MYTHOLOGY IN HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM
1
The later phases of Buddhism, described as Mahâyâna, show this feature among many others, that the supernatural and mythological side of religion becomes prominent. Gods or angels play an increasingly important part, the Buddha himself becomes a being superior to all gods, and Buddhas, gods and saints perform at every turn feats for which miracle seems too modest a name. The object of the present chapter is to trace the early stages of these beliefs, for they are found in the Pali Canon, although it is not until later that they overgrow and hide the temple in whose walls they are rooted.
It may be fairly said that Buddhism is not a miraculous religion in the sense that none of its essential doctrines depend on miracles. It would seem that such a religion as Mormonism must collapse if it were admitted that the Book of Mormon is not a revelation delivered to Joseph Smith. But the content of the Buddha's teaching is not miraculous and, though he is alleged to have possessed insight exceeding ordinary human knowledge, yet this is not exactly a miracle and it is a question whether an unusual intelligence disciplined by meditation might not attain to such knowledge. Still, though the essence of the doctrine may be detachable from miracles and even be scientific, one cannot read very far in the Vinaya or the Sutta Pitaka without coming upon unearthly beings or supernatural occurrences.
The credibility of miracles is to my mind simply a question of evidence. Any extraordinary event, such as a person doing a thing totally foreign to his character, is improbable a priori. But the law does not allow that the best of men is incapable of committing the worst of crimes, if the evidence proves he did. Nor can the most extraordinary violation of nature's laws be pronounced impossible if supported by sufficient evidence, only the evidence must be strong in proportion to the strangeness of the circumstances. But I cannot see that the uniformity of nature is any objection to the occurrence of miracles, for as a rule a miracle is regarded not as an event without a cause, but as due to a new cause, namely the intervention of a superhuman person. Many of the best known miracles are such that one may imagine this person to effect them by understanding and controlling some unknown natural force, just as we control electricity. Only evidence is required to show that he can do so. But on the other hand the weakness of every religion which depends on miracles is that their truth is contested and not unreasonably. If they are true, why are they not certain? Of all the phenomena described as miracles, ghosts, fortune telling, magic, clairvoyance, prophesying, and so on, none command unchallenged acceptance. In every age miracles, portents and apparitions have been recorded, yet none of them with a certainty that carries universal conviction and in many ages contemporary scepticism was possible. Even in Vedic times there were people who did not believe in the existence of Indra[714].
It is clear that some miracles require more evidence than others and many old stories are so fantastic that they may justly be put aside because those who reported them did not see, as we can, what difficulties they involve and hence felt no need for caution in belief. Among ancient Indians or Hebrews tales of seven headed snakes or of stopping the sun did not arouse the critical spirit, for the phenomena did not seem much more extraordinary than centipedes or eclipses. Only those who understand that such stories upset all we know of anatomy and astronomy can realize their improbability and the weight of evidence necessary to make them credible. The most important distinction in miracles (I use the word as a popular description of extraordinary events which is readily understood though hard to define) is whether they are in any way subjective, that is to say that they depend in the last resort on an impression produced in certain, but not all, human minds or whether they are objective, that is to say that all witnesses would have seen them like any other event. A man rising into the air would be an objective miracle if it were admitted that this levitation was as real as the flight of a bird, and very strong evidence would be necessary to make us believe that such a movement had really been executed. But the case is different if we are dealing with the conviction of an enthusiast that he rose aloft or even with the conviction of his disciples, that they, being in an ecstasy, saw him do so. There is no reason to doubt the subjective reality of well-authenticated visions and as motives and stimuli to action they may have real objective importance. Miracles of healing are not dissimilar. A man's mind can affect his body, either directly through his conviction that certain physical changes are about to take place or indirectly as conveying the influence of some powerful external mind which may be either calming or stimulating. That some persons have a special power of healing nervous or mental diseases can hardly be doubted and I am not disposed to reject any well-authenticated miraculous cure, believing that sudden mental relief or acute joy can so affect the whole frame that in the improved physical conditions thus caused even diseases not usually considered as nervous may pass away. But though there is no reason to discredit miracles of healing, it is clear that they are not only exaggerated but also distorted by reporters who do not understand their nature. Those who chronicle the cures supposed to be effected at Lourdes at the present day keep within the bounds of what is explicable, but a Hindu who had seen a cripple recover some power of movement might be equally ready to believe that when a man's leg had been cut off the stump could grow into a complete limb.
The miraculous events recorded in the Pitakas differ from those of later works, whether Mahayanist literature or the Hindu Puranas and Epics, chiefly in their moderation. They may be classified under several heads. Many of them are mere embroidery or embellishment due to poetical exuberance, esteemed appropriate in those generous climates though repugnant to our chilly tastes. In every country poetry is allowed to overstep the prosaic borders of fact without criticism. When an English poet says that—
The red rose cries She is near, she is near:
And the white rose weeps She is late:
The larkspur listens, I hear, I hear:
And the lily whispers, I wait--
no one thinks of criticizing the lines as absurd because flowers cannot talk or of trying to prove that they can. Poetry can take liberties with facts provided it follows the lines of metaphors which the reader finds natural. The same latitude cannot be allowed in unfamiliar directions. Thus though a shower of flowers from heaven is not more extraordinary than talking flowers and is quite natural in Indian poetry, it would probably disconcert the English reader[715]. An Indian poet would not represent flowers as talking, but would give the same idea by saying that the spirits inhabiting trees and plants recited stanzas. Similarly when a painter draws a picture of an angel with wings rising from the shoulder blades, even the very scientific do not think it needful to point out that no such anatomical arrangement is known or probable, nor do the very pious maintain that such creatures exist. The whole question is allowed to rest happily in some realm of acquiescence untroubled by discussions. And it is in this spirit that Indian books relate how when the Buddha went abroad showers of flowers fell from the sky and the air resounded with heavenly music, or diversify their theological discussions with interludes of demons, nymphs and magic serpents. And although this riot of the imagination offends our ideas of good sense and proportion, the Buddhists do not often lose the distinction between what Matthew Arnold called Literature and Dogma. The Buddha's visits to various heavens are not presented as articles of faith: they are simply a pleasant setting for his discourses.
Some miracles of course have a more serious character and can be less easily separated from the essentials of the faith. Thus the Pitakas represent the Buddha as able to see all that happens in the world and to transport himself anywhere at will. But even in such cases we may remember that when we say of a well-informed and active person that he is omniscient and ubiquitous, we are not misunderstood. The hyperbole of Indian legends finds its compensation in the small importance attached to them. No miraculous circumstance recorded of the Buddha has anything like the significance attributed by Christians to the virgin birth or the resurrection of Christ. His superhuman powers are in keeping with the picture drawn of his character. They are mostly the result of an attempt to describe a mind and will of more than human strength, but the superman thus idealized rarely works miracles of healing. He saves mankind by teaching the way of salvation, not by alleviating a few chance cases of physical distress. In later works he is represented as performing plentiful and extraordinary miracles, but these are just the instances in which we can most clearly trace the addition of embellishments.
2
The elaboration of marvellous episodes is regarded in India as a legitimate form of literary art, no more blameable than dramatization, and in sacred writings it flourishes unchecked. In Hinduism, as in Buddhism, there is not wanting a feeling that the soul is weary of the crowd of deities who demand sacrifices and promise happiness, and on the serener heights of philosophy gods have little place. Still most forms of Hinduism cannot like Buddhism be detached from the gods, and no extravagance is too improbable to be included in the legends about them. The extravagance is the more startling because their exploits form part of quasi-historical narratives. Râma and Krishna seem to be idealized and deified portraits of ancient heroes, who came to be regarded as incarnations of the Almighty. This is understood by Indians to mean not that the Almighty submitted consistently to human limitations, but that he, though incarnate, exercised whenever it pleased him and often most capriciously his full divine force. With this idea before them and no historical scruples to restrain them, Indian writers tell how Krishna held up a mountain on his finger, Indian readers accept the statement, and crowds of pilgrims visit the scene of the exploit.
The later Buddhist writings are perhaps not less extravagant than the Puranas, but the Pitakas are relatively sober, though not quite consistent in their account of the Buddha's attitude to the miraculous. Thus he encourages Sâgata[716] to give a display of miracles, such as walking in the air, in order to prepare the mind of a congregation to whom he is going to preach, but in other narratives[717] which seem ancient and authentic, he expresses his disapproval of such performances (just as Christ refused to give signs), and says that they do not "conduce to the conversion of the unconverted or to the increase of the converted." Those who know India will easily call up a picture of how the Bhikkhus strove to impress the crowd by exhibitions not unlike a modern juggler's tricks and how the master stopped them. His motives are clear: these performances had nothing to do with the essence of his teaching. If it be true that he ever countenanced them, he soon saw his error. He did not want people to say that he was a conjurer who knew the Gândhâra charm or any other trick. And though we have no warrant for doubting that he believed in the reality of the powers known as iddhi, it is equally certain that he did not consider them essential or even important for religion.
Somewhat similar is the attitude of early Buddhism to the spirit world—the hosts of deities and demons who people this and other spheres. Their existence is assumed, but the truths of religion are not dependent on them, and attempts to use their influence by sacrifices and oracles are deprecated as vulgar practices similar to juggling. Later Buddhism became infected with mythology and the critical change occurs when deities, instead of being merely protectors of the church, take an active part in the work of salvation. When the Hindu gods developed into personalities who could appeal to religious and philosophic minds as cosmic forces, as revealers of the truth and guides to bliss, the example was too attractive to be neglected and a pantheon of Bodhisattvas arose. But it is clear that when the Buddha preached in Kosala and Magadha, the local deities had not attained any such position. The systems of philosophy then in vogue were mostly not theistic, and, strange as the words may sound, religion had little to do with the gods. If this be thought to rest on a mistranslation, it is certainly true that the dhamma had very little to do with devas. The example of Rome under the Empire or of modern China makes the position clearer. In neither would a serious enquirer turn to the ancient national gods for spiritual help.
Often as the Devas figure in early Buddhist stories, the significance of their appearance nearly always lies in their relations with the Buddha or his disciples. Of mere mythology, such as the dealings of Brahmâ and Indra with other gods, there is little. In fact the gods, though freely invoked as accessories, are not taken seriously[718], and there are some extremely curious passages in which Gotama seems to laugh at them, much as the sceptics of the eighteenth century laughed at Jehovah. Thus in the Kevaddha sutta[719] he relates how a monk who was puzzled by a metaphysical problem applied to various gods and finally accosted Brahmâ himself in the presence of all his retinue. After hearing the question, which was Where do the elements cease and leave no trace behind? Brahmâ replies, "I am the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Controller, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be." "But," said the monk, "I did not ask you, friend, whether you were indeed all you now say, but I ask you where the four elements cease and leave no trace." Then the Great Brahmâ took him by the arm and led him aside and said, "These gods think I know and understand everything. Therefore I gave no answer in their presence. But I do not know the answer to your question and you had better go and ask the Buddha." Even more curiously ironical is the account given of the origin of Brahmâ[720]. There comes a time when this world system passes away and then certain beings are reborn in the World of Radiance and remain there a long time. Sooner or later, the world system begins to evolve again and the palace of Brahmâ appears, but it is empty. Then some being whose time is up falls from the World of Radiance and comes to life in the palace and remains there alone. At last he wishes for company, and it so happens that other beings whose time is up fall from the World of Radiance and join him. And the first being thinks that he is Great Brahmâ, the Creator, because when he felt lonely and wished for companions other beings appeared. And the other beings accept this view. And at last one of Brahmâ's retinue falls from that state and is born in the human world and, if he can remember his previous birth, he reflects that he is transitory but that Brahmâ still remains and from this he draws the erroneous conclusion that Brahmâ is eternal.
He who dared to represent Brahmâ (for which name we might substitute Allah or Jehovah) as a pompous deluded individual worried by the difficulty of keeping up his position had more than the usual share of scepticism and irony. The compilers of such discourses regarded the gods as mere embellishments, as gargoyles and quaint figures in the cathedral porch, not as saints above the altar. The mythology and cosmology associated with early Buddhism are really extraneous. The Buddha's teaching is simply the four truths and some kindred ethical and psychological matter. It grew up in an atmosphere of animism which peopled the trees and streams and mountains with spirits. It accepted and played with the idea, just as it might have accepted and played with the idea of radio-activity. But such notions do not affect the essence of the Dharma and it might be preached in severe isolation. Yet in Asia it hardly ever has been so isolated. It is true that Indian mythology has not always accompanied the spread of Buddhism. There is much of it in Tibet and Mongolia but less in China and Japan and still less in Burma. But probably in every part of Asia the Buddhist missionaries found existing a worship of nature spirits and accepted it, sometimes even augmenting and modifying it. In every age the elect may have risen superior to all ideas of gods and heavens and hells, but for any just historical perspective, for any sympathetic understanding of the faith as it exists as a living force to-day, it is essential to remember this background and frame of fantastic but graceful mythology.
Many later Mahayanist books are full of dhâraṇîs or spells. Dhâraṇîs are not essentially different from mantras, especially tantric mantras containing magical syllables, but whereas mantras are more or less connected with worship, dhâraṇîs are rather for personal use, spells to ward off evil and bring good luck. The Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Chuang[721] states that the sect of the Mahâsanghikas, which in his opinion arose in connection with the first council, compiled a Pitaka of dhâraṇîs. The tradition cannot be dismissed as incredible for even the Dîgha-Nikâya relates how a host of spirits visited the Buddha in order to impart a formula which would keep his disciples safe from harm. Buddhist and Brahmanic mythology represent two methods of working up popular legends. The Mahâbhârata and Puranas introduce us to a moderately harmonious if miscellaneous society of supernatural personages decently affiliated to one another and to Brahmanic teaching. The same personages reappear in Buddhism but are analogous to Christian angels or to fairies rather than to minor deities. They are not so much the heroes of legends, as protectors: they are interesting not for their past exploits but for their readiness to help believers or to testify to the true doctrine. Still there was a great body of Buddhist and Jain legend in ancient India which handled the same stories as Brahmanic legend—e.g. the tale of Krishna—but in a slightly different manner. The characteristic form of Buddhist legend is the Jâtaka, or birth story. Folk-lore and sagas, ancient jokes and tragedies, the whole stock in trade of rhapsodists and minstrels are made an edifying and interesting branch of scripture by simply identifying the principal characters with the Buddha, his friends and his enemies in their previous births[722]. But in Hinayanist Buddhism legend and mythology are ornamental, and edifying, nothing more. Spirits may set a good example or send good luck: they have nothing to do with emancipation or nirvana. The same distinction of spheres is not wholly lost in Hinduism, for though the great philosophic works treat of God under various names they mostly ignore minor deities, and though the language of the Bhagavad-gîtâ is exuberant and mythological, yet only Krishna is God: all other spirits are part of him.
The deities most frequently mentioned in Buddhist works are Indra, generally under the name of Sakka (Śakra) and Brahmâ. The former is no longer the demon-slaying soma-drinking deity of the Vedas, but the heavenly counterpart of a pious Buddhist king. He frequently appears in the Jâtaka stories as the protector of true religion and virtue, and when a good man is in trouble, his throne grows hot and attracts his attention. His transformation is analogous to the process by which heathen deities, especially in the Eastern Church, have been accepted as Christian saints[723]. Brahmâ rules in a much higher heaven than Sakka. His appearances on earth are rarer and more weighty, and sometimes he seems to be a personification of whatever intelligence and desire for good there is in the world[724]. But in no case do the Pitakas concede to him the position of supreme ruler of the Universe. In one singular narrative the Buddha tells his disciples how he once ascertained that Brahmâ Baka was under the delusion that his heaven was eternal and cured him of it[725].
3
All Indian religions have a passion for describing in bold imaginative outline the history and geography of the universe. Their ideas are juster than those of Europeans and Semites in so far as they imply a sense of the distribution of life throughout immensities of time and space. The Hindu perceived more clearly than the Jew and Greek that his own age and country were merely parts of a much longer series and of a far larger structure or growth. He wished to keep this whole continually before the mind, but in attempting to describe it he fell into that besetting intellectual sin of India, the systematizing of the imaginary. Ages, continents and worlds are described in detailed statements which bear no relation to facts. Thus, Brahmanic cosmogony usually deals with a period of time called Kalpa. This is a day in the life of Brahmâ, who lives one hundred years of such days, and it marks the duration of a world which comes into being at its commencement and is annihilated at its end. It consists of 4320 times a million years and is divided into fourteen smaller periods called manvantaras each presided over by a superhuman being called Manu[726]. A manvantara contains about seventy-one mahâyugas and each mahâyuga is what men call the four ages of the world[727]. Geography and astronomy show similar precision. The Earth is the lowest of seven spheres or worlds, and beneath it are a series of hells[728]. The three upper spheres last for a hundred Kalpas but are still material, though less gross than those below. The whole system of worlds is encompassed above and below by the shell of the egg of Brahmâ. Round this again are envelopes of water, fire, air, ether, mind and finally the infinite Pradhâna or cause of all existing things. The earth consists of seven land-masses, divided and surrounded by seven seas. In the centre of the central land-mass rises Mount Meru, nearly a million miles high and bearing on its peaks the cities of Brahmâ and other gods.
The cosmography of the Buddhists is even more luxuriant, for it regards the universe as consisting of innumerable spheres (cakkavâlas), each of which might seem to a narrower imagination a universe in itself, since it has its own earth, heavenly bodies, paradises and hells. A sphere is divided into three regions, the lowest of which is the region of desire. This consists of eleven divisions which, beginning from the lowest, are the hells, and the worlds of animals, Pretas (hungry ghosts), Asuras (Titans)[729] and men. This last, which we inhabit, consists of a vast circular plain largely covered with water. In the centre of it is Mount Meru, and it is surrounded by a wall. Above it rise six devalokas, or heavens of the inferior gods. Above the realms of desire there follow sixteen worlds in which there is form but no desire. All are states of bliss one higher than the other and all are attained by the exercise of meditation. Above these again come four formless worlds, in which there is neither desire nor form. They correspond to the four stages of Arûpa trances and in them the gross and evil elements of existence are reduced to a minimum, but still they are not permanent and cannot be regarded as final salvation. We naturally think of this series of worlds as so many storeys rising one above the other and they are so depicted[730] but it will be observed that the animal kingdom is placed between the hells and humanity, obviously not as having its local habitation there but as better off than the one, though inferior to the other, and perhaps if we pointed this out to the Hindu artist he would smile and say that his many storeyed picture must not be taken so literally: all states of being are merely states of mind, hellish, brutish, human and divine.
Grotesque as Hindu notions of the world may seem, they include two great ideas of modern science. The universe is infinite or at least immeasurable[731]. The vision of the astronomer who sees a solar system in every star of the milky way is not wider than the thought that devised these Cakkavâlas or spheres, each with a vista of heavens and a procession of Buddhas, to look after its salvation. Yet compared with the sum of being a sphere is an atom. Space is filled by aggregates of them, considered by some as groups of three, by others as clusters of a thousand. And secondly these world systems, with the living beings and plants in them, are regarded as growing and developing by natural processes, and, equally in virtue of natural processes, as decaying and disintegrating when the time comes. In the Aggañña-Sutta[732] we have a curious account of the evolution of man which, though not the same as Darwin's, shows the same idea of development or perhaps degeneration and differentiation. Human beings were originally immaterial, aerial and self-luminous, but as the world gradually assumed its present form they took to eating first of all a fragrant kind of earth and then plants with the result that their bodies became gross and differences of sex and colour were produced.
No sect of Hinduism personifies the powers of evil in one figure corresponding to Satan, or the Ahriman of Persia. In proportion as a nation thinks pantheistically it is disinclined to regard the world as being mainly a contest between good and evil. It is true there are innumerable demons and innumerable good spirits who withstand them. But just as there is no finality in the exploits of Râma and Krishna, so Râvaṇa and other monsters do not attain to the dignity of the Devil. In a sense the destructive forces are evil, but when they destroy the world at the end of a Kalpa the result is not the triumph of evil. It is simply winter after autumn, leading to spring and another summer.
