Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 33

[Footnote 394: It was the full moon of the month Vaisakha.]

[Footnote 395: The best known of the later biographies of the Buddha, such as the Lalita Vistara and the Buddha-carita of Asvaghosha stop short after the Enlightenment.]

[Footnote 396: There are some curious coincidences of detail between the Buddha and Confucius. Both disliked talking about prodigies (a.n.a.lects.

V11. 20) Confucius concealed nothing from his disciples (ib. 23), just as the Buddha had no "closed fist," but he would not discuss the condition of the dead (a.n.a.l. xi. 11), just as the Buddha held it unprofitable to discuss the fate of the saint after death. Neither had any great opinion of the spirits wors.h.i.+pped in their respective countries.]

[Footnote 397: Maj. Nik. 143.]

[Footnote 398: The miraculous cure of Suppiya (Mahavag. VI. 23) is no exception. She was ill not because of the effects of Karma but because, according to the legend, she had cut off a piece of her flesh to cure a sick monk who required meat broth. The Buddha healed her.]

[Footnote 399: The most human and kindly portrait of the Buddha is that furnished by the Commentary on the Thera- and Theri-gatha. See Thera-gatha x.x.x, x.x.xi and Mrs Rhys Davids' trans. of _Theri-gatha_, pp.

71, 79.]

[Footnote 400: John xvii. 9. But he prayed for his executioners.]

[Footnote 401: John vii. 19-20.]

[Footnote 402: See chap. VIII. of this book.]

[Footnote 403: Cullavag, IX, I. IV.]

[Footnote 404: Sam. Nik. LVI. 31.]

[Footnote 405: Udana VI. 4. The story is that a king bade a number of blind men examine an elephant and describe its shape. Some touched the legs, some the tusks, some the tail and so on and gave descriptions accordingly, but none had any idea of the general shape.]

[Footnote 406: Or "determined."]

[Footnote 407: Or form: _rupa_.]

[Footnote 408: The word Jiva, sometimes translated _soul_, is not equivalent to _atman_. It seems to be a general expression for all the immaterial side of a human being. It is laid down (Dig. Nik. VI. and VII.) that it is fruitless to speculate whether the Jiva is distinct from the body or not.]

[Footnote 409: Sanna like many technical Buddhist terms is difficult to render adequately, because it does not cover the same ground as any one English word. Its essential meaning is recognition by a mark. When we perceive a blue thing we recognize it as blue and as like other blue things that we have marked. See Mrs Rhys Davids, Dhamma-Sanga?i, p. 8.]

[Footnote 410: The Sa?yutta-Nikaya XXII. 79. 8 states that the Sankharas are so-called because they compose what is compound (sankhatam).]

[Footnote 411: Maj. Nik. 44.]

[Footnote 412: In this sense Sankhara has also some affinity to the Sanskrit use of Sa?skara to mean a sacramental rite. It is the essential nature of such a rite to produce a special effect. So too the Sankharas present in one existence inevitably produce their effect in the next existence. For Sankhara see also the long note by S.Z. Aung at the end of the _Compendium of Philosophy_ (P.T.S. 1910).]

[Footnote 413: The use of this word for Vinna?a is, I believe, due to Mrs Rhys Davids.]

[Footnote 414: See especially Maj. Nik. 38.]

[Footnote 415: Pali, Khanda. But it has become the custom to use the Sanskrit term. Cf. Karma, nirvana.]

[Footnote 416: See Sam. Nik. XII. 62. For parallels to this view in modern times see William James, _Text Book of Psychology_, especially pp. 203, 215, 216.]

[Footnote 417: Cf. Milinda Panha II. 1. 1 and also the dialogue between the king of Sauvira and the Brahman in Vishnu Pur. II. XIII.]

[Footnote 418: Vis. Mag. chap. XVI. quoted by Warren, _Buddhism in Translations_, p. 146. Also it is admitted that vinna?a cannot be disentangled and sharply distinguished from feeling and sensation. See pa.s.sages quoted in Mrs Rhys Davids, _Buddhist Psychology,_ pp. 52-54.]

