
things as they are, or ought to be. In later Sanskrit it also means
duty and virtue, _i.e._ law performed.—Gifford Lectures, _Natural
Religion_, pp. 94, 95. _Buddha_ is also an ancient Brahman term
applied to one who has attained a perfect knowledge of the
Self.—Satapatha-brahmana, xiv. 7. 2. 17. In Buddhism Dharma means
Buddha’s doctrines, “bodhi,” _i.e._ knowledge self-acquired, as
distinguished from “Veda,” _i.e._ revelation obtainable only through
the Brahmans.—Sir Monier Williams’ _Buddhism_, p. 97.
Footnote 181:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 205-208; Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p.
87; Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 375. His relation to the
philosophical systems of his day is illustrated in several Suttas; see
Sutta Nipâta, in vol. x. Part ii. of _Sacred Books of the East_, pp.
148-152. Evidently he regarded them with aversion, and even contempt.
Footnote 182:
_Le Bouddha, etc._, p. 79. The legends indicate that his use of the
vernacular was matter of principle. Two Brahmans, “excelling in
speech, excelling in pronunciation,” complained that the monks
corrupted the word of the Buddhas by repeating it in their own
dialect, and asked permission to put it into classical or polished
verse. “How can you, O foolish ones, speak thus?... You are not, O
monks, to put the words of the Buddhas into polished (Sanskrit) verse.
Whosoever does so shall be guilty of a dukkata.”—Kullavagga, v. 33. 1;
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.
Footnote 183:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, ii. 1. 2; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.;
Mahavagga, i. 6. 18, 27; _ibid._ vol. xiii.
Footnote 184:
Not as the Nothing, as Wuttke tries to show in _Geschichte des
Heidenthums_, ii. § 166. Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 212.
Footnote 185:
Samyutta-ka-Nikâya, quoted by Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 217.
Footnote 186:
_Bouddha et sa Religion_, p. iii, Introduction.
Footnote 187:
“The Modern Buddhist,” published in the volume called _The Wheel of
the Law: Buddhism illustrated from Siamese Sources_, by H. Alabaster;
London, 1876.
Footnote 188:
Dr. Westcott, _Social Aspects of Christianity_, p. 12; Aristotle,
_Ethic._, i. 1; iv. 3.
Footnote 189:
“The Modern Buddhist,” Alabaster, _Wheel of the Law_, p. 73; Spence
Hardy, _Eastern Monachism_, pp. 5, 339; Gogerly’s translation of the
Brahmajala Sutta in Digha Nikâya, _Journal of Ceylon Asiatic Society_,
1846.
Footnote 190:
Preface to Müller’s Dhammapada, p. xxx, old ed.
Footnote 191:
Note at pp. 31, 32 of Dhammapada in vol. x. of _Sacred Books of the
East_. Frankfurter, App. _Bamp. Lect._ 1881, p. 349.
Footnote 192:
Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 95; Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p.
388; Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, quoting Bhikkuni Samyutta, p. 258;
Colebrooke’s _Essays_, vol. i. p. 417, Cowell’s edition; Sabbasava
Sutta, 10, 11, 12: _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.
Footnote 193:
_Life of Gaudama_, first ed., p. 321 note; Rangoon, 1866.
Footnote 194:
Max Müller, introd. to Buddagosha’s Parables, p. xxx, ed. 1870.
Footnote 195:
The first traces of this belief are found, it is said, in the
Upanishads, Brihadáranyaka, iii. 2. 1, _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xv. p. 126; Dhammapada, v. 1. 127, _ibid._ vol. x. Part i. 3. 35.
Footnote 196:
Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 94; also his _Manual of Buddhism_,
pp. 100, 106.
Footnote 197:
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded
on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or
acts with an evil thought (or polluted mind), suffering follows him as
the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wain” (Dhammapada,
1). “Not in the sky, not in the midst of the sea, not if we enter the
cleft of the mountains, is there known a spot in the whole world where
a man might be freed from an evil deed” (Dhammapada, 127; _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. x.).
Footnote 198:
“L’athéisme devenu religion et recouvert du manteau des vertus
chrétiennes.”—Wassilief, _Buddhism_, introd. by E. Laboulaye, p. viii.
Footnote 199:
Professor Dods, _Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ_, p. 171.
Footnote 200:
Nagasēna’s figure used in controverting the idea of the separate
existence of the soul.—Milindapanha, p. 25, quoted by Oldenberg,
_Buddha_, p. 254; Hardy, _Manual_, p. 425; Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p.
96.
Footnote 201:
Oldenberg, _op. cit._, 221.
Footnote 202:
_Phaedo_, Jowett’s Introd., i. 407, ed. 1875.
Footnote 203:
Preface to English translation of the Lalita Vistara; Calcutta.
Footnote 204:
Sutta Nipâta; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. pp. 33, 80.
Footnote 205:
_Buddha, etc._, pp. 274-284; Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp. 111-123.
Footnote 206:
Childers, _Pali Dictionary_, Art. NIRVANA.
Footnote 207:
Dr. Kellogg, in his _Light of Asia and Light of the World_, pp. 223,
252, protests very forcibly against the use by translators of the word
“immortality” as the equivalent of Nirvana. It meant, as he reminds
us, “the end of death indeed, but not because life had triumphed, but
because, life having ceased, death had nothing to feed on.”
Immortality, endless bliss, and kindred phrases, applied to it, are
only justifiable by the popular but really un-Buddhistic use of the
word Nirvana.
Footnote 208:
Isaiah xxxii. 11; James iii. 18.
Footnote 209:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, pp. 97, 223.
Footnote 210:
“Not to know suffering, not to know the cause of suffering, not to
know the path that leads to the cessation of suffering—this is called
Ignorance.” Consequently knowledge of these things is saving
knowledge.—Mahavagga, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii. p. 75,
note 2.
Footnote 211:
This threefold division or “doorway” (Hardy, _Manual_, p. 491), once
considered by Weber to be peculiar to Buddhism, has been proved to be
common to Brahmans, Persians, Jews, and Greeks, as well as Christians.
See interesting note at pp. 28, 29, of vol. x. of _Sacred Books of the
East_, Part i.
Footnote 212:
Dr. Fairbairn, _Studies in Religion and Philosophy_, p. 161.
Footnote 213:
Dhamma. Sutta, 2-4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. pp. 146, 147;
Mahavagga, i. 6. 17-20; _ibid._ vol. xiii. pp. 94, 95.
Footnote 214:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 124.
Footnote 215:
Frankfurter, App. to Wordsworth’s Bampton Lectures on _The One
Religion_, p. 348; Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.
p. 69.
Footnote 216:
_Pensées_, vol. ii. p. 34; vol. i. p. 205; ed. Faugère.
Footnote 217:
Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 506.
Footnote 218:
Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. pp. 33, 46, 67;
Dhammapada, 284.
Footnote 219:
_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. pp. 60, 61.
Footnote 220:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, cap. iv. 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol.
xi.
Footnote 221:
Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha, etc._, pp. 149, 153, 161.
Footnote 222:
Wordsworth, Bampton Lectures on _The One Religion_, p. 91.
Footnote 223:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 289.
Footnote 224:
Meta Sutta, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. p. 25.
Footnote 225:
See the story given in Mahavagga, x. 2. 3-20; also the story of
Kunala, Asoka’s son—this latter said by Burnouf, in his Introduction,
to be of modern origin. Quoted by Oldenberg, p. 290.
Footnote 226:
So Dr. Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 126. Fausböll translates, “Not
cultivating the society of,” etc. (Sutta Nipâta, _Sacred Books of the
East_, vol. x. pp. 43, 44.)
Footnote 227:
Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 204.
Footnote 228:
Dhammapada, 157-8-9, 379-80; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. i.
Footnote 229:
T. W. Rhys Davids, in the Introduction to his translation of the Keto
Khila Sutta (Barrenness and Bondage), _Sacred Books of the East_, vol.
xi. p. 222, says that in reading it he was irresistibly reminded of 2
Peter i. 5-9. The barrenness referred to in the Sutta is lack of
successful effort to be free from “the Ten Fetters” which bind man to
existence, chief of which is hankering after immortality in any form,
or without form. How contrasted is this to St. Peter’s thought! “Give
diligence to provide in your faith earnestness,” that it may be an
overcoming faith; but as faith without knowledge is superstition, and
earnestness misdirected will do harm, provide in earnestness
“knowledge”; and as knowledge ungoverned will degenerate into conceit,
provide in it “temperance”; but temperance must be inspired with
“patience,” bent on God’s glory, not personal gain; “godliness” thus
attained, “brotherly kindness” will manifest itself, and then
“charity” toward every creature—that is the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the _summum bonum_, the knowledge in which we are neither to
be barren nor unfruitful. No more forcible illustration of the utter
contradiction between the two religions could be found than this
verbal analogy of “barrenness and bondage.”
Footnote 230:
Compare St. Paul, Phil. iv. 8: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things
are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are gracious; if there be any virtue, if there be
any praise, think on these things.”
Footnote 231:
Dhamma-Kakka-ppavattana Sutta, 6, note; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xi. p. 148.
Footnote 232:
Dhammapada, 239; _ibid._ vol. x. p. 1.
Footnote 233:
Akankheya Sutta; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. p. 210.
Footnote 234:
If the legends are to be followed, he believed in the miraculous power
which resulted from it (see Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, i. 33, and iii. 22;
also Mahavagga, i. 20. 24), but he condemned the exercise of that
power for self-glorification or for paltry gain (Kullavagga, v. 8. 2;
also vii. 1, 2, 3; _Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xi. xii. xiii.).
Footnote 235:
See Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, pp. 267, 268.
Footnote 236:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 314.
Footnote 237:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 35.
Footnote 238:
Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha, etc._, p. 162.
Footnote 239:
Mr. Alabaster, _Wheel of the Law_, preface, p. xvi.
Footnote 240:
Eitel, _Lectures on Buddhism_, pp. 59-70; Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha_,
p. 156.
Footnote 241:
Jackson’s Bampton Lectures, _The Doctrine of Retribution_, p. 284;
Caird’s _Philosophy of Religion_, Croall Lectures, pp. 259 _seq._
Footnote 242:
Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha_, p. xxiii; Hardy’s _Eastern Monachism_, p.
312.
Footnote 243:
“Prefix the name of God to this Declaration” (of the Rights of Man),
said Abbé Grégoire to the National Assembly in 1789, “or you leave it
without foundation, and make right the equivalent of force.” The
Assembly refused, but events soon confirmed his judgment.—Baring
Gould, _Development of Belief_, vol. ii. p. 88.
LECTURE V.
THE BUDDHIST SANGHA[244]: THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The designation “Church,” never wholly applicable to Buddhism in the
sense in which Christians employ it, was totally inapplicable to the
primitive Buddhist communities. The institution of the Church is
peculiar to Christianity, for though we speak of the worship of Krishna,
or the religion of Baal, we never speak of the church of the one or the
other. Christianity is the only religion which has created a society
which no political revolution can destroy, and no civilisation, however
advanced, can outlive. It may change its form, or express itself in
several co-existent forms; but it is so adapted to the nature and
necessities of man that it is properly described, in its relation to his
present condition, as divine and everlasting.
Though the Church is the creation of Christ and the fruit of His
mission, the idea of it had been suggested to the world long ages before
He came. “Ecclesia” is peculiarly a New Testament word, but there are
found in the Old Testament Scriptures plain foreshadowings of the
reality represented by it. In Abraham, “called” out from his country and
kindred, that he might be separated unto the worship of Jehovah, we have
the first pre-intimation of the Church. In relation to other nations,
his descendants were the “peculiar people” and Ecclesia of Jehovah, and
when as a nation they failed to embody and express the universal truths,
which it is the Church’s function to communicate for the blessing of all
the world, there was called out from them, or rather there was formed
within them, “the remnant,” so often referred to by Isaiah and the
subsequent prophets; and in this spiritual community and fellowship,
dissociated from the national religion,[245] were conserved and
perpetuated the truths and ideals from which they had fallen away. After
the Captivity, in the rise of the synagogue system of worship, there was
provided an organisation, whose essential details Christ and His
apostles in instituting the Church could either adopt or copy; and there
can be no question that from out this synagogue system the Christian
Church emerged, and that even to-day it reflects some of its peculiar
features.
The Church was the fruit of Christianity, but the Sangha was the root
out of which Buddhism sprang. In a Sangha its founder lived and learned
and taught, till as Buddha he founded his own; but just as he gave a new
significance to the doctrines in which he had been instructed, so he
gave the Sangha an application which accounts for, though it does not
justify, the designation often accorded to it of a church. As an order
without worship, a brotherhood without any recognition of the uniting
Fatherhood in heaven, a confraternity in which seniority was assigned
only to age,[246] and whose leaders never pretended to hold any priestly
office or to exercise any hierarchical authority, the Sangha at first
and for long was not a church; yet when we examine its constitution and
aims we need not wonder that the religious instincts of Buddhists,
proving stronger than their creed, should have developed their Sangha
into something like a church, with a cult which, at first consisting
only of veneration for his images and relics, for long has been almost
second to none in the world for solemnity and dignity and pomp.[247]
We have seen that philosophic schools and religious sects originating
in secessions from the national religion abounded in India long before
Buddha’s day. In the Gangetic valley, as in Greece, the new sages
attracted their disciples by the fame of their teaching, but there,
not as in Greece, the disciples lived with their masters apart, and
distinguished from the world by peculiar dress and manners. Of
Monachism, an early outgrowth of Hindu religion, and indeed its
essential adjunct, as being the state which marked the maturity and
completion of a good man’s earthly life, there were already many
forms, all held in high respect by the people. Celibacy and mendicancy
were common to all Sanghas, but in regard to vows of silence, and
fasting, and self-torture, they differed greatly from one another. The
majority of them were Brahman in their constitution and in their
recognition of caste: but long before the rise of Buddhism the Sraman
fraternities, founded on the non-recognition of caste, were quite
equal to the purest Brahman ones in public esteem. Now in organising
the Sakya-putta-Samanas, the designation by which his disciples were
first known by the people, Buddha adopted many features and details of
discipline common to all these fraternities, while yet the peculiarity
of his doctrines gave to the community of his own disciples a
character quite distinctive.
The Brahman Orders believed that Brahmans only could be finally saved,
and Brahman reformers could only encourage inferior castes that came to
them for enlightenment by the hope of possibly securing a higher birth
in a future state. Buddha, however, considered all men alike in respect
of need, so, knowing of only one way of deliverance, he proclaimed it
without distinction, and, like the Sramans, he opened his Sangha to all
who were willing to submit to his discipline. Unlike many of the Sraman
fraternities, he discouraged the life of solitude, and prohibited the
practice of self-torture and severe austerities. In opposition to the
hated Nigganthas, who, aiming at perfection, went about with only the
light and air for their clothing, he insisted that his disciples should
be decently clad.[248] In respect that he required obedience from
disciples only as long as they continued to be so, and would not permit
irrevocable vows—indeed, exacted from them no vow at all—his Sangha was
more like some Anglican guild than any monastic institution with which
we are acquainted.
Still more widely did it differ, not only from many, but from all the
existing fraternities in the purpose for which he instituted it.
Hitherto India had never witnessed a religious sect that could be called
propagandist. Brahmanism was essentially exclusive, for no man could
become a Brahman by conversion. The Sraman sages again, left the masses
to ripen in evil ways for worse lives in more degraded spheres of future
existence, in order to deliver themselves by ascetic practices and
meditation. At best they taught those who resorted to them, and were
prepared to consort with them. Buddha, however, by laying upon the
brethren the obligation of extending the knowledge of the law,
inaugurated a revolution in the monastic system which anticipated that
of the great Mendicant Orders of Christendom. Just as St. Francis
emptied the monasteries and sent forth their inmates to find their own
in seeking the salvation of others, so Buddha broke down the barriers
between the Indian recluses and the world, by ordaining the members of
his Sangha to teach their fellow-men the way to liberty. “Therefore, O
brethren, to whom the truths which I have perceived have been made known
by me, having thoroughly mastered them, meditate upon them, practise
them, spread them abroad, in order that the pure Dhamma may last long
and be perpetuated, in order that it may continue to be for the good and
happiness of the great multitude, out of pity for the world, to the
good, and gain, and weal of gods and men.”[249]
This was the original element[250] in his conception, and while one of
its effects was to save the members of the Sangha from some of the evils
besetting the life of the recluse by balancing the duty of contemplation
by that of active itineration, its chief and immediate result was to
give Buddhism an expansive power marvellous to Indians. Religious
fraternities depended upon the presence of their teachers, and
consequently the members were few, but Buddha commanded the brethren to
go forth. “Let not two of you go the same way” was the original
instruction, and preach the doctrine “which is glorious in the
beginning, glorious in the middle, glorious in the end, in the spirit
and in the letter, for the pure and perfect life, for the complete
cessation of sorrow.”[251] By and by these missionaries were authorised
to receive those who desired admission into the Sangha, and after a due
novitiate to ordain them;[252] and so we need not wonder that this
itineracy, which in the earliest days was the very essence of a good
Buddhist’s duty, should have had the effect of spreading the doctrines
and gathering converts so rapidly that in some of the earliest extant
scriptures the Sangha was known as “the Brotherhood of the Four
Quarters”[253] of what to Indian thought was the world.
Thus far the Sangha was different from the institutions that preceded
it, but, unlike the Christian Church, which finally emerged from Judaism
as the one holy Church of all nations and of both sexes, and of all
classes of men, the Buddhist Sangha bore with it, and never lost,
several marks of its Hindu origin. One relic of its extraction it most
zealously conserved as essential to the moral restraint which it
encouraged; for though later on it attracted associates whom it
recognised as in the ways of deliverance, it was from the very first an
exclusively monastic order. Indeed, Monachism, or the life of
retirement, privation, and chastity, had in Buddhism a place quite
different from that which it occupied in Brahmanism.[254] The meditative
Brahman anchorite was not considered the only man who was in the way to
deliverance, for every believer in Brahman ascendency was free to choose
one of three ways of securing salvation,[255] but in Buddhism
renunciation of the world represented the highest form of religion, and
the indispensable condition of reaching Nirvana. So, though in opening
the Sangha to all classes, and proclaiming, in opposition to Brahmanism,
that every man was capable of the highest enlightenment, Buddha sapped
the foundation of caste, it was only to replace it in another form.[256]
The mendicant monk, as has been truly observed, took the Brahman’s
place, and for him alone Nirvana was reserved. So sharply defined were
the lines which divided the Sangha from the rest of mankind, that no one
who had not come out from the world was regarded as in it and of it.
This was quite in keeping with the Buddhist conception of deliverance.
The Sangha simply was an attempt to realise the idea and purpose of the
creed. Salvation according to Christ meant rescue from the power of
evil, but not withdrawal from the world as so incurably evil that the
sooner man got out of it the better. Instead of making His Church an
asylum and refuge from the world, He organised it for the redemption of
the world. Instead of attempting to destroy civil society, He aimed at
its purification by the leavening influence of the new society which He
was creating. The Church was to be Christ’s witness when He was no
longer visible, the instrument by which His own power would bear upon
the wants of mankind. The slavery and the degradation of society, the
destruction of the world, was never meant to be the condition of the
existence or of the liberty and dignity of the Church. It was but a
means to an end, a means so essential that without it the end could not
be reached, but, once the end has been reached, the Church will be
superseded, or rather will be merged in the kingdom of God. So the very
symbol of it is not found in the apocalyptic visions of the new heaven
and the new earth. In the civitas of the new Jerusalem St. John saw
families and nations and kingdoms, but he could see no temple therein,
for the instrumentality of which the temple was the symbol had done its
work in the emancipation and education of the human race, and had
vanished into the more glorious and eternal realities of the throne of
God and of the Lamb.
In Buddhism we find a set of ideas quite contradictory to all these. The
Sangha was the vehicle of rescue from out the world, not the bringer of
salvation to it; it worked not for the regeneration of society, but for
its disintegration and destruction. It considered the world to be so
hopelessly incurable, and even existence to be so weighted with misery,
that wisdom would move men to abandon the one to its fate, and goodness
impel them to strive to bring the other to an end. The monastery,
therefore, was naturally its loftiest conception of the Civitas Dei, and
into that it endeavoured to transform as large a section of humanity as
was inclined to accept its law.
This unnatural theory of life indicates the essential weakness of
Buddhism, and makes its history very instructive to Christians. In the
Church, perhaps, room may be accorded to the monastery and convent, as
long as they are sanctified by the Christian idea of self-abnegation in
the service of others, but the attempt to transform the Church into a
monastery, dominated by the Buddhist idea of abnegation of the world for
the sake of self, can only create unmitigated evil. The effect of it in
primitive Buddhism was not only to withdraw good men from the world at
the very time when its diseased condition most required the help of
their preserving salt, but the salt itself, not being used for its
natural and proper purpose, soon lost its savour. The substitution of an
artificial for a natural standard of excellence inevitably tends to
destroy even virtue. Very soon in the Sanghas active itineracy and
devout contemplation gave way to listless indolence and enervating
reverie, and there emerged a mode of life from which the great mass of
healthy men will ever revolt, as sanctioning the idea that the more
useless we become in this world the more fitted for a better we may
safely consider ourselves to be.
The Buddhist Sangha, therefore, though in no sense resembling the
Christian Church, does resemble some of its after-growths. These,
however, must be regarded as parasitical in their nature, for though fed
by its life, they do not spring from its root. In Christianity,
Monachism represents a tendency of human nature incidental to its
development rather than the essential fruit of Christian principle; but
the Buddhist idea of a true society is one essentially and completely
monastic. This one fact is sufficient to show that the similarities
discoverable between the Buddhist and Christian institutions are more
apparent than real, while the contrasts between them are found to be
deeper and more substantial the more they are examined.
