Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

Are these remarkable analogies only casual resemblances, or are they real affinities? By affinity we here mean genetic relationship. Are Buddhism and Christianity related as mother and child, one being derived from the other; or are they related by both being derived from some common ancestor? Is either derived from the other, as Christianity from Judaism, or Protestantism from the Papal Church? That there can be no such affinity as this seems evident from history. History shows no trace of the contact which would be required for such influence. If Christianity had taken its customs from Buddhism, or Buddhism from Christianity, there must have been ample historic evidence of the fact. But, instead of this, history shows that each has grown up by its own natural development, and has unfolded its qualities separately and alone. The law of evolution also teaches that such great systems do not come from imitation, but as growths from a primal germ.

Nor does history give the least evidence of a common ancestry from which both took their common traits. We know that Buddhism was derived from Brahmanism, and that Christianity was derived from Judaism. Now, Judaism and Brahmanism have few analogies; they could not, therefore, have transmitted to their offspring what they did not themselves possess. Brahmanism came from an Aryan stock, in Central Asia; Judaism from a Semitic stem, thousands of miles to the west. If Buddhism and Christianity came from a common source, that source must have antedated both the Mosaic and Brahmanical systems. Even then it would be a case of atavism in which the original type disappeared in the children, to reappear in the later descendants.

Are, then, these striking resemblances, and others which are still to be mentioned, only accidental analogies? This does not necessarily follow; for there is a third alternative. They may be what are called in science homologies; that is, the same law working out similar results under the same conditions, though under different circumstances. The whale lives under different circumstances from other mammalia; but being a mammal, he has a like osseous structure. What seems to be a fin, being dissected, turns out to be an arm, with hand and fingers. There are like homologies in history. Take the instance of the English and French revolutions. In each case the legitimate king was tried, condemned, and executed. A republic followed. The republic gave way before a strong-handed usurper. Then the original race of kings was restored; but, having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, they were displaced a second time, and a constitutional monarch placed on the throne, who, though not the legitimate king, still belonged to the same race. Here the same laws of human nature have worked out similar results; for no one would suggest that France had copied its revolutions from England. And, in religion, human nature reproduces similar customs and ceremonies under like conditions. When, for instance, you have a mechanical system of prayer, in which the number of prayers is of chief importance, there must be some way of counting them, and so the rosary has been invented independently in different religions. We have no room to point out how this law has worked in other instances; but it is enough to refer to the principle.

Besides these resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity, there are also some equally remarkable differences, which should be noticed.

The first of these is the striking fact that Buddhism has been unable to recognize the existence of the Infinite Being. It has been called atheism by the majority of the best authorities. Even Arthur Lillie, who defends this system from the charge of agnosticism, says:[6] "An agnostic school of Buddhism without doubt exists. It professes plain atheism, and holds that every mortal, when he escapes from re-births, and the causation of Karma by the awakenment of the Bodhi or gnosis, will be annihilated. This Buddhism, by Eugène Burnouf, Saint-Hilaire, Max Müller, Csoma de Körös, and, I believe, almost every writer of note, is pronounced the original Buddhism,—the Buddhism of the South." Almost every writer of note, therefore, who has studied Buddhism in the Pâli, Singhalese, Chinese, and other languages, and has had direct access to its original sources, has pronounced it a system of atheism. But this opinion is opposed to the fact that Buddhists have everywhere worshiped unseen and superhuman powers, erected magnificent temples, maintained an elaborate ritual, and adored Buddha as the supreme ruler of the worlds. How shall we explain this paradox? All depends on the definition we give to the word "atheism." If a system is atheistic which sees only the temporal, and not the eternal; which knows no God as the author, creator, and ruler of Nature; which ascribes the origin of the universe to natural causes, to which only the finite is knowable, and the infinite unknowable—then Buddhism is atheism. But, in that case, much of the polytheism of the world must be regarded as atheism; for polytheism has largely worshiped finite gods. The whole race of Olympian deities were finite beings. Above them ruled the everlasting necessity of things. But who calls the Greek worshipers atheists? The Buddha, to most Buddhists, is a finite being, one who has passed through numerous births, has reached Nirvana, and will one day be superseded by another Buddha. Yet, for the time, he is the Supreme Being, Ruler of all the Worlds. He is the object of worship, and really divine, if in a subordinate sense.

I would not, therefore, call this religion atheism. No religion which worships superhuman powers can justly be called atheistic on account of its meagre metaphysics. How many Christians there are who do not fully realize the infinite and eternal nature of the Deity! To many He is no more than the Buddha is to his worshipers,—a supreme being, a mighty ruler, governing all things by his will. How few see God everywhere in nature, as Jesus saw Him, letting his sun shine on the evil and good, and sending his rain on the just and unjust. How few see Him in all of life, so that not a sparrow dies, or a single hair of the head falls, without the Father. Most Christians recognize the Deity only as occasionally interfering by special providences, particular judgments, and the like.

But in Christianity this ignorance of the eternal nature of God is the exception, while in Buddhism it is the rule. In the reaction against Brahmanism, the Brahmanic faith in the infinite was lost. In the fully developed system of the ancient Hindoo religion the infinite overpowered the finite, the temporal world was regarded as an illusion, and only the eternal was real. The reaction from this extreme was so complete as to carry the Buddhists to the exact opposite. If to the Brahman all the finite visible world was only maya—illusion, to the Buddhists all the infinite unseen world was unknowable, and practically nothing.

