A Prophet of the People
THE knowledge we possess of the rise of the religion of the Buddha, a religion which at the beginning of this century was little better than a myth, a faith to which even to-day, after the lapse of many centuries, four hundred millions of the earth’s inhabitants subscribe, we owe in great measure to a freak of fortune, which seems to delight in connecting a degree of disappointment even with the attainment of its greatest prizes.
About fifty years ago, Csoma de Körös, a Hungarian, set out from his native land to seek in the remote interior of Central Asia the original seats of the Magyars. He was a man of singular purity of character and intensity of purpose. The seemingly insurmountable difficulties of his journey, the doubtful chances of ultimate success, could not for a moment deter him from his dangerous task. Relying on his knowledge of medicine, and confiding in the hospitality of the East, he traversed the mountains and steppes until at last he arrived at the place of his destination. There, in a Buddhist monastery, on the confines of Thibet and India, amid the snows of the Himalayas, he remained during four years, a solitary and secluded hermit. Naturally of a taciturn disposition, he never disclosed the strange sights he must have seen there; but in the noble work which he performed he has left us a precious memorial of his stay. With almost superhuman effort he mastered the difficult language of Thibet, and on his return to Calcutta brought with him a library of sacred books, which he had collected during the period of his voluntary exile. To his own deep disappointment, but to the delight of Sanskrit scholars, it was found that his books contained a direct translation of the Buddhist canon, which Mr. Hodgson had lately discovered in the original Sanskrit in Nepaul. The impetus thus given to the study of one of the most powerful of the ancient religions was as great as it was seasonable. Abundant materials, awaiting assortment and application, invited the industry of the scholar, and the temple of Buddha’s faith, like a second Pompeii, gradually rose from its long sleep beneath the unknown languages of the Orient, until, toward the middle of the century, Eugène Burnouf presented the key which finally admitted us into the inmost sanctuary.
Before proceeding to tell the story of the life and teachings of Hindostan’s great prophet and reformer, it will be necessary to give a brief account of the early religion of India, and to explain the growth of those doctrines which it was the life - work of the Buddha to oppose. To do this we shall be compelled to lead the reader far backward, along the track of history, and attempt to gain a height from which we may take in at a glance the progressive development of the past.
Upon the banks of the Indus, in the shadow of the snow-palaces,1 dwelt the fathers of the Hindoos. Of old they had left the primitive seats of the Aryans, and while the great body of their kindred moved to the northwest, they turned to the opposite quarter, crossed the silent passes of the Himalayas, that protect and fructify the Indian peninsula,2 and descended from the mountains to seek new homes in the region of the upper Indus and its tributary streams. Here they lived a pastoral and nomadic life. Their mental sphere was determined by the extent and character of their experience; their noblest thoughts clothed in the homely language which the familiar objects of their daily interest suggested. They compared their god to a strong bull rushing to the drinking-
trough; their kind goddess they likened to an exuberant milch cow.
The religious views of a people so situated could not but reflect the conditions of their existence. The religion of a people, indeed, is the highest expression of its character, giving utterance to its hopes and its fears, displaying its vices no less than its virtues. Assuredly the saying, “In the image of man does he create his gods,”is equally true with its more beautiful converse.
As we enter the temple of the Hindoo faith, a throng of fantastic beings meets us; some bright as the sunny sky above, some gloomy and mysterious, conforming to the darker moods of nature and of man. There are the Açvins, the beautiful twin brothers, who rise upon the earliest rays of ihe awakening sun; the Marutas that sweep along in the breeze on their light, aerial steeds; the Gandharvas, the divine musicians, cloud-maidens they; and, greater than these, Agni, the god of the fire. As the sacrificial flame rises toward heaven, he bears the offerings of the pious to his brother gods, mediating between the worshiper and the worshiped. He is the protector of the hearth, the divine messenger betwixt heaven and earth. Rudra, the god of the tempest, represents the darker side of life. Adorned with the emblems of wrath he rides the destroying blast, and terror goes everywhere before him to announce his coming. These forms of deities are sufficiently transparent. It is the human face which meets us wheresoever we turn; it smiles in the sunshine and frowns in the storm; it speaks to us in many tongues, but they are all the echoes of our own spoken or unspoken language. The cold reasonings of incipient science, the abstract tendencies of philosophical inquiry, are foreshadowed even in the most ancient monuments of Indian literature.
The mind struggles toward the simple that underlies the complex, the one that permeates the many.
And first it seeks to establish order in the confusion of the pantheon.
The Hindoos worshiped a god whom they called Varuna. He was the lord of the mighty heavens, he sat on the ultimate borders of space; he was the upholder of order, the dispenser of justice, the guardian of moral purity, “ the god above all gods. ” Why he? A moment’s reflection will show. In the domain of intellect as of nature, the stronger of two forces is certain to predominate. When a great thought, takes possession of the mind, no little thought can dislodge it.
There is no greater thought than the thought of the infinite. In the majesty of that conception I am raised above the accidents of time. Let the world with all its paltry vices and devices come to lure me from my purpose; I can despise it; I am the child of eternity. The feeling which the presence of the infinite arouses within us we call the feeling of the sublime. It is this which thrills us when we hear grand music, when we see the canvas or the marble instinct with the inspiration of genius, when we stand in the great assembly of the people. While it rules us a mean act is impossible.
“ Soul of man, how like art thou unto the waters,” says the poet. Under the influence of the sublime these waters lie still and solemn, like the great ocean under the star-lit firmament, in a peaceful summer’s night. It is the aspect of the heavens at night which, above all other sights of nature, is calculated to awaken in us this feeling of the sublime. Before it base thoughts and low impulses sink into nothing, the storm of the passions is lulled, a holy quiet is cast over the mind.
The Hindoo felt this as he gazed on the brilliant lights of his own southern sky. He felt anger, envy, all that is sinful, die away within him. Varuna, the god of the starry heavens, he felt cleansed him from his iniquity. So the ideas of purity and unity, as they are intimately and inseparably related, grew strong together in the appreciation of mankind; the god of order, the chastener of the soul, became the most high god.
The extremes of Vedic faith lie before us. On the one hand, we have seen the rich imagination of the people flowering out in the many forms of their gods and goddesses; on the other hand, the idea of a supreme being is born of their innate tendency toward the abstract. Between them lies the central figure of Hindoo mythology, which represents the strongest of the gods, and corresponds to that phenomenon of nature whose peculiar grandeur and violence impressed the susceptible mind of the Hindoos most deeply — the tropical storm.