The monachism of Christianity originated, it is said, in the endeavour
to reproduce the ideal of excellence represented in the life of Jesus.
In the life of Jesus there was nothing monastic. Though He appeared in
the land of the Essenes, though heralded by a solitary ascetic, though
the age was one of universal defection, when because of its corruption
it seemed impossible to live a man’s life in society, Jesus lived freely
in the world as He found it, and laid His blessing on all of it that was
natural, and on all of it that was necessary. He did not refuse to enjoy
any of the good gifts of God; He warned us against despising or throwing
them away, though He asked us to be ready, when love calls, to let them
go, or relinquish them for the good of others. He gave Himself wholly to
His mission, and He took no thought for the morrow. If He called His
apostles from their secular callings, it was not because such callings
hindered their own salvation, but because, withdrawn from them for love
of God and man, they would be freer to serve the world. We have
interpreted the Apostolate as expressing His desire that in the Church
there will always be an order devoted specially to the service of
religion, but this form of service was never meant to be regarded as the
only religious service. If one calling is consecrated, it is as one day
is consecrated, that all may be sanctified thereby. The world was never
renounced by the apostles that they might work out their own salvation;
and if they “exercised” themselves it was because self-control fitted
them to render more valuable service for man’s redemption. The
missionary zeal which drove the members of the Primitive Church all over
the world to sow the seeds of truth and love made them take no thought
of what they should eat or what they should drink; and missionary zeal
all through the Christian ages has manifested the same indifference to
the Βιωτικά of existence; but those who have been most inspired by it,
and who have found nothing impracticable in following the manner of life
which our Lord Himself led, have never deemed it the only way, or even
the highest way, of Christian service. It was that to which they felt
inwardly moved and called by the Holy Ghost, and, like the apostles,
they exhorted all others to abide in the callings wherein they were
called.
Primitive Christianity, like any other religion, was susceptible to
morbid affections, and the germs of disease with which the atmosphere
around it was charged found early a lodgment within it, and soon matured
into portentous fertility. The persecutions of the Church, the terrible
corruption of the world, the troubles and temptations consequent on the
first junction of Christianity with the Imperial Power, the mistaken
idea that the world which the Church had manifestly failed to transform,
or even preserve, was doomed, and that Christ was speedily coming in His
glory to judge it, strengthened the ascetic tendency to come out and be
separate from it.[257] By the end of the third century the deserts of
Egypt and Arabia, and the mountains of Asia Minor, were so peopled with
recluses that in one spot alone there were ten thousand men and twenty
thousand women. At the close of another century Monachism had a home in
every province of the Oriental Church, and monks and nuns formed “a
nation,” as distinct from the clergy as the clergy were from the common
believers, and in many instances they were hated and persecuted by
clergy and laity alike.[258]
The original purpose of the founders of the new institution, however,
was not to shelter mystics and visionaries, but to train soldiers and
martyrs. Solitude was not intended to be an asylum for the weak, or an
infirmary for the diseased, but an arena for the training and testing of
athletes. “Come,” says Chrysostom,[259] “and see the tents of the
soldiers of Christ. Come, behold their order of battle.” Augustine also
refers to them as “milites Christi,” even as later on they were
designated as “the chivalry of the Church” and “the paladins of God.”
Though not of the world, and being above its ways, they were yet in it
and for it. So these retreats were not only technical schools,
representing the industries essential to the well-being of man; they
were also academies for sacred studies, from which went forth champions
like Athanasius to defend the faith against the heretic, and like Basil
to defend the Church against the Empire. They were also brotherhoods of
charity, in which in self-imposed austerities men grew tender in respect
for the miseries of others, and anticipated in much more unfavourable
times the hospitals for “sick children” and “lepers” and “incurables,”
which we are inclined to regard as the peculiar products of the latest
Christian centuries.[260] Of course, early Christian Monachism had its
ridiculous extravagances, in types like the Stylites and Browsers; and
of course even its soberer types soon degenerated through over
cultivation, till it became a greater hindrance to the spread of
Christianity than all external opposition and persecution. The spirit of
piety which it originated was speedily poisoned by superstition;
theological discussion supplanted the love of earnest study; the spirit
of obedience and loyalty was superseded by that of intrigue and revolt.
So though it spread, it was not as a contagion of health, but as an
infectious disease, whose evil effects are traceable in the decrepitude
which the Oriental Church has never been able to throw off.
In the Western Church, Monachism, though less brilliant in its
beginnings than its Eastern precursor, has had a longer and healthier
course. It is not within the scope of this lecture even to sketch it, or
to analyse and tabulate its results. We live in an age which has
certainly little sympathy with the ideal of Christianity which it sought
to realise, but that is not sufficient reason that we should affect to
despise it, or imagine that we have outgrown the necessity for it. The
life of the recluse may be beyond our attainment, for we may be so
afraid to be alone, and so unable to endure “conversation with
ourselves,” that we have to take refuge in perpetual society. The
“weakness” of the old asceticism many of us have not the strength to
practise, for we are too much under the dominion of the flesh, which
they at least could master, and we are far too inclined to treat with
unnecessary tenderness what they chastised and immolated. The vows of
poverty and obedience and chastity may be the very medicine we require,
in a condition of public sentiment so unhealthy that a man’s standing,
and worth, and even life, seems to consist in the abundance of his
goods, and his freedom in licence to despise all authority and indulge
all his likings. No doubt, in the West as in the East, Monachism
eventually became an impediment to Christian civilisation, but not until
it had considerably regenerated and uplifted it. It kept before the
Church the dignity of manual labour, it wiped out the discredit
attaching to honest poverty, it proclaimed the equality of men by
treating rich and poor alike, and it proved the defender of the
oppressed, the mediator between the strong and the feeble. “We are the
poor of Christ,” says Bernard, “and the friendship of the poor makes us
the equals of kings.” Then just as unquestionably it was the pioneer of
learning and of enterprise, the guardian of law and the fosterer of
charity. There is hardly a city or populous centre in Europe which does
not owe its churches, universities, hospitals, charitable institutions,
either in their origin or growth, to the cœnobites and celibates of
former ages; and whether we acknowledge or repudiate our debt to them,
“its magnitude confronts us more imposingly the more we honestly
consider it.”
But like all unnatural segregations of human beings from society, for
which man was made, Monachism everywhere became eventually an excuse for
indolence and misanthropy; a refuge for the melancholy, and for all who
had become unfit to serve either the world or the Church. Its whole
history in the Christian Church has justified the warning of St. Paul
against artificial methods of attaining to saintliness. The vices which
beset society never lost any of their power over the recluses of the
desert or the inmates of the monastery, while many other vices were
added to the host that assailed the solitary, undefended by his
fellows.[261] “Woe to him that is alone, for when he falls there is not
another to raise him up! Woe to him that is alone, for there is no one
to keep him from falling!” are the lessons of this long mistaken attempt
to realise an undemanded standard of excellence; and yet, just because
of the consistency of its ideal with one side of Christian service,
modern Christendom, though in altered and modified forms, has not parted
with Monachism yet.
“The ideal of the Christian monk,” says Montalembert, “is that of
manhood in its purest and most energetic form—manhood intellectually and
morally superior, devoting itself to efforts greater and more sustained
than are exacted in a worldly career; and this not to make earthly
service a stepping-stone to heaven, but of life a long series of
victories for man.”[262] Surely this is the ideal of every Christian
minister truly consecrated to the service of man; yea, the ideal of
every brother or sister who, married or single, in business or society,
is trying to reach forward to the mark of our high calling. There is no
code of disabilities in the service of Christ, and the way to the
highest honours is open to all who wish to enter it, of whatever
condition or rank or mental capacity they may be. When this common ideal
was fallen from in the monastic orders, it was being realised by many
private members of the Church; when the professional Church had
falsified it, it was being upheld by so-called “men of the world”; and
therefore, as a natural consequence, when the monastic orders of
Christendom became corrupt, society, true to its better instincts, rose
up and reformed them or swept them away. There was always a large volume
of life outside the particular channel which these orders filled, to
purify it when it became foul, or to force it onward, when stagnant,
into the life of the Church.
But it was not so in Buddhism. Its lay associates, however numerous,
were but the fringes of religious communities essentially and wholly
monastic. When, therefore, deterioration or degradation in the Order set
in, reformation of it by the people was hopeless. In the Order this
deterioration showed itself earlier that its dominant ideal was lower
than the Christian. In early Christian Monachism, fortitude and devotion
all sprang from the immolation of self for the universal good. In
Buddha’s Sangha, however, though there was both devotion and fortitude
displayed, the goal to be reached was simply self-rescue. Its course of
beneficence therefore was not only shorter but shallower.
Unintentionally it wrought out social reforms, and perhaps political
revolution. It restrained luxury, and checked the unbounded sensuality
to which Indians are prone; it rebuked the earthly-minded, and witnessed
nobly of the higher interests of life to peoples that sorely needed the
testimony. It not only propagated morality, but promoted learning, and a
love of the beautiful in nature and art, but its force was eventually
exhausted. Very early it sank into the stagnation in which it has
existed for centuries, and any advance registered by the nations among
whom the institution has existed has been due, for more than a thousand
years, to the influx of Christian ideas and sentiments.
Its own methods hastened its decay. Like all Eastern religious growths,
it represented the piety of inertion. Manual labour of all kinds was
placed under the ban, and beyond attending to the cleanliness of his
person and of his lodging the Buddhist monk was not allowed to do
anything save itinerate for his maintenance and the preaching of the
law. He was instructed that every moment abstracted from meditation was
serious loss. This was in direct contradiction to the very first rule of
Christian solitary life, which even in the stifling heat of the desert
demanded manual tasks, which fasting might be said to have doubled,
continued through the long day till vespers summoned the labourers to
worship. The Buddhist monk knew neither the healthy life of physical
exertion nor the spiritual refreshment of worship. He might vindicate
his idleness against the reproaches of the industrious by the assertion
that he too in his quiet life was also “ploughing and sowing” to much
better purpose,[263] but then the effect of his ploughing and the fruit
of his sowing were all confined to himself, who alone was freed by it
from suffering. He could not answer, as the Nicæan monk and quondam
courtier replied to Valens, when challenged as to whither he was going,
“I go to pray for your empire.”[264] Augustine has indeed assured us
that “the less a monk labours in anything but prayer the more
serviceable he is to men”; but the prayer which he had in view was not
selfish. On the contrary, the tears and penitential exercises of men who
had become strangers to all personal desires “were mighty to drown sin
and purify the world.”[265] As long as monks were truly prayerful, and
nuns, like vestals, kept alive the sacred fire for every hearth, they
represented that side of the Church’s mediation which is most important
and effective; for no one can be really effective in the service of man
who is not frequent in the service of waiting upon God. The heroes of
the Christian Church, who have evangelised and civilised the wild waste
places of the world, who, like the apostle, laid aside every encumbrance
to run their race, were, like the apostle, men of much meditation and
prayer. We have no such examples in Buddhism, for it lacked the
provision which alone could nurture them. In the life of the Buddhist
monk there was probably more, and more intense meditation than in that
of the Christian, but there was a vast difference in their respective
themes of meditation. The Christian could draw his inspiration from a
source far higher and purer than himself, and in communion with the
Father, Redeemer, Sanctifier of his spirit gather a strength which
astonished the world; but what possible inspiration for endeavour could
come to a poor Buddhist monk who was chiefly occupied in contemplating
the impurity of his perishable body, and whose very highest theme of
meditation was simply “nothing whatever”?[266]
Another essential distinction between the two modes of life is disclosed
in their relation to charity. We have seen that Buddhism had no
conception of charity in the Christian sense, and that practical charity
in it was represented from a pole quite opposite to that of
Christianity. As if conscious of its defects, later Buddhism originated
faith in and hope of Maitreya, the Buddha who is next to come, and who,
as the son of love, will realise its unconscious prophecies, fulfil its
longings, and perfect all things; but notwithstanding this the Buddhist
monk continued to be the receiver, not the dispenser, of charity. His
whole merit consisted in taking what it was the merit of the layman to
offer him:[267] and the taking was all for himself and for his Order. He
had no conception of the life suggested in the saying, “As poor, yet
making many rich,” and he never could have said of his monastery that it
was “l’infirmière des pauvres.” To offer charity to others was the last
conception which he could form of his duty: yea, to clothe the naked,
take the leper from the dunghill, and help the outcast, was the very
reverse of his duty. His creed as to misery in this being the fruit of
evil done in a former existence, cut him off from that service of the
lost and fallen which in Christendom has been accounted glorious, and
for the rendering of which, several of its monastic institutions have
been spared the penalty of their corruption.
The charity which the Buddhist monk practised was in his preaching and
exposition of the law for the deliverance of the multitudes. And that
this may be the very highest form in which benevolence can express
itself all Christians must admit, for the greatest gift which any man
can bestow is the truth which makes one free. Buddhist monk and
Christian missionary alike proclaimed a gospel for the redemption of
men; and as the gospel of Christ’s salvation brings ever many blessings
in its train, so the preaching of the mendicant Buddhist was attended
with material beneficial results to those who heard and believed it. The
Buddhist, however, while expounding the law for the rescue of the
individual, never laboured, like the Christian missionary, for his
temporal and social improvement. His message had no promise for the life
that now is, and consequently he never seems to have played the part so
nobly sustained by many of the monks of Christendom—that of defending
the oppressed and befriending the helpless. He never, so far as can be
gathered from the texts, proclaimed the equality of men in the same way
and for the same purpose as a Christian reformer would preach it.
Theoretically, he maintained the right of all classes to be admitted to
the brotherhood, but Dr. Oldenberg has asserted that “in the composition
of the Order a marked leaning to the existing aristocracy was
observable.”[268] Buddha never had occasion to confess with the
Christian apostle “that not many noble, not many mighty, were called,”
nor had his Order ever to bear the reproach of the Church, that its
members were recruited from the lowest strata of society. The references
to his disciples from the first all indicate people of rank and wealth
and education. It is not implied that persons of humble origin would
have been rejected had they come, only that “the scriptures afford no
evidence that they did come”; and yet they yield unmistakable evidence
that, as the Order prospered, all lepers, cripples, blind, or one-eyed
persons, all who were deaf and dumb, all who were consumptive or subject
to fits, were rejected.[269] The Order was for the reputable, the noble,
and especially for the religious, for the Brahman votary, and Sraman
seeker after truth. These again were all attracted to it; they were not
sought out as by the Christian Church. Not for one moment would Christ
allow the Church to become select. He not only welcomed all
penitents—for all men needed salvation, and the poorest and the
guiltiest were most in need of it,—but He sent forth His apostles to
seek and gather them, and in order to reason down all natural fears,
based on the personal unworthiness of these outcasts of society, they
were instructed to “compel them to come in.”[270]
Of propagandism in this sense the Buddhist Sangha knew nothing. It was
moved by no enthusiasm of humanity; it felt nothing of that earnestness
which from the days of the apostles has characterised the true
propagators of the gospel. In no discourse that has come down to us is
there any impassioned entreaty of men to repent and believe. There is no
sorrow over the unbelieving who refuse their salvation, no burning
indignation against those who despise or who scoff at the truth. In
Buddha’s last view of the world there is no weeping as over Jerusalem,
reprobate because of its wickedness, and in none of his successors do we
find any trace of the apostle’s willingness to be anathema for the sake
of his brethren.
This tolerant spirit of Buddhism, however, has been contrasted, as
greatly in its favour, with that alleged intolerance which Christianity
is supposed to have inherited from Judaism. We must remember that
Christianity must be judged as it is presented in Christ, and not by His
professing followers, who have often misrepresented Him. Of hypocrisy,
cruelty, deceit, Christ was indeed intolerant, but toward error and
misbelief, because of ignorance, He was very compassionate. Christianity
would make no compromise, again, with false systems of heathendom. It
would have no peace save through victory; it would not accept a place in
the Pantheon for its Lord, and it was content to be persecuted till He
was allowed to rule from the throne of the world. The alleged
intolerance of Christianity, therefore, is simply its conviction of the
infinite importance and value to all men of the truth which compels it
to be propagandist. Now if Buddhism tolerates everything, it is because
it is not sure about anything, but, on the contrary, is in doubt about
everything. It is essentially sceptical, “raising the rejection of every
affirmation to the rank of a principle.”[271] Earnestness in a preacher
of sceptical quietism was an impossibility. He had no heart touched with
the feeling of heavenly love, wounded by sin, impelling him to proclaim
forgiveness, and he had no such hearts to appeal to. The Christian
missionary appeals to soul and conscience in name of a Saviour crucified
for sin; the Buddhist missionary only appealed through the intellect to
self-interest. His preaching was purely didactic, expository, and
advisory in character. He was at best a theologian or moral philosopher
teaching the ignorant, and not a preacher aiming at the conviction of
sinners, endeavouring, with his whole heart and strength and mind, to
sway them to conversion.[272] He never experienced the almost consuming
glow and fervour of inspiration which made the apostles agonise in their
mission. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” “I
pray you, in Christ’s stead, Be ye reconciled to God.” As might have
been expected, the early enthusiasm of Buddhists for the enlightenment
of others soon died out, and its missionary spirit, once spent, has
never undergone a true revival. It can boast of many ecclesiastics and
philosophers, but for hundreds of years it cannot point in its
honour-roll to either a Xavier or a Livingstone. It has long ago ceased
to be aggressive. At this day no Oriental Buddhist seriously
contemplates becoming a missionary. Paris may add to its attractions and
curiosities a real Buddhist temple,[273] but the priests who officiate
in it, however devoted they may be to their cult, will certainly never
dream of taking the trouble of preaching it in the streets.
In the Church of the middle ages, supposed to consist only of pope and
bishops and clergy and monks and nuns, of which mediævalism a remnant
survives in those who speak of “entering the Church,” not when as
children they are baptized into its communion, but when they are to be
ordained to service in it, we must look for any resemblance to the
Buddhist Sangha. In ancient India, a church, meaning the fellowship of
the faithful in its totality, was an impossibility. Brahmanism had no
church, and never attempted a conversion, but Buddha in seeking to
rescue others from evil, and in offering a place of escape which they
were free to accept or reject, created not a church but a precursor of
one.[274] Admission into his Brotherhood was at first open to all who
requested it, but as disciples crowded around him, and parents
complained that they were bereaved of their children, and masters that
they were robbed of their slaves, and creditors that they were deprived
of what was owing by their debtors, and even the judges that criminals
escaped the prison; and when accusations grew frequent and loud that the
new movement would ruin households, injure the State, and depopulate the
country, restrictions were devised. Gradually conditions were imposed by
which all who were diseased, or criminals, or soldiers, or debtors, or
slaves, or children under fifteen years of age, or youths under twenty
who had not received their parents’ consent, were disqualified.[275] At
first the disciple was admitted without any ceremony, beyond that of
shaving the whole head, and putting on the yellow robes which
distinguished the ascetic and the recluse, but eventually a rite of
initiation was adopted, which in Ceylon has continued substantially
unaltered to this day.
It consisted of two stages;[276] the first that of the novitiate into
which a candidate could be received by any fully accredited monk. The
ceremony was called the Pabbagga, or “outgoing,” a word used from old
time to describe the last act of a pious Brahman, when, warned by
approaching age, he gave up his possessions to his family, and left them
to enter upon the hermit life of meditation. The Buddhists naturally
adopted it to mark the first step by which a layman at any age exchanged
the secular for the religious life. It was a confession that he desired
to be done with the world, to put off the old man with his deeds and to
put on the new. So with head and face completely shaven, and holding
three lengths of yellow cotton cloth, first torn to render them
valueless, and then sewed together, he presented his petition three
times, that “the reverend monks would take pity on him, and invest him
with the robes, that, like them, he might escape sorrow.” The presiding
monk then tied the clothes around his neck, repeating sentences
regarding the perishable nature of the body, and the petitioner retired.
When he reappeared he had laid aside the loin-cloth, generally the only
article of raiment in tropical lands, and had assumed the new
investiture of the two under-garments and the loose robe, which covered
the whole body, except the right shoulder, of a Buddhist mendicant.
Three times, thus clothed, in “robes of humility and religion,” in
reverential salaam to the monk or monks present, he made public
confession that he took refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and receiving
instructions as to conduct and duty, he became a Sramanera, a bachelor
as it were, a monk of lower degree.
When the novice who had thus “gone forth” from the world, or from the
membership of another fraternity, had “seen the truth, mastered the
truth, understood the truth, penetrated the truth; when he had overcome
uncertainty, dispelled all doubts, was dependent on nobody else for his
knowledge of the doctrines of the Teacher,”[277] he presented himself
before the Order, of whom ten members at least had to be in session, and
reverentially cowering on the ground with his hands clasped on his
forehead, he three times entreated them “to take pity upon him and draw
him out of the evil world by granting him Upasampada” or the “arrival”
initiation rite.[278] Then followed his examination as to whether he was
qualified[279] in his person, his health, his social and civil
relations, whether he had provided an alms-bowl and the yellow robes,
what was his own name, and that of the teacher with whom he was to
consort, and whom he was to serve during a course of five years’
instruction in the whole doctrine and discipline of the system. If the
answers to all these questions were satisfactory, the resolution to
receive him was formally put by the presiding monk, and thrice repeated:
“Whosoever of the venerable is for granting Upasampada to this novice,
with brother So-and-so for his teacher, let him be silent.” When no
dissent was intimated the resolution was passed. “The Sangha is in
favour of it, therefore it is silent—thus I understand,” said the
president, and the novice became a Samana, a fully accredited member of
the Order of Bikkhus.
