THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
GIFT OF
Lt. Col. George White
THE
INDIAN SAINT;
OR,
UDDHA AND BUDDHISM
A SKETCH,
HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.
BY
CHARLES D. B. MILLS.
NORTHAMPTON, MASS.
JOURNAL AND FREE PRESS CO.
1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
CHARLES D. B. MILLS,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
The following pages have been written in a feeling of
cordial interest, indeed of love and admiration for the
historical character they seek in some degree to present,
and an earnest desire to render both to him and the
faith that has flowed from his thought and life while
abstaining utterly, if possible, from any bias or partiality
equal and exact justice. How far, if at all, this desire
may have become realization, it must be for the intel-
ligent reader to decide.
It is difficult, very difficult, to penetrate the spirit and
genius of a faith so remote, and in many respects foreign
to our own, to interpret it, take its measure justly, weigh
it well. Still more difficult, perhaps, to one who should
have outgrown, in some degree at least, as is hoped,
the Christian limitation, to preserve still the perfect poise,
to escape prepossession on the other side, and draw the
picture without a shade of flattery.
The writing of these pages was done for the most
part nearly four years since. Various circumstances, not
necessary here to name, have conspired to prevent an
earlier publication. Within this intervening time, import-
ant contributions upon the Eastern religions have been
made, both in this country and Europe, and the horizon
978
iv . PREFACE.
of view has constantly been widening. In particular, the
work of Mr. Samuel Johnson, {Oriental Religions, Boston,
1872), deserves very cordial and honorable mention. Im-
pressed with so broad and catholic a spirit, so kindly, so
generous even, in its hospitality to Eastern thought, so
careful in research and affluent in learning, so superior
in insight and discrimination, so richly and deeply sug-
gestive, it certainly marks, if it does not make, an epoch
in these studies. It would seem to leave little to be
desired further upon the themes it treats.
But the field is large, and there is room yet for
many reapers and gleaners. Long time it must be ere
the sheaves shall all have been gathered ; long time
indeed ere the last word shall have been spoken, and
the final judgment made 'up, upon this or any other of
the great historic faiths.
The present moment is opportune. The night is
far spent, and the day is at hand. We are outgrowing
the Jewish narrowness that has from the beginning been
upon all Christendom the worship of exclusive claims,
of dispensation and of person. We are to study all
religions in the light of the universal, to measure all,
our own included, against the standard of the absolute.
Of the enlargements that shall thereby come, the
farthest seeing at present, can form no fitting concep-
tion. The old hymn will take on new breadth of
meaning, and the lines be sung
" Let party names no more
The human world o'erspread ;"
PREFACE. v
the new Jerusalem shall descend from God out of
Heaven, and the church of Humanity be inaugurated.
All the fragments shall be gathered up, there shall be
genuine recognition of the divine in history, respect
and appreciation everywhere, but idolatry nowhere.
The soul, leaving every weight behind, shall urge ever
on and on toward the infinite goal.
In the hope that it may in some slight degree aid
to open the way for that bright consummation, this
little volume is sent forth. It is doubtless very partial
and incomplete, marked and perhaps marred with many
deficiencies. If it shall serve in any measure to illus-
trate the subject it seeks to present, if it shall avail
at all to incite and quicken, to enlarge the horizon
and exalt the tone of life, its ambitions will have
,been fulfilled.
SYRACUSE, N. Y., Dec. 15111, 1875.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE.
CHAPTER II.
THE EFFECT.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT.
CHAPTER IV.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE.
CHAPTER V.
THE DOCTRINE.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FINE PROBLEM.
SAKYAMUNI.
I.
THE LIFE.
IN the Eastern world to-day there bow untold millions
of devout worshipers before Buddha ; * his statues
are in the temples, his adoration is celebrated with
incense of sandal-wood and odors of flowers, his
birth-place and theatre of action is the holy land of
the church of believers, and immense topes in India
have been erected over his real or supposed relics.
The vast vihdras or monasteries, built in the olden
time, have been thronged with monks eager to learn
the law, and the successors of them still stand in
Ceylon, Birmah, Thibet, Mongolia, China and Japan.
No other name is held in such reverence ; Buddha.
is the incarnation, the great messenger from the
heavens to men, his word is the supreme gospel, the
* Koeppen, Religion des Buddha, L, p. 12 1, estimates the number
at about one-third the entire population of the globe. The same, or
about the same, Fausboll, Bigandet, Berghaus and Prof. Neumann.
10 BUDDHA.
way of salvation for all. No other faith has had
such a following, none ever spread so quickly so
far, or kept for itself stronger hold upon the popular
mind.
For about twenty-four centuries now this relig-
ion has been current ; albeit expelled from the land
of its birth it has wide prevalence in Central and
Eastern Asia, and gives thus far no sign, to outward
seeming, of any dissolution or decay. By the Pacific
wave it is borne to our own coast, and we are
brought thus face to face with it perhaps under one
of its coarser and more degenerate types, as one of
the practical problems of our time.
It is a phenomenon certainly well worth our
study. We have before us, beyond question, the
effect of a powerful personality in history ; a wave
upon the ocean of mind, far extending, and yet
unspent. Mr. Beal, who personally has studied it
upon Chinese soil, describes it, viewing it, too, from
the stand-point of orthodox Christianity ^ as "one
of the most wonderful ' movements of the human
mind in the direction of Spiritual Truth." We
ought to be in condition to look at this fact fairly,
to read it truly, with a fine appreciation, as well as
just critical rigor.
Who was this Buddha, what is the measure of his
claim, what his place comparatively among the great
THE LIFE. H
saints and benefactors of the world ? What was
the magnetic charm of that presence and word that
seems to have ravished so many souls, and to have
left such deep and lasting impress upon the Eastern
peoples? What was the quality of his thought and
style of his life, and how shall he stand, permanently,
in history? These questions are to have some day
full answer.
Myth and legend cover also this history, cover it,
indeed, as almost no other that we know. The
Eastern mind speaks characteristically in hyperbole
and figure, and in this case so has the imagination
been wrought upon and intoxicated it has overlaid
the reality with the sports and extravagances of
fancy, almost too deep for possible recover)'. It is
often exceedingly difficult, and sometimes utterly
impracticable to separate the fact from the myth, or,
rather, to know how much and what is the fact,
behind the myth. There are things which nice,
careful critics would promptly dismiss as purely
mythic, and which, nevertheless, it is not hard to
see, have true historic ground and a fine significance.
Gautama Buddha, called afterward also Sakya-
Muni the monk or hermit of the Sakyas was born
in the northern part of India, a little north of what
is now the province of Oude, probably in the earlier
12 BUDDHA.
half of the sixth century before Christ. There is
very wide difference in the dates given from different
sources here. The Thibetans themselves have as
many as fourteen, ranging in the extreme limits
nearly 2,000 years apart. But the Chinese and Thi-
betans generally fix the death at not far from 1,000
B. C. ; the Chronicle of Cashmere considerably earlier ;
the Singhalese, with much unanimity, at 543 B. C.
But Max Miiller* affirms there are good grounds for
setting it at 477 B. C, and as Buddha is commonly
reputed to have lived seventy-nine years, this would fix
his birth at about 556 B. C. There is, however, noto-
riously great dimness and uncertainty which is essen-
tially increased in this instance by special causes over-
hanging Indian chronology in the early times, and
probably we are able to attain here, at best, but an
approximation, f The name of the town was Kapila-
vastu, J capital of a small kingdom of the same name,
and his father, Suddhodana ' ' living upon clean
food " was the king, described as a man of distin-
guished bravery and integrity. He belonged by this
descent to the Sakyas, and these came of the great
* Chips, I., p. 206. See also Bigandet, p. 319, note.
f See Koeppen, L, pp. 118, 119.
| Kapilavastu was in the eastern part of the province of Kosala,
and a little north of the Gorackpur of the present day. It was on a
stream, Rohini, which near Gorackpur empties into the Rapti.
THE LIFE. 13
Solar race, a race very famous in the early annals
of India.* His mother, Mayadevi, was distinguished
above all women of her time, for her physical beauty,
a beauty so ravishing to the eye that she bore famil-
iarly the name Maya, "illusion ; " distinguished, withal,
still more for her high qualities of soul. She died
seven days after the birth of her son, and he- was
confided for rearing to the care of a maternal aunt.f
There was also a miraculous conception in this
relation. According to some of the accounts his
mother was a virgin, and he was begotten without
human intervention ; as a beam of light he entered
the womb of Mayadevi. His conception, his growth
* Beal, however, advances, the opinion that he was of Scythian
descent. A branch or clan of this race, he thinks, may have pene-
trated Northern India, as another did Assyria about this time, and
Buddha was born of this blood, a descendant of the Chakravarttins or
Wheel Kings, i. e,, universal monarchs. Sakya's directions as to the
funeral obsequies to be observed after his death, the cremation of the
body, and the subsequent erection of mounds, or topes, in such num-
bers over India, all, he deems, indicate a foreign parentage for this
saint. See his Catena, pp. 128, 129. But this of the directions is very
probably a subsequent invention ; it certainly comports little with his
known character, and especially with the light esteem, almost the
contempt, in which he is represented to have held the body. The
weight of the evidence seems altogether in favor of the view that he
was of the Aryan race and family of the Sakyas.
t The incarnation and the birth are both represented in the sculp-
tures found upon the remains of the ancient temple at Sanchi. See
Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, plates xxxiii. and Ixv.
14
BUDDHA.
and birth were without taint of human impurity or
infirmity.
It is worthy of note, in passing, that this seems
to have been a fruitful epoch, productive of supe-
rior, genuinely great men. Confucius in China,
and Pythagoras in Greece (Magna Graecia), both
teachers of broad and universal quality, were cotem-
porary with Buddha. Xenophanes and, following
him, the Eleatic school came about the same time ;
also Heraclitus. A little earlier was Lao Tsze, a
sage more exalted perhaps than Confucius, and cotem-
porary with him was Thales.
In true Oriental style we are told what attention
this advent excited in the world of the gods, and
what marvels it wrought in the house and kingdom
of Suddhodana. The palace swept itself clean, all the
birds of Himavat assembled, testifying their joy in
song; the gardens bloomed with flowers and the
ponds filled with the lotus ; scented waters flowed ;
meats of all kinds covered the tables, and although
partaken freely of, knew no diminution ; instruments
of music, without touch of hand, played, giving forth
the finest melodies; caskets of jewels sprang open,
displaying of their own accord their treasures, and
finally the palace was irradiated with an unearthly
splendor, that eclipsed that of the sun and moon.
Gods and goddesses came to pay their adoration before
THE LIFE. I5
him while he was in the womb of Mayadevi, and Indra
and Brahma, chiefs of the gods, descended to receive
the new-born child in the garden of Lumbini, and
performed for him those offices usually done to the
new-born. The old Brahman Asita, dwelling in Him-
avat, came down to greet the child, read upon his
person the thirty-two primary and the eighty secondary
marks of the great man, and predicted to the father
that this was to be the Buddha. For himself, he
grieved that the old age that was already upon him,
would not permit him to hear that fine instruction
in the law that was to come.
In due time the child was presented in the temple
of the gods. All the images started from their seats
and prostrated themselves before him, and sang chants
in his praise. He grew up a boy of surpassing beauty
and of the most extraordinary parts. Placed in the
schools of writing, he soon was superior to his
masters, and one of them, Visvamitra, frankly owned
he had no more he could teach him. He was
pensive, reticent, took little part in the sports of his
mates, and used frequently to retire by himself into
solitudes, where he seemed lost in meditation. One
day, going out with his companions for an excursion
to a neighboring village, he quietly withdrew alone
into the shadows of a deep forest, where he remained
a long while. His continued absence occasioned
!6 BUDDHA.
great anxiety to his friends, and a careful search
was .instituted, in which the king, his father, took
part. They found him sitting under the shade of a
bamboo tree, rapt and lost in his thoughts.
The tendency in him to withdrawal and solitary
reverie gave pain to the courtiers and all his kin-
dred ; it was feared the royal family would some
day be without issue, and the throne without an
occupant. So it was determined that the young man
should marry, and it was hoped that in the attrac-
tions of family he might be beguiled from his apparent
purpose. He demanded seven days for reflection,
and at last feeling sure of himself, sure that mar-
riage could not take from him the calmness of
thought, nor leisure for meditation, he consented.
He imposed certain imperative conditions. The
woman for him must not be a frivolous creature,
without sobriety or possession. It little signified tor
the rest what should be her caste. She might
belong to the Vaisyas or the Sudras, equally well
as to the Brahmans or Kshatriyas, only she must
be endowed with womanly qualities, such as were
to be desired in a companion. Such an one at
length was found ; it was in the person of the beau-
tiful Gopa, of the family of Sakyas, daughter of
Dandapani.
But to this union the father objected. He could
THE LIFE. ij
not surrender his daughter to a young man, prince
though he were, who had the repute of being rather
a dreamer, and deficient in manly qualities. A con-
test was instituted ; among five hundred of the young
Sakyas assembled. Gopa was promised to the one
who should excel all the others in certain athletic
performance. Gautama easily lead them all in every-
thing ; he was the best swimmer, runner, leaper,
archer, albeit he had never before practised 'any of
these arts. The archery was certainly good, for we
are told that he split with his arrow a hair at the
distance of ten miles, though at the time it was
dark as night.* Hardly could any one of the young
Sakyas hope to do better.
He did more. He went into feats of mind,
showed himself more proficient than the judges even,
in writing, arithmetic, logic, knowledge of the Vedas,
philosophy, etc. Dandapani cordially now yielded his
consent, and the marriage took place. The union
was of the happiest, a true fellowship, a church of
saints. Gautama's age, it is said, was sixteen years
when he was married to Gopa.
But there was in this young man a want that
no companionship of wife or dearest friend could
supply, thoughts that knew only solitude, that visited
* Hardy's Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 139.
jg BUDDHA.
and gave him communion but in retirement from
all outward and seen. There were unanswered ques-
tions that haunted, present everywhere by night and
by day, subtle, vital, that he must take life-long
perhaps to ponder. The prince was still pensive,
abode much by himself; the gayety of society and
the splendors of the court pleased, but they did not
fill or captivate him. Evidently he had not been
diverted from the early bias he had shown, and
which had given such uneasiness to his friends.
"What is our life," he was wont to revolve with
himself, "whence is it and whither? It is like an
echo, a dream, the note of a lute, the lightning that
flashes for an instant, and is gone ; none can tell
whence it came or whither it goes. All is instabil-
ity, change, a ceaseless motion, is naught. But there
must be substance somewhere, some reality wherein
is duration and rest. If I could know and attain
that, I could bring light to man ; free myself, I could
deliver the world. I could show them the sure
gate of immortality. Withdrawn from the thoughts
born of the senses and beset with pain and unrest,
1 would establish them in repose. In making those
who are enveloped in deepest ignorance see the
clear light of the law, I should give them that fine
vision that reads all things, that ray of pure wisdom
that has no blemish or decay."
THE LIFE. 1 9
Three incidents, of a kind the most ordinary and
unnoticed in the experience of men generally, hap-
pening in his experience were most fruitful in results.
One day, starting from the eastern gate of the city
with a numerous retinue for a ride to the garden
of Lumbini, a place endeared to him by many most
sacred associations, he met upon the way an aged
man. He was broken, decrepit, covered with wrin-
kles, his head was white, the veins and muscles
stood prominent over his body, his teeth chattered ;
leaning upon his staff he tottered, scarcely able to
walk. ' ' Who is this man ? " he asked of the coach-
man. "He is small and weak, his flesh and his
blood are dried up, his muscles stick to his skin,
his body is wasted away, he trembles at every step.
Is this some peculiar condition of his family, or is
it the common lot of all created beings ? "
"Sir," replied the coachman, "this man is borne
down by old age, all his senses are enfeebled, suf-
fering has destroyed his strength, he is despised by rfis
relations ; without support and incapable of anything^
he is abandoned, like the dead tree in the forest.
But this is no special condition of his family. In
every creature youth is overcome by old age. Your
father, your mother, all your kindred and friends,
shall come to the same state, there is no other end
for living beings. ''
20 BUDDHA,
"Alas then," answered the prince, "are creatures
so weak, so ignorant and foolish as to be proud
of the youth that intoxicates them, not seeing the
old age that awaits? For myself, I will away. Coach-
man, turn my chariot quickly. I, the future prey
of old age, what have I to do with pleasure or
joy?" And, turning back, he reentered the city.
Another day, going out as before, he met a sick
man, a poor wretch suffering with fever, consumed
by the quenchless fire, homeless and friendless, dy-
ing in destitution and filth. And again he met a
corpse upon a bier, borne by weeping friends, for the
tomb. He interrogated his coachman, and learned
that these too were under the lot of humanity, and
was affected to deepest sadness. He returned to his
home, and would go no more in pursuit of pleasure.
Once again he met a bhikshu, a mendicant. He inter-
rogated his coachman, and was answered, "This man
has renounced all pleasures, all desires, and leads a
life of severe austerity. He tries to conquer himself.
He has become a devotee. Without passion and
without envy he goes about, seeking alms."
"Well said," replied the prince; "the life of a
devotee has always been praised by the wise. It
shall be my refuge and the refuge of other crea-
tures ; it will lead us to a real life, to happiness
and immortality."
THE LIFE. 21
His resolution was taken. Gopa, his wife, was
the first to whom he imparted the choice secret.
One night she awoke in terror from a bad dream,
and asked Gautama for an explanation. He opened
to her freely his purpose, sympathized with her grief,
and^ was able for the time to console her in good
degree for her loss. Then, filled with filial respect
and spirit of submission, he sought the same night
the bed-side of his father, told him frankly all and
begged to be permitted to depart in peace. The
father, with eyes filled with tears, besought him to
change his determination. Naught that utmost wish
could desire should be withheld from him, the pal-
ace, kingdom, servants, the king himself all should
be laid at his feet. But nothing of this could
avail with the prince. "Give me," said he, "that
I may know the method of exemption from old
age, disease, death, or give me at least that I shall
know no transmigration in the world beyond, and I
will cheerfully remain with thee ever." The king
confessed that this was utterly beyond his power ; all
were subject to that condition ; even the Rishis, in
the midst of the Kalpa in which they live,* are not
exempt from the dread of age.
* The duration of a Kalpa is indicated in this way : ' Take a rock
forming a cube of about fourteen miles, touch it once in a hundred
years with a piece of fine cloth, and the rock will sooner be reduced
22 BUDDHA.
The king saw that it was of no avail whatever
to attempt to dissuade this youth from his purpose,
but he resolved, if possible, to keep him at home,
to prevent his escape. The gates of the city were
watched, guards were set all about the town, and
Suddhodana himself, with five hundred young Sakyas,
watched at the gate of the palace. But it was all
in vain. One night when the guards, weary, were
fast asleep, the prince ordered his coachman Tchan-
daka to saddle his horse, for his hour was come.
The faithful coachman, in tears, made one last
appeal, begging him not to sacrifice himself thus,"
his youth and beauty and fine position for the
poor life of a devotee. It was an empty word for
those ears. ' ' Shunned by the wise, like the fangs
of a serpent, cast out like an unclean vessel, the
desires, Tchandaka, as I but too well know, are
the ruin of all virtue. Let a torrent of thunder-
bolts, of arrows, flaming swords, like the vivid light-
nings, or the burning summit of the volcano, sooner
fall upon and overwhelm me, than that I be born
again with the desire of house."*
to dust than a kalpa will have attained its end." M. Mtiller, Lectttre
on Buddhist Nihilism, p. 8.
* Another account has it that at this point Mara, the tempter,
appeared and promised him the kingdom of the world, if he would
renounce his design and remain. " But the offer was as repugnant
THE LIFE. 23
Unobserved by any, he left the city at the hour
of midnight,* and the star Pushya, that had presided
at his birth, rose at this moment above the horizon.
He turned to cast a last look upon the palace and
the town, and touched with a deep tenderness he
said, sweetly, " Never shall I return again to this
city of Kapila, until I shall have attained the ces-
sation of birth and death, exemption from old age
and decay, and reached the pure intelligence." He
was not to visit this home again until twelve years
afterward, when he came there to preach the new
faith. Together they travelled all the night, and at
day-break were twelve leagues away. Gautama
alighted, dismissed his coachman homeward with his
horse, and the costly ornaments that he took from
to those ears as would have been the attempt to pierce them with
glowing iron." Koeppen, I., p. 82.
* Some of the legends have it that the departure took place on
the night after the birth of his child. Standing upon the threshold ot
the door, he saw the princess sleeping, with her hand placed over the
head of the infant. He wished to remove the hand, that he might
look into the little face, but fearing that he might thereby awaken
the mother, and his resolution in consequence be weakened, it not
destroyed, he refrained. Gazing for a moment from the threshold,
with what thoughts we can well imagine, he turned away and left
family and court forever. "After having become Buddha," he said,
"I will see the child." This boy was named Rahula, and we hear
of him afterward as one among the followers of the saint.
See Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 3 ; also Bishop
Bigandet's Legend of Gaudama, pp. 53-57.
24 BUDDHA.
his person, henceforth without use for him. The
horse Kantaka, born upon the same moment with
Sakya, we read, was so strongly attached to his
master that he shed tears upon the separation,* and
some accounts have it that his heart burst and he
died on the spot.f A monument was afterward
erected at the place where the coachman turned
.back, and Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, in
the seventh century of our era, reports that he found
it yet standing. Gautama is said to have been about
twenty-nine years old at the time of this Hegira.J
Soon as the escape was discovered, the palace was
all in commotion. Swift messengers were sent in
ever} 7 direction, with strict orders at every hazard to
bring back the prince. But they did not find him.
Some of them met Tchandaka, who told them of
the circumstances of the flight, and earnestly pro-
tested that his master would never be brought back
alive. It remained but to return and report all at
the court. Gopa was filled with deepest sorrow, for,
somewhat prepared as she had been for this departure,
* This also is represented in the sculptures referred to. See Fer-
gusson, Tree and Ser petit Worship^ pi. lix.
t Bigandet, p. 61.
% Some accounts make it the twentieth or twenty-first year, but
the nearly unanimous testimony is for the age given above.
THE LIFE. 25
it came as a shock to her that no most kindly con-
solements could relieve.
Gautama, left alone, set to work now to prepare
himself for his undertaking. With his sword he cut
off the Icng locks he had worn as symbol of his
caste, and threw them to the wind. His garments,
rich, of the finest silk of Benares, he exchanged
with a hunter whom he met, for his single garment
made of a stag's skin of yellow color. The hunter
accepted the trade with a measure of embarrasment,
for he perceived readily that he was dealing with
some very superior person. The prince sought and
was kindl/ received by the Brahmans, with whom
and their adherents the forests seem to have been
filled. Near the city of Vaisali * he found Arata
Kalama, a Brahman of great repute, who had about,
him three hundred disciples. The arrival of this,
young man, with his extraordinary antecedents, caused
great attention. He was of surpassing beauty of
person, and when he spoke, his wordsWere wisdom.
Kalama was struck by his superiority, and though
he had applied for admission as a pupil, the mas-
ter besought him to remain as colleague, sharing
* Vaisali, a few leagues north of Patna ot the present day.
According to Major Cunningham the ruins are still to be seen. The
Bhilsa Topes, p. 29.
2 6 BUDDHA.
with him the work of instruction. But the thought-
ful youth did not find here what satisfied his need.
Frankly he said, "This doctrine conducts not to the
true deliverance. But," he added, with himself, "by
completing it, since it inculcates the subjugation of
the senses, I may come to the final liberation. But
it needs study, patient, continuous labor to perfect it."
From Vaisali he went to Rajagriha,* the capital
of Magadha, the present Behar. The story of his
extraordinary appearance and character had preceded
him, and the multitude, struck with the self-abnega-
tion and personal beauty, filled all the streets as he
passed. Business was suspended, for, that day, the
legend tells us, "they ceased from their buying and
their selling, and even from the drinking of liquors
and of wine, to view the noble mendicant that was
asking alms." The king Bimbisara, who was of
about the same age, and between whose father and
Suddhodana there had always been an intimate
friendship, observed him closely, visited him in his
retreat, and "charmed with his discourse, at once
so exalted and so simple, his magnanimity and his
integrity," became his fast friend and protector, and
afterward joined the congregation. But his most
* Rljagriha, about forty miles south-east of rauia, and sixteen
mihs south-west of Behar (tbe town).
7 HE LIFE.
2 7
flattering offers could not tempt the young devotee
to remain ; he had other work to do, and so he
retired into deep solitudes, far from the observation
and noise of the crowd.
There was in the neighborhood of Rajagriha a
Brahman still more celebrated than he of Vaisali,
Rudraka by name. He had a reputation unequaled
as a teacher, both among the vulgar and the learned,
and held about him a school of seven hundred dis-
ciples. Gautama sought him, asking admission as a
pupil. But Rudraka, after a little acquaintance,
offered, as had Arata, to give him equal place with
himself. "Together," said he, 'Met us teach our
doctrine to this multitude." But neither here could
he remain. "Friend/' said Gautama, "this road
leads not to indifference toward the objects of this
world, leads not to conquest, serenity, perfect wis-
dom, leads not to Nirvana." He withdrew, and five
of his fellow pupils followed him.
In the forests of Uruvilva* they remained, prac-
ticing together for years the severest Brahmanic aus-
terities. Gautama welcomed in this time, it is said,
tests and trials that would have appalled the gods.
What conflicts he sustained, battles with the most
* Uruvilv^ was a village on the banks of the present Nilajan, a
tributary of the Phalgu river.
28 BUDDHA.
formidable demons ! They tried their worst upon
him, and in every instance were vanquished ; broken
and discomfited, were driven back to their haunts.
In Oriental fashion we are told of these conflicts,
personal ones with demons. In the midst of his
severe penances, one day, Mayadevi, alarmed for the
life of her son, left Tushita, the heavenly abode, and
came down to implore him to cease from this ex-
cessive self-mortification. He consoles his mother,
but yields not. Then Mara, the Evil One, essays
to overcome him, and approaches with soft words of
flattery. "Dear one, it is necessary to live, in order
that you should perform the things you desire for
mankind. The work of life ought to be done
without pain. Already thou art attenuated; thy
youthful bloom is faded, thou art drawing near to
the grave. Gain not thy possession at too great
cost. The victory over the spirit is hard, very hard
to attain."
The young ascetic answers, "Papiyan, thou ally
of whatever is delirious and insane, hither art thou
come to assail and seduce . me ? Know that the
end of life is death, inevitable. I shall not seek
to escape it. Armed with courage and with wis-
dom, there is no creature in the world that can
move me. Demon, soon shall I gain the conquest
over thee. The desires are thy first soldiers, ennui
THE LIFE.
2 9
the next, then the passions, love of ease, fear,
anger, ambition, false fame, self-praise, censoriousness,
these are thy black hosts. Thy soldiers reduce
the gods as the world of men. But I will destroy
them by wisdom. "
Then he did battle with these demons, fought in
the wilderness and overcame, and Mara, humiliated
and ashamed, for the time withdrew. Ere long,
however, the sons of the gods came to make an
attack upon him still more formidable. He was
fasting severely, and his very life was passing away.
They offered to infuse nourishment through the
pores of his skin, and enable him to show the
peasants the miracle of a man, sustained in good
vigor, who took no food. He rejected with scorn
and indignation the proffer. "Yes, verily, I might
show the peasants such a spectacle, and they might
believe that Sramana eats not at all, all the while
being secretly nourished in this manner by the sons
of the gods, but it were on my part a huge lie.
Nay, indeed!" And so, in his own dialect, this spn
of man also in the wilderness, declares, "Get thee
behind me, Satan. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth
of God."
Other conflicts remained ; before attaining Bodhi,
the highest wisdom and possession, he must achieve
3 o BUDDHA.
still more conquests. He challenged the prince of
the infernal regions, with all his black hosts, to com-
bat. Sending from a point between his eyebrows
(a little tuft of hair that was one of the thirty-two
signs upon him at birth), a beam of light that
pierced and made to tremble all the depths of hell,
he roused Papiyan, who, alarmed for his kingdom,
summoned all his forces together. A council of
war was held. Some were for yielding, at least,
making no attempt, foreseeing certain defeat. Others
were for every adventure desperation could make,
believing in victory. This counsel prevailed. Four
corps d'armee there were, hideous and frightful beyond
description. The demons changed their visage in a
hundred million ways, their hands and their feet were
intertwined with ten thousand serpents, they carried
swords, bows, pikes, javelins, hatchets, clubs, pestles,
and all the weapons known to that time, thunder-
bolts included ; their heads were lurid with flame ;
belly, feet, hands of most disgusting aspect; their
teeth projected in tusks, the tongue swollen and hang-
ing from the mouth ; their eyes shot fire like those of
the poisonous black serpent.
With these dire hosts came the assault upon the
single solitary soul. But in vain ; utterly impotent
and baffled they were. The pikes, javelins, and the
huge rocks even, that they hurled at him, transmuted
THE LIFE. 3!
to flowers, and gathered in garlands about his head.
Papiyan made other attempts. Foiled in violence, he
tried the arts of persuasion, sent his daughters, the
beautiful Apsaras, to tempt Bodhisattva,* exhibiting to
him the thirty-two kinds of bewitchment known to
women. They sang and they danced before him,
and plied him with all imaginable fascinations and
seductive charms, but they were alike unsuccessful as
their brothers had been. Nay, they were themselves
overcome, and out of compelled respect and esteem,
broke forth in songs of praise to that virtue which
was too high that their art could touch. Papiyan
puts forth once more a last desperate attempt, but
is disappointed and stung, to see his very sons, who
had been most eager for the conflict, turned to
adore and worship Gautama. In his despair he
smote upon his breast and uttered groans; retiring by
himself, he traced with his arrow upon the ground,
"My kingdom is departed. "f Such is the legend,
wrought in all the extravagance of Oriental imagina-
tion, and yet it is nowise difficult to see the ground-
work of severe truth that lay at the bottom.
