While the pantheistic believer proceeded to anthropomorphize in a still greater degree the [=a]tm[=a] of his fathers, and eventually landed in heretical sectarianism; while the orthodox Brahman simply added to his pantheon (in Manu and other law-codes) the Brahmanic figure of the Creator, Brahm[=a]; the truth-seeker that followed the lines of the earlier philosophical thought arrived at atheism, and in consequence became either stoic or hedonist. The latter school, the C[=a]rv[=a]kas, the so-called disciples of Brihaspati, have, indeed, a philosophy without religion. They simply say that the gods do not exist, the priests are hypocrites; the Vedas, humbug; and the only thing worth living for, in view of the fact that there are no gods, no heaven, and no soul, is pleasure: 'While life remains let a man live happily; let him not go without butter (literally ghee) even though he run into debt,' etc.[1] Of sterner stuff was the man who invented a new religion as a solace for sorrow and a refuge from the nihilism in which he believed.
Whether Jainism or Buddhism be the older heresy, and it is not probable that any definitive answer to this question will ever be given, one thing has become clear in the light of recent studies, namely, the fact already shown, that to Brahmanism are due some of the most marked traits of both the heretical sects. The founder of Buddhism did not strike out a new system of morals; he was not a democrat; he did not originate a plot to overthrow the Brahmanic priesthood; he did not invent the order of monks.[2] There is, perhaps, no person in history in regard to whom have arisen so many opinions that are either wholly false or half false.[3]
We shall not canvass in detail views that would be mentioned only to be rejected. Even the brilliant study of Senart,[4] in which the figure of Buddha is resolved into a solar type and the history of the reformer becomes a sun-myth, deserves only to be mentioned and laid aside. Since the publication of the canonical books of the southern Buddhists there is no longer any question in regard to the human reality of the great knight who illumined, albeit with anything but heavenly light, the darkness of Brahmanical belief. Oldenberg[5] has taken Senart seriously, and seriously answered him. But Napoleon and Max Müller have each been treated as sun-myths, and Senart's essay is as convincing as either jeu d'esprit.
In Nep[=a]l, far from the site of Vedic culture, and generations after the period of the Vedic hymns, was born a son to the noble family of the Ç[=a]kyas. A warrior prince, he made at last exclusively his own the lofty title that was craved by many of his peers, Buddha, the truly wise, the 'Awakened.'
The Ç[=a]kyas' land extended along the southern border of Nep[=a]l and the northeast part of Oude (Oudh), between the Ir[=a]vat[=i] (Rapti) river on the west and south, and the Rohini on the east; the district which lies around the present Gorakhpur, about one hundred miles north-northeast of Benares. The personal history of the later Buddha is interwoven with legend from which it is not always easy to disentangle the threads of truth. In the accounts preserved in regard to the Master, one has first to distinguish the P[=a]li records of the Southern Buddhists from the Sanskrit tales of the Northerners; and again, it is necessary to discriminate between the earlier and later traditions of the Southerners, who have kept in general the older history as compared with the extravagant tradition preserved in the Lalita Vistara, the Lotus of the Law, and the other works of the North. What little seems to be authentic history is easily told; nor are, for our present purpose, of much value the legends, which mangonize the life of Buddha. They will be found in every book that treats of the subject, and some of the more famous are translated in the article on Buddha in the Encyclopædia Brittanica. We content ourselves with the simplest and oldest account, giving such facts as help to explain the religious significance of Buddha's life and work among his countrymen. Several of these facts, Buddha's place in society, and the geographical centre of Buddhistic activity, are essential to a true understanding of the relations between Buddhism and Brahmanism.
Whether Buddha's father was king or no has rightly been questioned. The oldest texts do not refer to him as a king's son, and this indicates that his father, who governed the Ç[=a]kya-land, of which the limits have just been specified,[6] was rather a feudal baron or head of a small clan, than an actual king. The Ç[=a]kya power was overthrown and absorbed into that of the king of Oude (Kosala) either in Buddha's own life-time or immediately afterwards. It is only the newer tradition that extols the power and wealth which the Master gave up on renouncing worldly ties, a trait characteristic of all the later accounts, on the principle that the greater was the sacrifice the greater was the glory. Whether kings or mere chieftains, the Ç[=a]kyas were noted as a family that cared little to honor the Brahmanic priests. They themselves claimed descent from Ikshv[=a]ku, the ancient seer-king, son of Manu, and traditionally first king of Ayodh[=a] (Oude). They assumed the name of Gautama, one of the Vedic seers, and it was by the name of 'the Ascetic Gautama' that Buddha was known to his contemporaries; but his personal name was Siddh[=a]rtha 'he that succeeds in his aim,' prophetic of his life! His mother's name M[=a]y[=a] (illusion) has furnished Senart with material for his sun-theory of Buddha; but the same name is handed down as that of a city, and perhaps means in this sense 'the wonderful.' She is said to have died when her son was still a boy. The boy Siddh[=a]rtha, then, was a warrior r[=a]jput by birth, and possibly had a very indifferent training in Vedic literature, since he is never spoken of as Veda-wise.[7] The future Buddha was twenty-nine when he resolved to renounce the world. He was already married and had a son (R[=a]hula, according to later tradition). The legends of later growth here begin to thicken, telling how, when the future Buddha heard of the birth of his son, he simply said 'a new bond has been forged to hold me to the world'; and how his mind was first awakened to appreciation of sorrow by seeing loathy examples of age, sickness, and death presented to him as he drove abroad. Despite his father's tears and protests Siddh[=a]rtha, or as one may call him now by his patronymic, the man Gautama, left his home and family, gave up all possessions, and devoted himself to self-mortification and Yoga discipline of concentration of thought, following in this the model set by all previous ascetics. He says himself, according to tradition, that it was a practical pessimism which drove him to take this step. He was not pleased with life, and the pleasures of society had no charm for him. When he saw the old man, the sick man, the dead man, he became disgusted to think that he too would be subject to age, sickness, and death: "I felt disgust at old age; all pleasure then forsook me." In becoming an ascetic Gautama simply endeavored to discover some means by which he might avoid a recurrence of life, of which the disagreeable side in his estimation outweighed the joy. He too had already answered negatively the question Is life worth living?