There was certainly nothing of the Church in all this ceremony, and Sir
Monier Williams very properly guards us from applying to it the sacred
word of ordination.[280] Any one who cares to read the texts in which
the proceedings are described will be inclined to think that the
questions put to the novice, in their childishness and absurdity, seem
diabolically framed to caricature the solemn and soul-searching
questions addressed to candidates for the Holy Ministry. Yet in the
instruction given to the newly admitted member, concerning the “four
chief forbidden acts” from which he must abstain, and “the four
resources”[281] in which he was to trust, there was a touch of the
solemnity which belongs to the charge which follows Christian
ordination. The monk was reminded that in regard to what was pleasant
and permissible to other men he had subjected himself to self-denial and
a yoke. He might receive from the pious, without offence, offerings of
food and clothing, and medicine and shelter, but he must be prepared for
the hard life of one whose food might only be scraps and refuse put into
his bowl, whose clothing might have to be made of cast-off rags, whose
shelter might often be the tree in the jungle or the cave in the rock,
and whose medicine might be only the foul deposit of the cattle-pen. He
was warned that any breach of the four cardinal precepts—against
unchastity, which to him meant what to others was the lawful estate of
marriage, against theft, even of a blade of grass, against murder, even
to the crushing of a flea, against assumption of virtues not really
possessed,—would necessitate expulsion from the Order. “For even as a
man whose head is cut off cannot live with the trunk; ... as a dry leaf
separate from the stalk can never again become green; ... as a stone
split in two cannot be made into one; ... as a palm whose top is
destroyed cannot again grow, so the monk who breaks the least of these
laws is no longer a Samana, no longer a follower of the
Sakya-putta.”[282]
To the credit of Buddha, however, it must be observed, that a monk who
had entered the Order was at any time free to withdraw from it. If he
had a hankering after home, or the pleasures of the old life which he
had forsaken, he was exhorted to confess his weakness and renounce a
vocation which he had found too high for him. He had simply to declare
before a witness that he renounced Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—yea, he could
go forth without making any declaration at all. Freely as he had joined,
as freely could he abandon the brethren; no anger was expressed or even
felt; no discredit attached to him, for the working out of his
deliverance was his own concern. Yea, if at any time he repented of his
action, and desired to renew with the companions of wiser days the
relation of votary or novice, he was not subjected to any discipline,
such as a lapsed member of the Church might be expected to undergo when
seeking re-communion. He was treated upon his confession as though his
past had not been remembered, and as if his folly or fault had never
been committed.[283] Such facility of withdrawal and readmission seemed
to tend to laxity, and may have occasioned very great abuses, but on the
very face of it, it appears calculated to preserve monastic life in
India in a much healthier condition than has always prevailed in the
recluse institutions of Christendom. In how many cases has the monastery
become worse than a prison, and the convent become a very chamber of
tortures, because occupied by reluctant tenants, who have been cruelly
immured in them against their will, or have thoughtlessly devoted
themselves to a vocation for which they were totally unfit. The Eastern
sage may even have shown greater wisdom than the Western bishops and
presbyters, who have bound over for life those admitted to a sacred
profession, so that freedom from it can only be got by ignominious
expulsion, and by degradation for a fault or a crime.
The Sangha from the first was an order of Cœnobites, not Solitaries, and
it was an exception for a mendicant to be alone; for with his practical
insight Buddha seems to have discovered that the life of solitude has
more disadvantages and dangers than that of fellowship. So he ordained
that the newly admitted monk must attach himself for five years to a
tutor and teacher,[284] one of whom must have been ten years in the
Order, rendering to them such personal offices as Elisha rendered to
Elijah, and receiving such parental instruction as St. Paul bestowed
upon his son in the faith. No vow of obedience, so essential to the
monastic rule of Christendom, unless in regard to the laws of the Order,
was exacted. No man could be called Rabbi among them, for the knowledge
which brought deliverance could be and must be acquired by each man for
himself.[285] A monk was expected to reverence his superior in age and
knowledge, but his obedience was to be rendered not to his brother, who
was simply his equal in respect of need and capability of deliverance,
but only to _The Law_ which alone could secure it.
While obedience to a superior was not exacted, the law of poverty and
chastity was as obligatory upon the Buddhist monk as on the members of
the Christian Orders. Francis of Assisi could not more highly have
eulogised poverty as “the way to salvation, the nurse of humility, the
root of perfection,” than did the Indian monks who compiled the Buddhist
scriptures. “In supreme felicity live we, though we call nothing our
own. Feeding on happiness, we are like the gods in the regions of
light.”[286] Food a monk could receive, but not ask for, and of what he
so received he could only have one meal a day. Gold or silver he could
on no account accept, though he might accept its equivalents in food or
medicine. If like Achan’s wedge it was found to have been secreted by
any covetous member, one of the brethren had to hide it away in the
jungle, in a place which could not again be recognised. Bitter
controversies regarding this prohibition seem to have exercised the
primitive Sanghas, and though it was successfully maintained for long,
concessions in relation to it were eventually agreed upon. These however
proved as fatal to the prosperity of the Buddhist, as similar
concessions proved to that of the Western monastic establishments. They
were seeds of evil which speedily grew up into thickets of trouble. The
individual member professed to observe the original law and maintain the
principle that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of his
goods,” but the several fraternities came speedily to abound in lands
and property of every kind, so that in the East as in the West it may be
said the monasteries fell, because crushed with their weight of wealth.
Even while the primitive rule was observed the mendicants could easily
procure what of the necessaries of food and shelter and clothing they
required; the jungle gave them all the shelter they needed, though it
exposed them to frequent perils of being poisoned by snake-bites, and
devoured by beasts. The rains put an end periodically to their
peregrinations, and gathered the twos and threes who had been
associating together into common retreat in the viharas. These
originally were intended to be only temporary shelters from the annual
floods, but as by degrees the system extended into distant regions, they
became permanent institutions, each one a centre of influence in its own
territory, like the abbeys in the original dioceses of mediæval Europe.
Life in a Buddhist vihara two thousand years ago must however have been
very different from life in a monastic establishment in the middle ages.
Labour, as we have seen, of no kind was allowed, either among them or
for them. “A monk who digs the earth or causes it to be dug is liable to
punishment.”[287] Scant time was allowed for sleep, and when there were
no books to read or transcribe, the studies or literary occupations of
the West were out of the question. All the intellectual energies were
claimed for the repetition of such sacred works as they knew, and for
the committing to memory of others which they had only acquired.
Examination of self, meditation on the five principal themes which
occupied the place of prayer or devotion in their system, was expected
to absorb the most of the day. Notwithstanding its intervals of
instruction and discussion, it must have been a very vacant life indeed,
lacking entirely the worship, and most of the duties, which rendered
monastic life in Christendom, if not always profitable, at least
supportable.
Two outstanding features of it, however, compare very favourably with
some forms of the ascetic life both in India and Europe. In the Buddhist
Sanghas would be witnessed neither the slovenliness nor the dirtiness
which has often been associated with the life of those who have
renounced the world and have professed to despise its pleasant things.
Around them,
“Besmeared with mud and ashes, crouching foul,
In rags of dead men, wrapped about their loins,”[288]
were many solitaries endeavouring to gain perfection or exhibit it, in
types more conform to Nebuchadnezzar in his madness or the demoniacs who
had their dwellings in the tombs. Buddha condemned uncleanliness in all
its forms. The robes which he enjoined his monks to wear may have been
made up of rags picked up from a dunghill or from a cemetery, but they
were scrupulously washed, properly dyed, and carefully mended. The
ground all round the vihara, as well as its floors within, had to be
swept every day, and its every item of furniture had to be punctually
dusted and garnished. His monks were Pharisees in regard to the washing
of hands and bowls and other utensils, and they anticipated our modern
demand for proper ventilation.[289] A Buddhist mendicant of the days of
King Asoka might prove a good model of personal neatness and domestic
tidiness for many a Christian minister in these days of Queen Victoria.
He belonged to an Order originally founded by a man who was in every
sense a gentleman, and which for long numbered among its members many
noble and even princely men. Inheriting their instincts, he stoutly
maintained their traditions, that “neither plaited hair, nor dirt, nor
lying on the earth, nor rubbing with dust, can purify a mortal who has
not overcome desires”; “that he who, though well dressed, exercises
tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to
find fault with all other beings, he is indeed a Brahmana, a Sramana, a
Bikkhu.”[290]
Again, in these old pictures of Buddhist Sangha life, there is no
reflection of that insane passion for suffering which marked the gaunt
and self-mutilated Yogis around them, and which also distinguished many
of the ascetics of Christendom. The flagellations, and lacerations, and
macerations which at one time became popular in European monasteries,
and which made even a man like the founder of the Franciscan Order
refuse food and sleep for days together, spend whole nights in winter up
to the neck in snow or water, put ashes in the meals which had been
cooked for him, would not for an hour have been tolerated; yea, they
would have been laughed out of the world by Buddha and his monks.
Wherever they went, they encountered grievous companies of
“Eyeless and tongueless, sexless, crippled, deaf:
The body by the mind being thus stripped
For glory of much suffering, and the bliss
Which they shall win,”[291]
but they never seem to have been tempted to give way to this
intoxication which was supposed to make men gods. Self-denial was
essential, but severe austerities and bodily penance were strongly
discouraged. “Blooming, well-fed, with healthy colour and skin,” is the
description often given in the old texts of a model Bikkhu. Buddha, when
first met by the Brahman sages after his illumination, surprised them by
the serenity of his countenance, the purity and brightness of his
complexion. Among the first salutations addressed to the brethren on
their return from their wanderings was the question whether they had
been well fed.[292] It is true some Buddhist saints might be found
sitting for days in the burning sun, oblivious to its fiery torments,
but these must have been exceptions, for there is no mistaking either
the teaching or the life of Buddha himself. All these extravagant
cruelties, by which men have abused or sought to destroy the most
beautiful organism and the most perfect instrument which has ever been
produced in this world, were by him regarded as foolish and dangerous,
and as debasing as the sensualism which they sought to avoid.
Though we have hitherto referred to the Buddhist Order, it is hardly
correct to think of it as just one community. Though theoretically the
Sangha of Buddha was the ideal unit, practically it never became so.
After his decease there was no central governing power to direct and
inspire the whole organisation. The patriarchs, of whom a long
succession is given, were not hierarchs in the Greek or Latin
sense.[293] They were simply outstanding Arhats, the heroic defenders
and apostles of the system. Primitive Buddhism was represented not by
one but by many Sanghas, for each brother as he went forth became the
centre of a new fraternity. Its original cultus was based on the idea
that community of aim would suffice to gather the knots of people who
lived near each other for mutual confession and instruction and
discipline. So they continued a custom which had come down from their
Vedic ancestors, who, in the four days of the lunar month, when the moon
is new, or full, or half-way between the two, celebrated the fast
preparatory to the offering of the intoxicating Soma. The Buddhists had
neither fast, nor sacrifice, nor offering, nor any form of religious
worship whatever, but in these days they gathered for careful
examination of themselves in the light of the Prohibitions, for public
confession one to another, and for discipline. For these weekly
gatherings the manual of the Pâtimokkha or Disburdenment was composed,
it is averred, by Buddha himself.[294] To this public catechising and
purgation of the Roll all the brethren had to come; even a sick man was
only excused when he could assure the assembly, through a sponsor, that
he was clean of fault, and if no brother was available for this office
the assembly had to adjourn to meet at his couch. Its president, who
also summoned the brethren, was the monk of the longest standing among
them. So far it seemed to anticipate our principle of Presbyterian
parity, but, like Convocation, it was an exclusively ecclesiastical
gathering, for neither nun, nor novice, nor layman was allowed to be
present. Like our presbyteries when applying their privy censures, they
expected to be “alone.” Then, when all were reverentially placed, in
presence of no heart-searching God, but before one another, there was
recited by the president the order of confessional, according to the
rule that if there was no transgression there was no interruption, and
silence indicated innocence.
First came the recitation of the gravest offences: the four Pârâgikâ
renounced upon their admission, commission of any one of which involved
expulsion from the Order. Then came the list of the less serious
transgressions—Samghâdisesas, involving temporary degradation, and
lastly that of the Pâkittya, or venial faults, which were atoned for by
simple confession. It was a lengthy, minute, ill-arranged form of
inquisition, more comprehensive and rigid than any catechism of the
confessional which Romanism ever devised.[295] It out-phariseed the
Pharisees in its trivialities and repetitions and straining out of
gnats, and no manual of the cloister ever discovered, could equal its
disgusting details of every conceivable form of unnatural vice supposed
to be perpetrable by the brethren.[296] It reads more like a suggestion
to sin than a defence against temptation. We can understand from it
alone, how impossible it was for Buddhism to live up to its true
principles, how incapable it was of urging on the steady moral progress
of the race, and of even realising the example of its founder. Life’s
whole strength was wasted in watching against petty and artificial
transgressions, so that none was available for the prosecution of real
duty. Yet if deliverance was to come by the law, the most trivial
details of action had to be tried; but here, as elsewhere, by the law
was only the knowledge of sin, and that not as an offence against an
infinitely Holy One, but only as a misfortune, or at worst an
imprudence, a stumbling-block placed by man himself in the way of
advancing his interest.
At the close of the rainy season, when the brethren were making ready
for their wanderings, another solemn conference for self-purgation was
held. In this exercise of the Pâvârana or Invitation no one known to be
under the burden of scandal could take part, but all who were
consciously clean, from the oldest to the youngest, invited the brethren
to name any offence which during their common retreat they might have
noted in their conduct. “I invite, venerable ones, the Order; if ye have
seen anything offensive on my part, or have heard anything, or have any
suspicion about me, have pity upon me, and name it. If I see it, I will
make amends.”[297] It may be asked whether such an institution as this
could ever have flourished in Christendom, although the purest of our
Churches might adopt it with profit. These Buddhist brethren could not
pray the one for the other, but they could confess their faults one to
another by a simpler and more effective method than has ever been
attempted by the confessional. That institution in Christendom has
tended more to corrupt and degrade than to purify and elevate society,
for it has interfered with the divinely instituted and much more ancient
confessional of home. In its secrecy, sealed by affection to father or
mother, or brother or sister, can be told out the things that burn
within; and no priest or ecclesiastic can usurp this parental or
brotherly function without injuring what they must earnestly desire to
protect. This confessional, however, of the one to the whole little
brotherhood, making them watch for and consider one another, must have
tended to mutual edification. It seems of all the observances of the
Sangha to have most nearly realised one great purpose of the Church,
that of being helpful to each other’s salvation. St. Paul and St. James
would have felt at home in such a conference. They would probably have
warned the brethren against judging one another, and they would have
instructed them that only One whose knowledge is perfect, because His
love is infinite, could try the lives of men; but they would have
commended them for this honest endeavour to fulfil one of the precepts
of the perfect law of liberty: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a
fault, ye who are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of
meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
The part played by woman in the early history of Buddhism was analogous
to that assumed by woman in relation to primitive Christianity. Women
were among the most zealous supporters of Buddha, ministering to him of
their substance. Subsequently, as in the case of the Christian Church,
the largest proportion of the wealth which was lavished in such
marvellous munificence upon the Order came from female votaries.
Evidently in those days in India the position of woman was not so
degraded and helpless as it afterwards became. Women in old Indian
literature are seen to be much more on an equality with men; they are
not only represented as receiving scholastic instruction, but even to
them as authoresses some of the Vedic hymns were ascribed.[298] At any
rate, women appear in almost every Buddhist episode, and they move about
with a freedom which contrasts strangely with the seclusion and
restraint in which in India they have lived for ages. In the character
of Buddha there seems to have been much that was peculiarly attractive
to the best type of women, and at least one of these stands forth with
very clearly marked individuality.[299] His mother is only a shadow in
the legends, and we can only conjecture what the parent of so good and
gentle a man must have been. But his wife confronts us with so much that
is womanly in the picture that we feel she must have been drawn from
life. Very pathetic and tender is the graphic account of her first
interview with him, upon his return as the illustrious Buddha to his
father’s house.[300] When all came to do him honour, Yasodhara did not
come, for she said, “If I am of any value in his eyes, he will come
himself, and I can welcome him better here.” Buddha, noting her absence,
went attended by two of his disciples to the place where she was, and he
warned his companions not to prevent her should she seek to embrace him,
although no member of the Order could touch or be touched by a woman.
And when she saw him, a mendicant in yellow robes, with shaven head and
face—though she knew it would be so—she could not contain herself, but
fell at his feet, which she held, passionately weeping. Then remembering
the great and impassable gulf which he had fixed between them, she rose
and stood at his side. His father sought to apologise for her, telling
how in the greatness of her love she mourned and afflicted her soul for
loss of him, and refused to be comforted. She became his disciple; and
when afterwards, much against his inclination, he admitted women into a
separate branch of the Order, the poor wife, whom he had not only
widowed, but had bereft of her only child, “passed into the silent
life,” as one of the first of Buddhist nuns.
All candid readers of the early Buddhist scriptures will admit that
Buddha must not only have been gentle in disposition but pure in
character. From male and female disciples alike he demanded chastity, in
the Christian conception of the virtue. In the reported discourses of
Buddha there is the same absence of direct denunciation of the vices
that corrupt society which is observable in the Gospels; but the
impression made by the reading of both narratives, is that of characters
so far removed from such vices, that people in their presence or under
their influence could not even think of them. In both narratives we have
presentations of “women who were sinners” in relation to Buddha and
Christ, but it will be confessed that the effect produced upon us is
very different in each case. The Indian episodes lack the stirrings of
the depths of spiritual feeling, the creative word of command exorcising
the lust, and unsealing the long congealed fountains of penitence, which
confront us so prominently in the scenes of the gospel. Buddha was a
pure man, demanding purity from all who would be saved, but demanding it
only as moralists have demanded it all along. There did not radiate from
him that blending of horror of sin and of pity for sinners which makes
the influence of Christ upon the wickedness and infirmities of men to be
unique in its regenerative power. Had Christ insisted upon purity just
as Buddha did, the world would have profited little by the teaching.
Unquestionably the mission of Buddha, though intended to make for
chastity, has not purified Eastern Asia from the gross and unnatural
vices to which all along it has been prone.
For Buddha’s conception and estimate of woman was very inferior to that
of Christ.[301] She was regarded by him through the medium of the
traditional prejudice of her inferiority to man in every respect. To
him, as to Plato, women, of all snares which the tempter spreads for
man, were the most dangerous. Not only was the very smallest love for
them to be destroyed, but they were to be avoided, not to be spoken to,
not looked upon,[302] not to be helped even when in distress. Of their
future as women in the life hereafter he had no hope,[303] and the only
reward which he could hold out to them for obedience or benevolent
service, the very highest object of aspiration which he could present,
was that they might be re-born as men in another stage of existence. His
disciple Ananda did good service when he wrung from him permission to
form the order of Nuns,[304] for a nun might hope for salvation; but
alas for woman and for the progress of society if she had no other
gospel to trust in than that which Buddha preached!
His ideal of purity was from the first vitiated by his celibate views of
life, and from these views human nature has always revolted in
proportion to the honesty with which men have striven to realise them.
Celibacy, when dominant or prevalent, has only produced a more vicious
and unnatural condition of society than that from which it attempted to
escape. The Son of Man represented nobler traditions, and taught far
sublimer doctrine. Woman, though different from, and in some respects
weaker, is in others higher and purer than man, and altogether his
consort. The pure love of the man for the woman was recognised by Christ
as one of the most sanctifying influences in life; and marriage, the
most sacred of all Divine institutions, as the bond which more than any
other keeps society together, obtained His special benediction, and was
committed by Him to His Church to guard as the palladium of social
freedom and dignity. Notwithstanding its many defections, the Church has
never been permitted to lose sight of the Lord’s ideal. Even in the days
of corrupted faith, when its laudation of virginity was most
extravagant, its unmistakable tendency was to acknowledge the true
dignity of the wife.[305] A recent writer professes to be unable “to see
that Christianity has had any favourable effect on the position of
women—on the contrary, it tended rather to lower their character and
contract the range of their activities.”[306] It is noticeable that his
facts or quotations are drawn from a period when asceticism had deeply
tainted the Church, and that they cannot be held to represent the
tendency of the teaching of Christ. The unmistakable influence of His
religion has been to ennoble family relations, and to secure woman in
her true position as the companion and helpmeet of man. It has been
stated by one who cannot be regarded as a special pleader, that what
most differentiates the European from the Hindu branch of the Aryan
race, is that the first has steadily carried forward, for the elevation
of woman, the series of reforms[307] from which the other, though going
a little way, recoiled. No one need fear to assert that the chief factor
in these reforms, sometimes carried against the resistance and
opposition of the Church, was the spirit of Christianity. In proportion
as the example of Christ has been honoured, and His teaching has been
accepted and obeyed, the emancipation of woman and the recognition of
her real rights have been secured. In any case it is certain that the
religion of Buddha, though probably not intended to perpetuate the
inferior position characteristic of woman in the East, has succeeded
neither in lifting her out of it, nor in preventing her from lapsing
more deeply into it.
