History of Religion Part 21

When we look at the fourth n.o.ble Truth, which tells what a man has to do in order to obtain this salvation, we are at first surprised.

After the deep earnestness with which the nature of the disease and the cause and cure of the disease have been stated, we expect that stronger practical measures will be asked for than these eight forms of moderation. Christianity speaks of cutting off the right hand, plucking out the right eye, in order to cut off desire: and the Brahmanic method of union with the Deity was, as we have seen, that of the most extreme self-mortification united with contemplation.

This Brahmanic method, the _yoga_ by which the devotee sought to escape from all the accidents of being and to make himself one with the great Self, the Buddha had tried for six years; but he had given it up for a year when the hour of his enlightenment struck, and he explicitly condemns for others the path he had found unprofitable for himself. It is one of two extremes, both to be avoided, "The one extreme is a life devoted to pleasures and l.u.s.ts; this is degrading, sensual, vulgar, profitless; the other is a life given to mortifications; this is painful, ign.o.ble, and profitless. By avoiding these two extremes the Tathagata has gained the knowledge of the Middle Path, which leads to insight, wisdom, calm, to Nirvana." The way, therefore, to escape from the Karma, the moral retribution which works inexorably in one life the result stored up in previous lives, is that of a careful and unintermitted self-discipline, which does not run to extremes, but practices, with perfectly clear purpose and self-possession, the needful virtues mentioned in the fourth of the n.o.ble Truths. What are these? There is to be--

1. Right belief, without superst.i.tion or delusion.

2. Right aspiration, after such things as the thoughtful and earnest man sets store by.

3. Right speech, speech that is friendly and sincere.

4. Right conduct, conduct that is peaceable, honourable, and pure.

5. Right means of livelihood, _i.e._ a pursuit which does not involve the taking or injuring of life.

6. Right endeavour, _i.e._ self-restraint and watchfulness.

7. Right memory, _i.e._ presence of mind, not forgetting at any time what one ought to remember; and

8. Right meditation, _i.e._ earnest occupation with the riddles of life.

This is the path; there are four stages of it--

1. The stage of him who has entered the path.

2. The stage of him who has yet to return once to life.

3. The stage of him who returns not again, but may be born again as a superior being; and

4. The stage of the worthy, holy one, the _Arahat_, who is free from desire for existence, and also from pride and self-righteousness, and who is saved and has obtained holiness, even in this life.

An Arahat is not equal to a Buddha; the former is himself saved, but the perfect Buddha is able by his perfect knowledge to save others.

Of Buddhas, however, there are not many. One becomes an Arahat by a life of strenuous and untiring discipline. Ten fetters are to be broken by which a man is kept from freedom; self-deception is one of them, trust in sacrifice another, and the list embraces both sensual and intellectual weaknesses. One must watch and be sober; every act, however trivial, is to be done with full self-consciousness and earnestness. One must remember that he is engaged in a great and a hard work, and must resolutely "swim upstream," estimating at its proper value every affection and temptation that would hold him back.

The body is to be contemned, and all natural ties; emotion is to be uprooted from the heart so that the proper state of entire calm and undisturbedness may be maintained. Then one is an Arahat, a true Brahman. This manner of life requires withdrawal from the world; the true salvation can only be attained by him who has left his home for the houseless life. But Buddhism has also a general moral code for those who have not taken this step; the keeping of it will not save them directly; from the life they are now leading that is impossible, but it is a beginning; it will make it easier for them to become Arahats and attain salvation in some future existence. For all it is good to be free from desire; as all desire contains in itself a germ of death, there is no approach to salvation except in this direction.