Buddhism having a stronger ethical bias than Hinduism was more conscious of the existence of a Tempter, or a power that makes men sin. This power is personified, but somewhat indistinctly, as Mâra, originally and etymologically a god of death. He is commonly called Mâra the Evil One[733], which corresponds to the Mrityuh pâpmâ of the Vedas, but as a personality he seems to have developed entirely within the Buddhist circle and to be unknown to general Indian mythology. In the thought of the Pitakas the connection between death and desire is clear. The great evils and great characteristics of the world are that everything in it decays and dies and that existence depends on desire. Therefore the ruler of the world may be represented as the god of desire and death. Buddha and his saints struggle with evil and overcome it by overcoming desire and this triumphant struggle is regarded as a duel with Mâra, who is driven off and defeated[734].
Even in his most mythological aspects, Mâra is not a deity of Hell. He presides over desire and temptation, not over judgment and punishment. This is the function of Yama, the god of the dead, and one of the Brahmanic deities who have migrated to the Far East. He has been adopted by Buddhism, though no explanation is given of his status. But he is introduced as a vague but effective figure—and yet hardly more than a metaphor—whenever it is desired to personify the inflexible powers that summon the living to the other world and there make them undergo, with awful accuracy, the retribution due for their deeds. In a remarkable passage[735] called Death's Messengers, it is related that when a sinner dies he is led before King Yama who asks him if he never saw the three messengers of the gods sent as warnings to mortals, namely an old man, a sick man and a corpse. The sinner under judgment admits that he saw but did not reflect and Yama sentences him to punishment, until suffering commensurate to his sins has been inflicted.
Buddhism tells of many hells, of which Avîci is the most terrible. They are of course all temporary and therefore purgatories rather than places of eternal punishment, and the beings who inhabit them have the power of struggling upwards and acquiring merit[736], but the task is difficult and one may be born repeatedly in hell. The phraseology of Buddhism calls existences in heavens and hells new births. To us it seems more natural to say that certain people are born again as men and that others go to heaven or hell. But the three destinies are really parallel[737].
The desire to accommodate influential ideas, though they might be incompatible with the strict teaching of the Buddha, is well seen in the position accorded to spirits of the dead. The Buddha was untiring in his denunciation of every idea which implied that some kind of soul or double escapes from the body at death and continues to exist. But the belief in the existence of departed ancestors and the presentation of offerings to them have always formed a part of Hindu domestic religion. To gratify this persistent belief, Buddhism recognized the world of Petas, that is ghosts or spirits. Many varieties of these are described in later literature. Some are as thin as withered leaves and suffer from continual hunger, for their mouths are so small that they can take no solid food. According to strict theology, the Petas are a category of beings just above animals and certain forms of bad conduct entail birth among them. But in popular estimation, they are merely the spirits of the dead who can receive nourishment and other benefits from the living. The veneration of the dead and the offering of sacrifices to or for them, which form a conspicuous feature in Far Eastern Buddhism, are often regarded as a perversion of the older faith, and so, indeed, they are. Yet in the Khuddaka-pâṭha[738], which if not a very early work is still part of the Sutta Pitaka, are found some curious and pathetic verses describing how the spirits of the departed wait by walls and crossways and at the doors, hoping to receive offerings of food. When they receive it their hearts are gladdened and they wish their relatives prosperity. As many streams fill the ocean, so does what is given here help the dead. Above all, gifts given to monks will redound to the good of the dead for a long time. This last point is totally opposed to the spirit of Gotama's doctrine, but it contains the germ of the elaborate system of funeral masses which has assumed vast proportions in the Far East.
4
What then is the position of the Buddha himself in this universe of many worlds and multitudinous deities? European writers sometimes fail to understand how the popular thought of India combines the human and superhuman: they divorce the two aspects and unduly emphasize one or the other. If they are impressed by the historical character of Gotama, they conclude that all legends with a supernatural tinge must be late and adventitious. If, on the other hand, they feel that the extent and importance of the legendary element entitles it to consideration, they minimize the historical kernel. But in India, reality and fancy, prosaic fact and extravagant imagination are found not as successive stages in the development of religious ideas, but simultaneously and side by side. Keshub Chunder Sen was a Babu of liberal views who probably looked as prosaic a product of the nineteenth century as any radical politician.
Yet his followers were said to regard him as a God, and whether this is a correct statement or not, it is certain that he was credited with superhuman power and received a homage which seemed even to Indians excessive
. It is in the light of such incidents and such temperaments that we should read the story of the Buddha. Could we be transported to India in the days of his preaching, we should probably see a figure very like the portrait given in the more sober parts of the Pitakas, a teacher of great intelligence and personal charm, yet distinctly human. But had we talked about him in the villages which lay along his route, or even in the circle of his disciples, I think we should have heard tales of how Devas visited him and how he was wont to vanish and betake himself to some heaven. The Hindu attributes such feats to a religious leader, as naturally as Europeans would ascribe to him a magnetic personality and a flashing eye.
The Pitakas emphasize the omniscience and sinlessness of the Buddha but contain no trace of the idea that he is God in the Christian or Mahommedan sense. They are consistently non-theistic and it is only later that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas become transformed into beings about whom theistic language can be used. But in those parts of the Pitakas which may be reasonably supposed to contain the ideas of the first century after the Buddha's death, he is constantly represented as instructing Devas and receiving their homage
. In the Khuddaka-pâṭha the spirits are invited to come and do him reverence. He is described as the Chief of the World with all its gods
, and is made to deny that he is a man. If a Buddha cannot be called a Deva rather than a man, it is only because he is higher than both. It is this train of thought which leads later Buddhists
to call him Devâtideva, or the Deva who is above all other Devas, and thus make him ultimately a being comparable with Siva or Vishnu.
The idea that great teachers of mankind appear in a regular series and at stated intervals is certainly older than Gotama,
but it is hard to say how far it was systematized before his time. The greatness of the position which he won and the importance of the institutions which he founded naturally caused his disciples to formulate the vague traditions about his predecessors. They were called indifferently Buddha, Jina, Arhat, etc., and it was only after the constitution of the Buddhist church that these titles received fixed meanings.
Closely connected with the idea of the Buddha or Jina is that of the Mahâpurusha or great man. It was supposed that there are born from time to time supermen distinguished by physical marks who become either universal monarchs (cakra-vartin) or teachers of the truth. Such a prediction is said to have been made respecting the infant Gotama and all previous Buddhas. The marks are duly catalogued, as thirty-two greater and eighty
smaller signs. Many of them are very curious. The hair is glossy black: the tongue is so long that it can lick the ears: the arms reach to the knees in an ordinary upright position: the skin has a golden tinge: there is a protuberance on the skull and a smaller one, like a ball, between the eyebrows. The long arms may be compared with the Persian title rendered in Latin by Longimanus
and it is conceivable that the protuberances on the head may have been personal peculiarities of Gotama. For though the thirty-two marks are mentioned in the Pitakas as well-known signs establishing his claims to eminence, no description of them has been found in any pre-Buddhist work
, and they may have been modified to suit his personal appearance. At any rate it is clear that the early generations of Buddhists considered that the Master conformed to the type of the Mahâpurusha and attached importance to the fact
. The Pitakas repeatedly allude to the knowledge of
these marks as forming a part of Brahmanic training and in the account of the previous Buddha Vipassî they are duly enumerated. These ideas about a Great Man and his characteristics were probably current among the people at the time of the Buddha's birth. They do not harmonize completely with later definitions of a Buddha's nature, but they show how Gotama's contemporaries may have regarded his career.
In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding Gotama
, namely Vipassî, Sikhî, Vessabhû, Kakusandha, Konâgamana and Kassapa. The last three at least may have some historical character. The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, who visited India from 405 to 411 A.D., saw their reputed birthplaces and says that there still existed followers of Devadatta (apparently in Kosala) who recognized these three Buddhas but not Gotama. Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konâgamana in Nepal with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved. In the Majjhima-Nikâya
we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples and Gotama once gave
an extended account of Vipassî, whose teaching and career are represented as almost identical with his own. Different explanations have been given of this common element. There is clearly a wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its exponents in all ages. But are we to believe that the stories, true or romantic, originally told of Gotama were transferred to his mythical forerunners or that before his birth there was a Buddha legend to which the account of his career was accommodated? Probably both processes went on simultaneously. The notices of the Jain saints show that there must have been such legends and traditions independent of Gotama. To them we may refer things like the miracles attending birth. But the general outline of the Buddha's career, the departure from home, struggle for enlightenment and hesitation before preaching, seem to be a reminiscence of Gotama's actual life rather than an earlier legend.
There is an interesting discourse describing the wonders that attend the birth of a Buddha
, such as that he passes from the Tusita heaven to his mother's womb; that she must die seven
days after his birth: that she stands when he is born: and so on. We may imagine that the death of the mother is due to the historical fact that Gotama's mother did so die, while the other circumstances are embellishments of the old Buddha and Mahâpurusha legend. But the construction of this sutta is curious. The monks in the Jetavana are talking of the wondrous powers possessed by Buddhas. Gotama enters and asks what is the subject of their discourse. They tell him and he bids Ânanda describe more fully the wondrous attributes of a Buddha. Ânanda gives a long list of marvels and at the end Gotama observes, "Take note of this too as one of the wondrous attributes of a Buddha, that he has his feelings, perceptions and thoughts under complete control
."
No passage has yet been adduced from the suttas mentioning more than seven Buddhas but later books, such as the Buddha-vaṃsa and the introduction to the Jâtaka, describe twenty-five
. There are twenty-four Jain Tîrthankaras and according to some accounts twenty-four incarnations of Vishnu. Probably all these lists are based on some calculation as to the proper allowance of saints for an aeon. The biographies of these Buddhas are brief and monotonous. For each sage they record the number of his followers, the name of his city, parents, and chief disciples, the tree under which he attained enlightenment, his height and his age, both in extravagant figures. They also record how each met Gotama in one of his previous births and prophesied his future glory. The object of these biographies is less to give information about previous Buddhas than to trace the career of Gotama as a Bodhisattva. This career began in the time of Dîpankara, the first of the twenty-five Buddhas, incalculable ages ago, when Gotama was a hermit called Sumedha. Seeing that the road over which Dîpankara had to pass was dirty, he threw himself down in the mire in order that the Buddha might tread on him and not soil his feet. At the same time he made a resolution to become a Buddha and received from Dîpankara the assurance that ages afterwards his
wish would be fulfilled. This incident, called praṇidhâna or the vow to become a Buddha, is frequently represented in the frescoes found in Central Asia.
The history of this career is given in the introduction to the Jâtaka and in the late Pali work called the Cariyâ-piṭaka, but the suttas make little reference to the topic. They refer incidentally to Gotama's previous births
but their interest clearly centres in his last existence. They not infrequently use the word Bodhisattva to describe the youthful Gotama or some other Buddha before the attainment of Buddhahood, but in later literature it commonly designates a being now existing who will be a Buddha in the future. In the older phase of Buddhism attention is concentrated on a human figure which fills the stage, but before the canon closes we are conscious of a change which paves the way for the Mahâyâna. Our sympathetic respect is invited not only for Gotama the Buddha, but for the struggling Bodhisattva who, battling towards the goal with incredible endurance and self-sacrifice through lives innumerable, at last became Gotama.
It is only natural that the line of Buddhas should extend after as well as before Gotama. In the Pitakas there are allusions to such a posterior series, as when for instance we hear
that all Buddhas past and to come have had and will have attendants like Ânanda, but Metteya the Buddha of the future has not yet become an important figure. He is just mentioned in the Dîgha Nikâya and Buddha-Vaṃsa and the Milinda Pañha quotes an utterance of Gotama to the effect that "He will be the leader of thousands as I am of hundreds," but the quotation has not been identified.
The Buddhas enumerated are supreme Buddhas (Sammâ-sam-buddha) but there is another order called Pacceka (Sanskrit Pratyeka) or private Buddhas. Both classes attain by their own exertions to a knowledge of the four truths but the Pacceka Buddhas are not, like the supreme Buddhas, teachers of mankind and omniscient
. Their knowledge is confined to what is necessary for their own salvation and perfection. They are
mentioned in the Nikâyas as worthy of all respect
but are not prominent in either the earlier or later works, which is only natural, seeing that by their very definition they are self-centred and of little importance for mankind. The idea of the private Buddha however is interesting, inasmuch as it implies that even when the four truths are not preached they still exist and can be discovered by anyone who makes the necessary mental and moral effort. It is also noticeable that the superiority of a supreme Buddha lies in his power to teach and help others. A passionless and self-centred sage falls short of the ideal.
[Footnote 1: The frontier seems to be about Long. 65° E.]
[Footnote 2: See Coedes's views about Śrîvijaya in B.E.F.E.O. 1918, 6. The inscriptions of Rajendracola I (1012-1042 A.D.) show that Hindus in India were not wholly ignorant of Indian conquests abroad.]
[Footnote 3: But the Japanese syllabaries were probably formed under Indian influence.]
[Footnote 4: Probably the Christian doctrine of the atonement or salvation by the death of a deity is an exception. I do not know of any Indian sect which holds a similar view. The obscure verse Rig Veda x. 13. 4 seems to hint at the self-sacrifice of a deity but the hymn about the sacrifice of Purusha (x. 90) has nothing to do with redemption or atonement.]
[Footnote 5: It is possible (though not, I think, certain) that the Buddha called his principal doctrines ariya in the sense of Aryan not of noble. But even the Blessed One may not have been infallible in ethnography. When we call a thing British we do not mean to refer it to the ancient Britons more than to the Saxons or Normans. And was the Buddha an Aryan? See V. Smith, Oxford History of India, p. 47 for doubts.]
[Footnote 6: This is not altogether true of the modern temple ritual.]
[Footnote 7: It is very unfortunate that English usage should make this word appear the same as Brahman, the name of a caste, and there is much to be said for using the old-fashioned word Brahmin to denote the caste, for it is clear, though not correct. In Sanskrit there are several similar words which are liable to be confused in English. In the nominative case they are:
(1) Brâhmanah, a man of the highest caste.
(2) Brâhmanam, an ancient liturgical treatise.
(3) Brahma, the Godhead, stem Brahman, neuter.
(4) Brahmâ, a masculine nominative also formed from the stem Brahman and used as the name of a personal deity.
For (3) the stem Brahman is commonly used, as being distinct from Brahmâ, though liable to be confounded with the name of the caste.]
[Footnote 8: For some years most scholars accepted the opinion that the Buddha died in 487 B.C. but the most recent researches into the history of the Saisunâga dynasty suggest that the date should be put back to 554 B.C. See Vincent Smith, Oxford History of India, p. 52.]
[Footnote 9: This is sometimes rendered simply by desire but desire in English is a vague word and may include feelings which do not come within the Pali tanhâ. The Buddha did not reprobate good desires. See Mrs Rhys David's Buddhism, p. 222 and E.R.E. s.v. Desire.]
[Footnote 10: It is practically correct to say that Buddhism was the first universal and missionary religion, but Mahâvira, the founder of the Jains and probably somewhat slightly his senior, is credited with the same wide view.]
[Footnote 11: It may be conveniently and correctly called Pali Buddhism. This is better than Southern Buddhism or Hînayâna, for the Buddhism of Java which lies even farther to the south is not the same and there were formerly Hînayânists in Central Asia and China.]
[Footnote 12: See Finot, J.A. 1912, n. 121-136.]
[Footnote 13: There is no Indian record of Bodhidharma's doctrine and its origin is obscure, but it seems to have been a compound of Buddhism and Vedantism.]
[Footnote 14: This is proved by coins and also by the Besnagar inscription.]
[Footnote 15: I do not think that this view is disproved by the fact that Patañjali and the scholiasts on Pânini allude to images for they also allude to Greeks. For the contrary view see Sten Konow in I.A. 1909, p. 145. The facts are (a) The ancient Brahmanic ritual used no images. (b) They were used by Buddhism and popular Hinduism about the fourth century B.C. (c) Alexander conquered Bactria in 329 B.C. But allowance must be made for the usages of popular and especially of Dravidian worship of which at this period we know nothing.]
[Footnote 16: Few now advocate an earlier date such as 58 B.C.]
[Footnote 17: His authorship of The Awakening of Faith must be regarded as doubtful.]
[Footnote 18: Much of the Ramayana and Mahabharata must have been composed during this period, both poems (especially the latter) consisting of several strata.]
[Footnote 19: E.g. the Vyûhas of the Pâncarâtras, the five Jinas of the Mahayanists and the five Sadâśiva tattvas. See Gopinâtha Rao, Elements of Indian Iconography, vol. III p. 363.]
[Footnote 20: I draw a distinction between Śâktism and Tantrism. The essence of Śâktism is the worship of a goddess with certain rites. Tantrism means rather the use of spells, gestures, diagrams and various magical or sacramental rites, which accompanies Śâktism but may exist without it.]
[Footnote 21: According to Census of India, 1911, Assam, p. 47, about 80,000 animists were converted to Hinduism in Goalpara between 1901 and 1911 by a Brahman called Sib Narayan Swami.]
[Footnote 22: It is said that in Burma Hindu settlers become absorbed in the surrounding Buddhists. Census of India, 1911, I. p. 120.]
[Footnote 23: The life and writings of Vasubandhu illustrate the transition from the Hina-to the Mahayana. In the earlier part of his life he wrote the Abhidharmakośa which is still used by Mahayanists in Japan as a text-book, though it does not go beyond Hinayanism. Later he became a Mahayanist and wrote Mahayanist works.]
[Footnote 24: As already mentioned, I think Śâktism is the more appropriate word but Tantrism is in common use by the best authorities.]
[Footnote 25: In India proper there are hardly any Buddhists now. The Kumbhipathias, an anti-Brahmanic sect in Orissa, are said to be based on Buddhist doctrines and a Buddhist mission in Mysore, called the Sakya Buddhist Society, has met with some success. See Census of India, 1911, i. pp. 122 and 126.]
[Footnote 26: See the quotation in Schomerus, Der Śaiva Siddhânta, p. 20 where a Saiva Hindu says that he would rather see India embrace Christianity than the doctrine of Śankara.]
[Footnote 27: Some think that the sect called Nimávats was earlier.]
[Footnote 28: The determination of his precise date offers some difficulties. See for further discussion Book v.]
[Footnote 29: The Kadianis and Chet Ramis in the N.W. Provinces are mentioned but even here the fusion seems to be chiefly between Islam and Christianity. See also the article Râdhâ Soârai in E.R.E.]
[Footnote 30: According to the Census of 1911.]
[Footnote 31: There are curious survivals of paganism in out of the way forms of Christianity. Thus animal sacrifices are not extinct among Armenians and Nestorians. See E.R.E. article "Prayer for the Dead" at the end.]
[Footnote 32: The Buddhism of Siam and Burma is similar but in Siam it is a mediæval importation and the early religious history of Burma is still obscure.]
[Footnote 33: Although stability is characteristic of the Hinayana its later literature shows a certain movement of thought phases of which are marked by the Questions of Milinda, Buddhaghosa's works and the Abhidhammattha Sangaha.]
[Footnote 34: E.g. the way a monastic robe should be worn and the Sîmâ.]
[Footnote 35: I believe this to be the orthodox explanation but it is open to many objections.
(1) It is a mere phrase. If to create means to produce something out of nothing, then we have never seen such an act and to ascribe a sudden appearance to such an act is really no explanation. Perhaps an act of imagination or a dream may justly be called a creation, but the relation between a soul and its Creator is not usually regarded as similar to the relation between a mind and its fancies.
(2) The responsibility of God for the evil of the world seems to be greatly increased, if he is directly responsible for every birth of a child in unhappy conditions.
(3) Animals are not supposed to have souls. Therefore the production of an animal's mind is not explained by this theory and it seems to be assumed that such a complex mind ag a dog's can be explained as a function of matter, whereas there is something in a child which cannot be so explained.