The time for discovering the worth of woman had not come in Buddha’s
age, and we must remember his antecedents and surroundings before we
condemn his estimate of or his relations to her. If the tradition be
reliable, he prophesied, upon yielding to Ananda’s intercession, that
because of women holy living would not long be preserved. They would
prove in the fair field of his Order what “the disease of mildew proved
to be in a field of rice.”[308] So though he admitted them to a separate
branch of the Order, he placed them under very stringent regulations,
and thoroughly under the tutelage of the monks. “A nun, though admitted
a nun a hundred years ago, must bow reverentially before a monk, though
only admitted to-day.” She must not pass the rainy season in a district
in which monks were not residing; she must report herself twice a month
to the Sangha for confession and instruction; she must give the Pavâranâ
invitation, and she must, if guilty of offence, atone for it before both
monks and nuns. She could only be admitted after a two years’ novitiate;
under no circumstances must she revile or rebuke a monk; yea, on no
occasion whatever must she charge him with any offence.[309] Between
them and the superior sex the strictest separation was maintained from
the first. The brother who was to teach and exhort them was never
allowed to enter their nunnery, unless a sister was very ill. For a monk
to journey alone with a nun, to cross a river in the same boat with one,
to sit alone with a nun, with or without witnesses, was a very grave
offence.[310] In short, in the Buddhist Sangha women were only tolerated
at the best, and they were very severely guarded and restrained, as
creatures not at all calculated to influence any one for good, and who
could only be prevented or tamed from doing mischief or harm.[311]
The Sangha, as a brotherhood and sisterhood leading a celibate life,
coupled with abstinence from labour and from active services of charity,
was simply vicious in its tendency, and it proved one of the most
obstinate hindrances to the realisation of Buddha’s best ideas, and one
of the most powerful factors in the degradation of his religion. Human
nature was too strong to submit to such artificial restrictions; so very
early there gathered around him and his monks many who would not abandon
their families and their callings, though they took refuge in Buddha,
and proved the reality of their devotion by faithful service of the
Order and practice of the Law. These were the votaries, “upasaka”
(masc.), “upasika” (fem.), corresponding with the lay associates of the
great Mendicant Orders of Christendom. Converted to the observance of
the precepts, they could only, as long as they continued in the world,
be sustained by a very faint and far-off hope of deliverance.
Theoretically they might attain to sainthood, and from “this shore” of
common life, in most exceptional cases they might “pass across the
dominion of death,” and reach to the other shore.[312] The father of
Buddha is said to have done so on his deathbed, and another is recorded
in the legends as having gained Nirvana.[313] As a rule, however, it was
reckoned impossible for them to gain what was considered as so barely
possible for the Order of Mendicants, that only one or two even of them
did actually gain it here. Pious votaries, however, could hope for a
happy re-birth, and for strength of merit to be acquired; in some
hereafter sufficient to enable them eventually to pluck the fruit of
Nirvana. For such lay associates no ceremony of initiation was required;
only in presence of a monk the candidates made profession that they took
refuge in Buddha and Dharma and Sangha. They had to observe certain
precepts and prohibitions; had to renounce any trade involving the
making or selling of arms, or the killing of animals; they had to
abstain from all traffic in and use of intoxicating drinks, and to put
far away from them all falsehood, and theft, and unchastity. To seal
this, however, no formal vow was demanded of the votary, and to maintain
them in their obedience no pastoral supervision was accorded. When they
transgressed, even in the matter of scandalous living, there was neither
censure nor discipline, and when they offended by injuring the Order or
insulting one of its members, the only penalty inflicted was the refusal
of their invitations to dine, and the withdrawal from them of the
alms-bowl.[314] Into the Uposatha assemblies they dared not intrude, and
from the very slightest share of the business of the Order they were
strictly excluded.[315] They could only listen to the preaching of the
monks, whom they could feed, and lodge, and endow with houses and lands;
and all the reward they could hope for, was the prospect of acquiring in
some future life merit sufficient to enable them to renounce the world
and become mendicants like them. For the present they were not inside,
but only about, the circle of the Sakkya-putta-Samanas; he was not a
member of the family, but only a servitor and a slave.[316] The elect,
the disciples in deed and in truth, the heirs of salvation, were
exclusively the monks; and the Upâsaka at the best was one for whom it
was good “continuously to dispense rice milk, and honey lumps, if he had
a longing for joy, whether he desired heavenly joy or coveted only human
prosperity,”[317] His merit was most likely to be acquired by being
useful to the good, who served him by accepting his offerings,[318] and
taught him—though to a purpose undreamed of by St. Paul when he quoted
his Saviour’s saying—that in his case, at least, it was “more blessed to
give than to receive.”
It is to the lasting honour of Buddha that he converted the Sangha into
a propaganda for preaching to all his way of salvation. He did not, for
he could not, conceive of that better society which our Lord has created
in the Holy Catholic Church. It is true, alas! that the actual or
visible Church has often caricatured, and has never yet properly
represented, its Lord’s ideal; but it has never been permitted wholly to
lose sight of that Kingdom whose citizenship is free to all who believe
and repent, and of that royal priesthood of which all are members who
trust in the one sacrifice and prevailing intercession of the Great High
Priest of our profession. If the visible Church has failed to convert,
or even to attract, the members of the Buddhist Sanghas, it is because
of something wrong in its methods, or false in its presentation; for
notwithstanding its failure, it possesses in the great gospel of the
Divine Fatherhood intrusted to its keeping, potentialities for gathering
all mankind into the only brotherhood which will satisfy their
heaven-born aspirations. The manifestation of it may still be a far-off
Divine event, and to bring it about God may employ many agencies other
than those which the Church as at present organised may be willing to
recognise or to use; but once that holy brotherhood is manifested, He
alone will be found at the head of it, who on His way to His agony, and
to the cross on which He was to reveal to the uttermost the love of the
Creator for the human race, paused by the brook Kedron, and made this
supplication mingle with the ripple of its waters and the whispers of
the olives of Gethsemane, “I pray ... that they all may be one, even as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us.”
Footnote 244:
_Sangha_, originally an assembly (of disciples gathered around a Hindu
sage). In Buddhism, the entire fraternity (like the Order of Francis
or Dominic).—Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 176.
Footnote 245:
Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 275.
Footnote 246:
Kullavagga, vi. 2, 3, 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx..
Footnote 247:
Weber, _Indian Literature_, p. 306.
Footnote 248:
Dhammapadda, 141; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.;
Pâtimokkha Sekhiyá Dhammâ, 1, 2, 3, 4; _ibid._ vol. xiii. p. 59.
Footnote 249:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, iii. 65; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.
Footnote 250:
Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, p. 279.
Footnote 251:
Mahavagga, i. 11; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 252:
_Ibid._ i. 12; _ibid._ vol. xiii.
Footnote 253:
_Ibid._ viii. 27. 5; _ibid._ vol. xvii.; Kullavagga, vi. 1. 3; _ibid._
vi. 9. 2; _ibid._ vol. xx.
Footnote 254:
Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 251 _seq._ The doctrine that it bore
nobler fruit is expressly contradicted by some. See Âpastamba, pres.
ii. pat. ix. khan. 23; also pres. ii. pat. ix. k. 24. 15; _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. ii. pp. 156, 159.
Footnote 255:
The way of “Works”—ceremonial and sacrificial religion; the way of
“Faith”—devotion (heart) to the deities without works; the way of
“Knowledge,” or true enlightenment.—Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_,
p. 95.
Footnote 256:
Saint-Hilaire, _Le Bouddha, etc._, p. 152.
Footnote 257:
Not without protest, however, by fathers and doctors of the Church.
See Hermas, _Simil._ v.; Clem. _Strom._ iii.; Tertullian, _De
Jejunio_, p. 123 _seq._; _De Pallio_, p. 181 _seq._
Footnote 258:
Gieseler, _Eccles. Hist._ vol. i. pp. 289 _seq._; Neander’s _Church
Hist._ vol. iii. pp. 305 _seq._
Footnote 259:
Hom. on St. Matth. 69, 70.
Footnote 260:
Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, vol. i. p. 319; Neander’s _Church
History_, vol. iii. pp. 338, 339.
Footnote 261:
Cassian, _Collationes_, ii. 5-8; _De Instit. Monachi_, x.; _De
capitalibus vitiis_, quoted by Farrar, _Lives of the Fathers_, vol.
ii. p. 224; Burton, _Anatomy of Melancholy_, ii. 510.
Footnote 262:
_Monks of the West_, vol. i. p. 27.
Footnote 263:
Sutta Nipâta, 75-81; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. p. ii.
Footnote 264:
Theod. _Eccles. Hist._ lib. iv. cap. 26.
Footnote 265:
“They prayed for the whole world.”—Chrysost. H. 78, _In Johannem_.
Footnote 266:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 317, 318.
Footnote 267:
Mahavagga, viii. 15; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xvii.
Footnote 268:
“I am not aware of any instances in which the pariah of the age is
mentioned as a member of the Order.” “According to Buddhist dogmatics,
a good Sudra or Vaisya could only hope to be re-born as a Kshatrya,
and this clearly indicates that the distinctions of castes had by no
means vanished or become worthless in Buddha’s consciousness”
(_Buddha, etc._, p. 156).
Footnote 269:
Mahavagga, i. 39. 76; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 270:
Christianity does not, as Goethe averred, “prefer what is despised and
feeble,” but as in God’s eyes nothing is despised and abject, so, in
fellowship with the Father, Christ cherished the maimed and lame and
blind, though hated of the soul of the natural man, and this
disposition will ever be a “mark” or “note” of the true Church of
Christ.
Footnote 271:
Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 284; Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures,
1881, p. 155.
Footnote 272:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, pp. 181, 182.
Footnote 273:
_The Scotsman_, August 17th, 1889.
Footnote 274:
E. Burnouf, _Science des Religions_, p. 94.
Footnote 275:
Mahavagga, i. 49. 6.
Footnote 276:
_Ibid._ i. 54. 5; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 277:
Mahavagga, i. 7. 10-15; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 278:
Mahavagga, i. 29.
Footnote 279:
_Ibid._ i. 76. 1-10.
Footnote 280:
_Buddhism_, p. 80; Dr. Rhys Davids states that a new or cloister name
was given on admission, in exchange for the family one (Hibbert
Lectures, p. 39), but Professor Oldenberg alleges that this is
supported only by solitary cases (_Buddha, etc._, p. 353 note).
Footnote 281:
Mahavagga, i. 30. 1-4; also _ibid._ vi. 14. 6; and Kullavagga, vi.
1-2.
Footnote 282:
Mahavagga, i. 78. 1-5.
Footnote 283:
Mahavagga, i. 79. 1-3.
Footnote 284:
Mahavagga, i. 25. 1-24, for the duties of novice to his Upagghâya;
_ibid._ i. 32, Kullavagga, viii. 13, 14, for his duties to his
Âkariya. The duties to both are the same, but the Upagghâya seems to
have been the more important of the two tutors.
Footnote 285:
Dr. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 169.
Footnote 286:
Dhammapada, 200; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.
Footnote 287:
Pâtimokkha; Pakittiyá Dhammâ, 10; said to be because he might kill or
harm some living creature.
Footnote 288:
Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_, p. 95.
Footnote 289:
Kullavagga, v. vi. viii. _passim_; Mahavagga, i. 25. 15.
Footnote 290:
Dhammapada, 141, 142; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. Part i.
Footnote 291:
Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_, pp. 95, 96.
Footnote 292:
Mahavagga, i. 31. 4.
Footnote 293:
Introduction to Dhammapada, _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x. p.
xliv: a long list quoted from the _Northern Scripture_ by Dr. Edkins
in _Chinese Buddhism_.
Footnote 294:
The question was thrice put, “Are ye pure?” Mahavagga, ii. 1-36.
Footnote 295:
See for a specimen the Kullavaga, v. 21; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xx.
Footnote 296:
Bishop of Colombo, in _Nineteenth Century_, July 1888.
Footnote 297:
Mahavagga, iv. 1. 18; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 298:
Weber, _Indische Studien_, x. 118; Metrical translations by Dr. John
Muir, p. 250, where Professor Eggeling is quoted.
Footnote 299:
Mahâ-pagâpati the Gotami, his aunt and nurse (Kullavaga, x. 1) whose
entreaty, through Ananda, led him to found the Order of Bikkhuni,
seems more than a name. Visâkhâ, “the rich and bountiful,” is another
type of votary (Mahavagga, viii. 15).
Footnote 300:
_Buddhist Jataka Stories_, translated by Rhys Davids, pp. 87, 90;
Bigandet, _Life of Gaudama_, old ed., pp. 156, 168.
Footnote 301:
Dhammapada, 284; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.
Footnote 302:
Book of the Great Decease, v. 23; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.
Footnote 303:
Eitel, _Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 10.
Footnote 304:
Kullavagga, x. 1. 3, 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.
Footnote 305:
Clement of Alexandria gives prominence to the value of marriage and of
the family life, _Strom._ vii., _Paedag._ iii. So Tertullian, _Ad
Uxorem_, ii. c. 8.
Footnote 306:
Principal Donaldson, _Contemporary Review_, Sept. 1889.
Footnote 307:
Sir Henry S. Maine, _Early History of Institutions_, p. 341.
Footnote 308:
Kullavagga, x. 1. 6.
Footnote 309:
Kullavagga, x. 1. 27.
Footnote 310:
Pâtimokkha; Pakittiyâ Dhammâ, 6, 7, 27, 66, 67.
Footnote 311:
“You are not, O monks, to bow down before women, to rise up in their
presence, to stretch out your joined hands towards them, nor to
perform towards them those duties that are proper to them (from an
inferior to a superior).”—Kullavagga, x. 3. 1. “Giving honour unto the
wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the
grace of God.”—1 Peter iii. 1-7.
Footnote 312:
Dhammapada, 85, 86; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.
Footnote 313:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 125; Spence Hardy,
_Eastern Monachism_, p. 199.
Footnote 314:
The bowl was “turned down” in relation to him, and his house became an
unlawful resort.—Kullavagga, v. 20. 3; _Sacred Books of the East_,
vol. xx.
Footnote 315:
Sir Monier Williams states that though votaries did not confess to
monks, the four days were observed by them.—_Buddhism_, p. 84.
Footnote 316:
Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 162 note.
Footnote 317:
Mahavagga, vi. 24. 1-6.
Footnote 318:
Kullavagga, vi. 1-5; _ibid._ vi. 4. 10.
LECTURE VI.
THE TWO RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.
I.—External Diffusion.
In His apostles, and the disciples who gathered round them, endowed with
the memory of His words and deeds, two simple sacraments, and a promise
that He would be with them to the end of the æon, while they fulfilled
His commission to evangelise and baptize all nations in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the continuance of the
Church which our Lord had founded was secured. Buddha left behind him
neither sacrament to signify and seal the benefits which he had
conferred, nor any promise of personal fellowship with or interest in
his followers; but he was survived by the Monastic Order which he had
founded, by a law containing the essentials of his system, and a form of
discipline containing the customs to be observed in their assemblies,
and the rules to which all the brethren were to be subject. Though the
personal guide to Nirvana was lost to them, they still in the law
possessed his way to it, and by observing the law, and following his
way, they would fulfil his last stirring exhortation,[319] “Be ye lamps
unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves, O monks.”
So much importance being attached to the law, his disciples, immediately
after his decease, according to the tradition, set about collecting the
materials of it, in his remembered discourses, decisions, and in all
that he said; and this labour of recalling, determining, and
perpetuating his teaching seems to have occupied them for several
generations. There is no trace of any corresponding anxiety on the part
of the Christian Church to collect the words of the Lord Jesus. The
Gospels are not the earliest of our scriptures, and they were produced
more for the edification of Jewish and Gentile converts, than to secure
for the Church a standard of belief and of discipline. The function of
the Church was not so much to recall and perpetuate the teaching of its
Lord as to interpret the significance of His life, and death, and
resurrection. No written or remembered instructions were required, for
the apostles believed that they had Himself to tell them on every
occasion what they should do and teach. From the very first they prayed
to Him in full assurance that He heard and answered them. They believed
that He had shown Himself to some of them, and that He was witnessed for
in all of them by a new possession. The Gentile world had been familiar
with the μανία of the medium through whom a Divine oracle was supposed
to be given, and with the _rabies_ of the howling priests of the goddess
Cybele, but the Christians professed to be inspired by the πνεῦμα ἅγιον.
In some instances this inspiration manifested itself in extravagant
forms and in mysterious utterances,[320] but those who were most under
its control had complete possession of themselves; their speech was
intelligible, and sober, and most convincing, making “manifest the
secrets of the heart.”
Unquestionably this belief in the presence of Christ in the
Spirit—whether truly founded or not—was universal in the Church. All
the utterances of primitive Christianity, the scriptures of its
apostles, the treatises of its fathers and doctors, and all the
monuments of the first ages, bear witness not to a Christ who once
lived and had died, but who was living triumphant and glorified,
reigning for them, and in them to reign. Unquestionably also in this
belief was the hiding of that power which enabled the Church to
confront the whole world, endure the full weight of its persecutions,
and finally win the victory over it. It also explains the appearance
in the Church, from the first, of that succession of persons who,
because of their strongly marked individualities, gave both direction
and impetus to its progress. Buddhism, though both its southern and
northern scriptures record a patriarchal succession, and though
probably not deficient in highly cultured disciples, seems to have
lacked from the very first men who had genius to organise or intellect
to command its forces. Its own early writings disclose a movement
which very speedily congealed, because ruled only by a remembered law,
interpreted by very adulterated traditions. Christianity represents
quite a different movement; it was not the perpetuation of a system,
but the development of a new inspiration, of a life manifested in
Christ and communicated to all who believed on Him. Consequently it
never was without its heroes, whom it had the power to produce; and
consequently also it never could stiffen into a tradition, for where
its leaders attempted to fix it, in either confession or in ritual, it
was sure to evade them. It has been appropriately described as “the
most changeable of religions,”[321]—mutable in its forms, immutable in
its essence. For Christianity is not a system either of philosophy or
theology; it is a perpetually reforming spirit, fed by faith in One
who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.
Both religions entered the world as missionaries bent upon its
conversion, and though Buddhism was afterwards to eclipse Christianity
in the superficial extent of its conquests, the annals of the primitive
Church record a much more rapid extension. The early development of
Christianity, even taking into account the circumstances which helped or
facilitated its progress, remains one of the marvels of history. In the
New Testament the Church is seen to have gained a footing almost
wherever the waves of the Diaspora had reached. St. Paul found
Christians not only in Rome, but in little Puteoli, and his letters
imply that there were churches in Spain and in southern Gaul. St. Peter
wrote from Babylon to a wide circle of Christian communities gathered
out of the regions of Asia Minor.[322] There seem to have been even then
churches in most of the chief cities, and in a multitude of minor towns
all over the Empire; and there is no reason to distrust the tradition,
that before the last of the apostles fell asleep, the gospel had called
multitudes living far beyond the bounds of the Empire to make good their
citizenship in the kingdom of God.
The churches may have been small in respect of membership, for the rapid
diffusion of Christianity by no means involved the conversion _en masse_
of the people. Facts will hardly bear out the glowing testimony of
Gregory Thaumaturgus, who found in the populous metropolis of a large
province only seventeen Christians, and in twenty-five years reported
that he could find only seventeen heathens.[323] With Gibbon we may have
to discount as “splendid exaggeration” the testimony of Tertullian,
“Hesterni sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus.” Still the direct testimony
of Tacitus as to the multitude of Christians in Rome, the evidence of
the Catacombs, and many other indications, point to the conclusion that
the rapid numerical increase of Christians was as singular as was the
territorial diffusion of their religion. The whole Empire must have been
sensibly leavened, and the converts must for long have been gathered
from other than the lower classes of society, before the conversion of
Constantine became possible. Emperors—even Roman ones—follow in such
matters, and do not lead their subjects; and so we may be sure what had
at first been glad tidings to the slaves and the poor must for some time
have become the consolation of many a noble Pudens and Linus, and of
many a Claudia of royal descent, before it could be recognised as the
religion of the State.[324]
Many circumstances undoubtedly contributed to this result. A
consolidated empire, with nearly all the representative nations fused
into a union, comprising all the existing elements of culture and forces
of civilisation; the great Roman highways, with means of easy
communication so abundant as to be surprising to us; the widespread
understanding of the two leading languages, making virtually of one
speech a great section of the most important part of the world; the
innumerable communities of Jews, everywhere tolerated, and “cutting
channels through the adamantine mass of heathen society,”[325] immensely
aided the missionary activities of the apostles and their followers.
Moreover, the moral and religious condition of the Empire, the
bankruptcy of the old faith, the despair and confusion and perplexity of
people, everywhere seeking mightier or better deities than they knew,
everywhere trembling “between the two immensities of terror,” rendered
possible the victory of Christianity. Multitudes were thus prepared to
welcome a Deliverer who had come in the name, not of Jupiter Maximus
Tonans, but of the Father in heaven, to give peace in this world’s
tribulations, and sure hope of joy in the world beyond it.[326] And yet
all this, even when added to Gibbon’s five causes, will not account for
the historical puzzle, that a faith, originating in a manger in a Syrian
cattle-shed, brooded over for thirty years of a life of poverty and
toil, preached for three, with the result of being almost universally
rejected, and quenched to all appearance in the blood of crucifixion,
should immediately after the death of its Founder have broken out all
over the Roman world. Converting its agents from farms, and harbours,
and prisons, it called them to martyrdom; for it sent them—poor
“weavers, and shoe-makers, and fullers, and illiterate clowns”—to
proclaim “barbarous dogmas,” and “extravagant hopes,” “universally
detested” by Jew and Gentile, and to bear the full weight of a prolonged
series of persecutions involving indescribable tortures and
disgrace.[327] Yet somehow it never paused for a moment, never abated
one iota of its claim, till in the course of a few generations it was
found upon the throne. We never will explain this wonder by showing how,
as a system of ethics, or as a new theory of life, it found the
condition of the world favourable to its reception. The correlation of
the state of the world to the new faith has been claimed as
providential,—an indication of a Divine purpose making all things work
together, for this manifestation of a new power or principle of life in
society, which as yet has had no historical counterpart.[328]
The early scriptures of Buddhism, though preserving a tradition that in
twelve years from the time in which the doctrine was first preached it
had spread over sixteen kingdoms, disclose no such rapidity of
diffusion. The kingdoms referred to are not to be regarded as kingdoms
in our sense of the word, for in extent and influence they would not
equal a German principality, and were probably only tribal communities.
