Part 1

BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST

BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY

A PARALLEL AND A CONTRAST

BEING

THE CROALL LECTURE FOR 1889-90

BY

ARCHIBALD SCOTT, D.D.

MINISTER OF ST. GEORGE’S PARISH, EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS

MDCCCXC

[_All rights reserved._]

PREFACE

In endeavouring to sketch in so limited a space even the most salient features of the many-sided religion of Buddhism it is possible that here and there I may have misrepresented it.

If so, I hope the fault will be attributed to inadvertence, or rather to disadvantages under which I have worked. The sacred beliefs of any section of mankind are entitled to receive at our hands not only justice but kindly consideration, and a religion so vast and in some respects so wonderful as Buddhism ought to have much to commend it to our sympathy. Long and patient study of it has indeed greatly modified opinions originally formed concerning it, but it has only tended to increase respect for so earnest an effort of the intellect to solve the mystery of human life and destiny. Even Christians may have something to learn from Buddhists. The divers and seemingly antagonistic Churches of Christendom help to educate and reform each other, and non-Christian religions may perform a similar office to Christianity in bringing into prominence some universal truths which its creeds have allowed to slip into forgetfulness. Our perception and apprehension of what Christianity really is will be all the clearer and firmer for an impartial study of the system formulated so long ago by Gotama the Buddha.

The aim of the Lecture has not been to use the extravagances of Buddhism as a foil to set off the excellencies of Christianity. That Christianity as a religion is immensely superior to Buddhism goes without saying, unless in the case of a very small and conceited and purblind minority. I have tried by a fair exposition of what is best and highest in this religion to discover its feeling after something better and higher still, and to suggest rather than indicate the place which it occupies in the religious education of humanity. As

“Man hath all which nature hath, but more, And in that more lie all his hopes of good,”

so Christianity, while having in it in fuller measure and clearer form every truth that has vivified any other religion, has in it, as the new creation to which the long travail of the soul under every form of faith has from the first been pointing, something peculiar and contrasted—which is the Divine answer to all their aspirations. This we do not need to demonstrate: indeed it may be a verity, as incapable of demonstration as is that of the existence of Deity or the immortality of the soul. It is sure eventually to be almost universally recognised, and meanwhile, whether accepted or denied, we may say—_E pur si muove_.

* * * * *

Very gratefully would I acknowledge my profound obligations to all who have instructed me in this subject. Though we no longer regard the Saddharma-Pundarika and Lalita Vistara as good specimens of Buddhism, we still venerate the great scholars who first introduced them to our notice. The splendid productions of Burnouf, Foucaux, Köppen, Stanislas Julien, Hodgson and Turnour; the excellent works of Spence Hardy, Gogerly, Bigandet and H. H. Wilson, and, among the best of all, the laborious and faithful Dictionary of Professor Childers, though several of them are unfortunately out of print, are not likely to be soon out of date. It is with pleasure that we find them so frequently quoted or referred to by our latest and best authorities. Still, ever since Professor Max Müller organised his truly catholic enterprise of the translation of the Sacred Books of the East, he has brought us very considerably nearer to real Buddhist teachers themselves. To praise the scholarship of himself, and Oldenberg, and Rhys Davids, and Kern, and Fausböll, and others of his _collaborateurs_, would be unwarrantable presumption on my part; but as a humble disciple very willing to learn, I am glad to have this opportunity of publicly expressing my appreciation of the great services which in their editions of old Eastern texts, and in these series of translations, they are rendering to the cause of religion.

The lectures were drafted and in great part written before I read the very valuable works of Sir Monier Williams on _Buddhism_ and of Dr. Kellogg on the _Light of Asia and the Light of the World_. I specially mention these books as likely to prove very useful guides to any one desirous of prosecuting the subject of the present Lecture. In the notes I have marked my indebtedness to them, and to many authors of what has already become a great literature. Many others whose works have been of service to me in a course of reading extending over many years are not noted, simply because in the caprices of memory my peculiar obligations to them could not at the time be recalled.

For in regard to Buddhism I do not profess to add any original information to the stock already acquired. Others have extracted the ore from these old and interesting fields, and minted it into gold and silver. What has thus been rendered available many like myself can only reduce into copper or bronze, but if only our work be faithfully done, we may thus help in increasing the currency and in extending its circulation. With this in view I accepted the honour which the Croall Trustees conferred upon me in calling me to undertake this Lecture, and if the only effect of my efforts be to stimulate other ministers of the Church more advantageously situated to prosecute their researches to much better purpose, no one will be more pleased than myself.

ARCHIBALD SCOTT.