* Bodhisattva, a general term applied to characterize any one
who is aspiring and striving after the Buddhahood state of superior
wisdom and liberation.
f The scene of the temptation also is depicted on the northern
gateway of the temple at Sanchi, middle beam. See Fergusson as
as above, frontispiece.
32 BUDDHA.
But we have anticipated a little. Before Gau-
tama had passed all these conflicts, he had renounced
the ascetic practices of the Brahmans, satisfied that
they afforded not the vaunted road to deliverance,
and returned to a more free and normal life. "As
the man," he somewhere says, "wko would discourse
sweet music, must tune, the strings of his instru-
ment to the medium point of tension, so he who
would arrive at the condition of Buddha must exer-
cise himself in a medium course of discipline."
This scandalized the five friends who had followed
him from Rajagnha, and they forsook him in deep
displeasure. He was left alone, and by himself he
commenced to elaborate with patient care the thought
which to his mind was to be the life of the world.
He had learned himself, he had vanquished his
adversaries, he knew now somewhat of the foes he
he was to meet, and his power to resist them. But
had he got distinct view of the high wisdom ?
Did he see the ivay so clearly that he could make
it plain to others? He recalled the experiences of
his childhood, the splendid visions that had come
to him in early years in that garden of his father's
under the bamboo tree. Would his thought, ripened
by reflection, fulfil and realize these high promises?
Could the day-dream become a reality? After days
and weeks spent in deep, rapt thought, he was able
THE LIFE. 33
to say, Yes. He had found the way, had seen the
vision of life the way, he describes it, "of the
sacrifice of sense, the way which shows the path of
deliverance, leads to the possession of universal
knowledge, the way of remembrance and of clear
judgment, softening old age and death, calm, with-
out anxiety, free from all fear, and bringing to the
home of Nirvana." Here he had become as he
deemed, Buddha, the illuminated, fully conscious,
perfectly emancipate and free. An entire day and
night, it is said, he sat under the Bodhi tree, and it
had become the last watch, the first gleam of the
day-dawn, when the vision came, "he. was clothed
with the quality of perfect wisdom, he attained the
triple science." All nature at this momeiu testified
her joy. "All the flower-trees in the various sak-
walas (systems of worlds) put forth blossoms ; and to
the same extent the fruit-trees became laden with
fruit. On the trunks and branches there were lotus-
flowers, whilst garlands were suspended from the sky.
The rocks were rent, and upon them flowers appeared,
in ranges of seven, one above the other. The Lokan-
tarika hills, 80,000 miles in extent, in all these sak-
walas, were illuminated by a more brilliant light than
could have been made by seven suns. The waters
of the great ocean, 840,000 miles deep, became fresh.
The streams of the rivers were arrested. The blind
34
BUDDHA.
from birth saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked, and
the bound prisoner was set free. " *
The place where he was visited with this high
experience is celebrated in the Buddhistic annals; it
was called Bodhimanda the seat of intelligence.
The tree under which Gautama was sitting became
historic, and the faithful in after ages did not fail
to gather about it, and pay there a most devout
worship. In the year 632 of our era, Hiouen Thsang,
the Chinese pilgrim, found the tree, or at least what
was reputed to be it, still standing. It was protected
by a circle of brick wall, and approached by gates
opening on the east, south and west. "Its trunk
was of creamy white, its leaves green and glossy, and
according to the information given our traveler they
never fell, either in autumn or winter. Only on the
anniversary-day of the Nirvana (death) of Buddha they
fall all at once, to be reproduced the next day more
beautiful than before. Each year, on that same day,
the kings, ministers, magistrates, etc., gather about it,
shower it with milk, illumine with lamps, scatter
flowers about it, and carry away the leaves that have
fallen." f
* Hardy's Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, pp. 139, 140.
See also Bigandet's Legend, etc., pp. 90, 91.
f St. Hilaire's Bouddha, pp. 29, 30.
THE LIFE.
35
There was still one ground on which Buddha felt
hesitation. Sure as he was of himself, clear as was
his own view of the way, he had doubt whether this
high doctrine could be commended by him so it
should be accepted. "It is subtle and deep, beyond
the reach of the understanding, open only to wise
souls ; is in conflict with all the world. How will it
be received ? Men will not apprehend it. It may
only be rejected, and I be mocked. Hardly should
I expose myself to their insults, and be my own
victim." Three times he was on the point of yield-
ing, taking in view the easily possible nay, as
seemed, the very probable consequences of his stand-
ing forth as a public teacher. But consideration
of the needs of men prevailed, and banished every
hesitation.
"Three classes of men/' he said within himself,
"one finds, very much as when one sits beside a,
tank and notes the water-lilies growing in it ; he sees
some below the surface, others with heads raised
quite above it, and others still just on the surface.
So all mankind are of these three the sunken, the
hopelessly bad, the confirmedly virtuous, and the
undecided, the wavering. The first I may not help,
the second are strong, and do not need me, but the
third shall I leave them to perish? Perhaps my
word will save them, or some of them." Infinite
36 BUDDHA.
compassion moved him, and he resolved to devote
himself henceforth, without thought of anything per-
sonal to himself, to the redemption of man.
His first idea was that he would seek his old
masters at Vaisali and Rajagriha, both of whom he
remembered with tender affection. But it was a long
while since he parted from them, and in the interval
they had passed away. Could he have been earlier,
he said with himself, sorrowfully, he might have helped
these old friends ; now, alas ! it was too late. His
next thought was of the five disciples who had left
him, and he resolved to seek them. They were all
young men of a generous strain ; might be they would
hear the law. They were at Varanasi ( Benares),
and he must needs cross the Ganges. The river
was at this time high and very rapid, and he found
some difficulty in getting ferried over, for he had no
money to pay with. King Bimbisara, learning of the
circumstance, afterwards abolished all charge for fer-
riage to devotees.
The five saw him approaching, and all their old
remembrance of the offense he gave them came up.
They agreed among themselves that they would have
no conversation with him, would offer him no seat,
have nothing to do with him. But the presence of
their old master disarmed them, they sat uneasy, and
instinctively were constrained to rise and honor him.
THE LIFE. 3 7
They gave him a mat, and water for his feet, and
addressed him, "Ayushmat (Master) Gautama, wel-
come ! Pray sit down upon the mat. Sire, have
you risen beyond human law, and attained clear
vision of the sublime science?" "Call me not
Ayushmat," he responded. "Long time have I
remained without profit to you. I have not given
you help or any benefit. Yes, I have arrived at
clear vision of immortality, have seen the way that
guides thither. Come, let me teach you the Law.
Your spirits shall be delivered by the destruction of
'all your faults, and clear knowledge of yourselves;
you shall make an end of' births, and arrive at
supreme possession." Then pleasantly he recalled to
them the language, not kindly, they had indulged in
as they saw him coming. Ashamed and confused
they confessed their sins, and gladly embraced him
as their teacher and the guide of the world. The
interview, we are told, on this first meeting was
long, lasted to the latest watch of the night, and
Buddha unfolded to them freely his doctrine. It
was the enthusiasm of the teacher freshly entered
upon his work ; of the learner, hearing for the first
time the quickening word.
Benares was, as it still is, a distinguished seat and
radiating center of the Brahmanical doctrine. Here
was good missionary ground, and the young prophet
3 8 BUDDHA.
improved it well. As the story reads, here he turned,
for the first time, the wheel of the law. The preach-
ing was earnest and startling, and for a time com-
manded all ears. All the classes, from Brahman to
Kandala, gathered to hear it. As usual, men blessed
and cursed. Some accepted gladly, others turned
away with scorn and offense. The old charge of mad-
ness was repeated. They said, "The son of the king
has lost his reason." The legends are mostly silent
concerning this history, and of others how much, in
what they profess to give, is authentic we cannot know.
The first conversion after that of the five, one
relation tells us, was of a young layman, son of a
very wealthy citizen of Benares. This youth, wearied
and sick with the round of luxuries and sensuous
pleasures that were provided for him, stole away by
night from his home and sought the feet of the
saint, heard the law, and gladly accepted. The
father, going all about in search of his son, came
erewhile into the same presence, and he too was won.
"O, illustrious master," he exclaimed, "your doctrine
is a most excellent one ; when you preach it you
do like one who replaces on its base an upset cup ;
like one who brings to light precious things that had
hitherto remained in darkness ; one who opens the
mind's eyes that they may see the pure truth."
Invited to the house of the father, Buddha gained
THE LIFE.
39
the mother and the wife of the young man. Next
four young men, then fifty, we are told, of the best
in the city, friends and companions of this youth,
moved by his example, came in and gave up their
lives to religion. "All these/' as one of the legends
in Chinese puts it, "were but instances of the virtue
of the overflowing streams of the heavenly dew
(divine grace), and the enlightening power of the
mani gem (divine wisdom)/'
The discipleship so numerous, counting now more
than sixty, Buddha must erewhile send these men
'forth to evangelize. The good news was for all the
world ; let them hasten to preach it to every crea-
ture. "Let us part with each other," the legend
reports him as saying, "and proceed in various and
opposite directions. Go ye now, and preach the
most excellent law, expounding every point thereof,
and unfolding it with care. Explain the beginning
and middle and end of the law to all men without
exception. You will meet, doubtless, with a great
number of mortals, not as yet hopelessly given up
to their passions, who will avail themselves of your
preaching for reconquering their hitherto forfeited
liberty, and freeing themselves from the thralldom of
passions." This was the first sending forth of the
apostles, of which history has preserved us any record.
The mission, as we see, was to humanity.
40
BUDDHA.
Such work was accomplished not without oppo-
sition. There were heart-burnings, jealousies, ill
reports, and at length plots, machinations against
him, so that at times he was in imminent peril of
his life. The authors and instigators, as we should
naturally know, were the Brahmans. They instantly
saw how this reform would bear upon their exclusive
claims and position, and they left no means untried
to crush it in its incipiency. Here was a man that
met them on their own ground, and worsted them ;
that challenged them to public debate, and was too
much for them, put them to shame, and what could
be done with him but to silence his voice? Mild
as he was, Buddha did not spare them ; he exposed
their tricks and impostures, and set the brand upon
them deep, of hypocrites and charlatans. Probably
to the fact of the more pacific or less violent temper
of the Indian blood we owe it that here again was
not enacted such tragedy as that of the crucifixion
at Jerusalem, or the poisoning at Athens.
Leaving Benares the story conducts him to the
forest of Uruvilva, where he wrought many conver-
sions the legend says one thousand, including the
distinguished teacher Kasyapa and erewhile to
Rajagriha. King Bimbasara had invited him hither.
His reception was very hospitable, and in this neigh-
borhood, Magadha, and in Kosala, whose capital was
THE LIFE. 4I
Sravasti, and king, Prasenajit, very friendly to Buddha,
he seems to have spent thenceforth a large part of
his life. One of his favorite resorts was a high hill,
called the Vulture Peak, from a fancied resemblance
to that bird, overlooking Rajagriha ; it afforded mag-
nificent views, as also fine shade and fountains.
Some of his most famous discourses are marked as
having been delivered here. Hard by was the garden
or grove of Kalantaka, which a rich merchant of the
city presented him, having built upon it a superb
monastery, for the use of the disciples. Here were
converted Sariputra, Katyayana and Maudgalyayana,
names eminently distinguished in the subsequent
history. Another grove, Nalanda, is mentioned, a
little farther distant from the city, which became very
celebrated in this connection. Hiouen Thsang saw
here, at the time of his visit, immense monasteries,
the finest, he tells us, in all India, and ten thousand
monks dwelling in them, all maintained at the public
expense.
But in Kosala, which was north of the Ganges,
Buddha spent more time than in Magadha. King
Prasenajit invited him to his capital, and became a
disciple. Here also, near the city, was a grove that
became famous, one that Anatha Pindika, a minister
6f the king, long-time distinguished for his boundless
beneficence to the poor and orphaned, purchased . and
42
BUDDHA.
presented to him. He also erected upon it a
monastery, and here, it is said, that for twenty-three
years Buddha made his principal residence, teaching
all that came. Prajapati, his aunt, embraced the
faith here, and became the first of the female Bud-
dhist devotees. A great innovation it was upon the
old-time usage, to admit females to monastic orders,
and Ananda, his cousin, is said to have been largely
instrumental in effecting it.
After a separation of twelve years, Buddha saw
again his father and kindred of Kapilavastu. He
had attained the illumination and deliverance, and
the time for the fulfillment of the prophecy was come.
The father, grieved much at the withdrawal of his
son, sent many messengers, successively, to commu-
nicate with him, but all were so charmed by his
person and speech that they forgot to return. At
length he sent one of his ministers, Tcharka. He,
like the rest, was won, but returned, to tell the king
what he had seen, and announced the contemplated
visit. The king anticipated, and came to see his
son. What effect this had upon the father we know
not, but we are told that Buddha soon after went
to Kapilavastu, and all the Sakyas, hearing him,
embraced the faith. Among them was his son,
Rahula. And Gopa, or, as some say, Yasodhara,
who, in sympathy, had followed her husband all the
THE LlfiE. 43
while since his departure, adopting, fast as she learned
of them, his diet and his plain style of dress
she and five hundred other women of rank became
converts and assumed the monastic robe.
The scene of his activity must have been wider
than the comparatively narrow domain we have men-
tioned. We hear of him on the banks of the Indus
the scene of his feeding a hungry tigress with his
own arm is laid here, and Hiouen Thsang, eleven
hundred years later, found the grass, he tells us,
still red with the blood that flowed, and there was
probably little of Northern India that he did not at
some time visit. Thfee several times, the Singhalese
annals tell us, he visited their island, and he left
there in two places the prints of his sacred feet.
But the legends are very fragmentary and uncertain
here, long stretches of years are left entirely blank,
and much that is said of the wide journeyings, etc.,
may quite likely be a later addition. We have
enough to show that it was a very busy life, intensely
devoted to the word and works of kindliness and
mercy. Probably a portion of those years over which
the veil of silence hangs was spent in withdrawal,
hiding away from the reach of those enemies that
sought his blood.
We select from among the incidents related, a few,
which, whether authentic or not, have a verisimilitude
t
44 BUDDHA.
and are not unworthy of record. King Suddhodana,
already far advanced in years, was seized with a
violent distemper, that gave him no rest, by day
or by night. He felt strong, irrepressible desire once
more to see his son. Buddha, while in the early
morning, as was his wont, viewing the condition of
all beings, ,and devising in his compassionate heart
what might be done for them, saw the condition of
his father, and he hastened, traveling, as did Abaris
the Hyperborean, through the air, to his side. By
skillful appliances he healed the disease, but, announc-
ing to Suddhodana that in seven days he must die,
expounded to him the law^. Suddhodana saw,
believed and found repose. "Rocking himself in the
bosom of these comforting truths," he spent happily the
few days he had yet to live. On the last day, in pres-
ence of all his royal attendants, he asked pardon for
all the offenses he had committed in thought, word
or deed, and expired in the arms of his son, in the
ninety-seventh year of his age. Buddha consoled the
wife, Prajapati, by reminding of the transience of all
earthly, the inevitable separation that comes to every
one, and the home of possession to which the four
paths lead.
In the fields one day he met a Brahman, who .
was a farmer, with bullocks, plough, seed, etc. He
was tilling 'and planting for the future harvest.
THE LIFE.
45
Entering into conversation with him upon his work,
and the instruments employed in the performance, he
hinted that he himself was also a husbandman, culti-
vating a domain, and having need of and using all the
apparatus found with the best furnished farmer. The
Brahman, somewhat suprised and puzzled, Buddha
explains to him what in this husbandry is seed, what
the plough, the reins for guiding, the bullocks, etc.
"The bullocks have to work hard to complete the
task of tillage. So the sage has to struggle hard to
till perfectly and cultivate thoroughly the soil of his
own being, and reach the happy state of Nirvana."
The worker in the field of earth is sometimes dis-
appointed, sometimes feels the pangs of hunger. But
the worker in the field of wisdom, he says, knows
no failure, and is exempt from all suffering and
sorrow. He eats the fruit of his labor, and is fully
satisfied when he beholds Nirvana.
A Brahman and his wife, in one of the towns
he visited, were very friendly, proffered him hospi-
tality and sought his blessing. During many exist-
ences, they said, we have always been happily united.
Not an unpleasant word has ever passed between us.
We pray that in our coming existence the same love
and affection may ever unite us together Their
request was granted ; in presence of a large assembly
Buddha pronounced them blessed, happy among all
4 6 BUDDHA.
men and women. A poor weaver's daughter, intensely
desirous to hear the teacher, stops on her way to the
loom, quill and yarn in her hand, and sits down
timidly behind the furthermost rank of the congre-
gation. The saint sees her, and calls her forward,
catechises, instructs and blesses her, extolling her
thoughtful wisdom and earnest love for the true.
In a forest of Kosala dwelt a famous robber and
murderer, the terror of the neighborhood. Many
had fallen victims, and the king was powerless to
afford protection against him. Buddha, coming that
way, went, despite all remonstrances, boldly to his
den. Ugalimala, very wroth, set out instantly to
slay. him. But the saint, by his perfect self-posses-
sion, his kindliness, benignity and commanding pres-
ence disarmed, subdued the hard man, won him to
the law, and brought him in a disciple. Henceforth
he lived worthily and rose to the attainment of a
Rahan.
Devadatta, a cousin, and for a time a disciple of
Buddha, with the full countenance of King Ajata-
satru, hired thirty bowmen to take his life. Practiced
ruffians, they were nothing loth, rather were eager
for the deed. But just as they were about to put it
into execution, they were restrained, incapacitated,
"they felt themselves overawed by the presence of
Buddha." Instead of his murderers they became
THE LIFE.
47
worshipers, "fell at his feet, craved pardon, listened
to his preaching, and were converted." At another
time an elephant, infuriated, maddened by liquor that
had been forced down his throat, was set upon him
as he was quietly walking in the street. But the
elephant, as he came into his presence, far from doing
him injury, stood for a while, then knelt before him.*
Such relations may be in a degree fabulous, yet they
rest in a groundwork of severe truth ; the writer drew
from ideals, was veracious. It is natural to believe
in the greatness of the soul, to think it will some-
times bear itself superior to all, work every conquest ;
nay, it is sometimes found so.
Near the close of his life he was already
advanced in years a very tragic fortune befell his
family and native city. A neighboring king, for some
fancied offense, marched against it, captured it and
put all the inhabitants to the sword. Sakya, who
had in vain attempted to calm this vindictive ruler,
and dissuade him from his purpose of blood, remained,
as it is related, in the neighborhood of the unhappy
city, and heard distinctly the wild din of the battle
and the wail of the dying. After Virudhaka's (the
king's) departure he repaired in the night-time alone
to the city, and strolled through its desolate and
Bigandet, pp. 249, 250.
4 8 BUDDHA.
corpse-covered streets. In that charming garden, near
Suddhodana's palace, where in his childhood he had
spent days together, he heard only death-groans, and
saw by the starlight naked, mutilated bodies, mem-
bers and trunks, scattered promiscuously about. Many
of the victims were already dead, some in the last
struggle. "He went from one to another, ministered
to them of his deep sympathy, and comforted them
in the assurance of the blessed beyond." *
About forty-five years he had spent in unremit-
ting self-denial and toil, his courage never failing,
his zeal never for an instant growing cold, when the
time for his departure had come. He was nearly
eighty years old. He was returning from Rajagriha,
towards Kosala, accompanied by Ananda, his cousin,
and a large crowd of disciples. Standing upon a
square stone, on the bank of the Ganges, he looked
back towards Rajagriha, and remarked, with deep
emotion, "Never again shall I see that city or the
Throne of Diamond" this last being the place where
he wrought his great victory and attained the Bud-
dhahood. A like touching adieu he bade to Vaisali.
He had not quite reached the city of Kusinagara f
* Koeppen's Buddha, I., pp. 113, 114.
f Lying a little more than one hundred miles northwest of the
present Patna.
THE LIFE,
49
city of Kusa grass when he felt that the end
was at hand. He requested Ananda to prepare a
place for him in a forest of Sala trees (shorea robusta]
hard by. Pointing out two tall trees on the edge
of the wood, he directed that the couch should be
laid between them. Though the distance was short
he made it only with great embarrassment, was com-
pelled to rest twenty-five times on the way. Beneath
these trees he spent his last hours, busily engaged
upon the themes that had occupied his life. "The
sun and moon shall decay ; what, then, is the sparkle
of the glow-worm ? Therefore he exhorted them to
strive after the imperishable body, to cast away the
unreal." All the watches of the night he employed
in kindly counsel to his friends, in earnest preaching
to the Malla princes and the Brahman Subhadra,
whom he converted there ; at the break of day he
passed away. This occurred, according to the most
probable determination, about 477 B. C.*
While he was reclining on the couch, the account
is that the two Sala trees became loaded with fragrant
blossoms, which gently dropped above and all around
his person, so almost to cover it. Not only these,
but all in the forest, and in ten thousand worlds,
* The Ceylonese Buddhists fix the time at 543 B. C. Practically
the difference is of but little moment. Bunsen, on what authority
does not appear, makes his death to have occurred in the fifty-sixth
year of his age.
50 BIJDDHA.
went likewise into bloom. As the end approached,
the blood of the Palasa flower poured forth, and at
the moment of the death a fearful earthquake occurred,
that shook the whole world ; sun and moon were
darkened, .meteors flashed abroad, and finest dirge
music, sounding from the skies, filled the air.*
Ananda had inquired what ceremonies were to be
performed after his demise. "Be not much concerned
about what shall remain of me after my, Nirvana," was
the reply, ' ' rather be earnest to practice the works that
lead to perfection. Put on those inward dispositions
that will enable you to reach the undisturbed rest of
Nirvana." "Believe not," he says again, "that when
I shall have disappeared from existence and be no
longer with you, Buddha has left you and ceased to
dwell among you. The law contained in Ihose sacred
instructions which I have given shall be your teacher.
By means of the doctrines which I have delivered to
you, I will continue to. remain amongst you. " j* Obedi-
ence, he insists, is greater than sacrifice. The Nagas,
* Beal's Catena, p. 137. Bigandet, Legend, etc., p. 323. Koep-
pen, I., p. 115.
f In one of the Sutras of the Prajna Paramita class in the Chinese,
on "the mystical body of Tathagata, without any distinct character-
istic," we find this : " He who looks for me, /'. <?., for the true Tatha-
gata, through any material form, or seeks me through any audible
sound, that man has entered on an erroneous course, and shall never
behold Tathagata. Beal's Catena, p. 277.
THE LIFE. 51
Galongs and Nats, all coming from their respect-
tive seats in the other worlds, showered flowers
and perfumes, like dew, over and about his person.
He said to Ananda, "The man or woman who
practices the excellent works leading to perfect hap-
piness these are the persons that render me a true
homage and present to me a most agreeable offering.
The observance of the law alone entitles to the right
of belonging to my religion." To Ananda, who was
the beloved disciple, the John of this band, he pre-
dicts something of his future, the attraction he shall
exercise, the warm, glowing love he shall win. "An-
anda is graceful and full of amiability amidst all other
Rahans. He has heard and seen much, he shines
in the midst of the assembly. Rahans will come
from a distance, on hearing all that is said of his
graces, to see and admire him ; and all will agree
in saying that what they observe surpasses all that
they had heard." "Enraptured at the flow of his
tender, touching and heart-moving eloquence, visitors
shall eagerly listen to him ; they will experience sad-
ness only when his silence shall deprive them of that
food their mind and heart were feasting on."
Whatever may have been the wishes of the saint
and it would seem that he would have made very
little account of the lifeless, perishing body the
grandest obsequies followed upon his death. They
52 BUDDHA.
were after the manner appointed for the Chakra-
varttin kings, to whom, by descent, he reputedly
belonged. On the eighth day the body was burned.
At first the flames refused to do their office, but
when Kasyapa had honored., the feet of the dead, the
"flame of contemplation" burst forth from the breast,
and consumed the entire corpse. The bones were
of pearly whiteness, and they exhaled a fragrant odor,
sweet as the breath of heaven. After hot disputes,
which the history tells us, but for the remembrance
of the amity and tender spirit of affection which the
Master had taught, would have been bloody, these
relics were divided into eight portions, and distributed
to as many groups of friends, not omitting the Sakyas.
Immense topes were afterwards erected over the several
places where they lay, but in the time of King Asoka,
about 250 B. C, they were gathered together again,
redistributed, and sent abroad over the whole of India.
We have some particulars of the person of this
saint. He was not only a model of wisdom, sanctity,
high character, but also of physical beauty. In the
crown, we are told, his head rose very high, the hair
was curly, and of deep black, the forehead broad and
smooth, "the eye-lashes like those of a heifer," and
the eyes jet black. "His brows were arched like
the rainbow, his eyes ribbed like the leaf of the lotus."
The teeth, in number forty, were regular, and of
THE LIFE.
53
pearly whiteness. Every limb, every feature, down to
the lines of the hand, fingers, finger-nails, etc., was
modeled after the standard of perfect beauty, accord-
ing to the Indian ideal, and all the details are
carefully given. A likeness, accurate to the life, done
in sandal-wood, is said to have been executed by one
of the disciples, and to have served as the model of
all the statues and portraits found in the North,
wherever the faith penetrated. Another, a portrait
upon canvas, made for King Bimbasara, as a present
to a neighboring prince, is ascribed, in the outline at
least, to Buddha himself. How far the representa-
tions we now have were modeled upon these ancient
pictures, supposing them to have existed, no one, of
course, can tell. The face, in such as we have seen,
bears a marked expression of fineness, of sweetness,
illumination and beauty.*
* The sources whence we have drawn, in preparing this sketch,
are m good part indicated above. We name them together here :
Barthelemy St. Hilaire's Le Bouddha et Sa Religion. Troisieme Edi-
tion, Paris, 1866. C. F. Koeppen, Die Religion des Buddha, undihre
Entstehung t Berlin, 1857, 1859. Eugene Bumouf s Introduction a la
Histoire du Buddhisms Indien, Paris, 1844. S. Beal's Catena of Bud-
dhist Scriptures, from the Chinese; London, 1871. Spence Hardy's
Eastern Monachism, London, 1860. The same, Legends and Theories
of the Buddhists, London, 1866. Wasseljew's Buddhismus, seine
Dogmen, Geschichte und Literatur, St. Petersburg, 1860 ; and last,
but not least, Bishop Bigandet's Life or Legend of Gaudama, Rangoon,
1866. The agreement in the accounts preserved among the Northern
54
BUDDHA,
Buddhists and the Southern respectively is singularly close, and shows
clearly that they have all guarded with scrupulous care their sacred
records, in this regard, from essential change since their separation,
and gives good ground to believe that we have them now in all import-
ant respects, as they were when first committed to writing. How soon
this was done we do not know, but there is evidence that the Salita
Vistara, the chief book of this kind among the Northern Buddhists,
and rendered early into Chinese, Thibetan, etc., is of a date previous
to the Christian era. See Max Mliller, Chips, L, p. 259.
In Beal's Catena, pp. 130-142, is a remarkable statement of the
legend, made by Wong-Puh, in the seventh century, who drew, as he
says, from the old records. It is in aphorisms, and written in the style
that was common in the schools at an early date.
II.
THE EFFECT.
THE success that attended the preaching of this
new faith was wonderful. Preaching itself was a
novelty, for Burnouf says that, so far as he finds, it
was a thing unheard of in India before.* Even
during the life-time of its founder, his doctrine must
have obtained a considerable prevalence, slow at first,
doubtless, making its conquests at the hardest, but
gaining each year, until at length it became broad-
spread over the country. It supplanted Brahmanism
largely on its own soil. We have no means of know-
ing what its numerical strength then was, but the
following must have been large, f The old was effete,
gone utterly to decay, and the preaching of salvation
by method so simple, natural, pure and enforced by
life, and earnestness so devoted and transparent, could
* Jntrod. p. 194.
f The number reported by the early Buddhists as converted directly
by Buddha himself is 1,250. Wasseljew, p. 26.
5 6 BUDDHA.
not fail to draw followers.* It brought quickening
regeneration in the midst of prevailing death. It was
a simple word of repentance and obedience, of high
consecration and pure living, practical and intelli-
gible, so far as the ethereal and transcendent truths
that dwell in light inaccessible, can be brought to
the understanding. There was no ceremonial, no
elaborate scheme of expiation and deliverance. The
handwriting of ordinances was blotted out, the immense
structures broken down which priestly device had
thrown about the soul to hedge it out from God.
What a sense of relief it must have brought to many
a poor, sick, weary and harrassed one, those may
somewhat imagine who have known the like in
their own experience.
Buddha proclaimed the equality of all, no distinc-
tion of blood or caste ; all were alike before the law.
"The Brahman is born of a woman, so is the Kan-
dala. Can you see any cause that should make
the one noble and the other vile? The Brahman,
when he dies, becomes a loathsome object, as does
any one of a lower caste ; where, then, is the differ-
ence?" "My law is a law of grace for all." "As
* "If there is one broad fact that comes out from the legends of
every kind, it is that Indian society was most deeply corrupt at the
time when Buddha appeared there." St. Hilaire, p. 95. To the same
effect, Koeppen, I., p. 56.
4
THE EFFECT. _
the four rivers which flow into the Ganges, lose their
names so soon as they mingle their waters with .the
sacred stream, so those who believe in Buddha cease
to be Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras."
