The Religions of India Part 35

[Footnote 3: Especially Koppen views Buddha as a democratic reformer and liberator.]

[Footnote 4: Emile Senart, _Essai sur la legende du Buddha_.

1875.]

[Footnote 5: _Buddha_ (1881), p.73 ff.]

[Footnote 6: The exact position of Kapilavastu, the capital of the c[=a]kyas, is not known, although it must have been near to the position a.s.signed to it on Kiepert's map of India (just north of Gorakhpur). The town is unknown in Brahmanic literature.]

[Footnote 7: This is Oldenberg's opinion, for the reason here stated. On the other hand it may be questioned whether this negative evidence be conclusive, and whether it be not more probable that a young n.o.bleman would have been well educated.]

[Footnote 8: Siddhartha, the boy, Gautama by his family cognomen, the c[=a]kya-son by his clan-name, was known also as the c[=a]kya-sage, the hermit, Samana (crama[n.]a); the venerable, Arhat (a general t.i.tle of perfected saints); Tath[=a]gata 'who is arrived like' (the preceding Buddhas, at perfection); and also by many other names common to other sects, Buddha, Jina, The Blessed One (Bhagavat), The Great Hero, etc. The Buddhist disciple may be a layman, _cravaka_; a monk, _bhikshu_; a perfected saint, _arhat_; a saintly doctor of the law, _bodhisattva_; etc.]

[Footnote 9: South of the present Patna. Less correct is the _Buddha_ Gay[=a] form.]

[Footnote 10: The famous _bo_ or Bodhi-tree, ficus religiosa, _pippala_, at Bodhi Gay[=a], said to be the most venerable and certainly the most venerated tree in the world.]

[Footnote 11: A _pacceka_ Buddha (Oldenberg. _Buddha_, p.122).]

[Footnote 12:

"Then be the door of salvation opened!

He that hath ears to hear let him hear.

I thought of my own sorrow only, and, therefore, Have not revealed the Word to the world."]

[Footnote 13: He sometimes, however, quite prosaically 'makes' or 'manufactures' it.]

[Footnote 14: _Dhammacakkappavattana_. Rhys Davids in his introduction to this _sutta_ gives and explains the eight as follows (SBE. XI. p.144): 1, Right views; freedom from superst.i.tion or delusion. 2, Right aims, high and worthy of the intelligent, earnest man. 3, Right speech, kindly, open, truthful. 4, Right conduct, peaceful, honest, pure. 5, Right livelihood, bringing hurt to no living thing. 6, Right effort in self-training and in self-control. 7, Right mindfulness, the active watchful mind. 8, Right contemplation, earnest thought on the deep mysteries of life.]

[Footnote 15: Hardy, _Manual,_, p.496.]

[Footnote 16: "A decided predilection for the aristocracy appears to have lingered as an heirloom of the past in the older Buddhism," Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p.157.]

[Footnote 17: _Mah[=a]vagga,_ 1.24. On the name (Gautama) Gotama, see Weber, _IS_. L 180.]

[Footnote 18: The parks of Venuvana and Jetavana were especially affected by Buddha. Compare Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p.145.]

[Footnote 19: Like the Jains the Buddhists postulate twenty-four (five) precedent Buddhas.]

[Footnote 20: Buddha's general discipline as compared with that of the Jains was much more lax, for instance, in the eating of meat. Buddha himself died of dysentery brought on by eating pork. The later Buddhism interprets much more strictly the rule of 'non-injury'; and as we have shown, Buddha entirely renounced austerities, choosing the mean between laxity and asceticism.]

[Footnote 21: Or 'take care of yourself'; _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_, v. 23.]

[Footnote 22: The chief Buddhistic dates are given by Muller (introduction to _Dhammapada_, SBE. vol. X.) as follows: 557, Buddha's birth; 477, Buddha's death and the First Council at R[=a]jagriha; 377, the Second Council at V[=a]ic[=a]l[=i]; 259, Ac.o.ka's coronation; 242, Third Council at P[=a]taliputta; 222, Ac.o.ka's death. These dates are only tentative, but they give the time nearly enough to serve as a guide. From the Buddhists (Ceylon account) it is known that the Council at V[=a]ic[=a]li was held one hundred years after Buddha's death (one hundred and eighteen years before the coronation of Ac.o.ka, whose grandfather, Candragupta, was Alexander's contemporary). The interval between Nirvana and Ac.o.ka, two hundred and eighteen years, is the only certain date according to Koppen, p.208, and despite much argument since he wrote, the remark still holds.]

[Footnote 23: Englished by Rhys Davids, _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na-sutta_ (SBE. XI. 95 ff.).]

[Footnote 24: _Ecclesiastes_.]