(4) If a new immortal soul is created every time a birth takes place, the universe must be receiving incalculably large additions. For some philosophies such an idea is impossible. (See Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 502. "The universe is incapable of increase. And to suppose a constant supply of new souls, none of which ever perished, would clearly land us in the end in an insuperable difficulty.") But even if we do not admit that it is impossible, it at least destroys all analogy between the material and spiritual worlds. If all the bodies that ever lived continued to exist separately after death, the congestion would be unthinkable. Is a corresponding congestion in the spiritual world really thinkable?]
[Footnote 36: This seems to be the view of the Chândogya Up. VI. 12. As the whole world is a manifestation ol Brahman, so is the great banyan tree a manifestation of the subtle essence which is also present in its minute seeds.]
[Footnote 37: The Brihad Ar. Up. knows of samsâra and karma but as matters of deep philosophy and not for the vulgar: but in the Buddhist Pitakas they are assumed as universally accepted. The doctrine must therefore have been popularized after the composition of the Upanishad. But some allowance must be made for the fact that the Upanishads and the earliest versions of the Buddhist Suttas were produced in different parts of India.]
[Footnote 38: Yet many instances are quoted from Celtic and Teutonic folklore to the effect that birds and butterflies are human souls, and Caesar's remarks about the Druids may not be wholly wrong.]
[Footnote 39: Several other Europeans of eminence have let their minds play with the ideas of metempsychosis, pre-existence and karma, as for instance Giordano Bruno, Swedenborg, Goethe, Lessing, Lavater, Herder, Schopenhauer, Ibsen, von Helmont, Lichtenberg and in England such different spirits as Hume and Wordsworth. It would appear that towards the end of the eighteenth century these ideas were popular in some literary circles on the continent. See Bertholet, The Transmigration of Souls, pp. 111 ff. Recently Professor McTaggart has argued in favour of the doctrine with great lucidity and persuasiveness. Huxley too did not think it absurd. See his Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics, Collected Essays, vol. IX. p. 61. As Deussen observes, Kant's argument which bases immortality on the realization of the moral law, attainable only by an infinite process of approximation, points to transmigration rather than immortality in the usual sense.]
[Footnote 40: The chemical elements are hardly an exception. Apparently they have no beginning and no end but there is reason to suspect that they have both.]
[Footnote 41: I know well-authenticated cases of Burmese and Indians thinking that the soul of a dead child had passed into an animal.]
[Footnote 42: Or again, when I wake up in the morning I am conscious of my identity because innumerable circumstances remind me of the previous day. But if I wake up suddenly in the night with a toothache which leaves room for no thought or feeling except the feeling of pain, is the fact that I experience the pain in any way lessened if for the moment I do not know who or where I am?]
[Footnote 43: I believe that a French savant, Colonel Rochas, has investigated in a scientific spirit cases in which hypnotized subjects profess to remember their former births and found that these recollections are as clear and coherent as any revelations about another world which have been made by Mrs Piper or other mediums. But I have not been able to obtain any of Col. Rochas's writings.]
[Footnote 44: I use the word soul merely for simplicity, but Buddhists and others might demur to this phraseology.]
[Footnote 45: But for a contrary view see Reincarnation, the Hope of the World by Irving S. Cooper. Even the Brihad Aran. Upan. (IV. 4. 3. 4) speaks of new births as new and more beautiful shapes which the soul fashions for itself as a goldsmith works a piece of gold.]
[Footnote 46: The increase of the human population of this planet does not seem to me a serious argument against the doctrine of rebirth for animals, and the denizens of other worlds may be supplying an increasing number of souls competent to live as human beings.]
[Footnote 47: Perhaps Russians in this as in many other matters think somewhat differently from other Europeans.]
[Footnote 48: Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 427. The chapter contains many striking instances of these experiences, collected mostly in the west.]
[Footnote 49: Compare St Teresa's Orison of Union, W. James, l.c. p. 408.]
[Footnote 50: Indian devotees understand how either Śiva or Krishna is all in all, and thus too St Teresa understood the mystery of the Trinity. See W. James, l.c. p. 411.]
[Footnote 51: Turîya or caturtha.]
[Footnote 52: Indians were well aware even in early times that such a state might be regarded as equivalent to annihilation. Br. Ar. Up. II. 4. 13; Chând. Up. VIII. ii. 1.]
[Footnote 53: The idea is not wholly strange to European philosophy. See the passage from the Phaedo quoted by Sir Alfred Lyall. "Thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—when she has as little as possible to do with the body and has no bodily sense or feeling, but is aspiring after being.">[
[Footnote 54: Mr Bradley (Appearance and Reality, p. 498) says "Spirit is a unity of the manifold in which the externality of the manifold has utterly ceased." This seems to me one of the cases in which Mr Bradley's thought shows an interesting affinity to Indian thought.]
[Footnote 55: But also sometimes purusha.]
[Footnote 56: Even when low class yogis display the tortures which they inflict on their bodies, their object I think is not to show what penances they undergo but simply that pleasure and pain are alike to them.]
[Footnote 57: The sense of human dignity was strongest among the early Buddhists. They (or some sects of them) held that an arhat is superior to a god (or as we should say to an angel) and that a god cannot enter the path of salvation and become an arhat.]
[Footnote 58: Cf. Bosanquet, Gifford Lectures, 1912, p. 78. "History is a hybrid form of experience incapable of any considerable degree of being or trueness. The doubtful story of successive events cannot amalgamate with the complete interpretation of the social mind, of art, or of religion. The great things which are necessary in themselves, become within the narrative contingent or ascribed by most doubtful assumptions of insight to this actor or that on the historical stage. The study of Christianity is the study of a great world experience: the assignment to individuals of a share in its development is a problem for scholars whose conclusions, though of considerable human interest, can never be of supreme importance.">[
[Footnote 59: The Chinese critic Hsieh Ho who lived in the sixth century of our era said: "In Art the terms ancient and modern have no place." This is exactly the Indian view of religion.]
[Footnote 60: The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 525-527 and A Pluralistic Universe, p. 310.]
[Footnote 61: And in Russia there are sects which prescribe castration and suicide.]
[Footnote 62: This, of course, does not apply to Buddhism in China, Japan and Tibet.]
[Footnote 63: This is not true of the more modern Upanishads which are often short treatises specially written to extol a particular deity or doctrine.]
[Footnote 64: Mahâparinibbâna sutta. See the table of parallel passages prefixed to Rhys Davids's translation, Dialogues of the Buddha, II. 72.]
[Footnote 65: Much the same is true of the various editions of the Vinaya and the Mahâvastu. These texts were produced by a process first of collection and then of amplification.]
[Footnote 66: The latter part of Mahâbhârata XII.]
[Footnote 67: Though European religions emphasize man's duty to God, they do not exclude the pursuit of happiness: e.g. Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647). Question 1, "What is the chief end of man? A. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever.">[
[Footnote 68: Mrs Rhys Davids has brought out the importance of the will for Buddhist ethics in several works. See J.R.A.S. 1898, p. 47 and Buddhism, pp. 221 ff. See also Maj. Nik. 19 for a good example of Buddhist views as to the necessity and method of cultivating the will.]
[Footnote 69: Kaush. Up. III. 8.]
[Footnote 70: The words are kâmacâra and akâmacâra. Chand. Up. 8. 1-6.]
[Footnote 71: Mahâvag. I. 6. E.g. Ajâtasattu (Dig. Nik. 2, ad fin.) would have obtained the eye of truth, had he not been a parricide. The consequent distortion of mind made higher states impossible.]
[Footnote 72: But all general statements about Hinduism are liable to exceptions. The evil spirit Duḥsaha described in the Mârkandeya Purâna (chaps. L and LI) comes very near the Devil.]
[Footnote 73: I can understand that the immediate reality is a duality or plurality and that the one spirit may appear in many shapes.]
[Footnote 74: E.g. Chand. Up. V. 1. 2. Bri. Ar. Up. I. 3. In the Pâñcarâtra we do hear of a jñânabhraṃsa or a fall from knowledge analogous to the fall of man in Christian theology. Souls have naturally unlimited knowledge but this from some reason becomes limited and obscured, so that religion is necessary to show the soul the right way. Here the ground idea seems to be not that any devil has spoilt the world but that ignorance is necessary for the world process, for otherwise mankind would be one with God and there would be no world. See Schrader, Introd. to the Pâncarâtra, pp. 78 and 83.]
[Footnote 75: The Śatapatha Brâhmana has a curious legend (XI. 1. 6. 8 ff.) in which the Creator admits that he made evil spirits by mistake and smites them. In the Kârikâ of Gauḍapâda, 2. 19 it is actually said: Mayaishâ tasya devasya yayâ sammohitaḥ svayam.]
[Footnote 76: He does not say this expressly and it requires careful statement in India where it is held strongly that God being perfect cannot add to his bliss or perfection by creating anything. Compare Dante, Paradiso, xxix. 13-18:
Non per aver a sè di bene acquisto,
ch' esser non può, ma perchè suo splendore
potesse risplendendo dir: subsisto.
In sua eternità di tempo fuore,
fuor d' ogni altro comprender, come i piacque,
s'aperse in nuovi amor l' eterno amore.]
[Footnote 77: The history of Japan and Tibet offers some exceptions.]
[Footnote 78: There are some exceptions, e.g. ancient Camboja, the Sikhs and the Marathas.]
[Footnote 79: But there are other kinds of worship, such as the old Vedic sacrifices which are still occasionally performed, and the burnt offerings (homa) still made in some temples. There are also tantric ceremonies and in Assam the public worship of the Vishnuites has probably been influenced by the ritual of Lamas in neighbouring Buddhist countries.]
[Footnote 80: This position is of great importance as tending to produce a similar arrangement of religious paraphernalia. The similarity disappears when Buddhist ceremonies are performed round Stûpas out of doors.]
[Footnote 81: As explained elsewhere, I draw a distinction between Tantrism and Śâktism.]
[Footnote 82: It does not seem to me to have given much inspiration to Rossetti in his Aatarte Syriaca.]
[Footnote 83: But in justice to the Tantras it should be mentioned that the Mahâ-nirvâṇa Tantra, x. 79, prohibits the burning of widows.]
[Footnote 84: See Asiatic Review, July, 1916, p. 33.]
[Footnote 85: E.g. Vijayanagar, the Marathas and the states of Rajputana.]
[Footnote 86: According to the census of 1911 no less than 72 per cent. of the population live by agriculture.]
[Footnote 87: The chief exceptions are: (a) the Tibetan church has acquired and holds power by political methods. It is an exact parallel to the Papacy, but it has never burnt people. (b) In mediæval Japan the great monasteries became fortified castles with lands and troops of their own. They fought one another and were a menace to the state. Later the Tokugawa sovereigns had the assistance of the Buddhist clergy in driving out Christianity but I do not think that their action can be compared either in extent or cruelty with the Inquisition. (c) In China Buddhism was in many reigns associated with a dissolute court and palace intrigues. This led to many scandals and great waste of money.]
[Footnote 88: See for instance Huxley's striking definition of Buddhism in his Romanes Lecture, 1893. "A system which knows no God in the western sense; which denies a soul to man: which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin: which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice: which bids men look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation: which in its original purity knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm: yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity and is still with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind." But some of this is too strongly phrased. Early Buddhism counted the desire for heaven as a hindrance to the highest spiritual life, but if a man had not attained to that plane and was bound to be reborn somewhere, it did not question that his natural desire to be reborn in heaven was right and proper.]
[Footnote 89: It may of course be denied that Buddhism is a religion. In this connection some remarks of Mr Bradley are interesting. "The doctrine that there cannot be a religion without a personal God is to my mind entirely false" (Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 432). "I cannot accept a personal God as the ultimate truth" (ib. 449). "There are few greater responsibilities which a man can take on himself than to have proclaimed or even hinted that without immortality all religion is a cheat, all morality a self-deception" (Appearance and Reality, p. 510).]
[Footnote 90: Mahâvaṃsa, xii. 29, xiv. 58 and 64. Dîpavaṃsa, xn. 84 and 85, xiii. 7 and 8.]
[Footnote 91: Essays in Criticism, Second Series, Amiel.]
[Footnote 92: This definition of orthodoxy is due to St Vincent of Lerins. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.]
[Footnote 93: I know that this statement may encounter objections, but I believe that few Indians would be surprised at the proposition that God is all things. Some might deny it, but as a familiar error.]
[Footnote 94: But orthodox Christianity really falls into the same difficulty. For if God planned the redemption of the world and we are saved by the death of Christ, then the Chief Priests, Judas, Pilate and the soldiers who crucified Christ are at least the instruments of salvation.]
[Footnote 95: Wm James, Psychology, pp. 203 and 216.]
[Footnote 96: I quote this epitome from Wildon Carr's Henri Bergson, The Philosophy of Change, because the phraseology is thoroughly Buddhist and appears to have the approval of M. Bergson himself.]
[Footnote 97: Romanes Lecture, 1893.]
[Footnote 98: Appearance, p. 298.]
[Footnote 99: Thus the Śvetâśvatara Up. says that the whole world is filled with the parts or limbs of God and metaphors like sparks from a fire or threads from a spider seem an attempt to express the same idea. Br. Ar. Up. 2. 1. 20; Mund. Up. 2. 1. 1.]
[Footnote 100: Appearance, p. 244; Essays on Truth, p. 409; Appearance, p. 413. Though the above quotations are all from Mr Bradley I might have added others from Mr Bosanquet's Gifford Lectures and from Mr McTaggart.]
[Footnote 101: "The plurality of souls in the Absolute is therefore appearance and their existence not genuine ... souls like their bodies, are as such nothing more than appearance—Neither (body and soul) is real in the end: each is merely phenomenal." Appearance, pp. 305-307.]
[Footnote 102: Since I wrote this I have read Mr Wells' book God the Invisible King. Mr Wells knows that he is indebted to oriental thought and thinks that European religion in the future may be so too, but I do not know if he realizes how nearly his God coincides with the Mahayanist conception of a Bodhisattva such as Avalokita or Mañjuśri. These great beings have, as Bodhisattvas, a beginning: they are not the creators of the world but masters and conquerors of it and helpers of mankind: they have courage and eternal youth and Mañjuśri "bears a sword, that clean discriminating weapon." Like most Asiatics, Mr Wells cannot allow his God to be crucified and he draws a distinction between God and the Veiled Being, very like that made by Indians between Îśvara and Brahman.]
[Footnote 103: The Malay countries are the only exception.]
[Footnote 104: Thus Motoori (quoted in Aston's Shintō, p. 9) says "Birds, beasts, plants and trees, seas and mountains and all other things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess are called Kami.">[
[Footnote 105: This impersonality is perhaps a later characteristic. The original form of the Chinese character for T'ien Heaven represented a man. The old Finnish and Samoyede names for God—Ukko and Num—perhaps belong to this stage of thought.]
[Footnote 106: See the account of the Faunus message in this book.]
[Footnote 107: The chief exception in Sanskrit is the Râjataranginî, a chronicle of Kashmir composed in 1148 A.D. There are also a few panegyrics of contemporary monarchs, such as the Harshacarita of Bâṇa, and some of the Puranas (especially the Matsya and Vâyu) contain historical material. See Vincent Smith, Early History of India, chap. I, sect. II, and Pargiter Dynasties of the Kali Age. The Greek and Roman accounts of Ancient India have been collected by McCrindle in six volumes 1877-1901.]
[Footnote 108: The inscriptions of the Chola Kings however (c. 1000 A.D.) seem to boast of conquests to the East of India. See Coedès "Le royaume de Çrîvijaya" in B.E.F.E.O. 1918]
[Footnote 109: Very different opinions have been held as to whether this date should be approximately 1500 B.C. or 3000 B.C. The strong resemblance of the hymns of the Ṛig Veda to those of the Avesta is in favour of the less ancient date, but the date of the Gathas can hardly be regarded as certain.]
[Footnote 110: Linguistically there seems to be two distinct divisions, the Dravidians and the Munda (Kolarian).]
[Footnote 111: The affinity between the Dravidian and Ural-Altaic groups of languages has often been suggested but has met with scepticism. Any adequate treatment of this question demands a comparison of the earliest forms known in both groups and as to this I have no pretension to speak. But circumstances have led me to acquire at different times some practical acquaintance with Turkish and Finnish as well as a slight literary knowledge of Tamil and having these data I cannot help being struck by the general similarity shown in the structure both of words and of sentences (particularly the use of gerunds and the constructions which replace relative sentences) and by some resemblances in vocabulary. On the other hand the pronouns and consequently the conjugation of verbs show remarkable differences. But the curious Brahui language, which is classed as Dravidian, has negative forms in which pa is inserted into the verb, as in Yakut Turkish, e.g. Yakut bis-pa-ppin, I do not cut; Brahui khan-pa-ra, I do not see. The plural of nouns in Brahui uses the suffixes k and t which are found in the Finnish group and in Hungarian.]
[Footnote 112: See the legend in the Śat. Brâh. I. 4. 1. 14 ff.]
[Footnote 113: This much seems sure but whereas European scholars were till recently agreed that he died about 487 B.C. it is now suggested that 543 may be nearer the true date. See Vincent Smith in Oxford History of India, 1920, p. 48.]
[Footnote 114: Pali Takkasila. Greek Taxila. It was near the modern Rawal Pindi and is frequently mentioned in the Jâtakas as an ancient and well-known place.]
[Footnote 115: Most of them are known by the title of Śâtakarṇi.]
[Footnote 116: But perhaps not in language. Recent research makes it probable that the Kushans or Yüeh-chih used an Iranian idiom.]
[Footnote 117: Fleet and Franke consider that Kanishka preceded the two Kadphises and began to reign about 58 B.C.]
[Footnote 118: He appears to have been defeated in these regions by the Chinese general Pan-Chao about 90 A.D. but to have been more successful about fifteen years later.]
[Footnote 119: Or Hephthalites. The original name seems to have been something like Haptal.]
[Footnote 120: Strabo XV. 4. 73.]
[Footnote 121: Hist. Nat. VI. 23. (26).]
[Footnote 122: For authorities see Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 1908, p. 401.]
[Footnote 123: The inscriptions of Asoka mention four kingdoms, Pândya, Keralaputra, Cola and Satiyaputra.]
[Footnote 124: Hinduism is often used as a name for the mediaeval and modern religion of India, and Brahmanism for the older pre-Buddhist religion. But one word is needed as a general designation for Indian religion and Hinduism seems the better of the two for this purpose.]
[Footnote 125: Excluding Burma the last Census gives over 300,000. These are partly inhabitants of frontier districts, which are Indian only in the political sense, and partly foreigners residing in India.]
[Footnote 126: Only tradition preserves the memory of an older and freer system, when warriors like Viśvâmitra were able by their religious austerities to become Brahmans. See Muir's Sanskrit texts, vol. I. pp. 296-479 on the early contests between Warriors and Brahmans. We hear of Kings like Janaka of Videha and Ajâtaśatru of Kâśi who were admitted to be more learned than Brahmans but also of Kings like Vena and Nahusha who withstood the priesthood "and perished through want of submissiveness." The legend of Paraśurâma, an incarnation of Vishnu as a Brahman who destroyed the Kshatriya race, must surely have some historical foundation, though no other evidence is forthcoming of the events which it relates.]
[Footnote 127: In southern India and in Assam the superiors of monasteries sometimes exercise a quasi-episcopal authority.]
[Footnote 128: Śat. Brâhm. v. 3. 3. 12 and v. 4. 2. 3.]
[Footnote 129: The Mârkaṇḍeya Purâṇa discusses the question how Kṛishṇa could become a man.]
[Footnote 130: See for instance The Holy Lives of the Azhvars by Alkondavilli Govindâcârya. Mysore, 1902, pp. 215-216. "The Dravida Vedas have thus as high a sanction and authority as the Girvana (i.e. Sanskrit) Vedas.">[
[Footnote 131: I am inclined to believe that the Lingâyat doctrine really is that Lingâyats dying in the true faith do not transmigrate any more.]