"Since the doctrine which I proclaim is altogether
pure, it makes no distinction between high and low,
rich and poor. Like water it is, which washes
and purifies all alike. It is like the sky, for it has
room for all, men, women, boys, girls, rich and
poor." *
How revolutionary it must have been, in a country
ridden as no country ever was before or since, with
the oppressions of caste ! He was himself a model
of all the virtues and benignities he taught, and
enforced every word with such personal consecration
and love as touched deeply the heart.
The wave of this influence was not soon spent.
For the first time, so far as any records show us, the
soul of humanity was kindled, the missionary spirit,
* " He addressed himself to all classes ; nay, he addressed himself
to the poor and degraded, rather than to the rich and the high." M.
Mtiller, Chips, II., p. 343. "The whole proletary of India you would
see in the assemblage of our reformer ; Sudras and Kandalas, barbers
and scavengers, bankrupts, the imbecile, forsaken, aged, beggars and
cripples, worn-out courtesans, outcast girls, that knew no couch but
the dung-hill ; even thieves and highwaymen, murderers in a word,
all the wretched and unfortunate, eagerly seek him, to gain through
him deliverance from their burdens." Koeppen, L, p. 132.
5
5 8 BUDDHA.
the desire to carry the new word to all nations, was
aroused. As early as the date of the third Council,
say perhaps 308 years before Christ, we hear of
extended missionary enterprises into foreign countries,
into Cashmire on the north, beyond the Himalas to
Thibet, and perhaps China, and into Ceylon and
Farther India. Indeed there are accounts of some of
this work done far earlier, but how far they are trust-
worthy it is not possible now to decide.* The new
religion had its poets. The soul was touched to
rhythm, and the fine thought found fine utterance
in the music of song. This was sure to come.
The annals are mostly vacant, but we find mention
made of a lyric poet, Parsva, in the reign of King
Kanishka (a little before the Christian era), who did
very much to popularize Buddhism, celebrating it in
odes that were presently in the mouths of all. Others
also are named ; two laymen, brothers in Magadha,
whose hymns are still preserved, or profess to be, in
one of the sacred collections (the Tanjur) of Thibet. f
Fabian, a Chinese pilgrim in the fourth century, found
Buddhism prevalent in the Cabul countries west of
the Indus. In the reign of Ming-ti, emperor A. D.
* See the substance of them in Wasseljew, pp. 42-44. But see
also Koeppen. I., pp. 144, 188.
f Wasseljew, pp. 52, 53.
THE EFFECT. 59
65, it gained public recognition as the third among
the state religions of China, and it has maintained a
strong hold there to this day, being professed in a
sort by the lower classes of the people at large. In
the seventh century there were not less than 3,716
Buddhistic monasteries there, and at the present time,
in Peking and its environs alone, there are 5,000
temples and 80,000 monks. The number of priests
in the empire is reported at over 1,000,000. From
China it was carried in the fifth century to Corea,
and in the sixth to Japan. Among the Tartar tribes
it must have been propagated at least a century
or two before our era. On the west at an early
day it penetrated into Persia proper, but was
repressed and driven back into Cabul by the
relentless power of the Sassanidae. Then soon came
the Mohammedan persecutions,' which lasted for cen-
turies, and extended over all of Central Asia, as far
as the banks of the Lob Nor. In these calamities,
doubtless, very many literary documents of great value,
touching the religion and its history, perished.* Like
Christianity, Buddhism was first itself when trans-
planted to foreign soil ; it achieved its great con-
quests among those of different nationality, blood and
civilization, from the people with whom it had its birth.
* Wasseljew, pp. 79, 80. Also Koeppen, II., p. 34.
60 BUDDHA.
A son of King Asoka, Mahinda, is said, with his
sister, to have been sent to Ceylon,* and a very won-
derful account of .the history of the planting of the
faith in that island is contained in one of the old
Singhalese annals.
King Devanampiyatissa ruled over the island.
Before he ascended the throne he was greatly distin-
guished for wisdom and piety. On the day of his
coronation all Nature testified her rejoicing ; rich
metals and precious stones came up of their own
accord from the bowels of the earth, and spread them-
selves upon the surface. Pearls and other treasures,
buried in the depths of the sea, rose and ranged
themselves upon the shore, happy in the possession
of such a prince. More marvelous still, a bamboo
put forth three wonderful branches, one of silver, one
covered with the most varied and beautiful flowers,
and one graved with figures of the rarest animals and
birds. The king, too modest to appropriate them
himself, sent these choice treasures to the great
Asoka. His embassadors came back, loaded with
finest gifts, and charged with a message to their
* Maudgaliputra, head of the third Council, deputed Mahinda,
with his associates, commissioning them in these words: "Establish
ye, in the delightful land of Lanka, the delightful religion of the
Vanquisher." The Singhalese Mahavansa, quoted by Koeppen, I.,
p. 1 88, Note.
THE EFFECT. 6 1
sovereign: "I have found refuge with Buddha, the
Law and the Congregation ; I am dedicated to the
religion of the son of the Sakyas. Come, thou sov-
ereign of men, acknowledge in thy heart this supreme
refuge, and commit to it thy salvation."
We do not know that the message received any
immediate regard, but erewhile Mahinda and his sister
were sent as missionaries to the island. The new
faith was accepted. Devanampiyatissa, the Princess
Annula and all the court embraced it, and the people
flocked in crowds, to hear and receive. Mahinda
became, as the old chronicler hath it, "the torchlight
whereby the whole island was illuminated." Great
memorial structures grew up, but they lacked relics,
and King Asoka was applied to, to supply them.
A collar-bone of Buddha was sent, which was received
and provided for with all due honor.
But more than all, a branch of that sacred tree,
the Bo-tree at Bodhimanda, was sent, cut by the hand
of the king, and carefully guarded by himself in
person, until it was committed to the ship that was
to carry it to the island. The most remarkable
prodigies occurred on the way. The vessel cut
swiftly the waves, and to the distance of a league
away the rough billows subsided to smooth sea before
it. Flowers of five different colors bloomed around
it, and music, the most sweet and luscious, filled the
62 BUDDHA.
air. Innumerable oblations were brought by innu-
merable divinities, while the Nagas tried in vain to
steal away this divine tree. Sanghamitta, the daughter
of King Asoka, herself a high priestess, into whose
hands this noble branch was committed for keeping,
baffled all their wicked designs "by the power of her
sanctity, "
Such was the story of the tree in its passage.
Arrived at its destination, the capital city, Anuradha-
pura, it is borne in imposing procession, to be planted
in the garden of Mahamega. Sixteen princes, clad
in the most brilliant habits, are at hand to receive
it, but the branch, leaving their grasp, rises aloft in
the air, and stays there, glistening with a circle of
light, which six luminous rays make about it. At
the setting of the sun it descends again and plants
itself without assistance, in the garden, where, for the
space of eight days, a sheltering cloud protects it,
watering it with quickening showers. Instantly then
the fruits appear on the tree, and the king is thereby
enabled to disseminate it over the island this won-
derful tree, Bodhi, pledge of salvation.
A faith supported by such prodigies ought to grow,
or perhaps we might better say it had already attained
large dimensions that there should have been such
prodigies. The hold which Buddhism gained in
Ceylon has never been broken, and although much
THE EFFECT. 63
degenerated from the pure simplicity and transparent
truth of its founder, it still retains many points of
singular attractiveness and worth.*
It was effectually introduced into Thibet in the
seventh century of our era, although it seems to have
been preached there long time before, and after various
fortunes sometimes encountering the bitterest perse-
cutions it was at length established as the prevailing
religion. Variously colored and mixed, modified by
Sivaism, which it brought from India, and the Sham-
anism which it found on Mongolian soil, grown now
to a most rigid and narrow ecclesiasticism, with its
lamaseries, hierarchy, pontifical college and Grand
Lama, it still retains some of the fine features of its
parentage, and is reverently called by the Thibetan
people "the internal religion. "f
In India, the land of its birth, after various
fortunes, having been installed as the state religion,
by King Asoka, and sometimes favored and some-
* See here Hardy's Eastern Monachism, a book written from
an orthodox Christian standpoint, by a missionary, and blind to much
tfcat ought to have been seen and appreciated ; but, on the whole,
pervaded by a spirit more than usually intelligent and candid.
f In three cloisters, in or near Lhassa, are at the present time
30,000 monks. Koeppen, II., in. These are of the yellow mantle.
In the south of Thibet there is another church, of the Buddhists of the
red mantle, with their Lama also, but of their number, as indeed of
the number of the others, we are not informed.
64 BUDDHA.
times persecuted by succeeding monarchs, Buddhism
was assailed and expelled by its old enemy, the
Brahmanical power. This final expulsion occurred
about the eleventh or twelfth century of our era.*
"Let him who slays not be slain/' read the decree,
and the disciples of the meek Gautama were mas-
sacred and driven out by the sword, f Not a single
Buddhist to-day, it is said, is to be found on the
peninsula.
The influence of Buddhism upon the western world,
through the intercourse that, after the conquests of
Alexander, sprung up between West and East, and
lasted for centuries, was neither slight nor transient.
* Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes, p. 166.
f Spence Hardy puts it in the sixth century after Christ, but this is
certainly too early, for Chinese pilgrims visited India in subsequent
centuries, and found the faith widely current there. "The prince
Sudhanvan gave orders to put all the Buddhists in India to death."
Madhava Acharaya says : " The king commanded his servants' to put
to death the old men and the children of the Bauddhas, from the
bridge of Rama to the snowy mountain ; let him who slays not be
slain." The fusion of three castes out of the four, leaving the Brahman
paramount, and alone in integrity of race, is a proof of the severity of
the strife. Among the millions of the Hindus, Buddha has not now
a single worshiper. The minister of the powerful Akbar, in the i6th
century, could find no one in the wide dominions of his master who
could give him any explanation of the doctrines of Gotama." Legends
and Theories, pp. 305, 206. It would seem, however, from the dates
of the Mohammedan invasions that the time given by Major Cunning-
ham above is too late. More probably it may be in the ninth or tenth
century.
THE EFFECT. 65
In exchange for some of the elements of material
civilization which she borrowed thence, India gave
back to Rome advanced ideas upon the great prob-
lems of life. The fine thought of the philosophers
of Alexandria and the Platonic school generally, derived
much of its stimulus and nourishment from the East,
was Oriental speculation cast in Occidental mold.
And sundry of the observances in the Catholic Church
appear to have been derived from Buddhistic source.
"The ideas found in the Inferno of Dante are many
of them purely Buddhist. " * Josaphat, who has been
made a leading character in the Roman martyrology,
is Sakya-Muni transplanted and appropriated by Rome.
The story was used to illustrate, as it well did, the
trial and the conquest, amid great temptations, of a
sensitive, saintly soul. Marco Polo said of Sakya,
"If he had but been a Christian, he would have
been of the foremost in the sight of Heaven."
Undoubtedly Buddhism, as -we have it, histori-
cally has been, and is, a gross idolatry, a dark,
blighting paganism. It seems to have fallen towards
that almost from the beginning. As had been the
case with Brahmanism before it, on the one hand
airy, vapid speculations arose, subtle dialectics, refining
and sublimating, until they abolished everything,
* S. Beal.
66 BUDDHA.
annihilated all affirmative being, and left the spirit
in the coldness and chill of mere negations ; * and
on the other hand a gross sensualism, that worshiped
form and circumstance and person, and made the
very Nirvana low and carnal. Buddha, as the history
tells, turned the wheel of the law, or taught publicly
the word of life ; the saints to-day perform their
devotions by turning with windlass huge wheels
inscribed with mystic formulas and the precepts of
their prophet. Buddha proclaimed the not, rising
beyond the limitations of person, and feeling the utter
* It would be of little profit here, even could we do it, to enter
into any account of the Buddhistic speculation. It was very volumi-
nous, and any tolerable sketch of it would take large space. There
were many schools sects and sub-sects, beginning with Vaibhasrhikas
and the Sautrantikas (those who held most by the Abhidharma and by
the Sutras respectively), numbering at one time eighteen or twenty.
Afterwards all are represented in the two Vehicles, the Great and the
Little, which for many centuries contended together in debate upon
their respective doctrines. And in these, especially the Great Vehicle,
there were various divisions or schools. All the latitudes and realms
of subtle, abstract thought were traversed in these speculations, and
the stages of the ancient Greek philosophizing, and of the mediaeval
scholastic, were percurred on the Eastern soil. The mysticism of the
New Platonists and the idealism of Fichte is there. Says the Lanka
Vatara, a book belonging to one school of the Great Vehicle, " What
seems external exists not at all, only the soul manifests itself in different
forms." Again it is said, "All worlds are but 'the creation of our
thought." There is also in large measure the negation and nihilism
of the Sophists, the Nominalists, and the skeptics of all ages. Those
who are curious in such matters may find a sufficiently full account in
Wasseljew's Buddhismus.
THE EFFECT. 67
impossibility to define heaven or the beyond, dropped
never a hint describing it in form ; he forbore to
utter any name of God, perhaps knew never a thought
of personal immortality, and yet he was quickly him-
self apotheosized, paradise was built up filled with
carnal elements, and his own name is invoked as
that of a supreme deity in the skies, ready to help
forever. Such is the story of Buddhism wherever it
has gained possession of multitudes ; such, with slight
modifications, will we find it in Mongolia, in China,
in Thibet, Ceylon and Farther India ; more marked
as an idolatry doubtless in the later time, than it
was in the early periods.
But there were certain impressions laid upon it
too deep to be effaced. It never lost its pacific,
gentle character, never, at least in the early centuries,
raised the hand of persecution or oppression, although
it long had at its bidding the arm of civil power.
It carried all its conquests by persuasion and the
force of character. It suffered wrongs, sometimes
great violence, at the hand of its enemies. We hear
of wars, invasions of India, persecutions, in which
many temples were burned and multitudes of Bhik-
shus were killed. And the Brahmanical power, as
we have seen, at length arose and put the followers
of Sakya to the sword. But the same features of
gentleness, reverent regard for life, forbearing to hurt
68 BUDDHA.
the smallest creature that lives, distinguish the faith
to this day. "No religion, not even the Christian,"
says Max Miiller, "has exercised so powerful an
influence on the diminution of crime as the old,
simple doctrine of the ascetic of Kapilavstu." * King
Asoka, whose edicts are preserved on monumental
columns and on rocks, enjoins the practice of the
most generous virtues, orders the construction of roads
and hospitals, and even abolishes capital punishment.
"The king," he says, "beloved of the gods,
honors every form of religious faith ; but considers
no gift nor honor so much as the increase of the
substance of religion ; whereof this is the root
to reverence one's own faith, and never to revile that
of others."
"Alms and pious demonstrations are of no worth
compared with the loving-kindness of religion. The
festival that bears great fruit is the festival of duty."
"The king's purpose is to increase the mercy,
charity, truth, kindness and piety of all mankind."
"There is no gift like the gift of virtue."
"Good is liberality; good, it is to harm no living
creature ; good, to abstain from slander ; good is the
care of one's parents, kindness to relatives, children,
friends, slaves."
* Koeppen also speaks to the same effect I., 480, 481.
THE EFFECT. 69
' ' There is no higher duty than to work for the
good of the whole world."
Dushtagamim, a king of Ceylon, of the second
century B. C. , is recorded in the Singhalese annals
to have established hospitals, endowed monasteries,
opened roads through his dominions, furthered agri-
culture, etc. He constructed a stupendous dagoba,
and the edict that is quoted from him in regard to
it, declares that no part of that great work should
be performed by unpaid labor.*
Megasthenes, who about 300 B. C, was sent
by Seleucus Nicator to Palibothra, to the court of
King Kandragupta, where he spent several years,
speaks of a sect of philosophers he found there
opposed to the Brahmans, the Sarmanai, presumably
the Sramanas, as they were called; i. e., ascetics who
subdue the senses. They live simply, he says, sub-
sisting upon the alms that are given them ; abstain
from wine, and maintain most chaste celibacy.
The manners of the Mongolians have been soft-
ened, their characters very essentially ameliorated, since
they y came under the influence of this faith, as all
travelers who have been among them abundantly
testify. Indeed, the change has amounted well nigh
to a transformation, as will appear by comparing
* See Johnson's Oriental Religions, pp. 739-741.
yo BUDDHA.
them since their conversion with what they were
before. Murder and robbery, it is testified, in the
region extending from the Great Wall to the Altai,
are as infrequent today as in the civilized countries
of Europe. These savage hordes were the scourge
and the terror of Asia. Some of the tribes still retain
their old worships and wild barbarism, and show by
contrast what Buddhism has achieved for those of
the same blood and natural qualities. Of the Thi-
betans, Neumann says, "The savage traits of these
people, the mild, philanthropic doctrine of the prince
Sakya has done much to soften, if it has not eradi-
cated." "All men," they hold, "are brothers,"
and they seek to treat all with the spirit of a true
fraternity. The Chinese have a proverb that runs
so; "Religions are many, all different, but reason
is one; we are all brethren/' which, though not
directly traceable to Buddhism, probably came of that
inspiration.
A like amelioration has been wrought upon the
Birmese and Siamese. "Previous to its introduction,"
says Mr. Low, "these nations must have been savage
in the extreme." Except in occasional instances of
sudden heat and violent outbreaks of the savage
passions as in the case of war against enemies, in
which it is said they give loose to the every revenge
they are pacific, gentle, tractable, exceedingly hospi-
THE EFFECT. 7 !
table to strangers, and most carefully considerate to
anticipate their every want. Private persons construct
in Siam, at their own expense, foot-paths and bridges,
and erect along the streets and water-courses places
of shelter and lodging-quarters for the wayfarer. Daily
the women fill vessels with fresh water along the
road-side, for the traveler, whenever he shall wish, to
quench his thirst. The same custom obtains also
in Ceylon. Thefts and mu-rders are comparatively
unknown, the latter particularly. In the populous
city of Bangkok, containing 400,000 people, very rarely,
we are told, is a broil or quarrel seen, and so infre-
quently is murder committed, that sometimes for the
space of an entire year there will not be a single case.
If, as in Japan and Siam, Buddhists have once
arisen to put down with strong arm of power Chris-
tianity from their midst, it is to be remembered that
this was done under the provocation of a first wanton
attack, and attempted extermination of their own insti-
tutions and faith.
The testimony is abundant that the natural moral-
ities are better observed, the chastities better maintained
in the countries under the sway of Buddhism than
elsewhere in the East. Tender care is taken of the
sick, the aged, the helpless. Reverence to parents
is made one of the first of duties. A sixth com-
mandment (the five of universal obligation are given
72 BUDDHA.
on page 86) imposed upon the laity in Thibet is,
"Thou shalt cherish thy father and mother."
"To honor father and mother is better than to
pay worship to the gods of heaven and earth.''
"If a child should carry father and mother, one
upon each shoulder, for a hundred years, he would
then do less for them than they have done for him."
These passages of the law have become proverbs
with the people.
Bigandet testifies that one effect of Buddhism,
wherever it has gone and exerted anything like a
decisive influence, is the amelioration a very material
one of the condition of woman. This is marked in
Siam, in Tartary, Birmah and Ceylon. And he ascribes
it to the fact that this religion knows no distinctions of
rank, except such as are founded in character.* There
are works written by Buddhistic authors against caste,
and these have been used by Christian missionaries
in their warfare against that oppression, f Polygamy
is not approved, albeit Buddhism sprang up and has
*Pp. 283, 284. "It was his (Buddha's) doctrine that it is the
greater or less development of the moral principle that makes the essen-
tial difference in the status of men." Hardy, Legends, etc., p. 15.
f Koeppen, L, p. 129. Here is a sample of the argument :
"The foot of a tiger differs by very distinct characteristics from that of
an elephant, of an elephant from that of a man ; but no one can tell
wherein the foot of a Brahman differs from that of a Sudra."
THE EFFECT. 73
grown among polygamists. In Ceylon and Birmah
it is prohibited ; monogamy is the rule here and in
Siam, though less general in Thibet and Mongolia.
Polyandry indeed prevails to some extent, as among
the lower classes in Ceylon, and particularly in Thi-
bet, but this at any rate in Thibet is much older
than the introduction of Buddhism there, and is
opposed and forbidden by Lamaism. *
Mrs. Leonowens, the English governess at the
king's court in Siam, found the condition, as a whole,
less favorable than the statements above, drawn from
residents there, would indicate ; nevertheless she
instances some features that are not a little remark-
able, and go to show something of the quality
of the religion held there. In the temple service
that she attended, the invocation is this : " O, Thou
Eternal One, the Perfection of Time, Thou immu-
table Essence of [ in] all Change, Thou most excellent
radiance of Mercy, Thou infinite Compassion, Thou
Pity, Thou Charity!" Then followed an exhortation
to charity and kindliness, fervent, fine, such, she says,
"as might be wisely imitated by the most orthodox
of Christian priests." And that these are not wholly
* So, at least, it is said in Koeppen, I. , p. 477, Note, though the
statements, as given on opposite pages, in regard to prohibition or
permission, are conflicting.
6
74 BUDDHA.
empty words, is evidenced by the acts of generous
beneficence, done at some times, particularly on
Buddha's birthday, to the suffering and the poor.
One of the most impressive scenes she ever wit-
nessed, she tells us, was on the occasion of the
*
death of a Buddhist priest, the High Priest of Siam.
It was an exhibition of complete trust in the Supreme,
a self-forgetfulness, devotion to the welfare of others
to the very end. This was the invocation chanted by
the assembled priests :
First Voice "Thou Excellence or Perfection! I take
refuge in Thee."
All "Thou who art named Poot-thoo ! either God,
Buddha or Mercy I take refuge in Thee."
First Voice "Thou Holy One! I take refuge in
Thee ! "
All " I take refuge in Thee ! "
"The absorbing rapture of that look, which seemed
to overtake the invisible, was almost too holy to gaze
upon. Riches, station, honors, " kindred he had
resigned them all more than half a century since,
in his love for the poor, and his longing after truth.
He was going to his clear eternal calm. With a
smile of perfect peace, he said, 'To your Majesty
I commend the poor, and this that remains of me
I give to be burned.' And that, his last gift, was
indeed his all."*
* English Governess at the Siamese Court, pp. 189, 201, 202.
THE EFFECT. 75
The late king of Siam mainiained entire religious
freedom for all his subjects, protected Christian
churches against interference, and sought to purify
Buddhism from superstition and exalt it to a pure
catholic religion. The present king has abolished
slavery thoughout his dominions, has broken, or is
breaking up the mendicancy and idleness of the priests,
sending them out to earn their living by some honest
industry, and has initiated various important public
improvements besides. The lesson of equal rights
and equal liberties, we are told, he had lived and
learned long ago, in childhood. Free churches of
Buddhists who reject all that is miraculous, and adhere
only to the moral teachings, have existed in that
country nearly forty years.* And so we find freedom
from a spirit of narrowness, intolerance, the conceit
of exclusive claim, among the Buddhists to a remark-
able, an unprecedented degree. They have seen far
enough to discover that all religions are approxima-
tions, and the highest is but partial. Hence they
have not infrequently sought to supplement their own
from another. Said a Singhalese chief, who put his
son in a Christian school, to the astonished mission-
ary, "I have a like veneration for the doctrines of
Christianity, as for those of Buddhism. I add your
* Sir John Bowring, quoted by Koeppen, I., 468.
7 6 BUDDHA.
religion to my own, in order to steady it, for I
consider Christianity a very safe outrigger to Bud-
dhism." Kublai-Khan, the great Tartar monarch, in
the fourteenth century, Father Ruysbrock tells us,
hearing all the advocates plead for their respective
faiths ac his court, declared that as the different
ringers are given to the one hand, so are the relig-
ions. The Regent of Lhassa declared perpetually to
the Catholic missionaries Hue and Gabet, as they
tell us, "Your religion is like our own, the truths
are the same ; we differ only in the explanation.
Amid all that you have seen and heard in Tartary
and Thibet you must have found much to condemn ;
but you are to remember that the many errors and
superstitions that you may have observed, have been
introduced by ignorant Lamas, but are rejected by
intelligent Buddhists." "He admitted between us
and himself only two points where there was dis-
agreement the origin of the world and transmi-
gration of souls." "Let us examine them both
together," said he to them again, "with care and
sincerity ; if yours is the best we will accept it ; how
could we refuse you ? If, on the other hand, ours
is best, I doubt not you will be alike reasonable,
and follow that."
"Popular education," says Bastian, "has reached
a considerable degree of advancement in all Buddhist
THE EFFECT. 77
countries. Every town, almost every secluded village,
has its monastery occupied by monks, who, either
with or without pay, give instruction to children,
affording to all the means of acquiring elemental
knowledge ; so that it is rare to find persons who
can neither read nor write."
In the Chinese Fo worship, the Liturgy, there is
recorded a vow of the Bodhisattva Kwan Yin the
great Compassionate Heart or Mercy a high act of
consecration to the service of humanity. "Never
will I seek or receive private individual salvation
never enter final peace alone, but forever and every-
where will I live and strive- for the universal^ redemp-
tion of every creature throughout all worlds. Until
all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin,
sorrow and struggle, but will remain where I am."
The worshipers are to seek to be filled and quick-
ened with the same spirit, to pray and to toil for
the salvation of all men. * ' I pray for all men, that
they may attain perfection of wisdom, may I quickly
deliver all sentient creatures ! may all emerge from
the wheel of transmigration and be saved."* In what
Christian land shall we easily find a like generous
vow of consecration ?
* Baal's Cateita, pp. 405, 406, 409. Also see address by Rev.
W. H. Charming, on the Religions of Chitia, as given in the annual
report of the meeting of the Free Religious Association, 1870.
78 BUDDHA.
The following is given as a" Mongolian prayer :
" O them in whom all creatures trust, Buddha, perfected
amidst countless revolutions of worlds, compassionate to-
wards all, and their eternal salvation, bend down into this
our sphere, with all thy society of perfected ones. Thou
law of all creatures, brighter than the sun, in faith we
humble ourselves before thee. Thou who completest all
pilgrimage, who dwellest in the world of rest, before whom
all is but transient, .descend by thy almighty power, and
bless us."
These show traces of a parentage that has never
been effaced ; they carry back to a home first in
some broad, catholic soul.
III.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT.
IT seems possible, in a measure, to penetrate the
myth and fiction, to read through the partial or
awry representation of him, and learn what this man
was, judge of his quality and relations, not to Indi-
ans or Mongolians simply, but to mankind. The
data for forming such judgment are tolerably fair.
It does not appear that he ever wrote anything.
The Sutras or discourses were put to record from
memory, some time after his death * some of them
* The Canon is said to have been settled in the first Council, held
a few days after the death of Buddha, but this is doubtful. It is not
probable that anything that we have, was put to record, or, at
least, formally passed upon, earlier than the third Council, held in
the time of King Asoka, and perhaps a good portion is not of so
early a date as that. According to the Singhalese tradition the Canon
was first written down considerably later, say nearly 100 B. C., and
according to the Thibetan, only at the time of King Kanishka, about
the commencement of our era. Still there are two or three small
books, as we shall see, that probably are genuinely authentic utter-
ances of the Master, bearing an internal character that gives them
decided superiority over most of the others.
8o BUDDHA.
perhaps not even so good as that but the features
laid upon his institution, and current in the beliefs
of his followers, are distinct enough to give a meas-
urably clear and just view of the man.
He had doubtless, under one view, an ancestry.
He was born of a thoughtful race, a people calm,
contained, meditative, readily given to withdrawal from
the outer, dwelling in solitudes, sitting rapt in most
absorbing and subtle contemplation, such as the world
has never seen before or since. Life, a perpetual
change, a dream, an illusion ; the seen the unreal,
and the real, if anywhere, in the unseen; exist-
ence a road of births, no end to them, no limit
to the limitations, transmigration of the soul forever,
this was a part of the prevailing faith, religion of
saint and Brahman. Into such beliefs Gautama was
born, and they must have made at the beginning a
deep impression upon his susceptible nature, one
that perhaps he never to the end outgrew. He was
conceived in their atmosphere, and they entered the
fibre of his nerves, his soul was charged with them.
"There never was," says M. Miiller, "a nation
believing so firmly in another world, and so little
concerned about this. " *
* "The divinely wise rest, never more to wander, in Brahma.
When the wise have attained at man (self, soul) then are they satisfied in
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 8 1
But -though we can see something of the ante-
cedents, and find a genealogy, we cannot from them
account for him. History will not explain him.
He came a Melchisedek, without father or mother,
born from the bosom of the eternities. In that soul
dwelt the infinite, deep sense of the everlasting,
conscious of its origin and home, and intense yearn-
ing to return and rest there. He was of very
thoughtful turn, in his early boyhood, as we saw,
withdrawing himself from companions, that he might
alone contemplate, retiring into groves and solitudes,
that he might hold communion with unseen. Ecsta-
tic hours seem to have visited him ; he recalled
with utmost fondness in after years the vision he had
seen in the gardens of Lumbini. The spectacles of
life wrought their deep impression on him. This tran-
sience, never an instant of rest, this ssvift maturing and
decay of the physical being, life but a confiscation.
knowledge, their being is complete, their desires are past away, they
are at repose, attaining to the ail-pervading Nature, they go them-
selves into the supreme All, sinking their soul therein. As rivers
flowing to ocean disappear in it, lose their name and form, so merges
the wise, emancipated from name and form, into the supreme eternal
Spirit. Who knows the supreme Brahma, is himself Brahma , he
lays aside all sorrow and sin ; freed from the bonds of corporeity, he
is immortal. Who knows the One, is delivered from birth into other
worlds, and from death." From the Upanishads, as given by Wuttke,
Gcschichte des ffeidfjit/ntttis, II., p. 399.
82 BUDDHA.
a flash in the air, a moment of speech, and the
long eternity of silence behind it, before it ; the
earth the grave of all, and it in turn destined to
its grave ; no stability, no permanence anywhere
why, what an illusion, what a void it is! Why
must it be that all flesh decays and melts away,
the bloom of youth, the vigor of age but a rose-
blossom, open and gone ere we can see it well ?