Perhaps the most original feature of Christianity is the fact that it has combined in a living synthesis that which in other systems was divided. Jesus regarded love to God and love to man as identical,—positing a harmonious whole of time and eternity, piety and humanity, faith and works,—and thus laid the foundation of a larger system than either Brahmanism or Buddhism. He did not invent piety, nor discover humanity. Long before he came the Brahmanic literature had sounded the deepest depths of spiritual life, and the Buddhist missionaries had preached universal benevolence to mankind. But the angelic hymn which foretold the new religion as bringing at once "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men" indicated the essence of the faith which was at the same time a heavenly love and an earthly blessing. This difference of result in the two systems came probably from the different methods of their authors. With Jesus life was the source of knowledge; the life was the light of men. With the Buddha, reflection, meditation, thought was the source of knowledge. In this, however, he included intuition no less than reflection. Sakya-muni understood perfectly that a mere intellectual judgment possessed little motive power; therefore he was not satisfied till he had obtained an intuitive perception of truth. That alone gave at once rest and power. But as the pure intellect, even in its highest act, is unable to grasp the infinite, the Buddha was an agnostic on this side of his creed by the very success of his method. Who, by searching, can find out God? The infinite can only be known by the process of living experience. This was the method of Jesus, and has been that of his religion. For what is faith but that receptive state of mind which waits on the Lord to receive the illumination which it cannot create by its own processes? However this may be, it is probable that the fatal defect in Buddhism which has neutralized its generous philanthropy and its noble humanities has been the absence of the inspiration which comes from the belief in an eternal world. Man is too great to be satisfied with time alone, or eternity alone; he needs to live from and for both. Hence, Buddhism is an arrested religion, while Christianity is progressive. Christianity has shown the capacity of outgrowing its own defects and correcting its own mistakes. For example, it has largely outgrown its habit of persecuting infidels and heretics. No one is now put to death for heresy. It has also passed out of the stage in which religion is considered to consist in leaving the world and entering a monastery. The anchorites of the early centuries are no longer to be found in Christendom. Even in Catholic countries the purpose of monastic life is no longer to save the soul by ascetic tortures, but to attain some practical end. The Protestant Reformation, which broke the yoke of priestly power and set free the mind of Europe, was a movement originating in Christianity itself, like other developments of a similar kind. No such signs of progress exist in the system of Buddhism. It has lost the missionary ardor of its early years; it has ceased from creating a vast literature such as grew up in its younger days; it no longer produces any wonders of architecture. It even lags behind the active life of the countries where it has its greatest power.

It is a curious analogy between the two systems that, while neither the Christ nor the Buddha practiced or taught asceticism, their followers soon made the essence of religion to consist in some form of monastic life. Both Jesus and Sakya-muni went about doing good. Both sent their followers into the world to preach a gospel. Jesus, after thirty years of a retired life, came among men "eating and drinking," and associating with "publicans and sinners." Sakya-muni, after spending some years as an anchorite, deliberately renounced that mode of religion as unsatisfactory, and associated with all men, as Jesus afterward did. Within a few centuries after their death, their followers relapsed into ascetic and monastic practices; but with this difference, that while in Christendom there has always been both a regular and a secular clergy, in the Buddhist countries the whole priesthood live in monasteries. They have no parish priests, unless as an exception. While in Christian countries the clergy has become more and more a practical body, in sympathy with the common life, in Buddhist lands they live apart and exercise little influence on the civil condition of the people.

Nor must we pass by the important fact that the word Christendom is synonymous with a progressive civilization, while Buddhism is everywhere connected with one which is arrested and stationary. The boundaries of the Christian religion are exactly coextensive with the advance of science, art, literature; and with the continued accumulation of knowledge, power, wealth, and the comforts of human life. According to Kuenen,[7] one of the most recent students of these questions, this difference is due to the principle of hope which exists in Christianity, but is absent in Buddhism. The one has always believed in a kingdom of God here and a blessed immortality hereafter. Buddhism has not this hope; and this, says Kuenen, "is a blank which nothing can fill." So large a thinker as Albert Réville has expressed his belief that even the intolerance of Christianity indicated a passionate love of truth which has created modern science. He says that "if Europe had not passed through those ages of intolerance, it is doubtful whether the science of our day would ever have arrived."[8] It is only within the boundaries of nations professing the Christian faith that we must go to-day to learn the latest discoveries in science, the best works of art, the most flourishing literature. Only within the same circle of Christian states is there a government by law, and not by will. Only within these boundaries have the rights of the individual been secured, while the power of the state has been increased. Government by law, joined with personal freedom, is only to be found where the faith exists which teaches that God not only supports the universal order of natural things, but is also the friend of the individual soul; and in just that circle of states in which the doctrine is taught that there is no individual soul for God to love and no Divine presence in the order of nature, human life has subsided into apathy, progress has ceased, and it has been found impossible to construct national unity. Saint-Hilaire affirms[9] that "in politics and legislation the dogma of Buddhism has remained inferior even to that of Brahmanism," and "has been able to do nothing to constitute states or to govern them by equitable rules." These Buddhist nations are really six: Siam, Burma, Nepaul, Thibet, Tartary, and Ceylon. The activity and social progress in China and Japan are no exceptions to this rule; for in neither country has Buddhism any appreciable influence on the character of the people.