Without doubt the distinguishing feature in the Buddha’s gospel was that no living being, not even the lowest, was to be shut out from true enlightenment.
And here it will be necessary to inquire more closely into the nature of that knowledge which the Buddha thus made accessible to every creature in the universe.
Was it some deep mystery? Some occult doctrine of physical or metaphysical science? Some startling revelation of a law of nature never before imparted to the world? Was the Buddha’s open way very different from the old, well-fenced-off Brāhmanical way?
Of one point we may be certain. He was too sensible to cast aside all ancient traditions. Nor was he a mere enthusiast claiming to be the sole possessor of a new secret for regenerating society.
Unhappily, however, we are here met by a difficulty. The Buddha never, like Muhammad, wrote a book, or, so far as we know, a line. He was the Socrates of India, and we are obliged to trust to the record of his sayings (see [p. 38]). Still we have no reason to doubt the genuineness of what was for some time handed down orally in regard to the doctrines he taught, and we are struck with the fact that Gautama called his own knowledge Bodhi (from budh, ‘to understand’), and not Veda (from vid, ‘to know’). Probably by doing so he wished to imply that his own knowledge was attainable by all through their own intuitions, inner consciousness, and self-enlightening intellect, and was to be distinguished from Veda or knowledge obtainable through the Brāhmans alone, and by them through supernatural revelation only. Hence, too, he gave to every being destined to become a Buddha the title Bodhi-sattva (Bodhi-satta), ‘one having knowledge derived from self-enlightening intellect for his essence.’
But it should be noted, that even in the choice of a name derived from the Sanskrit root budh, the Buddha only adopted the phraseology of the Sāṅkhya philosophy and of the Brāhmaṇas. The Sāṅkhya system made Buddhi, ‘intellect,’ its great principle (Mahat), and the Ṡatapatha-brāhmaṇa called a man who had attained to perfect knowledge of Self prati-buddha[46]. It may be pointed out, too, that Manu (IV. 204) uses the same root when he calls his wise man Budha.
Moreover, the doctrines which grew out of his own special knowledge Gautama still called Dharma (Dhamma), ‘law,’ using the very same term employed by the Brāhmans—a term expressive of law in its most comprehensive sense, as comprising under it the physical laws of the Universe, as well as moral and social duties.
In what, then, did the Buddha’s Dharma differ from that of the Brāhmans? One great distinction certainly was that it contained no esoteric (rahasya) and metaphysical doctrines in regard to matter and spirit, reserved for the privileged few; yet some of its root-ideas were after all mere modifications of the Sāṅkhya, Yoga, and Vedānta systems of philosophy. His way of knowledge, though it developed into many paths, had the same point of departure. It was a knowledge of the truth, that all life was merely one link in a series of successive existences, and inseparably bound up with misery. Moreover as there were two causes of that misery—lust and ignorance—so there were two cures.
The first cure was the suppression of lust and desire, especially of all desire for continuity of existence.
The second cure was the removal of ignorance. Indeed Ignorance was, according to Gautama, the first factor in the misery of life, and stands first in his chain of causation ([p. 102]). Not, however, the Vedāntist’s ignorance—not ignorance of the fact that man and the universe are identical with God, but ignorance of the four truths of Buddhism ([p. 43]):—ignorance that all life is misery, and that the misery of life is caused by indulging lusts, and will cease by suppressing them.