After the death of Buddha the many Sanghas that had arisen seem to have
suffered for lack of a central governing power. If his Order is to be
called a Church, it had manifestly no church-government. It had synods,
and assemblies, and councils, but not one with the authority of an
Œcumenical as representative of the whole. It was more Congregational
than Presbyterian in its constitution, and for this very reason it was
weak when compared with the compact organisation of Brahmanism, with
which it competed for supremacy. Disorder and dissension are traceable
in it from the first, and the early texts, though containing many
admonitions against schism, warnings that offences must come, and woes
upon those who would cause them, record no practical steps to prevent or
remedy them.[329] Vigorous expansion was consequently not to be looked
for, and for two centuries we may safely infer that Buddhism represented
only a struggling sect, which, beyond the limits in which it was first
preached, had made little, if indeed any, progress.
At the close of this period, when its literature was reaching a
canonical form, and its manuals of discipline and common order were
generally in use, it found its Constantine in the conqueror
Chandragupta. In opposition to the Brahmans, who despised him for his
low-caste origin, he seems to have lifted it from obscurity into the
sunshine of really imperial favour. His grandson Asoka, who consolidated
his conquests, proved its Theodosius, in not only greatly endowing it,
but in establishing its supremacy. There were no quarrels between him
and the Sanghas as to their independence, as afterwards between the
Emperors and the Popes, for, like a true son of the Church, he
acknowledged their authority. By obeying in appearance, he in reality
became, what Buddhism since the death of its founder sorely needed, the
head of the system, and under his wise and energetic rule, the religion
emerged into a vigour which it was to maintain for centuries.
An earnest Buddhist, he seems to have been something better. He called
himself Pryadarsi,[330] the “beloved of the gods,” and a Daniel indeed
he appears to have been, raised up for the blessing of millions. His
edicts—stone inscriptions found all over India—the first written
testimonies which Buddhism left of itself,[331] all breathe a lofty
spirit of righteousness and kindness and toleration, appealing to both
Brahman and Buddhist, and commending themselves at this day, “to Jew and
Christian and Moslem alike, as part of the universal religion of
humanity.”[332] One of them refers to a council which he assembled at
Patna, for the pacification and reformation of the Order. During its
session the ancient collections of rules and dogmas were rehearsed, and
as the list is considerably shorter than the contents of the Tripitaka,
we may be sure that the Southern tradition that Buddha himself was the
author of all the books comprising that collection has no foundation in
fact.[333] A far more momentous act of this ancient council than the
recension of the canon, was that of establishing the first great
Buddhist missions. To a revived and reformed Order the suggestion of the
pious king, that they should go forth and fulfil their great teacher’s
original commission, was welcome. Their dissensions, as has often
happened in Christendom, were due to their living to themselves. An army
inactive in quarters, is more likely to quarrel or mutiny than one in
service in the field. These good Buddhists wisely determined to carry
the war of deliverance beyond them, and so into the Punjab, Kashmir, the
Central Himalayan regions, over into the Malay Peninsula, went the
missionaries, armed only with the words of the Law or the legends which
had been floating round the memory of their master, and supported only
by the offerings put into their alms-dish, to gain whatever victories
they could in the fair conflict of reason with reason.[334]
In India they would of course be supported by imperial influence, and
indeed the mission to Ceylon, headed by Mahinda, the son of Asoka, seems
to have been accredited by royal embassy; but nowhere was Buddhism
propagated as Islam subsequently was by Mohammed, or as Christianity was
by Charlemagne, with an army at its back. Races ever ready to credit the
supernatural would probably be more easily won by the wonders which were
then being formulated in reference to Buddha; but whatever be the
explanation of it, the success of these missionaries anticipated that of
the apostles. In Ceylon there was founded a Sangha, which was destined
to nurse and preserve the original creed in somewhat of its purity, when
all the others betrayed and corrupted it. Surviving several changes of
dynasty, that Sangha, 330 years after Buddha’s decease, is said to have
reduced its canon to writing. The result has been somewhat contradictory
to the theory, that it matters very little whether a canon be oral or
written, for Southern Buddhism, having an authority to which it was thus
earlier anchored, has held more closely to the original system, from
which, having no such check for long, every section of Northern Buddhism
has irrecoverably fallen away.
After the death of Asoka, the empire which he sought to consolidate by
the preaching of the Law fell to pieces, and Buddhism was destined to be
tested by more than one rude shock. A Brahman reaction took place, which
is even supposed to have resulted in the persecution of all Buddhists
living in India. If so, it was the first which the religion
encountered—so unlike Christianity, which had to endure for three
centuries the fierce assaults of its enemies. Persecution by a religion
so tolerant as Brahmanism is hard to conceive, but if it took place at
this period, it only tended, as in the early Christian trials, to the
wider expansion of the persecuted faith. “They that were scattered
abroad went everywhere preaching” the Law. Some of them pushed through
Afghanistan into the regions of Central Asia, and there, just as
Ulphilas and Severinus, centuries later, gained a hold over the wild
races that conquered the moribund Empire, so Buddhist missionaries
succeeded in sowing the seeds of their Law among the rude Scythian
tribes, who were then in great commotion in their vast inland steppes.
Driven from their ancestral homes, a branch of the great tribe of Huns
about 160 B.C. overthrow the Bactrian kingdom, and after generations of
struggle they conquered Kashmir, the Punjab, and a considerable part of
India. Then just as the Goths and Huns, in the moment of their conquest
of Rome, tendered their submission to Christianity, so the conversion of
Kaniska, the greatest of the Indo-Scythian kings, a contemporary with
Augustus and Antony, enabled Buddhism to enter with fresh vigour upon a
second period of very brilliant supremacy.[335]
Though the difference between the Northern and Southern Buddhists was
already showing itself, and though soon after it manifested itself in a
divergence as complete as that which sundered the Greek Orthodox from
the Latin Catholic Churches, monumental evidence, harmonising with that
derived from its own literary relics, indicates that for four or five
centuries after this Buddhism was most successfully propagated almost
everywhere save in India. In the land of its origin it was gradually
declining, because drawing nearer to the Brahmanism from which it had
seceded. Fa-Hian in the end of the fourth century, though describing it
as dominant everywhere, found the place of its nativity only a
wilderness.[336] Later on, the viharas were deserted, the dagobas in
ruins, “the monks were few, the heretics many,” and by the seventh
century the process of assimilation with and absorption into Hinduism
was in India, save in widely separated and remote localities, almost
complete. What it lost in India, however, it was to gain in other
directions. Its greatest conquest was in China. In the days of Asoka
eighteen missionaries are said to have reached China, where they are
held in reverence to this day, their images occupying a conspicuous
place in every temple. The faith which they introduced seemed to have
struggled with very little success to gain a footing till about A.D.
68.[337] Thirteen years before this date, in obedience to a vision which
appeared to him at Troas, St. Paul brought Christianity from Asia to
Europe. On the thirtieth day of the twelfth Chinese month in A.D. 68,
the Emperor Mingti, in consequence of a dream, sent ambassadors to the
distant West for Buddhist monks and manuscripts.[338] Travelling in
almost royal state, the invited missionaries were accorded in China a
welcome in marvellous contrast to the reception of the Christian apostle
in the first colonial city he had reached. From this time onwards a
perpetual succession of monks and manuscripts entered China; yet, though
tolerated from the first, and often royally patronised, centuries
elapsed before it succeeded in winning a place as one of the three
religions of China, while Christianity, persecuted from the first,
succeeded after a fierce struggle in conquering the Empire of Rome, and
then by a long process in evangelising Europe.
The conversion of the most of Eastern Asia was the work of the Northern
or more corrupt Buddhism. Southern Buddhism, like the orthodox Eastern
Church, which contented itself with its evangelistic achievements among
the Goths, and its Nestorian missions, soon exhausted its propagative
force. The introduction of the religion into Burma, Siam, and the
adjacent kingdoms, may be said to sum up its triumphs. Northern
Buddhism, on the other hand, ran from the beginning of our era a course
of unchecked triumphs. In the close of the fourth century it spread from
China to Corea, and in the sixth it reached Japan. Previous to this it
entered the isolated regions of Tibet, more welcomed than resisted by
the demonolatrous inhabitants on account of the adulterated form in
which it presented itself. There, after a struggle for some two
centuries, it succeeded, about the period when Islam was beginning its
conquests elsewhere, in securing strong royal support. After
experiencing for many generations the vicissitudes of popularity and
persecution, the conquests of Genghiz, and the strong favour of Kublai,
his greatest successor, established its hierarchy as supreme, and in
spite of changes of dynasty, it has there dominated the whole relations
of life in a manner like unto, but to an extent far beyond, the wildest
dreams of Rome’s most ambitious Pope.[339]
It thus appears that Buddhism in the second period of its history, and
after it had succeeded in winning the support of powerful kings, reached
its furthest extension and achieved its grandest conquests.
Christianity, on the other hand, was more rapidly diffused in the
primitive than in the subsequent ages. Tested by its intensive hold upon
the nations, it had only nominally converted the Roman Empire by the end
of the fourth century. Gibbon’s estimate of the number of Christians
within it, is acknowledged by friendly authorities,[340] like Bishop
Lightfoot, to err if at all on the side of excess. During the reign of
Constantine, probably not a twentieth of the whole population of the
Empire were Christians, even by profession. After this period, no doubt,
the proportion must have greatly increased, for the barbarous hordes
that poured downwards in successive deluges over the South were
converted so suddenly and so silently that “scarce a legend remains to
tell the tale.” In regard, however, to the conversion of heathen Europe,
it is a mistake to suppose that the missionaries had only to come, and
see, and conquer. The conversion of England by the Roman monks, and of
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales by Oriental and, it is said, Arian
missionaries, cannot be said to have been accomplished before the close
of the seventh century. Afterwards, the conversion of Central and
Northern Germany occupied the Celtic and British missionaries for two
centuries. The conversion of the Scandinavians, beginning in the ninth,
could not be said to have been effected till the middle of the eleventh
century, while that of Slavonia, undertaken in the tenth, did not
terminate, if indeed even then, before the sixteenth century. The
conquest of Europe was the result of a prolonged and often desultory
warfare, in which, while the advance was slow, Christianity sometimes
failed to hold the ground which it had gained. The powerful Churches in
Asia, the seats of its great Councils and the capitals of its rule,
either died or were swept away; Antioch and Constantinople, once its
citadels, became the strongholds of an alien and hostile faith; the
mighty Churches of Egypt and Abyssinia dwindled into a condition of
immedicable disease, and the flourishing Church of Africa, with its more
than six hundred bishoprics, was simply, because ripe for destruction,
obliterated by the forces of Islam. Toward the latter half of the tenth
century it seemed as if Christianity in Europe was surely following the
fate of Buddhism before its disappearance from India. On all sides it
was pressed in the deadly grip of Pagan and Moslem alike, while its
bishops, and priests, and nobles, oblivious of the danger, were living
in sinful self-indulgence. It seemed as if Christendom was being surely
blotted out from the geography of the world; and yet as by a miracle it
survived, or was preserved, till came the Renaissance, and that
marvellous emergence of missionary zeal, which sent Christianity,
Reformed and Unreformed, to the very ends of the earth, and which,
increasing in every generation since then, was never more abundant nor
more fervent than now.[341]
Christianity, unlike Buddhism, came very early into collision with the
most advanced civilisation and highest culture of the world, while
Buddhism for centuries encountered only the religions of inferior
peoples. The only equal or superior civilisation which it met was that
of China, and there, though tolerated and even patronised from the
first, it seems for centuries to have been regarded as an exotic.
Natives of India, like the Jews in the Roman Empire, were allowed to
build Buddhist temples, but only in the fourth century A.D. did Chinese
people begin extensively to be converted to the Buddhist religion. As it
rose into favour its conflicts with the Confucianists began, and the
issue of its varied fortunes has been, that though indirectly it has
greatly influenced, it has only subdued a section of the Chinese
people.[342] While other inferior races came quickly under its
influence, the most civilised of Eastern peoples resisted it, and have
at most only been leavened by it.[343] Christianity had also its easy
conquests, as when some northern tribes were converted in a day by the
baptism of their chiefs; but its principal struggle with the historic
Paganism of aristocratic Rome was fierce and obdurate. There the
position, as in the case of Hinduism to-day, was not carried by assault,
but by slow and almost imperceptible approaches. The Church at Rome for
two centuries was more a Greek than a Latin one. The names of its
bishops were Greek, and the Catacomb inscriptions sufficiently indicate
that Greek was the language of its members. Slowly and indirectly,
however, it gained the hold upon ancient thought and custom, operating
like an alterative in the system, supplanting what was good, by simply
taking possession of it and inspiring it with a new life, while that
which was decaying and waxing old gradually vanished away.
In this respect, therefore, there is a significant difference between
the two religions. Christianity, with all the world against it, and in
spite of three centuries of unparalleled persecutions, succeeded in
vanquishing the highest, while yet approving itself as a gospel to the
lowest civilisation. Buddhism, with the greatest powers of the Eastern
world in its favour, and never, perhaps, save in China, called to bear
the shock of a single persecution, has only succeeded in being accepted
by inferior branches of the human race. The Hindu Aryans, assimilating
what of it they approved, rejected what of it was peculiar and
distinctive. The Semitic followers of Islam simply crushed it under
foot, and it never rose high enough even to touch the Western
Aryans.[344] Very early it withdrew itself entirely within the circles
of the Turanian peoples; and if to-day in Mongolia, Manchuria, among the
Kalmucs on the Wolga, and the Bunjads on the shores of the Baikal Sea,
it may be said to be advancing, the most competent authorities assure us
that everywhere else its progress is arrested, and that, even where it
is most upheld by local governments, in the regions of its most dominant
supremacy, it yields manifest signs of decay.[345]
Another and even more significant contrast is found in the fact that the
advance of Christianity has ever been farthest and most rapid when its
faith was purely taught and most consistently illustrated. It never
sought peace with other religions without being defeated, and never
allied itself with superstition without bringing shame and disaster on
all concerned. It has had its periods of deterioration and defection,
but somehow it has always survived them. Indeed, its vitality is as
truly indicated by the corruptions which it has outlived, as by the
external opposition which it has vanquished. Its real conquests are due
to the expansive power of its inherent and original principles. The very
opposite is the case with Buddhism. Its fundamental principles being
unnatural and repugnant to the essential instincts of mankind, it was
from the very first a morbid growth, having in it the seeds of decay. It
never could have lived in the strength of its own principles, and so the
story of its advance is one of perpetual compromise with every popular
superstition that it met. The more it assimilated itself to them, the
more it seemed to grow; but as foreign influences took possession of it,
its own life oozed out of it, till very early it represented a system so
perverted that its founder would have repudiated and abhorred it. The
Church has often travestied Christianity, but it never fell from the
faith so fearfully as Buddhism has everywhere fallen from the original
doctrine of Buddha. Religion, worship, even the purest, he intended by
his system to supersede, and now his name is employed to support the
grossest of all superstitions,[346] a religion with more idols in it
than that of the most idolatrous of peoples, a worship founded on the
efficacy of magical incantations, and of prayers rendered by machines.
Just for this very reason its
II.—Internal History
is very instructive, and we shall now proceed to consider a few of its
most salient points.
Buddhism, in a quiet land and tranquil age, was launched upon the world
as a new theory of life—a system so rounded off and completed that its
disciples had no other duty than that of believing, obeying, and
propagating it. Christianity, on the other hand, began its career amid
the convulsions of political revolution, and for three centuries of
conflict it had to fight every inch of its way. It was not, however, as
a new system that it appeared in history, but as a new principle of
life, round which all the moral, and spiritual, and intellectual
energies which it found in mankind, and all which itself might awaken,
might form and gather strength. It was impossible, therefore, that it
ever could remain stationary. Its apostles were commissioned to carry on
all that their Lord had “begun both to do and to teach.” He distinctly
promised them increase of knowledge and power from on high, and all the
changes which increase or growth implies. To-day His religion could no
more be made to return to the form in which it was manifested eighteen
centuries ago than man could be made to put on the clothes of his
childhood. Its development, however, is that of its inherent life,
manifesting all the continuity and identity of the sapling with the
tree, of the boy with the man. Like all growing things, it has been
subject to disease by contagion and infection, but it has always
preserved life in sufficient volume to slough off its impurities and to
pass onward through reformation to health. Now, the history of Buddhism,
on the contrary, reveals only a long process of degradation, without
having manifested any power as yet to recover and to reform itself
according to its original and essential principles.[347]
The offspring of Brahmanism, from which it differed more in degree than
in substance, at no period of its history did it succeed in completely
disentangling itself from it. Not only did the forms of the old religion
cling to it; its very life was continued in the new. While Buddha
rejected all the sacrificial rites and religious observances of
Brahmanism, and preached a law subversive of all its faith in
revelation, he accepted and continued its ascetism and its hope of
deliverance by a process of meditation and of abstraction. It was by
himself, therefore, and not by his cousin Dêvadatta,[348] that the
heretic leaven was introduced into the lump. Dêvadatta’s attempted
changes were not innovations, but a return to the primitive rule, a
logical deduction from a law which Gotama never wholly rejected. Just as
to the patriarchs of the Greek, the Western or Romish Church “is the
chief heresy of latter days,” just as the Pope was branded in their
Encyclical of 1848 “as the first founder of German Rationalism,”[349] so
the successive advances and orthodox decisions of the Buddhist Councils
were denounced as apostasies by men like Dêvadatta. Still these changes
were due in great measure to the beliefs which Buddhism had inherited,
for when in the inevitable rebound from its unnatural Nihilism the
theistic movement set in, the spirit of Brahmanism, which had passed
into it at the first, began to assert itself, and, interpenetrating it
more and more, prepared it for that issue in which, blending with the
popular forms in which Brahmanism was then expressing itself, Buddhism
merged into the composite system of Hinduism which confronts us in India
to-day.
In Christianity, as in nature, the grafting of the good stock upon the
wild conquered the wild. Christ took nothing from Judaism but the
universalism of its prophets, its faith in one living and true God, the
Heavenly Father of multitudes whom Abraham was ignorant of, and Israel
did not acknowledge. His apostles, judged by the literature which they
have bequeathed, seem faithfully to have carried out His principles; but
many of their converts were strict Jews, who insisted upon some visible
connection with the old religion. Just as Dêvadatta, their prototype,
held that a true Buddhist must first be a good Brahman in respect of
asceticism, so they insisted that Christians were debtors to keep what
of the old law was expressed in circumcision, and the observance of
certain other commandments and ordinances. The danger of Christianity
being reduced to the bondage of the old was serious, but the inspiration
of St. Paul, the providential destruction of the nation, and the
marvellous spread of the religion among the Gentiles, eventually
overcame it. The spirit of Judaism, it is true, has never been wholly
cast out from the Christian Church. All through its history it is
traceable in one form or another of the ritualism and asceticism which,
like Brahmanism, it may be held to represent. There have been times when
it has attained to portentous and pernicious influence, and such times
may happen again; but from the early days there has always been in
Christianity vitality sufficient to detect and try and condemn it; and
so though Judaism, and even Paganism, to some extent, still taint the
theology and worship of the Church, we need have no fear that the genius
of the old religion will ever gain, as it did in the case of Buddhism,
permanent ascendency over the new.
The opposite of Ritualism and Asceticism, represented by Judaism and
Brahmanism, is the Rationalism which such reforming religions may be
said to beget of themselves; and if its spirit of inquiry be
uncontrolled, it will certainly dissipate their energy. As early as St.
Paul’s day we see Rationalism working upon the development of
Christianity, and necessitating the rise of a theology, which, perhaps
inevitably, has often been confounded with, and, in the estimation of
many, has supplanted the Christian religion. The many sects which
Rationalism produced in the first centuries do not so much indicate
hostility to the new faith, as the mighty ferment through which the
minds of men were passing in regard to it. Now though Buddhist
scriptures manifest rationalistic movements in the Sanghas from the
first, they seem to have proceeded in quite a different direction. Of
conflict as to fundamentals of creed there appears to be very little
trace, but there are abundant indications of considerable controversy as
to practice. The first quarrel traceable in the Christian Church arose
over the peculiar institution of community of goods; and though the
Sanghas avoided that mistake, their earliest troubles were concerning
the possession of property. The original rule enjoined upon the brethren
absolute poverty, and the regulations in regard to food and shelter were
equally stringent. Very soon after Buddha’s decease a reaction set in,
and a feeling began to prevail that his standard of morality and his
ideal of the Order were too lofty for all but exceptional men to
realise. He may have succeeded as the fully Enlightened One, but common
men could not hope to “wind themselves so high;” so out of consideration
for human infirmity there commenced a constant and increasing relaxation
in their interpretation of his precepts of perfection.[350] The law of
absolute poverty was modified to the extent that property might be held
in common, and the laws regulating diet, dress, and even meditation,
were soon subjected to the same treatment. The wealth which poured in
upon them, and the consequent improvement of their position, was not
followed by corresponding spiritual growth. The more they prospered, the
more the fundamental principles of the Order were neglected, evaded, or
explained away. The friendly conferences of the rainy season gave place
to controversy, and controversy proved so fruitful of schism, that very
early in its career Buddhism is said to have produced eighteen different
sects, ranged in four great divisions. Yet in no one schism seemed there
a great principle to be involved; they were but Pharisee quarrels at
best, in which though they strained out the gnat they swallowed the
camel.[351]
Side by side with this relaxation of the law advanced the growth of the
legends concerning him who first preached it. The further they removed
from his decease, the higher, as was natural, he rose in their esteem.