EDINBURGH, _25th December 1889_.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY: NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

Schopenhauer’s prediction as to the influence of Oriental studies upon European religion and philosophy—New science of Comparative Theology—Its value to the expounders of Christianity—Study of all religions binding upon Christians—Special claims of Buddhism—Its duration and wide-spread diffusion—The quality of its doctrinal and ethical system—The correspondences between it and Christianity—Instructive parallels of historical development—Resemblances, if granted or assumed, not to be accounted for by theory of derivation—Renan—E. Burnouf—Ernest de Bunsen—Both religions independent in origin, though analogous in development—What the significance of this—True answer to be found, not by examining alleged resemblances between the religions, but their points of contradiction and contrast—Unity of humanity involves organic unity of language and of religion—What is meant by organic unity and development of religion—Declarations of Scripture—Christianity as the universal religion has much in common with all—has something peculiar to itself which it possesses in contrast—In this will be found not only its superiority to all the rest, but the answer to all their cravings and aspirations, _Pages 1-58_

LECTURE II.

THE HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AND THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THEIR RESPECTIVE SCRIPTURES.

Both religions inherited and produced scriptures—Christian scriptures criticised for eighteen centuries—Buddhist scriptures as yet only in part available for examination—Admissions made by translators in regard to them—Strong contrasts between two sets of scriptures, in respect of authenticity and genuineness—Impossible to regard the two as of similar canonical or authoritative value—In Buddhism only oral traditions for centuries—Effect of the lack of a real canon in primitive Buddhism—Effect of a fixed and written canon in the development of Christianity—Antecedents of Buddhism—Vedic India—Brahmanic India—Development of Brahmanic speculation—Its highest reach in philosophical Brahmanism—The Upanishads—Pursuit of Atman—Antecedents of Christianity—Patriarchal belief in Deity—Mosaic stage of religious belief—The religion of Moses and the prophets too pure for the people under the kings—Destruction of the kingdom—Effect of Captivity on the prophets—on the people—Difference between the beliefs and hopes of the Diaspora and those of the returned Palestinian Jews—Preparation of the Empire and world beyond it for the dawn of Christianity, _Pages 59-125_

LECTURE III.

THE BUDDHA OF THE PITAKAS: THE CHRIST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Palestine at the birth of Christ—India at the birth of Gotama—Like, yet unlike—Analogies in development of previous beliefs and speculation—Contrasts—Gotama’s life and ministry contrasted with the life and ministry of Jesus—The difference between their personal relations to the religions which they founded—“I take refuge in Buddha”—“I believe in Christ”—The supernatural in both religions—Pre-existence, incarnation, and miracles ascribed to Buddha—Sources of information as to these beliefs examined and compared with the Gospel accounts—Relation of the miracles to each religion—Nature of the miracles themselves—Growth of Buddhist legends described by T. W. Rhys Davids—Implied growth of the Christian legends examined—Essential contrasts manifest all through—Buddha can be accounted for, but Christ is the Miracle of History, _Pages 126-191_

LECTURE IV.

THE DHARMA OF BUDDHA: THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.

Gotama’s discovery at Bohimanda—The Four Sacred Verities—The noble Eightfold Way—His theory of life different from but not wholly antagonistic to that of speculative Brahmanism—Existence not illusion, but essentially evil—Transmigration—“Modern Buddhists’” defence of the dogma—Contrast between it and Christian doctrine of the Fall—Christianity in its sorest struggle with evil hopeful—Buddhism hopeless—atheistic—materialistic, yet has its own way, not of victory, but of retreat and escape—Doctrine of Karma analogous to Christian doctrine of Heredity, yet really contrasted—Goal of all Buddhist aspiration and effort—Nirvana, point-blank contradiction to Christian goal, yet way to it analogous—Arhatship as essential in Buddhism as holiness is in Christianity—Noble quality of Buddhist ethical code—Its approach to the Christian rule—A law not for all—Its degrees or paths of perfection—Uprightness—Meditation—Enlightenment—Christ’s way of salvation and sanctification by the Holy Spirit through the truth—Essential defects of Buddhist scheme, _Pages 192-252_

LECTURE V.

THE BUDDHIST SANGHA: THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

The Church the fruit of Christianity, the Sangha the root out of which Buddhism sprang—The Sangha not a Church but an Order—Different from the many Orders then existing, yet with a likeness to them which it never lost—Renunciation of secular life an indispensable qualification for membership—Analogous to yet essentially different from Monachism in Christianity, and in utter contrast to the idea and reality of the Christian Church—The Sangha as theoretically open to all, and propagandist in its purpose, a precursor of the Church—Actual disqualifications for membership—Ceremonial of admission—The “outgoing” from the world—Ceremonial of Confirmation—The “arrival”—The novitiate or tutelage—The rule of the Sangha—No vows of obedience to superiors—Stringent vows of poverty and chastity—Difference between a Buddhist Vihara and a Christian monastery—Favourable features of Buddhist monastic life—The Uposatha gathering—The Pâtimokkha catechising—The Pavârâna invitation—Relation of women to the Sangha—Institution of Order of Bikkhuni—The relation of the laity to the Sangha—The Buddhist layman’s only possible “merit,” and his only hope, _Pages 253-313_

LECTURE VI.