Alas, alas, what has man to do with pleasure; he is
the dream of a dream, the sport of shadows. This
thought of the transience, this spectacle of decay and
swift vanishing away seems to have filled and haunted
his mind. He could not solve the mystery of this
fate ; he became indifferent, renunciant, dwelling only
on the death, uncaring for aught in life or the world
of the seen.
It was, as we know, a mistake, but was it a strange
or unnatural mistake, considering the antecedents and
surroundings, considering his temperament, the venous
blood so predominant, and considering, withal, the
deep sobriety of his nature, that intense longing for
substance and stay? There are minds absorbed in
the sense, all engrossed with appearance and show,
fleeting illusion. The multitudes in all ages are
prevailingly such. There are, on the other hand,
those, few in any age, who dissolve and annihilate
the seen, resting only in unchanging and unseen.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 83
Time with them is a shadow, earth and life but a
mirage, an illusion ; the objects the multitudes long
for and eagerly grasp, are not the boon ; the Nirvana
is other, is beyond.
Such a mind, and that preeminently, was Buddha.
Early he bethought him of the problem set for work-
ing, early he resolved that it should be done. The
deliverance should be wrought, the world of perma-
nence, though it should come by renunciation, destruc-
tion of all worlds, should be found. He dedicated
himself to that sublime task, and how he started,
did and sacrificed, we somewhat know. In his
childhood years, as would seem, there came to him
the elemental riddle of being, the contradiction and
towering mystery of existence, this fact of individu-
ation, the dropping of the soul, spark of infinity, in
the world of time. From this individuation, this
limiting within the bounds of person, diremption of
the world away from me so that there is a some-
what not myself, not mine, or rather there is a
higher, in which me, and not me, are not yet
dissolved, absorbed, sublimated from this comes
our want and thirst, the perpetual reaching forth
and struggle.
We have a little of the form in which he put it.
"Here is lack, sorrow," said he, "perpetual through
life ; it comes of our affections ; these affections from
84 BUDDHA.
our individuation,* our limitations, from the fact that
there is an outside, something not ourselves, and that
we do not possess. We must close the chasm,
extinguish the want, bridge the abyss, so that there
shall be no without to this within, no lack of its
possession, ere we can arrive at the supreme felicity.' 7
These are in substance, as we take it, his ''sublime
verities " on which so much disquisition has been
had. They occupied, it is said, almost the entire
time of the first Council, held immediately after his
death, and they have certainly been the theme of
much speculation since.
1. There is pain, sorrow in the world.
2. This comes of the desires, of lack and of sin.
3. This pain may cease by Nirvana.
4. There is a way that leads thither.
This, too (the way), he puts under eight heads
or parts. In substance they are the doctrine of
perfect poise, of ethereal recognition and steady dwell-
ing therein. " Right view/' he says, seeing all things
as they are, nothing less, nothing more. This properly
* la the "Heart Sutra" in Chinese, it is said, "The nature of
man and his reason were originally one and undivided ; simply by
reason of covetous desire his true nature was perverted, and the six
modes of migrational existence, and the four kinds of birth were intro-
duced into the world." Quoted by Beal, p. 281.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 85
covers the whole ground ; the other points are but
more specific designations or applications. Among
them are "right, language," or perfect truthfulness,
veracity, abhorring all falsehood or pretense; "right
ends;" "right methods" nothing unlawful in the
pursuit; "right remembrance" reading aright and
treasuring for life and strength all the past, communing
with its reality; and "right meditation" considering
well, keeping the height, remaining apart from all
illusion and intoxication. These truths he saw in
vision under the tree at Bodhimanda, and they enrap-
tured his soul ; he felt that he could well say that
he was now alive, he saw, he w r as wide awake.
On the pedestal of most of the statues of the saint
to-day is inscribed this passage: "It is Tathagata (he
who has traveled the same route as the preceding
Buddhas), who has explained the cause of all effects
proceeding from anterior cause ; it is the great Sra 1 -
mana likewise who has explained the cessation of these
effects." Conjoined with this is a very sacred sentence
in the eyes of all Buddhists, found by Csoma de
Koros frequently repeated in the canonical books of
Thibet, and recurring often in the Singhalese Sutras,
regarded as a kind of resume of the whole doctrine :
"To abstain from all sin, to practice constantly all
virtue, and hold perfect mastery of one's self this
was the inculcation of the Awakened.
86 BUDDHA.
The ethical code corresponds to this spirit. There
are five great commandments enjoined upon all :
1. Thou shalt not kill.
2. Thou shalt not steal.
3. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
4. Thou shalt not speak untruth.
5. Thou shalt not take any intoxicating drink. *
Additional and more special commands were laid
upon those who took the vows and embraced the
monastic life ; commands touching diet, sleeping,
dress, social intercourse, retirement to forests, ceme-
* " This law is broken by even letting fall upon the tongue only
such a drop of intoxicating liquor as would hang at the end of a blade
of Thaman grass, if it is known to be intoxicating. Buddhagoshd 's
Parables ', Rogers' Translation.
Somewhat differently is the code given by Mrs. Leonowens, as
held by the Buddhists in Siam. Every one of the commandments
would seem to be for universal application. They are as follows :
(The first five, it will be seen, are substantially identical with those
above).
1. " From the meanest insect, up to man, thou shalt kill no ani-
mal whatsoever.
2. Thou shalt not steal.
3. Thou shalt not violate the wife of another, nor his concubine.
4. Thou shalt speak no word that is false.
5. Thou shalt not drink wine, nor anything that may intoxicate.
6. Thou shalt avoid all anger, hatred and bitter language.
7. Thou shalt not indulge in idle and vain talk.
8. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
9. Thou shalt not harbor envy, nor pride, nor revenge, nor malice,
nor the desire of thy neighbor's death or misfortune.
10. Thou shalt not follow the doctrines of false gods."
English Governess, etc., pp. 185, 186.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 87
teries, etc. They were to wear only the poorest of
garments, which they must make with their own
hands, having always the yellow vesture or cloak,
symbol "of their profession; to live solely upon alms:
never to receive silver or gold ; never to sleep under
roofs, except in the inclement portions of the year ;
alvrays to take plain food, and never eat more than
very slightly, if at all after mid-day.
There are six virtues that are for all men, and
though they may not lead absolutely to Nirvana,
they will put all on the road thither. Charity,
purity, patience, courage, contemplation and know-
ledge. In practicing these "we quit the dark shores
of existence, where is ignorance." Buddha came for
self-sacrifice, by surrendering himself, to save the
world. All who follow him must tread in these
footprints. The charity and love must extinguish
from the heart all egoism, so fill with spirit of devo-
tion the possessor, that he surrenders himself utterly,
forgetting everything personal, his own existence ven,
to save others. The highest sobriety and integrity
in living are enjoined. All evil speaking, any gross-
ness of language or empty, frivolous word is strictly
forbidden. The saint must seek not farther to divide
and embroil, but to reconcile those who are apart.
Harmony is his aim, bringing people together. Words
sweet, affectionate, grateful, reaching the heart ; never
SO BUDDHA.
a syllable spoken lightly or at random, all with a
purpose, and to the purpose.
One of the virtues specially emphasized was humil-
ity. "I do not say to my disciples," declared
Buddha to King Prasenajit, his friend, when requested
to perform some miracles to confound his enemies,
"Go, and before the Brahmans and householders
work by aid of supernatural power miracles greater
than man can do, but instructing them in the law
I say, Live, O saints, hiding your good works and
showing your sins."*
So one of the old legends reports that a poor
man, with a single handful of flowers, heaped the
alms-bowl of Buddha, which the rich, with fen thou-
sand bushels, could not fill. And another says that
upon a time when very many lamps were kindled
in honor of Buddha, one only that brought by a
very poor woman burned through the night, while
the others, presented by kings, ministers, etc., were
spent and went out.f
A prominent doctrine with the Buddhists has
throughout been Karma, doctrine of retribution,
* Burnouf, Inlrod. p. 170.
f Koeppen, I., 131, quoting from a Chinese work, Foe Koue A7,
translated by Remusat, and from a Thibetan, Le Sage et Le Fou,
translated by Foucaux.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 89
-
present state and fortune retributive upon past, and
future the sanction of all the present. Every act
has endless result, takes hold constantly upon the
forever. What we are and now experience is the
fruit of what we have been, and what we shall be
depends upon what we do, or refrain from doing
now. The present existence of each, his condition,
is the written record, the cumulative result of his past.
"Each house displays the kind and worth
Of the desires I loved before."
So the Buddhist draws lessons of wisdom, keeps
unbroken patience and poise in all his experience ;
every calamity, every indignity or wrong offered him
speaks of some desert, reminds him of some behavior
in the past, ages back perhaps, whereby he has laid
himself open to this and made it inevitable. Great
sacredness invests the present, for if he is ever to
attain Buddhahood, approach Nirvana, he must live
very superiorly every moment here. So liberty and
fate coexist, interpenetrate ; fate behind us, around us,
present here, liberty before us, and fate sealing every
act with its eternal sanctions.
The doctrine of transmigration is a very old one,
and has doubtless deep truth in nature. The soul
is traveling the road of birth, and is on the endless
ascent. It has passed through many lives, it has
7
90 BUDDHA.
many more in store. Modern science tells us in
more prosaic dialect the same thing which ancient
Greek and Oriental fancy had said, in its fine way,
that the soul journeys from monad to God. Bud-
dha had percurred the existences. In one account
he is said to have gone through 550 lives ; he had
been bird, stag, elephant, etc., before he took on
incarnation as son of Suddhodana. Others say he
had been through all the existences of earth, sea and
air, had traversed every condition of all the ages.
On the point of becoming Buddha, the Awakened,
he had seen in recollection the innumerable births
and lives he had passed, covering the hundreds of
thousands of kotis (a koti, 10,000,000 years). He
was in consequence of this experience in condition
to enter into the sympathies of all creatures, and all
worlds, for whose redemption he must devote himself
and labor.
His biographers remark with astonishment that a
man who seems so thoroughly to renounce the world
and all the relations of life, should have laid the
emphasis he did on the domestic and social virtues.
But indeed the account he makes of the ethical
element, the strong insistence he lays upon high
character, should have told any good observer as
much, convinced him there indubitably was life and
healthfulness in this faith. The duties of the house-
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 91
hold, the family relations, we are informed, he put in
the first rank.* Personally he showed himself ever
full of respect and tenderness towards his mother,
although he had never seen her. The legends repre-
sent him as taking great interest in her behalf,
visiting that portion of the skies where she dwells,
to instruct her in the law and to save her. In one
of the Sutras he is reported as speaking thus :
" Brahma, O saints, where is he? In the families
where father and mother are perfectly honored, ven-
erated, served. For, according to the Law, father
and mother are for the child in the family, Brahma
himself. The teacher, O saints he is in the fam-
ilies where father and mother are perfectly honored,
venerated, served. For, according to the Law, father
and mother are for the child teacher himself.
"The altar of sacrifice,! the shrine of worship it
is in the families where father and mother are perfectly
honored, venerated, served. Why this ? Because,
according to the Law, father and mother are for the
child altar and shrine itself." J If this be an incon-
*St. Hilaire, p. 91.
f Literally, "the fire of sacrifice," a fine allusion to the Brahman -
ical worship. The sacred fire was kindled upon the hearth, and upon
it was offered the clarified butter to the god. See Burnouf 's Introd. ,
p. 21.
\ Burnouf, pp. 133, 134.
92 BUDDHA.
sistency in Buddhism, it is, as Barthelemy St, Hilaire
says, one that does it honor.
It is a great thing, he declares, that parents do
for their children, in rearing them, giving them food,
protection, acquaintance, so far as possible for them
to afford, with the sights, the facts of the world about
them. ' ' Whereby can they repay this care ? By
doing what they may to enrich them spiritually, by
establishing them in the perfectness of the faith, if
they have it not ; by bringing them to the perfectness
of morality, if they have bad morals ; of liberality,
if they are the creatures of avarice ; of knowledge,
if they are in ignorance."
So in the rules laid down for the priests, we find
the most minute directions, even in regard to diet,
the manner of eating, etc. The priest is always to
approach and partake of his food in a poised, con-
siderate, thoughtful spirit, eating possessedly, never
with the least eagerness or greed, "no mouthful
larger than a pigeon's egg," and each to be thor-
oughly masticated and disposed of before another is
taken. At the present time the requirement upon
the priest in Ceylon is that he shall rise each
morning before day, and the first duty that calls him
is care of his person, cleansing his teeth, etc. The
duty of neatness in all respects, both with regard to
the body itself and the clothing worn, is sedulously
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 93
enjoined, and well observed. Only with the clean
body and the clean garments, they say, can be the
clean mind. "When the lamp, the oil or the wick
is not free from dirt, the light that is given is not
clear ; in like manner, when the mind is unclean,
the truths necessary to be known cannot be discov-
ered, and the rites of asceticism cannot be properly
exercised. But when the body is clean, the mind
partakes of the same purity ; as the lamp, oil and
wick, when free from dirt, give a clear light." *
The breadth and elevation of the man are indi-
cated in the fact that he relied solely to the end upon
the moral element, seeking no conquests but by
persuasion. Related, as he was, to courts, finding
favor with kings, he might, in the midst of the
conflicts which came, have invoked the arm of civil
power, and there was beyond doubt temptation that
way. His enemies, the Brahrrians, plotted against
his life, and it would have been so natural to resist
by force and throttle the conspiracies, but the thought
seems never to have been entertained for a moment.
The weapons were not carnal, but spiritual. Then
and to this hour, so far as we can definitely learn,
Buddhism was the exception, sole in all history. It
* Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 113, quoted from the Wisudhi
Margga Sanne.
94 BUDDHA.
stands as the only great historic religion that has not,
upon opportunity taken the sword to put down its
enemies. That a faith so born and conditioned
as this was, and overtaken at length by such cruel
fortune in the land of its birth, should never have
soiled its hands with violence, never have lifted the
arm in resistance to persecution and extermination,
deserves to be remembered and recorded to its ever-
lasting honor.
Buddha's method was not negative, but affirmative.
He sought the desired change not so much by direct
attack, criticising and condemning, as by holding up
the standard, presenting its beauty, and attempting to
incite and ravish all in the ideal presence. Every
one of the abuses of the time he sought to over-
throw by the affirmative. He would destroy by
supplanting, overrunning and choking out by the
better. His way was to overcome evil with good,
hatred with love ; he knew no power for transform-
ation so fine as this ; nay, he took account of no
other.
The records preserved to us in the legendary tales
of the saints show to us a courage and fortitude
such as belong only to earnest times, found with a
people who inly believe and are dedicated to an idea.
Purna was the son of an emancipated slave woman,
set free by her master, at her own earnest solicit-
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT.- 95
ation. He was reared in the paternal household,
and distinguished himself early by his intelligence and
sleepless activity. He acquired in trade great wealth,
and enriched his family also. He went frequently
upon long voyages for trade, and became erewhile
the head of a band of merchants who carried on this
foreign commerce. Upon one of these voyages he
had as companions some merchants from Sravasti,
who night and morning engaged in the reading of
sacred hymns, invocations ' ' which bear to the other
shore," and sacred texts words from the lips of
Buddha. He was struck by these novel utterances,
and soon as he came to Sravasti he repaired to
Bhagavat, and embraced the new faith that so touched
his heart. Dead now to the world, he wished to
take up his abode henceforth with a fierce, savage
tribe, whose ferocities would have frightened any
courage less great than his. The teacher inclines
to dissuade him from his purpose.
"The men of Sronaparanta are passionate, cruel,
violent. When they shall give thee harsh, threaten-
ing words, when they shall be in rage against thee,
what wilt thou think ? "
"If the men of Sronaparanta do this," was the
reply, "if they become mad and assail me, I will say,
Good men, fine men, they are of Sronaparanta, who
do not strike me with the hand, nor pelt with stones."
96 BUDDHA.
"But if they strike and pelt thee, what wilt thou
think ? "
"I shall think they are good and fine that they
do not take my life."
"But if they deprive thee of life, what wilt thou?"
"I shall still think they are good and fine, in
that they free me with so little pain from this body
full of filth."
"It is well, Puma ; thou mayest, with that per-
fection of patience which thou hast attained, fix thine
abode in the country of the Sronaparantakas. Go,
then, O Purna, thyself delivered, deliver; consoled, con-
sole; having reached the other shore, attained complete
Nirvana, conduct others thither."* The legend adds
that Purna went to this redoubtable country, and by
his noble spirit of patience and of love, he softened
and subdued the savage people, teaching them the
Law and the methods of deliverance.
Another legend gives us an account of Kunala,
with the beautiful eyes. He was the son of King
Asoka. Queen Rishya Rakshita, ravished with the
beauty of the youth, attempted, after the manner of
Potiphar's wife, to seduce him. He repelled her
advances with scorn and rebuke, and the queen
resolved upon vengeance. Sent by his father to a
* Burnouf, Introd. pp. 252-254. St. Hilaire, Bouddha, pp. 96, 97,
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 97
distant province of the empire to subdue a revolted
city, he was working with all success, bringing back
the disaffected, and winning the love of all, when
there came a mandate, under the king's seal, order-
ing that both his eyes be torn out. The queen
had in consideration of some signal service done the
king, in way of subduing a most troublesome and
loathsome disease, obtained possession of the supreme
power for a short space, and had this opportunity to
gratify her malice against the prince. It was hard
to find an executioner for an office so inhuman, not
a Kandala even consenting to serve. A deformed
leper was at length found to undertake it. Kunala
submitted himself resignedly, for, he said, the wise
teachers who had instructed him, had well taught the
perishable character of all earthly things, and the eyes
themselves had done him this service, that they had
shown him that nothing abides.
One of the eyes was torn out, and at his request
placed in his hand. The crowd shrieked with horror.
Kunala, handling the eye, exclaimed, "Wherefore
seest thou no more, as thou hast been wont, vile
globe of flesh ? How self-deceived and pitiable they
are, the insensate, who fasten to thee, saying, ' This
is myself. ' " The second eye was wrested out like
the first, and Kunala, who had lost the eyes of
sense, had opened within him the eyes of the soul.
98 BUDDHA.
"The eye of flesh," he said, "has just been taken
away, but I have acquired eyes more perfect, fine
and pure, eyes of wisdom. Cast off by the king, I
am become son of the great king of the Law, whose
child I am called. Deprived of earthly sovereignty,
which brings with it so many troubles and sorrows,
I have gained sovereignty in the kingdom of the
soul, where trouble and sorrow are taken away."
The prince, the story proceeds, wandered from
place to place, led by his young wife, who chanted
in the ears of those she met, his misfortunes and his
consolations. He arrived at length at the palace of
his father, who on learning the cause of his affliction,
resolved to punish the queen with death. Kunala
interceded for her, and saved her ; took upon him-
self alone all responsibility for his misfortune, which
he said had doubtless come by reason of some fault
committed in previous existence.*
Another legend runs on this wise : Vasavadatta
was a courtesan at Mathura, very famous for her
fascinations. Her servant, in buying her perfumes,
etc., was wont to deal with a young merchant named
Upagupta. "My child," said she, "it seems that
this young man delights you very much, since you
always purchase of him." "My master's daughter,"
* Burnouf, p. 403-413.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 99
replied the servant, " Upagupta is very beautiful, very
gifted and sweet, and he spends his life in observ-
ance of the Law." The words awakened in Vasa-
vadatta a passionate desire for Upagupta, and she ere
long sent out her servant to say, "I mean to come
and find you; I desire to have love with you."
Upagupta responded, "The time is not yet for me
to see you." She thought his refusal was on account
of lack of money to pay her price, and sent again
and said, ' ' I ask of you not a single karshapana, I
only wish to be with you." Upagupta returned the
same response as before.
Some time after, Vasavadatta assassinated one of
her lovers, that she might surrender herself without
obstruction from his jealousy, to a rich merchant that
sought her. Her crime became known, and the
king of Mathura ordered that, as a punishment, her
hands, feet, ears and nose should be cut off, and
she, mutilated thus, be abandoned in the cemetery.
Upon hearing of this, Upagupta said, "When she went
about covered with fine ornaments, richest jewels, it
was not well that one who seeks enfranchisement
and escape from the law of birth should see her.
But now that, mutilated by the sword, she has come
to the end of her pride and her joys, it is fitting
to visit her." Vasavadatta saw him approaching,
and covering up and concealing as much as she
100 BUDDHA.
could her unsightly person from view, she accosts
him : ' ' Son of my master, when my body was sweet
as the flower of the lotus, adorned with all wealth
and splendor of attire, whatever could attract and intox-
icate, I could not, alas, draw you to my side. But
now you come to view a form whose sight no one
can endure, abandoned of pleasure and of beauty,
inspiring only aversion, begrimed with blood and
filth." "My sister/' he responded, "formerly! did
not come to you, drawn, as I might have been, by
sensuous love ; but now I come that I may know
and feel the true character of the pitiful objects in
which people take delight." Then, the relation tells
us, he comforted Vasavadatta, instructing her in the
Law, bringing peace to the soul of the unfortunate.
She died, making profession of faith in Buddha,
"to have resurrection erewhile in the realm of the
gods.''* "For the sake of a celestial nymph," said
Rathapala, the Brahman, when remonstrated with by ,
his wife for having left all, "have I abandoned the
world. ' '
Ananda, most beloved disciple, cousin to Buddha,
weary and very thirsty one day from a long journey,
approached a well, where he saw a young Matangi
girl drawing, and asked her to give him to drink.
* St. Hilaire, pp. 100-102.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. IOI
The maiden, fearing to pollute him by her touch,
reminded him of her caste (she was of the Kandalas,
the lowest, the outcast) ; and that it was unlawful
for her to come near a saint. ' ' I asked thee, my
sister, neither of thy caste nor of thy family, but only
for water," was^the reply. In like spirit is the reply
of a Buddhist saint in recent time who had come
under the displeasure of a king in Ceylon, for having
preached to the miserable and despised caste of
Rhodias. "Religion," he responded, " should be the
common boon of all."
Here we are tempted to introduce the legend of
Kisagotami. It is in Buddhagosha s Parables, and
has been admirably reproduced by Max Miiller, in
his lecture on Buddhist Nihilism.
Kisagotami bore a son. When the boy was able
to walk by himself, he died. The young mother,
in her love for it, bore the corpse about, from house
to house, seeking some one that should heal it. She
was recommended to apply to Buddha, who, she was
assured, had some medicine that would help. She
applied to the saint, and was told that he required
as a condition a handful of mustard seed, mustard
seed obtained from a house where no son, husband,
parent or slave has died. She sought from house
to house, still carrying the dead body of her son,
but everywhere in vain. People said to her, "The
102 BUDDHA.
living are few, but the dead are "many." She began
at length to think, "This is a heavy task that I
am engaged in ; I am not the only one whose son
is dead. In all the Savatthi country, everywhere
children are dying; parents are dying." Casting
away the dead body of her child in a forest, she
repaired to Buddha and reported the result of her
search. Buddha said, "You thought that you alone
had lost a son ; the law of death is that among
all living creatures, there is no permanence." When
he had finished preaching the Law, Kisagotami was
established in the reward of a noviciate.
Some time afterwards, as she was engaged in the
performance of some religious duties, noticing the
lights in the houses, now shining, now extinguished,
she reflected with herself, "My state is like these
lamps." Buddha, who was not far distant, sent now
his sacred appearance to her, which said, just as if
he himself were preaching, "All living beings re-
semble the flame of these lamps one moment
lighted, the next extinguished ; those only who have
arrived at Nirvana "are at rest." Kisagotami hearing
this/ we are told, "reached the stage of a saint pos-
sessed of intuitive knowledge."
f The thing is so beautifully told in a little poem,
lately written by Mr. Chad wick (Rev. John W. ), that
we append that here.
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 103
Kisagotami saw her first child's face ;
She saw him grow in knowledge and in grace,
But it was only for a little space.
Kisagotami saw him lying dead ;
Against her heart she pressed his curly head,
And forth into the neighbors' houses sped.
"Something to heal my darling's hurt," she cried.
"Girl, thou art mad," was all that each replied.
But one: "Thy cure with Buddha doth abide."
Still holding the dead child against her heart,
She found the prophet and made known her smart :
" Buddha, canst thou cure him with thy wondrous art?"
" A grain of mustard seed," the sage replied,
"Found where none old or young has ever died,
Will cure the pain you carry in your side."
Kisagotami wandered forth again,
And in the homes of many hundred men
She sought the seed where death had never been.
'Twas all in vain. Then in a lonely wood
Her child with leaves she buried as she could,
And once again in Buddha's presence stood.
"Daughter," he said, "hast found the magic seed?"
And she : " I find that every heart doth bleed,
That every house, of death hath taken heed."
Then Buddha said: "This knowledge is thy cure.
Thy sorrow, soon or late, for all is sure ;
Therefore, my child, be patient and endure."
In the Daily Manual for the Shaman, in Chinese,
we have an inculcation of observances, which shows
that, originally at least, there was recognition of the
104 BUDDHA.
grand symbolism that runs through all life, and an
earnest effort to lift the spirit to communion on that
exalted plane. Every act was to be made symbolic
and sacramental, the eating and the drinking, the
washing, putting on of garments, etc., had meaning,
signified far more than the sense. Life itself must
be made aspiration and a prayer, vision and a psalm.
On awaking in the morning, let the Shaman
recite this Gatha :
" On first awaking from my sleep,
I ought to pray that every breathing thing
May wake to saving wisdom, vast
As the wide and boundless universe."
On hearing the convent bell :
" Oh ! may the music of this bell extend throughout the
mystic world,
And, heard beyond the iron walls and gloomy glens of
earth,
Produce in all a perfect rest, and quiet every care,
And guide each living" soul to lose itself in Mind Su-
preme."
On rising out of bed :
" On putting down my foot and standing up,
Oh ! let me pray that every living soul
May gain complete release of mind and self,
And so, in perfect Rest, stand up unmoved !"
" From earliest dawn till setting sun,
Each living soul might tend to self-advance,
Reflecting thus : ' My foot firm planted on the earth,
Should make me think, am I
Advancing on my road to Heaven ?' "
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 105
On putting on the clothes :
" On binding on the sash, I pray
That every living soul may closely bind
Each virtuous principle around himself,
And never loosen it or let it go."
On washing the face :
"As thus I wash my face, I pray
That every living soul may gain
Religious knowledge, which admits
Of no defilement, through eternity."
On entering within the sacred precincts :
41 Beholding the figure of Buddha,
I pray that every living thing,
Acquiring sight without defect,
May gaze upon the form of 'all the Buddhas.' "
[z. e., enjoy "beatific vision."] *
There is a trace of childish ceremonialism here
(and we should see the more if we followed this
Manual out in all its details), which easily grows*
to superstition and a juggle, but the thought lying
at the bottom is very fine, and provided the recog-
nition could be kept sweet and fresh, untainted with;
formalism, free of any. set observance, spontaneous,,
living, nothing could be more healthful and beauti-
ful. The dangers of asceticism and cant, of other-
worldliness, are about as formidable as those of
absorption and degradation in this world. When
* Real's Catena, pp. 240-243.
8
106 BUDDHA.
we have eyes fully open, we shall see all washing
baptismal, nay, every contact, every experience puri-
fying and quickening ; sunlight, air, scenery, faces,
conversation sacred elements of healing and strength
for the soul. Then that which is in part only
shall be done away, and the sacraments of the
church be superseded, fall obsolete in the larger,
comprehending sacraments of life. The open eye,
too, will see the incarnations, and commune in the
visible, perpetually with invisible.
The Sutras or discourses ascribed to Buddha, are
of uncertain time and authorship, but nevertheless
contain declarations not a little remarkable, and not
unworthy to be attributed to the master. Like
Jesus, he uses parables.
In the " Lotus of the good Law" he gives his
view of the method which the wise teacher and great
Nature herself employs to convey truth to man, and
to arouse and incite him from his torpor.
An old man, father of a family, finds, as he
returns home from abroad, his house on fire. The
children are sleeping, totally unconscious of the danger,
the sure death that is upon them. He calls to them,
in vain ; they see not the fire, and will not believe
they are in any danger. He promises them fine toys ;
THE MAN AND THE THOUGHT. 107
above all, three different kinds of carriages, to amuse
and delight. They leave the house, and once safe,
he gives them not the three not the carriages at
all, but a chariot, splendid beyond description.
"Has the father told them a lie? No, doubtless, but
has fulfilled more than his word. So Tathagata,
pitying the frivolity of men, who before the impend-
ing sorrows and calamities, are sporting and pursuing
their pleasures, in accommodation to their weakness,
promises them, in order to break the chains of their
slavery, three 'vehicles of deliverance,' or, so many
several objects of incitement and desire, to win them.
Taken, as the children in the burning house, with
the prize offered, they leave their attachment to the
worlds, and Tathagata gives them but one conveyance,
the method of reaching perfect Nirvana."
Upon the hearing of this parable, it is said, four
of the disciples who were present, responded with an-
other, in which they compared the race of man much
to a prodigal, who, leaving the house of a rich and
generous father, wandered over the world, and at
length came back all unconsciously to the old home.
He had lost the remembrance of his father, but by-
and-by, after many and severe experiences, he comes
to know him again, embraces, obeys him, and enters
upon his lost possession.
Bhagavat gave other parables; this, for one. A
108 BUDDHA.
man, blind from birth, denied that there were colors,
or sun, or stars, or beauty or deformity, or beholders
for them. Against all persuasion he resisted the
belief, until a certain skillful physician gave him sight.