We, who are taught from earliest childhood to recognize the working of impersonal law, are frequently at a loss to understand the difficulties which the meteoric phenomena presented to the primitive mind. In modern times, the most illiterate have ceased to consider a fall of rain a subject worthy of remark, much less of surprise. But to the Hindoos this simple occurrence appeared to be involved in profound mystery, and full of irreconcilable contradictions. To make the cause of their perplexity plain, we must premise that the sending of the rain in the hot plains of Hindostan is considered the supreme blessing of the year. On it the filling of the streams, the crops, and life itself depend. Yet, whence did this blessed rain-water come ? Could it be believed that yonder black masses of cloud sailing overhead, that cast a chill over man’s heart, and obscure the landscape at their coming, are indeed the dispensers of the highest good ?
The cloud was construed to be a monstrous dragon, who holds the good rainwater, it is true, but with evil intent, desirous of withholding it. The god of light, the true friend of man, engages in battle with the monster and casts his spear against him, evidently in anger, as the quickness with which it darts through the sky, and the loud voices of the thunder that accompany it, attest. The lightning rends the cloud, the spear pierces the monster, and the waters, delivered from their hostile guardian, now fall free and plentiful to bless the earth. As they fall, the god of the bright sky shines forth triumphant. He it is who has sent the rain, to whom all praise is due. Thus Indra, the god of the blue sky, becomes a divine hero, who gives light and rain to his beloved ones, and fights their battles in the sky. It is natural that he who fights for them on high should aid them in their conflicts on earth. Indra becomes the god of war.
In this capacity we find him an object of peculiar reverence in the second stage of early Indian history, which may be called the heroic period. The increased and ever-increasing population that dwelt on the banks of the Indus and its tributaries could no longer be contained within the limits of their first settlement. The pastoral habits of an earlier age were abandoned. The spirit of warlike enterprise, nurtured in the petty feuds and boundary disputes of their nomadic life, impelled them to continue their migrations toward the East, and, skirting the outposts of the Himalayas, they descended into the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges, to seek new seats near those sacred streams. In consequence of this movement a series of disastrous struggles took place, not only between the black natives of the country and the invading Aryans, but also between the related tribes of the conquering race itself. The vanguard of the army of migration was pressed upon by new bands, which followed in their rear, and the victors were forced to defend their recent possessions against the continued aggressions of rival clans and chieftains. In these battles the presence of Indra, the giver of victory, was deemed the prime condition of success, and to secure his aid became an object of paramount importance. The manner in which this was attempted leads us to the contemplation of one of the most instructive customs of ancient times. And, affording a clear insight into the working of early religious thought, it will prepare the way for a better understanding of those later developments of Hindoo religion which it is our object to explain.
It was by means of the soma sacrifice that the favor of Indra was gained. This, like all sacrifices, was originally intended to satisfy a gross, material want of the god, and not a spiritual need of man. “ The hungry gods ” demanded food, and it was the duty of the pious to give it. In direct proportion to the munificence of their offering stood the degree of divine protection which it secured. “ Friendship was given for friendship,” as it is expressed in the sacred books of the Hindoos.
Continuing the analogy, men argued that the stimulating effect of strong drink would be no less powerful in a god than in his human adorer. And hence arose the sacrifice to which we refer. Culled on the mountain-side beneath the mystic influence of the moon, the soma3 was prepared by the Hindoo priest for the feast of Indra. It was ground between stones; the juice, in which the intoxicating power resides, was caught in a basin, and, mixed with pure milk, poured into the sacrificial vessel. It was the same, even in name, as the haoma of the Persians, which grows in the far - off East, blooming white and pearly on a mystic tree, where Aparím - napât, the lord of life, dwells in the midst of his fairy lake;4 the same as ambrosia, which was quaffed in the bright assembly on high Olympus; the same as the delicious meth which the German gods drank in the feasts of Walhalla. Its essential virtue consisted in stimulating the strength of the war-god, and enabling him to overcome his own and his people’s enemies.
Moreover, it was the drink of immortality, and only by partaking of this juice were the celestials themselves, perishable by nature, believed to attain to immortal life.
An enlargement of human experience was at the bottom of this belief. In the exhilarating sense of the first luscious enjoyment of wine, men are deceived into a transient happiness, and forget for a while the lapse of time. What if the state which follows is one of mental and physical unsoundness ? The ideals of a higher world have ever been reflected images of the joys of this world infinitely prolonged, with all their sweetness, without their pain. There must be a drink, a soma, an ambrosia, which, with its higher, subtler power of intoxication, shall cause this thrilling sense of wine-pleasure to endure forever without consequent abasement; which shall raise man not above one fleeting hour alone, but above all the bounds of time, bearing him onward to a blissful immortality.
Now, that the god would gladly receive so acceptable an offering was beyond all doubt, and hence to prepare the soma was to be certain of victory. But here arose a grave difficulty. Both armies were equally assiduous in preparing the offering, and how was Indra to decide? In truth, he did not decide at all, but rather a superior force residing in his worshipers compelled him to obey their wishes. For, whether the Hindoo priests in their moments of intense supplication honestly regarded the heightened life that pulsed through their veins, the rhythm of language and the flow of thought, as the manifestation of a supreme power, or whether they simply argued that the god, who directs his action according to the wishes of his creatures, must in so far be subordinate to their will, — at all events they considered themselves the vehicles of a magic force, which broke forth in their prayers, and by means of which they could compel Indra to receive their offering. An illustration of this belief is given in one of the Vedic hymns. Indra had already lifted the bowl of the enemy’s drinkoffering to his lips, when Vasistha, a great priest, poured forth an irresistible prayer, and thus forced him to drop the cup which he was holding, to drink of his own soma and give him victory. In this manner the conflict of the warriors was prefaced, and in a manner predetermined, by the emulous struggle of contending priests, and the power which the latter thus obtained was incalculably great. The prayers, rites, and invocations which they adopted being necessarily of an arbitrary character, it was left to accident or design to indicate the forms and symbols of their worship, and the imagination, cut loose from all the ties of the real, soon reveled in the most monstrous and incongruous combinations. The less the common people understood of the spirit which guided these fables, the more sacred did they esteem them, the more willingly did they lend their aid to strengthen the hands of their priests. We shall presently see how well the hierarchy understood how to improve its advantage.