THE RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.

External diffusion—Both religions missionary—Vastly different in respect of their messages—Buddhist endeavour to perpetuate a system—Christian endeavour to set forth and interpret the facts of a miraculous life—Effect of belief in Christ’s continued presence upon the Church—Rapid diffusion of Christianity during the first four centuries—Condition of Buddhism during a similar period—Spread of Christianity after Constantine—Spread of Buddhism after Asoka—Difference in the peoples affected by both religions—Inferences—Internal history—Buddhism and Brahmanism—Christianity and Judaism—In Buddhism an early abandonment of fundamental principles manifest—Recoil of human nature from its Atheism into Polytheism and Tantrism—Degradation of Southern and Northern Buddhism—Buddhism in Tibet—Christianity in Abyssinia—History of Chinese Buddhism from fourth century A.D. analogous to that of Christianity in Europe from same date—Deterioration of both religions similarly indicated—Bôdiharma—Modern Neo-Buddhism—The T’ien-t’ai School—Reformed Buddhism in China—in Japan—Its most modern attitude—Difference between Buddhism and Christianity—Alike in their tendency to deteriorate—Christianity alone manifests a reforming and progressive power—Resources of Buddhism manifestly exhausted—Christianity apparently in only an initial stage of development, _Pages 314-386_

POSTSCRIPT, _Pages 387-391_

LECTURE I. NECESSITY FOR A PROPER COMPARISON OF THE TWO RELIGIONS.

Early in this century Schopenhauer, fascinated by the contents of the Upanishads, which had been translated from the Persian into Latin by the illustrious discoverer of the Zend-Avesta, ventured to predict that the influence of the newly-found Sanskrit literature upon the philosophy of the future would not be less profound than was that of the revival of Greek upon the religion of the fourteenth century.[1] That century was marked by the close of the mediæval age, and the beginning of the times of Reformation in which we are privileged to live. The Reformation was not an event, but the inauguration of a period. Its significance was far deeper than that of a revolt from ecclesiastical superstition and corruption. It meant a quickening of the human spirit, and a consequent awakening of the human intellect, to which many forces other than the leading religious ones, contributed; and its effects are visible not simply in the changes which it immediately produced, but in the revolution which is still actively progressing in all our social, political, and religious relations. The movement designated by the Reformation is manifestly far from having exhausted itself, and there can be no question that its course has been greatly accelerated by the studies to which Schopenhauer referred.

The re-discovery of India, lost to Europe for centuries after the beginning of the Christian era, almost as completely as America was hidden from it, was a fact of even greater import than the resurrection of Greece. It was no wilderness of ruins which was thus disclosed, from which only the shards of a long-buried civilisation could be exhumed, but a living and cultured world, whose institutions were rooted in an antiquity more profound than Greece could claim, and whose language and manners and religion were separated from the West by far more than a hemisphere. So totally unlike to the Western world was it, that the labours and sacrifices of several generations of the finest intellects of Europe were required before a key could be found to interpret its significance. Since the days when Anquetil Duperron, after many adventures and hardships, succeeded in breaking through the tangled thicket which guarded its treasures, the scholars of all nations have pressed into it, each one announcing, as he emerged, the dawn or the progress of another Renaissance, whose meaning and direction and ultimate issues only the rash will venture to predict or pretend to foresee.

One of the first-fruits of their combined or independent researches is the new science of Religion. By a careful collection, analysis, and comparison of all the beliefs of mankind available, with the view of eliciting what is peculiar to each, and what they all share in common, its professors aim at discovering what may be the real nature and origin and purpose of all religion.[2] As yet it should hardly be designated a science, for though the elements for it undoubtedly exist, they are too widely scattered to be of service for immediate induction. The materials already collected have not been sufficiently sifted, and moreover, it requires the assistance of other sciences, as yet too immature, to render it effective support. The title may not be a “misnomer,”[3] but only a somewhat inflated expression by which an age, rather wise in its own conceit, proclaims the discovery of a new field of learning which it means assiduously to cultivate. The discovery however is a solid one, and the assiduity of those who would improve it is unmistakable; year by year their numbers increase, their implements improve in quality, and this generation may not pass away before an abundant harvest has been reaped.