He was in transports of ecstasy, acknowledging his
blindness and ignorance hitherto, and exclaiming that
now he saw arid knew all. But the wise Rishis,
observing in him a blindness still, which was more
harmful than the other, sought to purge him of his
conceit. "There are worlds far beyond the reach
of thy present organs. Sitting in the house, thou
canst not see through the walls, the thoughts of thy
fellows thou canst not read, thine own begetting, thy
conception and birth thou canst not recall. How
sayest thou, 'I know all?' Remember that clearness
is obscurity, and the obscurities shall be seen clear."
Ashamed for his presumption and conceit, he com-
mitted himself for instruction in the Law to the
Rishis, and the eyes of his soul were opened, as
those of sense had lately been by the physician.
Such are the hints richly scattered in these dis-
courses, of the ethereal ideas, the truths of the upper
kingdom.
IV.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE.
AVIONG so many words afloat ascribed to the saint,
it is impossible to tell what are authentically his,
but there is one portion of the Buddhistic Canon, a
little book called the Dhammapadam, or Footprints of
the Law, whose sentences are considered with great
probability to be from his lips. It was found in
Ceylon not many years since, written in the Pali
language * (the Pali was the popular language of
Magadha), and was published, with Latin translation,
by Doctor Fausboll, at Copenhagen, in 1855. Por-
tions of it were also rendered into English by D. J.
Gogerly, a missionary (in the Ceylon Friend, 1840,),
* The Buddhist scriptures seem to have been written the main
portions of them at least originally both in Sanscrit (which in the
time of Buddha and probably one or two hundred years before him
had ceased to be a spoken language) and in Pali. The originals of
the texts which are held by the Thibetans and Chinese are nearly all
in .the former, the originals in possession of the Singhalese, Birmese,
etc., are in the latter. Consult Burnouf, Introd. pp. 15, 16 ; Koeppen,
I., p. 186.
110 BUDDHA.
and the whole has recently appeared in English, from
the accomplished pen of Prof. Max Miiller.* The
inculcations in that book are of the noblest ; there
is trace of the morbid element, of disparagement and
renunciation, such as one finds in all Buddhism, but
there are exalted views of duty, ethical precepts that
fall not below the New Testament standard. We
give here some of them as samples, only adding that
those who wish to find more must refer to the little
volume itself. The rendering is taken mostly from
Fausboll or Max Miiller, in a few instances, from
Gogerly.
1. Mind is the root ; actions proceed from the mind.
If any one speak or act from a corrupt mind, suffering
will follow, as the wheel follows the step of the ox that is
drawing.
2. Mind is the root, etc. If any one speak or act with
an elevated pure mind, then joy follows like an unwith-
drawing shadow.
3. " He insulted me, assailed me, beat me, despoiled
me," cherishing these things in the spirit, ill feeling is not
allayed.
4. "He insulted me, assailed me," etc., by refusing to
harbor remembrance of this in the spirit, ill feeling is al-
layed.
f Published by Trilbner & Co., with Buddha go s ha 1 s Parables,
London, 1869, and reprinted since by Scribner & Co., in this country,
with Prof. Miiller's Lectures on the Science of Religion, New York,
1872.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. ill
5. For hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love ; this
is the everlasting law.
6. Persons do not reflect, we shall speedily die. If any
do thus reflect, their quarrels speedily terminate.
7. Whoso lives, regarding the sensuous delights, put-
ting no restraint upon inclination, knowing not moderation
in eating, indolent and without force, Mara, temptation,
shall easily overcome him, as the wind the slightly rooted
tree.
8. Whoso lives, not regarding the sensuous delights,
restraining inclination, knowing to be moderate in eating,
faithful, strong, temptation will be powerless against him,
as the wind against the rocky mountain.
10. Who casts aside his appetites, who keeps armed
with the virtues, well endowed with temperance and in-
tegrity he indeed is worthy of the yellow garment.
11. Who deem the non-substantial substance, and the
substantial without substance, they shall never attain
reality, being full of vain desires.
12. But those who hold substance for substance, and
unsubstantial for unsubstantial, they attain the real, being
filled with true desires.
13. As the rain breaks through an ill-thatched roof, so
passion invades the thought destitute of reflection.
15. The evil doer mourns in this world, and he shall
mourn in the next ; in both worlds has he sorrow. He
grieves, he is tormented, seeing the ill of his deed.
16. The virtuous man rejoices in this world, and he
will rejoice in the next; in both worlds has he joy. He
rejoices, he exults, seeing the purity of his deed.
19. A man slothful, saying many good things but not
doing them, is like a herdsman, counting the kine of others,
but owning none.
21. Watchfulness is the path of immortality, slothful-
112 BUDDHA.
ness the way of death. The watchful die not ; the slothful
are as already dead.
23. These wise people, meditative, steady, always pos-
sessed of strong powers, attain to Nirvana, the highest
felicity.
26. Foolish, senseless men follow sloth. The wise man
keeps watchfulness as his highest treasure.
29. Alert among the sluggish, wide awake among the
last asleep, the wise man advances like a racer leaving be-
hind the hack.
31. A Bhikshu (mendicant) who rejoices in watchful-
ness and fears sloth, moves about like fire, burning all his
fetters small and large.
42. Whatever a hater may do to a hater, or an enemy
to an enemy, a wrongly directed mind will do us greater
mischief.
43. Not a mother, not a father will do so much, nor
any other relative; a well directed mind will do us
greater service.
49. As the bee collects nectar and departs without in-
juring the beauty or the odor of the flower, so the sage
sojourns among men ; he views their ways, and learns wis-
dom from their folly.
54. 55. 56 (condensed). The fragrance of the flower, or
of sandal wood, or of a bottle of Tagara oil is sweet but
delicate ; easily arrested by the winds, it is carried whither
they will. But the fragrance of the good far sweeter, re-
gardless of winds, breathes over all lands, and exhales to
the throne ot the gods.*
58, 59. As the lily, growing from a heap of manure
accidentally cast upon the highway, delights the soul with
the delicacy of its fragrance, so the wise, the disciples ot
*So one of the Upanishads has it: "As the fragrance of a blos-
soming tree spreads far, so the fragrance of a pure action."
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 113
the all-perfect Buddha, shine amongst the foolish, and are
grateful to the gods.
64. If through life the foolish man sits beside the wise,
he will not taste the law, as the ladle tastes not the soup.
65. If a discerning man for one moment only sits beside
the wise, he will quickly taste the law, as the tongue tastes
the soup.
71. An evil deed does not turn suddenly like milk ;
smouldering, it follows the fool, like fire covered by ashes.
80. Well-makers lead the water (wherever they like) ;
fletchers bend the arrow ; carpenters bend a log of wood ;
wise people fashion themselves.
81. As the solid rock is not stirred by the wind, so
neither in reproach nor in praise is the wise man moved
from his poise.
82. Wise people, hearing the law, become serene, like
a deep, smooth, still lake.
85. Few are there among men who attain to the other
shore ; most only run up and down this.
89. Those whose mind is well grounded in the elements
of knowledge, who have given up all attachments and
rejoice without clinging to any thing, whose frailties have
been conquered and who are full of light ; they are free
(even) in this world.
92. He who has no riches lives' on authorized food,
communes with the Void, the Unconditioned, with Nirvana,
his way is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the
ether.
94. He whose senses have come to repose, like a horse
well subdued by the driver, who has cast aside pride and
is f r ee from all desire, the gods even envy such an one.
97. He who is free trom credulity, but knows the
Uncreated, who has cut all ties, removed all temptations,
renounced all desire, he certainly is the greatest of men.
98. In a hamlet or in a forest, in the deep water or on
114 BUDDHA.
the dry land, wherever venerable persons dwell, that
place is delightful.
99. Forests are delightful; where the multitude finds no
delight, there the passionless will find delight, for they seek
not pleasures.
103. If one man conquer in battle a thousand times
a thousand men, and if another conquer himself he cer-
tainly is the greatest of victors.
104, 105. One's own self conquered is better than all
other people. Not even a god, a Gandharva, (fairy), not
Mara can change for such an one (who has conquered
himself and always restrains himself), victory into defeat.
114. He who lives a hundred years, not seeing the im-
mortal place, a life of one day is better if a man sees the
immortal place.
121. Let no one make small account of evil, saying, It
will not come near unto me ; by the falling of drops the
water-pot is filled, and the foolish man is filled with evil,
taking it up little by little.
122. JLet no one make small account of the good, saying,
It will not benefit me; by the falling of drops the water-pot
is filled, and the wise man becomes full of good, gathering
it up little by little.
123. Let a man avoid evil deeds, as a merchant if he
carries much wealth and has few companions, avoids a
dangerous way; as a man who loves life avoids poison.
125. If a man offend a harmless, pure and innocent per-
son, the evil falls back upon that fool, like light dust thrown
against the wind.
127. Neither in air, nor in the depths of the sea, nor in
the clefts of the mountains, is any place found where a man
might be freed from an evil deed.
133. Uo not speak harshly to any ; those who are
spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry
speech is painful, blows for blows will touch thee.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 115
135. As a cowherd with his staff gathers his cows into
the stable, so do Age and Death gather the life of man,
(gather all living).
151. The brilliant chariots of kings are destroyed, the
body also becomes old and decays, but the virtues of the
good know not age or decay; thus do the good say to the
good.
159. Let a man so make himself as he teaches others to
be ; he who is well subdued may subdue others ; one's own
self it is difficult to subdue.
There is no doctrine of commercial substitution
here, not a shade of our Western dream of atonement
by vicarious blood. Indeed Spence Hardy, a Wes-
leyan missionary, many years resident in Ceylon, finds
this one of the most hopeless things in the prospect
regarding the conversion of the Buddhists ; they know
nothing of the salvation by blood; it is so foreign
to their entire system of religion that there is found
no place in the Oriental mind whereon to graft such
a conception. "The Buddhist 'knows nothing of an
atonement. * * * * In the wilderness to which
he is driven, no cross does he see. no river of blood,
no fountain of life, with the cheering words inscribed
on the rock that overhangs it, ' Whosoever will, let
him come, and drink freely and live,'" says the
missionary. Pitiable indeed ! They have the notion,
these poor pagans, that each must reap the fruit of
his own doing, and that there is no possible device
Il6 BUDDHA.
of escape. "He who dies is accompanied only "by
his merit and demerit ; nothing else whatever goes
with him/' says Rathapala.
165. By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one surfers ;
by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified.
Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify
another.
276. You yourself must make an effort. The Tatha-
gatas are but preachers. The thoughtful who enter the
way are freed from the bondage of Mara.
175. Swans [wild fowl ?] go on the path of the sun, they
go through the ether by means of their miraculous power ;
the wise are borne out of this world, when they have over-
come Mara and his train.
193. A miraculous man, a Buddha, not easy to find, is
not born everywhere. Wherever such a sage is born, that
race prospers.
201. Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is un-
happy. He who has given up both victory and defeat, he,
the contented, is happy.
204. Health is the greatest of gifts, contentedness the
best riches, trust the best of relatives, Nirvana the sum ot
delights.
219. Kinsfolk, friends and dear ones salute him who,
tar-traveled, returns home safe :
220. .So, the good deeds done, welcome him who, going
from this world, enters the other.
222. He who holds back rising anger like a rolling
chariot, him I call a real driver ; the rest do but hold the
reins.
223. By gentleness overcome anger ; by good, evil ; by
liberality, greed; by openness and truth, dissembling and
falsehood.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 1 1 7
224. Speak the truth ; yield not to anger ; give, when
asked, of the little thou hast ; by these three steps thou
shalt go near the gods.
239. Let a wise man blow off the impurities of his soul,
as a smith blows off the impurities of silver, one by one,
little by little and from time to time.
247. The man who gives up himself to drinking intoxi-
cating liquors, he, even in this world, digs up his own
root.
251. There is no fire like lust, no bondage like hatred,
no toil (snare) like perturbation, no river like desire.
252. The faults of others are easily seen, one's own
difficult to see ; others' faults one lays open as much as
possible, his own he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die
from the gambler.
^04. Good people shine from afar, like the snowy moun-
tains; bad people are not seen, like arrows shot by night.
354. The gift of the law exceeds all gifts ; the sweetness
of the law exceeds all sweetness ; the delight in the law
exceeds all delights ; the extinction of thirst overcomes all
pain.
367. He who never identifies himself with his body and
soul, and does not grieve over what is no more, he indeed
is called a Bhikshu (mendicant, saint).
370. Cut off the five (senses), leave the five, rise above
the five. A Bhikshu, who has escaped the five fetters, he
is called Oghatinnas (passed the flood).
372. Without knowledge there is no meditation, with-
out meditation there is no knowledge : in whom knowledge
and meditation are united, he surely is near unto Nirvana.
377. As the Vassika-plant sheds its withered flowers,
so, O Bhikshus, shed passion and hatred !
Il8 BUDDHA.
THE BRAHMANA.*
385. He for whom there is neither this nor that shore,
nor both, fearless, unshackled, him I call indeed a Brah-
mana.
386. He who is thoughtful, blameless, dwells alone, does
his duties, is free from desires, has attained the highest
end, him I call indeed a Brahmana.
392. After a man has once understood the Law as
taught by the Well-awakened, let him worship it carefully,
as the Brahmana worships the sacrificial fire.
393. A man does not become a Brahmana by his
plaited hair, by his family, or by both ; in whom there is
truth and righteousness, he is blessed, he is a Brahmana.
398. He who has cut the girdle and the strap, the rope
with all that pertains to it, he who has burst the bar, and is
awakened, him I call indeed a Brahmana.
399. He who, though he has committed no offense,
endures reproach, bonds and stripes, strong in power of
endurance, active in its exercise, him I call indeed a
Brahmana.
406. He who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild withf
fault-finders, free from passion among the passionate, him
I call indeed a Brahmana.
407. He from whom anger and hatred, pride and envy
have dropt like a mustard seed from the point of an awl,
him I call indeed a Brahmana.
411. He who has no interests, and when he has under-
stood (the truth), does not say, How, how? he who can
dive into the Immortal, him I call indeed a Brahmana.
*The book is divided into sections called from their subjects,
"Watchfulness," "Thought," "The Wise Man," "The Fool,"
'The Venerable," "The Way," "The Bhikshu," etc. The last is
entitled "The Brahmana."
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 119
412. He who is above good and evil, above the bondage
of both, free from grief, from sin, from impurity, him I
call indeed a. Brdhmana.
417. He who, after leaving all bondage to men, has
risen above all bondage to the gods, who is free from every
bondage, him I call indeed a Brahmana.
418. The hero who has conquered all worlds, him I
call indeed a Br&hmana.
423. He who knows his former abodes, who sees heaven
and hell, has reached J:he end of births, is perfect in knowl-
edge and a sage, whose perfections are all perfect, him I
call indeed a Brahmana.
We add here the declaration ascribed to Gautama
in that great hour when under the tree at Bodhi-
manda, he attained, as he deemed, full vision, be-
came Buddha, felt that now he saw, was emanci-
pate and free. Filled with ecstasies of delight, he
could not refrain from bursting into rapturous song.
This is found also in the Dhammapadam* The
free rendering we give here, measurably a para-
phrase, but a true one, is from Mr. Alger, as it
appeared in his interesting volume of selections from
Oriental Poetry, f
"A pilgrim through eternity,
In countless births have I been born,
And toiled the Architect to see,
Who builds my soul's live house in scorn.
* Verses 153, 154.
f Boston, 1856.
120 BUDDHA.
O painful is the road of birth,
By which from house to house made o'er,
Each house displays the kind and worth
Of the desires I loved before.
Dread Architect ! I now have seen thy face,
And seized thy precept's law ;
Of all the houses which have been,
Not one again my soul shall draw.
Thy rafters crushed, thy ridge-pole too,
Thy work, O Builder, now is o'er ;
My spirit feels Nirvana true,
And I shall transmigrate no more."
One does not so much wonder at the enthusi-
astic praise bestowed by the Buddhists upon the
utterances of their prophet, considering that we find
such as these scattered in liberal measure in one
at least of the books of their Canon. They say :
"The discourses of Buddha are as a divine charm to
cure the poison of evil desire ; a divine medicine to heal the
disease of anger ; a lamp in the midst of the darkness of
ignorance ; a fire like that which burns at the end ot a
kalpa to destroy the evils of repeated existence ; a great
rain to quench the flame of sensuality ; a ship in which to
sail to the opposite shore of the ocean of existence ; a col-
lyrium for taking away the eye-film of heresy ; a succession
of trees bearing immortal fruit, placed here and there, by
which the traveler may be enabled to cross the desert of
existence ; a straight highway, by which to pass to the in-
comparable wisdom ; a door of entrance to the eternal city
of Nirvana ; a talismanic tree to give whatever is requested ;
a flavor more exquisite than any other in the three worlds ;
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 121
a power by which may be appeased the sorrow of every
sentient being."
In another place it is declared the dharma
''shines upon the darkness of the world, as the
rays of the sun, when this luminary has ascended
the Yugandhara rocks, shine upon the lotus flowers
of the lake, causing them to expand and bringing
out their beauty."* "His doctrine/'' says the author
of a legend we find in the Chinese, "he described
as the centre of invariable splendor, as the incom-
plete and the full, the unutterable and the ever spoken,
as something which cannot be heard, and yet is ever
heard" "Bright as a mirror," he adds, "was the
opening of his wisdom's store, lofty as the moun-
tains, deep as the sea, like the thunder and the
lightning flash was the brilliancy and the depth of
his penetration. " f
The Dhammapadam is a very small book, a mere
brochure, containing in all but 423 verses, but the
Buddhistic Canon is very voluminous. It is divided
into three parts called the Tripitakas or three Baskets,
as the writing was originally upon palm leaves, which
were placed for keeping in baskets. J The first contains.
* Hardy, E. M., pp. 192, 193, 198.
f Beal's Catena, pp. 136, 142.
| See Wasseljew, p. 118. So also now, according to him, the
Thibetans and Mongolians keep their sacred books (upon paper) in
baskets.
122 BUDDHA.
the Sutras or discourses (to which the Dhammapadam
belongs); the second, Vinaya, or morality, mainly a
positive code for the direction of the priests ; and
third, the Abhidharma, or by-law, a system of meta-
physics. Much of this is doubtless later, perhaps
by several generations than Buddha, though all is of
course ascribed directly to him, or to his immediate
inspiration. In Thibet they have two gigantic collec-
tions, the Kanjur and the Tanjur, the first consist-
ing in the different editions of 100, 102 or 108
folio volumes, and containing 1,083 distinct works,
the latter of 223 folio volumes, each of which weighs
in the edition of Peking from four to five pounds.
These works, it is ascertained, are translations from
Sanscrit originals, copies of which, in part at least,
have been found in Nepal.* In China the Canon
includes 1,440 distinct works, comprising 5,586
books, f The Pali originals found in Ceylon, less
voluminous indeed, are still large, containing, accord-
ing to Spence Hardy, 592,000 stanzas (this, however,
includes both the text and the commentaries), and
have in turn been rendered into Birmese and
Siamese. It is to be hoped that the substance or
* The Buddhist Canon in China, says Mr. Edkins, is seven hun-
dred times larger than the Bible.
* See a good account of the character and contents of these books
in Koeppen, II., pp. 278-282.
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 12$
the better portions of these may be given in an
English or some other European dress. There may
quite likely be choice gems exhumed from this mass
of speculation and dreams.
The Chinese have a little work they call "The
Sutra of Forty-two Sections." It was brought to
China from India in the first century of our era,*
and would seem certainly at that date to have held
high place as an authority, since it was deemed the
one book most fittingly representing the doctrines
of the teacher, for those to whom the new word
was then being carried. We select a few of them
to show the quality. The translation is by Mr. Beal.
7. Buddha said : A man who foolishly does me wrong,
I will return to him the protection of my ungrudging love ;
the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from
me ; the fragrance of these good actions always redounding
to me, the harm of the slanderer's words returning to him.
For as sound belongs to the drum, and shadow to the sub-
stance, so in the end, misery will certainly overtake the
evil doer.
8. Buddha said : A wicked man who reproaches a
f So says Beal, p. 189, resting apparently upon a Chinese author-
ity. But may it not have been brought in earlier? The Buddhistic
faith was introduced into China very early, and from Turkistan, where
they had at the time only the doctrines of the little Vehicle (primitive
Buddhism, or nearly that), and this Sutra would seem to belong to
the earliest age, and might very naturally have come through that
source. See Wasseljew, p. 100.
124 BUDDHA.
virtuous one, is like one who looks up and spits at Heaven ;
the spittle soils not the Heaven, but comes back and defiles
his own person. So, again, he is like one who flings dirt at
another, when the wind is contrary ; the dirt does but
return on him that threw it. The virtuous man cannot be
hurt ; the misery that the other would inflict comes back on
himself.
10. Buddha said : * * To feed one good man is in-
finitely greater in point of merit than attending to questions
about heaven and earth, spirits and demons. These mat-
ters are not to be compared to the religious duty we owe to
our parents. Our parents are very divine.
11. Buddha said: There are twenty difficult things in
the world being poor to be charitable ; being rich and
great, to be religious ; to escape destiny ; to get sight of the
Scriptures ; to be born when a Buddha is in the world ; to
repress lust and banish desire ; to see an agreeable object
and not seek to obtain it ; to be strong without being rash ;
to bear insult without anger ; to move in the world without
setting the heart on it ; to investigate a matter to the very
bottom ; not to contemn the ignorant ; thoroughly to extir-
pate self-esteem ; to be good, and at the same time to be
learned and clever ; to see the hidden principle in the pro-
fession of Religion ; to attain one's end without exultation ;
to exhibit in a right way the doctrine of expediency ; to
save men by converting them ; to be the same in heart and
life ; to avoid controversy.
13. Buddha said : Who is the good man ? The reli-
gious man only is good. And what is goodness ? First
and foremost // is the agreement of the will with the con-
science (Reason). Who is the great man? He who is
strongest in the exercise of patience. He who patiently en-
dures injury and maintains a blameless life he is a man
indeed !
14. Buddha said : A man who cherishes lust and desire,
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 125
and does not aim after ( see ) supreme knowledge, is like a
vase of dirty water, in which all sorts of beautiful objects
are placed the water being shaken up men can see noth-
ing of the objects therein placed ; so it is, lust and desire,
causing confusion and disorder in the heart, are like the
mud in the water ; they prevent our seeing the beauty of
supreme reason. But remove the pollution, and imme-
diately of itself comes forth the substantial form. So also
when a fire is placed under a pot, and the water within is
made to boil, then whoever looks down upon it will see no
shadow of himself. So the three poisons which rage within
the heart, and the five obscurities which embrace it, effec-
tually prevent one attaining (seeing) supreme reason. But
once get rid of the pollution of the wicked heart, and then
we perceive the spiritual portion of ourselves which we
have had from the first, although involved in the net of life
and death gladly then we mount to the Paradise of all the
Buddhas, where reason and virtue continually abide.
15. Buddha said : A man who devotes himself to Relig-
ion is like one who takes a lighted torch into a dark house ;
the darkness is at once dissipated, and there is light ! Once
persevere in the search after wisdom, and obtain knowledge
ot truth error and delusion entirely rooted out oh!
what perfect illumination will there be !
16. Buddha said : In reflection, in life, in conversation,
in study, I never for a moment forget the supreme end,
Religion (Reason).
18. Buddha said : Throughout an entire day's conduct
to keep the thoughts steadily on Religion (Reason), and
from this religious conduct to realize a deep principle ot
Faith this indeed is blessedness without measure.
2 1. -Buddha said: A man who rudely grasps after
wealth or pleasure, is like a little child coveting honey
cut with a knife ; scarcely has he had one taste of its
126. BUDDHA.
sweetness, before he perceives the pain of his wounded
tongue.
24. Buddha said : Lust and desire, in respect of a man,
are like a person who takes a lighted torch and runs with it
against the wind. Foolish man ! not letting go the torch,
you must needs have the pain of a burnt hand ; and so with
respect to the poison of covetousness, lust, anger, envy ;
* * the misery to the person will be just like the self-
inflicted pain on the hand of the foolish man bearing the
torch.
28. Buddha addressed all the Shamans Guard against
looking on a woman. * * If you must needs speak to
her, let it be with pure heart and upright conduct. Say to
yourself "I am a Shaman, placed in this sinful world;
let me be then as the spotless lily, unsoiled by the mud in
which it grows." Is she old ? Regard her as your mother.
Is she honorable ? Regard her as your sister. Is she of
small account? Regard her as a younger sister. Is she a
child ? Treat her reverently and with politeness.
34. Buddha said : The practice of Religion is just like
the process followed in an iron foundry. The metal, being
melted, is gradually separated from the dross and drops
down ; so that the vessel made from the metal must needs
be good. The way of wisdom is likewise a gradual process,
consisting in the separation of all heart pollution, and so by
perseverance reason is accomplished.
40. Buddha said : A man in the practice of Religion,
who is able to destroy the root of lust and desire in himself,
may be compared to a person who counts over his beads.
One by one he counts them, till the whole be finished. So
when there is an end of wickedness, reason is attained.
42. Buddha said : I regard the dignities of kings and
princes as the dust-motes in a sunbeam ; the value of gold
and jewels as that of a broken platter ; dresses of the finest
silk I regard 'as the scraps of silk given as presents. I
SENTENCES OF SCRIPTURE. 12J
regard the collective chiliocosm as the letter "A" (the
symbol of the earth). The different expedients in religious
practice I regard as a mere raft to carry over the treasure.
* * I regard the state of perfect mental equilibrium as
the true standing ground, and all the various forms of ap-
paritional existence as the changes of vegetation during the
four seasons. *
" It (the Law) is as a cloud which with a garland of light-
ning spreads joy on the earth ; the water falls on all crea-
tures, herbs, bushes, trees, and each pumps up to its own
leaf and blossom what it requires for its several end. So
falls the rain of the Law upon the many-hearted world.
The Law is for millions ; but it is one and alike beautiful
to all ; it is deliverance and repose."*
And the Singhalese ascribe this to Buddha :
" Out of mud springs the lotus flower ; out of clay
come gold and many precious things ; out of oysters the
pearls ; the brightest silks to robe fairest forms are spun by
a worm ; bezoar from the bull, musk from the deer are pro-
duced ; from a stick is born flame ; from the jungle comes
sweetest honey. As from sources of little worth come the
precious things of earth, so is it with hearts that hold their
fortune within. They need not lofty birth nor noble kin.
Their victory is recorded."
One of the school reading-books, we are told,
put into the hands of the juveniles in Ceylon, is a
collection of maxims in Sanscrit by a Rishi, Wasana.
It contains sentences whkh, if not regarded as
* Beal's Catena, pp. 193, 199, 201, 203.
* From the White Lotus of the Good Laiv.
128 BUDDHA.
canonical, well deserve careful recording and remem-
brance :
" As drops ot water falling into a vessel gradually fill it,
so are all science and instruction and riches to be acquired."
"Though the good have only a little wealth, like the
water of a well, it is useful to all. Though the bad have
much wealth, like the salt water of the sea, it is useful to
none."
"The evil man is to be avoided, though he be arrayed
in the robe of all the sciences, as we flee from the serpent,
though it be adorned with the kantha jewel."
"We must be deaf in hearing the evil of others, blind in
seeing the imperfection of others ; as those without mem-
bers in committing sin, and as those without a mind in
thinking to do wrong."
"The pearls and gems which a man has collected, even
from his youth, will not accompany him a single step
towards the future world ; friends and relatives cannot
proceed a step further than the place of sepulture ; but a
man's actions, whether they be good or bad, will not leave
him, they will follow him to futurity."
"A good action done in this world will receive its
reward in the next ; even as the water poured at the root
of a tree will be seen aloft in the fruit and the branches."*
The following are among the common maxims
of the priests of Siam :
"Glory not in thyself, but rather in thy neighbor."
"Cause no tree to die."
" Eat nothing between meals."
*
* Hardy's Eastern Monachism. pp. 316, 317.
SA r TA'CS OF SCRIPTURE. 129
' Use no perfume but sweetness of thoughts."
"Be lowly in thy thought, that thou mayest be lowly
in thy act."
" po no work but the work of charity and truth."
"Contract no friendship with the hope of gain."
"Borrow nothing, but rather deny thy want."
" Lend not unto usury."
" Keep neither lance nor sword nor any deadly weapon."
"Judge not thy neighbor."
" Be not familiar, nor contemptuous."
" Labor not for hire, but for charity."
"Look not upon women unchastely."
"Give no medicines which contain poison, but study
to acquire the true art of healing, which is the highest
of all arts, and pertains to the wise and benevolent."
" Love all men equally ."
" Perform not thy meditations in public places."
"Make rto idols of any kind."*
* Mrs. Leonowens' English Coverness, etc., p. 203.
V.
THE DOCTRINE.
IT is plain that this man, Buddha, is an observer,
he has seen things, read secrets, he is of poetic
temperament, he discerns the relations, the harmonies
of the world, and uses well the language of symbol.
May we not add also that the indications are of an
experience, that he has lived, and inearnated the
ideals in history?
Probably there has never been a system of mo-
rality so purely unselfish offered to the world. It
held out no rewards, recognized not even the per-
sonal existence of the saint as a thing to be pre-
served at all ; it was pure renunciation, divorce from
all regard for one's self. The individual may perish,
humanity, the great interests of truth and virtue,
welfare of the universe, shall live. I am to die
and be extinguished for the life of the world. We
compare this man here with the saint we all ven-
erate, the Jesus all our Western world prays to, and
the comparison is not unfavorable to the former.
THE DOCTRINE. 131
Jesus seems to have been not quite uniform, for-
getting himself and preaching now the doctrines of
noblest self-renunciation, then again somewhat assert-
ting himself and making great promises in this life
and the life to come to his chosen Ones. Sakya-
Muni does this last, never. He offers throughout
no rewards other than self-denial and virtue itself.