[Footnote 132: E.g. Brih.-Âr. III. 2. 13 and IV. 4. 2-6.]
[Footnote 133: This is the accepted translation of dukkha but perhaps it is too strong, and uneasiness, though inconvenient for literary reasons, gives the meaning better.]
[Footnote 134: The old Scandinavian literature with its gods who must die is equally full of this sense of impermanence, but the Viking temperament bade a man fight and face his fate.]
[Footnote 135: But see Rabindrannath Tagore: Sadhana, especially the Chapter on Realization.]
[Footnote 136: Cf. Shelley's lines in Hellas:—
"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever
From creation to decay,
Like the bubbles on a river
Sparkling, bursting, borne away."
]
[Footnote 137: Nevertheless deva is sometimes used in the Upanishads as a designation of the supreme spirit.]
[Footnote 138: E.g. Brih.-Âr. Up. IV. 3. 33 and the parallel passages in the Taittirîya and other Upanishads.]
[Footnote 139: The principal one is the date of Asoka, deducible from an inscription in which he names contemporary Seleucid monarchs.]
[Footnote 140: E.g. a learned Brahman is often described in the Sutta Pitaka as "a repeater (of the sacred words) knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who had mastered the three Vedas, with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, the exegesis and the legends as a fifth.">[
[Footnote 141: There had been time for misunderstandings to arise. Thus the S^{.}atapatha Brâhmana sees in the well-known verse "who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifices" an address to a deity named Ka (Sanskrit for who) and it would seem that an old word, uloka, has been separated in several passages into two words, u (a meaningless particle) and loka.]
[Footnote 142: Recent scholars are disposed to fix the appearance of Zoroaster between the middle of the seventh century and the earlier half of the sixth century B.C. But this date offers many difficulties. It makes it hard to explain the resemblances between the Gathas and the Rig Veda and how is it that respectable classical authorities of the fourth century B.C. quoted by Pliny attribute a high antiquity to Zoroaster?]
[Footnote 143: This applies chiefly to the three Samhitâs or collections of hymns and prayers. On the other hand there was no feeling against the composition of new Upanishads or the interpolation and amplification of the Epics.]
[Footnote 144: The Hotri recites prayers while other priests perform the act of sacrifice. But there are several poems in the Rig Veda for which even Indian ingenuity has not been able to find a liturgical use.]
[Footnote 145: Thus the Pali Pitakas speak of the Tevijjâ or threefold knowledge of the Brahmans.]
[Footnote 146: Or it may be that the ancestors of the Persians were also in the Panjab and retired westwards.]
[Footnote 147: R.V. v. 3. 1.]
[Footnote 148: See the Gaṇeśâtharvaśîrsha Upan. and Gopinatha Rao. Hindu Iconography, vol. I. pp. 35-67.]
[Footnote 149: See R.V. III. 34. 9. i. 130. 8; iv. 26. 2. vi. 18. 3; iv. 16. 13.]
[Footnote 150: In one singular hymn (R.V. x. 119) Indra describes his sensations after drinking freely, and in the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 5. 4. 9 and XII. 7. 1. 11) he seems to be represented as suffering from his excesses and having to be cured by a special ceremony.]
[Footnote 151: In some passages of the Upanishads he is identified with the âtman (e.g. Kaushitaki Up. III. 8), but then all persons, whether divine or human, are really the âtman if they only knew it.]
[Footnote 152: A.V. IV. 16. 2.]
[Footnote 153: The Indian alphabets are admittedly Semitic in origin.]
[Footnote 154: See Mahâbhâr. I. xvii-xviii and other accounts in the Râmâyaṇa and Purâṇas.]
[Footnote 155: It has also been conjectured that Sk. Asura=Ashur, the God of Assyria, and that Sumeru or Sineru (Meru)=Sumer or Shinar, see J.R.A.S. 1916, pp. 364-5.]
[Footnote 156: Ṛig V. I. 164. 46.]
[Footnote 157: For instance chap. III. of the Chândogya Upanishad, which compares the solar system to a beehive in which the bees are Vedic hymns, is little less than stupendous, though singular and hard for European thought to follow.]
[Footnote 158: I presume that the strong opinion expressed in Caland and Henri's Agnishloma p. 484 that the sacrifice is merely a do ut des operation refers only to the earliest Vedic period and not to the time of the Brâhmaṇas.]
[Footnote 159: Thus both the Vedas and the Tantras devote considerable space to rites which have for object the formation of a new body for the sacrificer. Compare for instance the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (I. 18-21: II. 35-38: III. 2 and VI. 27-31) with Avalon's account of Nyâsa, in his introduction to the Mahânirvâṇa Tantra pages cvii-cxi.]
[Footnote 160: There is considerable doubt as to what was the plant originally known as Soma. That described in the Vedas and Brâhmanas is said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong smell, fiery taste and intoxicating properties. The plants used as Haom (Hum) by the modern Parsis of Yezd and Kerman are said to be members of the family Asclepiadaceae (perhaps of the genus Sarcostemma) with fleshy stalks and milky juice, and the Soma tested by Dr Haug at Poona was probably made from another species of the same or an allied genus. He found it extremely nasty, though it had some intoxicating effect. (See his Aitareya Brdh-mana n. p. 489.)]
[Footnote 161: An ordinary sacrifice was offered for a private person who had to be initiated and the priests were merely officiants acting on his behalf. In a Sattra the priests were regarded as the sacrificers and were initiated. It had some analogy to Buddhist and Christian monastic foundations for reading sûtras and saying masses.]
[Footnote 162: The political importance of the Aśvamedha lay in the fact that the victim had to be let loose to roam freely for a year, so that only a king whose territories were sufficiently extensive to allow of its being followed and guarded during its wanderings could hope to sacrifice it at the end.]
[Footnote 163: R.V. x. 136 and x. 190.]
[Footnote 164: Even the Upanishads (e.g. Chând. III. 17, Mahânâr. 64) admit that a good life which includes tapas is the equivalent of sacrifice. But this of course is teaching for the elect only. The Brih.-Âran. Up. (V. ii) contains the remarkable doctrine that sickness and pain, if regarded by the sufferer as tapas, bring the same reward.]
[Footnote 165: So too in the Taittirîya Upanishad tapas is described as the means of attaining the knowledge of Brahman (III. 1-5).]
[Footnote 166: Any ritual without knowledge may be worse than useless. See Chând. Up. I. 10. 11.]
[Footnote 167: See the various narratives in the Chândogya, Br.-Âran. and Kaushîtaki Upanishads. The seventh chapter of the Chândogya relating how Nârada, the learned sage, was instructed by Sanatkumâra or Skanda, the god of war, seems to hint that the active military class may know the great truths of religion better than deeply read priests who may be hampered and blinded by their learning. For Skanda and Nârada in this connection see Bhagavad-gitâ x. 24, 26.]
[Footnote 168: For the necessity of a teacher see Kâth. Up. II. 8.]
[Footnote 169: See especially the bold passage at the end of Taitt. Upan. II. "He who knows the bliss of Brahman ... fears nothing. He does not torment himself by asking what good have I left undone, what evil have I done?">[
[Footnote 170: The word Upanishad probably means sitting down at the feet of a teacher to receive secret instruction: hence a secret conversation or doctrine.]
[Footnote 171: Some allusions in the older Upanishads point to this district rather than the Ganges Valley as the centre of Brahmanic philosophy. Thus the Brịhad-Âraṇyaka speaks familiarly of Gândhâra.]
[Footnote 172: Cat. Adyar Library. The Ṛig and Sâma Vedas have two Upanishads each, the Yajur Veda seven. All the others are described as belonging to the Atharva Veda. They have no real connection with it, but it was possible to add to the literature of the Atharva whereas it was hardly possible to make similar additions to the older Vedas.]
[Footnote 173: Debendranath Tagore composed a work which he called the Brâhmî Upanishad in 1848. See Autobiography, p. 170. The sectarian Upanishads are of doubtful date, but many were written between 400 and 1200 A.D. and were due to the desire of new sects to connect their worship with the Veda. Several are Śaktist (e.g. Kaula, Tripurâ, Devî) and many others show Śaktist influence. They usually advocate the worship of a special deity such as Gaṇeśa, Sûrya, Râma, Nṛi Siṃha.]
[Footnote 174: Br.-Âran. VI. 1, Ait. Âran. II. 4, Kaush. III. 3, Praśna, II. 3, Chând. V. 1. The apologue is curiously like in form to the classical fable of the belly and members.]
[Footnote 175: Br.-Âran. VI. 2, Chând. V. 3]
[Footnote 176: Br.-Âran. II. 1, Kaush. IV. 2.]
[Footnote 177: The composite structure of these works is illustrated very clearly by the Bṛihad-Âraṇyaka. It consists of three sections each concluding with a list of teachers, namely (a) adhyâyas 1 and 2, (b) adh. 3 and 4, (c) adh. 5 and 6. The lists are not quite the same, which indicates some slight difference between the sub-schools which composed the three parts, and a lengthy passage occurs twice in an almost identical form. The Upanishad is clearly composed of two separate collections with the addition of a third which still bears the title of Khila or supplement. The whole work exists in two recensions.]
[Footnote 178: The Eleven translated in the Sacred Books of the East, vols. I and XV, include the oldest and most important.]
[Footnote 179: Thus the Aitareya Brâhmana is followed by the Aitareya Âraṇyaka and that by the Aitareya-Âraṇyaka-Upanishad.]
[Footnote 180: R.V. X. 121. The verses are also found in the Atharva Veda, the Vâjasaneyi, Taittirîya, Maitrâyaṇi, and Kâṭhaka Saṃhitâs and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 181: R.V. X. 129.]
[Footnote 182: IV. 5. 5 and repeated almost verbally II. 4. 5 with some omissions. My quotation is somewhat abbreviated and repetitions are omitted.]
[Footnote 183: The sentiment is perhaps the same as that underlying the words attributed to Florence Nightingale: "I must strive to see only God in my friends and God in my cats.">[
[Footnote 184: It will be observed that he had said previously that the Âtman must be seen, heard, perceived and known. This is an inconsistent use of language.]
[Footnote 185: Chândogya Upanishad VI.]
[Footnote 186: In the language of the Upanishads the Âtman is often called simply Tat or it.]
[Footnote 187: I.e. the difference between clay and pots, etc. made of clay.]
[Footnote 188: Yet the contrary proposition is maintained in this same Upanishad (III. 19. 1), in the Taittirîya Upanishad (II. 8) and elsewhere. The reason of these divergent statements is of course the difficulty of distinguishing pure Being without attributes from not Being.]
[Footnote 189: The word union is a convenient but not wholly accurate term which covers several theories. The Upanishads sometimes speak of the union of the soul with Brahman or its absorption in Brahman (e.g. Maitr. Up. VI. 22, Sâyujyatvam and aśabde nidhanam eti) but the soul is more frequently stated to be Brahman or a part of Brahman and its task is not to effect any act of union but simply to know its own nature. This knowledge is in itself emancipation. The well-known simile which compares the soul to a river flowing into the sea is found in the Upanishads (Chând. VI. 10. 1, Mund. III. 2, Praśna, VI. 5) but Śankara (on Brahma S. I. iv. 21-22) evidently feels uneasy about it. From his point of view the soul is not so much a river as a bay which is the sea, if the landscape can be seen properly.]
[Footnote 190: The Mâṇḍukya Up. calls the fourth state ekâtmapratyayasâra, founded solely on the certainty of its own self and Gauḍapâda says that in it there awakes the eternal which neither dreams nor sleeps. (Kâr. I. 15. See also III. 34 and 36.)]
[Footnote 191: Bṛ.-Âraṇyaka, IV. 3. 33.]
[Footnote 192: Cf. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 244. "The perfect ... means the identity of idea and existence, attended also by pleasure.">[
[Footnote 193: Tait. Up. II. 1-9. See too ib. III. 6.]
[Footnote 194: Bṛ.-Âran. III. 8. 10. See too VI. 2.15, speaking of those who in the forest worship the truth with faith.]
[Footnote 195: Chândog. Up. IV. 10. 5.]
[Footnote 196: It occurs Katha. Up. II. v. 13, 15, also in the Śvetâśvatara and Muṇḍaka Upanishads and there are similar words in the Bhagavad-gîtâ. "This is that" means that the individual soul is the same as Brahman.]
[Footnote 197: The Nṙisiṁhottaratapanîya Up. I. says that Îśvara is swallowed up in the Turîya.]
[Footnote 198: But still ancient and perhaps anterior to the Christian era.]
[Footnote 199: Śvet. Up. VI. 7.]
[Footnote 200: Śvet. Up. IV. 3. Max Müller's translation. The commentary attributed to Śankara explains nîlaḣ pataṅgaḣ as bhramaraḣ but Deussen seems to think it means a bird.]
[Footnote 201: Chând. Up. vi. 14. 1. Śat. Brâh. viii. 1. 4. 10.]
[Footnote 202: The Brahmans are even called low-born as compared with Kshatriyas and in the Ambattha Sutta (Dig. Nik. iii.) the Buddha demonstrates to a Brahman who boasts of his caste that the usages of Hindu society prove that "the Kshatriyas are higher and the Brahmans lower," seeing that the child of a mixed union between the castes is accepted by the Brahmans as one of themselves but not by the Kshatriyas, because he is not of pure descent.]
[Footnote 203: He had learnt the Veda and Upanishads. Brih.-Âr. iv. 2. 1.]
[Footnote 204: Chând. Up. v. 3. 7, Kaush. Up. iv., Brih.-Âr. Up. ii. 1. The Kshatriyas seem to have regarded the doctrine of the two paths which can be taken by the soul after death (devayâna and pitriyâna, the latter involving return to earth and transmigration) as their special property.]
[Footnote 205: Literally set in front, præfectus.]
[Footnote 206: Śat. Brâh. ii. 4. 4. 5.]
[Footnote 207: Śat. Brâh. iv. 1. 4. 1-6.]
[Footnote 208: The legends of Vena, Paraśurâma and others indicate the prevalence of considerable hostility between Brahmans and Kshatriyas at some period.]
[Footnote 209: Brahmacârin, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, Sannyâsin.]
[Footnote 210: Thus in the Bṛih.-Âraṇ. Yajñavalkya retires to the forest. But even the theory of three stages was at this time only in the making, for the last section of the Chândogya Up. expressly authorizes a religious man to spend all his life as a householder after completing his studentship and the account given of the stages in Chând. ii. 21 is not very clear.]
[Footnote 211: Śat. Brâh. xi. 5. 6. 8. Cf. the lists in the Chândogya Upanishad vii. secs. 1, 2 and 7.]
[Footnote 212: In southern India at the present day it is the custom for Brahmans to live as Agnihotris and maintain the sacred fire for a few days after their marriage.]
[Footnote 213: See Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, vol. v. s.v.]
[Footnote 214: The Emperor Jehangir writing about 1616 implies that the Aśramas, which he describes, were observed by the Brahmans of that time. See his Memoirs, edited by Beveridge, pp. 357-359.]
[Footnote 215: Śat. Brâh. I. 7. 2. 1. Cf. Tait. Brâh. VI. 3. 10. 5.]
[Footnote 216: Such as those built by Jânaśruti Pautrâyaṇa. See Chând. Up. IV. 1.]
[Footnote 217: Śat. Brâh. XI. 4. 1. 1.]
[Footnote 218: Śat. Brâh. ii. 2. 2. 6 and iv. 3. 4. 4.]
[Footnote 219: Śat. Brâh. iv. 3. 4. 2.]
[Footnote 220: Vishnu Pur. iii. 5.]
[Footnote 221: Śat. Brâh. iii. 8. 2. 24. Yâjñavalkya is the principal authority cited in books i-v and x-xiv of this Brâhmaṇa, but not in books vi-ix, which perhaps represent an earlier treatise incorporated in the text.]
[Footnote 222: Or "in confidence." Śat. Brâh. xi. 3. 1. 4.]
[Footnote 223: Brih.-Âr. iii. 2. 13.]
[Footnote 224: In the Pali Pitaka the Buddha is represented as preaching in the land of the Kurus.]
[Footnote 225: These are the Pali forms. The Sanskrit equivalents are Parivrâjaka and Śramaṇa.]
[Footnote 226: See for instance Mahâv. II. 1 and III. 1.]
[Footnote 227: Dig. Nik. 1.]
[Footnote 228: See O. Schrader, Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahâvîras und Buddhas, 1902.
See also Ang. Nik. vol. III. p. 276 and Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, I. pp. 220 ff. But these passages give one an impression of the multitude of ascetic confraternities rather than a clear idea of their different views.]
[Footnote 229: It finds expression in two hymns of the Atharva Veda, XIX. 53 and 54. Cf. too Gauḍap. Kâr. 8. Kâlât prasûtim bhutânâm manyante kâlacintakâh.]
[Footnote 230: Dîgha Nikâya II. The opinions of the six teachers are quoted as being answers to a question put to them by King Ajâtasattu, namely, What is gained by renouncing the world? Judged as such, they are irrelevant but they probably represent current statements as to the doctrine of each sect. The six teachers are also mentioned in several other passages of the Dîgha and Maj. Nikâyas and also in the Sutta-Nipâta. It is clear that at a very early period the list of their names had become the usual formula for summarizing the teaching prevalent in the time of Gotama which was neither Brahmanic nor Buddhist.]
[Footnote 231: Dig. Nik. I. 23-28.]
[Footnote 232: A rather defiant materialism preaching, "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die," crops up in India in various ages though never very prominent.]
[Footnote 233: But possibly the ascetics described by it were only Digambara Jains.]
[Footnote 234: See especially the article Âjîvikas by Hoernle, in Hastings' Dictionary of Religion. Also Hoernle, Uvâsagadasao, appendix, pp. 1-29. Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, pp. 249 ff. Schrader, Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahâvíras und Buddhas, p. 32. Sûtrakritânga II. 6.]
[Footnote 235: Makkhali lived some time with Mahâvira, but they quarrelled. But his followers, though they may not have been a united body so much as other sects, had definite characteristics.]
[Footnote 236: E.g. Śat. Brâh. v. 4. 4. 13. "He thus encloses the Vaiśya and Śûdra on both sides by the priesthood and nobility and makes them submissive.">[
[Footnote 237: See Śânkhâyana Âraṇyaka. Trans. Keith, pp. viii-xi, 78 85. Also Aitareya Âraṇ. book v.]
[Footnote 238: Cf. the ritual for the Horse sacrifice. ['Sat]. Brâh, xiii. 2. 8, and Hillebrandt, Vedische Opfer., p. 152.]
[Footnote 239: Supplemented by the Kauśika Sûtra, which, whatever its age may be, has preserved a record of very ancient usages.]
[Footnote 240: E.g. I. 10. This hymn, like many others, seems to combine several moral and intellectual stages, the level at which the combination was possible not being very high. On the one hand Varuṇa is the Lord of Law and of Truth who punishes moral offences with dropsy. On the other, the sorcerer "releases" the patient from Varuṇa by charms, without imposing any moral penance, and offers the god a thousand other men, provided that this particular victim is released.]
[Footnote 241: E.g. VII. 116, VI. 105, VI. 83.]
[Footnote 242: E.g. V. 7, XI. 9.]
[Footnote 243: E.g. V. 4, XIX. 39, IV. 37, II. 8, XIX. 34, VIII. 7.]
[Footnote 244: A.V XI. 6.]
[Footnote 245: See, for instance, Du Bose, The Dragon, Image and Demon, 1887, pp. 320-344.]
[Footnote 246: Aṭânâṭiya and Mahâsamaya. Dig. Nik. XX. and XXXII.]
[Footnote 247: See Crooke's Popular Religion of Northern India, vol. II. chap. ii.]
[Footnote 248: In the Brahma-Jala and subsequent suttas of the Dîgha Nikâya.]
[Footnote 249: See Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. I. p. 7, note 4, and authorities there quoted.]
[Footnote 250: Krishna is perhaps mentioned in the Chând. Up. III. 17. 6, but in any case not as a deity.]