[Footnote 25: The common view is thus expressed by Oldenberg: "In dem schwulen, feuchten, von der Natur mit Reichthumern uppig gesegneten Tropenlande des Ganges hat das Volk, das in frischer Jugendkraft steht, als es vom Norden her eindringt, bald aufgehort jung und stark zu sein.

Menschen und Volker reifen in jenem Lande ... schnell heran, um ebenso schnell an Leib und Seele zu erschlaffen" (_loc.

cit_. p. 11).]

[Footnote 26: Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_, pp. 160,139.]

[Footnote 27: Buddha taught, of course, nothing related to the thaumaturgy of that folly which calls itself today 'Esoteric Buddhism.']

[Footnote 28: That is a sacrifice where no cattle are slain, and no injury is done to living beings.]

[Footnote 29: _K[=u]tadanta-sutta_ Oldenberg, _Buddha_, p.

175.]

[Footnote 30: Sometimes distinguished from _pari-nirv[=a][n.]a_ as absolute annihilation.]

[Footnote 31: Some scholars think that the doctrine of Buddha resembles closely that of the S[=a]nkhya philosophy (so Barth, p. 116), but Muller, Oldenberg, and others, appear to be right in denying this. The Sankhyan 'spirit'

has, for instance, nothing corresponding to it in Buddha's system.]

[Footnote 32: The twelve Nid[=a]nas are dogmatic, and withal not very logical. "From ignorance arise forms, from forms arises consciousness, from consciousness arise name and bodiness; from name and bodiness arise the six senses (including understanding as the sixth) and their objects; from these arises contact; from this, feeling; from this, thirst; from this, clinging; from clinging arises becoming; from becoming arises birth; from birth arise age and sorrow." One must gradually free himself from the ten fetters that bind to life, and so do away with the first of these twelve Nid[=a]nas, ignorance.]

[Footnote 33: _Mah[=a]vagga_, X. 3 (SBE. XVII. 306).]

[Footnote 34 36 1: Compare Kern, the _Lotus_, III. 21, and Fausboll, _P[=a]r[=a]yana-sutta_, 9 (1131), the "deep and lovely voice of Buddha." (SBE. XXI. 64, and X. 210.)]

[Footnote 35: As Southern Buddhists are reckoned those of Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, etc.]

[Footnote 36: As Northern Buddhists are reckoned those of Nep[=a]l, Tibet, China, Corea, j.a.pan, Java, Sumatra, Annam, and Cambodia.]

[Footnote 37: "Let your light so s.h.i.+ne before the world, that you, having embraced the religious life according to so well-taught a doctrine and discipline, may be seen to be forbearing and mild." (SBE. XVII. 305, David's and Oldenberg's translation.)]

[Footnote 38: 'Removing pieces from a pile without moving the remainder' must, we presume, be jackstraws.]

[Footnote 39: For instance, rules for eating, drinking (liquor), and for bathing. The Buddhist monk, except in summer, bathed once a fortnight only.]

[Footnote 40: No one is so holy that sin does not hurt him, according to Buddhistic belief. The Brahman, on the contrary, was liable to become so holy that he could commit any sin and it did not affect his virtue, which he stored up in a heap by c.u.mulative asceticism.]

[Footnote 41: The offering and reception of gifts is always accompanied with water, both in Buddhistic and Brahmanic circles. Whether this was a religious act or a legal sign of surrender we have not been able to discover. Perhaps it arose simply from water always being offered as refreshment to a guest (with fruit), as a sign of guest-friends.h.i.+p.]

[Footnote 42: Sakyaputtiya Samanas, _i.e_., Buddhists.]

[Footnote 43: In the case of a monk having carnal connection with a nun the penalty was instant expulsion(_ib_. 60). The nuns were subject to the monks and kept strictly in hand, obliged always to greet the monks first, to go to lessons once a fortnight, and so forth.]

[Footnote 44: Mah[=a]suda.s.sana, the great King of Glory whose city is described with its four gates, one of gold, one of silver, one of Jade and one of crystal, etc. The earlier Buddha had as 'king of glory' 84,000 wives and other comforts quite as remarkable.]

[Footnote 45: Translated by Davids, _Buddhist Suttas_ and _Hibbert Lectures_.]

[Footnote 46: What we have several times had to call attention to is shown again by the side light of Buddhism to be the case in Brahmanic circles, namely, that even in Buddha's day while Brahm[=a] is the G.o.d of the thinkers Indra is the G.o.d of the people (together with Vishnu and civa, if the texts are as old as they pretend to be).]

[Footnote 47: _Mah[=a]parinibb[=a]na_ iii, to which Rhys Davids refers, is scarcely a fair parallel.]

[Footnote 48: The imitation of the original play on words is Rhys Davids', who has translated these Suttas in SBE. vol.