[Footnote 419: Sam. Nik. XXII. 22. 1.]

[Footnote 420: With reference to a teacher dhamma is the doctrine which he preaches. With reference to a disciple, it may often be equivalent to duty. Cf. the Sanskrit expressions: sva-dharma, one's own duty; para-dharma, the duty of another person or caste.]

[Footnote 421: Dhamma-s. 1044-5.]

[Footnote 422: II. 3. 8.]

[Footnote 423: Dig. Nik. XI. 85.]

[Footnote 424: Name and form is the Buddhist equivalent for subject and object or mind and body.]

[Footnote 425: Mrs Rhys Davids, _Buddhist Psychology_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 426: Sam. Nik. x.x.xv. 93.]

[Footnote 427: The same formula is repeated for the other senses.]

[Footnote 428: See Maj. Nik. 36 for his own experiences and Dig. Nik. 2.

93-96.]

[Footnote 429: In Dig. Nik. xxiii. Payasi maintains the thesis, regarded as most unusual (sec. 5), that there is no world but this and no such things as rebirth and karma. He is confuted not by the Buddha but by Ka.s.sapa. His arguments are that dead friends whom he has asked to bring him news of the next world have not done so and that experiments performed on criminals do not support the idea that a soul leaves the body at death. Ka.s.sapa's reply is chiefly based on a.n.a.logies of doubtful value but also on the affirmation that those who have cultivated their spiritual faculties have intuitive knowledge of rebirth and other worlds. But Payasi did not draw any distinction between rebirth and immortality as understood in Europe. He was a simple materialist.]

[Footnote 430: The more mythological parts of the Pitakas make it plain that the early Buddhists were not materialists in the modern sense. It is also said that there are formless worlds in which there is thought, but no form or matter.]

[Footnote 431: See too the story of G.o.dhika's death. Sam. Nik. I. iv. 3 and Buddhaghosa on Dhammap. 57.]

[Footnote 432: No. 38 called the Mahata?hasankhaya-suttam.]

[Footnote 433: See too Dig. Nik. n. 63, "If Vinna?a did not descend into the womb, would body and mind be const.i.tuted there?" and Sam. Nik. xii.

12. 3, "Vinna?a food is the condition for bringing about rebirth in the future."]

[Footnote 434: Uppajjati is the usual word.]

[Footnote 435: Ariyasaccani. Rhys Davids translates the phrase as Aryan truths and the word Ariya in old Pali appears not to have lost its national or tribal sense, _e.g._ Dig. Nik. n. 87 Ariyam ayatanam the Aryan sphere (of influence). But was a religious teacher preaching a doctrine of salvation open to all men likely to describe its most fundamental and universal truths by an adjective implying pride of race?]

[Footnote 436: In Maj. Nik. 44 the word dukkha is replaced by sakkaya, individuality, which is apparently regarded as equivalent in meaning. So for instance the n.o.ble Eightfold path is described as sakkaya-nirodha-gamini patipada.]

[Footnote 437: Theragatha 487-493, and Puggala Pan. iv. 1.]

[Footnote 438: But it has not been proved so far as I know.]

[Footnote 439: Sam. Nik. XV. 3.]

[Footnote 440: Buddhist works sometimes insist on the impurity of human physical life in a way which seems morbid and disagreeable. But this view is not exclusively Buddhist or Asiatic. It is found in Marcus Aurelius and perhaps finds its strongest expression in the De Contemptu Mundi of Pope Innocent III (in Pat. Lat. ccxvii. cols. 701-746).]

[Footnote 441: As a general rule suicide is strictly forbidden (see the third Parajika and Milinda, iv. 13 and 14) for in most cases it is not a pa.s.sionless renunciation of the world but rather a pa.s.sionate and irritable protest against difficulties which simply lays up bad karma in the next life. Yet cases such as that of G.o.dhika (see Buddhaghosa on the Dhammapada, 57) seem to imply that it is un.o.bjectionable if performed not out of irritation but by one who having already obtained mental release is troubled by disease.]