The shouts of battle gradually died away; the right of possession to the new lands was more or less permanently secured; from the chaotic mingling of confused elements slowly crystallized the forms of order and government. Fertile fields, promising a rich return to the husbandman, invited the attention of the conquerors, and the common soldiers, settling on the small tracts of land which fell to their share, learned to forget the tumults of the previous age and to cultivate the gentler arts of peace. The chiefs of the army were rewarded with larger possessions, proportionate to their dignity and achievements. Leaving the management of their estates to their followers, they continued to be the companions of the prince, and in the periodic wars of conquest or defense, which still occurred, were prepared to take upon themselves the costs and risks of warfare, which the more peaceable settlers, glad to be left to the undisturbed tillage of the fields, readily entrusted to their charge. With the king at their head they formed an aristocratic class, distinguished from the common people, the farmers, the tradesmen, the mechanics. Above these two classes was raised the priesthood, the true flower of human kind. As the nobles were the ministers of the king, so were they the ministers and in a certain sense the masters of the gods. And, believing themselves possessed of the power to rule the wishes even of their deities, it is not surprising that they considered the unqualified submission of all their fellow-men to their authority a just and natural claim. These classes, though separated among themselves by laws as rigid as the newborn spirit of caste could invent, were united by the ties of a common origin against a fourth class, consisting of the natives of the country, which was equally contemned by all. These were the veritable “ hewers of wood and drawers of water.”As time went on, the scheme of the four great Indian castes — of the priests, the nobles, the common people, and the slaves — became more and more fixed, and was at last confirmed for all time to come by the new religious system which gradually rose in the midst of the hierarchy, under the influence of the altered conditions of their new existence on the banks of the Ganges.
The life of the Hindoos had at this time attained a degree of refinement and elegance which we frequently find conjoined with barbarous despotism, wherever a privileged class is raised above the sordid cares of life by the unrequited toil of the enslaved masses. We see them fastidious to a fault in the arrangement of their dress and the attention paid to beauty of person. Their long and flowing robes are of snowy white, their girdles set with gems, their plaited hair bound with the graceful folds of the mitra, their beards — strange to our taste — dyed in the rich colors which the land so abundantly yields, white and green and blue and purple-red. At their banquets each guest is seated at a separate table. The use of meat is quite excluded. But the dainty preparations of an elaborate cuisine, supplied from field and arbor, are served on vessels of gold. The rich man drives his four - in hand along well-paved roads, and loves to display his wealth in the beauty of his horses and the splendor of his chariot. When the king moves in state through the streets of the capital, the sacred trees and altars of the gods, which stand at every corner, are decorated. Flags fly from every house-top, and the royal standard waves proudly from the palace, which with its gay terraces and glittering turrets rises conspicuous above the city’s walls.
The enervating effects of climate are apparent. The power once entrusted to the privileged remains unquestioned in their hands; the nobility exhausts its strength in the indulgence of luxurious pleasure, while the masses become soulless tools in the hands of their oppressors. Peculiar and important was the influence which their new surroundings exerted upon the priesthood. This class had been from the first exalted above the base toil of the common herd, while its religious duties and its contempt for the mere earthly prevented it from following the pursuits of the aristocrats. Placed above want by the credulity of the people and the munificence of the rulers, they had ample leisure to ponder on the vast and novel phenomena that constantly engaged their attention, and the edge of abstract thinking was sharpened by the rich material upon which it was unceasingly exercised. The latent antagonism of their nature between fancy and philosophy, between the tendency toward an unbounded growth of the imagination on the one hand and the love of concise thought on the other, became more pointed than ever. The chaotic mass of phenomena that bore down upon the mind distracted it beyond measure, and, struggling to free itself from their wild disorder, it strove to arrange the disjointed facts in harmonious union by referring them all to a higher unity as their source and essence. And here nature came to their assistance. In all its manifold changes a certain order is apparent to every eye. Year by year the round of the seasons repeats itself, the sun rises and sets, the stars shine and decline, earth dies and revives, again and again fulfilling the eternal order of sequence. There is unity in all diversity, in the “ flow of all things ” an unfluctuating principle. Now, where should this principle be sought? In the olden time there was a god of the fire, but the fire spends its force and is extinguished; there was a god of the thunder, but the sublime phenomena of the storm are quickly forgotten when the moment of terror has passed away; there was a god of the starry sky, but the stars, too, fade before the morning light. Was there no power above all these, the gods of the transient phenomena of nature, higher than they all? The Indian priesthood, proud and self - asserting, answered according to the prejudices of their caste. They knew, or thought they knew, as has been shown in the ease of the soma offering, that their prayer was mightier than their god. A magic power ruling the divinities of the world resided in their souls, inspired their muttered invocations. Here was the mystic force which they had sought, the transcendent principle for which they longed.5
The kings of Asia made gods of their persons; the Hindoo priesthood deified their prayers. In the arrogant spirit which has ever been the peculiar virtue of their order, they made their own littleness the measure of the world’s greatness. The Sanskrit word for prayer is “ brahma.” Behold the origin vof the god of gods, the personification of prayer, the great Brahma of the Hindoos! The hierarchy raised its own mystic function to the throne of the universe, worshiped it as the source of being, and celebrated with unparalleled effrontery its own apotheosis.
The belief that Brahma is the fountain of all existence, though itself vague and shadowy, soon became pregnant with disastrous consequences to the Indian state. It gave birth to two great doctrines equally logical in their deduction and inhuman in their consequences. The one sanctified and confirmed the institution of caste, the other founded the dogma of the transmigration of souls.
From Brahma all things have come, and, according to the predominance of the spiritual in their composition, they partake more or less largely of his nature. Nearest to him and first in the order of emanation were the gods; then came the spirits of the air, then the priests, the nobles, the common people, the slaves, and so on down the scale to inanimate nature as the last. The system of gradation which pride and a despotic policy had introduced into the economy of the Hindoo government was thus perpetuated, and the theory of emanation consecrated the evils of the present to all future time. As the church, in
later times, sanctioned the claim of the tyrant by proclaiming the fiction of “ the divine right of kings,” so did the Hindoo priesthood set their seal upon the inhuman institution of caste, and henceforth it was deemed sacrilege to oppose a system which crushed out man’s sweetest hopes by the iron weight of an unalterable lot. For was it not in the order of the existing castes that men had sprung from Brahma, the source of their being?