As one by one the fathers fell asleep, and the early enthusiasm died,
and the law was felt to be more and more burdensome, the less he seemed
to be a man of like passions with themselves, till eventually they came
to regard him as “omniscient and absolutely sinless.”[352] He had taken
away their gods, and disowned their religious cravings. He professed to
find no proper divine being to whom any instinct should attach
itself—yea, in his dissection and analysis of human nature he found no
religious faculty to be relied upon; but he could not unmake his
fellow-men, whose religious instinct education can neither originate nor
eradicate; and so, defrauded of its natural gratification, it inevitably
turned to illegitimate methods of appeasing itself. In the first
instance, it found the objects of its reverence in the relics which
survived him, the law which he preached, and the Order which he founded.
Originally it could not be called worship; it was more an expression of
affectionate homage.[353] But so strong is man’s impulse to worship,
that very early they expressed it in images of Buddha everywhere, though
the images of the Law and of the Order have only been found in the lands
where the Northern Buddhism reigns.
This earliest triad of personalities, called “triratna,” the three gems
or three holies, seems to have been suggested by, and certainly
corresponds with, the primitive triad of deities in the old Indian
Pantheon.[354] It was the first indication of the bankruptcy of
Buddhism, of its failure out of its own resources to meet the religious
wants of its disciples, and it marked only the beginning of a revolt,
which was to issue in complete disavowal of every doctrine essential to
original Buddhism. The religious conscience and common sense which
rebelled against its unnatural atheism, would not long be satisfied with
the worship of the memory of a completely vanished Buddha, or of the
idea of an impersonal Law, or of a miscellaneous Order. So pious
Buddhists turned readily to a doctrine said to be taught by the Master,
and formulated before the settlement of the Southern canon in its
present form, according to which Buddha is not a distinctive name of
just one person, but a title descriptive of a long series of Enlightened
Ones, who, leaving, as he was supposed to have done, the estate of a
Bôdhisatva[355] in the Tushita heavens, appeared at distant intervals to
proclaim the same truth for the deliverance of men and gods. The names
of twenty-four of these Buddhas who preceded Gotama have been handed
down, and the name of his successor, to whom, upon the attainment of
Buddhahood, he transferred his Bôdhisatvaship, and who is to appear
after five thousand years for the rediscovery of the truth, was
announced as Mâitrêya. To this coming one, the Buddha of “kindness and
mercy”—thought to be a personification by some imaginative poet of the
gentle spirit of Buddhism—the thoughts and the hopes of the disciples
turned, and out of this hope arose a doctrinal system, which, expanding
and enlarging by manifold additions as the time went on, showed that
however atheistic the original creed might be, the religion itself had
become polytheistic.[356] To Mâitrêya, in his glorious heavens, the
deliverer of distant generations, prayers ascended, and worship was
rendered by all Buddhists everywhere alike; and out of this cult by far
the largest section of them began to evolve deity after deity, till the
heavens, in which Buddha could find no superior to himself, were crowded
with objects of idolatrous regard.
In this polytheistic development a very great distinction emerged
between the Northern or Mahāyāna and the Southern or Hināyāna system of
Buddhism. How the divergence originated has not been clearly
ascertained, but about the beginning of the Christian era it seems to
have been very manifest, and at that time, when sectarian controversy
and philosophical speculation threatened to rend the system into
fragments, Nâgârdjuna,[357] a monk of Nâlanda, is said to have done for
Northern Buddhism what Gregory and Benedict did for the Western Church.
Under him, and certainly after him, Northern Buddhism, both in respect
of expansive power and of dogmatic and ritualistic development, left
Southern Buddhism far behind it. The Hināyāna, or the “little way” of
deliverance, is believed to have been applied by the Northern, not
without contempt for the Southern school’s arrestment. They did not
profess to contradict the Southern faith: they simply included it, and
advanced in their “great way” beyond it. To the Southern the _summum
bonum_ of life meant Arhatship, for that once attained there would be no
more re-birth. They acknowledged and worshipped only one Bôdhisatva, the
coming Mâitrêya; but the doctors of the North, properly conceiving the
estate of the Bôdhisatva to be nobler than that of Arhat, propounded it
as the goal of aspiration. Arhatship would indeed secure one’s own
deliverance; but Bôdhisatvahood would enable them, as possible coming
Buddhas, to confer the blessings of deliverance upon countless
multitudes. Along with Mâitrêya they discovered many persons who, like
Buddha’s great disciples and their successors, had through merit,
acquired in a long series of lives, taken his Tushita heavens by
violence; but who, unlike him, were under no obligation to quit their
celestial abodes, and proceed through Buddhahood to Nirvana. They might
enjoy their blessedness to the full, and sit beside their nectar without
concern, for they fulfilled every function expected of them in being
objects of worship, to whom mortals could appeal for comfort in sorrow
and help in time of need.
In India, as early as Fa-Hian’s time, and probably earlier in
China,[358] out of these happy gods a new triad was formulated,
receiving such worship as Hindus would render to their later triad of
deities, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva. The title of one of these, Mandjus-ri,
was said to have been the name of the monk who, two hundred and fifty
years after Buddha, introduced the religion into Nepaul, and founded the
system which Nâgârdjuna consolidated.[359] He in this connection is
believed to be the personification of that “wisdom” or “spiritual
insight” which the Northern school valued so highly. Another deity,
Avalôkitês’vara, “the lord who sees from on high,” is supposed to be the
mythical term for that “kindly providence” which watched over the whole
Buddhist world. And Vajra-dhara, “the thunderer,” represented the power
which protected the faithful from the malice of demons. How such a
worship, so contradictory to the doctrines of primitive Buddhism, came
to be introduced and recognised, is a puzzle to all our scholars. Rhys
Davids and Sir Monier Williams are inclined to regard it as suggested by
the second Hindu triad of deities already referred to. Professor Max
Müller[360] considers it to be a graft from the superstitions of some
northern Scythian or Turanian race, while Dr. Beal advances the theory
that it was in all probability introduced from a western monotheistic
religion, either landward through Persia, or by sea from Arabia. However
it came, from this date and onwards, all over the wide extent of
territory covered by it, Buddhism rapidly deteriorated. While the
Southern system was everywhere yielding to the influence of the popular
mythology, and that so unmistakably that it became, wherever it reached,
“the unconscious propagator of Hindu doctrine,” the Northern became a
heterogeneous mixture of all the superstitions which it met. From this
second triad of deities it went on discovering or inventing its five
triads of Dhyâni-Buddhas, among whom Gotama was the emanation of
Avalôkitês’vara, who again was the æon of Amitâbha, “immeasurable
light.” Behind all these again, they professed to find the Adi-Buddha,
the primordial Buddha, who, out of himself, by the exercise of five
meditations, evolved the Five Dhyâni.[361] Each of these again by
“insight” evolved their corresponding æons, who in their turn from out
of their immaterial essence produced a material world. It is as if the
Gnosticism which had broken out in the West long before this time had
also invaded the distant East,[362] and as if its dreams, more
restrained by Western sobriety, were in the East free to produce a
phantasmagoria more confused still. Certainly it is a convincing proof
that, notwithstanding its rich ethical sources, the essential principles
of Buddhism had no inherent propagative power. For just as it had to
return from its atheism to the deities which it had discarded, so it had
to substitute for its Nihilism the Western Paradise, where, beyond the
confines of the world, the pious Buddhist at last hopes to join the one
Supreme Amitâbha, and millions of blessed Buddhas discoursing upon all
things good, in a state in which there is no sorrow, and, “strangest to
say, no Nirvana.”[363]
The more these imaginary deities increased, the more must the earnest
moral teachings of Buddha have been obscured. The discovery of the
Bôdhisatvas opened the way to a rapid declension from primitive
self-culture to a system of “voluntary humility.” Discipleship became
easier in proportion as the worship of these shadowy creations extended.
It is much easier to idolise than obey, to say, “Lord, Lord,” than to do
the thing which he commands. This falling away from the high Buddhist
rule of self-control, proceeding step by step with the growth of the
legends, is just an illustration of the tendency in every religion to
allow the ethical and metaphysical elements so to drift asunder, that
instead of being one in holy wedlock they become thoroughly and
irreconcilably opposed.
It was inevitable in Buddhism that morality, considered essential to
self-rescue, should be supplanted by that debasing belief in the
efficacy of rites which the system was launched to destroy. Its founder
went to the unnatural extreme of ignoring man’s craving for
reconciliation. He had no faith in Divine forgiveness, or in the grace
of repentance, and he never wearied of pouring contempt upon sacrifice
and prayer. No Hebrew prophet could be more severe in his scorn of
useless rites; but then the Hebrew believed in the efficacy of one
sacrifice, a “heart broken by sorrow,” for sin not as a misfortune or a
folly, but as an offence to a Holy Being who was ready to forgive, and
to be pleased with the worship of a will surrendered in gratitude and in
love. Very early in his history man has indicated his sense of
alienation from God in his endeavours to discover an atonement. The
instinctive sense of wrong relations to the powers that govern life has
been liable to fearful perversion, but Buddha, with all his
denunciation, could not destroy it, nor reason men out of it. He could
induce some to withdraw their imploring cries and glances from the gods,
but he could not sweep the heavens clean of them. Belief in the
existence[364] of gods, and demons, and fairies, and charms against
ill-luck, was strong in his disciples from the first; and when an object
of worship was recognised and allowed, an elaborate ritual of worship,
and latterly of propitiation, was rapidly developed. In Northern
Buddhism this recoil was most extreme, for there, especially in Nepāl
and Tibet, belief in the efficacy of rites deteriorated into belief in
spells and incantations, till it issued in the Tantra system—a mixture
of magic and sorcery whose abominable doctrines, Burnouf, out of very
loathing, refused to translate to us.[365] Christianity has had many
corrupters, who have never scrupled to propose or to accept any
compromise with heathenism at all calculated to strengthen the power of
the priesthood, but it never had its Âsanga,[366] who cleverly succeeded
in reconciling the demonolatry of the people of Nepāl and Tibet with the
acceptance of the Buddhist system. This he did by placing their male and
female devils in the inferior heavens as worshippers of Buddha and
Avalôkitês’vara, and by thus making it possible for the half-savage
tribes to bring their sacrifices, even of blood, to their congenial
shrines, and under cover of allegiance to the priests of the new to
continue the old hideous idolatry.
This discovery of Âsanga’s is said to have secured the rapid extension
of the Buddhist hierarchy in these half-barbarous regions; but the
hierarchy itself indicated a complete reversal of the primitive
constitution of the Order. Buddha endeavoured to emancipate his
fellow-men from faith in the efficacy of a priesthood to mediate between
men and Deity, or to secure deliverance. He never dreamed that either
temple or priest would arise in his system; but the temple grew
naturally out of the dagoba and the relics which it enshrined, and the
priesthood as naturally was evolved from the Sthavira or senior Bikkhu.
In Southern Buddhism the priest is more like a Protestant minister of
religion than like a priest in the Romish sense of the word; but in
Northern Buddhism, and especially in that form of it dominant in Tibet,
the people from the seventh century have been completely under the power
of the Lamas who alone can work out their salvation. With the exception
of a short interval of neglect and persecution, a hierarchy marvellously
similar to, and no doubt in some respects suggested by, that of Romish
Christianity, has completely controlled all the relations of life,[367]
with the terrible result that cruelty and immorality most abhorrent to
the good and gentle Buddha have been permitted to assert themselves
unopposed, though a devotee who slaughters his fellow-men in cold blood
will shudder with horror if by accident he should tread upon a worm or
crush an over-irritating flea.[368]
Only once in that region has it experienced any attempt at reform. In
the fourteenth century, when the policy of the Ming dynasty in reducing
the predominance of any one sect had prepared the way for him,
Tsong-Kapa, “the Tibetan Luther,” endeavoured to effect a revival of the
primitive rules of the Order, and succeeded in restoring something of
the ancient simplicity in dress, the celibacy of the priests, the
fortnightly confession, the season of yearly retreat, and the invitation
ceremony at its close. He set his face also against the Shamanism of the
Tantra system, adhered to the purer forms of the earlier Mahāyāna
school, and succeeded in creating a new sect, whose leaders in the
fifteenth century were by the Chinese Emperor recognised as titular
lords over the Church and tributary rulers over the State, under the
titles of Dalai Lāma and Pantshen Lāma. The dream of Hildebrand or Leo
for the Papacy was for centuries more than realised in the Lāmaism of
Tibet, for the Lamas are more than Popes, being re-incarnations of
Avalôkitês’vara and of his father Amitabha, who never die, but at the
act of dying transfer themselves into another body, born at that very
moment, to be found in it in due time through a procedure, according to
lot, never yet known to fail. When discovered, he has, however, to be
accepted after the Erastian fashion by the Chinese Government or its
representative, who, with the Desi or Regent, must also be present when
the final lot is drawn.[369]
Never under the Papacy, even in the times when its pretensions were most
extravagant, and its power was most unchecked, has Christianity
deteriorated so fearfully as Buddhism has done in Nepāl and Tibet. Not
even in the Abyssinian—the most degraded of all the Churches that have
worn the name of Christ, in respect of its incorporation of old Jewish
rites and Egyptian superstitions—can we find the contrivance of the
prayer-wheel, or the poles with their silken flags blazoned with the six
sacred syllables, “om mani padme hum,”[370] fluttering their supposed
incantations to the heavens. Buddhism’s ages of worship have been only a
long sad history of degradation, of perpetual falling from bad to
worse.[371] The higher the worship of Buddhists for the founder of their
system has risen, the more have they fallen from his virtue; but in
Christianity the ages of strongest devotion to Christ have ever been the
periods of progress. The more intense man’s reverence for Christ has
been, the loftier has been the standard of virtue attained. Worship and
pursuit of holiness have gone hand in hand, and we cannot conceive of a
life truly offered up in adoration of Christ ever proving immoral or
impure.
The story of Buddhism in India, where without much resistance it yielded
to the seductions of Vishnaism and Sivaism, the record of its conquests
in the surrounding countries, and especially in those just referred to,
present few and slight analogies to the history of Christianity; but the
story of Buddhism in China as related by those most competent to testify
of the changing forms which it assumed from the fourth century onwards,
is significantly akin to that of Christianity after it became the
religion of the Empire. China, unlike India, had before the Christian
era a very ancient history, marked by distinct epochs. Its annals, even
of the eighth century B.C., seem to reflect a civilisation similar to
that of Europe in the thirteenth century A.D. Two thousand years B.C.
the Chinese are said to have attained to an idea of Deity somewhat
equivalent to the El Elion of Melchizedek.[372] Shangti, the highest of
all spirits to whom the people sacrificed, was the Creator, Preserver,
and Governor of the world, unapproachable by the sinner, but merciful to
all penitents; and in this idea of God, and in the morality which sprang
from it, we have the secret of that social and political progress whose
arrestment and decay Confucius lamented. Living in a degenerate age, he
laboured earnestly as a reformer of personal morality and social order;
but, departing himself from the ancestral faith in a Supreme Ruler of
nature and man, “respecting, but keeping aloof, as he said, from all
spiritual beings,” expressively silent as to the future, and refusing to
present motives of conduct drawn from consideration of it, his vigorous
ministry, conducted for many years in many of the States, could only
have the effect of preparing the way for a real regeneration of society.
He had great faith in man, as born good, with an innate moral faculty
which only contact with the world and the delusion of the senses prevent
from making him virtuous. Man was made for society, and the five
relations of which society consists—that of ruler and subject, husband
and wife, parent and child, elder brother and younger, and friend and
friend—were Divine ordinances. His standard of personal righteousness
and social purity, his strong faith in the power of example, his golden
rule, “_What you would not like to have done to yourself, do not to any
other_,”[373] his demand, as urgent as was that of Isaiah or
Socrates,[374] that language should be used ever with scrupulous care to
express only the thing that is, have gone far to form, with beneficial
ethical results, the ordinary Chinese character. His ignoring of
personal Deity, only referred to under the vague term Heaven, and of the
future of man, could not long arrest the degeneracy of society or purge
out the secret vices burrowing beneath its surface. If Buddha is to be
regarded in his bold metaphysical speculations as the first of Gnostics,
Confucius in his pure secularism may be designated the first Agnostic,
and the monotonous and stagnant type of humanity which his teaching has
produced may be a warning of the kind of civilisation which the world
may expect should ever philanthropic secularism supplant or supersede
the religion of Christ.[375]
Contemporary with Confucius, though much older in years, was Lao-tsze
the Venerable, the author of the celebrated Tâo-teh-King, in which not
only Romish missionaries but scholars like Montucci of Berlin (1808) and
Remusat[376] (1823) professed to find the mystery of the Holy Trinity
and the name of Jehovah phonetically expressed. Twenty years later
Stanislas Julien[377] dispelled these illusions, and showed that the
treatise was as agnostic in its essential teachings as were the Analects
of Confucius. A poet and a mystic, he gave his whole strength to enforce
the virtue of Tao—the _way_[378] of man’s return to that spontaneity of
action without motive which prevails in nature, and which will manifest
itself in man, in humility, gentleness, refusal to take precedence in
the world, in accounting the great as the small, the small as the great,
and _in recompensing injury with kindness_.[379] He does not affirm the
existence of God, but he does not deny it, and his language seems to
imply it. Certainly there is not a word which savours of superstition,
and yet he is the reputed founder of a most idolatrous religion, which
is found in shape five centuries after his death. The works of his
earliest followers are said to be full of the most grotesque and absurd
beliefs. As early as 221 B.C. some of them were in search of the Eastern
Hesperides, where grew the herb of immortality. In the first century
A.D. another professor of Taoism invented a pill containing the elixir
of life, and spells which could tame and destroy by the touch of a
pencil millions of demons. All through its history it has been a
conglomerate of superstitions so base, and so contrasted with the
teaching of the Tâo-teh-King, that to make the author of that literary
relic bear the obloquy of even the slightest connection with Taoism,
appears to be one of the grossest wrongs of history.[380]
These sages preceded Buddha by a century, whose religion, though it came
into contact with China shortly after the reign of Asoka, did not
seriously begin to influence it till about the fourth century A.D. The
Buddhism of that period was the religion of the Northern school, well
advanced in its second stage of degeneracy. Wherever it was encouraged,
or allowed to maintain itself, it reared monasteries and nunneries,
temples and shrines of idols and relics, and established the worship of
saints and images, which sometimes, like winking Madonnas, opened their
eyes and otherwise worked miracles. Its effect upon Taoism was simply to
absorb it; for before then that religion had neither monasteries nor
temples, nor any system of worship. All these it borrowed from Buddhism,
whose Triratna and endless pantheon of deities it greedily accepted,
with the effect that though Taoism has existed nominally distinct from
Buddhism in China, it has simply been as Buddhism in a native dress, and
thus far the Hindu mind can be truly said to have powerfully influenced
Chinese thought.
By the Confucians the reception of Buddhism was very different. They
might have laughed at its idolatrous system budding vigorously into
life, but they could not endure its full-blown anti-social Monasticism.
Its morality they could appreciate, though it seemed inferior to their
own; for though its teaching as to future rewards commended itself to
the moral instincts of the masses, the Confucians, more logical than
Buddhists, averred that to avoid wrong-doing for fear of future
punishment was not doing right for its own sake; while to labour for
happiness hereafter led to neglect of the present, and promoted lazy
inactivity. Such a scheme of religion was by them judged inimical to
virtue, which was its own reward, and the manner of life by which it was
illustrated was condemned as particularly immoral. The State, the
Family, Society, were Divine institutions which ought to be maintained
and perfected. Industry, public and private, was essential to their
ideal of propriety; and Buddhism, with its religion of inaction, its
celibate rule, and abandonment of all secular business, was simply
odious to the instincts of a practical and kindly people. There could
only be war between two such contradictory systems—a war not of words,
but, on the Chinese side at least, of very hard blows. Their hostility
manifested itself in repeated and prolonged persecutions. In one of
these 250,000 monks and nuns were forced to return to social life, while
their property was confiscated, and the copper of their images and bells
was minted into coin. The Confucians have long ceased to persecute, but
they have never withdrawn their first indictment against the Buddhists
for teaching what to them is criminal because disloyal, and immoral[381]
because anti-social.
To the ethical system of China, as represented by Confucians, Mahāyāna
Buddhism could not add much, if indeed anything, of value; but its
speculative philosophy seems peculiarly to have fascinated them, and it
produced remarkable and permanent changes in their thinking. The
literature and the art of China reflect not Chinese but Indian scenes
and manners. Its grammatical and arithmetical sciences owe much to
Indian tutelage. An educated Chinaman, while avowing himself Confucian
in respect of ethics, will in all metaphysical problems reason according
to Buddhist methods and enunciate Buddhist ideas. To this extent,
therefore, it affected the Confucians, but not with beneficial results.