Buddhist Morality.--Towards fellow-men Buddhist morality is based on the notion of the equality of all; respect is to be paid to all living beings. The five rules of righteousness which are binding on all followers of the Buddha are:

1. Not to kill any living being.

2. Not to take that which is not given.

3. To refrain from adultery.

4. To speak no untruth.

5. To abstain from all intoxicating liquors.

To these are added five more for members of the order, who are also required to refrain from all s.e.xual intercourse, viz.:

1. Not to eat after mid-day.

2. Not to be present at dancing, singing, music, or plays.

3. Not to use wreaths, scents, ointments, or personal ornaments.

4. Not to use a high or a broad bed.

5. To possess no silver or gold.

These commandments, like those of the Decalogue, are negative in form; but in the Buddhist scriptures a positive moral ideal is inculcated on all, which is grave and attractive in its character, and is sustained by a strong though quiet enthusiasm. We find here a delicate conscientiousness as to the relations to be cultivated with one's fellow-men; the widest toleration is enjoined, a toleration extending to all beings, to all opinions. Hatred is to be repaid by love, life is to be filled with kindness and compa.s.sion. The Dhammapada and the Sutta-nipata deserve to be read by all who care for the unseen riches of the soul. By their simple earnestness, their quaint use of parable and metaphor, and their mingling of the homeliest things with the highest truths, these books take rank among the most impressive of the religious books of the world. We give only a few jewels from this treasury.

From the Dhammapada.--Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on what we have thought, it is made up of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

By oneself evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong to oneself; no one can purify another.

From the Sutta-nipata.--To live in a suitable country, to have done good deeds in a former existence, and a thorough study of oneself, this is the highest blessing.

As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child, her only child, so also let every one cultivate a boundless friendly mind towards all beings.

A Bhikku who has turned away from desire and attachment, and is possessed of understanding in this world, has already gone to the immortal place, the unchangeable state of Nirvana.

Nirvana.--Our account of the doctrine would appear incomplete if we did not attempt to answer the question, What is Nirvana? It is, as the last extract shows, the state of salvation in Buddhism. As we have seen, it is the condition of the man who has escaped from the series of rebirths, and will never be born again. It is attained even in this life by the Arahat, in whom all desire and restlessness have come to an end. On the other hand, it is said of such an one that he enters Nirvana when he dies, as if it were a state not of this life, but of the period beyond. Thus it has been much debated whether the Buddhist (or rather Indian, for the notion is not peculiar to Buddhism) Nirvana is extinction, annihilation, of which the quenching of desire in this life is the prelude, or if it is a state of negative or quiescent blessedness, on which the saint can enter here and now, but which is only made perfect when he dies. But there are two Nirvanas;--that of entire pa.s.sionlessness attained in this life, and the consummate Nirvana entered at death. The saint does not need to wait for death for his redemption, nor must he hasten his death in order to enjoy it fully; Buddha, by example and by precept, forbids any such antic.i.p.ation. Death seals that which was already won, there is no return from the Nirvana of death to any further life. This, however, does not amount to an a.s.sertion that the dead Arahat has no life or knowledge in the beyond; he is freed from desire, but whether his consciousness is altogether extinguished, Buddhism does not decide, and regards as a vain speculation.

No G.o.ds.--We shall speak afterwards of this view of redemption, which is the key to the nature of the Buddhist religion. We remark here that it is a redemption man achieves by his own efforts, without any outward prop or aid. In this system there is no occasion for any priests or sacrifices, for any prayers, or for any G.o.ds. There is no ritual, because there is no object of wors.h.i.+p, there is no sin in the sense of offending a higher being. The G.o.ds are denied not because of any speculative doubt of their existence, but because in that inner world of moral effort which man has come to feel so supremely real and important, they have no part to play. As all the G.o.ds faded away in Indian speculation before Brahma, so Brahma's own turn has come to fade away. The Buddhist speaks of the G.o.ds as if they existed, and he makes no attack on the sacrifices; but no living G.o.d fills his heart.

The Buddha is greater than all the G.o.ds; his teaching is for the benefit of G.o.ds as well as men. But the Buddha is not an object of wors.h.i.+p. If the Buddhist can be said to wors.h.i.+p any higher power, it is the moral order which never fails to reward men according to the deeds done in this or former existences. That is for him a real and tremendous, though impersonal power, and in contemplating it he may be said to wors.h.i.+p after a fas.h.i.+on. But he has no aid to look for from any power in heaven or earth in working out his salvation.

