The religion founded by Buddha in India is six centuries older than Christianity. Its nominal adherents comprise almost one third of the human race. Its philosophical precepts are deep and profound, while its ethical teachings are, for the most part, lofty and ennobling. This religion is worthy the careful study of any man who has the time and inclination.
We cannot attempt to give a full exposition of it, but will have to content ourselves with a bare mention of its more prominent teachings. Certain resemblances to Catholicism in ritual, ceremony, and ornamentation strike one very forcibly in observing Buddhist rites. The candles, the incense, the images and processions, all resemble Rome. But this resemblance extends no further than ritual and ceremony. In point of doctrine Buddhism is widely separated from every form of Christianity. In Buddhism the condition on which grace is received is not faith, but knowledge and enlightenment. Salvation is accomplished, not by the vicarious sufferings of a Redeemer, but by self-perfection through self-denial and discipline.
Dr. Griffis, a man who has written much and well on Japan, has pronounced the principal features of Buddhism to be atheism, metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, and absence of caste.
A Buddhist Priest.
Buddhism knows nothing of the existence of a supreme God who created the world. It inherited ideas of certain gods from Brahmanism, but these are made secondary to the hotoke, or buddhas, who are simply men who have finally reached the calm of perfect holiness after toiling through endless ages and countless existences. It teaches that existence itself is the chief of all evils. Instead of longing for eternal life, the Buddhist longs for annihilation. Happy, well-fed Western people, to whom existence is a delight, can hardly understand how any one can really desire its cessation. But the life of the lower classes in many countries of the East is one daily struggle for bread, so full of sorrow and misery that it is not unnatural they should desire to end it.
This religion teaches that the evil of existence springs from the double root of ignorance and human passions, and is to be overcome by knowledge and self-discipline. The heaven it offers is absorption in the Nirvana—the loss of personal identity and practical annihilation.
Buddhism numbers more devotees and exerts a greater influence than any of the other religions of Japan. It was received from Korea about the middle of the sixth century. After it had been transplanted and had grown into popular favor, many Japanese were sent to Korea and China to study its doctrines more fully; and they brought back with them not only Buddhism, but also Chinese literature and civilization. At first Buddhism encountered fierce opposition, but it was fortunate in securing court patronage, and very soon the opposition entirely ceased, so that in two or three centuries it spread itself throughout the whole empire. If ever a nation was ripe for the introduction of a foreign religion, that nation was Japan at that time. The national cult was silent, or almost so, in regard to the destiny of man and many other questions which religion is expected to answer. The religious nature of the people was asserting itself, and they were longing for more light on the great questions of life—its whence, why, and whither. Buddhism gave this light, and therefore was warmly welcomed. It had the whole field to itself, and took complete possession of it.