[Footnote 251: See, besides the translations mentioned below, Bühler, Ueber die indische Secte der Jainas 1887; Hoernle, Metaphysics and Ethics of the Jainas 1908; and Guérinot, Essai de Bibliographie Jaina and Répertoire d'Épigraphie Jaina; Jagmanderlal Jaini, Outlines of Jainism; Jacobi's article Jainism in E.R.E.. Much information may also be found in Mrs Stevenson's Heart of Jainism. Winternitz, Geschichte d. Indischen Literatur, vol. II. part II. (1920) treats of Jain literature but I have not been able to see it.]
[Footnote 252: In J.R.A.S. 1917, pp. 122-130 s.v. Venkateśvara argues that Vardhamâna died about 437 B.C. and that the Nigaṇṭhas of the Pitakas were followers of Parśva. His arguments deserve consideration but he seems not to lay sufficient emphasis on the facts that (a) according to the Buddhist scriptures the Buddha and Gosâla were contemporaries, while according to the Jain scriptures Gosâla and Vardhamâna were contemporaries, (b) in the Buddhist scriptures Nâtaputta is the representative of the Nigaṇṭhas, while according to the Jain scriptures Vardhamâna was of the Ñata clan.]
[Footnote 253: The atoms are either simple or compound and from their combinations are produced the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water, and the whole material universe. For a clear statement of the modern Jain doctrine about dharma and adharma, see Jagmanderlal Jaini, l.c. pp. 22 ff.]
[Footnote 254: Jîva, ajîva, âsrava, bandha, saṃvara, nirjarâ, moksha. The principles are sometimes made nine by the addition of punya, merit, and pâpa, sin.]
[Footnote 255: Paudgalikam karma. It would seem that all these ideas about Karma should be taken in a literal and material sense. Karma, which is a specially subtle form of matter able to enter, stain and weigh down the soul, is of eight kinds (1 and 2) jñâna- and darśana-varanîya impede knowledge and faith, which the soul naturally possesses; (3) mohanîya causes delusion; (4) vedanîya brings pleasure and pain; (5) ayushka fixes the length of life; (6) nâma furnishes individual characteristics, and (7) gotra generic; (8) antarâya hinders the development of good qualities.]
[Footnote 256: Kevalam also called Jñâna, moksha, nirvâṇa. The nirvâṇa of the Jains is clearly not incompatible with the continuance of intelligence and knowledge.]
[Footnote 257: Uttarâdhyâyana XXXVI. 64-68 in S.B.E. XLV. pp. 212-213.]
[Footnote 258: S.B.E. XLV. p. xxvii. Bhandarkar Report for 1883-4, pp. 95 ff.]
[Footnote 259: Somewhat similar seems to be the relation of Jainism to the Vaiśeshika philosophy. It accepted an early form of the atomic theory and this theory was subsequently elaborated in the philosophy whose founder Kaṇâda was according to the Jains a pupil of a Jain ascetic.]
[Footnote 260: E.g. see Acarânga S. I. 7. 6.]
[Footnote 261: They seem to have authority to formulate it in a form suitable to the needs of the age. Thus we are told that Parśva enjoined four vows but Mahâvîra five.]
[Footnote 262: When Gotama after attaining Buddhahood was on his way to Benares he met Upaka, a naked ascetic, to whom he declared that he was the Supreme Buddha. Then, said Upaka, you profess to be the Jina, and Gotama replied that he did, "Tasmâ 'ham Upakâ jinoti." (Mahâvag. I. 6. 10.)]
[Footnote 263: The exact period is 100 billion sâgaras of years. A sâgara is 100,000,000,000 palyas. A palya is the period in which a well a mile deep filled with fine hairs can be emptied if one hair is withdrawn every hundred years.]
[Footnote 264: See M. Bloomfield, Life and Stories of Pârçvanâtha (1919).]
[Footnote 265: See the discussions between followers of Parśva and Mahâvîra given in Uttarâdhyâyana XXIV. and Sûtrakritânga II. 7.]
[Footnote 266: There are many references to the Nigaṇṭhas in the Buddhist scriptures and the Buddha, while by no means accepting their views, treats them with tolerance. Thus he bade Siha, General of the Licchavis, who became his disciple after being an adherent of Nâtaputta to continue to give alms as before to Nigaṇṭha ascetics (Mahâvag. VI. 32).]
[Footnote 267: Especially among the Âjîvikas. Their leader Gosâla had a personal quarrel with Mahâvîra but his teaching was almost identical except that he was a fatalist.]
[Footnote 268: Uttarâdhyâyana. XXIII. 29.]
[Footnote 269: According to Śvetâmbara tradition there was a great schism 609 years after Mahâvîra's death. The canon was not fixed until 904 (? 454 A.D.) of the same era. The Digambara traditions are different but appear to be later.]
[Footnote 270: See especially Guérinot, Répertoire d'Éipigraphie Jaina]
[Footnote 271: So Bühler, Pillar Edict no. VIII. Senart Inscrip. de Piyadasi II. 97 translates somewhat differently, but the reference to the Jains is not disputed.]
[Footnote 272: Rock Edict VI.]
[Footnote 273: Rice (Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions, 1909, p. 310) thinks that certain inscriptions at Sravana Belgola in Mysore establish that this tradition is true and also that the expedition was accompanied by King Candragupta who had abdicated and become a Jain ascetic. But this interpretation has been much criticised. It is probably true that a migration occurred and increased the differences which ultimately led to the division into Śvetâmbaras and Digambaras.]
[Footnote 274: Guérinot, Épig. Jaina, no. 11.]
[Footnote 275: Rice, Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions, 1909, pp. 113-114, 207-208.]
[Footnote 276: Similar tolerance is attested by inscriptions (e.g. Guérinot, nos. 522 and 5776) recording donations to both Jain and Saiva temples.]
[Footnote 277: They also make a regular practice of collecting and rearing young animals which the owners throw away or wish to kill.]
[Footnote 278: Or Sthânakavâsi. See for them Census of India, 1911, 1. p. 127 and Baroda, p. 93. The sect waa founded about A.D. 1653.]
[Footnote 279: Their names are as follows in Jain Prakrit, the Sanskrit equivalent being given in bracketa:
1. *Âyârângasuttam (Âcârânga).
2.*Sûyagadangam (Sûtrakṛitângam).
3. Thânangam (Sthâ.).
4. Samavâyangam.
5. Viyâhapaññatti (Vyâkhyâprajnâpti). This work is commonly known as the Bhagavatî.
6. Ñâyâdhammakahâo (Jñâtadharmakathâ).
7. *Uvâsagadasao (Upâsakadasâh).
8. *Antagadadasao (Antakritad.).
9. *Anuttarovavâidasâo (Anuttaraupapâtikad.).
10. Panhâvâgaranâim (Prasnavyakaraṇâni).
11. Vivâgasuyam (Vipâkasrutam).
The books marked with an asterisk have been translated by Jacobi (S.B.E. vols. XXII. and XIV.), Hoernle and Barnett. See too Weber, Indischie Studien, Bd. XVI. pp. 211-479 and Bd. XVIII. pp. 1-90.]
[Footnote 280: It is called Ârsha or Ardha-Mâgadhi and is the literary form of the vernacular of Berar in the early centuries of the Christian era. See H. Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Maharashtri, and introduction to edition of Ayarânga-sutta.]
[Footnote 281: The titles given in note 2 illustrate aome of its peculiarities.]
[Footnote 282: When I visited Sravana Belgola in 1910, the head of the Jains there, who professed to be a Digambara, though dressed in purple raiment, informed me that their sacred works were partly in Sanskrit and partly in Prakrit. He showed me a book called Trilokasâra.]
[Footnote 283: But see Jagmanderlal Jaini, l.c. appendix V.]
[Footnote 284: Compare for instance Uttarâdyayana X., XXIII. and XXV. with the Sutta-Nipâta and Dhammapada.]
[Footnote 285: I have only visited establishments in towns. Possibly Yatis who follow a severer rule may be found in the country, especially among Digambaras.]
[Footnote 286: In Gujarat they are called Cho-mukhji and it is said that when a Tîrthankara preached in the midst of his audience each side saw him facing them. In Burma the four figures are generally said to be the last four Buddhas.]
[Footnote 287: This seems clear from the presence in Burma of the curvilinear sikra and even of copies of Indian temples, e.g. of Bodh-Gaya at Pagan. Burmese pilgrims to Gaya might easily have visited Mt Parasnath on their way.]
[Footnote 288: I have this information from the Jain Guru at Sravana Belgola. He said that Gomateśvara (who seems unknown to the Śvetâmbaras) waa a Kevalin but not a Tîrthankara.]
[Footnote 289: Two others, rather smaller, are known, one at Karkâl (dated 1431) and one at Yannur. These images are honoured at occasional festivals (one was held at Sravana Belgola in 1910) attended by a considerable concourse of Jains. The type of the statues is not Buddhist. They are nude and represent sages meditating in a standing position whereas Buddhists prescribe a sitting posture for meditation.]
[Footnote 290: The mountain of Satrunjaya rises above Palitâna, the capital of a native state in Gujarat. Other collections of temples are found on the hill of Parasnath in Bengal, at Sonâgir near Datiâ, and Muktagiri near Gâwîlgarh. There are also a good many on the hills above Rajgîr.]
[Footnote 291: The strength of Buddhism in Burma and Siam is no doubt largely due to the fact that custom obliges every one to spend part of his life—if only a few days—as a member of the order.]
[Footnote 292: One might perhaps add to this list the Skoptsy of Russia and the Armenian colonies in many European and Asiatic towns.]
[Footnote 293: Throughout this book I have not hesitated to make use of the many excellent translations of Pali works which have been published. Students of Indian religion need hardly be reminded how much our knowledge of Pali writings and of early Buddhism owes to the labours of Professor and Mrs Rhys Davids.]
[Footnote 294: Sanskrit Sûtra, Pali Sutta. But the use of the words is not quite the same in Buddhist and Brahmanic literature. A Buddhist sutta or sûtra is a discourse, whether in Pali or in Sanskrit; a Brahmanic sûtra is an aphorism. But the 227 divisions of the Pâtimokkha are called Suttas, so that the word may have been originally used in Pali to denote short statements of a single point. The longer Suttas are often called Suttanta.]
[Footnote 295: E.g. Maj. Nik. 123 about the marvels attending the birth of a Buddha.]
[Footnote 296: See some further remarks on this subject at the end of chap. XIII. (on the Canon).]
[Footnote 297: Also Sakya or Sakka. The Sanskrit form is Śâkya.]
[Footnote 298: See among other passages the Ambaṭṭha Sutta of the Dîgha Nikâya in which Ambattha relates how he saw the Sâkyas, old and young, sitting on grand seats in this hall.]
[Footnote 299: But in Cullavagga VII. 1 Bhaddiya, a cousin of the Buddha who is described as being the Râjâ at that time, says when thinking of renouncing the world "Wait whilst I hand over the kingdom to my sons and my brothers," which seems to imply that the kingdom was a family possession. Rajja perhaps means Consulship in the Roman sense rather than kingdom.]
[Footnote 300: E.g. the Sonadaṇḍa and Kûṭadanta Suttas of the Dîgha Nikâya.]
[Footnote 301: Sanskrit Kapilavastu: red place or red earth.]
[Footnote 302: Tradition is unanimous that he died in his eightieth year and hitherto it has been generally supposed that this was about 487 B.C., so that he would have been born a little before 560. But Vincent Smith now thinks that he died about 543 B.C. See J.R.A.S. 1918, p. 547. He was certainly contemporary with kings Bimbisâra and Ajâtasattu, dying in the reign of the latter. His date therefore depends on the chronology of the Śaisunâga and Nanda dynasties, for which new data are now available.]
[Footnote 303: It was some time before the word came to mean definitely the Buddha. In Udâna 1.5, which is not a very early work, a number of disciples including Devadatta are described as being all Buddhâ.]
[Footnote 304: The Chinese translators render this word by Ju-lai (he who has come thus). As they were in touch with the best Indian tradition, this translation seems to prove that Tathâgata is equivalent to Tathâ-âgata not to Tâtha-gata and the meaning must be, he who has come in the proper manner; a holy man who conforms to a type and is one in a series of Buddhas or Jinas.]
[Footnote 305: See the article on the neighbouring country of Magadha in Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index.]
[Footnote 306: Cf. the Ratthapâla-sutta.]
[Footnote 307: Mahâv. I. 54. 1.]
[Footnote 308: Devadûtavagga. Ang. Nik. III. 35.]
[Footnote 309: But the story is found in the Mahâpadâna-sutta. See also Winternitz, J.R.A.S. 1911, p. 1146.]
[Footnote 310: He mentions that he had three palaces or houses, for the hot, cold and rainy seasons respectively, but this is not necessarily regal for the same words are used of Yasa, the son of a Treasurer (Mahâv. 1. 7. 1) and Anuruddha, a Sâkyan noble (Cullav. VII. 1. 1).]
[Footnote 311: In the Sonadaṇḍa-sutta and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 312: The Pabbajjâ-sutta.]
[Footnote 313: Maj. Nik. Ariyapariyesana-sutta. It is found in substantially the same form in the Mahâsaccaka-sutta and the Bodhirâjakumâra-sutta.]
[Footnote 314: The teaching of Alâra Kâlâma led to rebirth in the sphere called akiñcañ-ñâyatanam or the sphere in which nothing at all is specially present to the mind and that of Uddaka Râmaputta to rebirth in the sphere where neither any idea nor the absence of any idea is specially present to the mind. These expressions occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Mahâparinibbâna-sutta) as names of stages in meditation or of incorporeal worlds (arûpabrahmâloka) where those states prevail. Some mysterious utterances of Uddaka are preserved in Sam. Nik. XXXV. 103.]
[Footnote 315: Underhill, Introd. to Mysticism, p. 387.]
[Footnote 316: Sam. Nik. XXXVI. 19.]
[Footnote 317: The Lalita Vistara says Alâra lived at Vesâlî and Uddaka in Magadha.]
[Footnote 318: The following account is based on Maj. Nik. suttas 85 and 26. Compare the beginning of the Mahâvagga of the Vinaya.]
[Footnote 319: Maj. Nik. 12. See too Dig. Nik. 8.]
[Footnote 320: If this discourse is regarded as giving in substance Gotama's own version of his experiences, it need not be supposed to mean much more than that his good angel (in European language) bade him not take his own life. But the argument represented as appealing to him was that if spirits sustained him with supernatural nourishment, entire abstinence from food would be a useless pretence.]
[Footnote 321: The remarkable figures known as "fasting Buddhas" in Lahore Museum and elsewhere represent Gotama in this condition and show very plainly the falling in of the belly.]
[Footnote 322: Âsava. The word appears to mean literally an intoxicating essence. See e.g. Vinaya, vol. IV. p. 110 (Rhys Davids and Oldenburg's ed.). Cf. the use of the word in Sanskrit.
[Footnote 323: Nâparam itthattâyâti. Itthattam is a substantive formed from ittham thus. It was at this time too that he thought out the chain of causation.]
[Footnote 324: Tradition states that it was on this occasion that he uttered the well-known stanzas now found in the Dhammapada 154-5 (cf. Theragâthâ 183) in which he exults in having, after long search in repeated births, found the maker of the house. "Now, O maker of the house thou art seen: no more shalt thou make a house." The lines which follow are hard to translate. The ridge-pole of the house has been destroyed (visankhitaṃ more literally de-com-posed) and so the mind passes beyond the sankhâras (visankhâragataṃ). The play of words in visankhitaṃ and visankhâra can hardly be rendered in English.]
[Footnote 325: As Rhys Davids observes, this expression means "to found the Kingdom of Righteousness" but the metaphor is to make the wheels of the chariot of righteousness move unopposed over all the Earth.]
[Footnote 326: At the modern Sarnath.]
[Footnote 327: It is from this point that he begins to use this title in speaking of himself.]
[Footnote 328: Similar heavenly messages were often received by Christian mystics and were probably true as subjective experiences. Thus Suso was visited one Whitsunday by a heavenly messenger who bade him cease his mortifications.]
[Footnote 329: It is the Pipal tree or Ficus religiosa, as is mentioned in the Dîgha Nikâya, XIV. 30, not the Banyan. Its leaves have long points and tremble continually. Popular fancy says this is in memory of the tremendous struggle which they witnessed.]
[Footnote 330: Such are the Padhâna-sutta of the Sutta-Nipâta which has an air of antiquity and the tales in the Mahâvagga of the Saṃyutta-Nikâya. The Mahâvagga of the Vinaya (I. 11 and 13) mentions such an encounter but places it considerably later after the conversion of the five monks and of Yasa.]
[Footnote 331: The text is also found in the Saṃyutta-Nikâya.]
[Footnote 332: Concisely stated as suffering, the cause of suffering, the suppression of suffering and the method of effecting that suppression.]
[Footnote 333: Writers on Buddhism use this word in various forms, arhat, arahat and arahant. Perhaps it is best to use the Sanskrit form arhat just as karma and nirvana are commonly used instead of the Pali equivalents.]
[Footnote 334: I.15-20.]
[Footnote 335: Brahmayoni. I make this suggestion about grass fires because I have myself watched them from this point.]
[Footnote 336: This meal, the only solid one in the day, was taken a little before midday.]
[Footnote 337: I. 53-54.]
[Footnote 338: His father.]
[Footnote 339: I.e. the Buddha's former wife.]
[Footnote 340: Half brother of the Buddha and Suddhodana'a son by Mahâprajâpatî.]
[Footnote 341: Jâtaka, 356.]
[Footnote 342: Mahâvag. III. 1.]
[Footnote 343: Thus we hear how Dasama of Atthakam (Maj. Nik. 52) built one for fifteen hundred monks, and Ghotamukha another in Pataliputta, which bore his name.]
[Footnote 344: Maj. Nik. 53.]
[Footnote 345: Cullavag. VI. 4.]
[Footnote 346: Probably sheds consisting of a roof set on posts, but without walls.]
[Footnote 347: Translated by Rhys Davids, American Lectures, pp. 108 ff.]
[Footnote 348: E.g. Maj. Nik. 62.]
[Footnote 349: But in Maj. Nik. II. 5 he says he is not bound by rules as to eating.]
[Footnote 350: Maj. Nik. 147.]
[Footnote 351: In an exceedingly curious passage (Dig. Nik. IV.) the Brahman Sonadaṇḍa, while accepting the Buddha's teaching, asks to be excused from showing the Buddha such extreme marks of respect as rising from his seat or dismounting from his chariot, on the ground that his reputation would suffer. He proposes and apparently is allowed to substitute less demonstrative salutations.]
[Footnote 352: Cullavagga V. 21 and Maj. Nik. 85.]
[Footnote 353: Visâkhâ, a lady of noted piety. It was probably a raised garden planted with trees.]
[Footnote 354: Maj. Nik. 110.]
[Footnote 355: Dig. Nik. No. 2. Compare Jâtaka 150, which shows how much variation was permitted in the words ascribed to the Buddha.]
[Footnote 356: Sam. Nik. XLII. 7.]
[Footnote 357: Mahâparinib-sutta, 6. 20. The monk Subhadda, in whose mouth these words are put, was apparently not the person of the same name who was the last convert made by the Buddha when dying.]
[Footnote 358: His personal name was Upatissa.]
[Footnote 359: This position was also held, previously no doubt, by Sagata.]
[Footnote 360: Mahavâg. X. 2. Compare the singular anecdote in VI. 22 where the Buddha quite unjustifiably suspects a Doctor of making an indelicate joke. The story seems to admit that the Buddha might be wrong and also that he was sometimes treated with want of respect.]
[Footnote 361: VII. 2 ff.]
[Footnote 362: The introductions to Jâtakas 26 and 150 say that Ajâtasattu built a great monastery for him at Gayâsîsa.]
[Footnote 363: The Buddha says so himself (Dig. Nik. II.) but does not mention the method.]