The self, the person is so far forgotten that he seems
extinguished in the work and the grand destiny.
Man is to be glorified in humanity. And so the
doctrine has been thought but a gospel, if such a
word may come in, of annihilation. There are no
conquests, no power, no wealth in store. In this
we think' Sakya-Muni is not the inferior of the
Galilean youth. It is said that this is taking us
to an atmosphere of great rarity, that few here can
respire. It may be true, but it indicates the eleva-
tion of the founder of this faith, that he would
know nothing at all save the great verities that are
the life and the end of man, and before which all
else is as naught.
Of course it is difficult to ' see how we are to
part with our own existence, or how lose sight
utterly of ourselves. The denial is subsumed by
affirmation, and renunciation is constantly transmut-
ing in our thought to possession. The nice meta-
physics no acuteness can fathom. Buddha doubtless
*I32 BUDDHA.
saw also this fact of the real, and such terms as
"the other life," "the highest blessedness," etc., as
the synonyms of Nirvana, indicate well that he
made true recognition. But he was certainly right
in insisting upon the not, and guarding well against
all worship of the determinate and known, and so
against the subtle lapse into idolatry. Had men
always been thus careful against absorption, there
had never been any idolatry.
Buddhism, it has been said, has no God, and
the charge of Atheism has been laid against it
widely, and on the part of many who ought to
know whereof they affirm. Doubtless in the ordi-
nary or current theological sense of the word,
Buddha was an Atheist. He never refers, so far as
we know, to any supreme personal Being, to any
individual God. "There is a supreme power, but
not a supreme Being/' says Spence Hardy, charac-
terizing the doctrines now current under the name
of Buddha. In reference to human existence, he
does not seem to regard personality of the individ-
ual as permanent, but rather as something phenom-
enal and transient, the result itself perhaps of some
lapse or disorder, and in the enlarging destiny of
the soul to pass away.* At any rate, whatever he
* In an edition, or rather abstract, of the Prajna Paramitd (Abso-
lute Wisdom), a work belonging to the great Vehicle school (in the
THE DOCTRINE. 133
may have thought of personality per se, he forbore
steadily from making any impersonation of God. He
knows no person but the sublime verities into which
all things melt and sublimate, and which again are
chiefly significant in their practical relation to us,
and named by him* Truth or the Law. Here he
is a believer, a deep, an emphatic believer. Sterner
stress one could not lay than did he upon their
great reality and all commanding worth for man.
He seems to have been conscious of the impen-
etrable mystery that hides the One from the ken of
all vision, even conceptual; aware too of the swift
danger there is of idolatry, in framing any imper-
sonation, and so he holds himself to the recognition
of the transcendent verities, the things that may be
well called, in the language of some of the old
thinkers ra vo^ra, "the intelligibles." What he would
have said if undertaking to define his view upon
.the unseen, it is quite impossible for any one now
to know. He seems to have fancied little the ex-
tended abstract speculations, was disinclined to spend
time upon subtleties that elude all human grasp.
"The ideas of being and not being," he says, "do
scholastic period), we have this declaration as one of the comments of
Theen Tai. "The spiritual body, as to its substance, is like the vast
expanse of Space. The nature of man and his reason were originally
one and undivided." See p. 84, Note.
134 BUDDHA.
not admit of discussion," and probably he abstained
from all attempts at speculative refining and determin-
ing, out of regard to the fact that, as he saw, the
problems of the infinite were so absolutely transcend-
ent and insolvable. In like spirit, when inquired of
with reference to the world, whether it was eternal
or not, he refused, it is said, to make any answer,
deeming the question aimless and idle. Before the
majestic presence he bowed, in view of the supreme
ineffable, his spirit worshiped and celebrated, but
forbore to describe its experience or to name its
object.
Considering how inaccessible the fact, in what
light unapproachable it dwells, how fruitless withal
has been all the laborious speculation to seek and
solve the infinite, and considering also what anthro-
pomorphism there has always been, framing the un-
seen in sensuous image, what degradation and idol-
atry, and that, too, so habitually in the purest and
best forms of worship, shall we not say, perhaps
this man saw farther and did wiser than others ?
"He, the One," says Hermes Trismegistus, "with
many names, and no name." Practically, God comes
to us in the sublime verities, those truths and facts
that are all-sovereign and eternal. True, the mind
holds by inner necessity to a central unity, goes
constantly from many or plural to one, a certain
THE DOCTRINE. . 135
person in which all the impersonal matures and is
crowned. And yet it is impossible to rest in person ;
the thought posits reality greater than person, and
soars away beyond the realm of personal, and im-
personal also, as we know the impersonal. We are
impatient of limitations, and in dealing with the high
spiritual reality, the absolute, must deny them. We
must rest and soar, soar and rest, the rest being
ever but for an instant, surrendered for new flight,
lest by tarrying we be overcome on the plain. The
worship must be fluid, in movement like the sea,
whose waters keep their rest in flow, and are main-
tained sweet thereby; or as the centre of gravity is
supported in one walking, by perpetually advancing
step. Such is the destiny of the human soul, the
stern fate appointed, transcending yet incarnating,
incarnating and transcending, working new ethereal-
izations, approaching ever, but never reaching the
infinite goal. To keep the mind free, ascending,
nearing more and more to essence and substance,
that without form, enduring, is the prime necessity.
We can lose nothing by carrying the negations to
any extent, provided we include and cover all in
broader affirmation. Giving up the idea of personal
God, we are more than made good in the posses-
sion of a higher than person.
In the Buddhistic faith, as we have it historically,
136 BUDDHA.
Karma seems to have been supreme deity, "The
supreme power/' says Hardy, "is Karma," the law
of sanctions. This destiny or fate is the providence
that presides everywhere. There shall be no inter-
position, no help, no partialities of friendship shown
you, you shall reap as you sow. Naked to the
other world you shall go, carrying only your desert,
your acquired character with you. The Siamese
minister says, "There is no God, who judges of
these acts, etc., and awards recompense, and punish-
ment, but reward or punishment is simply the inev-
itable effect of Kam (Karma), which works out its
own results." In other words, as we should say,
the supreme is incarnated, enthroned in the sovereign
laws ; these are omniscient and self-executive. This
is not a harmful atheism.
Curiously enough, it seems to this heathen that
the religions of the world divide here. "There are
philosophers who say that all known sects may be
classed under two religions only the Brahmanyang
and the Samanyang. All those who pray for assist-
ance to Brahma, Indra, God the Creator, angels,
devils, parents, or other intercessors or possible bene-
factors, all who believe in the existence of any being
who can help them, and in the efficacy of prayer,
are Brahmanyang ; while all who believe they must
depend solely on the inevitable results of their own
THE DOCTRINE, 137
acts, that good and evil are consequences of pre-
ceding causes, and that merit and demerit are the
regulators of existence, and who therefore do not pray
to any to help them, and all those who profess to
know nothing of what will happen after death, and
all those who disbelieve in a future existence, are
Samanyang." *
Much, very much inquiry, has been expended upon
the Nirvana of Buddha, its proper purport and meaning;
in the mind of the saint. The opinion is largely
held that the doctrine is nihilistic, that the goal it
proposed to all the life-long endeavor was the gulf
of annihilation. So it has been considered to be
dark and cheerless to the last degree, fit only for
madmen. Doubtless, in their works of metaphysics,
the Buddhists have furnished some ground for the
suspicions and charges entered against them. And.
what school of subtle and over-refining philosophy has
not ? The Greek dialecticians and the middle-age
school-men did this, and in India we have, as Cousin;
long ago well remarked, "an epitome of the entire;
history of philosophy." All the phases of Western'
thought have been repeated, and with an added em-
phasis and intensity in the Eastern mind.
But in the case of Buddha himself, and quite
Modern Buddhist, p. 37.
10
138 BUDDHA.
probably that of his near followers, the criticism is,
we think, at fault. It has not apprehended him.
He seems nihilistic because he is so purely spirit-
ualistic. He has to deny and keep on repeating
denial, to pave the way for the only possible affirm-
ation. He can suffer no representation of the Infinite
Good for the soul. It is so good, it cannot be
described, or even thought. The law is so high that
it cannot be cast in form, it flies and soars away
from every determination. Eye hath not seen nor
ear heard. Nirvana is the ineffable, the untold and
unknown. It is the light that is darkness to our
eyes. It is the not and the is; is qualified by
not, and not transcended and extinguished by is.
Buddha was conscious of the impotence of speech to
name, or thought to apprehend, and he made no
attempt to define except on the side of negation.
But that he held it in the affirmative, we may not
doubt.
Plainly we must in fairness interpret the Nirvana
for him in consistency with his high practical char-
acter. No man who laid such emphasis on the royal
virtues, who was himself so devoted, with a lover's
enthusiasm, to humanity, who had a heart so tender
and warm, could be absorbed and lost in nihilism.
This belongs to renunciants, to withdrawn dreamy
speculators, and not to great doers. His devotion,
THE DOCTRINE. 139
self-sacrifice, quenchless benevolence and love, place
him the peer of the highest saints of history.
"Watchfulness," he declares, "is the path of
immortality, slothfulness the way of death ; the slothful
are as if already dead."
' ' These wise people, meditative, persistent, always
possessed of strong powers, attain to Nirvana, the
highest felicity."
" Nirvana the sum of delights."
"Who is filled with desire for the Ineffable (Nir-
vana), who is rich within, whose thoughts are not
hampered by any thirst, him I call Udhamsolas
(borne aloft)."
"Who can dive into the Immortal him I call
a Brdhmana."
"O Bhikshu (saint), empty this boat! emptied it
will go quickly ; having cut off passion and hatred,
thou wilt go to Nirvana."
"The sages who injure no one, who always con-
trol their body they will go to the immortal abode,
where, if they have gone, they will never sorrow
more. ' '
. "When you have understood the destruction of
all that was made, then you will understand that
which was not made (Nirvana)."
"The man who is free from credulity, but knows
the Uncreated (Nirvana), who has cut all ties and
140 BUDDHA.
taken away all temptation, renounced all desires he
is the greatest of men." *
In the Chinese we have a Sutra which has a
passage on this wise :
" Basita said, Gautama, there are four kinds of condition
in the world which are spoken of as. non-existent ; the first
that which is not as yet in being, like the pitcher to be made
out of the clay ; secondly, that which having existed, has
been destroyed, as a broken pitcher ; third, that which con-
sists in the absence of something different from itself, as we
say the ox is not a horse ; and lastly that which is purely
imaginary, as the hair of the tortoise, or the horn of the
hare. It then, by having got rid of sorrow, we have arrived
at Nirvana, Nirvana is the same as nothingness, and may
be considered as non-existent ; but if so, how can you define
it as. permanence, joy, personality and purity ?
" Buddha said, Nirvana is of this sort : it is not like the
pitcher not yet made out of the clay, nor is it like the noth-
ingness of the pitcher which has been broken ; nor is it like
the horn of the hare, nor the hair of the tortoise, something
purely imaginary. But it may be compared to the nothing-
ness defined as the absence of something different from
itself. As you say, although the ox has no quality of the
horse in it, you cannot say that the ox does not exist ; and
though the horse has no quality of the ox in it, you cannot
say that the horse does not exist. Nirvana is just so. In
the midst of sorrow there is no Nirvana, and in Nirvana
there is no sorrow. So we may justly define Nirvana as
that sort of non-existence which consists in the absence of
something essentially different from itself"
* DJiammapadam, 21, 23, 204, 218, 411, 369, 225, 383, 97.
THE DOCTRINE. 141
Terms in Chinese for denning Nirvana, which
may be rendered "passive splendor," and "bright-
ness and rest," are constantly in use in the later
.scholastic works on Buddhism. The aim is to denote
the perfect union of activity and repose, of motion
and rest, as the sun or the moon, they say, constantly
emits or reflects rays of light, and ^ yet is ever sub-
stantially at rest* In Birmah, Nigban (Nirvana)
is denned simply as freedom from old age, disease
and death.
"All along," says Mr. Beal, "Buddhism assumes
that the same condition awaits the emancipated soul
as is enjoyed by the Supreme Mind."
"In Nirvana" [with the Northern Buddhists]
says Bastian, "is no longer either birth or death;
only the essence of life remains. Nirvana is nowhere
(in no special place), only because it is all-embracing
and all-pervading." "Far from being annihilation,
as such, it is in fact annihilation of delusion, and
therefore the real itself." "Lovely is the glorious
realm of Nirvana," say the Siamese, "the jeweled
realm of happiness."
In this connection comes naturally the doctrine
of Dhyana, of which so much is made in this faith.
It seems essentially one with the ecstasy of the old
* BeaPs Catena, p. 250.
142 BUDDHA.
mystics. It hints the withdrawal, the emancipation
of the soul from all shackles, outer or inner, till it
arrives at the perfect liberty, perfect possession and
deliverance into the infinite repose. The saint must
withdraw into complete solitude, abdicating all care
and unrest. He knows only one desire, desire for
Nirvana. Satisfaction succeeds, he enjoys this presence
and is content. But satisfaction itself must cease,
and all ratiocinative or thinking process ; enjoyment
must come in so high that it knows not joy. Self-
consciousness, feeling, must pass away; pleasure as
pain, memory and all knowledge fade and be known
no more. And now, in the fourth stage, as it is
called, the doors of Nirvana open. The conscious-
ness has transcended the consciousness of self, the
knowledge all determinate knowing ; there is no
desire, no lack, no action ; there is exaltation and
absolute repose. The Buddha, one awakened and
enlightened, now passes into infinity, infinity of space,
of intelligence, into region of naught, i. e., not aught.
Nay, the naught itself must be annihilated, and is
transcended by a larger generalization, an absolute
which is neither naught nor not naught, a sphere
wherein is neither idea of being nor non-being, nor
non-idea of either. Such a giddy flight, such a
culmination of the abstract, was hardly possible with
any other than an Oriental mind. It was ecstasy
THE DOCTRINE. 143
and absorption, but not absorption into substance or
God, since Buddha recognized in no determinate idea
either substance or the divine.
Buddha is said to have passed through the four
stages of Dhyana once, and to have been making the
passage into the fourth, as under the Sal tree he
entered Nirvana.
The recognition of the transcendent character of
the spiritual, the subtle and the impalpable essence
of the unseen, and the struggle of the soul with the
embarrassments of form and sense, the willingness,
but inability, to rise beyond the time and space
conditions, which with their hard necessities are ever
upon us, are well illustrated in a conversation between
King Milinda and Nagasena, a missionary, and bearing
date, as would seem, a little before the beginning of
our Christian era. *
The king says :
You speak of Nirvana ; but can you show it to me, or
explain it to me by color, whether it be blue, yellow, red
or any other color ; or by sign, locality, length, manner,
metaphor, cause or order ; in any of these ways, or by any
of these means, can you declare it to me ?
Nagasena I cannot declare it by any of these attributes
or qualities.
Milinda This I cannot believe.
* Milinda Prasna, a work in Pali, found also in Singhalese trans-
lation. See Eastern Monachism, p. 7.
144 BUDDHA.
N&gasena There is the great ocean. Were any one to
ask you how many measures of water there are in it, or how
many living creatures it contains, what would you say ?
Milinda I should tell him that it was not a proper
question to ask, as it is one that no one can answer.
Nagasena In the same way no one can tell the size or
shape or color or other attributes of Nirvana, though it has
its own proper and essential character. A Rishi might
answer the question to which I have referred, but he could
not declare the attributes of Nirvana, neither could any
deva of the arupa worlds.
Milinda It may be true that Nirvana is happiness, and
that its outward attributes cannot be described ; but cannot
its excellence or advantages be set forth by some mode of
comparison ?
Nagasena It is like the lotus as it is free from klesha (the
lower desire), as the lotus is separate from the mud out of
which it springs. It is like water, as it quenches the fire of
klesha, as water cools the body ; it also overcomes the thirst
for that which is evil, as water overcomes the natural thirst.
It is like a medicine, as it assists those who are suffering
from the poison of klesha, as medicine assists those who are
suffering from sickness ; it also destroys the sorrow of re-
newed existence, as medicine destroys disease ; and it is
immortal, as medicine wards off death. It is like the sea, it
is free from the impurity of klesha, as the sea is free from
every kind of defilement ; it is vast, infinite, so that count-
less beings do not fill it, as the sea is unfathomable and is
not filled by all the waters of all the rivers. It is like space,
as it is not produced (by any exterior cause) ; it does not
die, does not pass away, is not reproduced ; it has no
locality ; it is the abode of the Rahats and Buddhas, as
space is the habitation of birds ; it cannot be hid. and its
extent is boundless. It is like the magical jewel, as it gives
whatever is desired.
THE DOCTRINE. 145
It is like red sandal wood, as it is difficult to be pro-
cured ; its perfume is also peerless, and it is admired by
the wise. It is like Maha Mru, as it is higher than the
three worlds, its summit is difficult to be attained ; and as
seeds will not vegetate on the surface ot the rock, neither
can klgsha flourish in Nirvana ; and it is free from enmity
or wrath.
Again he says :
It cannot be said that it is produced nor that it is not
produced ; that it is past, future, or present, nor can it be
: said that it is the seeing of the eye or the hearing of the
ear, or the smelling of the nose, or the tasting of the tongue,
or the feeling of the body.
Milinda Then you speak of a thing that is not ; you
merely say that Nirvana is Nirvana ; therefore there is no
Nirvana.
Nagasena Great king, Nirvana is; it is a perception
of the mind ; the pure delightful Nirvana, free from ignor-
ance and evil desire, is perceived by the Rahats who enjoy
the fruition of the paths.
Milinda It there be any comparison by which the
nature or properties of Nirvana can be rendered apparent,
be pleased thus to explain them.
Nagasena There is the wind ; but can its color be
told ? Can it be said that it is in such a place, or that it
is small or great, or long or short ?
Milinda We cannot say that the wind is thus ; it can-
not be taken into the hand and squeezed. Yet the wind is.
We know it because it pervades the heart, strikes the body,
and bends the trees of the forest ; but we cannot explain its
nature or tell what it is.
Nagasena Even so Nirvana is; destroying the in-
finite sorrow of the world, and presenting itselt as the chief
146 BUDDHA.
happiness of the world, but its attributes or properties can-
not be declared.
There is close similarity here in the illustration
employed from the wind, and that of Jesus, in de-
scribing the being born of the spirit.
Again Nagasena, in response to the king, who,
unable to get out of the space conditions, con-
tinually plies the question "Where is that place?"
declares it is
Neither in the east, south, west or north, neither in the
sky above nor in the earth below, nor in any of the infinite
sakwalas is there such a place, but wherever the precepts
can be observed. And there may be observance in Ya-
wana, China, Milata, Alanda, Kosala, the summit of MahS,
Meru, or the brahma-lokas ; it may be anywhere, just as
he who has two eyes can see the sky from any or all of
these places, or as any of these places may have an eastern
side.
Milinda asks :
Does the All-wise (Buddha) exist ?
Nagasena He who is the most meritorious (Bhagavat)
does exist.
Milinda Then can you point out to me the place in
which he exists ?
Nagasena Our Bhagavat has attained Nirvana, where
there is no repetition of birth ; we cannot say that he is
here or that he is there. He is like the sun that has set
behind the Astagiri mountain ; it cannot be said that he is
here or that he is there, but we can point him out by the
discourses he delivered ; in these he still lives.*
* Eastern Monachism, pp. 297, 298, 295, 299, 300.
THE DOCTRINE. 147
Nirvana is the house not made with hands, the
abode beyond all abodes, the world we aspire to,
transcending all, taking constantly form in our
thought, but not to be cast in form, the ethereal
reality soaring on and on beyond every thing deter-
minate forever. It is gained through renunciation,
through surrender and the higher choice continually.
It is found in pursuit and rest, activity that is re-
pose and perpetual possession. Giordano Bruno
hints it when he sings,
" nascendo il pensier, more il desio"
At the birth of thought desire dies away.
It is the dream of life, the ideal felicity, that all
more or less clearly discern, or at least feel and
pant for, but fewest, even in remote approximation,
attain. It is the infinitude of God, the heritage
and longing and goal ever of the finite soul. It
is that everlasting trust that rests and believes when
all fails, assured that there can be no failure, that
all things work together for good. It is the dwell-
ing in "the adequate ideas," as Spinoza terms them,
those supreme considerations that lift beyond temp-
tation and all allurement. It is perpetual flowing
and ascending, no pause, no attachment or fastening
anywhere, and yet the deepest, a constantly increas-
ing hold upon substance, and the abiding. In a
148 BUDDHA.
i
word, it is realization and aspiration, satisfaction and
thirst in one.
The complete attainment by any one would be
the fulfillment of all dreams, the accomplishment of
every prophecy, the subjection aye, the elimination
of time from the soul. It is the goal, boundless,
everlasting, infinitely removed, yet most intimately
present, which we are each ever to near, but never
to reach. Buddha saw it and sang it, and fain
would he rend the barrier and enter into full pos-
session. The great reconciler, the redeemer, has not
yet come, the desire of all nations is awaited still.
All hitherto have been but forerunners of the Mes-
sias, Baptists in the wilderness, shouting, "Prepare,
prepare ye the way." Ages, and perhaps millen-
niums, must yet pass ere the great synthesis shall
be wrought and the mystery of being be dissolved
and absorbed in spirit. We look for him that should
come, and we recall that there shall be no person,
that the secret is too deep and subtle that any human
tongue can ever tell. But looking back over history,
we find some indications that this Indian saint had
partially clear vision, that he sighted, albeit dimly
and from afar, the infinite goal.
Buddha did not perhaps draw the affirmations as
he ought, dwelt too much in negation. The thought
affirms, builds, and amid every denial constructs new
THE DOCTRINE. 149
positive. This is all safe while it continues tran-
scendent and on-flowing. But the entanglements
are so numerous and ever recurring, the fatality in
all history has been shown so constantly in pausing
and making the form the eidolon, that we may deem
his jealousy of any worship of the determinate as
rather a merit than a defect. Under this wholesome
restraint it was, doubtless, that he forbore to describe
God as a person, for he would admit nothing
unworthy, would not profane the idea within him of
the illimitable.*
The great fact of this transiency and decay in
existence staggered him, it fairly haunted his brain,
and he sought by all means possible to find some
solution. Why must it be that life is such a flitting
shadow on this earth, that it is but the lightning
gleam in the sky, but the scintillation of a spark ?
Upon that he toiled and wrestled. Could he rend
that mystery and see the eternal bloom, the youth
* Buddha said : "As the great universe has no boundary, and the
eight quarters of Heaven no gateway, so Supreme Reason has no-
limits ; to measure boundless space would be difficult indeed."
Confucius said : " Look up at it ; it is higher than you can see \
Bore into it ; it is deeper than you can penetrate ! Look at it as it
stands before you ; suddenly it is behind you ; " i. e., it cannot be
grasped.
Lau-tsze said : " Looking up, you cannot see the summit of its.
head ; go behind it, you cannot see its back."
150 BUDDHA.
that never dies, the perennial, time no more
this were the privilege, the boon of all others.
The problem remains to us all unsolved. Old age
comes to us as fate ; no one accepts death from
choice. Who does not witness with pain and a
measure of sorrow the furrows come and deepen, the
sure marks of advancing age and decay? Will any
explain the high necessity for all this transiency and
inevitable death ? Broadly considered, however, the
problem will probably be found a part of the question
of time, the mystery of history, of birth and move-
ment, to be be solved only when we are able to
read the enigma of being. Since the river flows why
must there not be emptying into the sea ? We may
well see to it that there be no hastening on sensuous
or trivial grounds, and withal that we ourselves acqui-
esce, descend into the 1 stream and make the inevitable
wear connect with work, answer some solid, worthy
purpose. We have seen Buddha's suggestion as to
the method of disarming the king of his terrors, of
working conquest over death. Brief hint as it is,
it has meaning, and intimates the proximate solution.
By following this road we certainly approach the true
Nirvana.
" To crowd the narrow span of life
With wise designs and virtuous deeds ;
So shall we wake from death's dark night,
To share the glory that succeeds."
THE DOCTRINE. 151
The very defects of Buddhism and we see it to
have had a morbid, chilling element come in a
sense from its greatness. It was so penetrated with
thought of the spiritual, that it discerned nothing of
the seen or material, saw eternity so large and sole,
that there was no place for time. Life shrinks to
nothing, for the immense beyond overshadows, anni-
hilates it. And so the faith was renunciant, solitary,
mournful. It dwelt on the dark and ghastly, lacked
the element of appreciation and cheer. How it dis-
paraged all things of time ! The saints were to
dwell on death, dress in rags, spend nights in cem-
eteries, meditate on the inevitable destruction to all.
Earth is made a wilderness, a charnel-house, a dis-
mal, mouldy tomb. Such disparagements of life and
its scenes, of the human body and its enjoyments,
one could never wish a second time to see, as they
are in these scriptures. It is grim and ghastly. We
say instinctively, a mistake, a blighting, fatal error.
It was a plunge of the Oriental thought in the dim
regions of Pluto and nothingness. With our Western
temperament and habits we cannot abide it. But
for the Eastern soil it was hardly strange, or perhaps
we may say, absurd.
Nor is it in this character quite singular or cer-
tainly sole in history. We need not go far from
home to find the like of it. In our current religion
152 BUDDHA.
what depreciation and disparagement there has been,
and still is, of life ; such sadness, gloom, denial of all.
truth and beauty here.
"This life's a dream, an empty show."
"Life is but a winter's day,
A journey to the tomb."
" The brightest things below the sky
Shine with deceitful light,
We should suspect some danger nigh
Where we possess delight."
" Our life, how poor a trifle 'tis,
That scarce deserves the name."
"The cold dreary tomb,
Sad lot of all living, mortality's doom."
Such gloomy tone runs largely in the popular
hymnology. We celebrate death.
" Who, who would live alway, away from his God "
" Ye wheels of nature, speed your course,
Ye mortal powers decay,
Fast as ye bring the night of death,
Ye bring eternal day."
"Oh, 'tis a glorious boon to die,
This favor can't be prized too high."
There are utterances in the Old Testament hardly
less mournful and dreary than any that are found
in the Buddhistic Canon.
THE DOCTRINE. 153
" Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full
of trouble."
" He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down, he
fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."
" Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return,
ye children of men."
" Thou carriest them away as with a flood ; they are as
a sleep ; in the morning they are like the grass which
groweth up."
" In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the
evening it is cut down and withereth."
" We spend our years as a tale that is told."
" My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle."
"The days of our years are three score years and ten,
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is
their strength labor and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, and
we fly away."*
What choice texts to read, and improved so well,
who does not remember, on funeral occasions ! The
New Testament is not free from a like infirmity.
We hear mention of the body as "vile," and the
feeling is of disesteem for this life, as a dreary
pilgrimage, a dark fate, and the hope is centered on
the world beyond, where is recompense and deliver-
ance. It is plain that where such disparagements
prevail there has not been the true reading either
of time or eternity. It would seem as if in some
of the old ages there had been a general obliquity
* Job 14: i, 2. Psalm 90: 3, 5, 6, 9. Job 7: 6. Psalm 90: 10.
II
154 BUDDHA.
of vision, an amaurosis indeed, so that the world of
existence could not be seen or known in just sense
at all. The more practical and healthful Western
mind has been affected with it almost alike deeply
with the Eastern. It has covered earth like a pall,
and the obscuration, as we see, is not removed yet.
Buddha may have been, quite likely was charged
with this taint. It certainly marred the completeness
of his character. He was of the dark temperament,
as the tradition gives him, pensive and sombre by
nature, so penetrated and overcome with feeling of
the infinite, that he was lost to sense of the world
of the seen. "All is perishable, all is miserable, all
is void," is an expression that, judging by the
tradition, must frequently have passed his lips. And
yet, before we strongly condemn another, let us see
to it that we be subject in no degree to a like
reproach.
But, again, with all the phenomenal, the empty
and unreal and at hours how shadowy it all seems
there is substance. The world an apparition, a very
Sheol above ground, it is also real. We look into
the faces in the street as they flit by, how appari-
tional they seem ; in the mellowed light of the past
or the near future, what are they? Shadow of a
shade, ghosts, dreams and dreamers all. Flesh is
dust, life is a vapor. And yet do we feel there is
THE DOCTRINE. 155
something far more. The gaze penetrates, fixes us.
Here are vital relations. This mortal is putting on
immortality, it is immortal. The phenomenal is sub-
stantial and everlasting. The great qualities certainly
abide, and love, magnanimity, devotion are beyond
peradventure, no spectral illusion. These faces are
radiant, these masks reveal, and these transient shows
beam deep with meaning as of the being of God.
And so the friendships and the friends are abiding,
become more real than ever, as reading through the
sensuous and illusive, seeing all in symbol, we pen-
etrate to substance, the inner truth of all. How
grandly sacred becomes to us a person ! We are
awe-stricken, intensely solemnized. Before us a
clothed eternity, a Theophania, clothed and also
veiled ; fleeting, momentary, and also everlasting ;
patent to sense, and also utterly inaccessible, beyond
the power of hand to touch, or any organ to know.
How fine and tender these relations ; we are per-
vaded with restraint and reverence ; hushed be every
passion or sensuous feeling. Who could think of
violating in smallest point this temple of the soul ?
Before that shrine we bow, as before the majestic
Presence of Divinity.
Buddhism, doubtless, was guilty of short-coming
here, as what great faith of the world has not been?
All have stumbled at that stumbling-stone. None
156 BUDDHA.
have yet read well, none attained the fine interpre-
tation. Pythagoras, of all the prophets we know,
has gone farthest in essay towards accomplishment
in this most difficult work. Zoroaster also seems to
have approximated beyond any other name in the
East. Buddhism went to the highest heights of
negation, bore its protest powerfully and well, but
did not reach the affirmation. Let it be judged in
this regard fairly, nothing extenuated, and no meas-
ure of condemnation meted out to it that is not
given to other faiths chargeable with like deficiency.
