This was the rule for the very faithful, the infirm believers had a more lenient code.
If we now turn to the doctrine said to have been taught by Jesus and his disciples, we shall find a close parallel between it and that of the Indian teacher. For example, John says (1 Epis. ii. 15,16) "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world." Paul says (Rom. xii. 2) "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." James also says (ch. iv. 4) "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God." Again, we find in Matthew xix., Mark x., and Luke xii., the story of a young man who was possessed of wealth, probably scarcely less than that of Sakya Muni, and whose life had been conscientiously conducted, according to the commandments which he knew, and who having heard of Jesus, came to ask him if there were a more certain way of salvation than the one he was in. To him the reply is,—"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me." In the verses, moreover, which follow, there is a remark from the same teacher to the effect, that "every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
Once again, we find an exact counterpart of Buddha's teaching in the sermon on the Mount, which is recorded in Matth. vi. 25-34—"I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?... Why take ye thought for raiment, consider the lilies of the field... if God so clothe the grass... shall he not much more clothe you? Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?... Take therefore no thought for the morrow... sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Other similar passages might readily be given, but the above suffice to demonstrate the Buddhistic teaching of the prophet of Nazareth.
Both start from the idea that death, disease, pain, and misery is the result of sin—and both imagine that sin consists in living and acting upon the natural wants, necessities, and propensities of human kind. Both imagine that to be natural is to be vile, and that salvation is to be attained by resisting every impulse which is common to mankind Man desires to eat when hungry—this is a weakness to be combated; a mother loves her babe—this must not be tolerated; a youth covets a damsel in marriage—this is a snare to draw both down to hell; celibacy must be enforced. The argument runs thus,—If any one enjoys life he is sure to fear death, and will certainly pay for his pleasures; but if any one has the resolution to pass his years on earth in misery like that of hell, he will be glad to die, and fearless of any place of torment; use has bred a habit in him and no torture can come amiss.
Some Christian author has ventured to assert "religion never was designed to make our pleasures less," but he was a conspicuous heretic. Buddha's doctrine was founded upon the assertion that life is always short, and that it is not worth a man's while to buy a few years of enjoyment with myriads of years of agony. Jesus preached that the Jews' time was short, for they, and most probably all the world besides, were to be burned up any day within the duration of the generation—what then was the use of laying up stores of grain, of buying fine clothes, and keeping wine to get mellow?
Both preachers were equally short sighted and absurd in their teaching, for if their disciples were to live upon alms, and all repented and adopted the doctrine, it is clear that all would starve together, and self immolation by hunger was repugnant to both prophets. If no one made clothes all must go naked, and indecency was forbidden. If no one was to lay up money, there would be no one to pay for work, yet toil was considered to be a duty. If every one was to live from hand to mouth, who would keep a calf until it became a heifer, or a lamb to become a sheep?
It is difficult to conceive that two individuals could have worked out such a scheme of salvation independently, and the minuteness of the resemblances induces me to believe that Jesus, possibly without knowing it, first adopted and then promulgated in Judea the doctrines of the Indian sage.
Following, again, the lead of St. Hilaire (Le Bouddha, &c, 1860, pp. 81, et seq.), we find that Siddartha taught 600 years B. C., that death and all the miseries of mankind were due to the passions, desires, and sins of man; that all this misery would cease in Nirvana (of which we shall speak by and by), and that the means to attain to this salvation is to keep the true faith; to have a correct judgment; to be truthful in all things, and to hold every false thing in abhorrence; always to act and to think with a pure and honest mind; to adopt a religious life, i.e., one that is in no respect worldly, not owing even subsistence to anything which might be tainted with sin; to practise a careful and earnest study of the law; to cultivate a good memory, so that all mistakes in conduct may be remembered if they have occurred, and be avoided in the future; and frequent meditation, i.e., an abstraction of the mind from self consciousness, a thinking of nothing, so as to approximate the soul to Nirvana. These were Buddha's fundamental verities. It is put more shortly thus,—"Practising no evil, advancing in the exercise of every virtue, purifying one's self in mind and will, this is indeed the doctrine of all the Buddhas." Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xix. p. 473.
We may once more stop to compare the teaching of Siddartha with that familiar to Christians. Paul says, for example (Rom. v. 12) "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;" again, in chap, vi. 23, "the wages of sin is death;" again, in chap. vii. 5, "when we were in the flesh the motions of sins... did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death;" and again, chap. viii. 6, "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." We may next refer to what some call the fundamental teaching of Jesus, as enunciated in answer to the question of the young man "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Matthew xix., Mark x., "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And when the young man asserted that he had done so, all that he was told to do in addition, was to sell his property, give the proceeds to the poor, and become a follower of Jesus, who had not where to lay his head, and to live upon the charity of other people. I must, however, notice in passing, that the teaching of Jesus is not by any means so uniform as that of Sakya, for we find the former here instructing a young man to do no murder, but at a subsequent period, that of the last supper, Jesus exhorts his disciples, and through them, possibly, the very man to whom he rehearsed the commandments, thus "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one," (Luke xxii 36). Certainly a direct encouragement to homicide.
For the benefit of the Buddhists a short formula of faith has been framed, which is to this effect—"Tathâgata (another name of Sakya Muni), in the proper condition, has explained that our present state is produced by antecedent causes, and the great Sramana, or Ascetic (another cognomen of Siddartha), has told us how to avoid the effects of sin. The effects are pain and actual existence, having for their cause past sins; the cause is the production of suffering: the cessation of these effects is Nirvana, the teaching of Tathâgata, or of the great Sramana, is the way which leads to Nirvana." The Christian formula runs, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." To this we may compare a Nepaulese saying, "Arise, leave your possession, take up the law of Buddha, and break asunder the power of death."