To Brahma, the soul of the universe, all must return. When the lower orders have lived out their time, they are born again in new bodies, nobler or baser according to their deserts. If thou art sinful — which means, if thou art bold enough to disregard the commands of the priest — degradation in the scale of existence awaits thee. Thou wilt become a creeping parasite, a reptile, or a wild beast. If meritorious, thou wilt rise. The tradesman or peasant becomes a noble, then a priest, then a saint; finally, as pure spirit, he reënters the Brahma, whence he came. To bring about this result an endless series of births and deaths is requisite, until in the long course of its transmigrations the soul becomes utterly purified of its stains. And the poor toiler who groans beneath the weight of his earthly burdens despairs as he beholds the woes of his future states loom fearfully in the distance. It is, indeed, a hell on earth which the priestly pantheism of the Brahmans has made of this mortal life of ours. It is useless to struggle against an order of things which a god has fixed from the beginning. Of what avail is it for the peasant, the slave, to feel within himself a longing for a higher and nobler life ? he is hound to the caste in which he was born, to tread the same mill which his father has trodden before. Of what avail that the spirit of freedom reacts against the injustice of the aristocrat, the subtler contumely of the priest ? he must kiss the hand that strikes him, bless the heel that spurns him into the dust. Even that last consolation of the sufferer, the hope of rest in the grave, is denied him, until one great yearning cry for help from this intricate maze of existence rises from the breasts of the oppressed, unanswered and unheeded. The Brahmans stand coldly by, pointing with pitiless passiveness to the terrors of the lives to come. And so it came to pass that men stood shuddering at the brink of the grave, not for the existence that was ending, but for the new pains to come after, and the memento mori was changed into that far more appalling warning, memento vivere, — endless life! measureless woe !
This is what the Indian priesthood did for their people. They plucked from a nation once high-spirited and brave every motive for action, and damped each generous impulse with their dreary speculation. They perpetuated the invidious distinctions of caste, and allied themselves with the despots of their land in oppressing the masses, whom it was their duty to enlighten and redeem. They shut the people out from the higher walks of life and enslaved their spirit, providing only that the king should always give rich temporal gifts to the Brahmans, and use the arm of force to support the interests of their order. Instead of acting, they supplicated; instead of bending every energy to their own mental and moral regeneration, they made their sanctity the cloak of their ambition, their deity the minister of their selfishness.
The Brahmanic system permeated the inmost fibres of the nation’s life, and crushed the springs of its hope. By encouraging caste it made the earth a home of misery, and opened to the despondent only the dismal outlook of a darker despair.
But the same forces which determined its action created the powerful reaction which at last set in against it. As Catholicism called forth a Luther, Brahmanism raised up an earlier protestant, a no less powerful reformer. The time came when the yoke which the priesthood had imposed was too heavy to bear longer. The great cry of the people found an echo in the heart of one who had the sublime courage to take up their cause as his own, and who, though born a monarch, descended from the throne of his ancestors to become in truth a prophet of the people.
Like the fond father in the Hebrew tale, History loves to adorn her favorites with garments of many colors, which, as she finds them not in her own storehouse, she borrows from Fancy’s loom. The life of the great Hindoo reformer illustrates the manner in which this doubtful distinction is conferred. In it fact and fiction are so intimately interwoven that the most eager criticism might despair of unraveling their complicated threads. We could not if we would undertake so difficult a task. Nor are we disposed to assume the ungracious part of the jealous brothers, and despoil the princely hero of our story of those royal robes with which the legends of ages have invested him.
At the foot of the mountain range of Nepaul, by the banks of a torrent that comes rushing down fiercely from the hills, stood of old the town of Kapilavastu. The place is now a desolate waste, inhabited only by wild beasts. As early as the seventh century of our era, Chinese travelers reported that they found it in a deserted condition. Deadly vapors rising from dense jungles forbid the return of man. But at the time of which we speak, something like twenty-four hundred years ago, all this was different. Then palaces and pleasuregrounds and the busy life of a royal residence gave a bright and attractive appearance to the city on the Rohini.
King Quddhodana and his queen Mâyadévî bore sway, the one distinguished by manly strength and wisdom, the other by beauty and rare grace of person.
The union of this pair was blessed by the birth of a child, which took place under the most extraordinary circumstances. Mâyâdévî left the palace one day to promenade in a garden or park near by, when, on a sudden, her whole frame became translucent with celestial light. Brahma and Indra descended from heaven, the earth trembled, laughter of a thousand spirits filled the air, and fragrant dews falling abundantly bathed the glowing limbs of a new-born child. No sooner had the infant boy opened his eyes upon the world than he rose with the strength of a man, walked successively in the direction of the four quarters of the earth, and announced the tidings that the deliverer of humankind had come. Wherever he trod, lotus flowers sprang up in his path.
The sages of the court prophesied the child’s future greatness, but whether he would follow the career of a conquering king or of a prophet they refused to reveal. He received the name Siddhârtha, meaning the much-desired, in token of the bright hopes which his coming had fulfilled. During his childhood the prince performed a variety of wonderful feats which it is needless to dwell upon here. When he was sixteen years of age, his father being anxious to bind him to the conditions amid which he had grown up, requested him to choose a wife among the aristocratic families of the land. Siddhârtha declared himself willing to enter the bonds of matrimony, but shocked the prejudices of his family by refusing to pay attention to the caste of his future companion. As he did not propose to marry the lady’s ancestors, he had no interest in scanning her pedigree.
We next hear of a great tournament that was arranged in order to allow the prince an opportunity to display his military prowess. Five hundred youths vied with him in the emulous contest of skill, but he outstripped them all. Even the great bow, which the strength of a thousand men was barely sufficient to string, and the noise of whose discharge was like the rolling of thunder over the mountains, he handled with ease, as if it were a child’s toy. Having thus convinced the people of his accomplishments, he was permitted to choose from among the most beautiful damsels of the realm, who had been gathered at the court to await his decision. Now began a life of indolence and ease. Pleasure held him in her silken bonds, and naught that could beguile the senses was wanting.
