When the novice who had thus “gone forth” from the world, or from the membership of another fraternity, had “seen the truth, mastered the truth, understood the truth, penetrated the truth; when he had overcome uncertainty, dispelled all doubts, was dependent on nobody else for his knowledge of the doctrines of the Teacher,”[[277]] he presented himself before the Order, of whom ten members at least had to be in session, and reverentially cowering on the ground with his hands clasped on his forehead, he three times entreated them “to take pity upon him and draw him out of the evil world by granting him Upasampada” or the “arrival” initiation rite.[[278]] Then followed his examination as to whether he was qualified[[279]] in his person, his health, his social and civil relations, whether he had provided an alms-bowl and the yellow robes, what was his own name, and that of the teacher with whom he was to consort, and whom he was to serve during a course of five years’ instruction in the whole doctrine and discipline of the system. If the answers to all these questions were satisfactory, the resolution to receive him was formally put by the presiding monk, and thrice repeated: “Whosoever of the venerable is for granting Upasampada to this novice, with brother So-and-so for his teacher, let him be silent.” When no dissent was intimated the resolution was passed. “The Sangha is in favour of it, therefore it is silent—thus I understand,” said the president, and the novice became a Samana, a fully accredited member of the Order of Bikkhus.
There was certainly nothing of the Church in all this ceremony, and Sir Monier Williams very properly guards us from applying to it the sacred word of ordination.[[280]] Any one who cares to read the texts in which the proceedings are described will be inclined to think that the questions put to the novice, in their childishness and absurdity, seem diabolically framed to caricature the solemn and soul-searching questions addressed to candidates for the Holy Ministry. Yet in the instruction given to the newly admitted member, concerning the “four chief forbidden acts” from which he must abstain, and “the four resources”[[281]] in which he was to trust, there was a touch of the solemnity which belongs to the charge which follows Christian ordination. The monk was reminded that in regard to what was pleasant and permissible to other men he had subjected himself to self-denial and a yoke. He might receive from the pious, without offence, offerings of food and clothing, and medicine and shelter, but he must be prepared for the hard life of one whose food might only be scraps and refuse put into his bowl, whose clothing might have to be made of cast-off rags, whose shelter might often be the tree in the jungle or the cave in the rock, and whose medicine might be only the foul deposit of the cattle-pen. He was warned that any breach of the four cardinal precepts—against unchastity, which to him meant what to others was the lawful estate of marriage, against theft, even of a blade of grass, against murder, even to the crushing of a flea, against assumption of virtues not really possessed,—would necessitate expulsion from the Order. “For even as a man whose head is cut off cannot live with the trunk; ... as a dry leaf separate from the stalk can never again become green; ... as a stone split in two cannot be made into one; ... as a palm whose top is destroyed cannot again grow, so the monk who breaks the least of these laws is no longer a Samana, no longer a follower of the Sakya-putta.”[[282]]
To the credit of Buddha, however, it must be observed, that a monk who had entered the Order was at any time free to withdraw from it. If he had a hankering after home, or the pleasures of the old life which he had forsaken, he was exhorted to confess his weakness and renounce a vocation which he had found too high for him. He had simply to declare before a witness that he renounced Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—yea, he could go forth without making any declaration at all. Freely as he had joined, as freely could he abandon the brethren; no anger was expressed or even felt; no discredit attached to him, for the working out of his deliverance was his own concern. Yea, if at any time he repented of his action, and desired to renew with the companions of wiser days the relation of votary or novice, he was not subjected to any discipline, such as a lapsed member of the Church might be expected to undergo when seeking re-communion. He was treated upon his confession as though his past had not been remembered, and as if his folly or fault had never been committed.[[283]] Such facility of withdrawal and readmission seemed to tend to laxity, and may have occasioned very great abuses, but on the very face of it, it appears calculated to preserve monastic life in India in a much healthier condition than has always prevailed in the recluse institutions of Christendom. In how many cases has the monastery become worse than a prison, and the convent become a very chamber of tortures, because occupied by reluctant tenants, who have been cruelly immured in them against their will, or have thoughtlessly devoted themselves to a vocation for which they were totally unfit. The Eastern sage may even have shown greater wisdom than the Western bishops and presbyters, who have bound over for life those admitted to a sacred profession, so that freedom from it can only be got by ignominious expulsion, and by degradation for a fault or a crime.
