CHAPTER IX.
What is it, then, that we see here elucidated? Just conceive. For the last three thousand years and more, the learning of the world has been employed to ascertain the origin of the doctrine of Budhism. The savants of France, the indefatigable inquirers of Germany, the affected pedants of Greece and Rome, and the pure and profound philosophers of ancient India and Egypt, have severally and ineffectually puzzled themselves to dive into the secrets of that mystic religion.[118]
“The conflicting opinions,” says Coleman, “which have prevailed among the most intelligent Oriental writers, respecting the origin and antiquity of this and the Jaina sects, and the little historical light that has yet been afforded to disperse the darkness that ages have spread over them, leave us, at the end of many learned disquisitions, involved in almost as many doubts as when we commenced upon them.”
“There was, then,” adds Gentil, “in those parts of India, and principally on the coast of Choromandel and Ceylon, a sort of worship the precepts of which we are quite unacquainted with. The god Baouth, of whom at present they know no more in India than the name, was the object of this worship; but it is now totally abolished, except that there may possibly yet be found some families of Indians who have remained faithful to Baouth, and do not acknowledge the religion of the Brahmins, and who are on that account separated from and despised by the other castes.... I made various inquiries concerning this singular figure, and the Zamulians one and all assured me that this was the god Baouth, who was now no longer regarded, for that his worship and his festivals had been abolished ever since the Brahmins had made themselves masters of the people’s faith.”
“The worship of Budha,” says Heeren, “concerning the rise and progress of which we at present know so little, still flourishes in Ceylon.” Again, “All that we know with certainty of Budha is, that he was the founder of a sect which must formerly have prevailed over a considerable part of India, but whose tenets and forms of worship were in direct opposition to those of the Brahmins, and engendered a deadly hate between the two parties, which terminated in the expulsion of the Budhists from the country.”[119]
“The real time,” say the Asiat. Res. viii. p. 505, “at which Budha propagated the doctrines ascribed to him, is a desideratum which the learned knowledge and indefatigable research of Sir W. Jones have still left to be satisfactorily ascertained.”
“If the Budhaic religion,” says the Westminster Review of January 1830, “really arrived at predominance in India, its rise in the first place, and more especially its extirpation, are not merely events of stupendous magnitude, but of impenetrable mystery.”
It will soon appear, that however impenetrable heretofore, it is so no longer. Indeed, a great deal of the principle of their faith has been at all times understood, but under different associations. It was that which Job alluded to when he said, “If I gazed upon Orus (the sun) when he was shining, or upon Järêcha (the moon) when rising in her glory; and my heart went secretly after them, and my hand kissed my mouth (in worship), I should have denied the God that is above.”
So far all have arrived at the discovery of this creed, and accordingly, if you look into any encyclopedia or depository of science for a definition of the word “Budhism,” you will be told that “it is the doctrine of solar worship as taught by Budha.” There never was such a person as Budha—I mean at the outset of the religion, when it first shot into life, and that was almost as early as the creation of man. In later times, however, several enthusiasts assumed the name, and personified in themselves the faith they represented. But the origin of the religion was an abstract thought, which while Creuzer allows, yet he must acknowledge his ignorance of what that thought was.