[Footnote 364: The Dhamma-sangaṇī defines courtesy as being of two kinds: hospitality and considerateness in matters of doctrine.]
[Footnote 365: Maj. Nik. 75.]
[Footnote 366: Mahāv. vi. 31. 11.]
[Footnote 367: Cullavag. x. 1. 3.]
[Footnote 368: Mahâparinib. V. 23. Perhaps the Buddha was supposed to be giving Ânanda last warnings about his besetting weakness.]
[Footnote 369: Udâna 1. 8.]
[Footnote 370: Compare too the language of Angela of Foligno (1248-1309) "By God's will there died my mother who was a great hindrance unto me in following the way of God: my husband died likewise and all my children. And because I had commenced to follow the aforesaid way and had prayed God that he would rid me of them, I had great consolation of their deaths, although I did also feel some grief." Beatae Angelae de Fulginio Visionum et Instructionum Liber. Cap. ix.]
[Footnote 371: No account of this event has yet been found in the earliest texts but it is no doubt historical. The versions found in the Jâtaka and Commentaries trace it back to a quarrel about a marriage, but the story is not very clear or consistent and the real motive was probably that indicated above.]
[Footnote 372: See Rhys Davids, Dialogues, II. p. 70 and Przyluski's articles (in J.A. 1918 ff.) Le Parinirvana et les funérailles du Bouddha where the Pali texts are compared with the Mûlasarvâstivâdin Vinaya and with other accounts.]
[Footnote 373: This was probably written after Pâṭaliputra had become a great city but we do not know when its rise commenced.]
[Footnote 374: She was a noted character in Vesâlî. In Mahâvag. viii. 1, people are represented as saying that it was through her the place was so flourishing and that it would be a good thing if there were some one like her in Râjagaha.]
[Footnote 375: The whole passage is interesting as displaying even in the Pali Canon the germs of the idea that the Buddha is an eternal spirit only partially manifested in the limits of human life. In the Mahâparinib.-sutta Gotama is only voluntarily subject to natural death.]
[Footnote 376: The phrase occurs again in the Sutta-Nipâta. Its meaning is not clear to me.]
[Footnote 377: The text seems to represent him as crossing first a streamlet and then the river.]
[Footnote 378: It is not said how much time elapsed between the meal at Cunda's and the arrival at Kusinârâ but since it was his last meal, he probably arrived the same afternoon.]
[Footnote 379: Cf. Lyall's poem, on a Rajput Chief of the Old School, who when nearing his end has to leave his pleasure garden in order that he may die in the ancestral castle.]
[Footnote 380: Dig. Nik. 17 and Jâtaka 95.]
[Footnote 381: It is said that this discipline was efficacious and that Channa became an Arhat.]
[Footnote 382: It is difficult to find a translation of these words which is both accurate and natural in the mouth of a dying man. The Pali text vayadhammâ saṅkhârâ (transitory-by-nature are the Saṅkhâras) is brief and simple but any correct and adequate rendering sounds metaphysical and is dramatically inappropriate. Perhaps the rendering "All compound things must decompose" expresses the Buddha's meaning best. But the verbal antithesis between compound and decomposing is not in the original and though saṅkhâra is etymologically the equivalent of confection or synthesis it hardly means what we call a compound thing as opposed to a simple thing.]
[Footnote 383: The Buddha before his death had explained that the corpse of a Buddha should be treated like the corpse of a universal monarch. It should be wrapped in layers of new cloth and laid in an iron vessel of oil. Then it should be burnt and a Dagoba should be erected at four cross roads.]
[Footnote 384: The Mallas had two capitals, Kusinârâ and Pâvâ, corresponding to two subdivisions of the tribe.]
[Footnote 385: Theragâthâ 557 ff. Water to refresh tired and dusty feet is commonly offered to anyone who comes from a distance.]
[Footnote 386: Mahâvag. VIII. 26.]
[Footnote 387: E.g. Therîgâthâ 133 ff. It should also be remembered that orientals, particularly Chinese and Japanese, find Christ's behaviour to his mother as related in the gospels very strange.]
[Footnote 388: E.g. Roja, the Malta, in Mahâvag. VI. 36 and the account of the interview with the Five Monks in the Nidânakathâ (Rhys Davids, Budd. Birth Stories, p. 112).]
[Footnote 389: E.g. Maj. Nik. 36.]
[Footnote 390: Dig. Nik. XVII. and V.]
[Footnote 391: Maj. Nik. 57.]
[Footnote 392: Mahâparib. Sutta, I. 61.]
[Footnote 393: The earliest sources for these legends are the Mahâvastu, the Sanskrit Vinayas (preserved in Chinese translations), the Lalita Vistara, the Introduction to the Jâtaka and the Buddha-carita. For Burmese, Sinhalese, Tibetan and Chinese lives of the Buddha, see the works of Bigandet, Hardy, Rockhill and Schiefner, Wieger and Beal. See also Foucher, Liste indienne des actes du Buddha and Hackin, Scènes de la Vie du Buddha d'après des peintures tibétaines.]
[Footnote 394: It was the full moon of the month Vaiśâkha.]
[Footnote 395: The best known of the later biographies of the Buddha, such as the Lalita Vistara and the Buddha-carita of Aśvaghosha stop short after the Enlightenment.]
[Footnote 396: There are some curious coincidences of detail between the Buddha and Confucius. Both disliked talking about prodigies (Analects. 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 (Anal. 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 worshipped in their respective countries.]
[Footnote 397: Maj. Nik. 143.]
[Footnote 398: The miraculous cure of Suppiyâ (Mahâvag. 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 Therî-gâthâ. See Thera-gâthâ xxx, xxxi and Mrs Rhys Davids' trans. of Therî-gâthâ, 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: Udâna 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: rûpa.]
[Footnote 408: The word Jiva, sometimes translated soul, is not equivalent to âtman. 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: Saññâ 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-Sangaṇi, p. 8.]
[Footnote 410: The Saṃyutta-Nikâya XXII. 79. 8 states that the Sankhâras are so-called because they compose what is compound (sankhatam).]
[Footnote 411: Maj. Nik. 44.]
[Footnote 412: In this sense Sankhâra has also some affinity to the Sanskrit use of Saṃskâra to mean a sacramental rite. It is the essential nature of such a rite to produce a special effect. So too the Sankhâras present in one existence inevitably produce their effect in the next existence. For Sankhâra 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 Viññâṇa 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, nirvâna.]
[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 Sauvîra 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 viññâṇa cannot be disentangled and sharply distinguished from feeling and sensation. See passages 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. xxxv. 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. Pâyâsi 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 Kassapa. 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. Kassapa's reply is chiefly based on analogies 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 Pâyâsi 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 Godhika's death. Sam. Nik. I. iv. 3 and Buddhaghosa on Dhammap. 57.]
[Footnote 432: No. 38 called the Mahâtaṇhâsankhaya-suttam.]
[Footnote 433: See too Dig. Nik. n. 63, "If Viññâṇa did not descend into the womb, would body and mind be constituted there?" and Sam. Nik. xii. 12. 3, "Viññâṇa food is the condition for bringing about rebirth in the future.">[
[Footnote 434: Uppajjati is the usual word.]
[Footnote 435: Ariyasaccâni. 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 âyatanam 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 sakkâya, individuality, which is apparently regarded as equivalent in meaning. So for instance the Noble Eightfold path is described as sakkâya-nirodha-gâminî patipadâ.]
[Footnote 437: Theragâthâ 487-493, and Puggala Pañ. 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 Pârâjika and Milinda, iv. 13 and 14) for in most cases it is not a passionless renunciation of the world but rather a passionate and irritable protest against difficulties which simply lays up bad karma in the next life. Yet cases such as that of Godhika (see Buddhaghosa on the Dhammapada, 57) seem to imply that it is unobjectionable if performed not out of irritation but by one who having already obtained mental release is troubled by disease.]
[Footnote 442: Pali Paticca-samuppâda. Sanskrit Pratîtya-samutpâda.]
[Footnote 443: Sam. Nik. xii. 10.]
[Footnote 444: Dig. Nik. XV.]
[Footnote 445: "Contact comes from consciousness: sensation from contact: craving from sensation: the sankhâras from craving: consciousness from the sankhâras: contact from consciousness" and so on ad infinitum. See Mil. Pan. 51.]
[Footnote 446: Dig. Nik. XV.]
[Footnote 447: Sam. Nik. XII. 53. Cf. too the previous sutta 51. In the Abhidhamma Pitaka and later scholastic works we find as a development of the law of causation the theory of relations (paccaya) or system of correlation (paṭṭhâna-nayo). According to this theory phenomena are not thought of merely in the simple relation of cause and effect. One phenomenon can be the assistant agency (upakâraka) of another phenomenon in 24 modes. See Mrs Rhys Davids' article Relations in E.R.E.]
[Footnote 448: Mrs Rhys Davids, Dhamma-sangaṇi, pref. p. lii. "The sensory process is analysed in each case into (a) an apparatus capable of reaching to an impact not itself: (b) an impinging form (rûpam): (c) contact between (a) and (b): (d) resultant modification of the mental continuum, viz. first, contact of a specific sort, then hedonistic result or intellectual result or presumably both.">[
[Footnote 449: See e.g. Maj. Nik. 38.]
[Footnote 450: This does not mean that the same name-and-form plus consciousness which dies in one existence reappears in another.]
[Footnote 451: Maj. Nik. 120 Sankhâruppatti sutta.]
[Footnote 452: He should make it a continual mental exercise to think of the rebirth which he desires.]
[Footnote 453: So too in the Sânkhya philosophy the samskâras are said to pass from one human existence to another. They may also remain dormant for several existences and then become active.]
[Footnote 454: Maj. Nik. 9 Sammâdiṭṭhi sutta.]
[Footnote 455: Sam. Nik. xxii. 126.]
[Footnote 456: Mahâvag. i. 23. 4 and 5:]
Ye dhammâ hetuppabhavâ tesam hetum Tathâgato Âha tesañca yo nirodho evamvâdi Mahâsamano ti.
The passage is remarkable because it insists that this is the principal and essential doctrine of Gotama. Compare too the definition of the Dhamma put in the Buddha's own mouth in Majjhima, 79: Dhammam te desessâmi: imasmim sati, idam hoti: imass' uppâdâ idaṃ upajjhati, etc.]
[Footnote 457: The Sânkhya might be described as teaching a law of evolution, but that is not the way it is described in its own manuals.]
[Footnote 458: Take among hundreds of instances the account of the Buddha's funeral.]
[Footnote 459: The Anguttara Nikâya, book iv. chap. 77, forbids speculation on four subjects as likely to bring madness and trouble. Two of the four are kamma-vipâko and loka-cintâ. An attempt to make the chain of causation into a cosmic law would involve just this sort of speculation.]
[Footnote 460: The Pitakas insist that causation applies to mental as well as physical phenomena.]
[Footnote 461: Sam. Nik. xii. 35.]
[Footnote 462: Vis. Mag. xvii. Warren, p. 175.]
[Footnote 463: See Waddell, J.R.A.S. 1894, pp. 367-384: Rhys Davids, Amer. Lectures, pp. 155-160.]
[Footnote 464: Sam. Nik. XII. 61. See too Theragâthâ, verses 125 and 1111, and for other illustrative quotations Mrs Rhys Davids, Buddhist Psychology, pp. 34, 35.]
[Footnote 465: But see Maj. Nik. 79, for the idea that there is something beyond happiness.]
[Footnote 466: Dig. Nik. 22.]
[Footnote 467: Sutta-Nipâta, 787.]
[Footnote 468: Padhânam. But in later Buddhism we also find the idea that nirvana is something which comes only when we do not struggle for it.]
[Footnote 469: Mettâ, corresponding exactly to the Greek [Greek: agapei] of the New Testament.]
[Footnote 470: III. 7. The translation is abbreviated.]
[Footnote 471: More literally, "All the occasions which can be used for doing good works.">[
[Footnote 472: Sutta-Nipâta, 1-8, S.B.E. vol. X. p. 25 and see also Ang. Nik. IV. 190 which says that love leads to rebirth in the higher heavens and Sam. Nik. XX. 4 to the effect that a little love is better than great gifts. Also Questions of Milinda, 4. 4. 16.]
[Footnote 473: Ang. Nik. 1. 2. 4.]
[Footnote 474: Cf. too Mahâvag. VIII. 22 where a monk is not blamed for giving the property of the order to his parents.]
[Footnote 475: Sati is the Sanskrit Smriti.]
[Footnote 476: Dhammap. 160.]
[Footnote 477: Bhag-gîtâ, 3. 27.]
[Footnote 478: Vishnu Pur. II. 13. The ancient Egyptians also, though for quite different reasons, did not accept our ideas of personality. For them man was not an individual unity but a compound consisting of the body and of several immaterial parts called for want of a better word souls, the ka, the ba, the sekhem, etc., which after death continue to exist independently.]
[Footnote 479: Ueber den Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahâvîras und Buddhas, 1902. And On the problem of Nirvana in Journal of Pali Text Society, 1905. See too Sam. Nik. XXII. 15-17.]
[Footnote 480: Maj. Nik. 22.]
[Footnote 481: Compare also the sermon on the burden and the bearer and Sam Nik. XXII. 15-17. It is admitted that Nirvana is not dukkha and not aniccam and it seems to be implied it is not anattam.]
[Footnote 482: See the argument with Yamaka in Sam. Nik. XXII. 85.]
[Footnote 483: See Sam. Nik. III., XXII. 97.]
[Footnote 484: Also paññâkkhandha or vijjâ.]
[Footnote 485: Dig. Nik. II.]
[Footnote 486: These exercises are hardly possible for the laity.]
[Footnote 487: See chap. XIV. for details.]
[Footnote 488: Sanskrit Nirvâṇa: Pali Nibbâna.]
[Footnote 489: Maj. Nik. 26.]
[Footnote 490: E.g. the words addressed to Buddha, nibbutâ nûna sâ narî yassâyam îdiso pati. Happy is the woman who has such a husband. In the Anguttara Nikâya, III. 55 the Brahman Jâṇussoṇi asks Buddha what is meant by Sanditthikam nibbâṇam, that is nirvâṇa which is visible or belongs to this world. The reply is that it is effected by the destruction of lust, hatred and stupidity and it is described as akâlikam, ehipassikam opanayikam, paccattam veditabbam viññûhi--difficult words which occur elsewhere as epithets of Dhamma and apparently mean immediate, inviting (it says "come and see"), leading to salvation, to be known by all who can understand. For some views as to the derivation of nibbana, nibbuto, etc. see J.P.T.S. 1919, pp. 53 ff. But the word nirvâṇa occurs frequently in the Mahâbhârata and was probably borrowed by the Buddhists from the Brahmans.]
[Footnote 491: Or sa-upâdi.]
[Footnote 492: But parinirvâṇa is not always rigidly distinguished from nirvâṇa, e.g. Sutta Nipâta, 358. And in Cullavag. VI. 4. 4 the Buddha describes himself as Brâhmaṇo parinibbuto. Parinibbuto is even used of a horse in Maj. Nik. 65 ad fin.]
[Footnote 493: Sam. Nik. XXII. 1. 18.]
[Footnote 494: Vimuttisukham and brahmacariyogadham sukham.]
[Footnote 495: Maj. Nik. 139, cf. also Ang. Nik. II. 7 where various kinds of sukham or happiness are enumerated, and we hear of nekkhammasukham nirupadhis, upekkhâs, arûparamanam sukham, etc.]
[Footnote 496: E.g. Maj. Nik. 9 Ditthe dhamme dukkhass' antakaro hoti.]
[Footnote 497: Ang. Nik. V. xxxii.]
[Footnote 498: Maj. Nik. 79.]
[Footnote 499: Asankhatadhâtu, cf. the expression asankhâraparinibbâyî. Pugg. Pan. l. 44.]
[Footnote 500: Tabulated in Mrs Rhys Davids' translation, pp. 367-9.]
[Footnote 501: Such a phrase as Nibbâṇassa sacchikiriyâya "for the attainment or realization of Nirvana" would be hardly possible if Nirvana were annihilation.]
[Footnote 502: Udâna VII. near beginning.]
[Footnote 503: These are the formless stages of meditation. In Nirvana there is neither any ordinary form of existence nor even the forms of existence with which we become acquainted in trances.]
[Footnote 504: This negative form of expression is very congenial to Hindus. Thus many centuries later Kabir sung "With God is no rainy season, no ocean, no sunshine, no shade: no creation and no destruction: no life nor death: no sorrow nor joy is felt .... There is no water, wind, nor fire. The True Guru is there contained.">[
[Footnote 505: IV. 7. 13 ff.]
[Footnote 506: See also Book VII. of the Milinda containing a long list of similes illustrating the qualities necessary for the attainment of arhatship. Thirty qualities of arhatship are mentioned in Book VI. of the same work. See also Mahâparinib. Sut. III. 65-60 and Rhys Davids' note.]
[Footnote 507: E.g. Dig. Nik. xvi. ii. 7, Cullavag. ix. 1. 4.]
[Footnote 508: E.g. Pugg. Pan. 1. 39. The ten fetters are (1) sakkâyadiṭṭhi, belief in the existence of the self, (2) vicikicchâ, doubt, (3) silabbataparamâso, trust in ceremonies of good works, (4) kâmarâgo, lust, (5) paṭigho, anger, (6) rûparâgo, desire for rebirth in worlds of form, (7) arûparâgo, desire for rebirth in formless worlds, (8) mano, pride, (9) uddhaccam, self-righteousness, (10) avijjâ, ignorance.]
[Footnote 509: There is some diversity of doctrine about the Sakadâgâmin. Some hold that he has two births, because he comes back to the world of men after having been born once meanwhile in a heaven, others that he has only one birth either on earth or in a devaloka.]
[Footnote 510: Avyâkatani. The Buddha, being omniscient, sabaññu, must have known the answer but did not declare it, perhaps because language was incapable of expressing it]
[Footnote 511: Jiva not attâ. ]
[Footnote 512: Maj. Nik. 63.]
[Footnote 513: Sam. Nik. xvii. 85.]
[Footnote 514: Maj. Nik. 72.]
[Footnote 515: Which is said not to grow up again.]
[Footnote 516: It may be that the Buddha had in his mind the idea that a flame which goes out returns to the primitive invisible state of fire. This view is advocated by Schrader (Jour. Pali Text Soc. 1905, p. 167). The passages which he cites seem to me to show that there was supposed to be such an invisible store from which fire is born but to be less conclusive as proving that fire which goes out is supposed to return to that store, though the quotation from the Maitreyi Up. points in this direction. For the metaphor of the flame see also Sutta-Nipâta, verses 1074-6.]
[Footnote 517: XLIV. 1.]
[Footnote 518: Maj. Nik. 9, ad init. Asmîti diṭṭhim ânânusayam samûhanitvâ.]
[Footnote 519: See especially Sutta-Nipâta, 1076 Atthan gatassa na pamâṇam atthi, etc.]
[Footnote 520: Sam. Nik. XXII. 85.]
[Footnote 521: Maj. Nik. 22, Alagaddûpama-suttam.]
[Footnote 522: Later in the same Sutta: Kevalo paripûro bâladhammo.]
[Footnote 523: Four emphatic synonyms in the original.]
[Footnote 524: Dig. Nik. I. 73 uccinna-bhava-nettiko.]
[Footnote 525: I recommend the reader to consider carefully the passage at the end of Book IV. of Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (Haldane and Kemp's translation, vol. I. pp. 529-530). Though he evidently misunderstood what he calls "the Nirvana of the Buddhists" yet his own thought throws much light on it.]
[Footnote 526: Sk. Bhikshu, beggar or mendicant, because they live on alms. Bhikshâcaryam occurs in Brihad-Âr. Up. III. 5. I.]
[Footnote 527: Mahâvag. I. 49, cf. ib. I. 39.]
[Footnote 528: Dig. Nik. VIII.]
[Footnote 529: Cullavag. I. 1. 3.]