Buddhism is the most autosoteric of all religions; it declares more uncompromisingly than any other, that man must save himself by his own efforts, and that no one can possibly stand in his place or relieve him of any part of his great task. All that any one, even the Buddha, can do for another, is to enlighten him, to open his eyes to the true knowledge, and show him the narrow path on which he must thenceforth walk.

3. The Order.--There were monks before Buddhism. That religion made its appearance when Indian thought was at the stage of growth at which monastic communities may be expected to arise. When religion has ceased to be regarded as the affair of the nation or the tribe, and is cherished as the affair of the individual, when the mind turns from the sacrifices and ritual of public religion to cultivate relations with a power known chiefly in the heart and soul, and when religious duty has thus come to be recognised as a boundless and all-embracing thing, not a service the hands and feet can discharge, but the effort, never ending, still beginning, to make the whole personality with all its acts and aims conform to the ideal, then it is that men who are living for religion seek for such aid as they can give each other, and find it in an order and a discipline. The rules of the Buddhist Samgha or order are extant, and so are the rules of the contemporary Jainist fraternity. The Samgha resembled the Franciscan more than the other great Christian orders. The Bhikku on joining it abandoned his family and property, a.s.sumed the yellow robe and other scanty properties of the character, and lived thenceforth by begging, and in strict subjection to the rules, in which every detail of his food, his clothing, his residence, and his daily walk and conversation, were laid down. The two great objects of the society were mutual help in the religious life and the preaching of the doctrine. Under the first head come the frequent meetings of monks and the confessions they make to each other according to a fixed form. There is no vow of obedience; the monk obeys the law, not the human authority. In preaching they are to go one by one, and they are to preach to all. To all who would hear it was the gate open to this salvation. Here the Buddhist neglect of caste comes in. Buddhism makes no general or formal declaration of the equality of all men, nor is there any attack on the Brahman caste or any exaltation of the lower castes. The order drew its recruits at first from the ranks of the Brahmans. But the impelling motive of the new religion was compa.s.sion, and genuine compa.s.sion is not to be restrained in artificial limits. The salvation preached was fitted for all men. The disease to be cured was one from which all suffer, and the cure was one which all could at least begin to lay hold of. Thus Buddhism was fitted to break through the barriers of caste, and to gather into one religious community men of all castes alike. In the community, it was held, these distinctions disappeared. Not birth but conduct there made the true Brahman. The universalist tendency of the religion also fitted it to spread to other lands. It was not limited by anything in its teaching to the soil of India, nor to the territory of any particular set of G.o.ds. So wide indeed is its toleration, that a man may embrace it without giving up the faith in which he lived before.

One can add it without incongruity to one's former beliefs and practices. The believer in Shang-ti can be a Buddhist as well as the believer in Brahma.[6] The absence of any hierarchy or centralised organisation enabled it to spread freely, and the very meagreness of its doctrine, and its freedom from ritual, were also in its favour.

[Footnote 6: Millions of Buddhists in China and j.a.pan are also adherents of the other religions of these countries.]

Buddhism made Popular.--Buddhism proved able to spread over many lands because it was so simple, and in its essence so moral and so broadly human. But, like other faiths which have spread to many lands, it a.s.sumed very different forms in different countries, and the later form is often very different from the early simplicity.