It is not easy to say of its renunciation, speak-
ing of it entire, how far it was healthy or had
healthy elements, and how far of morbid tinge,
whether the withdrawal was for concentration and
conquest, true work, or for escape. There is much
that we need to cast aside that we may be light-
weighted to run the race before us. Every imped-
iment, every clog we must away with, everything that
delays us from climbing swiftly the road upward to
God. There are stern lessons to be put here, and
no preacher has yet laid emphasis on them too
strongly. But there is sometimes also pusillanimity,
desire to abdicate our relations, to withdraw from
the post of life. Existence here is a conflict, 'and
it requires some effort even to live. There come
hours perhaps to all, when the soul prays, "May this
THE DOCTRINE. 157
cup pass from me," when the resolution fails, the
mountain looms too high, and it asks to be relieved ;
it would to naught and death. Perhaps the Bud-
dhistic doctrine took on something of this type, we
cannot quite say at this distance. But we can see
it a grave mistake, involving a totally wrong appre-
hension of life from the bottom, not better and not
worse, as appears, than the current conception of
salvation and heaven as implying deliverance and
exemption from all responsibilities and labors that
come so ungrateful here. The deliverance is not by
withdrawal, but by conquest. Rest itself is motion ;
repose, the perfection of action.
Life itself is such a battle, there is no escape
but by victorious doing. Every morning summons
us to a new conflict, every day brings new surprises,
requirements, tasks not anticipated. The nails will
grow, the pores will transpire, the body, as also the
mind, undergoing constantly transmutation. There is
no cessation to the work of disintegrating ; necessity
there is for perpetual conflict, resistance and struggle
to hold against the flood and keep good by renewals
the waste. Each individual in life is like one upon
ocean in a frail and leaky bark, to be kept afloat
only by incessant exertion. He must pump or die.
All that we have acquired or possess goes continually
to deterioration, enemies on all hands attack it, lay
158 BUDDHA.
waste, and there must be unwearying effort to repair
and maintain. Eternal vigilance is here the price
of every liberty. Whoso would abdicate this inces-
sant struggle must go out of his own body, out of
existence itself. There is no exemption to aught
that dwells in time.
"Life's no resting but a moving,"
This Buddhism ought, if it did not, to have seea
and made good recognition of.
For here we touch upon great issues, the vital
questions of life open at this door. The deliverance
is by exaltation and enlargement, mastery until mo-
tion is perfect rest, and our activity becomes free,
victorious, spontaneous as the breath. There is to be
no effort and no weariness. The Nirvana is posses-
sion; the felicity, life more and more expanded and
exalted. That we feel embarrassed and find our-
selves burdened and shackled, is proof of our weak-
ness. We have not yet become seized of our estate.
When we shall have been, we shall have no long-
ing or unrest, nothing can be hard or painful, we
shall feel never for a moment disposition to retire
or escape any work or requirement. Conflict shall
transmute into conquest ; in all the circumstances
about us, not one thing unfriendly. Without indiffer-
THE DOCTRINE. 159
ference, we shall yet be without solicitude or any pain.
The large soul loves and works largely, with zest
and serene joy. Indisposition for labor, shrinking
from its trials and responsibilities is, perhaps, always
a mark of impaired vitality; it betokens imbecility
or advancing old age. Very frequently indeed it is
in close connection with diseased physical condition,
and hardly knows cure short of the removal of that.
Taking in view the high mark, how few of us, in-
deed, reach or even approach the period of twenty-
one ! Few approximate the fine golden mean, find
the true reconciliation and marriage of seen and un-
seen, undertaking never too much, neither tov little,
never indifferent and never borne away, pursuing, and
keeping and deepening perpetually in the pursuit,
the inward rest.
There may fitly be discrimination and selection.
All are not anointed to every work. With each in-
dividual there should be deliberate judgment and
choice of his vocation. There is also gradation and
a relativity of values, and there may be, there must
be preferences. One claim stands subordinate to
another. Remembering the gradation and constant
ascension, we should keep lower subservient and
cheap beside the higher. There may be setting aside
in a measure of the grosser tasks, in order to a
larger dedication and freer performance of higher
160 BUDDHA.
work. One should not spend his life in doing,
however devotedly, on trifles or matters of inferior
moment. Every day we are called to weigh, to
take the comparative measurements, and adjust our-
selves to fresh claims. That which was paramount
and commanding yesterday may be subordinate to-
day. Every hour frequently shifts values, and it
requires great skill, as well as fine judgment, to
make the instant adjustments. We may well feel ill
at ease with ourselves, if we use not good discrim-
ination and selection. There must be a singleness
and soleness in all effective dedication, a shutting
out of all rivals from the homage, . the devotion of
the worshiper. Much may be excused to the supe-
rior genius who separates himself largely from the
manual labors, that he may do finer and more. And
yet none may withdraw himself utterly ; every man
must keep burnished and bright the link that unites
him with the world of the material and his toiling
fellows, must keep alive some taste of the labor in-
volved to provide for the primal necessities. With-
drawal, in this sort, will vitiate the quality of his
thought, impair the bond of sympathy through which
he sees, knows and enters into the condition of men,
and be very apt also to harm his character. The
more exalted one's soul, the more royally and in-
spiringly he can do. All tasks may transmute into
THE DOCTRINE. l6l
pastime and delight under his hand. His compan-
ionship, on any field, is an exhilaration. No man
may rightfully forget, while in the body, that he has
a body, and that he primarily should serve and feed
his own. It is to be suspected that Buddhism made
its grave, its fatal short-coming here. This blemish
seems to mar all the great saintships thus far in
history. The monk, with staff and alms-bowl ask-
ing for bread, is not quite honorable or manly in
the midst of working mankind. He that is least
in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. He
that strives to sustain truly and well the relation to
wife, family, society, that conquers on that plane,
writes and realizes he has fought a higher battle,
and stands in this point greater than all renunciants.
And in the household he may learn lessons, behold
revelations finer and deeper than Buddha saw in his
solitude.
The requirement for all is that none in any labor
shall become absorbed and lost. And none must
abdicate or think for a moment of retiring from
exertion. Any work, however coarse or ungrateful
to the feeling, is infinitely better than none. All
has in it divine elements, and may be transmuted
to beauty and song. Do something, and keep mind
and heart ever alive. "I feed," says Giordano
Bruno, "upon the high endeavor." There is no
1 62 BUDDHA.
rust so fatal as the rust of inaction. The old hymn
hath it
. ' only while we pray, we live.'
In larger and stricter sense, only while we act, we
live. Even old age may be animated by a purpose,
and the years of infirmity may should be occu-
pied with interests and work. An aim is antiseptic,
it resists the invasion of decay. There is no such
anodyne for the ills and pains of life as absorption
of the attention on worthy objects. Each one should
seek, in however advanced years, when the hour
comes, to die in the harness. "Give me a great
thought, that I may be quickened with it while I
die," said the expiring Herder to his attendant.
And even the secondary or inferior may become,
for the time being at least, paramount, and the man
of highest spiritual gift, with great calling to teach,
to prophesy, may see occasion that shall imperatively
summon him to the toilful hand-laborer's life, a
vocation to be preferred immeasurably before any
mean surrender or degradation. He will find that
here, too, the divine enrichments will come, that
sootiest toil will permit, aye, bring inspirations, great
communion, open to broadest culture and enlarge-
ment, that no favored position bought at price of
manly erectness can begin to give. There are ad-
vantages purchased at fatal price, and they shrink to
dry ashes in the hand.
VI.
THE FINE PROBLEM.
right apprehension of this world, seeing all
J_ things as they are, in their duality and their
oneness, correlating time with the eternal, keeping
the fact and the true subordination this is ever the
question of questions, the one problem of human
life. Buddhism brings us to it, all historic studies,
especially of faiths and institutions, bring us to it.
This once solved, the human being has done his
errand, wrought out his destiny and entered into
final rest.
It is a very old question, considered and experi-
mented upon through all the ages. How use the
world, never abusing it, how make the just recog-
nitions, avoiding renunciation and escape absorption,
how love and embrace as we must, but never set-
ting too much stake in the object this is the
severe problem. If I would be just, making full
recognition of all the claims of the outer and seen,
relations to the world of time, I fall into forgetful-
ness and idolatry ; if I would guard w%ll and keep
1 64 BUDDHA.
clear, I become tainted with indifference, a renun-
ciant, a withdrawn and ghastly saint. On the Scylla
or the Charybdis all barks go to wreck, or from
the one to the other, many all the life long vainly
toss and beat.
The outer is not matter of indifference, and the
material condition, the physical or mundane basis, is
not to be despised or disregarded. Outer and inner,
corporeal and ethereal are clamped together in this
world by indissoluble bonds. Lower leads to and
culminates in higher, and there is no higher that
(Joes not stand and rest in lower. The matter
of circumstances in reference to the house, the ap-
pointments of the home, may seem trivial, at least
unimportant, and yet the neglect of one little
particular may cost a life, may bear to the shades
irrecoverably the face of a dear one. We must
distinguish while we cannot separate, discriminate and
hold fitly in place, while we cannot put asunder.
It is so very delicate a task, speculatively impossible,
practically most difficult, seeming unattainable.
Every thing must be put upon the scales and
marked at its just value, or the approximation, and
the valuation needs to be revised and re-marked con-
tinually as the relations change, which they do every
day and every hour. There must be constant use
of the balance, and ever-returning reference to the
THE FINE PROBLEM. 165
absolute standard. How the values change accord-
ing to the perspectives we look through, that which
seems so large and commanding in view of the near
present, shrinking into insignificance and naught in
view of the long future. And there is variation in
the standard within at different moments, days and
periods of life ; at least it comes out some times
with greater distinctness, is more pronounced, clear,
vital, than at others. And the highest norm is at
best but an approximation, only a comparatively just
scale ; there is some amaurosis always, points of in-
sensibility in the nerve, mirage in the eye, chromatic
refractions. At the highest heights the vision . is
partial, the angels are chargeable with folly. But if
we advance, there are constantly new corrections,
finer sensibilities being wakened within ourselves.
The puzzle seems to be to avoid excess, to keep
to the limit. The way is slippery, and the descent
to Avernus so easy. There is such constant expan-
sion to the wants, or what we conceive to be our
wants, such quick, rising intensity. One sets out to
build the house ; the requirements so grow and mul-
tiply, there are so many things that suggest, it were
well, aye, necessary, to have them the dimensions
swell ere we are aware, out of all proportion to the
land we must build on, or the purse we must build
from. And the appointments, the furnishing of the
1 66 BUDDHA.
house with its various wares, necessary, convenient,
elegant how they enlarge and increase till literally
there is no end. The absorptions are so great, so
subtle, that ere one is aware, he is borne from his
feet and lost in the vortex. No house ever gets
finished, no estate is ever large enough, and no ap-
pointments quite complete. The accumulation of
materials in the course of years how it swells up!
Be careful as one will, the collection will grow and
extend, implements, materials for use, articles of the
household, shop, or farm economy, laid aside, not
of any present need, yet not willingly thrown away.
A fire, a removal, a relentless auction, may clear
away the superfluous stuifs, but in absence of one
or another of -these, what steadily increasing bondage
is brought ! We become encased in a hard shell,
layer after layer, incrustations that bind us tight and
forbid all fluidity and freedom. How many a house-
keeper becomes, ere she is aware, held and kept by
her house, how many an estate owner, owned by
his estates! And so the multitudes of men and
women in our society, our active and advanced
civilization, are brought under deep idolatries and
shackles of an inextricable bondage. Is there no
method of having any thing without being possessed,
chained and hampered by it? Is there no medium
between subjugation and renunciation ; no freedom
but in being a sans culotte ?
THE FINE PROBLEM. 167
* Habitude, the accustomed ways and surroundings,
have power for ill as well as good, perhaps more
than for good. Use and wont confine and enslave
us. We grow to the habitual, the scenes and expe-
riences of the every-day life, till we become identified
with them, they are a part of ourselves. We cannot
break from them, are fastened, incarcerated, unable
to move at the call of the spirit. The languid
nature cries, "Let me first go and bury my father."
I see, not without dread, the power of this element,
especially as the years advance, and the enthusiasm,
elasticity and warm courageous spirit of youth have
\ diminished. We incline to the accustomed, to rest
in what we have, unwilling to break away and forth
to new fields and larger work. Every day adds a
cord to the fastening, and erewhile the toil becomes
so strong we cannot possibly break it. Every man
as he enters age, tends to become contracted, con-
servative, a fogy. The blood retires more inward to
the heart, he is less disposed to exertion, to aggres-
sive forward movement. His cry is, "Let alone, let
be, no disturbance, no disruption." He is glued to
his objects; when they are taken, like Laban he has
lost his gods. Only as he keeps his blood warm
and quick, his pulse beating with the life of the
world, can he escape.
Our relations to the social involve us in grave
1 68 BUDDHA.
exposure. How these faces write, this presence ,of
the dear ones of the household, the friendly circle
what a power it has to touch and affect us to the
quick ! The impressions are so vital, they enter the
very life-centers. All unconsciously we are borne
away with a wild idolatry. We identify the form
with the substance, the expression with the reality,
we forget the symbolism. A single experience may
be fraught with danger, the glance of the eye,
the beam in the look, the word which is music to
the ear how it may carry us captive and bear
away. I note with awe sometimes and shrinking
fear these fascinations, the allurements, the fine, trans-
porting charms of the home circle, and apprehend
lest they become too dear, too essentially indispensable
in their habitual manifestation, to the soul's enjoy-
ment. All unconsciously our hearts' loves are en-
twined there so deep, we live in and of them, and
cannot bear separation. But the separation comes,
as it must, ever has and ever will, and we are bereft
indeed. Our lode-stars are gone, the light of our
life blotted out. Death strips us of our delights,
and we sit in darkness, saddened, alone.
And yet there is a medium line to be hit ; we
are individuals and are each an incarnated spirit,
breathing and dwelling in time, and some garments
we must have, we cannot go naked in this world.
THE FINE PROBLEM. 169
We have relations and dependencies, we must con-
verse and commune. How mingle and still hold
superiority, how recognize and honor, warm to and
love, and get upon us never a trace of a shackle?
We want the wise teacher who shall elucidate, show
us the reconciliation and true deliverance. Repose
in action, repose that acts and activity that reposes
is the need of every day and every hour of every
life.
In the old Vedic Hymns, early almost apparently
as the dawn of any civilization among men, any
social, tamed, human life, going back to the days
when agriculture was hardly born, settled life in
houses just beginning or young, man poor almost
as a naked savage, existence a perpetual struggle,
such as we can hardly conceive of now, we find in-
vocations to the superior powers and forces of
nature, for supply of the most elemental wants.
Give us possessions, food, shelter, family, and con-
tinued life here, O Indra! We crave remembrance
in the body, in the imperative resistless needs of
our physical being. The staple of these old hymns,
deeply religious as they are, is still grossly material,
showing man glued to the earth, groveling amid its
absorptions, in the first stages only of his birth into
consciousness of the higher. His eyes begin to open
upon the great realities, he is filled with wonder,
12
1 70 BUDDHA.
with aspiration, superlative longing, but the hard
necessities encase him, and he falls back ever and
anon to the ' stern needs that press him without, the
measureless distance that divides him from the desired
and the indispensable material possession. Man an
infant, a naked child, exposed, beset, hampered, and
in life-and-death struggle with enemies, unable to
overcome his pressures, ravished, but too weak to
rise to the upper airs and dwell in exaltation and
repose this is the spectacle presented to us in that
early, almost primitive stage of human history.
We stand now at distance of forty, or perhaps more
centuries from that,* the struggles, advances and
enlargements of so many ages behind us, man the heir
-of all the attainment of this past, risen from naked
savagery to a clothed and comparatively fine civiliza-
tion and yet have we grown much from that old
^condition? All abroad the same cry goes up contin-
ually : Give us possessions, O Heaven ! We want
means, wealth, property and power, an emancipated,
protected and favored life. What emphasis upon the
food to eat, the clothes to wear, in one view essen-
tial condition, but as held largely, merest incident,
* Bunsen says the oldest of the Vedas, the purely popular, cannot
be younger than 3000 B. C. See Max Miiller's Chips, Vol. III., p.
471; also Bunsen's Egypt, Vol. V., p. 562.
THE FINE PROBLEM. 1 71
and even fatal snare. Such constant occupation with
the material relations, perpetual study and labor for
change and advantage and power here. In any true
rendering in invocation of the absorbing desires and
effort of to-day, hardly less prominent place would
be covered by the prayers for possession and physical
supply, than we find in those old rude petitions of
the early Aryan ancestors. With all the wealth, the
enhanced comfort and emancipation, the goal is still
unneared, and we may say even unsighted. Man
still grovels on the earth, unable to rise and take
the freedom, the great repose that is his birthright.
It is yet the dispensation of the first man, of the
earth, earthy.
The same character is stamped upon our public
civilization. So patent, it is obvious to all eyes.
The material element seems excessive, so dominant
as to make deformity and distortion. Such eager-
ness, haste of work, rush and impatience after per-
formance and outer conquest. Visit any of the marts
of trade, routes of commerce, shops of business, and
you see everywhere the fevered life, gigantic move-
ments that would stir from their places the very
heavens^ immense enterprises carried forward to aggran-
dize and fill with power. The brute forces of nature
are commanded into service, and steam, electricity,
heat, winds, are made to do the. bidding of man in
172 BUDDHA.
this quest. Probably there is not a force in the
bowels of the earth, in the atmosphere, or the stars,
that will not be captured and tamed to this use.
Human life is rapid, breathless with ambition and
speed in all the incidents of outer wealth and achieve-
ment. Look at the thoroughfares, and you see the
eager- rush of everybody to go abroad, to traverse the
planet, myriads whirling on with the speed of the
wind, and in perpetual stream no rest and no goal.
You are impelled to interrogate, Wherefore? Whence
do all these come, and whither are they bound ?
Was there ever the like thirst and universal move-
ment before? The brain of man is in constant gesta-
tion, travailing perpetually with inventions and skilled
devices for subduing time, annihilating the space
separations, and conquering to his feet the world.
The same dream of possession seems to haunt the
scientific domain, the same thirst and unrest, and the
glasses are armed with ever-increasing power, that
they may see to the end of finitude, probe and
explore all the height and depth of the unmeasured
universe. Never was there such hope and assured
expectation, such tension and energizing of every
faculty. Not unnaturally, perhaps, is the head dazed
with the great successes, wonderful of late, beyond
any parallel hitherto, and the intoxication comes in
that dreams, that this daring, conquering intellect of
THE FINE PROBLEM. 173
man is on the eve of piercing and laying open the
final secret of secrets.
Viewing from one point of observation, we may-
say that there is fate, destiny here. It must needs
be so. There are conditions yet to be fulfilled,
certain preliminary terms to a true spiritual mastery,
that must be answered, and the race is moving on,
in large part unconsciously, to work an indispensable
mission, to smooth and make straight the way for
the coming of the Most High. Man is not yet
free enough on the physical plane, he is the creature
of stern necessities that bind him, too preoccupied,
absorbed, harried, too much still in the exposure
and lack of primitive savagery, to be able to com-
mand himself to withdrawal and inner repose. See
what exposure in the person, what bankruptcy of
health and life, what premature decay, what sorrows,
what heavy odds against which perpetually to con-
tend ! What a tragedy is life all about us, what an
unceasing, relentless battle, what clouds, what sadness
visit! There is still sternest destitution and need,
the requirement to fight and to wrest whatever we
would win ; much also that, with all the bravery of
fight, we are unable to get. The great battle with
weakness, want, with cold, disease and sharp pres-
sures is still to be done, ere, as would seem, the
higher life is to any large extent possible. Destiny
174 BUDDHA.
has charged its ministers with this performance, and
the word shall surely accomplish that whereunto it
was sent.
Sad enough it is to see of some, that they ap-
pear so delicately constituted, there is such lack of
just poise in their temperament, such over-proportion
even of the finer, the spiritual, that they are unfitted
to bear the rude shocks of the experiences of time,
and so go down broken and crushed, summoned
out of life ere they have been able to read and get
its lessons. The flower was too delicate for the
winds that blew, and the storms that sometimes
come, and could not therefore fill the measure of its
days and reach its full perfection. Nature was too
harsh for this sensitive plant; the earth itself seems
still rude and in a sort sinister to human life. A
withering breath comes and destroys. Of others,
too, we must feel that they are so charged with
down-weighing infirmities, some bias, some torpor or
perversion, that amid all tuitions of experience, they
never will attain, never reach good birth, but, as a
vulgar phrase hath it expressively, they "die a-bornin. "
Both these short-comings or miscarriages are very
tragic, and long ages of thought and careful toil
must be passed, ere they shall occur no more.
It is to be hoped, indeed, that some day, not
distant, will witness material reduction in the stern,
THE FINE PROBLEM. 175
exacting manual labors that lie to all honest hands.
The pressure and necessary absorptions are great.
Large portion of our waking hours in a ' climate, so
rigorous as ours, where, emphatically, for most part,
"The winter consumes what the summer doth yield,"
must be given, as we now are, to the meat that
perisheth, to food, shelter, providence. We have
begun a little on some planes to organize, to asso-
ciate and make distribution of the labors, but largely
we are unorganized, unequipped, and are laboriously
doing at the hardest, with muscle and nerve, what
%
some day shall be taken up and performed more than
willingly by forces that lie wild and sporting untamed
about us. We are still in the old stone age, the
finer metallic ages yet unborn. The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain until now, waiting
to be delivered. The men of science to-day are
performing, in part probably unknown to themselves,
an important, an indispensable mission in the atten-
tion they are calling to, and the light they are
to bring upon, a side of human life all too much
ignored and neglected hitherto.
But again, taking our stand on the plane of the
moral, we can see that great lessons are to be read
and appropriated even now. Are we under no in-
toxication, do we never exaggerate, put things out of
176 BUDDHA.
proportion, worship never the eidolon j> Are there no
unrest, no anxieties, extravagant, illusive hope and
inordinate pursuits? Do we always keep to the fine
maxim, ' ' Feslina lente, " find constantly repose in our
action here? It would seem that the intoxication
of the quest has become so great that we have for-
gotten ourselves, lost the meaning of our object, and
are unable to recall our grey-hounds and pause, even
when the chase is done and the game is brought.
We have gotten to the goal we started to win, but
our dizzy eyes see not that it is any goal. Life is
full of these oblivions, ends forgotten and ignored
even when they have come into our hands. There
need stern admonitions here, even though they should
come by the severe surgery of excision, utter renun-
ciation. All are too much imprisoned, excited and
absorbed. We are cumbered with much serving. There
must be peace, ceasing from care and solicitudes, the
harrying of unrest. The kingdom of deliverance we
must enter now.
The design seems in our present condition to be
largely discipline, and through that, strength. The
creature was born subject to vanity, to limitations
and illusions, that he might attain, gain rest by
effort, acquisition, and also by renunciation. Freedom
we are to find in the midst of our shackles, break-
ing many, and of others discovering how insignificant
THE FINE PROBLEM. 177
they are, how little, indeed naught, they needs must
hamper us. There appears but one door to the
upper realm, and that is exertion and conquest. It
seems the fiat of fate, covering all the future possi-
bilities, that man can enjoy only as he shall have
earned; he must do, to be able to enter into rest.
In high sense, too, the enjoying is the earning,
and the resting the working. In the present stage
and under the present relations, there may be en-
franchisement, peace ; who shall say they may not be
perfect? Certainly there is great enlargement and
repose in learning what we may do without, where
we may enter upon inner substance, and find mean-
ings and nourishment we had never suspected before.
Man thus becomes a sovereign ; though he seems a
bondsman, a manacled slave, he is possessor and
lord of all. The two spheres of life so interlap, or
rather meet, unite, and run together without seam
or suture, their mingling is so perfect, that it is not
easy often to determine where the passive virtues
properly end, and the active begin, or vice versa.
The attainment of this were the perfect knowledge,
making the supreme haven. The one side or the
other comes more prominently to view in the various
relations, and yet both are involved in every rela-
tion, and in the performance of every act. Devotion
and surrender, pursuit on the one side, yielding up
178 BUDDHA.
on the other, is the necessity of every hour. To*
have the flow perfect, the liberty and the allegiance
absolute, no division and no unrest in the soul, but
unbroken peace this is the art of arts.
In the large, the problem before us is a very
broad and far-reaching one, for it involves the con-
sideration of the mysteries, the reconciliation of eter-
nity and time. What we have touched upon is but
one phase, and the more obvious and almost super-
ficial, of our great question. How shall we recon-
cile, how eliminate the inferior factor, or rather
sublimate and absorb it, pouring it for exaltation
and strength even, into the higher? How blend the
two spheres, and put the outer and the seen per-
fectly into the unseen? Toiling ages work upon it,
yet it goes unanswered, unsolved forever.
" A rampart breach is every day
Which many mortals are storming,
Fall in the gap who may,
Of the slain no heap is forming."
The question remains, the subtle riddle of phi-
losophy, the hidden, inaccessible mystery of being.
Patent and radiant to all, quenching every other
sight and fact, and yet so transcendent it will not
be found or touched. No sage or seer has yet
offered us any elucidation. We catechise all mas-
ters, none has framed answer; little hints touching
THE FINE PROBLEM. 179
some rim or remote edge of our question, pregnant
intimations of the direction in which alone the true
discovery may be found these are all that the wealth
of any history can give us. The true elucidator,
solver, would be a sage far wiser than Plato, a saint
higher, diviner than Jesus. But it is idle to specu-
late, ungracious to seem even to complain that we
have not received the impossible. Such prerogative
cannot be delegated for any soul to another. All
that can be given is feeble hint, dim, distant inti-
mation of this unseen, this one
' Unspeakable, who sits above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen,
In these his lower works.'
One or another in the long ages has read a note
in this celestial music, has deciphered a syllable or
two in this scripture of untold wisdom. But the
reader ' that shall penetrate and translate it all, ren-
dering into our vernacular, the performer that shall
bring to our ears the divine harmonies, the eternal
anthem of the heavens the generations wait him
evermore in vain. Not Jews only, but mankind,
look for such Messias that should come. "'My
religion," said Lao Tsze, so wisely, "consists in
thinking the inconceivable' thought, in going the
impassable way in speaking the ineffable word, in
doing the impossible thing."
I So BUDDHA.
The attainment lying in character, the approxi-
mations must be very partial, remote with the best.
The wisest among us outgrow the illusions but very
gradually. The intoxications have affected all heads,
the dark Lethe waters have been drunk by all, and
we are smitten with forgetfulness, not so much of
the life in time, but of the life in eternity. We
outgrow, one after another, our day dreams and
exaggerations, and get our feet upon the more solid
ground, see things in their proportion. But hardly
at all do we find any ultimate ; world opens within
world continually, and there is ever the transcendent
and beyond. Oldest and wisest are but children of
a larger growth, and as to-day we look back upon
the illusions of the early years, wondering the intoxi-
cations could have been so easy and complete, so,
erewhile, we shall doubtless recur with the same
surprise to the dreams and enchantments of our
seemingly now adult life. Are we not all in the
stages of childhood, all undergoing, frequently enough
with much pain, the processes of birth, and the eyes
widest seeing not yet ripened to good vision ?
What humility and what patience with all others
we ought to learn in this view ! Pythagoras said,
''Esteem it a great part of a good education, to be
able to bear with the want of it in others." Prob-
ably at the end, or rather in the beyond, we shall
THE FINE PROBLEM. l8l
find that we have continued throughout idolaters,
inebriated, exaggerating our own life even, worshiping
unduly what has seemed essential condition to all
existence and possession. It also shall be seen
unessential, but an incident, not vitally touching the
inner elements of cur being.
And within that great illusion, how many minor
illusions find place, and bear us captive continually.
So instinctively the heart fastens here and there,
and regards a thing as vital and follows it, or, balked
and thwarted, grieves over the disappointment, forget-
ting the Nirvana, forgetting that the resources of the
universe are infinite, and that to the real soul there
can come no loss, no sorrow. Our occupations,
our life designs, how inseparable from the absolute
ends they seem to us, how we cling to and invest
in them, how we are pained or disheartened by their
interruption or disappointment ! Passes there a day
with any of us in which the sun does not undergo
some partial obscuration, in which we are not dazed
or drugged and lost in forgetfulness ? The reality
is a Proteus, taking infinity of shapes and no shape,
ever eluding and beckoning on.
Circumstance is made indifferent, the infinite pos-
sibilities all. Art thou called being a slave, said
Paul, care not for it. We must not be thwarted,
not affected even, by our incidents, must hold to the
1 82 BUDDHA.
purpose, must execute the purpose, visibly, or at
least inwardly, in spite of every untoward surrounding.
It is high attainment so to dwell in perfect poise,
that there shall come no ruffling or unrest, befall
what may. You pursue your thought; the aim is
noble, commanding. It is pleasant that the visitors
come, that the inspirations flow and the mind
be filled, illumined, propelled as by sovereign, all-
mastering power. But the visitors may not come,
the mind sit barren, uninspired, and the hour sacredly
dedicated, yield nothing. To dwell in repose there
also, to rest where you cannot act, acquiesce where
you cannot obtain, feel content and assured even
there, satisfied that this also is well, is best it needs
strength, self-command for that.
It helps' us on in our way, to extend the period,
to fix our thought on the perennial. We need to
lengthen out the perspective. We see that things
are not what they seem, that a larger range reduces
them more into just proportions. Past will bloom
still present, present fades, and beams in its inner
realities alone upon us as past, future comes present,
and we dwell in the eternal now. Hardly can we
be pierced by any sorrow, for in the world we inhabit
death and bereavement cannot enter. We cannot be
affected by any ebriety, for the waters have been
purged of all their intoxicating qualities.