From palace to palace, from enjoyment to enjoyment, he passed. He was beautiful as the day, and a monarch’s son — what could he lack! But at this very time a crisis in his life was approaching. One day he rode out in his chariot, with a faithful servant at his side, when he was startled to observe an old man creeping along with trembling gait; a shriveled and decrepit form, bent with the weight of sorrows and of years. The prince stopped the chariot and inquired, “ Of what unhappy race is this one, that he has been reduced to such utter misery? ” But the servant turned and answered, “ This is the lot of all men; age is the portion of the young.”
The prince was deeply moved, and returned home sunk in meditation.
For the first time a shadow had fallen on the picture of life as it glowed in brilliant colors around him. On another occasion, in one of his drives, he saw a leper covered with sores and filth, whom all the passers-by avoided. Again Siddhârtha paused, put the same question, and received the reply, “ This is the lot of all men; sickness is the portion of the sound.” A third time he saw a corpse lying by the roadside. Worms were feasting on the flesh, the sickening scenes of corruption exposed to the light of day! And again he heard the same hard words, “ This is the lot of all men; death is the portion of the living.” The distress of the prince now increased day by day. His wonted enjoyments lost their flavor. In the midst of mirth he was silent and engrossed.
In this condition he met one day a pious mendicant, one of that class, common in India, who live on the alms of the benevolent and devote their life to contemplation and religious exercises.
The calm, immobile features of the man, his venerable appearance, the simple dignity of his demeanor, strongly impressed the prince in his favor. They engaged in a long conversation together, and at its end it was noticed that Siddhârtha returned to the palace with a lighter step than he had long known. A new thought was working its way in his mind. He had been rudely awakened from his dream of happiness. Intensely sympathetic by nature, the wretchedness of his fellow-men cruelly jarred upon the brighter anticipations that he had formed of the future. He now felt that he needed seclusion and undisturbed quiet in order to meditate upon all this woe that encompassed him, and, if possible, to obviate its causes. That night he communicated to his father his resolve of quitting the court and entering one of the religious orders. The king was greatly alarmed at this determination of the heir to the throne, forbade his departure, and endeavored by every means in his power to divert him from his purpose. It was evening, some time after their interview. The palace of Kapilavastu was lit up with Oriental splendor. Garlands decked every hall, and strains of music burst through the open terraces. On that day a son had been born to Siddhârtha, and in the joy of his heart the old king commanded the most sumptuous festivities, hoping thereby to change the dismal tenor of the prince’s thoughts,
A gay circle received Siddhârtha as he entered the high apartments, and grouped around him where he reclined on his couch of state were the fairest of all the fair ones of that Eastern court.
But his lips did not unclose, nor his pale face brighten with a smile. At last, overpowered by weariness, he sank into an unquiet slumber. It was long past midnight when he awoke. The lamps burnt low; the fragrant scent of their costly oil pervaded the apartment.
But as he rose to look around him the whole scene seemed suddenly to have undergone a great transformation. The beauty of his companions had fallen like a mask; the gilded halls were fading like an illusion. In the words of the Pâhli annals from which this account is taken, “ Unto him the splendid and charming palace, which was like the mansion of Indra, the god of the thousand eyes, became as it were an object of disgust, filled with loathsome corpses like a catacomb. ”
He longed for a life higher than the ephemeral life of pleasure. As he said in after days, “ This mind of mine went formerly wandering about as it liked, as it listed, as it pleased; but I shall now hold it in thoroughly, as the rider who bears the hook holds in the furious elephant.” “ From pleasure comes grief, from pleasure comes fear; he who is free from pleasure knows neither grief nor fear.” Determined to consummate his purpose, he rose, stole noiselessly from the room, found his favorite charger awaiting him at the portal, mounted with a single bound, and spurred on, cutting with one bold stroke all the ties that had bound him. Home-affections, power, kingdom, he left them all behind. For he had recognized the first of the great truths, that there is suffering, and there was now but one purpose for him in life: to alleviate it, “ to draw the thorns from the smarting flesh.” He avoided the guards who would have checked his progress, in safety. But when he reached the gates of the city, Mara, the tempter, appeared before him and offered him the kingdom of the earth if he would turn back and desist from his undertaking. Swiftly Siddhârtha rode on and answered not, on through the long, dark night, many a weary league, till, as the morning broke, he was far beyond the reach of pursuit. He now took off his jeweled tiara and the insignia of royalty, and sent them back by the hand of a trusted servant. Then, assuming the garb of the mendicants, he applied to two of the great masters of the Brahmans, and retired to the depths of a forest to practice their teachings. In this way he hoped to discover the origin of suffering, and the way of release. Five followers accompanied him to his retreat, where he remained for full six years.
In this epoch of his life he bears the name of Çakyamuni, the hermit of the Çakyas.
It is advisable at this stage to review the means which the Brahmanic priesthood recommended for the solution of the great problem upon which Çkyamuni was engaged.
We have already attempted to explain the origin of the doctrine of metempsychosis among the Hindoos. This doctrine had gradually obtained general recognition, and men became firmly persuaded of the reality of the new births and deaths which awaited them. They even pretended to point out certain animals and plants into which the souls of the sinful had entered. Here was a crocodile containing the spirit of a cow-thief, a monkey containing that of a corn-thief, a worm inhabited by one who had tasted of forbidden food, a creeper into which the vile soul of an incestuous son had been changed. The separation, too, between the different castes, which the Brahmanic system encouraged, had become irrevocably fixed, and the insolence of the high toward the low was barely supportable.
The life of the base-born was, indeed, a pitiable one. The fear of the future they shared with the rest, but it was rendered doubly acute in their case by the more dismal prospect of longer and wearier sufferings. To escape the eternal cycle of births and deaths the Brahmans resorted to two expedients. The one involved the conception of the efficacy of works, the other the principle of self - torturing asceticism. A vast and intricately ramified code of ceremonies, the reading of the law, and absurd, often degrading, modes of expiation for sin, made up the catalogue of works. The second expedient for attaining the end of existence, which is the ending of existence by a return to the Brahma whence it came, is founded on the spiritual nature of that supposed fount of being. It became the seeker for deliverance to free himself from the trammels of the earthly, if on his death he hoped to be merged in the essential spirit of the universe, Hence the cruel life of the anchorite. In caves, on mountains, in the deep forests, men passed their days, seated on couches of thorns, clothed with wet garments in the cold season, placed between four blazing fires while the intense rays of the summer’s sun glared down upon them from above, standing in unnatural positions till flesh and blood could bear it no longer. Such a life the hermit of the Çakyas now elected. He subjected himself with unsparing hand to all the painful trials which the ingenuity of fanatics had devised. And the five who followed him into the solitude might well wonder at his power of selfabnegation, when they saw their master reduce his food to a single grain of rice a day. But at this point a change took place. The legend tells us that his dead mother appeared to him by night, and wept when she beheld his wan, emaciated form.
