Part 21

Mahâ-pagâpati the Gotami, his aunt and nurse (Kullavaga, x. 1) whose entreaty, through Ananda, led him to found the Order of Bikkhuni, seems more than a name. Visâkhâ, “the rich and bountiful,” is another type of votary (Mahavagga, viii. 15).

Footnote 300:

_Buddhist Jataka Stories_, translated by Rhys Davids, pp. 87, 90; Bigandet, _Life of Gaudama_, old ed., pp. 156, 168.

Footnote 301:

Dhammapada, 284; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.

Footnote 302:

Book of the Great Decease, v. 23; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi.

Footnote 303:

Eitel, _Lectures on Buddhism_, p. 10.

Footnote 304:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 3, 4; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.

Footnote 305:

Clement of Alexandria gives prominence to the value of marriage and of the family life, _Strom._ vii., _Paedag._ iii. So Tertullian, _Ad Uxorem_, ii. c. 8.

Footnote 306:

Principal Donaldson, _Contemporary Review_, Sept. 1889.

Footnote 307:

Sir Henry S. Maine, _Early History of Institutions_, p. 341.

Footnote 308:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 6.

Footnote 309:

Kullavagga, x. 1. 27.

Footnote 310:

Pâtimokkha; Pakittiyâ Dhammâ, 6, 7, 27, 66, 67.

Footnote 311:

“You are not, O monks, to bow down before women, to rise up in their presence, to stretch out your joined hands towards them, nor to perform towards them those duties that are proper to them (from an inferior to a superior).”—Kullavagga, x. 3. 1. “Giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of God.”—1 Peter iii. 1-7.

Footnote 312:

Dhammapada, 85, 86; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.

Footnote 313:

T. W. Rhys Davids, _Handbook of Buddhism_, p. 125; Spence Hardy, _Eastern Monachism_, p. 199.

Footnote 314:

The bowl was “turned down” in relation to him, and his house became an unlawful resort.—Kullavagga, v. 20. 3; _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xx.

Footnote 315:

Sir Monier Williams states that though votaries did not confess to monks, the four days were observed by them.—_Buddhism_, p. 84.

Footnote 316:

Oldenberg, _Buddha, etc._, p. 162 note.

Footnote 317:

Mahavagga, vi. 24. 1-6.

Footnote 318:

Kullavagga, vi. 1-5; _ibid._ vi. 4. 10.

LECTURE VI. THE TWO RELIGIONS IN HISTORY.

I.—External Diffusion.

In His apostles, and the disciples who gathered round them, endowed with the memory of His words and deeds, two simple sacraments, and a promise that He would be with them to the end of the æon, while they fulfilled His commission to evangelise and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the continuance of the Church which our Lord had founded was secured. Buddha left behind him neither sacrament to signify and seal the benefits which he had conferred, nor any promise of personal fellowship with or interest in his followers; but he was survived by the Monastic Order which he had founded, by a law containing the essentials of his system, and a form of discipline containing the customs to be observed in their assemblies, and the rules to which all the brethren were to be subject. Though the personal guide to Nirvana was lost to them, they still in the law possessed his way to it, and by observing the law, and following his way, they would fulfil his last stirring exhortation,[319] “Be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves, O monks.”

So much importance being attached to the law, his disciples, immediately after his decease, according to the tradition, set about collecting the materials of it, in his remembered discourses, decisions, and in all that he said; and this labour of recalling, determining, and perpetuating his teaching seems to have occupied them for several generations. There is no trace of any corresponding anxiety on the part of the Christian Church to collect the words of the Lord Jesus. The Gospels are not the earliest of our scriptures, and they were produced more for the edification of Jewish and Gentile converts, than to secure for the Church a standard of belief and of discipline. The function of the Church was not so much to recall and perpetuate the teaching of its Lord as to interpret the significance of His life, and death, and resurrection. No written or remembered instructions were required, for the apostles believed that they had Himself to tell them on every occasion what they should do and teach. From the very first they prayed to Him in full assurance that He heard and answered them. They believed that He had shown Himself to some of them, and that He was witnessed for in all of them by a new possession. The Gentile world had been familiar with the μανία of the medium through whom a Divine oracle was supposed to be given, and with the _rabies_ of the howling priests of the goddess Cybele, but the Christians professed to be inspired by the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. In some instances this inspiration manifested itself in extravagant forms and in mysterious utterances,[320] but those who were most under its control had complete possession of themselves; their speech was intelligible, and sober, and most convincing, making “manifest the secrets of the heart.”