Another indication of the change that is coming over the world is the attitude which Christian divines now assume toward other religions. Fifty years ago the attempt to compare our Bible and our Creed with the scriptures of other religions would have been regarded as a sacrilegious surrender of what was holy to the dogs. This was due not so much to prejudice on the part of the expounders of Christianity as to aversion to the avowedly anti-christian spirit in which these researches were prosecuted. The Comparative method was then frequently employed, as it had been by the Encyclopædists of last century, for the purpose of discrediting and degrading Christianity. The conclusion was often foregone before the process began; and so it was natural that reverent but timid minds jealous for their religion, and anxious to guard it from insult, should decline such encounters. Now, however, orthodox theologians are quite aware that in this matter they have to reckon with other than the professed enemies of Christianity. The ablest advocates of Comparative Theology are not only free from antichristian prejudice, but they protest against it as inimical to the science itself.[4] It is not infidelity, but Providence, that is forcing us to investigate the origin of our religion, and to search its scriptures in the fuller light which we now enjoy. We are being divinely taught that we cease to revere a heavenly gift the moment we begin to idolise it; that the disposition most fatal to ourselves, most dishonouring to our religion, is that which would regard its scriptures as charmed relics too sacred to be examined, and only to be brought by an undevout and apostate Church, in the moment of its extreme peril, into the field of battle with the Philistines. To shrink from the comparison of our Faith with the religious beliefs of those whom we acknowledge to be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, is to manifest a cowardly lack of confidence in its Author. It is at the judgment-bar of all the ages that He means to make good His claim to be the Judge of all mankind. The more He is tried, the more will His authority be confessed to be divine. He certainly invited inspection and comparison, and He may have had other than Hebrew scriptures in His view when He instructed us to “search them, for they testify of Me.”[5]

The comparative study of other religions, so far from being prejudicial to the claims of Christianity, will be helpful in establishing its sublime pre-eminence among them, and in enabling us to discharge to their adherents the duty which its Founder has imposed upon us. It may modify considerably our theology, but it will strengthen our fundamental beliefs. As a general rule, we may assert that the strength of a man’s faith will be found to be in direct proportion to his knowledge of the everlasting and unchangeable laws by which the universe is governed. It is our theology alone that is assailed, and we are learning that theology, as a system of reasoning upon materials furnished not only by religion itself, but also by some other “ologies,” must be based on other and higher authority than that of an infallible Council, or that of a chapter whose significance was supposed to be unalterably fixed two or three thousand years ago. The religion which revolted against the assumption of the Scribe in our Lord’s day, and which disallowed the claim of the Pope some three centuries ago to be the sole interpreters of revelation, is not only testing the authenticity of the texts to which the appeal was then made, but is inquiring into their actual significance by collating them with the truths of another revelation as divine. It is not that men want to get rid of dogma, for dogma of some kind there must ever be. There will always be a vast deal which we must believe, because there is much that can only thus be known; but a satisfactory dogmatic foundation must henceforth be sought in facts anterior to any scriptures, or to any church that would interpret them, viz., in the elemental necessities and aspirations of our common human nature. It has been wisely said that “the theology which fails to meet the demands of the whole man is simply doomed.”[6] What is wanted therefore for theology is some broad and solid basis, to be laid by analysing, comparing, and co-ordinating all religious beliefs within our reach. In each of them we may hope to find some truth—it may be very feebly and very partially expressed—of no more value by itself than a flake of gold found in an immense drift of sand or mass of quartz, but yet of immense value as indicating the source from which it came and the substance to which it claims affinity. All separate and imperfect truths point towards some higher truth which will unite and fulfil and interpret them. And so every religion, however erroneous it may be, is prophetic—because found in a humanity that is essentially one—of a universal religion, a faith which is not just one of the faiths of the nations, but is the divine answer, unchanged and inexhaustible, to all the aspirations of mankind. The study of other religions therefore, even of those of the most degraded peoples, and of those most contradictory of our own, is as binding upon us as is the study of our Bibles. For us “history” has been truly said “to stand in the place of prophecy,”[7] and it is only by gathering up and considering its testimony that we can appreciate the worth of the treasure which has been given to us, that we may communicate it to all the world.

Prominent among the religions that challenge our consideration is the one which, following authorities acknowledged to be the best, we will endeavour briefly to sketch and to expound. It is not an obsolete system, appealing only to the poetic sentiment from a vanished past, like the religion of Greece, but one which confronts us with vitality sufficient to overshadow a considerable portion of the populous East. Two thousand four hundred years have passed since it was first proclaimed, and though it disappeared long ago from the land of its birth, it still reigns in many kingdoms, and continues to spread its influence in several directions in Central and Northern Asia. To tell its story completely would be to write the history of nearly the whole of China, India, and the countries that lie around or between them. Till very recently it was generally computed that quite one-third of the human family, though widely separated geographically and otherwise, professed to find in Buddhism consolation sufficient to strengthen them to do the work and endure the sufferings of life, and to confront with calmness the necessity of death.