It aided Confucius in his evil work of shaking the faith of “the
classes” in the personal Ruler of the Universe, while its effect upon
“the masses” was even more injurious, for it dragged them down to a
polytheism from which for centuries they had been free, and put in place
of the impersonal principle with which Confucius had supplanted their
ancestral faith, those shadowy crowds of Buddhas and Bôdhisatvas, to
lead them still further away from the purer works and ways of more
reverential ages.[382]
The episodes in the history of Chinese Buddhism from the fourth century
onward were marvellously similar to the scenes and incidents witnessed
in Europe during the same period in connection with the Christian
Church. Cardinal Newman has somewhere said that in “professing to write
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon has reluctantly, but
actually, written the Rise and Progress of Christianity.” The most
zealous defender of the faith, however, must admit that the Christianity
which maintained in Europe from the fourth century onward had grievously
declined from that of the primitive ages. It is the fashion in some
quarters to attribute this degradation to the alliance of the Church
with the State, and to aver that had it kept apart from the embraces of
the Emperors it would have preserved itself from corruption.
Unquestionably Constantine was a “sair sanct” to the Church; a convert
more from expedience than conviction, he and his successors endeavoured
to utilise the Christian hierarchy to buttress their own throne.
Unquestionably, too, the Church suffered more indignity and harm from
the Christian Emperors who patronised it, than ever it did from the
heathen Emperors who persecuted it. Candid inquiries will, however,
convince most people that the alliance with the Empire was more an
incident in than the cause of the Church’s degradation. The transfer of
the seat of rule to the Bosporus left the Western Church free from the
Imperial influence to regulate its own affairs, and yet it became not
less but even more corrupt than its Oriental neighbour. The truth seems
to be that the corruption of the Church was due more to its external or
material prosperity than to anything else. To churches and to nations
that is the real ordeal by fire. In the poverty and struggles they have
higher hopes, but when difficulties are surmounted, and they dwell at
ease, they mistake or forget their vocation. The adversity and terrible
persecution of the Church, coincident with its primitive enthusiasm, did
a very great deal to preserve its health and purity; and it was simply
natural, and to be expected, that when it emerged into prosperity and
popular favour, like Jeshurun in his fatness, it should have rebelled,
and instead of serving as it was ordained to do, should have usurped the
power to rule.
The iconography of early Christianity reflects even more clearly than
its literature the various stages of its deterioration. As long as the
world was against it, and it was compelled to use such places as the
Catacombs for its shelter and worship, its faith was pure, and its life
was full of exhilaration and brightness. Its symbolism was thoroughly
ideal and spiritual, in sharp and instructive contrast with every Pagan
specimen that has been discovered, and with its own subsequently
paganised art. It was a symbolism, moreover, only of its hopes, and not
of its one object of faith or of worship. It tolerated no symbol in
worship save the water of Baptism and the bread and the wine of the
Eucharist. It needed, as yet, no crucifix, not even a cross,[383] and it
would not allow any image to reveal to the imagination the present but
invisible Christ, or to suggest the profound meaning of His atonement.
But when it went forth, the admired of the world, into the sunshine, and
began to rear the grand basilicas, and people them with the tombs of the
martyrs and the enshrined relics of the saints, the very desire to rise
led it to fight heathenism with its own weapons, and to copy its
splendours.[384] Even before this it was falling back from the simple
service of the synagogue to that of the destroyed temple, but now it was
found adopting the heathen festivals, or accommodating its own to their
dates, and incorporating with its own the more imposing rites of still
popular heathen fanes. To “offer the new law’s new oblation” it invented
a new ritual and priesthood; and seeing a priesthood must have somewhat
to offer, it discovered a new sacrifice in the very sacrament which was
the Divine pledge and human thanksgiving for the abrogation of all
external sacrifice.[385] Then the government of the Empire became the
model of its organisation, and soon it was crowned in a Papacy
professing to dominate, as vicegerent for Christ, a world which
confessedly it has not yet been able to convert.
It is not necessary to trace the sickening degradation of Christianity
through all its encounters and compromises with heathenism, till in the
gathering gloom its degenerate art reached a point where it dared to
portray to the eye of sense the death-pangs of the Son of God, and its
worship touched a depth of idolatry in which it symbolised the mystery
of the Holy Trinity by a three-headed figure quite after the model of
the Hindu Trimurti. It is sufficient to say that it appears to have
proceeded on parallel lines, and at as rapid a pace as the degeneracy of
Buddhism in the East. It too has its iconography as well as its
literature, and it is interesting to trace its passage from its earliest
graffiti—the stone edicts of Asoka, where we have the religion without
even the name of the founder—through the carvings of the Sanchi gateway,
where there is alteration, though to no considerable extent, on to those
at Amravati, where we have the full-blown Buddhism to which China to a
considerable extent succumbed.[386] Through all this period everywhere
in Chinese Buddhist temples were seen the idols of the saints,
everywhere were found their worshipped relics. A bone, a tooth, a single
hair, would be purchased by the revenue of a State and welcomed with
imperial honours. The rationalists of the West might protest as loudly
and as scoffingly as they pleased that there was as much wood of the
true cross and as many veritable nails of it in Europe as would suffice
to build a navy. The Confucian mandarins at the court of a
relic-worshipping Emperor might indignantly denounce the desecration and
pollution of the royal palace by the introduction of part of the carrion
of a monk who had died long ago.[387] With the father of Gideon,
deriding the wonder-working powers of these relics, they might insist
that they, and even Buddha himself, should plead, Baal-like, for
themselves against their iconoclastic ire; but at that time neither law,
nor persecution, nor common sense could prevail to cure this perverted
disposition. Belief in the virtue of a fetich marks both the infancy and
decay of most religions. In Chinese Buddhism to-day this belief is as
vigorous as ever, and notwithstanding the influence of the Reformation,
and the spread of scientific discovery, this belief marks an extreme of
thought from which neither Romanism nor Protestantism as yet can be said
to be free.
The Buddhism of the earliest traditions was concerned chiefly with
morality as essential to deliverance, and the Christianity of the New
Testament is a faith and hope and love, dominating and fusing and
moulding life after a nobler type. In China, as elsewhere, the Buddhism
of morality gave way to the Buddhism of mystic contemplation. Yielding
to the same tendency which afterwards made so many Christians abandon
the paths of obedience and practice of righteousness for the cultivation
of the inner life, Buddhism as early as 520 A.D. was prepared to follow
eagerly Bôdiharma,[388] who came from Southern India to sweep away the
alien growth of all book-instruction, and to establish the truth that
“out of mind there is no Buddha, out of Buddha there is no mind; that
virtue is not to be sought, and vice is not to be shunned; that nothing
is to be looked upon as pure or polluted, for all that is needed is to
avoid both good and evil, and he that can do this is a truly religious
man.”[389]
In proclaiming that ethical distinctions mark an inferior stage of
discipleship, for a “good man, though never against, is always above
them,” Bôdiharma, the nominal founder of Esoteric Buddhism, simply
formulated more clearly the teaching of Nâgârdjuna, the reputed founder
of the Mahāyāna system. It was only another expression of that
indefinable phase of thought, found in all religions as mysticism, and
which, though commonly identified only with its extravagant outbursts,
is really of the very essence of religion. The dominating thought in a
religious man is that of a Supreme One in whom we live and move and have
our being, and there are times in his worship when the balance of
consciousness is disturbed, and self is lost in consciousness of the
Divine. Man without the aid of prayer or sacramental grace finds in
himself the revelation, and alas! as his consciousness is always
imperfect, and very often confused, the revelation is too often
distorted and the reverse of Divine.[390]
Mysticism, as was natural in a religion quickening both thought and
emotion, appeared early in Christianity, and from the days of St. John
it has never lacked a representative. In its manifold varieties and
aberrations it presents many similarities to the mysticism of the East,
but in reality it is as different from it in its nature as it is distant
from it in its source. Eastern mysticism has always been more
speculative than practical in character. Pantheistic in its origin, it
assumes that all things are as divine as it is their nature to be, and
aspires to get at the unity of being. Western mysticism, on the other
hand, starts always from a sense of the disorder and alienation of
things, and endeavours to get at man’s true life. The Eastern finds its
object within, the Western generally without; the Eastern considers
identity with Deity a natural state, the Western regards perfect
fellowship with Deity as a goal of spiritual attainment. In Christianity
mysticism has been occasional in its manifestations, and has always been
regarded as an innovation; but in the East it is the normal deduction
from Hindu Pantheism and Buddhist Nihilism.[391] Nâgârdjuna and
Bôdiharma were the natural outcome of Gotama’s teaching. In Christianity
it has often shown itself to be marvellously practical, and generally in
revolt from some stereotyped system of dogma or form of worship. Though
associated in our thoughts more with the sentimental than the
intellectual aspects of religion,[392] it has manifested frequently a
decidedly rationalistic tendency. Refusing to be dominated by authority
or to be bound by antiquity, it has questioned fearlessly the dicta of
Scripture, avowing that reason is not superseded, but divinely inspired
and controlled as the organ of revelation. In Christianity its
extravagances may be forgiven in consideration of the benefits which
have flowed from it. It powerfully helped to bring about the
Reformation, and since then, in the Churches, whether reformed or
unreformed, it has tended to sweeten and intensify devotion. It has kept
them mindful of their common lineage by insisting upon those essential
and universal truths which are confessed to be vital in all religions,
and especially by proclaiming the supremacy of the Holy Spirit as the
fountain of all enlightenment and activity.
As manifested in St. Paul and St. John, mysticism is the recognition of
the Holy Spirit as the Witness of Christ, and therefore the supreme lord
over all man’s emotions and reasonings and purposes. Consequently the
asceticism with which mysticism has always been associated has been in
Christianity more kept under control. Occasionally it has lapsed into
frightful excesses; indeed, the extravagances practised in the East to
attain to insight have been equalled by the devices resorted to by many
in the West to gain the vision of the Divine. In ingenious methods of
self-torture the West certainly vied with the East, but at self-torture
perverted Christianity stopped, while degenerate Buddhism went on to
invent and put in practice most revolting methods of self-destruction as
well. The law of Buddha prohibited this, and forbade even the mention of
the advantages of death. It was an offence of the gravest kind, punished
by the severest penalty which the Order could inflict,[393] for a monk
to procure a weapon for the purpose of taking away his life, or to teach
how death may be procured. Still, in India before Fa-Hian’s time,
self-murder was practised, and in China Imperial edicts against
self-mutilation and self-immolation were required to prevent fanatics
evading the primitive law by the quibble, that while prohibiting
suicide, Buddha enjoined the destruction of anger and lust, and that it
was against these alone that they raised their hand, in order to
complete their deliverance.[394]
Christianity demands that an ἄσκησις shall be practised by all who
desire the illumination of the Spirit, for all that is vile must be
purged out of life, and all that is animal in it must be subdued. The
discipline, however, is always moral as well as religious, and it aims
only at controlling, never, like Stoicism or Cynicism, at stifling or
violating natural affection. Unlike Plato, who regarded matter as evil,
Christ and His apostles recognised it as the creature of God, and taught
us to seek the seat of evil, not in the body, but in the perverted will.
In the spirit is the true _fons et origo mali_; but as the occasion of
sin directly or indirectly often originates in some desire for bodily
indulgence or some dread of bodily pain, temperance and fortitude demand
that the body, if not inured to hardness, should be at least kept under
control. So bodily exercise,[395] though in itself profiting little,
profiteth much as moral discipline, a means to a spiritual end.
Consequently the fast in its literal sense has its place in the
Christian system as an expedient generally most required in the times
when we are inclined to despise it. The fanaticism which would destroy
or injure what is natural is condemned by Christianity as severely as is
the sensuality which would unduly strengthen it. What it demands is that
the whole nature be educated and ennobled by loving surrender to the
control of an infinitely holy Will. Enjoyment of the vision beatific,
communion with the Divine Being, is the _summum bonum_ of Christianity,
and that is the portion only of the sanctified. “Blessed are the pure in
heart: for they shall see God.”
Bôdiharma’s mystic or esoteric Buddhism had no such influences to steady
and sober it, and its aberrations were wilder than the fancies of our
delirium. The supernatural pretensions of mysticism have always been
disallowed or condemned in Christianity by overwhelming healthy-minded
majorities, but the consequence of the practice of Esoteric Buddhism was
believed by all to be supernatural power. An adept in it professed to
see through all ages and worlds, and move through space by a sheer
exercise of will. All the phenomena of modern spiritualism may have been
witnessed in India and China two thousand years ago—yea, centuries
perhaps before Buddha appeared. The first pretenders to these mysteries
were the Indian Yogis and the medicine-men of savage and barbarous
races.[396] The “Neo-Buddhism” and “Theosophy” of to-day simply confront
us in the cast-off yellow rags of these pitiful superstitions. Their
disciples attempt to warm themselves and to walk in the light of the
unhallowed flames which the deluded followers of Bôdiharma believed they
could kindle. In whatever way the phenomena of spiritualism are to be
explained—and one cannot say what phenomena may emerge when the human
mind is abandoned to vacuity, and the human will to an ungoverned
fancy—we may be certain that investigation of them will never disclose
the reality of benign supernatural power. What capabilities may be
dormant in humanity no one can tell. Christ who redeemed us is the
prophecy of what He can make us. He had supernatural power because His
being accorded perfectly with the Heavenly Father’s will; but
supernatural power as manifested by Christ is very different indeed from
the ludicrous exhibitions of the “spiritualists.” Christ’s supernatural
power was not manifested just in their ways, and certainly not by their
methods; will it ever be acquired?[397]
It is not compatible with our space to trace the parallels between
Esoteric Buddhism and some nineteenth-century forms of speculation in
which the finite is again seen to be going back to the absolute, and the
reality of everything but the self is denied. On the religious side,
however, it is interesting to notice a later stage of it in a system
which, originating not long after Bôdiharma, took some four centuries to
establish itself. The T’ien-t’ai or Chi-Che school differed from
Bôiharma’s theory of pure mental abstraction to be gained through
complete withdrawal from all sensible surroundings, in that it sought to
aid contemplation by sensuous exercises. Worship of gay idols, music of
many persons chanting in unison, postures of kneeling and standing,
exercises of continued and loud recitation, with intervals of profound
silence and intense meditation, were supposed to produce the desired
illumination. It seemed to be the first recognition of feeling in the
Buddhist religion, and the first attempt to employ it to produce
ecstasy. The same attempt has often been repeated in the history of
Christianity, sometimes in very grotesque and extravagant forms. In
every outburst of religious enthusiasm we may see rude examples of it,
but it is also the principle on which æsthetic worship is generally
defended. It is a reminder, therefore, to some very superior people, of
our common human nature, and a warning that when left to itself, or
indulged, even the æsthetic, like all other instincts, will just run the
same round of extravagance in manifold and ever-recurring variety.
The tendency in human nature to pervert a religion is as strongly
manifested in Christianity as in Buddhism; but there is this outstanding
distinction between them, that while a survey of Buddhism shows that
everywhere it has run its course, and has exhausted its intellectual and
moral and spiritual resources, Christianity upon examination appears to
be only in an early stage of development. In spite of the perversions of
the Church, and its repeated resistance to Christian movements,
Christianity has always produced what has condemned and corrected and
vanquished them. It is the recuperative power of Christianity which most
distinguishes it. There is nothing in the history of Buddhism which at
all corresponds with the Reformation. To-day all over the world it is
stereotyped and unprogressive, whereas everywhere in Christendom there
is ferment of thought and stirring of life, plainly indicating that
whatever power may claim the past, Christianity has the sure promise of
the future.
In China, two hundred and seventy years ago, originated a sect whose
adherents, scattered through the villages of the Eastern Provinces, and
belonging principally to the lower classes of society, may be called
Protestant or Reformed Buddhists. They are described by Dr. Edkins[398]
as opposed to idolatry in all its forms, as having no temple, but only
plain meeting-houses, signalised with only the common tablet to heaven,
earth, king, parents, and teachers, as their symbol of reverence. Their
worship consists not in ceremonies, but in quiet meditation, and inner
adoration of the all-pervading Buddha. They are called the “Do-Nothing
Sect,” not because they are idle, like the ignorant inmates of the
monasteries—for they are really industrious and virtuous,—but because
they hold that the highest virtue is never intentional, but wholly
unconscious of self. Like M. Aurelius,[399] they consider that to ask to
be “paid for virtue is as if the eye demanded a recompence for seeing.”
In thinking of them, the words of the Lord Jesus recur to us: “Do good,
and lend, hoping for nothing again.” George Fox, and the quiet and
charitable Society which he founded, and which still continues in formal
garb his protest against all formalism in worshipping God, not by
clamouring to Him, but in silently waiting till He speaks, seems to be
the realisation of what these good Wu-wei-Kiau aspire to in their
religion. They have not been able to free themselves from Buddhism or
Taoism. Buddha, though not worshipped, is believed in by them, and they
have found an object of adoration in Kîn-mu, the Golden Mother of the
soul, who can protect and deliver from calamity, and even save those
that have died from misery. They have four principal festivals, two of
which celebrate the birth and death of Lo-tsu, their founder. On these
occasions three small cups of tea and nine tiny loaves of bread are
placed on the tables, according to the appointment of Lo-tsu himself. On
this account they are nicknamed “the Tea and Bread Sect.” They are
strict vegetarians, but in no other sense ascetics, honouring marriage
and family life, and having no monastic institute among them. They aver
that one of their leaders during a persecution was crucified, and their
great hope is that the world will soon come to an end, and that the
Golden Mother will appear, to take all her children—all who believe in
her as they do—home to her beautiful heaven.
This can hardly be called a reformation of Buddhism according either to
its original form or its fundamental principles. It is a departure from,
and an immense improvement upon it, which is manifestly due to foreign
and probably Christian influence. The Nestorians entered China in the
seventh, and the Jesuits in the sixteenth century, while Reformed
Christianity only came in contact with China in the present generation.
If it be denied that Christianity helped to produce the Do-Nothing Sect,
it will be difficult to disprove the claim that, directly or indirectly,
it has done much to produce the latest forms in which, in China and
Japan, Buddhism is now presented to the world. In both countries
Reformed Buddhists are found differing in much from one another, but
generally agreeing in rejecting polytheism for the worship of one
divinity: in China, Kwan-yin, who for long has changed sexes, and is now
the goddess of mercy; in Japan, Buddha, whose attribute is Amita, the
infinite. One sect, called the “Salvation without Works Sect,” has
progressed greatly in Japan, under the title of Shin-Shin, “the true
religion.” The worshipper renounces all merit, and trusts for salvation
in nothing but the mercy of Amita.[400] The soul is brought into a state
of salvation by an act of faith, and though sure of salvation, the
faithful must not abandon the struggle with evil, for holiness is not
the beginning, but the result of salvation. In Kioti, a Buddhist sect
has a college quite Western in its curriculum and arrangements. There
too the Japanese newspapers not only record the successes of able
Buddhist preachers in spreading their doctrine, and in founding schools,
they advertise a Buddhist propaganda for the conversion of Europe and
America. Its only organ as yet is a little magazine called the _Bijou of
Asia_, but it is printed in English for the enlightenment of all who
believe in the moribund creeds of the West, and for the rescue
especially of souls from the snare of that Christian superstition which
“happily all over the world is rapidly declining in power”!
If this be not impure Christianity, no one will dare to call it pure
Buddhism. Surely it is a hopeful indication for the future of Japan, as
being evidently a movement somewhat similar to that inaugurated in India
by Rammohun Roy, and greatly furthered in our days by Chunder Sen. The
first professed to trace his reform to the Upanishads rediscovered, and
expounded, and applied; and the second to the Vedas as the primitive
fountains of the faith. Both reformers and their work would have been
impossible two thousand years ago; yea, they would have been equally
impossible to-day, had not the West given of its thoughts to the East,
and Christendom communicated to it something of its better life. It is
one thing to read the Vedas and Upanishads, as the Rishis recited or the
Brahmans expounded them long ago, and quite another to have them
interpreted by natives of India, around whose forefathers for several
generations all the influences of Christian civilisation have been
playing. So is it with the reforming Buddhists of China and Japan, who
have enterprise to send their sons to study at our British Universities.
They are reading their old literature—even when rejecting our systems of
belief—with minds unconsciously saturated with Christian intelligence,
and no doubt they often find there what the Gospel has put in
themselves.
We may rest assured that the reform of the Oriental religions will only
be effected by the infusion into them of the spirit of Christianity. A
higher religion meeting them as Christianity does, may not supplant or
destroy them, but it will revive and transform them. It will destroy
much that is false, correct much that is wrong, supply all they lack,
and so in the end annul them. The product will not likely be a facsimile
of any of the Churches of Christendom. It may be a religion in which
Buddha and the great teachers of his system will be lifted to their
places among the prophets who, “since the world began,” unconsciously
testified, by their errors as well as by their truths, by their failures
as well as by their successes, to the Mystery to be revealed. The fact
that in Buddhism the object of worship is not the Buddha that was, but
Mâitrêya who is to be, is a pathetic confession that its Messiah has yet
to come. Though Buddha did not proclaim His coming, the result of his
mission bears witness to the need of Him. So he was a lawgiver preparing
the way for Moses, even as Moses prepared the way for the Baptist, and
as the Baptist heralded the Christ of God. Could his voice reach down
to-day from “the quiet shore” to the millions who have taken hold of him
in hope of finding deliverance from the miseries and perplexities of
this sinful world, it would be to repeat a testimony once heard on
Jordan’s banks from him than whom no one born of woman was greater:
“There standeth One among you whom ye know not, the latchet of whose
shoes I am not worthy to unloose.”
Footnote 319:
Mahâparanibhâna Sutta, ii. 33. 35.
Footnote 320:
1 Corinthians xiv.
Footnote 321:
“Das Christenthum ist das allerveränderlichste; das ist sein
besonderer Ruhm.”—Rothe, _Stille Stunden_, p. 357.