Unquestionably this belief in the presence of Christ in the Spirit—whether truly founded or not—was universal in the Church. All the utterances of primitive Christianity, the scriptures of its apostles, the treatises of its fathers and doctors, and all the monuments of the first ages, bear witness not to a Christ who once lived and had died, but who was living triumphant and glorified, reigning for them, and in them to reign. Unquestionably also in this belief was the hiding of that power which enabled the Church to confront the whole world, endure the full weight of its persecutions, and finally win the victory over it. It also explains the appearance in the Church, from the first, of that succession of persons who, because of their strongly marked individualities, gave both direction and impetus to its progress. Buddhism, though both its southern and northern scriptures record a patriarchal succession, and though probably not deficient in highly cultured disciples, seems to have lacked from the very first men who had genius to organise or intellect to command its forces. Its own early writings disclose a movement which very speedily congealed, because ruled only by a remembered law, interpreted by very adulterated traditions. Christianity represents quite a different movement; it was not the perpetuation of a system, but the development of a new inspiration, of a life manifested in Christ and communicated to all who believed on Him. Consequently it never was without its heroes, whom it had the power to produce; and consequently also it never could stiffen into a tradition, for where its leaders attempted to fix it, in either confession or in ritual, it was sure to evade them. It has been appropriately described as “the most changeable of religions,”[321]—mutable in its forms, immutable in its essence. For Christianity is not a system either of philosophy or theology; it is a perpetually reforming spirit, fed by faith in One who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

Both religions entered the world as missionaries bent upon its conversion, and though Buddhism was afterwards to eclipse Christianity in the superficial extent of its conquests, the annals of the primitive Church record a much more rapid extension. The early development of Christianity, even taking into account the circumstances which helped or facilitated its progress, remains one of the marvels of history. In the New Testament the Church is seen to have gained a footing almost wherever the waves of the Diaspora had reached. St. Paul found Christians not only in Rome, but in little Puteoli, and his letters imply that there were churches in Spain and in southern Gaul. St. Peter wrote from Babylon to a wide circle of Christian communities gathered out of the regions of Asia Minor.[322] There seem to have been even then churches in most of the chief cities, and in a multitude of minor towns all over the Empire; and there is no reason to distrust the tradition, that before the last of the apostles fell asleep, the gospel had called multitudes living far beyond the bounds of the Empire to make good their citizenship in the kingdom of God.

The churches may have been small in respect of membership, for the rapid diffusion of Christianity by no means involved the conversion _en masse_ of the people. Facts will hardly bear out the glowing testimony of Gregory Thaumaturgus, who found in the populous metropolis of a large province only seventeen Christians, and in twenty-five years reported that he could find only seventeen heathens.[323] With Gibbon we may have to discount as “splendid exaggeration” the testimony of Tertullian, “Hesterni sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus.” Still the direct testimony of Tacitus as to the multitude of Christians in Rome, the evidence of the Catacombs, and many other indications, point to the conclusion that the rapid numerical increase of Christians was as singular as was the territorial diffusion of their religion. The whole Empire must have been sensibly leavened, and the converts must for long have been gathered from other than the lower classes of society, before the conversion of Constantine became possible. Emperors—even Roman ones—follow in such matters, and do not lead their subjects; and so we may be sure what had at first been glad tidings to the slaves and the poor must for some time have become the consolation of many a noble Pudens and Linus, and of many a Claudia of royal descent, before it could be recognised as the religion of the State.[324]

Many circumstances undoubtedly contributed to this result. A consolidated empire, with nearly all the representative nations fused into a union, comprising all the existing elements of culture and forces of civilisation; the great Roman highways, with means of easy communication so abundant as to be surprising to us; the widespread understanding of the two leading languages, making virtually of one speech a great section of the most important part of the world; the innumerable communities of Jews, everywhere tolerated, and “cutting channels through the adamantine mass of heathen society,”[325] immensely aided the missionary activities of the apostles and their followers. Moreover, the moral and religious condition of the Empire, the bankruptcy of the old faith, the despair and confusion and perplexity of people, everywhere seeking mightier or better deities than they knew, everywhere trembling “between the two immensities of terror,” rendered possible the victory of Christianity. Multitudes were thus prepared to welcome a Deliverer who had come in the name, not of Jupiter Maximus Tonans, but of the Father in heaven, to give peace in this world’s tribulations, and sure hope of joy in the world beyond it.[326] And yet all this, even when added to Gibbon’s five causes, will not account for the historical puzzle, that a faith, originating in a manger in a Syrian cattle-shed, brooded over for thirty years of a life of poverty and toil, preached for three, with the result of being almost universally rejected, and quenched to all appearance in the blood of crucifixion, should immediately after the death of its Founder have broken out all over the Roman world. Converting its agents from farms, and harbours, and prisons, it called them to martyrdom; for it sent them—poor “weavers, and shoe-makers, and fullers, and illiterate clowns”—to proclaim “barbarous dogmas,” and “extravagant hopes,” “universally detested” by Jew and Gentile, and to bear the full weight of a prolonged series of persecutions involving indescribable tortures and disgrace.[327] Yet somehow it never paused for a moment, never abated one iota of its claim, till in the course of a few generations it was found upon the throne. We never will explain this wonder by showing how, as a system of ethics, or as a new theory of life, it found the condition of the world favourable to its reception. The correlation of the state of the world to the new faith has been claimed as providential,—an indication of a Divine purpose making all things work together, for this manifestation of a new power or principle of life in society, which as yet has had no historical counterpart.[328]