[Footnote 530: Sam. Nik. XIV. 15. 12, Ang. Nik. I. xiv.]
[Footnote 531: Mahâvag. III. 12.]
[Footnote 532: Or the opinion of single persons, e.g. Visâkhâ in Mahâvag. III. 13.]
[Footnote 533: Acârângasut, II. 2. 2.]
[Footnote 534: Mahâv. I. 42.]
[Footnote 535: But converted robbers were occasionally admitted, e.g. Angulimâla.]
[Footnote 536: Sam. Nik. IV. XXXV., Maj. Nik. 8 ad fin. On the value attached by mystics in all countries to trees and flowers, see Underhill, Mysticism, p. 231.]
[Footnote 537: They are abstinence from (1) destroying life, (2) stealing, (3) impurity, (4) lying, (5) intoxicants, (6) eating at forbidden times, (7) dancing, music and theatres, (8) garlands, perfumes, ornaments, (9) high or large beds, (10) accepting gold or silver.]
[Footnote 538: These are practically equivalent to Sundays, being the new moon, full moon and the eighth days from the new and full moon. In Tibet however the 14th, 15th, 29th and 30th of each month are observed.]
[Footnote 539: Mahâvag. II. 1-2.]
[Footnote 540: Chap. VIII. Sec. 3.]
[Footnote 541: Required not so much to purify water as to prevent the accidental destruction of insects.]
[Footnote 542: It might begin either the day after the full moon of Asâlha (June-July) or a month later. In either case the period was three months. Mahâvag. III. 2.]
[Footnote 543: Cullavag. X. 1.]
[Footnote 544: See the papers by Mrs Bode in J.R.A.S. 1893, pp. 517-66 and 763-98, and Mrs Rhys Davids in Ninth Congress of Orientalists, vol. I. p. 344.]
[Footnote 545: Feminine Upâsikâ.]
[Footnote 546: Sutta-Nipâta, 289.]
[Footnote 547: E.g. Mahâmangala and Dhammika-Sutta in Sut. Nip. II. 4 and 14.]
[Footnote 548: Dig. Nik. 31.]
[Footnote 549: It may seem superfluous to insist on this, yet Warren in his Buddhism in Translations uniformly renders Bhikkhu by priest.]
[Footnote 550: The same idea occurs in the Upanishads, e.g. Brih.-Âr. Up. IV. 4. 23, "he becomes a true Brahman.">[
[Footnote 551: Especially in R.O. Franke's article in the J.P.T.S. 1908. To demonstrate the "literary dependence" of chapters XI., XII. of the Cullavagga does not seem to me equivalent to demonstrating that the narratives contained in those chapters are "air-bubbles.">[
[Footnote 552: The mantras of the Brahmans were hardly a sacred book analogous to the Bible or Koran and, besides, the early Buddhists would not have wished to imitate them.]
[Footnote 553: E.g. Dig. Nik. XVI.]
[Footnote 554: Cullav. XI. i. 11.]
[Footnote 555: Especially in Chinese works.]
[Footnote 556: Upâli, Dasaka, Sonaka, Siggava (with whom the name of Candravajji is sometimes coupled) and Tissa Moggaliputta. This is the list given in the Dîpavaṃsa.]
[Footnote 557: Sam. Nik. XVI. 11. The whole section is called Kassapa Saṃyutta.]
[Footnote 558: They are to be found chiefly in Cullavagga, XII., Dîpavaṃsa, IV. and V. and Mahâvaṃsa, IV.]
[Footnote 559: The Dîpavaṃsa adds that all the principal monks present had seen the Buddha. They must therefore all have been considerably over a hundred years old so that the chronology is open to grave doubt. It would be easier if we could suppose the meeting was held a hundred years after the enlightenment.]
[Footnote 560: They are said to have rejected the Parivâra, the Paṭisambhidâ, the Niddesa and parts of the Jâtaka. These are all later parts of the Canon and if the word rejection were taken literally it would imply that the Mahâsangîti was late too. But perhaps all that is meant is that the books were not found in their Canon. Chinese sources (e.g. Fa Hsien, tr. Legge, p. 99) state that they had an Abhidhamma of their own.]
[Footnote 561: Buddhist Records of the Western World, vol. II. pp. 164-5; Watters, Yüan Chwang, pp. 159-161.]
[Footnote 562: Cap. XXXVI. Legge, p. 98.]
[Footnote 563: See I-tsing's Records of the Buddhist Religion, trans. by Takakusu, p. XX. and Nanjio's Catalogue of the Buddhist Tripitaka, nos. 1199, 1105 and 1159.]
[Footnote 564: An exception ought perhaps to be made for the Japanese sects.]
[Footnote 565: The names are not quite the same in the various lists and it seems useless to discuss them in detail. See Dîpavaṃsa, V. 39-48, Mahâvaṃsa, V. ad in., Rhys Davids, J.R.A.S. 1891, p. 411, Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, chap, VI., Geiger, Trans. of Mahâvaṃsa, App. B.]
[Footnote 566: The Hemavatikas, Râjagirikas, Siddhattas, Pubbaselikas, Aparaselikas and Apararâjagirikas.]
[Footnote 567: Published in the J.P.T.S. 1889. Trans, by S.Z. Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids, 1915. The text mentions doctrines only. The names of the sects supposed to hold them are supplied by the commentary.]
[Footnote 568: They must not be confused with the four philosophic schools Vaibhâshika, Sautrântika, Yogâcâra and Mâdhyamika. These came into existence later.]
[Footnote 569: But the Vetulyakas were important in Ceylon.]
[Footnote 570: See Paramârtha's Life of Vasabandhu, Toung Pao, 1904, p. 290.]
[Footnote 571: See Rhys Davids in J.R.A.S. 1892, pp. 8-9. The name is variously spelt. The P.T.S. print Sammitiya, but the Sanskrit text of the Madhyamakavritti (in Bibl. Buddh.) has Sâmmitîya. Sanskrit dictionaries give Sammatîya. The Abhidharma section of the Chinese Tripitaka (Nanjio, 1272) contains a śâstra belonging to this school. Nanjio, 1139 is apparently their Vinaya.]
[Footnote 572: Kern (Versl. en Med. der K. Akad. van Wetenschappen Letterk. 4. R.D. VIII. 1907, pp. 312-319, cf. J.R.A.S. 1907, p. 432) suggested on the authority of Kashgarian MSS. that the expression Vailpulya sûtra is a misreading for Vaitulya sûtra, a sûtra of the Vetulyakas. Ânanda was sometimes identified with the phantom who represented the Buddha.]
[Footnote 573: It is remarkable that this view, though condemned by the Kathâ-vatthu, is countenanced by the Khuddaka-pâṭha.]
[Footnote 574: The Kathâ-vatthu constantly cites the Nikâyas.]
[Footnote 575: Pali Sabbatthivâdins.]
[Footnote 576: Cf. the doctrine of the Sânkhya. For more about the Sarvâstivâdins see below, Book IV. chap. XXII.]
[Footnote 577: See especially Le Nord-Ouest de L'Inde dans le Vinaya des Mûlasarvâstivâdins by Przyluski in J.A. 1914, II. pp. 492 ff.]
[Footnote 578: See articles by Fleet in J.R.A.S. of 1903, 1904, 1908-1911 and 1914: Hultzsch in J.R.A.S. 1910-11: Thomas in J.A. 1910: S. Lévi, J.A. 1911.]
[Footnote 579: Asoka's statement is confirmed (if it needs confirmation) by the Chinese pilgrim I-ching who saw in India statues of him in monastic costume.]
[Footnote 580: For a bibliography of the literature about these inscriptions see Vincent Smith, Early History of India, 3rd ed. 1914, pp. 172-4.]
[Footnote 581: The dialect is not strictly speaking the same in all the inscriptions.]
[Footnote 582: Piyadassi, Sanskrit Priyadarsin. The Dîpavaṃsa, VI. 1 and 14, calls Asoka Piyadassi and Piyadassana. The name Asoka has hitherto only been found in one edict discovered at Hyderabad, J.R.A.S. 1916, p. 573.]
[Footnote 583: The principal single edicts are (1) that known as Minor Rock Edict I. found in four recensions, (2) The Bhâbrû (or Bhâbrâ) Edict of great importance for the Buddhist scriptures, (3) Two Kalinga Edicts, (4) Edicts about schism, found at Sarnath and elsewhere, (4) Commemorative inscriptions in the Terâi, (5) Dedications of caves.]
[Footnote 584: Asoka came to the throne about 270 B.C. (268 or 272 according to various authorities) but was not crowned until four years later. Events are generally dated by the year after his coronation (abhisheka), not after his accession.]
[Footnote 585: I must confess that Law of Piety (Vincent Smith) does not seem to me very idiomatic.]
[Footnote 586: See Senart, Inscrip. de Piyadassi, II. pp. 314 ff.]
[Footnote 587: The Second Minor Rock Edict.]
[Footnote 588: Râjûka and pradesika.]
[Footnote 589: I.e. Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene and Epirus.]
[Footnote 590: Kingdoms in the south of India.]
[Footnote 591: The inhabitants of the extreme north-west of India, not necessarily Greeks by race.]
[Footnote 592: Possibly Tibet.]
[Footnote 593: Or Nâbhapamtis. In any case unknown.]
[Footnote 594: All these appear to have been tribes of Central India.]
[Footnote 595: Dîpav. VIII.; Mahâv. XII.]
[Footnote 596: Pillar Edict VI.]
[Footnote 597: Perhaps meant to be equivalent to 251 B.C. Vincent Smith rejects this date and thinks that the Council met in the last ten years of Asoka's reign. But the Sinhalese account is reasonable. Asoka was very pious but very tolerant. Ten years of this regime may well have led to the abuse complained of.]
[Footnote 598: Jâtaka, no. 472.]
[Footnote 599: See for instance the Life of Hsüan Chuang; Beal, p. 39; Julien, p. 50.]
[Footnote 600: I consider it possible, though by no means proved, that the Abhidhamma was put together in Ceylon.]
[Footnote 601: For the Burmese Canon see chap. XXVI. Even if the Burmese had Pali scriptures which did not come from Ceylon, they sought to harmonize them with the texts known there.]
[Footnote 602: Pali Tipiṭaka.]
[Footnote 603: So in Maj. Nik. xxi. a man who proposes to excavate comes Kuddalapiṭakam âdâya, "With spade and basket.">[
[Footnote 604: The list of the Vinaya books is:
Pârâjikam } together constituting the Sutta-vibhanga.
Pacittiyam}
Mahâvagga } together constituting the Khandakas.
Cullavagga}
Parivâra-pâṭha: a supplement and index. This book was rejected by some schools.
Something is known of the Vinaya of the Sarvâstivâdins existing in a Chinese translation and in fragments of the Sanskrit original found in Central Asia. It also consists of the Pâtimokkha embedded in a commentary called Vibhâga and of two treatises describing the foundation of the order and its statutes. They are called Kshudrakavastu and Vinayavastu. In these works the narrative and anecdotal element is larger than in the Pali Vinaya. See also my remarks on the Mahâvastu under the Mahayanist Canon. For some details about the Dharmagupta Vinaya, see J.A. 1916, ii. p. 20: for a longish extract from the Mülasarv. Vinaya, J.A. 1914, ii. pp. 493-522.]
[Footnote 605: I find it hard to accept Francke's view that the Dîgha should be regarded as the Book of the Tathâgata, deliberately composed to expound the doctrine of Buddhahood. Many of the suttas do not deal with the Tathâgata.]
[Footnote 606: The Saṃyutta quotes by name a passage from the Dîgha as "spoken by the Lord": compare Sam. Nik. XXII. 4 with Dig. Nik. 21. Both the Anguttara and Saṃyutta quote the last two cantos of the Sutta-Nipâta.]
[Footnote 607: It appears that the canonical book of the Jâtaka consists only of verses and does not include explanatory prose matter. Something similar to these collections of verses which are not fully intelligible without a commentary explaining the occasions on which they were uttered may be seen in Chândogya Up. VI. The father's answers are given but the son's questions which render them intelligible are not found in the text but are supplied in the commentary.]
[Footnote 608: The following ia a table of the Sutta Pitaka:
I. Dîgha-Nikâya }
II. Majjhima-Nikâya } Collections of discourses mostly attributed to the
III. Samyutta-Nikâya } Buddha.
IV. Anguttara-Nikâya }
V. Khuddaka-Nikâya: a collection of comparatively short treatises, mostly in poetry, namely:
1. Dhammapada.
2. Udâna } Utterances of the Buddha with explanations of the
3. Itivuttakam } attendant circumstances.
4. Khuddaka-pâtha: a short anthology.
5. Sutta-nipâta: a collection of suttas mostly in verse.
*6. Thera-gâthâ: poems by monks.
*7. Therî-gâthâ: poems by nuns.
8. Niddesa: an old commentary on the latter half of the Sutta-nipâta, ascribed to Sâriputta.
*9. The Jâtaka verses.
10. Paṭisambhidâ.
*11. Apadâna.
*12. Buddha-vaṃsa.
*13. Vimâna-vatthu.
*14. Peta-vatthu.
*15. Cariyâ-piṭaka.
The works marked * are not found in the Siamese edition of the Tripiṭaka but the Burmese editions include four other texts, the Milinda-pañha, Petakopadesa, Suttassanigaha, and Nettipakaraṇa.
The Khuddaka-Nikâya seems to have been wanting in the Pitaka of the Sarvâstivâdins or whatever sect supplied the originals from which the Chinese Canon was translated, for this Canon classes the Dhammapada as a miscellaneous work outside the Sutta Pitaka. Fragments of the Sutta-nipâta have been found in Turkestan but it is not clear to what Pitaka it was considered to belong. For mentions of the Khuddaka-Nikâya in Chinese see J.A. 1916, pp. 32-3.]
[Footnote 609: See J.R.A.S. 1891, p. 560. See too Journal P.T.S. 1919, p. 44. Lexicographical notes.]
[Footnote 610: Mrs Rhys Davids' Translations of the Dhamma-sangaṇi give a good idea of these books.]
[Footnote 611: The works comprised in this Pitaka are:
1. Dhamma-sangaṇi.
2. Vibhanga.
3. Kathâ-vatthu.
4. Puggala-paññatti.
5. Dhâtu-kathâ.
6. Yamaka.
7. Paṭṭhâna.
The Abhidhamma of the Sarvâstivâdins was entirely different. It seems probable that the Abhidhamma books of all schools consisted almost entirely of explanatory matter and added very little to the doctrine laid down in the suttas. It would appear that the only new topic introduced in the Pali Abhidhamma is the theory of relations (paccaya).]
[Footnote 612: Maj. Nik. XXII. and Angut. Nik. IV. 6.]
[Footnote 613: Pali means primarily a line or row and then a text as distinguished from the commentary. Thus Pâlimattam means the text without the commentary and Palibhâsâ is the language of the text or what we call Pali. See Pali and Sanskrit, R.O. Franke, 1902. Windisch, "Ueber den sprachlichen Character des Pali," in Actes du XIV'me Congrès des Orientalistes, 1905. Grierson, "Home of Pali" in Bhandarkar Commemorative Essays, 1917.]
[Footnote 614: It is not easy to say how late or to what extent Pali was used in India. The Milinda-Pañha (or at least books II. and III.) was probably composed in North Western India about the time of our era. Dharmapâla wrote his commentaries (c. 500 A.D.) in the extreme south, probably at Conjeevaram. Pali inscriptions of the second or third century A.D. have been discovered at Sarnath but contain mistakes which show that the engraver did not understand the language (Epig. Ind. 1908, p. 391). Bendall found Pali MSS. in Nepal, J.R.A.S. 1899, p. 422.]
[Footnote 615: Magadha of course was not his birth-place and the dialect of Kosala must have been his native language. But it is not hinted that he had any difficulty in making himself understood in Magadha and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 616: E.g. nominatives singular in e. For the possible existence of scriptures anterior to the Pali version and in another dialect, see S. Lévi, J.A. 1912, II. p. 495.]
[Footnote 617: Cullavag. V. 33, chandaso âropema.]
[Footnote 618: Although Pali became a sacred language in the South, yet in China, Tibet and Central Asia the scriptures were translated into the idioms of the various countries which accepted Buddhism.]
[Footnote 619: Mahâparinibbâna-sutta, II. 26. Another expressive compound is Dhûmakâ-likam (Cullav. XI. 1. 9) literally smoke-timed. The disciples were afraid that the discipline of the Buddha might last only as long as the smoke of his funeral pyre.]
[Footnote 620: Winternitz has acutely remarked that the Pali Pitaka resembles the Upanishads in style. See also Keith, Ait. Ar. p. 55. For repetitions in the Upanishads, see Chând. v. 3. 4 ff., v. 12 ff. and much in VII. and VIII., Brihad. Âr. III. ix. 9 ff., VI. iii. 2, etc. This Upanishad relates the incident of Yâjñavalkya and Maîtreyî twice. So far as style goes, I see no reason why the earliest parts of the Vinaya and Sutta Pitaka should not have been composed immediately after the Buddha's death.]
[Footnote 621: E.g. Mahâv. 1. 49, Dig. Nik. I. 14, Sut. Vib. Bhikkhunî, LXIX., Sut. Vib. Pârâj. III. 4. 4.]
[Footnote 622: Cullav. IV. 15. 4.]
[Footnote 623: Ang. Nik. IV. 100. 5, ib. v. lxxiv. 5.]
[Footnote 624: See Bühler in Epigraphia Indica, vol. II. p. 93.]
[Footnote 625: Even at the time of Fa Hsien's visit to India (c. 400 A.D.) the Vinaya of the Sarvâstivâdin school was preserved orally and not written. See Legge's trans, p. 99.]
[Footnote 626: Ang. Nik. IV. 160. 5, Bhikkhû bahussutâ ... mâtikâdhârâ monks who carry in memory the indices.]
[Footnote 627: Cullavag. XI., XII. ]
[Footnote 628: Dig. Nik. 1.]
[Footnote 629: It is remarkable that this account contemplates five Nikâyas (of which the fifth is believed to be late) but only two Pitakas, the Abhidhamma not being mentioned.]
[Footnote 630: It refers to a king Pingalaka, said to have reigned two hundred years after the Buddha's time.]
[Footnote 631: Mahâv XI. 3.]
[Footnote 632: Mahâv. II. 17.]
[Footnote 633: Cullav. IX. 5.]
[Footnote 634: The passages are:
1. The Vinaya-Samukasa. Perhaps the sermon at Benares with introductory matter found at the beginning of the Mahâvagga. See Edmunds, in J.R.A.S. 1913, p. 385.
2. The Alia-Vâsâni (Pali Ariya-Vâsâni) = the Samgîti-sutta of the Dîgha Nikâya.
3. The Anâgata-bhayâni = Anguttara-Nikâya, V. 77-80, or part of it.
4. The Munigâtha=Sutta-Nipâta, 206-220.
5. The Moneyasute=Moneyya-sutta in the Itivuttakam, 67: see also Ang. Nik. III. 120.
6. The Upatisapasine. The question of Upatissa: not identified.
7. The Lâghulovâde musâvâdam adhigicya. The addresses to Râhula beginning with subject of lying=Maj. Nik. 61.]
[Footnote 635: See J.A. 1916, II. pp. 20,38.]
[Footnote 636: For the date see the chapter on Ceylon.]
[Footnote 637: S. Lévi gives reasons for thinking that the prohibitions against singing sacred texts (ayataka gîtassara, Cullavag. V. 3) go back to the period when the Vedic accent was a living reality. See J.A. 1915, I. pp. 401 ff.]
[Footnote 638: Muséon, 1905, p. 23. Anesaki thinks the text used by Guṇabhadra was in Pali but the Abhayagiri, which had Mahayanist proclivities, may have used Sanskrit texts.]
[Footnote 639: Nikâya-Sangrahawa, Fernando, Govt. Record Office, Colombo, 1918.]
[Footnote 640: See Mahâyâna-sûtrâlatikâra, xvi. 22 and 75, with Lévi's notes.]