Footnote 322:
Acts xxviii. 13; Rom. xv. 24; 2 Tim. iv. 10; 1 Peter i. 1.
Footnote 323:
Greg. Nyss. _Op._ iii. 574.
Footnote 324:
Keim, _Rom und Christenthum_, p. 417.
Footnote 325:
Uhlhorn, _Conflict of Christianity_, pp. 54, 90.
Footnote 326:
Neander, _Church History_, vol. i. pp. 10, 40.
Footnote 327:
Orig. _cont. Cels._ iii. 44-54; Tatian, c. 33; Minut. Felix, _Octav._
8. 12; Tertull. _Apolog._ 37 _et passim_.
Footnote 328:
Newman, _Grammar of Assent_, pp. 460 _seq._
Footnote 329:
Kullavagga, iv. 14. 25; also _ibid._ vii. 1. 5; _Sacred Books of the
East_, vol. xx.
Footnote 330:
E. Burnouf, _Science of Religions_, p. 288, notes the analogy between
Pryadarsi and “a man greatly beloved” in Daniel ix. 23.
Footnote 331:
See _Lotus de la bonne Loi_, App. x. p. 659 _seq._: Prinsep’s trans.,
_Jour. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. vii. pp. 219 _seq._; Prof. H. H.
Wilson’s, vol. xii. of _Jour. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ pp. 153 _seq._
Footnote 332:
Wheeler, _History of India_, vol. iii. p. 214.
Footnote 333:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 225.
Footnote 334:
Dipavamso, chap. viii.
Footnote 335:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 259.
Footnote 336:
_Buddhist Records of the Western World_, trans. by Prof. Beal, vol.
i.; Fo-Kwo-ki, chap. xxii. p. xlix, vol. ii; Hiuen Tsiang, B. vi. pp.
13, 14.
Footnote 337:
Lassen, _Indische Alterth._ vol. ii. p. 1078; vol. iv. p. 741.
Footnote 338:
Dr. Beal, _Buddhism in China_, p. 61; Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_,
Preface, p. i.
Footnote 339:
_Buddhism in Tibet_, E. Schlagintweit, pp. 61-75.
Footnote 340:
_Comparative Progress of Ancient and Modern Missions._
Footnote 341:
Dr. Maclear, _Gradual Conversion of Europe_, pp. 6-12.
Footnote 342:
_Nouveau Journ. Asiat._ pp. 106, 137, 139.
Footnote 343:
Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 84, 207.
Footnote 344:
“It may be safely asserted that no Aryan race, while existing in
anything like purity, was ever converted to Buddhism, or could
permanently adopt its doctrines.”—Fergusson, _Tree and Serpent
Worship_, p. 67. The old Turanian race, far from being savage, or even
barbarous, not only laid the basis of Chinese civilisation, but seems
to have been also the first civiliser of Western Asia, and the first
to spread art and science along the southern coasts of Europe. The
Iberian, Etruscan, Phœnician, Hittite, even Egyptian monuments, are
now acknowledged to be relics of this mighty race, which must have
sent horde after horde over Asia and Europe long before the historic
advance westwards in the thirteenth century A.D.; its latest invasion
of India may have been represented, not by Scythian ancestors of
Buddha, but the Sikhs.—Conder, “Early Races of Western Asia,” _Journ.
Anthrop. Inst._ August 1889, pp. 30-43.
Footnote 345:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, Introduction; Eitel, _Lectures on
Buddhism_.
Footnote 346:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, pp. 114, 156.
Footnote 347:
Wassilief, _Le Bouddhisme_, etc., pp. 14, 18.
Footnote 348:
Dêvadatta’s Five Points (Kullavagga, vii. 3. 14, 15) all insist upon a
more ascetic rule than the Sangha practised.
Footnote 349:
Stanley, _Eastern Church_, pp. 45, 50.
Footnote 350:
Turnour, “Pali Bud. Annals,” _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. vi. p.
729; Wassilief, _Le Bouddhisme, etc._, p. 18.
Footnote 351:
The beginning of the dissensions is related in Kullavagga vii. with
much legendary adornment. There too, in vii. 5, and in Mahavagga, x.
1. 6, the distinction is drawn between “dissension” and “schism,” and
the woe predicted for the breaker-up of the Sangha when it was at
peace: “He is boiled for a kalpa in Niraya, doomed for so long to a
penance of misery.” The reconciler of a divided Sangha was made happy
for a kalpa in heaven.
Footnote 352:
T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 182.
Footnote 353:
Beal, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 101: “a worship of association and
memory.”
Footnote 354:
Agni. Indra, Sūrya; Kern, _Buddhismus_, vol. ii. p. 156; Sir Monier
Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 175.
Footnote 355:
“A being whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhu)
derived from _self-enlightening_ intellect, and who has only once more
to pass through human existence before attaining Buddhahood.”—Eitel,
_Sanskrit-Chinese Dict._, p. 26; Sir Monier Williams’ _Buddhism_, p.
98.
Footnote 356:
Wassilief, _Le Bouddhisme, etc._, pp. 124 _seq._; Burnouf, _Le Lotus
de la bonne Loi_, p. 302.
Footnote 357:
Nâgârdjuna, the Nagasēna of the Milindipanha, was the chief
representative, if not founder, of one of the Mahāyāna Schools. He has
been regarded as a mythical personage, and the name has been supposed
to be the generic one of various authors and doctors of the system.
For an account of Hināyāna and Mahāyāna doctrine, with its
subdivisions, see Wassilief, _Le Bouddhisme, etc._, pp. 9 _seq._, 118
_seq._; Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 19-57. Nâlanda must
have been a very important centre in Buddhist times.—Fergusson, _Tree
and Serpent Worship_, p. 79.
Footnote 358:
Dr. Edkins says about 190 A.D.
Footnote 359:
Burnouf, _Introd. à l’histoire du Bud. Ind._ vol. i. pp. 220, 224
(Paris, 1844); also Burnouf, _Le Lotus de la bonne Loi_, chap. xxiv.
pp. 261-268; also Appendix III. pp. 498-511 (Paris, 1852).
Footnote 360:
Müller, Gifford Lectures, _Natural Religion_, p. 543; Dr. Beal,
_Buddhism in China_, p. 123; Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 195.
Footnote 361:
Hodgson, _Illustrations of the Literature and Religion of the
Buddhists_, p. 30; Burnouf, _Introduction, etc._, pp. 116-121; also in
note at p. 118, quoting Hodgson.
Footnote 362:
Though strong affinities exist between Gnosticism and Buddhism, which
may indicate later connection, in their origin they appear to have
been quite distinct. The methods, aims, and terminology of Gnosticism,
all betoken derivation from purely Western sources. It is quite
possible that Gnosticism may have given Adi-Buddha to the East, but
the question of their relations is still undetermined. See Weber,
_Hist. Ind. Lit._ p. 309; Obry’s _Nirvana, etc._, p. 161; Bishop
Lightfoot, Essay on the Essenes (_Epistle to Colossians_), p. 157;
_Home and Foreign Review_, vol. iii. pp. 143 _seq._ (1863).
Footnote 363:
Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, p. 203; Dr. Beal, _Chinese Buddhism_,
p. 128; Dr. Eitel, _Lectures_, p. 98.
Footnote 364:
Kullavagga, v. 21. 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.
Footnote 365:
_Introd._ § vi. p. 558: “La plume se refuse à transcrire des doctrines
aussi misérables quant à la forme, qu’odieuses et dégradantes pour le
fond.”
Footnote 366:
Âryasanga, founder of the Yôgacharya or contemplative system of
Mahāyāna (_circa_ 400 A.D.). For an account of his doctrine, see
Wassilief, _Le Boudd._ pp. 288 _seq._, and Schlagintweit, _Bud. in
Tibet_, pp. 39 _seq._, 46 _seq._; Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, p. 207
_seq._
Footnote 367:
A writer in the _Nineteenth Century_, October 1889, professes to
describe the testimony of the only reporter who has written of Lhása
since Huc and Gabet were expelled from it forty-five years ago.
According to this witness, the Church is now actually in grip of the
State, though nominally dominant. Of five members of the Council of
the Grand Lama four are laymen, superior military officers, with the
Regent at their head. Till the Grand Lama is eighteen years of age,
the Regent is supreme, and for sixty years, not a single Grand Lama,
chosen as an infant, has survived his eighteenth birthday!!
Footnote 368:
Buddhism, however, introduced into Tibet the benefits of the art of
writing, the reduction of its language to an alphabet, and grammar;
and not only the sacred literature represented by the collection of
the Kandjur, but the very miscellaneous literature of the Tandjur.
Several of its Buddhist missionaries and the kings who favoured them
were really great men. Kublai Khan and the first Lamistic Pope
Phags-pa, 1259-94, rendered lasting service to the cause of
civilisation. See Köppen’s _Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche_,
being vol. ii. of his celebrated and most laborious work, _Die
Religion des Buddha_; T. W. Rhys Davids, Art. LAMAISM, _Encyc. Brit._
vol. xiv.; Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_, pp. 262-302.
Footnote 369:
The most recent and reliable information as to this perverted form of
Buddhism—if it is to be called Buddhism, for it seems to be no more
Buddhism than Vandoux worship can be called Christianity—will be found
in the works of T. W. Rhys Davids; Sir Monier Williams, _Buddhism_;
Babu Sarat Chunder Das, “Religious Hist. of Thibet,” _Journ. Asiat.
Soc. Beng._ 1881; _Life and Works of Alex. Csoma de Koros_, Th. Duka,
Lond. 1885; E. Colborne Baber, _Travels and Researches in Western
China_; Bushell’s “Hist. of Thibet,” _Journ. R.A.S._ vol. xii.
1878-79.
Footnote 370:
An invocation of Avalôkitês’vara, who is believed to have delivered it
to the Tibetans.—Klaproth, _Fragments Bouddhiques_, p. 27; Hodgson,
_Illustrations_, p. 171; Charles Loring Brace, _Gesta Christi_, p.
455.
Footnote 371:
Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 227-272.
Footnote 372:
_Chinese Review_, vol. xi. p. 162; Beal, _Buddhism in China_, p. 233.
Footnote 373:
Once when a heathen asked Hillel to show him the whole Jewish religion
in a few words, he replied, “_Do not unto others what thou wouldst not
should be done unto thee_.” Kuenen’s _Religion of Israel_, p. 243
(quotes Talmud, Sabbath, 31 a.)
Footnote 374:
See Isaiah xxxii. 5, 6. Socrates says in _Phaedo_, “to use words
wrongly and indefinitely is not merely an error in itself; it also
creates evil in the soul.” A vast amount of mischief is done by the
misapplication of good adjectives to bad subjects. All true reformers,
with Confucius, labour for a rectification of names.
Footnote 375:
Shu King, Shi King, Pref. and Introd. pp. 1-27, by Dr. Legge; _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. iii.
Footnote 376:
_Mémoire sur la Vie et les Opinions de Lao-tsze._
Footnote 377:
Translation of the Tâo-teh-King, under the title, _Le Livre de la Voie
et de la Vertu_.
Footnote 378:
μέθοδος, Prof. Douglas, _Confucianism and Taoism_, p. 189.
Footnote 379:
It is very interesting to find, so long before Christianity, and so
far from its cradle, this fundamental rule in Christian morals. In the
Book of Proverbs its enunciation may have preceded that in the
Tao-teh-King in point of time; but its being uttered at the end of the
world, along with the “golden rule” of Confucius, prove how
essentially one are the moral instincts of humanity.
Footnote 380:
Dr. Legge’s Preface to vol. iii. of _Sacred Books of the East_, p.
xxi; also Art. LAO-TSZE, _Encyc. Brit._ vol. xiv.
Footnote 381:
Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 128, 202; Beal, _Introduction to
Fa-Hian_, p. 27.
Footnote 382:
Douglas, _Confucianism_, p. 84; Beal, _Buddhism in China_, p. 235;
Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 333.
Footnote 383:
In the whole range of the Catacombs no crucifix, and only very few
crosses have been found, and these generally in a disguised form. The
communion of the early Church was with Christ risen and triumphant; it
was only when the spirit and fervour of worship declined that it made
so much of the crucifixion.—Northcote and Brownlow’s Abridgment of De
Rossi’s _Roma Sotterranea_; Smith and Cheetham, _Dict. of Christian
Antiq._, Art. CATACOMBS, pp. 294 _seq._; Witherow, _Catacombs_, pp.
260, 281.
Footnote 384:
The efficiency of _relic-worship_ may be said to have been established
as early as the fourth century. Julian compares the churches to whited
sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones. Development of _image-worship_
proceeded _pari passu_ with the erection of fine churches and their
adornment with painting and sculpture. There were all along strong
protests from individual bishops, and even prohibitions by Councils,
but the fashion was too strong for their fulminations. Even in the
eighth century the iconoclastic reformation of Leo the Isaurian was
too late. His zeal, moreover, was wrongly directed. He assailed high
art, and condemned only the truly fine paintings, sparing the ruder
and more ancient productions, and leaving untouched the worship of and
disgraceful traffic in relics, real and spurious. It is not to be
wondered at that in opposition to all this Gregory in the West became
the champion of art as an aid to devotion.—Milman, _Lat.
Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 152.
Footnote 385:
In protesting against the Mass, the Reformed Churches maintain the
universal priesthood, and therefore perpetual sacrifice, of the
visible Church. As Christ’s witness on earth, the Church must be
always offering itself, in thanksgiving for its own redemption, for
the salvation of the world.
Footnote 386:
Fergusson, _Tree and Serpent Worship_, p. 67; Cunningham, _Bhilsa
Topes_, p. 130.
Footnote 387:
Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 126; Judges vi. 31.
Footnote 388:
Originally called Bódhitara, but renamed by his teacher Payantara, in
token of his religious “insight.” He is said to have brought to China
the famous alms-bowl, which all the Buddhas of the Kalpa have used,
and will use, and whose final disappearance will indicate that the
religion is about to perish. Thus Buddhism has also its San Greal.
Bôdiharma is called the “wall-gazing Brahman,” though a Kshatrya,
because on his arrival in China he spent nine years in silent
meditation.—Eitel, _Sanskrit Chinese Dict._ p. 24.
Footnote 389:
Dr. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 130.
Footnote 390:
Men who have in vain sought God without have happily found Him in the
witness of their own conscience and affection, but generally they who
conceitedly reject the revelation without them only obscure the seeing
faculty within. “When mysticism threw off external authority it went
mad, as in the revolutionary pantheism of the Middle Ages. When it
incorporated itself more and more in revealed truth, it became a
benign power—as on the eve of the Reformation.”—Vaughan, _Hours with
the Mystics_, vol. ii. p. 356.
Footnote 391:
“Mysticism,” A. Seth, _Encyc. Brit._ vol. xvii. pp. 129-136.
Footnote 392:
Correctly so, if we are to judge of Mysticism even from its purest
phases and its best representatives, _e.g._ the Quietism of Madame
Guyon, the Spiritualism of Swedenborg, the Romanticism of F. von
Hardenberg, better known as Novalis. Even on its speculative or
philosophical side, it would not be difficult to cull from the
writings of the Cambridge Platonists, and the Idealists of Europe and
America, extracts equivalent to the aphorisms of Novalis, that “action
is morbid,” “to dream is to overcome,” that “the soul must abandon the
actual world if it would discover in the recesses of the mystic night
the Queen of Heaven, Eternal Beauty.”—_Hymns to Night_, Schriften,
vol. ii. p. 158.
Footnote 393:
Pâtimokkha; Pârâgikâ Dhammâ, 3; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xiii.
Footnote 394:
Beal, Introduction to _Fa-Hian_, p. 42. In an important aspect the
perversion of Christianity was worse than that of Buddhism. The
Buddhist ascetics, though merciless to themselves, never tortured
their vanquished opponents. There is no parallel to the Romish
Inquisition and some Protestant atrocities in any of the annals of
Buddhism.
Footnote 395:
ἡ σωματικὴ γυμνασία, 1 Tim. iv. 8.
Footnote 396:
Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 440.
Footnote 397:
“Vient enfin le mysticisme de la dernière époque, qui, de même que
tous les mysticismes, finit de la manière la plus misérable, et
enfante une idolâtrie grossière, ainsi que les stupides pratiques de
la sorcellerie” (Laboulaye, Introd. to La Comme’s transl. of
Wassilief’s _Buddhism_, p. xlv). This has often been verified in the
religious history of the West, and the fate of many former “spiritual”
aspirants to enter or to peer into the Invisible and Unutterable
should be a powerful warning to all who are now aiming at surpassing
the natural conditions of existence. In endeavouring to transcend
humanity, we are likely to fall miserably below it.
Footnote 398:
_Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 370-379.
Footnote 399:
Also Seneca: “We do not love virtue because it gives us pleasure, but
it gives us pleasure because we love it.”—_De Vit. Beat._ c. ix. “In
doing good man should be like the vine, producing grapes, and asking
for nothing in having done so.”—M. Aurel. v. 6 and ix. 42.
Footnote 400:
Herzog, _Encyclop._ (Schaff), vol. i. p. 334.
POSTSCRIPT.
In endeavouring to perform the very honourable task assigned to me, I
have had to contend all along with the difficulty of comprising in six
what would require many more lectures properly to relate. Much which was
actually prepared I have been forced to omit, consoling myself with the
thought that, after all, I had simply to lecture and not to write a
compendious treatise, and that it was my business to sketch as
truthfully as I could what it was simply impossible, within the limits
prescribed, adequately to depict. It was originally my intention to give
in parallel quotations the alleged similarities between the contents of
the Pitakas and the New Testament, but the conditions of time and space
compelled me to be content with references to specimens of them in the
_Sacred Books of the East_, from which any ordinary English reader may
be able to form a judgment concerning them. Moreover, when well on with
the work, I discovered that a much more thorough examination of
Professor Seydel’s _Buddhist-Christian Harmony_ than I could profess to
make had already been published by Professor Kellogg of Allegheny, U.S.,
in his book on the _Light of Asia and the Light of the World_. An Indian
missionary of eleven years’ experience, and the author of an excellent
Grammar of the Hindi language, can write upon this subject, not only
with greater authority, but to much better purpose, than one who only
knows Indian books through the medium of European translations, and who
has not seldom been compelled to take on trust what he felt strongly
inclined to question. If Dr. Kellogg’s book is not extensively read in
this country, it certainly deserves to be.
Our sketch has been confined to Buddhism as a religion and as an ethical
system. The philosophy which has grown out of it, and especially the
psychology which lies at the base of its original dogmas, would require
a large volume to expound. A great field is open here for those who have
the ability and the leisure to cultivate it; and though good work has
already been done in it, we may be convinced that, until this psychology
has been more thoroughly investigated, we must continue in uncertainty
as to what original Buddhism was. Though much has been written upon the
origin and growth of Buddhism, the first authoritative words are only
now beginning to be spoken by the learned translators of the Pali texts;
and though they have dispelled illusions and corrected false impressions
not a few, we cannot affirm that there is a strong consensus of opinion
among them as to the life and teaching of the founder of Buddhism. One
is greatly impressed by the modest hesitation with which they have
presented their views, but this very diffidence makes one fear that we
may be attributing to Buddha sayings which he never uttered, or that we
have drawn from them inferences which he would have disowned.
In working out a sketch like this, the temptation constantly besetting
one is to compare or contrast actual Buddhism with ideal Christianity.
I have endeavoured to bear in mind that our modern religion may in many
features grossly misrepresent that of its Divine Author, and, indeed,
that “Christianity has all along been much embarrassed in being obliged
to apologise for Christendom.”[401] In like manner I have tried to make
plain the great distinction between the original system of Buddha and
that which very soon came to be known by his name. An Oriental will
certainly misjudge Christianity if he derives his knowledge of it from
mediæval theology or from some nineteenth-century sermons; and we may
unconsciously commit the same mistake in ascribing to the primitive
dogmas the interpretation put upon them by its later schools.[402] I
have read several books in which this mistake was flagrant, and I should
be extremely sorry to follow their bad example. In the present state of
our knowledge, however, and until the earliest texts have been
accurately ascertained, and sifted, and classified, this, to a certain
extent, is inevitable, and therefore excusable. If I have failed in my
attempt to portray accurately even the salient features of this great
religion, it has been from no desire to caricature it. The days have
surely passed when it could be said that we were “too infatuated by a
sense of the superiority of our own to make a fair survey of other
religions.”[403] It is our duty, and it will be for our interest, to do
justice to them, and, instead of being content with the schoolboy’s
endeavour to prove them false, we should seek carefully among the ruins
of the most degraded of them for all the elements of truth we can
discover. It is in this direction that we must proceed if we would find
solid foundations for a true Christian theology, and the more we address
ourselves to the work the more likely shall we be to convince the Church
of the proper value of the Faith deposited in its keeping, and to rouse
it to realise its destiny and fulfil its glorious mission to the world.
In correcting these sheets for the press, I have often been sensible of
my great obligations to a very highly valued personal friend, whose
goodness was as remarkable as his learning. May I be forgiven if, in
gratitude for his kind and generous help in these very studies, given
now long ago, I desire to keep alive the memory of this justly esteemed
Sanskrit scholar, by adding this little stone to his cairn, and adorning
my book with the name of Dr. John Muir.
Footnote 401:
_Eternal Atonement_, by Dr. R. D. Hitchcock, p. 157.
Footnote 402:
T. W. Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 196.
Footnote 403:
Quinet, _Le Génie des Religions_, p. 13.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, _at the
Edinburgh University Press_.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the lectures in which they are
referenced.
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