Buddhism, in Its Connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in Its Contrast with Christianity

by Sir Monier Monier-Williams

Indeed, no religion or religious system which has not emanated from some one heroic central personality, or in other words, which has not had a founder whose strongly marked personal character constituted the very life and soul of his teaching and the chief factor in its effectiveness, has ever had any chance of achieving world-wide acceptance, or ever spread far beyond the place of its origin.

Hence the barest outline of primitive Buddhism must be incomplete without some sketch of the life and character of Gautama Buddha himself. Yet it is difficult to find any sure basis of fact on which we may construct a fairly credible biography.

In all likelihood legendary histories of the Founder of Buddhism were current in Nepāl and Tibet in the early centuries of our era; but unhappily his too enthusiastic and imaginative admirers have thought it right to testify their admiration by interweaving with the probable facts of Gautama Buddha’s life, fables so extravagant that some modern critical scholars have despaired of attempting to sift truth from fiction, and have even gone to the extreme of doubting that Gautama Buddha ever lived at all.

To believe nothing that has been recorded about him, is as unreasonable as to accept with unquestioning faith all the miraculous circumstances which are made to encircle him as with a halo of divine glory.

We must bear in mind that when Gautama Buddha lived—about the fifth century B.C.—the art of writing was not common in India[9]. We may point out, too, that in all countries, European as well as Asiatic—notably in Greece (witness, for example, the familiar instance of Socrates)—men have thought more of preserving the sayings of their teachers than of recording the facts of their lives.

And we must not forget that in India—where the imaginative faculties have always been too active, and anything like real history is unknown—any plain matter-of-fact biography of the most heroic personage would have few charms for any one, and little chance of gaining acceptance anywhere.

Hence it has happened that the ballads (gāthā) and legends current about Gautama among Northern Buddhists, bristle with the wildest fancies and the most absurd exaggerations.

Yet it is not impossible to detect a few scattered historical facts beneath stories, however childish, and legends, however extravagant. We shall not at least be far wrong, if, in attempting an outline of the Buddha’s life, we begin by asserting that intense individuality, fervid earnestness, and severe simplicity of character, combined with singular beauty of countenance, calm dignity of bearing, and above all, almost superhuman persuasiveness of speech, were conspicuous in the great Teacher.

The earliest authorities, however, never claim for him anything extraordinary or superhuman in regard to external form. It was only in later times that Buddhist writers pandered to the superstitions of the people, by describing the Buddha as possessed of various miraculous characteristics of mind and body. He is said to have been of immense stature—according to some, eighteen feet high—and to have had on his body thirty-two chief auspicious marks (mahā-vyañjana), regarded as indications of a Supreme Lord and Universal Ruler, eighty secondary marks (anu-vyañjana), besides one hundred and eight symbols on the sole of each foot, and a halo extending for six feet round his person.

All that can be said with any degree of probability about his personal appearance is, that he was endowed with certain qualities, which acted like a spell, or with a kind of irresistible magnetism, on his hearers. These must have formed, so to speak, the foundation-stone on which the superstructure of his vast influence rested.