Nature asserted its claims. Maids from a neighboring village brought him milk and honey, and he accepted their gift. The old was fast losing power over him; a new and greater something was preparing. The solution of the main problem of Indian life — how to escape the law of transmigration, how to obtain repose in a death from which there should be no awakening — the Brahmans had! not found. Çakyamuni rejected their law, denied the authority of their holy scriptures. Again he applied himself to consider the theory and practice of the ruling system of Hindoo religion. With him, as with his countrymen, the conviction that the soul repeats its troubled career in endless resurrections formed the substratum of consciousness, the background of every action and belief. This life is but a single scale on the great ladder of existence, which stretches upward and downward from sphere to sphere into the immensity of unknown worlds. And the spirit of man ascends and descends, slowly, painfully, on this dizzy path, by an iron law which has been from the beginning of time. To launch forth from the standing-point of the present, to forget the toil still to come, to commingle and be extinguished in the infinitude of space, — ah, that would he indeed felicity! Try works, said the Brahmans; bring sacrifices. But Çakyamuni remembered the words of the philosopher Kapila, with whose system his own in many places coincides, and he said, “ The rich man brings of his wealth three hundred, six hundred beasts to the altar. Shall he be saved because of his riches, and the poor be left to their burdens without hope of release? ” He rejected the offices of the sacrifice. Try the life of the recluse, reiterated Brahmanism. Çakyamuni had tried it, but he found it vain and useless. The stains of the soul are not purged by fire, or water, or thorns. Was there, then, no escape, no saving principle of help? Let us see how the legend relates the manner in which he attained the way of deliverance.
There is in India a wonderful tree, known as “ the tree of understanding.” 6 Its branches rise and descend again to earth, take new root, and send up new offshoots which, again, become stems of other twigs. These descend once more, until a mighty arbor is thus formed, a kind of natural temple, of which the tree’s descending trunks are the columns, the interlacing boughs the bright and leafy dome. Of old the Brahmans called it the symbol of existence, each new stem a new life, the root of other lives to come. With such a sylvan temple many of the villages of Hindostan are provided. The natives place the images of their gods there. A whole army could readily find shelter in its shade. Under one of these trees, seated upon the “ throne of intelligence,” the recluse of the Çakyas was plunged in profound meditation. The maze of existence was imaged in the surrounding grove. The foliage shook and quivered about him like the tremulous yearnings of a soul that would fly upward to the light. Now Mara,the tempter, who carries an arrow with flowered head, — the personification of desire, — seeing that his power on earth would be curtailed if Çakyamuni attained to knowledge, caused the great drum of his realm to be beaten, and marshaled his innumerable hosts to contend with the hermit. They came, covering an area of a hundred and sixty-four miles. Mara himself, upon a huge elephant, rode at their head. Fire flashed from his eyes. He wielded a weapon that would have pierced mountains of adamant. The elements aided his designs: terrific hurricanes burst over the land, the rocks were rent asunder, the hills were uprooted, darkness covered the earth, and the host of demons roared even more loudly than the storm. Then Mara cast his weapon, but behold it turned into a fragrant garland as it approached the unwavering hermit. Huge bowlders of stone were hurled against him, but they fell as votive flowers at his feet. The terrors of the tempest did not unman him; a radiant smile played over his placid countenance. At last hell opened and swallowed the host. There was but one more resource left to Mara, which he had reserved to the last. The tempter sent six hundred wanton damsels to remind the stern prophet of the joyous days of his youth, and to lure him back into the arms of pleasure. But even this temptation he withstood.
The field was cleared; his foes were vanquished. All through that night he pondered on the mighty problem, until at last, one by one, the four great truths of religion stood out brightly before him: suffering, the origin of suffering, the destruction of suffering, and the way to achieve that destruction. The mystery was solved, the hour of deliverance at hand, and when the first beam of dawn glowed in the east, it shone on a new and transfigured being. The prince we have known as Siddhârtha, the hermit Çakyamuni, had become the Buddha, the enlightened, the deliverer of mankind. How was the transformation accomplished? What was the solution he had found?
Among the sayings attributed to the Buddha we read the following: “ How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? Why do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness? ” " This body is wasted,
full of sickness, and frail; this heap of corruption breaks to pieces; the life in it is death.” “ Those white bones, like gourds thrown away in the autumn, what pleasure is there in looking at them? ” “ After a frame has been made of the bones, it is covered with flesh and blood, and there dwell in it old age and death, pride and deceit.”This being the destiny of the body, we can understand the precept, “ Cut down the whole forest of lust.”“ All created things perish. He who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain; this is the way to purity.”7
This is the way to purity — the uprooting of desire, the conquest of passion. A life self - restrained, equably poised, wisely controlled, as far removed from the painful exercises of fanatic anchorites as from the reckless indulgence of the votaries of pleasure, such a life detaches man from the cause of suffering and guards him from its consequences. This is the first great principle of the Buddha’s religion.