The early scriptures of Buddhism, though preserving a tradition that in twelve years from the time in which the doctrine was first preached it had spread over sixteen kingdoms, disclose no such rapidity of diffusion. The kingdoms referred to are not to be regarded as kingdoms in our sense of the word, for in extent and influence they would not equal a German principality, and were probably only tribal communities. After the death of Buddha the many Sanghas that had arisen seem to have suffered for lack of a central governing power. If his Order is to be called a Church, it had manifestly no church-government. It had synods, and assemblies, and councils, but not one with the authority of an Œcumenical as representative of the whole. It was more Congregational than Presbyterian in its constitution, and for this very reason it was weak when compared with the compact organisation of Brahmanism, with which it competed for supremacy. Disorder and dissension are traceable in it from the first, and the early texts, though containing many admonitions against schism, warnings that offences must come, and woes upon those who would cause them, record no practical steps to prevent or remedy them.[329] Vigorous expansion was consequently not to be looked for, and for two centuries we may safely infer that Buddhism represented only a struggling sect, which, beyond the limits in which it was first preached, had made little, if indeed any, progress.

At the close of this period, when its literature was reaching a canonical form, and its manuals of discipline and common order were generally in use, it found its Constantine in the conqueror Chandragupta. In opposition to the Brahmans, who despised him for his low-caste origin, he seems to have lifted it from obscurity into the sunshine of really imperial favour. His grandson Asoka, who consolidated his conquests, proved its Theodosius, in not only greatly endowing it, but in establishing its supremacy. There were no quarrels between him and the Sanghas as to their independence, as afterwards between the Emperors and the Popes, for, like a true son of the Church, he acknowledged their authority. By obeying in appearance, he in reality became, what Buddhism since the death of its founder sorely needed, the head of the system, and under his wise and energetic rule, the religion emerged into a vigour which it was to maintain for centuries.

An earnest Buddhist, he seems to have been something better. He called himself Pryadarsi,[330] the “beloved of the gods,” and a Daniel indeed he appears to have been, raised up for the blessing of millions. His edicts—stone inscriptions found all over India—the first written testimonies which Buddhism left of itself,[331] all breathe a lofty spirit of righteousness and kindness and toleration, appealing to both Brahman and Buddhist, and commending themselves at this day, “to Jew and Christian and Moslem alike, as part of the universal religion of humanity.”[332] One of them refers to a council which he assembled at Patna, for the pacification and reformation of the Order. During its session the ancient collections of rules and dogmas were rehearsed, and as the list is considerably shorter than the contents of the Tripitaka, we may be sure that the Southern tradition that Buddha himself was the author of all the books comprising that collection has no foundation in fact.[333] A far more momentous act of this ancient council than the recension of the canon, was that of establishing the first great Buddhist missions. To a revived and reformed Order the suggestion of the pious king, that they should go forth and fulfil their great teacher’s original commission, was welcome. Their dissensions, as has often happened in Christendom, were due to their living to themselves. An army inactive in quarters, is more likely to quarrel or mutiny than one in service in the field. These good Buddhists wisely determined to carry the war of deliverance beyond them, and so into the Punjab, Kashmir, the Central Himalayan regions, over into the Malay Peninsula, went the missionaries, armed only with the words of the Law or the legends which had been floating round the memory of their master, and supported only by the offerings put into their alms-dish, to gain whatever victories they could in the fair conflict of reason with reason.[334]

In India they would of course be supported by imperial influence, and indeed the mission to Ceylon, headed by Mahinda, the son of Asoka, seems to have been accredited by royal embassy; but nowhere was Buddhism propagated as Islam subsequently was by Mohammed, or as Christianity was by Charlemagne, with an army at its back. Races ever ready to credit the supernatural would probably be more easily won by the wonders which were then being formulated in reference to Buddha; but whatever be the explanation of it, the success of these missionaries anticipated that of the apostles. In Ceylon there was founded a Sangha, which was destined to nurse and preserve the original creed in somewhat of its purity, when all the others betrayed and corrupted it. Surviving several changes of dynasty, that Sangha, 330 years after Buddha’s decease, is said to have reduced its canon to writing. The result has been somewhat contradictory to the theory, that it matters very little whether a canon be oral or written, for Southern Buddhism, having an authority to which it was thus earlier anchored, has held more closely to the original system, from which, having no such check for long, every section of Northern Buddhism has irrecoverably fallen away.

