The articles of worship offered to or placed before the statues of Buddha, and the shrines supposed to contain some of his relics, are few and remarkable for their simplicity. They consist in flowers arranged in fine bouquets, in flags and streamers made of cloth, sometimes of paper, and cut into a great variety of figures, with considerable taste and skill. There are to be seen also small wax candles, little earthen lamps, and sometimes incense and scented wood, which are consumed in large burners, placed on pedestals made of masonry. The worshippers are generally in a squatting position, the back resting on the heels, the body slightly bending forward, the joined hands raised to the forehead. Ordinarily a string of flowers, or little bits of wood adorned each with a small paper flag, are held on these occasions. On the days of worship, particularly during the three months of Lent, the crowd of people of every age, sex, and condition, resorting to the most venerated pagoda of the place, is truly extraordinary. Men and women of a certain age have in their hands a string of beads, upon which they repeat the formula Aneitsa, Duka, Anatta, or some other.
Since the Buddhist knows that his Buddha is no more, and, therefore, can afford him no assistance whatever, that there is no virtue inherent in his relics or images, in fact, that there is no Providence, it is difficult to account for the zeal that he often displays in honouring the great founder of his religion, and all that has a reference to him. To account satisfactorily for such a moral phenomenon, we must bear in mind the belief that he has in the intrinsic worth of the devotional practices he performs. Those works are good per se; they give rise, power, and energy to the law of merits, or to the good influence which will procure to him abundant rewards in future existences, and gradually lead him to the harbour of deliverance, the object of his most ardent wishes. That hope is, as it were, the great feeder of his devotion.
[19] On a former occasion, Buddha had raised his voice to bestow praises on the memory of the great Thariputra, whose relics he was holding on the palm of one of his hands in the presence of the assembled Rahans. Now, a short time before he yields up the ghost, he summons all his strength, and at great length passes the highest encomium on his amiable and ever-devoted attendant, the truly kind-hearted Ananda. These are the only two instances mentioned in this compilation, when Buddha has condescended to eulogise the great virtues and eminent merits of two disciples. In Thariputra, Buddha extolled the transcendent mental attainments, the heroic achievements in the practice of virtue, the fervour and zeal for the propagation of religion, which had ever distinguished the illustrious friend of Maukalan. In Ananda, the searching and keen eye of Buddha discovered excellencies of a less shining and bright hue, but, in point of sterling worth, second to none. Ananda is a matchless pattern of gentleness, amiability, devotedness, and placid religious zeal. He loves all his brethren, and he is, in return, beloved by them all. His superior goodness of heart and placidity of temper secure to him an almost undisputed precedence over the other members of the assembly. Tearing the veil that conceals futurity from our eager regards, Buddha foretells the future conquests to be made by the mild and persuasive eloquence of his ever dearly beloved disciple. The far-spread fame of Ananda shall in days to come attract crowds of visitors, eager to see and hear him. The sight of his graceful and lovely appearance shall rivet to his person the attention and affection of all. Enraptured at the flow of this tender, touching, and heart-moving eloquence, visitors shall eagerly listen to him; they will experience sadness only when his silence shall deprive them of that food which their mind and heart were feasting on.
The eulogium of Ananda by Buddha is unquestionably one of the finest passages of the legend. Divested of its original beauties by having passed through several translations, it retains, however, something that charms and pleases. The reader is involuntarily reminded of similar specimens found here and there in the earliest records of antiquity.
In the instructions that Ananda is to give to laymen, it is somewhat curious to see Buddha distinctly stating that Ananda will exhort the people to make offerings both to Rahans and to pounhas; that is to say, to the members of the assembly, and to the Brahmins. From this passage, it becomes evident that, in the days of our Buddha, the two sects that were subsequently to struggle during many ages for superiority over the Indian Peninsula, subsisted free from inimical feelings towards each other. It might be said that no line of separation kept them apart, indicating or pointing out their respective limits. The wide gap that was during succeeding centuries to intervene between those two great religious sects was not perceptibly felt. The levelling results of Buddhism had not yet awakened the susceptibilities of the proud Brahmins. Buddhists and Brahminists lived on friendly terms, and looked upon each other as brethren. The discrepancies in the respective creeds were regarded with indifference, as involving only philosophical subtleties, well suited to afford occupation to ideologists, and give to disputants the opportunity of displaying their abilities in arguing, reasoning, and defining. It is not easy to determine whether the conduct of Buddha was regulated by a well-calculated policy, intended to calm the suspicious scruples of his opponents, or whether he was actuated by plain and straightforward principles. It is probable that at that time many Brahmins followed a mode of life almost similar to that of the disciples of Buddha; they were, therefore, entitled to the same honours and support.
