The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 18

According to Buddha's view the castes must fall to the ground. There was no world-soul from which all creatures emanated, and therefore the distinctions which rested on the succession of these emanations did not exist. In the first instance, however, he attacked the castes from the point of view that the body can only have a subordinate value. "He who looks closely at the body," he said, "will find no difference between the body of the slave and the body of the prince. The best soul can dwell in the worst body." "The body must be valued or despised in respect of the spirit which is in it. The virtues do not inquire after the castes."[476] But he also applied the distinction of castes to show that in fact they give a higher or lower position to men; that the arrangement brings external advantages or disadvantages. It was the conception of the more or less favourable regenerations which caused him to a.s.sume these distinctions and bring them into the series of regenerations. He allowed that there was a gradation leading from the Chandalas to the Brahmans, that birth in a higher or lower position was a consequence of the virtues or failings of earlier existences; but the distinctions were not of such a kind that they limited the spirit; that they could in any way prevent even the least and lowest from hearing the true doctrine and understanding it, and attaining salvation and liberation. Hence while the castes do indeed form distinctions among men, these distinctions are not essential, but in reality indifferent.

If the Brahmans reproached Buddha that he preached to the impure, he replied: "My law is a law of grace for all."[477] He received cudras and Chandalas, barbers and street-sweepers, slaves and remorseful criminals, among his disciples and initiated.[478] Nor did he exclude women; even to them he imparted the initiation of the mendicant.[479] On one occasion Ananda, the scholar of Buddha, met a Chandala maiden drawing water at a fountain, and asked to drink. She replied that she was a Chandala and might not touch him. Ananda answered: "My sister, I do not ask about your caste, nor about your family; I ask you for water if you can give it me." Buddha is then said to have received the maiden among his initiated.[480]

For twenty-four years, we are told, Buddha wandered from one place to another, to preach his doctrine, to strengthen his disciples in their faith, to arrange their condition, and in the rainy season to show to the initiated the way to the highest liberation, to death without regeneration. According to the legends of the Northern Buddhists, he saw towards the end of his days the overthrow of his ancestral city, and the defeat of his adherents. The cakyas of Kapilavastu are said to have become odious to Virudhaka (Kshudraka in the Vishnu-Purana), the successor of king Prasenajit on the throne of the Kocalas. He marched against them with his army; obtained possession of the city of Kapilavastu, and caused the inhabitants to be ma.s.sacred. Buddha is said to have heard the noise of the conquest, and the cry of the dying. When the king of the Kocalas had marched away with his army, Buddha, we are told, wandered in the night through the ruined corpse-strewn streets of his home. In the pleasure-garden of his father's palace, where he had played as a boy, lay maidens with hands and feet cut off, of whom some were still alive; Buddha gave them his sympathy and comforted them. The ma.s.sacre of Kapilavastu, the slaughter of the cakyas, if it took place at all, cannot have been complete, for at a later time the race is mentioned as existing and active.

In the eightieth year of his life Buddha is said to have visited Rajagriha and Nalanda in the land of Magadha; afterwards he crossed the Ganges, and announced to his disciples in Vaicali, the metropolis of the tribe of the Vrijis (p. 338), that he should die in three months. He exhorted them to redoubled zeal, begged them, when he was no more, to collect his commands, and preach them to the world. Accompanied by his pupils Ananda and Anuruddha he then set out to the north, to the land of the Mallas, and Kucinagara, where in former days he had laid aside the royal dress and a.s.sumed the condition of a mendicant. Falling sick on the way, he came exhausted into the neighbourhood of Kucinagara, where Ananda prepared a bed for him in a grove. Here he said farewell, sank into meditation, and died with the words "Nothing continues," never to be born again. At Ananda's suggestion the Mallas buried the dead Enlightened with the burial of a king. After preparations lasting through seven days the corpse was placed in a golden coffin, carried in solemn procession before the eastern gate of Kucinagara, and laid on a wooden pyre. The ashes were placed in a golden urn, and for seven days festivals were held in honour of the "compa.s.sionate Buddha, the man free from stain" (543 B.C.).[481]

FOOTNOTES:

[421] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 146.

[422] Koppen, "Religion des Buddha," s. 84. Kapilavastu means habitation of Kapila. It was the philosophy of Kapila which lay at the base of the teaching of Buddha.

[423] The Gautamas were the most important priestly family among the Videhas. La.s.sen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 557; 2, 67; Burnouf, "Introduction,"

p. 155; A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 1, 180.

[424] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 154.

[425] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 77, 154, 157.

[426] Koppen, _loc. cit._ s. 94.

[427] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 70.

[428] Koppen, on the ground that Ujjayini is not mentioned among the southern Buddhists, limits the sphere of the activity of Buddha to the triangle formed by Champa, Kanyakubja, and cravasti.

[429] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 186. Koppen, _loc. cit._ s. 220.

[430] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 167.

[431] _e.g._ Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 487.

[432] These are the four sublime truths (_aryani satyani_) of Buddhism; pain, the creation of pain, the annihilation of pain, and the way which leads to the annihilation of pain.

[433] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 410, 430.

[434] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 418, 428, 629.

[435] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 498, 508.

[436] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 459, 462.

[437] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 509, 510.

[438] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 460.

[439] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 418.

[440] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 405.

[441] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 418, 420.

[442] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 251, 327, 460.

[443] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 389, 393, 486.

[444] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 486 ff.

[445] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 460.

[446]3 Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 488-509. For further information about the series of the causes of being (_nidana_), which is not very intelligible, see Koppen, s. 609. My object is merely to indicate the line of argument.

[447] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 73, 83, 589 ff.

[448] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 252.

[449] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 326.

[450] Schlagintweit, "Buddhism in Tibet," p. 91 ff.

[451] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 369.

[452] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 265.

[453] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 271.

[454] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 203, 342.

[455] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 462, 510.

[456] Koppen, s. 223.

[457] Koppen, s. 125.

[458] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 254.

[459] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 327.

[460] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 253, 410.

[461] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 429.

[462] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 274.

[463] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 325.

[464] La.s.sen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 258.