After the death of Asoka, the empire which he sought to consolidate by the preaching of the Law fell to pieces, and Buddhism was destined to be tested by more than one rude shock. A Brahman reaction took place, which is even supposed to have resulted in the persecution of all Buddhists living in India. If so, it was the first which the religion encountered—so unlike Christianity, which had to endure for three centuries the fierce assaults of its enemies. Persecution by a religion so tolerant as Brahmanism is hard to conceive, but if it took place at this period, it only tended, as in the early Christian trials, to the wider expansion of the persecuted faith. “They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching” the Law. Some of them pushed through Afghanistan into the regions of Central Asia, and there, just as Ulphilas and Severinus, centuries later, gained a hold over the wild races that conquered the moribund Empire, so Buddhist missionaries succeeded in sowing the seeds of their Law among the rude Scythian tribes, who were then in great commotion in their vast inland steppes. Driven from their ancestral homes, a branch of the great tribe of Huns about 160 B.C. overthrow the Bactrian kingdom, and after generations of struggle they conquered Kashmir, the Punjab, and a considerable part of India. Then just as the Goths and Huns, in the moment of their conquest of Rome, tendered their submission to Christianity, so the conversion of Kaniska, the greatest of the Indo-Scythian kings, a contemporary with Augustus and Antony, enabled Buddhism to enter with fresh vigour upon a second period of very brilliant supremacy.[335]

Though the difference between the Northern and Southern Buddhists was already showing itself, and though soon after it manifested itself in a divergence as complete as that which sundered the Greek Orthodox from the Latin Catholic Churches, monumental evidence, harmonising with that derived from its own literary relics, indicates that for four or five centuries after this Buddhism was most successfully propagated almost everywhere save in India. In the land of its origin it was gradually declining, because drawing nearer to the Brahmanism from which it had seceded. Fa-Hian in the end of the fourth century, though describing it as dominant everywhere, found the place of its nativity only a wilderness.[336] Later on, the viharas were deserted, the dagobas in ruins, “the monks were few, the heretics many,” and by the seventh century the process of assimilation with and absorption into Hinduism was in India, save in widely separated and remote localities, almost complete. What it lost in India, however, it was to gain in other directions. Its greatest conquest was in China. In the days of Asoka eighteen missionaries are said to have reached China, where they are held in reverence to this day, their images occupying a conspicuous place in every temple. The faith which they introduced seemed to have struggled with very little success to gain a footing till about A.D. 68.[337] Thirteen years before this date, in obedience to a vision which appeared to him at Troas, St. Paul brought Christianity from Asia to Europe. On the thirtieth day of the twelfth Chinese month in A.D. 68, the Emperor Mingti, in consequence of a dream, sent ambassadors to the distant West for Buddhist monks and manuscripts.[338] Travelling in almost royal state, the invited missionaries were accorded in China a welcome in marvellous contrast to the reception of the Christian apostle in the first colonial city he had reached. From this time onwards a perpetual succession of monks and manuscripts entered China; yet, though tolerated from the first, and often royally patronised, centuries elapsed before it succeeded in winning a place as one of the three religions of China, while Christianity, persecuted from the first, succeeded after a fierce struggle in conquering the Empire of Rome, and then by a long process in evangelising Europe.

The conversion of the most of Eastern Asia was the work of the Northern or more corrupt Buddhism. Southern Buddhism, like the orthodox Eastern Church, which contented itself with its evangelistic achievements among the Goths, and its Nestorian missions, soon exhausted its propagative force. The introduction of the religion into Burma, Siam, and the adjacent kingdoms, may be said to sum up its triumphs. Northern Buddhism, on the other hand, ran from the beginning of our era a course of unchecked triumphs. In the close of the fourth century it spread from China to Corea, and in the sixth it reached Japan. Previous to this it entered the isolated regions of Tibet, more welcomed than resisted by the demonolatrous inhabitants on account of the adulterated form in which it presented itself. There, after a struggle for some two centuries, it succeeded, about the period when Islam was beginning its conquests elsewhere, in securing strong royal support. After experiencing for many generations the vicissitudes of popularity and persecution, the conquests of Genghiz, and the strong favour of Kublai, his greatest successor, established its hierarchy as supreme, and in spite of changes of dynasty, it has there dominated the whole relations of life in a manner like unto, but to an extent far beyond, the wildest dreams of Rome’s most ambitious Pope.[339]