Even at the outset it was not free from a strong infusion of magic; the Arahat, like the Brahmanic ascetic before him, was believed to obtain influence over the G.o.ds by his virtues, and thus a claim to supernatural power is brought in, which agrees but ill with the ethical doctrine. The religion, which at first ignored the G.o.ds and bade each man trust to his own efforts for his highest good, became, ere long, what a popular religion at the stage of progress prevailing at that time necessarily was, namely, a wors.h.i.+p of superior beings and a method of obtaining benefits from them. The national G.o.ds were discarded, but the deification of the founder early furnished a being who could be wors.h.i.+pped. Legend grew luxuriantly round his birth and early career; and he obtained the rank of the greatest of all the G.o.ds. Former Buddhas who had lived in former ages still lived as G.o.ds; and the divine family, being once founded, admitted of various additions; even a popular deity, such as Indra, could be joined to the growing circle. The chief scenes of the life of the founder became holy places and objects of pilgrimage, where relics were exposed for adoration. The growth of legend and of magic proceeded more rapidly, and went to greater lengths, in Northern than in Southern Buddhism; but in the land of its birth, too, Buddhism proved unable to serve as a working religion without additions and modifications entirely foreign to its true character. The profession of Buddhism was combined even with the savage wors.h.i.+p of the non-Aryan tribes; Siva was identified with Buddha and then wors.h.i.+pped instead of him, as also was Vishnu, and the perversion and degradation of the religion prepared for its expulsion from the country of its birth. That expulsion was probably brought about more immediately by the advance of Mohammedanism in India, and took place in the period of the early Middle Ages. We cannot speak here of the strange guise Buddhism has a.s.sumed in the north of India, notably in Tibet. The Lamaism of that country, with its perpetual living incarnation of the divine Buddha in a succession of human representatives, its hierarchical church strongly resembling in many of its features the Church of Rome, and the prayer-flags and wheels for the mechanical discharge of religious acts, have long been the wonder of the world.

Conclusion.--It is not from what Buddhism is now in any of the countries where it flourishes, and where it has votaries who profess other religions also, that we can judge of what it really is, or estimate its value as a product of the human mind. It is to early Buddhism that we must look for this. What are we to judge of this religion without G.o.ds, and based on the a.s.sertion that all life is suffering, and that the chief good is altogether to escape from life?

It is not true to characterise it as a religion in which there is no joy, and which deliberately refuses to have anything to do with joy.

The Arahat, in whom desire is vanquished, and who has no further birth to antic.i.p.ate, is filled with a deep joy and triumph as of a victor who has conquered every foe; and those who are less advanced in the path yet have their share in this enthusiasm, and are inspired by it to continue the struggle. Still Buddhism is a sad religion. It arrives in India when the Deity there believed in has deserted the world, and tells man he is alone in it. There is no one to help him, no one to a.s.sure him that the good cause in a wider sense--a cause extending beyond his own personal life--is destined to succeed; there is no upholder of any moral order beyond that which works itself out in each individual experience. The result is that the believer does not trouble himself about the world, but only about his own personal salvation. This religion is not a social force, it aims not at a Kingdom of G.o.d to be built up by the united efforts of mult.i.tudes of the faithful, but only at saving individual souls, which in the act of being saved are removed beyond all activity and all contact with the world. Buddhism, therefore, is not a power which makes actively for civilisation. It is a powerful agent for the taming of pa.s.sion and the prevention of vagrant and lawless desires, it tends, therefore, towards peace. But it offers no stimulus to the realisation of the riches which are given to man in his own nature: it checks rather than fosters enterprise, it favours a dull conformity to rule rather than the free cultivation of various gifts.

Its ideal is to empty life of everything active and positive, rather than to concentrate energy on a strong purpose. It does not train the affections to virtuous and harmonious action, but denies to them all action and consigns them to extinction. This condemnation it has incurred by parting with that highest stimulus to human virtue and endeavour, which lies in the belief in a living G.o.d. By so doing it ceased to fulfil the office of a religion for men, and though, for historical purposes, we may cla.s.s it among the religions of the world, a system which leaves its adherents free not to wors.h.i.+p at all, or to find satisfaction for their spiritual instincts in the wors.h.i.+p of beings whom it regards with indifference, comes short of the notion of religion, and is not properly ent.i.tled to that name.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

Monier Williams, _Buddhism, in its connection with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in its contrast with Christianity_, 1889.

Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_ (S.P.C.K.).

Oldenberg's, _Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine and his Order_, 1882 (out of print). (Third German Edition, 1897.)