“Without his teacher the pupil must not enter a house nor look to the right or left, but bend his look to the ground as he follows behind his teacher.” “When reading the holy scriptures one must not cough nor take any food or drink. In blowing the nose one must not make too much noise—nor spit in a clean place—nor offer tea with his hand—he must hold his arm-sleeve before his mouth when he gapes—he must not smack his lips when he eats nor scratch his head.” Such directions are found in the educational code. We often find sublime moral duties intermingled with trivial details of ceremonial. If the pupil does not say “Om” on beginning and ending his reading of the Vedas, the exercise will do him no good.
The moral maxims are taught in the form of fables. The book used is what we know as the Fables of Bidpai (“Friend of Science”) from an Indian work, which was rewritten as the Hitopadesa (“Friendly Advice”) some centuries ago. It contains profound ethical wisdom, mixed with some things whimsical and absurd. Proverbs are quoted at every turn, being strung on the thread of the fable, like glittering stones on a necklace.
The instruction of the Brahmin’s son extended to the philosophic doctrines of Hindoo pantheism. To understand the nature of this pantheism is most important. There is Brahm—above all the individual gods. Brahm expresses pure abstraction from all distinctions—merely to think it is to become unconscious of all things. Brahma is the personification of that substance (Brahm) as the creator, Vishnu as the preserver, and Siva as the destroyer. Below these high gods there are terrestrial ones presided over by Indra, the Hindoo Jupiter, ruler of the sky. Creation is not an act of the will of deity, but a sort of emanation “like the growth of plants from seed or the hair from the head.” The world proceeds from nothingness, growing out of Brahma, and returns into nothingness—it is all an illusion, a sort of dream, which the Hindoo calls “Maya.” Brahm is the substance of all the gods, and of the beings of the world, and hence all their differences vanish to the Brahmin, who meditates long enough to reach the idea of Brahm. Hence the highest aim of education is to reach this annihilation of all distinction—passing beyond all the gods, even to Brahm.
The Sankhya philosophy expresses this doctrine of annihilation of all particular things and beings through reflection: “So through the study of principles the conclusive, incontrovertible, one only knowledge, is attained, that neither I am nor is aught mine, nor do I exist.”
One must not suppose that the Hindoo education is so complete that the lower castes remain without aspiration. They learn by degrees in what rests the power of the Brahmin to ascend above the gods by the exercise of meditation and abstraction. This is taught in the Bhagavad Gita—even a Sudra can by meditation come to Brahm.[H] The lower castes may become partakers of the divine life through regeneration—“immense self-denial, torture and penance” are requisite. They become “yogis,” and undertake some painful exercise, such as standing for twelve years without once lying down, then clasping the hands over the head for another twelve years; then a third grade by standing between four fires and the tropical sun, afterward swinging backward and forward over a fire for nearly four hours; lastly, if life is not extinct, being buried alive for the same length of time. If he lives still, the devotee has now become a Brahmin.
From the bondage of caste there is therefore one possible escape—through self-torture and penance,—but the remedy is as bad as the disease. It was Buddha who taught a doctrine that furnished a real relief from all this in the utter abolition of the caste system. Driven out of India, this doctrine spread throughout Ceylon, Farther India, China, Thibet, and among the Tartars of Siberia, and to this day numbers more human beings in its faith than any other form of religion. It gives all families a chance to ascend to the highest state of religious culture.
Buddhistic emancipation is from the rigid bonds of family as well as from caste. Any family having four sons must devote one to a monastic life. This demands the renunciation of all personal wishes and longings—all desires, all pride, and anger, and stubbornness; then the devotee reaches Nirvana and all will and consciousness have sunk into the rest and quiet of non-existence, and are purified of all finitude and special existence. In Nirvana ceases all change—no more beginning and ending—no more birth and death—perfect rest.
In the catechism of Chinese Buddhism there are ten duties prescribed: (1) Slay no living being; (2) steal not; (3) be chaste; (4) speak nothing wrong; (5) drink nothing intoxicating—these are also found in primitive Buddhism—another five duties are added relating to external rules of the order: (6) Do not perfume the hair on the top of the head, nor paint the body; (7) do not listen to songs nor attend the theater; (8) do not sit or lie on a large cushion or pillow; (9) do not eat except at meal-time; (10) do not own gold or silver, or anything of value as private property. The ideal is that of mendicancy—pious beggary.
Its ideal of the divine is no higher than that of India. God is conceived, not as a personal being having consciousness and will and love (our Christian conception), but rather as a being above personality and consciousness (the Hindoo conception). Hence the Buddhist still strives for the annihilation or extinction of his conscious individuality, just as the Indian devotee, but without those frightful penances, and without cruel laws of caste.
We can not commend the views of those who find in Buddhism, as portrayed in the “Light of Asia,” a doctrine almost or quite equal to Christianity. To us it seems to be infinitely below Christianity. Its conception of God and of God’s creation is just the opposite of the Christian conception, for in Christianity we believe God to be a personal being, who reveals himself in nature and man, and even becomes human in his Son, and dies on a cross out of love for the human race. Man can grow forever into the image of God, realizing that image in his will, his love, his intellect, because God is all there in an infinite degree, while to the Buddhist God is none of these but a being who is the negative of nature and of man too. Hence the education of Brahminism and Buddhism is based on an idea radically opposed to our own.