We must pause here to point out that this oldest and simplest account of Gautama's resolve shows two things. It makes clear that Gautama at first had no plan for the universal salvation of his race. He was alert to 'save his own soul,' nothing more. We shall show presently that this is confirmed by subsequent events in his career. The next point is that this narration in itself is a complete refutation of the opinion of those scholars who believe that the doctrine of karma and reincarnation arose first in Buddhism, and that the Upanishads that preach this doctrine are not of the pre-Buddhistic period. The last part of this statement of opinion is, of course, not touched by the story of Gautama's renunciation, but the first assumption wrecks on it. Why should Gautama have so given himself to Yoga discipline? Did he expect to escape age, sickness, death, in this life by that means? No. The assumption from the beginning is the belief in the doctrine of reincarnation. It was in order to free himself from future returns of these ills that Gautama renounced his home. But nothing whatever is said of his discovering or inventing the doctrine of reincarnation. Both hell and karma are taken for granted throughout the whole early Buddhistic literature. Buddha discovered neither of them, any more than he discovered a new system of morality, or a new system of religious life; although more credit accrues to him in regard to the last because his order was opposed to that then prevalent; yet even here he had antique authority for his discipline.
To return to Gautama's[8] life. Legend tells how he fled away on his horse Kanthaka, in search of solitude and the means of salvation, far from his home to the abode of ascetics, for he thought: "Whence comes peace? When the fire of desire is extinguished, when the fire of hate is extinguished, when the fire of illusion is extinguished, when all sins and all sorrows are extinguished, then comes peace." And the only means to this end was the renunciation of desire, the discipline of Yoga concentration, where the mind fixed on one point loses all else from its horizon, and feels no drawing aside to worldly things.
What then has Gautama done from the point of view of the Brahman? He has given up his home to become an ascetic. But this was permitted by usage, for, although the strict western code allowed it only to the priest, yet it was customary among the other twice-born castes at an earlier day, and in this part of India it awakened no surprise that one of the military caste should take up the life of a philosopher. For the historian of Indic religions this fact is of great significance, since such practice is the entering wedge which was to split the castes. One step more and not only the military caste but the lower, nay the lowest castes, might become ascetics. But, again, all ascetics were looked upon, in that religious society, as equal to the priests. In fact, where Gautama lived there was rather more respect paid to the ascetic than to the priest as a member of the caste. Gautama was most fortunate in his birth and birth-place. An aristocrat, he became an ascetic in a land where the priests were particularly disregarded. He had no public opinion to contend against when later he declared that Brahman birth and Brahman wisdom had no value. On the contrary, he spoke to glad hearers, who heard repeated loudly now as a religious truth what often they had said to themselves despitefully in private.
Gautama journeyed as a muni, or silent ascetic sage, till after seven years he abandoned his teachers (for he had become a disciple of professed masters), and discontentedly wandered about in M[=a]gadha (Beh[=a]r), 'the cradle of Buddhism,' till he came to Uruvel[=a], Bodhi Gay[=a].[9] Here, having found that concentration of mind, Yoga-discipline, availed nothing, he undertook another method of asceticism, self-torture. This he practiced for some time. But it succeeded as poorly as his first plan, and he had nearly starved himself to death when it occurred to him that he was no wiser than before. Thereupon he gave up starvation as a means of wisdom and began to eat. Five other ascetics, who had been much impressed by his endurance and were quite ready to declare themselves his disciples, now deserted him, thinking that as he had relaxed his discipline he must be weaker than themselves. But Gautama sat beneath the sacred fig-tree[10] and lo! he became illumined. In a moment he saw the Great Truths. He was now the Awakened. He became Buddha.