The Sangha from the first was an order of Cœnobites, not Solitaries, and it was an exception for a mendicant to be alone; for with his practical insight Buddha seems to have discovered that the life of solitude has more disadvantages and dangers than that of fellowship. So he ordained that the newly admitted monk must attach himself for five years to a tutor and teacher,[[284]] one of whom must have been ten years in the Order, rendering to them such personal offices as Elisha rendered to Elijah, and receiving such parental instruction as St. Paul bestowed upon his son in the faith. No vow of obedience, so essential to the monastic rule of Christendom, unless in regard to the laws of the Order, was exacted. No man could be called Rabbi among them, for the knowledge which brought deliverance could be and must be acquired by each man for himself.[[285]] A monk was expected to reverence his superior in age and knowledge, but his obedience was to be rendered not to his brother, who was simply his equal in respect of need and capability of deliverance, but only to The Law which alone could secure it.
While obedience to a superior was not exacted, the law of poverty and chastity was as obligatory upon the Buddhist monk as on the members of the Christian Orders. Francis of Assisi could not more highly have eulogised poverty as “the way to salvation, the nurse of humility, the root of perfection,” than did the Indian monks who compiled the Buddhist scriptures. “In supreme felicity live we, though we call nothing our own. Feeding on happiness, we are like the gods in the regions of light.”[[286]] Food a monk could receive, but not ask for, and of what he so received he could only have one meal a day. Gold or silver he could on no account accept, though he might accept its equivalents in food or medicine. If like Achan’s wedge it was found to have been secreted by any covetous member, one of the brethren had to hide it away in the jungle, in a place which could not again be recognised. Bitter controversies regarding this prohibition seem to have exercised the primitive Sanghas, and though it was successfully maintained for long, concessions in relation to it were eventually agreed upon. These however proved as fatal to the prosperity of the Buddhist, as similar concessions proved to that of the Western monastic establishments. They were seeds of evil which speedily grew up into thickets of trouble. The individual member professed to observe the original law and maintain the principle that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of his goods,” but the several fraternities came speedily to abound in lands and property of every kind, so that in the East as in the West it may be said the monasteries fell, because crushed with their weight of wealth.
Even while the primitive rule was observed the mendicants could easily procure what of the necessaries of food and shelter and clothing they required; the jungle gave them all the shelter they needed, though it exposed them to frequent perils of being poisoned by snake-bites, and devoured by beasts. The rains put an end periodically to their peregrinations, and gathered the twos and threes who had been associating together into common retreat in the viharas. These originally were intended to be only temporary shelters from the annual floods, but as by degrees the system extended into distant regions, they became permanent institutions, each one a centre of influence in its own territory, like the abbeys in the original dioceses of mediæval Europe.
Life in a Buddhist vihara two thousand years ago must however have been very different from life in a monastic establishment in the middle ages. Labour, as we have seen, of no kind was allowed, either among them or for them. “A monk who digs the earth or causes it to be dug is liable to punishment.”[[287]] Scant time was allowed for sleep, and when there were no books to read or transcribe, the studies or literary occupations of the West were out of the question. All the intellectual energies were claimed for the repetition of such sacred works as they knew, and for the committing to memory of others which they had only acquired. Examination of self, meditation on the five principal themes which occupied the place of prayer or devotion in their system, was expected to absorb the most of the day. Notwithstanding its intervals of instruction and discussion, it must have been a very vacant life indeed, lacking entirely the worship, and most of the duties, which rendered monastic life in Christendom, if not always profitable, at least supportable.
Two outstanding features of it, however, compare very favourably with some forms of the ascetic life both in India and Europe. In the Buddhist Sanghas would be witnessed neither the slovenliness nor the dirtiness which has often been associated with the life of those who have renounced the world and have professed to despise its pleasant things. Around them,
“Besmeared with mud and ashes, crouching foul,
In rags of dead men, wrapped about their loins,”[[288]]