[20] Buddha had so much at heart the conversion of the heretic Thoubat, that the earnest desire of performing this great and meritorious action was one of the three motives that induced him to select the comparatively insignificant city of Koutheinaron for the last stage of his existence. Particulars regarding that personage would prove interesting, because he is the last convert Buddha made. From what has been alluded to in some Buddhistic writings regarding Thoubat, it is certain that he was of the caste of pounhas or Brahmins. He had studied in some of the numerous schools of philosophy, at that time so common in India. From his way of addressing Buddha, there is no doubt but he was acquainted with the principal theories upheld by the most renowned masters in those days. It is related of Thoubat that, in a former existence, he was tilling a field with one of his brothers, when some Rahans happened to pass by. His brother gave abundant alms to the holy personages, whilst Thoubat showed less liberal dispositions. When, then, Buddha appeared, the law was announced to the generous donor, and in company with eighteen koudes of Brahmas he obtained the state of Thautapan. The rather parsimonious Thoubat obtained the favour of conversion at the eleventh hour. He must have, however, subsequently atoned for this offence, as his dispositions seem to have been of the highest order when he came into Buddha’s presence. In a few hours he had gone over the four ways leading to perfection, and had become a Rahanda.
In the days of Buddha, the philosophical schools of India seem to have had six eminent teachers, whose doctrines exhibited on some points a considerable variance. In a book of religious controversy between a Christian and a Buddhist, composed more than a hundred years ago by a Catholic priest at Ava, the writer had the chance of meeting with a faint outline of the leading tenets maintained by the six teachers, so often alluded to in this compilation. One of them maintained the existence and agency of numberless genii, who, at their will, could favour man with fortune and every possible temporal benefits, as well as visit him with their displeasure, by depriving him of all happiness and heaping misery and all sorts of calamities over his head. Geniolatry was the necessary consequence flowing from such a principle. A second teacher denied at once the dogma of metempsychosis, and maintained that every being had the innate power of reproducing by way of generation, &c., another being of similar nature. A third one had singular notions regarding the nature of man. He said that he had his beginning in the womb of his mother, and that death was the end and destruction of his being: such a destruction he called Neibban. A fourth teacher taught that all beings were without beginning and ending, and that there existed no influence of good and bad deeds. A fifth doctor defined Neibban, a long life like that of Nats and Brahmas. He saw no harm in the killing of animals, and he asserted the existence of a state of reward and punishment. The last teacher boldly asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, creator of all that exists, and alone worthy of receiving adorations.
Thoubat’s mind was rather perplexed by so many contradictory and opposite opinions and doctrines. He had lived, it appears, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, fluctuating, as it were, between conflicting theories which could not carry conviction to his soul. He had heard of Buddha and wished to see him, hoping that perhaps he might fall in with the truth he was so ardently panting after. With these dispositions, he came to the spot where Buddha was lying on his couch, in the hope of easing his mind from the state of doubt and fixing it in truth. Like a man of consummate abilities in the way of arguing and convincing his adversary, Buddha sets aside all that was put forward by his antagonist, and, coming at once to the point, preaches to him the true doctrine. As light dispels darkness, so truth disperses the mist of error. Thoubat, seeing truth, at once embraced it, gladly ridding himself of the burden of errors that had hitherto weighed down his soul. All his doubts vanished away, and he found himself, on a sudden, safely anchored in the calm and never-agitated harbour of perfect truth.
Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him.
It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?