THE FINE PROBLEM. 183
The doctrine of fate also has its uses. It is well
tfo remember that what is best, will be. There is
election, a decree from the foundation of the world,
; and come what will, try what may, I shall doubtless
have and find what I was destined for. Nothing
,can pluck out of that hand. Unsatisfactory occu-
pation, absorbing, uncongenial business engrossment,
place seeming not the right one for the capacity,
not congruous or friendly, surroundings and position
all awry these cannot thwart or prevent that the
actual destiny be realized. All can be transmuted,
-and made not hindrances, but . doorways and aids to
help us on to God. And it is probable that at the
end, all our life will be seen to have been presided
over by a beneficent fate. All will have been spent
amid disappointments and also surprises, we seeming
to ourselves to be habitually balked of our wishes,
consigned and compelled to work and experiences not
chosen, not grateful, praying sometimes that this cup
may pass from -us, to awaken at length to see that he
whom we sought was in this place, but we knew it
not, that the great possession was always accessible,
at hand, and that whatever we have failed to realize
was by our own fault, aye, that we have been led
by a way that we knew not, and have realized, have
plucked wisdom and felicity more than we thought
.or imagined at the time. So the kingdom of the
1 84 BUDDHA.
j
skies is patent to all, and every relation, however
humble or hard with trial, permits, nay, favors,
nay, effects, the growth of the heavenly fruits and
joys.
Doubtless, a considerable part of our embarrass-
ment has its ground in our constitution, the very
conditions of our being. We are in limits, are our-
selves limited. The desires, the dissatisfactions we
feel, come essentially not of this or that particular
type of circumstance, any special trammel or hamper
of condition, but of our nature. These thirsts within
us are to be slaked in the infinite ocean alone.
While we are short of that, there will always be some
sense of lack or pain. We are not greatly to blame
any special condition we are in, for what belongs
essentially to finitude. Withal we must surrender
and renounce at some points, or we cannot realize
anywhere. Life requires a concentration; it is a
spark, a focal point, a determinate aim. This is
one of the essential laws or terms of a personal
existence. The high art is to adjust one's self finely
to the possibilities, to yield what cannot be kept and
carried, and have the perfect peace still unbroken.
When we have taken survey and entered upon devo-
tion to all our possible, when we have surrendered
without pain, with alacrity and solemn joy, whatever
is impracticable or not commanding or worthy, and
THE FINE PROBLEM. 185
withal wed ourselves to interest and action then
we take our inheritance and enter into life.
There shall be no abdication of the normal rela-
tions. The thing sought shall be appropriation,
absorbing and exalting all the lower into the higher.
We do not want negation. Nothing normal must
be dropped or lost. The gospel of renunciation has
been preached powerfully enough in our own time
by Thoreau. None could urge its claims w r ith more
eloquence and force than he. Earlier ages have
witnessed like confessors adjuring to forsake and re-
nounce, bearing their testimony against dwelling and
mingling in a world unworthy. It has been a
weighty, an indispensable word. It has admonished
of things much neglected and to which all should
take heed. It has reminded us of our excesses and
our bondage. But the world to-day needs more and
larger, the inclusive affirmation. It looks for the
synthesis, the great reconciliation. This is the at-
one-ment for which the ages have been preparing,
^ons of time, untold centuries of endeavor, of
sacrifice and suffering, are cheap that might ripen a
period for its advent, its realization.
Partial as it is, the past is pregnant with hint
and needed incitement. There are fingers all along
in history that point the way. There have been
13
1 86 BUDDHA.
incarnations, souls in flesh that have brought the
heavens to the earth, and constrained men to say,
"Immanuel, God with us." How gladly would we
listen to the faintest word from Buddha, from Jesus, ,
showing that he too had weighed the vast problem,
and held some careful conclusions thereon, that he
had wrought upon it, and *reached a never so remote
approximation ! Very deep is the debt we owe to
the Oriental, particularly the Indian thinkers and
dreamers, those men who in the old days so essayed
to solve the deep riddle, sought to withdraw and
emancipate themselves, retiring from the world, from
the body, from the very life even, that they might
gaze purely upon being. The old sages pierced
through form and spectacle, saw the sea of illusion,
Maya and all things floating thereon, a very mirage
in the desert. They sought to penetrate to sub-
stance, to reach the within of all the within, to rest
in formless and unchanging. They sought to trans-
cend, to read all in the permanent relation, nothing
iin the transient, to dwell in the everlasting now.
There is no second example like it ; never has the
ihuman mind so divested itself and soared in the
'ether, in the heavenly spaces, and out of space and
beyond time, as in India. This also was needed as
a protest, a check and counterpoise to the intense
sensuousness, the devotion to outer objects and en-
THE FINE PROBLEM. 187
joyments, of the multitudes of mankind. It was
needed to proclaim the presence and power of the
ethereal, the heavenly, amid all the noise, glare and
bewitchment of the earthly. The Greek thought was
brother, born of the same womb, later in its appear-
ance, more realistic, cognizant of form and the time
determinations, but in the great brains like Pythag-
oras, Parmenides, Plato, hardly less sublime in its
aerial flights.
Born in that royal line was Gautama. He came
with this heritage, his nerves thrilled to the infinite.
True it was of him, as the biographer says of
Giordano Bruno, "penetrated with consciousness of
eternity." His soul soared into the everlasting, his
;heart beat to beauty and to love, his thought flowed
into poetry, into anthems of song. He was so in-
toxicated with changeless and eternal, he forgot time
.and all of life here save the ethical law. Say if
you will he was a short-coming, it was a lack-lustre
landscape, a dreary blank, it was celebration of re-
nunciation ; criticise the limitations, the marked
defects we will confess it all ; but he was a glori-
ous accomplishment. His affirmation was love,
self-surrender and self-sacrifice utter and absolute; he
emphasized it so he lost all thought of person or
-of any determinate condition.
If he failed to realize and complete the work,
1 88 BUDDHA.
he stands by no means alone in that. Other pro-
phets have fought to win the prize, have struggled
to achieve, to rend the vail of the mystery, to elu-
cidate and solve to complete and final demonstration.
If he failed, we may remember the nature of the
task, and consider that mortal can by no possibility
here prevail. The inscription upon the Isiac image
at Sais holds true evermore: "I am all that has
been, is, and shall be, and no mortal hitherto hath
lifted my vail."
Placed side by side with other great masters, he
compares not unfavorably; none wrestled more
strongly with the problems of being, none did and
sacrificed greater for man, none aspired more yearn-
ingly to the goal of the infinite peace. Permanently
the history must be regarded as another of the con-
tributions towards solution of that, which in its own
nature is supremely transcendent. That this prince
of Kapilavastu, this monk of the Sakyas, so wrought
and endeavored bravely both in action and ^suffering,
'must also permanently entitle him to the thoughtful
consideration and warm thanks of mankind. His
resolute courage, his inflexible self-denial, and self-
surrender, trampling upon every appetite and inclina-
tion, holding all things so sacred for the soul, shall
pique, arouse, incite and draw all hearts near this high
person in worship and in love. He became Siddhartha
THE FINE PROBLEM. 189
" whose objects have been accomplished" became
IBuddha 'whose eyes are wide opened/ and mul-
titudes of souls warmed by this presence, shall strive
to calm the desires and attain the anointed vision.
Beneath the tree at Bodhimanda he saw ; long
journey any of us might well afford to make, to
find that tree beneath which we should become
full awake. In the spiritual experience, we find our-
selves to this man near of kin. Continents, cen-
turies of time, difference of blood and race cannot
separate us.
But form and individual depart, all that is per-
sonal and historic passes away. This mortal is put-
ting on immortality, is being sublimated perpetually
.into reality which is greater and more than it.
"The name of Buddha is nothing but a word.
The name of Bodhisattva is nothing but a word."*
Signal benefactors of the race, we know not in
what numbers, already sleep in oblivion, no one can
.give us a vestige of their place or memory. Yet
their work abides, the legacy goes on never to be
consumed.
" One accent of the Holy Ghost,
The heedless world hath never lost."
*Burnouf, Introd., p. 481; quoted from the Prajna Paramitd,
Absolute Wisdom.
190 BUDDHA.
Buddha may be, perhaps is already that, a myth r
his history a tale of the imagination, but the career
he wrought, the hint he dropped- into the ear of the
world, knows not death or decay. It has vitality
with the life of God. All that is individual in
the faith, the dispensation itself, shall wane and dis-
appear, setting like stars from the sky, and super-
seded by a new day, but the idea, the Nirvana, an.
eternal thought and aspiration, more than Buddha
or his religion, shall ever illumine and quicken.
Men shall work upon it, be filled by it, seek its
infinite possession, long after all the names we know
to-day, shall have faded from the memory of the
world. Long as the race endures, as time exists,
as the procession of the ages goes forward, so long
shall the soul strive and aspire, pant to escape the
bounds of limitation, climbing the giddy heights to
reach the goal, to see and to be the changeless and
the everlasting.
The growth in individual, in race, is slow, by
very gradual and mostly imperceptible steps. The
enlargement and exaltation come much through the
experiences, one after another in life. These are the
spirit flame and the water bath that set and bring
into pronounced clearness the picture on the plate,
the reminders that awaken remembrances of the for-
THE FINE PROBLEM. 191
gotten home. The attainment is something organic.
We see as we grow, mature age, make trial. We rise
as we do, and through doing, for here eminently faith
operates with works, and by works is faith .made
perfect. We catch glimpses which ripen more and
more towards steady and clear vision. How intermit
tingly the sun shines upon us, an instant of radiance,
then periods of cloud and obscuration. But every
slightest conquest tells, every step brings on, the
sombre days also count, and the growth goes for-
ward, much of it silent and unconscious, apparent
only in the ulterior results.
We may be sure that the destiny of humanity
is onward. The advance of each individual enters
as an organic element, advancing and exalting the
race. Better approximations shall be made, finer
views, finer realizations, nearer and nearer approaches
to the infinite goal. And in ages better than ours,
generations shall be happier born, nobler bred, with
more transparent flesh, purer blood and clearer brain,
to whom our words shall seem childish, coarse, our
conceptions dim and crude, who shall see where we
but grope, shall walk and leap where we but hobble
and totter and fall. The great atonement, reconcil-
iation prepared from the foundation of the world,
shall be wrought out, and life become absolute reali-
192 BUDDHA.
zation. In all the experience, not a sigh of sorrow,
not a breath of unrest, never the rising pf desire,
no night there, perfect peace and perfect day.
But it shall be the same road ever, same method
of approach, all things seen in relation, lower trans-
cended and cast aside for higher, higher still found
intact and entire amid all lowliest and poorest at-
tainment, surrender pursuit, repose time, eternity
till the goal which is beyond all goals is reached,
conflict lost, aye, consummated in conquest, and the
grave itself swallowed up in victory. The same
reality and revelation ever seen, unseen, blending,
dividing, blending ascending, flowing, soaring onward
without end.
INDEX.
Abaris, 44.
Ajatasatru, a king of Magadha, 46.
Akbar, 64 Note.
Absorptions, the material, 166, 171 seq.
Active and passive unite, meet, mingle,
177.
Admissson of females to monastic orders,
42.
Age of Buddha when married, 17.
" Buddha at time of his flight, 24.
" Buddha at time of his death, 48.
" the oldest of the Vedas, 170 Note.
Alexander, 64, 65.
Alexandria, 49, 50.
Alger, Rev, W. R. 119, 120.
Ananda, cousin of Buddha, 42* 48, 49,
50, 51, 100.
Anatha Pindika, 41.
Apsaras, 31.
Arata Kalama, 25,27.
Art of arts, 177, seq., 184.
Asoka, a king of India, 52, 60, 61, 62,
63, 79 Note, 96,
Asoka, extracts from his edicts, 68, 69.
Anuradhapura, 62.
Annula, 61.
Ayushmat (Master), 37.
Atheism charged against Buddhism, 132.
Abhidharma, by-law, 66 Note, 122*-
Bangkok, 71,
Basita, 140.
Bastian, 76, 77, 141.
Bhagavat, 95, 107, 146.
Brahma, 15, 80 Note, 81 Note, 91, 136.
Brahmana, 118, 119, 139.
Brahmans, 16, 25, 32, 38, 40, 44, 45, 56,
57, 64 Note, 69, 80, 83, 93.
Brahmanyang, 136.
Branch of the Bo-tree sent to Ceylon, 61
seq.
Beal, Samuel, 50 Note, 53 Note, 54 Note,
65. 77> 84 Note, 104, 105, 121, 123 seq.,
141.
Beal, his characterization of Buddhism,
10.
Beal, his opinion in regard to Buddha's
descent, 13 Note.
Behar, 26.
Benares, 25, 36, 37, 38, 40.
Berghaus, 9 Note.
Bigandet, Bishop P., 9 Note, 12 Note,
23 Note, 24, 34 Note, 47 Note, 50
Note, 53 Note, 72.
Bhikshu (mendicant), 20, 67, 112, 117,
118, 139.
Bhilsa Topes, 25 Note.
Bimbisara, a king of Magadha, 26, 36,
4. 53-
Birmah, 9, 72, 141.
Birmese, effect of Buddhism upon the,
70 seq.
Bo-tree (at Bodhimanda), 34, 61,119,189.
Bddhi, 29, 33, 62.
Bodhisattva, 31, 189.
Bodhimanda, 34, 61, no. 189.
Bowring, Sir John, 75 Note.
Buddha, his birth and early childhood,
ii seq.
" his inclination to retirement, 15
seq.
" his gifts and feats in early life,
i,- 15 ' 17 '-
his marriage, 17.
" his experiences, 19, 20.
' his farewell to family and
court, 23.
" his flight and residence in the
wilderness, 23 seq.
" his- reception by Brahmans, 25
seq.
" his conflicts, 27 seq.
" his illumination and perfect en-
franchisement, 32 seq.
" his momentary hesitation in re-
gard to his work, 35.
" his resolution to devote him-
self to humanity, 36 seq.
" his preachings, journeyings,
etc., 37 seq.
" his sending forth of the apos-
tles, 39.
his death, 48 seq.
" his instructions to his disciples,
39, 50, 51.
" his blessing upon the Brahman
and his wife, the weaver's
daughter, etc., 45, 46.
" obsequies of, 51, 52.
" accounts of his personnel, 2 5,
52, 53.
" preaching first employed by, 55.
194
INDEX.
Buddha proclaimed the equality of all,
56, 57-
" his spiritual ancestry, 80.
" his Sublime Verities, 84.
" his ethical code, 86 seq.
" his births, 90.
" emphasized the domestic du-
ties, 90 seq.
" relied solely upon the moral
element, 93.
his method affirmative, 94.
" uses parables, 106 seq.
" his system of morality, 130.
" in the current theological sense
an a theist, 132.
" made no impersonation of God,
133. 149-
dwelt on the supreme verities,
I 33-
" meaning of Nirvana in his
mind, 137, seq.
" seems nihilistic because so pure-
ly spiritualistic, 138.
" sighted the goal, 148.
" ptrhaps did not sufficiently
draw the affirmations, 148
seq.
" toiled and wrestled upon the
mystery of existence, 149
seq.
Buddhagosha's Parables, 86 Note, 101,
no Note,
Buddhism, its early propagation, 58 seq!
expelled from India, 64.
" its influence upon the West-
ern world, 64 seq,
" its speculations, 66.
" its pacific, gentle character,
67 seq.
" its amelioration of the condi-
tion of woman, 72.
" introduced into Cashmire.sS.
" into Ceylon, 58, 60
seq.
China, 58 seq.
Japan, 59,
Corea, 59.
Thibet, 58,63.
Farther India,
5.8.
its fortunes in India, 63 seq.
penetrated into Persia, 59.
propagated among the Tar-
tar tribes, 59.
effects of upon the Siamese,
effects of upon the Thibetans,
70, 72.
its defects come of its great-
ness, 151.
Buddhism made iis grave mistake in
withdrawal and renuncia-
tion, 161.
Buddhistic monasteries, 9, 59.
" authors have written against
caste, 72.
" Canon, 79 Note, 109, 122.
" Free Churches^in Siam, 75.
" nihilism, 137 seq.
" disparagement of the world
of time, 151.
Buddhists, number of on the globe, 9
Note.
Bunsen, Baron, 49 Note, 170 Note.
Burnouf, Eugene, 53 Note, 55, 88, 91,
96, loo Note, 179 Note.
Bruno, Giordano, 147, 161. 187
Cabul, 58, 59.
Canon, Buddhistic, 79 Note, icg, 120,
121, 122, 152.
Cashmire, 12, 58.
Chadwick, Rev. John W., 102, 103.
Chakravarttins (Wheel Kings), i3~Note,
5 2 -
Channiug, Rev. W. H., 77 Note.
Ceylon, 9, 58, 60, 62, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73,
92, 101, 115, 127.
Ceylon Friend, 109.
China, 9, 58, 59, 67, 122, 123, 146.
Christianity, 75, 76.
Confucius, 14, 149 Note.
Corea, 59.
Cousin, Victor, 137.
Csoma de Kerb's, 85.
Cunningham, Major A. ,25 Note, 64 Note.
Dandapani, father Buddha's wife, 16, 17.
Dante, 65.
Date of Buddha's birth, 12.
" " " death, 12, 49.
" " the first Council, 79 Note, 84.
" " " third Council, 58.
Dhammapadam, 109 seq., 119, 121, 122,
139 seq.
Debt we owe the Indian thinkers, 186.
Deliverance by devotion, conquest, 158
seq., 162, 177.
Departure of Buddha on the night after
the birth of his child, 23 Note.
Destiny of humanity onward, 191.
Devadatta, a cousin of Buddha, 46.
Devanampiyatissa, a king of Ceylon, 60.
Dharma, 121.
Discrimination and selection in our work
fitting, 159 seq.
Discipline, a design in our present con-
dition, 176 seq.
Disparagement of all things of time in
Buddhism, 151.
INDEX.
Distinguish, while we cannot separate,
164.
Doctrine of fate has its uses, 183 seq.
Do or die, 157.
Dushtagamini, a king of Ceylon, 69.
Dhyana, 141 seq.
Edkins, Mr., 122 Note.
Ethical code of Buddha, 86.
Expulsion of Buddhism from India, 64.
Fahian, 58.
Fate and destiny in the present condi-
tion of society, 173.
Fausboll, Dr., Note 109, no.
Fergusson, James, 13 Note, 24 Note, 31
Note.
Fichte, 66 Note.
Fo worship in Chinese, 77.
FoeKoueKi, 88 Note.
Gandharva, 114.
Ganges, 41, 48.
Gatha, 104.
Gautama (Buddha), n, 17, 21, 23, 24,
25, 27, 31, 32, 37, 119, 187.
Greek thought brother to the Hindu,
m 8 /-
Gogerly, D. J., 109, no.
Gopa, the wife of Buddha, 16, 17, 21, 24,
42 seq.
Habitude, the power of, 167.
Hardy, Spence, Eastern Monachism, 23
Note, 53 Note, 63 Note, 93, 115, 120,
121, 122, 128, 132, 136, 143 seq.
Hardy, Spence, Legends and Theories,
J 7f 33> 34- 53 Note, 64 Note, 72 Note.
Haart Sutra, in Chinese, 84 Not,
Heraclitus, 14.
Herder, J. G., 162.
Hermes Trismegistus, 134.
Himalas, 58,
Himavat (Himalaya), 3.4, 15.
Hiouen Thsang, 24, 34, 41, 43.
Hue, Abbe, 76.
Humility emphasized by Buddha, 88.
Idealism, in the Buddhistic specula-
tions, 66 Note.
Indra, 15, 136, 169.
India, n, 13 Note, 43, 52, 55, 63, 65, 67,
123.
India, fortunes of Buddhism in, 63 seq.
India (Farther), 58, 67.
Isaic inscription, 188.
Intoxications in life, 176.
Illusions, 1 80 seq.
Japan, 9, 59.
Jesus, in comparison with Buddha, 130
seq.
Johnson, Samuel, Preface, 6, 69 Note.
Josaphat, 65.
Kalantaka, 41.
Kalpa, 21 Note.
Kandala, 38, 56, 57 Note, 97, 101.
Kandragupta, 69.
Kanishka, 58, 79 Note.
Kanjur, 122.
Kantaka, 24.
Kapila, city of, 33,
Kapilavastu, 12, 23, 42, 68. 188.
Karma, Law of retribution, 88 seq.,
^ 6 -
Kasyapa, 40, 52.
Katyayana, 41.
Kshatriyas, 16, 57.
Kwan Yin, 77.
Kisagotami, 101 seq.
Koeppen (Die Religion des Buddha), 9
Note, 12 Note, 22 Note, 48 Note, 50
Note, 53 Note, 56 Note, 57 Note, 58
Note, 59 Note, 60 Note, 63 Note, 68
Note, 72 Note, 73 Note, 75 Note, 88,
109 Note, 122 Note.
K6sala, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48, 146.
Koti, 90.
Kublai-Khan, 76.
Kunala, 96 seq.
Kusinagara, 48.
Lalita Vistara (Life of Buddha), 54 Note.
Lama, 63, 76.
Lanka (Ceylon), 60 Note.
Lao Tsze, 14, 149 Note, 179.
Law, Buddha's, "a law of grace for all,"
56.
Lhassa, 63 Note, 76.
Le Sage et Le Fou, 88 Note.
Leonowens, Mrs., 73 seq., 86 Note, 128
seq.
Life, a conflict, 157 seq.
Lob Nor, 59.
Lotus of the Good Law, 106 seq., 127
Note.
Lumbini, 15, 19, 81.
Magadha, 26, 40, 41, 58.
Mahamega, 62.
Mahavansa, 60 Note.
Mahinda, son of Asoka, 60 seq.
Malla princes, 49.
Manual for the Shaman, 103 seq.
Mara, 22 Note, 28, 29, 114, 116.
Marco Polo, 65.
Matangi, 100.
Mathura, 98, 99.
196
INDEX.
Maudgaliputra, 60 Note.
Maudgalyayana, 48.
Maya (illusion), 13.
Mayadevi, mother of Buddha, 13, 15,
28, 29.
Megasthenes. 69.
Messias, awaited still, 179.
Milinda, dialogue between and Naga-
sena, 143 seq.
Milinda Prasna, 143 Note.
Ming-ti, emperor, 58.
Miraculous conception in case of Bud-
dha, 13.
Mission of science, 175.
Missionary spirit of the early Bud-
dhists, 57 seq.
Modern Buddhist, 136 seq,
Monasteries, 41, 42, 59.
Mongolia, 9, 67, 73.
Mongolian prayer, 78.
Mongolians, effect of Buddhism upon,
69 seq.
Morality, Buddhistic system of, 130 seq.
Morality, natural, better observed in
Buddhistic countries than elsewhere
in the East, 71.
Muller, Max, 12, 21 Note, 57 Note, 68,
80, loi, no, 170 Note.
Nagas, 50, 62.
Nagasena, 143 seq.
Nalanda, 41.
Name of Buddha nothing but a word,
189.
Nepal, 122,
Neumann, Prof., 9 Note, 70.
New Testament, 153.
Buddhist precepts not
below standard, no,
Nigban (Nirvana), as defined in Bir-
mah. 141.
Nilajan, 27 Note.
Nirvana, 27, 33, 34, 45, 50, 83, 84, 87,
89, 96, 102, 107, 112, 113, 116, 117, 120,
132, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143,
144, 145, 146, 147, 150, 158, 181, 190.
Nir'ana, its proper purport and mean-
ing in mind of Buddha, 137 seq.
Nirvana, as defined by the Chinese,
Birmese, etc., 140 seq.
Nirvana, the abode beyond all abodes,
147 seq.
Nirvana is possession, 158.
Old Testament, passages from, 153.
Oriental poetry, Alger's, 119,
Oude, n.
Our embarassments lie considerably in
our condition, 184.
Outer, related ever to inner, 164.
Palasa flower, 50.
Pali, Buddhist scriptures written in, 109
Note, 122.
Palibothra, 69.
Papiyan, 28, 30, 31.
Parmenides, 187.
Parsva, a lyric poet, 58-
Patna, 26 Note, 48 Note.
Plato, 187.
Phalgu, 27 Note.
Platonists, New, 66 Note,
Prajapati, an aunt of Buddha, 13,42, 44.
Prajna Paramita, 50 Note, 84 Note, 132
Note, 189.
Prasenajit, a king of Kosala, 41, 88.
Prayer of to-day, 170 seq.
Peking, 59, 122.
Persia, 59.
Preaching unknown in India before
Buddha's time, 55.
Presence of Divinity, 155.
Polyandry, 73.
Polygamy, 72 seq.
Prodigies attending the birth of Bud-
dha, 14,
Prodigies attending the illumination of
Buddha, 33.
Propagation of Buddhism, 58 seq.
Puma, 94 seq.
Pushya, 23.
Pythagoras, 14, 156, 180, 187.
Question of questions, 163 seq., 169.
Rahan, 46, 51.
Rahula, son of Buddha, 23 Note, 42.
Rajagriha, 26, 27, 32, 36, 40, 41, 48.
Rathapala, 100, 116.
Reconciliation of eternity and time, 178.
Regent of Lhassa, 76.
Relics of Buddha distributed over India,
52.
Renunciation of Buddhism, 151 seq.
Repose and possession, 168, 181 seq.
Rishya Rakshita, 96
Rome, 65.
Rhodias, 101.
Rudraka, 27.
Rules for the priests, 92 seq. , 103 seq.
Sacraments, o r Life, 106.
Sacred records of the Buddhists pre-
served essentially unchanged, 54 Note.
St. Hilaire, Barthelemy, 34, 53 Note, 56
Note, 91, 92, 96.
Sakwalas (systems of worlds), 33.
Sakya-Muni, n, 24, 47, 65, 67, 131.
Sakyas, 12, 16, 17, 22, 42, 61, 188.
Sala tree (shorea robusta), 49, 143,
Samanyang. 136, 1^7
INDEX.
197
Sanchi, 13 Note, 31 Note,
Sanghamitta, daughter of Asoka, 62.
Sanscrit, Buddhist scriptures written in,
109 Note, 122.
Sanputra, 41.
Sassanidae, 59.
Sautrantikas, 66 Note.
Savatthi, 102.
Shaman, 103, 104, 126.
Shamanism, 63.
Sramana, 29, 69.
Sravasti, 40, 95.
State of society in India when Buddha
appeared, 56 Note.
Seleucus Nicator, 69.
Sending forth of the Apostles, 39.
Siam, 72, 73, 74, 75, 86 Note.
Siam, common maxims of the priests in,
128 seq.
Siamese, effects of Buddhism upon, 70
seq
Siamese minister, extract (from Modern
Buddhist), 136 seq.
Siddhartha, 188.
Sivaism, 63.
Scriptures, Buddhistic, quotations from,
no seq., 123 seq., 139 seq.
Scriptures, Jewish, quotations from, 153.
Spinoza, 147.
School reading-book in Ceylon, extracts
from, 128.
Sronaparanta, 95.
Suhhadra, 49.
Sublime Verities, Buddha's, 84.
Success of Buddha's preaching, 55.
Suddhodana, father of Buddha, 12, 14,
22, 26, 42, 44, 48, 90.
Sudras, 16, 57.
Sutras, 66 Note, 79, 85, 106, 122.
Sutra of Forty- two Sections, 123 seq.
Sutras in Chinese, quoted upon mean-
ing of Nirvana, 140.
Tanjur, 58, 122.
Tartar tribes, Buddhism propagated
among, 59.
Tartary, 72, 76.
Tathagata, 50 Note, 85, 107, 116.
Tchandaka, a servant of Buddha, 22, 24.
Tcharka, 42.
Thales, 14.
Tragedies in life, 174.
Transmigration, doctrine of, "89 seq.
Temptations in the wilderness, 29 seq.
Theen Tai, 133 Note.
The phenomenal real, 154.
Thibet, 9, 58, 63, 67, 72, 73, 76, 122.
Thibetans, effect of Buddhism upon, 70,
72.
Tripitakas, 121.
Topes, 9, 52.
Thoreau, H. D., 185.
Throne of Diamond, 48.
Turkistan, 123 Note.
Tushita, 28.
Ugalimala, 46.
Upagupta, 98 seq.
Upanishads, 80 Note, 81 Note, "112
Note.
Uruvilva, 27, 40.
Vaibhaschikas, 66 Note.
Vaisali, 25, 26, 36, 48.
Vaisyas, 16, 57.
Varanasi (Benares), 36.
Vasavadatta, 98 seq.
Vassika- plant, 117.
Vedic Hymns, 169 seq.
Vehicle, Great, 66 Note, 132 Note.
Little, 66 Note. 123 Note.
Viharas (monasteries), 9.
Vinaya, morality, 122.
Virudhaka, 47.
Visvamitra, a teacher of Buddha, 15.
Wasana, a Rishi, 127.
Wasseljew, W., Buddhismus,
Note,
asseljew, VV., rJuddnismus, 53 Aote,
55 Note, 58 Note, 59 Note, 66 Note,
121 Note, 123 Note.
Wheel of the Law, 38.
Wisudhi Margga Sanne, 93 Note.
Wong-Puh, 54 Note.
Wuttke, Geschichte des Heidenthums,
81.
Xenophanes, 14.
Yasodhara, 42.
Zoroaster, 156.
ERRATA.
On p. 49, second line from bottom, read " so as almost to cover it."
" 56, first line, put pause (comma) after " quickening."
" 70, second line from bottom, erase " the " before " every revenge."
" 122, the order of the foot notes should be reversed, and the reference
mark against the second foot note (that now stands first) should correspond to the
second reference mark in the text. A similar error in respect to reference marks
occurs on next page (123).
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