But notwithstanding the most careful moderation in the enjoyment of earth’s goods, the most skeptical distrust with respect to the worth of human desires, there are blows against which even the stoutest armor is not proof, there are shocks which cause even the boldest to tremble. Deep hidden in the human heart, the waters of affection never cease to flow. But when the occasion comes, they rise in tumultuous flood to the surface. The voice of reason is impotent to still the anguish of the heart. The affections alone can soothe the affections! Prepare a channel, therefore, to lead the swelling tide away to commingle with the great ocean of mankind’s sorrow, and in commingling to be there absorbed. This is the meaning of the following beautiful legend.8
There came to the Buddha, one day, a woman who had lost her only child. She was wild with grief, and with disconsolate sobs and cries called frantically upon the prophet to give back her little one to life. The Buddha gazed on her long, and, with that tender sympathy which drew all hearts to him, replied, “ Go, my daughter, bring me a mustard seed from a house into which death has never entered, and I will do as thou hast bidden.”The woman took up the dead child and began her search. She went from house to house, saying, “ Give me a mustard seed, kind folks, a mustard seed for the prophet to revive my child.”And they gave her what she desired. And when she had taken it she inquired: “ They are all gathered around the hearth here, father, mother, and the children; is it not so? They are sound, in health’s bloom? " But the peo-
ple would shake their heads mournfully. And, far as she wandered, through town and village, in the crowded thoroughfare and by the lonely roadside, she met the same experience still. There was ever a vacant seat by the hearth, which remained unfilled though all were gathered. Then gradually, as she went on, the outbursts of her grief abated, and the meaning of the Buddha’s words dawned upon her mind. Gradually, as she learned to know the great sorrow of the race everywhere around her, her heart, ceasing to dwell on its own selfish pang, went out in strong yearning to the companions of her suffering. The tears of her pity fell free and fast, passion slowly melted away in compassion. From passive suffering she turned to active helping, sought redemption by redeeming. She had learned the highest virtue which the Buddha taught, maitri, the consciousness of wide fellowship, the love of mankind, the perfect renunciation of self in behalf of the eternal interests. Calm, unswerving selfcontrol to avoid pain, acts of sympathy to lighten pain; such was the Buddha’s answer to the great question of the origin and destruction of suffering. These were the two solid pillars of his church. If he had paused there he would have exhibited to the world an example of combined soberness and enthusiastic idealism nowhere transcended in human history. But his faith in the doctrine of the transmigration compelled him to pass the limits which his strong ethical sentiment seemed to prescribe, into a nebulous beyond. This present life of ours is but a link in the great chain of existence. Of what advantage is it, therefore, to destroy the suffering of today, if, in the ceaseless cycle of new births, that suffering is destined endlessly to recur ? To be a true deliverer, the prophet said, I must free men from the fear of resurrection, teach them to baffle fate. With the end of existence alone can come the end of pain. Hence arose the mystic doctrine of Nirvana — the third of the great principles on which the Buddhist system rests.
Let us free ourselves from the bondage of our nature, exclaimed the Indian sage; let us achieve repose. And now he reasoned, It is desire which produces pain and binds us to life. But desire depends upon the senses; the senses ultimately depend on a power of intelligence that resides in the mind. Ah! if we could blot out this, if we could crush forever the germ of mind, then the root of desire would be cut, and the bond of existence broken. But how to do this? He answered, By contemplation, by gathering up the soul within itself, by recognizing that all the objects of the world about us are an illusion, that all existing things are evanescent. Thus contemplating, the mind closes itself against external impressions, becomes entranced in the sweet felicity of quiet, and, having perceived the essential unreality of the universe, attains its last and perfect end in sinking away, itself, into nonentity, in finding rest on the bosom of Nirvana. The way is mystical, the means are dubious, but the end is clear. It is to escape the dread of continued suffering hereafter, to find lasting peace in a dreamless death. The last answer to the question of the destruction of pain had thus been found in the doctrine of Nirvana.
The question has been raised whether Nirvana means utter extinction or absolute quiet. But where the line of demarkation is to be drawn between annihilation and absolute quiet, — quiet without sensation, without motion, without motive, — we confess ourselves at a loss to conceive. Nor are we more fortunate in discovering the bearings of Müller’s argument, namely, that the Buddha could not well have made extinction the aim of life, seeing that if all is to end in nothing, there is no reason for performing and demanding of others so great a moral work as he did. The pains of this life were at all events as real in his day as in ours, and to these his attention was preëminently directed. While the doctrine of Nirvana was nothing more than a bold attempt to cut off at one stroke the chance of returning misery in the life of the hereafter, in Buddha’s Path of Virtue we read, “ There is no fire like passion; there is no unlucky dye like hatred; there is no pain like this body — the endurance of life; there is no happiness like rest.” With regard to those points of religion which are commonly considered fundamental, his position was entirely negative. The sanctity of the Vedic bible he denied; the immortality of the soul he feared and sought to abrogate, and of the existence of a creator, in our sense, he was more than doubtful. The gods of the people, indeed, he suffered to remain; but they deserved their names no longer, being inferior in every way to the ideal man. When the Buddha entered the temple, the legend relates, Brahma and the other deities stepped down from their pedestals to welcome and do him homage.
In so far as the purely human entered into the religion of the Buddha, it was productive of widely beneficial results. But in so far as he borrowed the supernatural doctrines of the Brahmans, he opened the way for all that proved injurious to the future growth of his ideas. The pernicious effects of Nirvana are undeniable. It at once neutralized the active principle that inspires and invigorates Buddhist ethics. While on the one hand the individual was referred to himself as the artificer of his destiny, to the advancing good of the race for the assurance of mankind’s salvation, and was thus induced to enter with zeal and avidity into the interests of life, with the design of exalting and ennobling them, his attention was, on the other hand, distracted by an object of fear which he saw rising darkly beyond the border. Thus the mind, preoccupied with the momentous questions of the hereafter, became passive and indifferent to the concerns of the present. It is true the sound and forceful principles of the Buddha’s moral law never ceased to extend their friendly influence to the troubles of this sublunar existence. But the eye of the devout, glancing faintly by the present, dwelt with anxious preference on the possibilities of the far futurity. Men sank back from exertion into contemplation; hence arose the cloisters and
nunneries of the Buddhist mendicants in the Indian land. Clothed in a simple, orange - colored gown, with a wooden bowl for the collection of alms, a sunshade, and only a few other of the most necessary utensils, the Bikshus wandered about the country or dwelt together in the silence of the convent. On entering their communion the novice took the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The public confessional, absolution, even rosaries on which their mystic prayer was counted off, were not wanting. But in happy contradistinction to what we find elsewhere, the way to the cloisters was made hard, and the return to the world easy, while of torture and painful penances we hear nothing. In later times the true meaning of Nirvana was forgotten among the vulgar, and the void of existence became an elysium painted in sensual colors. Buddha himself, though never aspiring to be more than man, was invested with supernatural powers, and all the paraphernalia of miracles gathered around him. The strength of his system certainly does not lie in its transcendental elements. If the substitution of Nirvana for Brahma were all he had accomplished, he would deserve but little attention at our hands. But in truth he did more. He sought deliverance not for himself alone, but for all mankind; and, in enunciating a universal aim, he raised his work into lasting importance. In the Grove of Gazelles near Benares he proclaimed for the first time the new evangel he had brought. For the first time in the plains of India the voice of the preacher was heard, and a thousand hearts leaped responsive to his bold, stirring, soul-awakening call. He spoke in the dialect of the people, and every one there present, it is said, seemed to hear his own language, for he said what all had felt; he raised a cry which found an echo in every oppressed heart. He called to account the haughty Brahman priesthood in overwhelming denunciation for their iniquities and their pride. He broke through the barriers of caste, and said to the weary and heavy-laden, Come ye all and follow me; I will show you the road of release. If the Brahmans shunned the touch of the base-born as though it were pollution, and made birth the stamp of sanctity here, the hope of felicity hereafter, he sat down among “ publicans and sinners.” Be quiet; in my law ye shall find peace.
