The Church the fruit of Christianity, the Sangha the root out of which Buddhism sprang—The Sangha not a Church but an Order—Different from the many Orders then existing, yet with a likeness to them which it never lost—Renunciation of secular life an indispensable qualification for membership—Analogous to yet essentially different from Monachism in Christianity, and in utter contrast to the idea and reality of the Christian Church—The Sangha as theoretically open to all, and propagandist in its purpose, a precursor of the Church—Actual disqualifications for membership—Ceremonial of admission—The “outgoing” from the world—Ceremonial of Confirmation—The “arrival”—The novitiate or tutelage—The rule of the Sangha—No vows of obedience to superiors—Stringent vows of poverty and chastity—Difference between a Buddhist Vihara and a Christian monastery—Favourable features of Buddhist monastic life—The Uposatha gathering—The Pâtimokkha catechising—The Pavârâna invitation—Relation of women to the Sangha—Institution of Order of Bikkhuni—The relation of the laity to the Sangha—The Buddhist layman’s only possible “merit,” and his only hope, Pages [253]-313
THE RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.
External diffusion—Both religions missionary—Vastly different in respect of their messages—Buddhist endeavour to perpetuate a system—Christian endeavour to set forth and interpret the facts of a miraculous life—Effect of belief in Christ’s continued presence upon the Church—Rapid diffusion of Christianity during the first four centuries—Condition of Buddhism during a similar period—Spread of Christianity after Constantine—Spread of Buddhism after Asoka—Difference in the peoples affected by both religions—Inferences—Internal history—Buddhism and Brahmanism—Christianity and Judaism—In Buddhism an early abandonment of fundamental principles manifest—Recoil of human nature from its Atheism into Polytheism and Tantrism—Degradation of Southern and Northern Buddhism—Buddhism in Tibet—Christianity in Abyssinia—History of Chinese Buddhism from fourth century A.D. analogous to that of Christianity in Europe from same date—Deterioration of both religions similarly indicated—Bôdiharma—Modern Neo-Buddhism—The T’ien-t’ai School—Reformed Buddhism in China—in Japan—Its most modern attitude—Difference between Buddhism and Christianity—Alike in their tendency to deteriorate—Christianity alone manifests a reforming and progressive power—Resources of Buddhism manifestly exhausted—Christianity apparently in only an initial stage of development, Pages [314]-386
[Postscript], Pages [387]-391
LECTURE I.
NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF THE TWO RELIGIONS.
Early in this century Schopenhauer, fascinated by the contents of the Upanishads, which had been translated from the Persian into Latin by the illustrious discoverer of the Zend-Avesta, ventured to predict that the influence of the newly-found Sanskrit literature upon the philosophy of the future would not be less profound than was that of the revival of Greek upon the religion of the fourteenth century.[[1]] That century was marked by the close of the mediæval age, and the beginning of the times of Reformation in which we are privileged to live. The Reformation was not an event, but the inauguration of a period. Its significance was far deeper than that of a revolt from ecclesiastical superstition and corruption. It meant a quickening of the human spirit, and a consequent awakening of the human intellect, to which many forces other than the leading religious ones, contributed; and its effects are visible not simply in the changes which it immediately produced, but in the revolution which is still actively progressing in all our social, political, and religious relations. The movement designated by the Reformation is manifestly far from having exhausted itself, and there can be no question that its course has been greatly accelerated by the studies to which Schopenhauer referred.
The re-discovery of India, lost to Europe for centuries after the beginning of the Christian era, almost as completely as America was hidden from it, was a fact of even greater import than the resurrection of Greece. It was no wilderness of ruins which was thus disclosed, from which only the shards of a long-buried civilisation could be exhumed, but a living and cultured world, whose institutions were rooted in an antiquity more profound than Greece could claim, and whose language and manners and religion were separated from the West by far more than a hemisphere. So totally unlike to the Western world was it, that the labours and sacrifices of several generations of the finest intellects of Europe were required before a key could be found to interpret its significance. Since the days when Anquetil Duperron, after many adventures and hardships, succeeded in breaking through the tangled thicket which guarded its treasures, the scholars of all nations have pressed into it, each one announcing, as he emerged, the dawn or the progress of another Renaissance, whose meaning and direction and ultimate issues only the rash will venture to predict or pretend to foresee.
One of the first-fruits of their combined or independent researches is the new science of Religion. By a careful collection, analysis, and comparison of all the beliefs of mankind available, with the view of eliciting what is peculiar to each, and what they all share in common, its professors aim at discovering what may be the real nature and origin and purpose of all religion.[[2]] As yet it should hardly be designated a science, for though the elements for it undoubtedly exist, they are too widely scattered to be of service for immediate induction. The materials already collected have not been sufficiently sifted, and moreover, it requires the assistance of other sciences, as yet too immature, to render it effective support. The title may not be a “misnomer,”[[3]] but only a somewhat inflated expression by which an age, rather wise in its own conceit, proclaims the discovery of a new field of learning which it means assiduously to cultivate. The discovery however is a solid one, and the assiduity of those who would improve it is unmistakable; year by year their numbers increase, their implements improve in quality, and this generation may not pass away before an abundant harvest has been reaped.
Another indication of the change that is coming over the world is the attitude which Christian divines now assume toward other religions. Fifty years ago the attempt to compare our Bible and our Creed with the scriptures of other religions would have been regarded as a sacrilegious surrender of what was holy to the dogs. This was due not so much to prejudice on the part of the expounders of Christianity as to aversion to the avowedly anti-christian spirit in which these researches were prosecuted. The Comparative method was then frequently employed, as it had been by the Encyclopædists of last century, for the purpose of discrediting and degrading Christianity. The conclusion was often foregone before the process began; and so it was natural that reverent but timid minds jealous for their religion, and anxious to guard it from insult, should decline such encounters. Now, however, orthodox theologians are quite aware that in this matter they have to reckon with other than the professed enemies of Christianity. The ablest advocates of Comparative Theology are not only free from antichristian prejudice, but they protest against it as inimical to the science itself.[[4]] It is not infidelity, but Providence, that is forcing us to investigate the origin of our religion, and to search its scriptures in the fuller light which we now enjoy. We are being divinely taught that we cease to revere a heavenly gift the moment we begin to idolise it; that the disposition most fatal to ourselves, most dishonouring to our religion, is that which would regard its scriptures as charmed relics too sacred to be examined, and only to be brought by an undevout and apostate Church, in the moment of its extreme peril, into the field of battle with the Philistines. To shrink from the comparison of our Faith with the religious beliefs of those whom we acknowledge to be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, is to manifest a cowardly lack of confidence in its Author. It is at the judgment-bar of all the ages that He means to make good His claim to be the Judge of all mankind. The more He is tried, the more will His authority be confessed to be divine. He certainly invited inspection and comparison, and He may have had other than Hebrew scriptures in His view when He instructed us to “search them, for they testify of Me.”[[5]]