Such is the character of the more ancient portions of the Sûtra-pitaka. It consists largely of tales, most of which have much the same outward form, the details only being varied; and all of which are intended to impress some kind of moral upon their hearers. But the Sûtra collection is composed of two different classes of works, the one class being named by Burnouf simple Sûtras, the other developed Sûtras. The developed Sûtras belong, according to the same authority, to a much later period, and are marked off from the simple Sûtras by certain well-defined characters. They are indeed of a kind which absolutely precludes the notion that they can emanate in any way whatever from Sakyamuni, or that they could have been composed during the modest beginnings of his Church, when his followers were rather intent on practical goodness than on pompous and high-flown descriptions of their Master's magnificence. Not that all the Sûtras classed by Burnouf as simple must needs belong to a very early age; but that the developed Sûtras certainly could not have been written until some centuries after Sakyamuni's death, when his disciples, instead of using their voices in actual conversation, enjoyed the leisure and the means to employ their pens in attempted fine writing. Burnouf has given the public a single specimen of a Sûtra of this class, and they must be very devoted students of Oriental literature who wish for another. Here is a sample of its style:—
"Then the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Akshayamati having risen from his seat, after throwing his upper garment over his shoulder, and placing his right knee on the ground, directing his joined hands, in token of respect, to the quarter where Bhagavat was, addressed him in these words: 'Why, O Bhagavat, does the Bodhisattva Mahâsattva Avalokitesvara bear that name?' This having been said, Bhagavat spoke thus to the Bodhisattva Akshayamati: 'O son of a family, all the hundreds of thousands of myriads of creatures existing in the world who suffer pains, have but to hear the name of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara to be delivered from this mass of pains'" (Lotus, p. 261).
The extraordinary diffuseness of this kind of composition is scarcely credible. Not only is every doctrine elaborated in the utmost number of words possible, but its exposition in prose is regularly followed by a second exposition in verse. Add to this peculiar feature of developed Sûtras another, namely, that innumerable crowds of supernatural auditors (especially Bodhisattvas, or future Buddhas) are present at their delivery by the Buddha, and take part in the dialogue, or demand explanations on knotty points, and some conception may be formed of their wholly unreal and unnatural character. Thus, the Lotus concludes with the statement that innumerable Tathâgatas (Buddhas) come from other universes, seated on thrones near diamond trees, innumerable Bodhisattvas, and the whole of the four assemblies of the universe, with Devas (gods), men, Asuras, and Gandharvas, transported with joy, praised what Bhagavat had said. Although the simple Sûtras mention the presence of gods at the Buddha's teaching, yet they do not (so far as I am aware) introduce these hosts of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas belonging to other worlds than ours. Their horizon had not extended itself to such vast limits, and they confined themselves to the universe in which we live.
Subdivision 3.—The Abhidharma-pitaka.
A third section of the Canon remains, the Abhidharma, or Metaphysics. Buddhist metaphysics are so absolutely mystical that it would be a waste of time to enlarge upon them in a work not specially consecrated to Oriental subjects. The subtleties of the Indian mind would require far more space to explain than would be consistent with the objects in view here, even if the writer were competent to explain them. The impression left on the mind by the perusal of the Abhidharma is that we delude ourselves if we believe in the reality of anything whatever. There is no material world; all we see, hear, feel or believe, is illusion; our thoughts themselves are no-thoughts; this doctrine is that of wisdom and truth, but there is no wisdom and no truth. The Buddha arrives by his meditations at this sublime knowledge; but there is no meditation and no knowledge. He conducts living creatures to Nirvâna: but there are neither creatures to be conducted, nor a Buddha to conduct them. All is nothingness, and nothingness is all. That this nihilism is common to all the schools into which Buddhists are divided, I do not mean to assert. There are in Nepaul certain schools which hold a peculiar modification of theism, and they probably may not embrace these strange and unintelligible systems. But the views—if views they can be called—which have just been described, do mark the canonical books of the Abhidharma with which I am acquainted; such as the so-called Pradjnâ Pâramitâ, or Perfection of Wisdom. There is, however, one metaphysical theory which is not a mere series of contradictions, and which, from its close connection with the deepest roots of the Buddhistic faith, deserves more than a mere cursory mention. It is the dogma known as that of the twelve Nidânas, or successive causes of existence.