[Footnote 641: Cullav. VII. 3.]
[Footnote 642: In the first book of the Mahâvagga. ]
[Footnote 643: Ang. Nik. V. 201 and VI. 40.]
[Footnote 644: It may be objected that some Suttas are put into the mouths of the Buddha's disciples and that their words are very like those of the Master. But as a rule they spoke on behalf of him and the object was to make their language as much like his as possible.]
[Footnote 645: The Pali anthology known by this name was only one of several called Dhammapada or Udâna which are preserved in the Chinese and Tibetan Canons.]
[Footnote 646: The work might also be analyzed as consisting of three old documents (the tract on morality, an account of ancient heresies, and a discourse on spiritual progress) put together with a little connecting matter, and provided with a prologue and epilogue.]
[Footnote 647: But in Ceylon there was a decided tendency to rewrite Sinhalese treatises in Pali.]
[Footnote 648: Cf. Divyâv. ed. Cowell, p. 37 and Sam. Nik. P.T.S. edition, vol. IV. p. 60.]
[Footnote 649: See Takakusu on the Abhidharma literature of the Sarvâstivâdins in the Journ. of the Pali Text Society, 1905, pp. 67-147.]
[Footnote 650: But not always. See S. Lévi, J.A. 1910, p. 436.]
[Footnote 651: See Lüders, Bruchstücke Buddhistischer Dramen, 1911 and ib. Das Sâri putra-prakaraṇa, 1911.]
[Footnote 652: Inscriptions from Swat written in an alphabet supposed to date from 50 B.C. to 50 A.D. contain Sanskrit verses from the Dharmapada and Mahâparinirvânasûtra. See Epig. Indica, vol. IV. p. 133.]
[Footnote 653: E.g. The Sanskrit version of the Sutta-Nipâta. See J.R.A.S. 1916, pp. 719-732.]
[Footnote 654: See the remarks on the Saṃyuktâgama in J.A. 1916, II. p. 272.]
[Footnote 655: In the same spirit, the Chinese version of the Ekottara (sec. 42) makes the dying Buddha order his bed to be made with the head to the north, because northern India will be the home of the Law. See J.A. Nov., Dec. 1918, p. 435.]
[Footnote 656: See for the whole question, Péri, Les Femmes de Çâkya Muni, B.E.F.E.O. 1918, No. 2.]
[Footnote 657: Those of the Dharmaguptas, Mahâsânghikas and Mahîśâsakas.]
[Footnote 658: See J.A.O.S. Dec. 1910, p. 24.]
[Footnote 659: Jacobi considers the Yoga Sûtras later than 450 A.D. but if we adopt Péri's view that Vasubandhu, Asanga's brother, lived from about 280-360, the fact that they imply a knowledge of the Vijnânavâda need not make them much later than 300 A.D. It is noticeable that both Asanga and the Yoga Sûtras employ the word dharma-megha.]
[Footnote 660: Called Citta in the Yoga philosophy.]
[Footnote 661: See Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. II. pp. 410 ff. Savages often supplement fasting by the use of drugs and the Yoga Sûtras (IV. 1) mention that supernatural powers can be obtained by the use of herbs.]
[Footnote 662: Kleśa: Kilesa in Pạli.]
[Footnote 663: The practices systematized in the Yoga Sûtras are mentioned even in the older Upanishads such as the Maitrâyaṇa, Śvetâśvatara and Chândogya.]
[Footnote 664: An extreme development of the idea that physical processes can produce spiritual results is found in Raseśvara Darśana or the Mercurial System described in the Sarva-Darśana-Sangraha chap. IX. Marco Polo (Yule's Edition, vol. II. pp. 365, 369) had also heard of it.]
[Footnote 665: It seems to me analogous to the introversion of European mystics. See Underhill, Mysticism, chaps, VI. and VII.]
[Footnote 666: Jhâna in Pali.]
[Footnote 667: Samprajñâta and Asamprajñâta, called also sa- and nirbīja, with and without seed.]
[Footnote 668: Savitarka and Savicâra, in which there is investigation concerned with gross and subtle objects respectively: Sânanda, in which there is a feeling of joy: Sasmitâ, in which there is only self-consciousness. The corresponding stages in Buddhism are described as phases of Jhâna not of Samâdhi.]
[Footnote 669: It is not easy to translate. Megha is cloud and dharma may be rendered by righteousness but has many other meanings. For the metaphor of the cloud compare the title of the English mystical treatise The Cloud of Unknowing.]
[Footnote 670: Siddhi, vibhûti, aiśvarya. A belief in these powers is found even in the Rig Veda where it is said (X. 136) that munis can fly through the air and associate with gods.]
[Footnote 671: So too European mystics "are all but unanimous in their refusal to attribute importance to any kind of visionary experience" (Underhill, Mysticism, p. 335). St John of the Cross, Madame Guyon and Walter Hilton are cited as severe critics of such experience.]
[Footnote 672: Cf. Underbill's remarks about contemplation (Mysticism, p. 394). "Its results feed every aspect of the personality: minister to its instinct for the Good, the Beautiful and the True. Psychologically it is an induced state in which the field of consciousness is greatly contracted: the whole of the self, its conative power, being sharply focussed, concentrated upon one thing. We pour ourselvea out or, as it sometimes seems to us, in towards this overpowering interest: seem to ourselves to reach it and be merged with it. Whatever the thing may be, in this act we know it, as we cannot know it by any ordinary devices of thought.">[
[Footnote 673: See instances quoted in W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 251-3.]
[Footnote 674: This curious idea is also countenanced, though not much emphasized, by the Brahma Sûtras, IV. 4. 15. The object of producing such bodies is to work off Karma. The Yogi acquires no new Karma but he may have to get rid of accumulated Karma inherited from previous births, which must bear fruit. By "making himself many" he can work it off in one lifetime.]
[Footnote 675: World as Will and Idea, Book III. p. 254 (Haldane and Kemp's translation).]
[Footnote 676: E.g. Dig. Nik. II. 95, etc.]
[Footnote 677: St Theresa, St Catharine of Siena and Rudman Merawin. Cf. 1 John ii. 20, 27. "Ye know all things.">[
[Footnote 678: Chândog. Up. VIII. 15.]
[Footnote 679: As also to the Saṃhitâs of the Vaishṇavas and the Âgamic literature of the Śaivas. The six cakras are: (1) Mûladhâra at the base of the spinal cord, (2) Svâdhishṭhâna below the navel, (3) Maṇipûra near the navel, (4) Anâhata in the heart, (5) Viśuddha at the lower end of the throat, (6) Âjñâ between the eyebrows. See Avalon, Tantric Texts, II. Shaṭcakranirûpana. Ib. Tantra of Great Liberation, pp. lvii ff., cxxxii ff. Ib. Principles of Tantra, pp. cvii ff. Gopinatha Ras, Indian Iconography, pp. 328 ff. See also "Manual of a Mystic" (Pali Text Soc.) for something apparently similar, though not very intelligible, in Hinayanist Buddhism.]
[Footnote 680: For the later Yoga see further Book V. I have recently received A. Avalon, The Serpent Power, from which it appears that the danger of the process lies in the fact that as Kuṇḍalinî ascends, the lower parts of the body which she leaves become cold. The preliminary note on Yoga in Grieraon and Barnett's Lallâ-Vâkyâni (Asiat. Soc.'s Monographs, vol. XVII. 1920) contains much valuable information, but both works arrived too late for me to make use of them.]
[Footnote 681: Maj. Nik. 36 and 85, but not in 26.]
[Footnote 682: Dig. Nik. 2. For the methods of Buddhist meditation, the reader may consult the "Manual of a Mystic," edited (1896) and translated (1916) by the Pali Text Society. But he will not find it easy reading.]
[Footnote 683: See Ang. Nik. 1. 20 for a long list of the various kinds of meditation. A conspectus of the system of meditation is given in Seidenstücker, Pali-Buddhismus, pp. 344-356.]
[Footnote 684: Dig. Nik. XXII. ad. in.]
[Footnote 685: Dig. Nik. I. 21-26.]
[Footnote 686: See, for instance, Dig. Nik. II. 75. Sometimes five Jhânas are enumerated. This means that reasoning and investigation are eliminated successively and not simultaneously, so that an additional stage is created.]
[Footnote 687: See Dhamma-Sangaṇi; Mrs Rhys Davids' translation, pp. 45-6 and notes. Also Journal of Pali Text Society, 1885, p. 32, for meaning of the difficult word Ekodibhâva.]
[Footnote 688: E.g. Maj. Nik. 77; Ang. Nik. 1. XX. 63.]
[Footnote 689: Hardy, Eastern Monachism, pp. 252 ff.]
[Footnote 690: But also without shape, colour or outward appearance, so this statement must not be taken too literally.]
[Footnote 691: Such procedure has not received much countenance in Christian mysticism but the contemplation of a burnished pewter dish and of running water induced ecstasy in Jacob Boehme and Ignatius Loyola respectively. See Underhill, Mysticism, p. 69.]
[Footnote 692: Maj. Nik. 62 end.]
[Footnote 693: The analysis means to analyze all things as consisting alike of the four elements. The one perception is the perception that all nourishment is impure.]
[Footnote 694: See Dig. Nik. 13 and Rhys Davids' introduction to it. In spite of their name, they seem to be purely Buddhist and have not been found in Brahmanic literature. The four states are characterized respectively by love, sympathy with sorrow, sympathy with joy, and equanimity.]
[Footnote 695: Dig. Nik. XIII. 76.]
[Footnote 696: Dig. Nik. XVII. 2-4.]
[Footnote 697: Christian mystics also, such as St Angela and St Theresa, had "formless visions." See Underhill, Myst. pp. 338 ff.]
[Footnote 698: Attha vimokkhâ. See Mahâparinib. sut. in Rhys Davids' Dialogues of the Buddha, II. 119.]
[Footnote 699: Akiñcaññâyatanam.]
[Footnote 700: Nevasaññânâsaññâyatanam.]
[Footnote 701: Saññavedâyita nirodhasamâpatti. The Buddha when dying (Dig. XVI. V. 8, 9) passes through this state, but does not go from it to Parinibbâna. This perhaps means that it was regarded as a purification of the mind, but not on the direct road to the final goal.]
[Footnote 702: See Maj. Nik. 43. But the point of the discussion seems to be not so much special commendation of this form of trance as an explanation of its origin, namely that it, like other mental states, is bound to ensue when certain preliminary conditions both moral and intellectual have been realized. See also Sam. Nik. XXXVI. ii. 5. See for examples of this cataleptic form of Samâdhi Max Müller's Life of Ramakrishna, pp. 49,59, etc. Christian mystics (e.g. St Catharine of Siena and St Theresa) were also subject to deathlike trances lasting for hours and St Theresa is said once to have been in this condition for some days.]
[Footnote 703: Maj. Nik. 86.]
[Footnote 704: This is known to European mystics, particularly Suso. St Francis of Assisi, St Catharine of Siena and Richard Rolle are also cited. See Underhill. Mysticism, p. 332.]
[Footnote 705: Christian visions of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise are another instance of the divine eye, which thinks it can see the whole scheme of things.]
[Footnote 706: Tales about such powers, are still very common in the East, for instance the Chinese story (in the Liao Chai) of the man who learnt from a Taoist how to walk through a wall but failed ignominiously when he tried to give an exhibition to his family. Educated Chinese seem to think there is something in the story and say that he failed because his motives were bad.]
[Footnote 707: Bernheim, La Suggestion, chap. I. Quand j'ai éloigné de son esprit la préoccupation que fait naître l'idée de magnétisme ... je lui dis "Regardez-moi bien et ne songez qu'à dormir. Vous allez sentir une lourdeur dans les paupières, une fatigue dans vos yeux: ils clignotent, ils vont se mouiller; la vue devient confuse: ils se ferment." Quelques sujets ferment les yeux et dorment immédiatement.... C'est le sommeil par la suggestion, c'est l'image du sommeil que je suggère, que j'insinue dans le cerveau. Les passes, la fixation des yeux ou des doigts de l'opérateur, propres seulement à concentrer l'attention, ne sont pas absolument necéssaires.]
[Footnote 708: Thus in the drama Ratnâvalî a magician makes the characters see an imaginary conflagration of the palace and also a vision of heaven. His performance seems to be accepted as merely a remarkable piece of conjuring.]
[Footnote 709: Ang. Nik. xvi. 1. In spite of his magic power he could not prevent himself being murdered. The Milinda-Pañha explains this as the result of Karma, which is stronger than magic and everything else.]
[Footnote 710: E.g. Maj. Nik. 77. ]
[Footnote 711: Cullavag. v. 8.]
[Footnote 712: Dig. Nik. xi.]
[Footnote 713: Visuddhi Magga, xii. in Warren, Buddhism in Translation, pp. 315 ff.]
[Footnote 714: R.V. II. 12. 5.]
[Footnote 715: Yet Tennyson can say "And at their feet the crocus brake like fire," but in a mythological poem.]
[Footnote 716: Mahâv. V. i.]
[Footnote 717: E.g. Dig. Nik. XI. and Cullavag. V. 8.]
[Footnote 718: Even in the Upanishads the gods are not given a very high position. They are powerless against Brahman (e.g. Kena Up. 14-28) and are not naturally in possession of true knowledge, though they may acquire it (e.g. Chând. Up. VIII. 7).]
[Footnote 719: Dig. Nik. XI.]
[Footnote 720: Dig. Nik. I. chap. 2, 1-6. The radiant gods are the Abhassara, cf. Dhammap 200.]
[Footnote 721: Watters, II. p. 160.]
[Footnote 722: The legends of both Râma and Krishna occur in the Book of Jâtakas in a somewhat altered form, nos. 641 and 454.]
[Footnote 723: Thus Helios the Sun passes into St Elias.]
[Footnote 724: He is often called Brahmâ Sahampati, a title of doubtful meaning and not found in Brahmanic writings. The Pitakas often speak of Brahmâs and worlds of Brahmâ in the plural, as if there were a whole class of Brahmâs. See especially the Suttas collected in book I, chap. vi. of the Saṃyutta-Nikâya where we even hear of Pacceka Brahmâs, apparently corresponding in some way to Pacceka Buddhas.]
[Footnote 725: Maj. Nik. 49. The meaning of the title Baka is not clear and may be ironical. Another ironical name is manopadosikâ (debauched in mind) invented as the title of a class of gods in Dig. Nik. I. and XX. The idea that sages can instruct the gods is anterior to Buddhism, See e.g. Bṛihad-Âr. Up. II. 5. 17, and ib. IV. 3. 33, and the parallel passage in the Tait. Chând. Kaush. Upanishads and Śat. Brâhmaṇa for the idea that a Śrotriya is equal to the highest deities.]
[Footnote 726: Six Manvantaras of the present Kalpa have elapsed and we are in the seventh.]
[Footnote 727: We are in the Kali or worst age of the present mahâyuga. The Kali lasts 432,000 years and began 3102 B.C.
In their number and in many other points of cosmography the various accounts differ greatly. The account given above is taken from the Vishnu Purâna, book II. but the details in it are not entirely consistent.]
[Footnote 728: The detailed formulation of this cosmography was naturally gradual but its chief features are known to the Nikâyas. Dig. Nik. XIV. 17 and 30 seem to imply the theory of spheres. For Heavens, see Maj. Nik. 49, Dig. Nik. XI. 68-79 and for Hells Sut. Nip. III. 10, Maj. Nik. 129. See too De la Vallée Poussin's article, Cosmology Buddhist, in E.R.E.]
[Footnote 729: See for the Asuras Sam. Nik. I. xi. 1.]
[Footnote 730: See a Tibetan representation in Waddell's Buddhism of Tibet, p. 79.]
[Footnote 731: The question of whether the universe is infinite in space or not is according to the Pitakas one of those problems which cannot be answered.]
[Footnote 732: Dig. Nik. XXVII.]
[Footnote 733: Mâro pâpimâ. See especially Windisch, Mâra and Buddha, 1895, and Sam. Nik. I. iv.]
[Footnote 734: We sometimes hear of Mâras in the plural. Like Brahmâ he is sometimes a personality, sometimes the type of a class of gods. We also hear that he has obtained his present exalted though not virtuous post by his liberality in former births. Thus, like Sakka and other Buddhist Devas, Mâra is really an office held by successive occupants. He is said to be worshipped by some Tibetan sects. It is possible that the legends about Mâra and his daughters and about Krishna and the Gopîs may have a common origin for Mâra is called Kaṇha (the Prakrit equivalent of Krishna) in Sutta-Nipâta, 439.]
[Footnote 735: Ang. Nik. III. 35.]
[Footnote 736: This seems to be the correct doctrine, though it is hard to understand how the popular idea of continual torture is compatible with the performance of good deeds. The Kathâ-vatthu, XIII. 2, states that a man in purgatory can do good. See too Ang. Nik. 1. 19.]
[Footnote 737: But even the language of the Pitakas is not always quite correct on this point, for it represents evil-doers as falling down straight into hell.]
[Footnote 738: Khud. Path. 7. In this poem, the word Peta (Sk. Preta) seems to be used as equivalent to departed spirits, not necessarily implying that they are undergoing punishment. In the Questions of Milinda (IV. 8. 29) the practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead is countenanced, and it is explained exactly what classes of dead profit by them. On the other hand the Kathâ-vatthu states that the dead do not benefit by gifts given in this world, but two sects, the Râjagirika and Siddhattika, are said by the commentary to hold the contrary view.]
[Footnote 739: See Max Müller's Ramakrishna, p. 40, for another instance.]
[Footnote 740: In a passage of the Mahâparinib. Sut. (III. 22) which is probably not very early the Buddha says that when he mixes with gods or men he takes the shape of his auditors, so that they do not know him.]
[Footnote 741: Sam. Nik. II. 3. 10. Sadevakassa lokassa aggo.]
[Footnote 742: E.g. in the Lotus Sutra.]
[Footnote 743: One hundred and eight marks on the sole of each foot are also enumerated in later writings.]
[Footnote 744: Artaxerxes Longimanus. Cf. the Russian princely name Dolgorouki. The Chinese also attribute forty-nine physical signs of perfection to Confucius, including long arms. See Doré, Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine, vol. XIII. pp. 2-6.]
[Footnote 745: Though Brahmans are represented as experts in these marks, it seems likely that the idea of the Mahâpurusha was popular chiefly among the Kshatriyas, for in one form, at any rate, it teaches that a child of the warrior caste born with certain marks will become either a universal monarch or a great teacher of the truth. This notion must have been most distasteful to the priestly caste.]
[Footnote 746: See Dig. Nik. 3. The Lakkhana Suttanta (Dig. Nik. 30) contains a discussion of the marks.]
[Footnote 747: See Dik. Nig. 14, Mahâpadânasutta: Therag. 490; Sam. Nik. XII. 4-10.]
[Footnote 748: Maj. Nik. 50, Mâratajjaniyasuttam.]
[Footnote 749: Dig. Nik. 14.]
[Footnote 750: Maj. Nik. 123. See also Dig. Nik. 14.]
[Footnote 751: More literally that he knows exactly how his feelings, etc., arise, continue and pass away and is not swayed by wandering thoughts and desires.]
[Footnote 752: Three extra Buddhas are sometimes mentioned but are usually ignored because they did not, like the others, come into contact with Gotama in his previous births.]
[Footnote 753: E.g. Ang. Nik. III. 15 and the Mahâ-Sudassana Sutta (Dig. Nik. X.) in which the Buddha says he has been buried at Kusinâra no less than six times.]
[Footnote 754: Dig. Nik. XVI. v. 15.]
[Footnote 755: The two kinds of Buddhas are defined in the Puggala-Pannatti, IX. 1. For details about Pratyeka-Buddhas see De La Vallée Poussin's article in E.R.E.]
[Footnote 756: Thus in Dig. Nik. XVI. 5. 12 they are declared worthy of a Dâgaba or funeral monument and Sam. Nik. III. 2. 10 declares the efficacy of alms given to them.]