There was a caste in India, the Tshandâlas, despised and down-trodden of all men. By day they wandered furtively about the streets of the city, wearing a distinguishing badge on their garments, which served to point them out to the insults of the vulgar; but at night they were driven mercilessly from the gates, though the storms might rage without. One day the Buddha received the votive offerings of his adherents, who had collected around him in a great multitude. There came many rich men and women and cast flowers of exquisite fragrance and color into the wooden bowl which he held in his hands; but they dwindled away as they fell, and the bowl was not filled. Then there came a poor Tshandâla, timidly stealing through the crowd and shrinking from their gaze. He threw a few wild flowers upon the rest. By these flowers the bowl was filled. See, with the dregs of society he holds intercourse; the Tshandâlas are his companions, said the Brahmans. “ My law is a law of grace for all men,” replied the Buddha. “ My law is like the sky, which encompasseth all, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the high and the low.” “ Cut out thy selfishness like the autumn lotus,” taste of the sweets of kindness bestowed, bathe thy soul in the purity of an ideal purpose ! There were some who, when they heard such language as this, exclaimed, The prince has gone mad! Others ascribed his actions to sordid motives. To little minds the grandeur of a lofty spirit is incomprehensible; their words are feathers before the wind. Though he may have erred a thousand times, in this he touched the very life - spring of all religion, when he called on his followers to break down the towering egotism of their nature, to give free play to the
wider sympathies of the soul which are founded in the physical, ennobled in the moral constitution. His system contained all the elements of power and comfort which are necessary to seize on the popular heart, and might, in the course of time, have completely turned the current of Hindoo history into broader and brighter channels. But the deadweight of the transcendent Nirvana drew all their energy into passiveness; and mysticism, like a strong narcotic acting on a youthful frame, slowly coiled round them with its killing lethargy; and yet the ethical teachings of the Buddha made their benign influence felt wherever they spread. Friend and foe unite to sing their praises, and even those who condemn the principles of his system are compelled to own the excellence of its practice. The ten commandments of the Buddha are not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, to speak no falsehood, to utter no slander, not to curse, not to use impure or trivial language, to avoid covetousness, revenge, and false views of religion. As early as the reign of King Açoka, under whose protection the third great council of the Buddhist church was held,9 and the canon of their faith, the so-called “ three baskets,” 10 collected, capital punishment, we are informed, was entirely abolished. Hospitals were erected, not only for sick men but also for sick animals, whose sufferings were tenderly relieved. In the Path of Virtue we find such sayings as the following: “ All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remember that thou art like unto them, and do not kill nor cause slaughter.” “ Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good, let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth; ” “ for hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love; this is an old rule.” “ Let each man make himself as he teaches others to be; he who is well subdued may subdue others; one’s own self is difficult to subdue.” “ As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, or its color and scent, so let the sage dwell on earth.” Among the consequences of these views, toleration toward all men and their beliefs was one of the most beautiful. No religious wars, no fires of inquisition, no dark tribunals, taint the history of the Buddha’s church. As Köppen aptly remarks, the whole spirit of his teachings is expressed in the Chinese adage, " Religions are many, reason is one; we are all brothers.” To make the way easy for our fellows is the joy we should seek; ro plant shady groves by the wayside, to dig wells at which the traveler may slake his thirst. The ennoblement of self in the unselfish should he our ultimate aim.
Forty-five years the Buddha taught his great law; slander and calumny were not wanting. In that which he held highest, the conquest of the carnal passion, his own purity was wantonly impugned. Among those whom he had taken to his heart, his own fold, there arose a traitor who vainly sought to rival his master’s glory. At last he stood upon the road of Kuçinagara, and felt that his end was nigh; for the last time he looked upon the city where he had labored so long and faithfully, then sadly turned on his way; but before he reached his destination his strength forsook him, and in a grove by the roadside, at midnight, in the deep stillness of the earth, he entered the realm of Nirvana and found the last release and repose. The memory of the master lived among his disciples, and continues to live, a bountiful source of strength and consolation in millions of their descendants.
After thousands of years shall have passed away, — such is the belief of the faithful, — there shall come a new Buddha who will be called the Buddha of universal love. Again shall he raise the banner of good-will and brotherly help, again collect the great and lowly, the joyful and the mourner, and teach them all to live in one great fellowship, strong in their union, peaceful by their love. On that day the battle of existence will be ended, and each one will be happy in the happiness of all.
The hope which is here expressed is the same that has inspired every vigorous form of religion from the beginning It is the hope of a grander destiny which the race is called upon to fulfill; the eternal trust in the higher and better that is to be.
On surveying the course of Buddha as it now lies open before us, we cannot but feel that we have here the record of a nobly aspiring life. Even his failures only serve to bring him nearer to our consciousness. But, because of the manifold sweetness that distills from his works and teachings, he will ever be counted in the number of those whom the heart, of humanity cherishes as its most loving if they be not its wisest benefactors.
Felix Adler.
- Himalayas.↩
- They arrest the clouds, forcing them to discharge their waters on the arid soil beneath them ; they send out the great rivers, and form a barrier between the country and the steppes of Central Asia.↩
- Aseulapis acida.↩
- Spiegel’s A vesta, note to Vendidad xx. 17.↩
- I accept this as a plausible explanation of the rise of Brahmanism. For a more detailed account vide Max Duncker’s Geschichte des Alterthums, II., to which, and to Lassen’s great work on Indian antiquities, I am indebted for many of the facts on which this account rests.↩
- The Ficus religiosa.↩
- Vide the Path of Virtue, in Max Müller’s Science of Religion.↩
- Müller’s Science of Religion, page 145.↩
- About 230 B. C.↩
- The Sutras, Vinaya, and Abhidharma, — the Discourses of Buddha, The Ethics and Metaphysics of Buddhism.↩