Buddhism was developed from Hinduism. It originated as a revolt from the excessive ritualism of the Brahmans. We have seen that Hinduism became an all-embracing system of religious ritual and social organisation, but that alongside, as it were, of this process there was evolved a philosophical system based upon two theories: the belief in a Universal Soul as the centre of reality, and the belief in the ultimate identity of the Individual and the Universal Soul. In the sixth century before Christ India was seething and fermenting with spiritual thought. A great teacher was called for, and such a one was given to the world in Gautama, the Buddha, that is to say, the Enlightened or Awakened One.
Gautama was born on the frontiers of Nepal at the foot of the great Himalaya range about the year 557 before Christ. He was the only son of a chief or king. At the age of eighteen he was married to the daughter of the chief of a neighbouring clan, and a son was born to him. But the yearnings of a reformer were stirring within Gautama, and he could not rest. So one night in secret he left his wife and infant and went out into the world a wanderer in search of “that inward illumination on ‘great matters,’ which was the cherished dream of every thinker in that memorable era.” He followed to no purpose the paths of metaphysical speculation, of mental discipline, and of ascetic rigour, and at last on one eventful night, as he sat under the Bodhi Tree at Gaya, in Behar, “he reaped the fruit of his long spiritual effort, the truth of things being of a sudden so clearly revealed to him that from henceforth he never swerved for a moment from devotion to his creed and to the mission that it imposed upon him.”
The truth which Buddha discovered and preached to humanity was that the salvation of man lay not in sacrifices and ceremonial, nor in penances, but in spiritual effort and a holy life, in charity, forgiveness, and love. The sages of Hinduism had taught as a doctrine for the few that the Universal Soul is the only reality, and is therefore the real self of every man. Buddha gave to the world a system by which the truth of this doctrine could be realised in the life of an ordinary man.
The four-fold truth on which Buddha’s whole scheme hinges may be expressed as follows:—Life on earth is full of suffering; suffering is generated by desire; the extinction of desire involves the extinction of suffering; the extinction of desire, and therefore of suffering, is the outcome of a righteous life. But how is desire with the suffering which it generates to be extinguished? The answer of Buddhism is that the eightfold path which leads to the extinction of suffering is by “Right Belief, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Remembrance and Self-discipline, Right Concentration of Thought.” In Buddha’s system, as he himself gave it to the world, doctrines and beliefs are of secondary importance. Fully alive to the truth that “what we do, besides being the outward and visible sign of our inward and spiritual state, reacts naturally and necessarily on what we are, and so moulds our character and controls our destiny,” he formulated for his followers a simple system of moral rules, obedience to which would set them on the path which leads to salvation. On this path there are successive stages, and each of these stages is marked by the breaking of some of the fetters which bind man to earth and to self, and when all the fetters are at last broken then the Holy One, as he is now called, has reached his goal. In other words, he has attained to that state which Buddhists call Nirvana, a state of “perfect knowledge, perfect love, perfect peace, and therefore of perfect bliss.”
The Buddhist system emphasises the importance of education and discipline. All over Burma there are schools conducted by Buddhist monastic orders at which instruction is gratuitously given to boys in the vernacular of the country, and one rarely finds a native of Burma who cannot read and write his own language. It is also part of the religious discipline of every Burman boy that he should become a novice in a monastic order and live for a time the life of a monk. The aim of this training is to teach obedience and self-control, and thus in these days of change, when strange and disintegrating influences are at work in the East, the Burman retains, to a certain extent at all events, his simplicity and his kindly faith. To appreciate the influence of Buddhism in Burma let us remember that a Buddhist priest is supported entirely by gifts in kind, and never touches a coin.
For some centuries Buddhism made great progress in India, the land of its birth; but in the end Hinduism re-asserted itself, and to-day there are very few Buddhists in India proper, though in Burma nearly all the people are of that faith. This is the chief cause of the difference in almost every respect between Burma and India. In the Ananda Temple, as we have seen, there are four images of Buddha, for it is the tradition of the religion that before Gautama there were in former ages of the world three other teachers who reached enlightenment and were therefore called Buddha.
|57.
The Wilderness of Bricks, Pagan.| |58.
Gadawpalin Temple, Pagan.| |59.
Vultures on a ruined Temple at Pagan.| |60.
Cactus at Pagan.| |Repeat Map No. 6.| Here, still at Pagan, is the so-called Wilderness of Bricks, with the Ananda Temple in the distance to the right. Then we have the entry to one of the other temples, and then yet another Pagan ruin with vultures on the summit. Finally we have a scene of tall cactus growth, also at Pagan, for this city stands in what is known as the Dry Belt of Burma. The map shows us that two ranges of mountains extend northward, respectively to east and west of the Irawaddy valley. The winds of summer and autumn blow from the southwest, from the sea, bringing moisture which falls in heavy rains on the west sides of the mountains and over the delta. At Rangoon there is an annual rainfall of over one hundred inches, or more than three times the rainfall of London. To the east of the western range, however, as we leave the delta on our journey up the river, there is a low-lying district near Pagan, which is screened from the sea winds by the continuous mountain ridge, and here the rainfall is small, as little as twenty inches in the year, but the climate is hot and evaporation is rapid. In this district, therefore, cactus is the typical vegetation, but elsewhere in Burma are rich crops or the most luxuriant forests of leafy trees. These forests supply the teak wood, which is floated down the river. They are full of game, and the haunt of poisonous snakes. Wild peacocks come from the woods to feed on the rice when it is ripe, and tigers are not unknown in the villages. Only a few years ago a tiger was shot on one of the ledges of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in the midst of Rangoon.
Notwithstanding the age of some of its temples and pagodas, Burma is in the main a new country, in which Nature is still masterful. It is the largest of the provinces under the Government of India, but all told it contains but ten million people—Burmese, Chinese, Hindus, and the Hill Tribes.