It has already been explained that the original aim of Buddhism—the salvation offered by Sakyamuni—was deliverance from this painful existence. The four truths which formed the foundation of his system have also been spoken of. It may be well to remind the reader that they are these:—1. The existence of Pain; 2. The production of Pain; 3. The annihilation of Pain; 4. The way to the annihilation of Pain. Now if existence was, as the Buddhists believed, the source of pain, it was important to discover the source of existence. This the theory of the Nidânas professes to do. It is therefore not only intimately related to the four great truths, but forms an essential supplement to them. A very ancient formula, discovered not only in books but on images, declares that, "Of all things proceeding from cause, the cause of their procession hath the Tathâgata explained. The great Sramana has likewise declared the cause of the extinction of all things." Whether this formula refers to the four truths, or to the Nidânas, it is impossible to say. The Nidânas, however, might well be referred to in these terms. They are described in a passage which Burnouf has quoted from the Lalitavistara, in which the Bodhisattva (afterwards Buddha) is stated to have risen through prolonged meditation from the knowledge of each successive consequent to that of its antecedent. The Bodhisattva, we are told, collected his thoughts and fixed his intelligence in the last watch of night, just before the dawn appeared. "Then this thought came into his mind: The existence of this world, which is born, grows old, dies, falls, and is born again, is certainly an evil. But he could not recognize the means of quitting this world, which is nothing but a great accumulation of sorrows, which is composed but of decrepitude, illness, death, and other miseries, which are altogether formed of them.
"This reflection brought the following thought into his mind: What is the thing the existence of which leads to decrepitude and death, and what cause have decrepitude and death? This reflection came into his mind: Birth existing, decrepitude and death exist; for decrepitude and death have birth as their cause."
A similar process of reasoning led him to see that the cause of birth was existence; that of existence, conception; that of conception, desire; that of desire, sensation; that of sensation, contact; that of contact, the six seats of sensible qualities; that of the six seats, name and form; that of name and form, knowledge; that of knowledge, the concepts; that of the concepts, ignorance. "It is thus," exclaims the Bodhisattva when this great light had burst upon him, "it is thus that the production of this world, which is but a mass of sorrows, takes place." And by an inverse process he went on to reflect that if ignorance did not exist, neither would the concepts, and so on through every link of the chain. Until at length, "from the annihilation of birth results the annihilation of decrepitude, of death, of sufferings, of lamentations, of sorrow, of regret, of despair. It is thus that the annihilation of this world, which is but a mass of sorrows, takes place" (H. B. I., p. 487).
This speculation is by no means easy to understand. Apparently it means that ignorance, in the sense of a mistaken notion of the reality of the material world, leads to a whole series of blunders, ending inevitably in birth. From this fundamental error or belief in the existence of sensible objects spring certain other false conceptions. Knowledge, which next ensues, may mean not merely cognition but consciousness, knowledge of our existence; and in this sense, or in something like it, it must be taken in order to explain the apparent paradox of a deduction of the pedigree of knowledge directly from ignorance. Hence name and form, a still further distinction of the individual—a specialization of the vague knowledge of himself which the last stage brought him to. The next step carries us on to the six seats of sensible qualities; a phrase expressing the organs by which sensible qualities are perceived—the five senses, and Manas, the heart, which the Indians considered as a sixth sense. It appears also from Burnouf's remarks that the Sanskrit term includes along with the organs the qualities they perceive, the Law being assigned to the heart or internal sense as the object of its perception. The six seats being given, contact follows; contact implies sensation, and sensation naturally leads to desire. Conception is represented as the effect of desire, but another translation of this term by attachment, fondness for material things, renders the sequence easier to understand. Attachment to anything but the three gems—the Buddha, the Law, and the Church—is, however, a fatal error, and leads to the melancholy result of existence. Evidently, however, the being whose downward progress has thus been described must have existed before, and the event here alluded to must probably be the passage into the definite condition of the human embryo. And this is rather confirmed by the fact that the next step is that of birth, followed, as a matter of course, by the miseries of human life, terminating in death.[67] And death, unless every remnant of attachment to, and desire for, all worldly things has been purged away, unless every trace of sinful tendencies has been obliterated, is but a fresh beginning of the same weary round.