Part 12

No Buddhist, at least, could look at such a sight without being reminded of this idea of Nirvāṇa—the idea of, so to speak, floating in perfect repose and peace and cessation from all pain, and all work, and even all thought, on a kind of ocean of half conscious, half unconscious beatitude. It is not consciousness, neither is it unconsciousness. It is symbolized by a full-blown, perfectly formed lotus—a frequent emblem of perfection—reposing on a calm mirror-like lake.

With regard to Pari-nirvāṇa[61]—the complete termination of migrations and passing away of all the elements of bodily existence—if this is to be distinguished from the Brāhmanical idea of absorption into an impersonal spirit—whereby the Ego of personal identity is destroyed—it is a distinction without much difference.

Strictly, however, in Buddhism the dissolution of the body leaves no surviving personality or individuality, and consequently Pari-nirvāṇa is not properly described either as absorption into a void (ṡūnya) or as annihilation. It is simply the absolute termination of a series of conscious bodily organizations. The Buddha himself evaded dogmatic definitions, and would probably have said:—it is not life, neither is it non-life; it may be compared to infinite space (ṡūnya) which is not to be comprehended or explained.

We should also bear in mind that although Nirvāṇa and Pari-nirvāṇa constitute the ultimate goal to which all the morality of a true Buddhist tends, they have no place either in the aims or thoughts of the ordinary adherents of Buddhism at the present day.

The apex of all the desires, the culminating point of all the ambition of the most religiously-minded Buddhists of modern times, points to a life in one of the heavens, while the great mass of the people aim only at escaping one of the hells, and elevating themselves to a higher condition of bodily existence in their next birth on this earth, and perhaps on that very part of this earth which is the scene of their present toils, joys, and sorrows.

It only remains for me to caution those who may be impressed with the beauty of some of the precepts of the moral code and its theory of perfection, as ending in Pari-nirvāṇa, against deducing therefrom too optimistic an estimate of the Buddhist system. Buddhist morality is like a showy edifice built on the sand. It is a thoroughly fair-weather structure, incapable of standing against flood, storm, and tempest.

It may be summed up in a few words as a scheme for the establishing of a paradox—for the perfecting of one’s self by accumulating merit with the ultimate view of annihilating all consciousness of self—a system which teaches the greatest respect for the life of others, with the ultimate view of extinguishing one’s own.

It must, in short, be clearly understood that if any comparison be instituted between Buddhism and Christianity in regard to the self-abnegation, or self-sacrifice which each claims to inculcate, the self to be got rid of in Buddhism is not the selfishness condemned by Christianity, but rather the self of individuality—the self of individual life, and personal identity.

To be righteous in a Christian sense a man must be God-like, and to be righteous in a Buddhistic sense a man must be Buddha-like; but the righteousness of the Buddhist is not the perfection of holiness by the extinction of sin committed against God, but the perfection of merit-making, with the view of earning happiness for himself in a higher state hereafter.

For every Buddhist is like a trader who keeps a ledger, with a regular debtor and creditor account, and a daily entry of profit and loss.

He must not take, make, or hoard money. He is forbidden to store up a money-balance in a worldly bank, but he is urged to be constantly accumulating a merit-balance in the bank of Karma.

In conclusion, let the Buddha enforce his own moral teaching in his own way, by allegory and illustration drawn from real life:—When asked by a Brāhman ‘why he did not plough and sow and earn his own bread?’ he replied to the following effect: ‘I do plough and sow and eat immortal fruit (Amata = Amṛita); my plough is wisdom (paṇṇā); my shaft is modesty; my draught-ox, exertion; my goad, earnest meditation (sati); my mind, the rein. Faith (saddhā) in the doctrine is the seed I sow; cleaving to life is the weed I root up; truth is the destroyer of the weed; Nirvāṇa and deliverance from misery are my harvest.’ (Kasi-bhāradvāja-sutta of the Sutta-nipāta.)

This may be compared with St. Luke viii. 11-15; but have we not here a contrast rather than a comparison?

Perhaps some may think that the contrast is not unfavourable to Buddhism. Nay, possibly some may complain that I have not enlarged sufficiently on the remarkable resemblance between certain moral precepts in the Buddhist code and in the Christian. I admit this resemblance—I admit that both tell us:—not to love the world; not to love money; not to show enmity towards our enemies; not to do unrighteous or impure acts—to overcome evil by good, and to do to others as we would be done by.

Nay, I admit even more:—I allow that some Buddhist precepts go beyond the corresponding Christian injunctions. For Buddhism prohibits all killing—even of animals and noxious insects. It demands total abstinence from stimulating drinks—disallowing even moderation in their use. It excludes all who aim at perfect sanctity from the holy estate of matrimony. It bids a man, if he strives after perfection, abandon the world and lead a life of monkhood. In fine, its morality is essentially a monkhood-morality. It enjoins total abstinence, because it dares not trust human beings to be temperate. How indeed could it trust them when it promises them no help, no divine grace, no restraining power?

The glory of Christianity is that having freely given that grace and that power to man, it trusts him to make use of the gift. It seems to speak to him thus:—Thy Creator wills to trust thee and to be trusted by thee; He has endowed thee with freedom of choice, and therefore respects thy liberty of action. He imposes no rule of total abstinence in regard to natural desires; He simply bids thee keep them within bounds, so that thy moderation may be known unto all men; He places thee in the world amid trials and temptations and says to thee, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’ and by its aid thou mayest overcome them all.

Yes, the grand difference between the morality of Buddhism and the morality of Christianity is not in the letter of the precepts, but in the principle and motive power brought to bear on their application.

Buddhism says:—Be righteous by yourselves, and through yourselves, and for the getting rid of all life in yourselves. Christianity says:—Be righteous through the power of God’s gift of eternal life in His Son. In a word, Buddhism founds its morality on self. Christianity founds its morality on Christ.

The Buddha said to his followers:—Take nothing from me, trust to no one but to yourselves.

Christ said, and says to us still:—Take all from me; take this free gift. Put on this spotless robe. Eat this Bread of Life. Drink this Living Water.

Think you that any one who receives a priceless gift, is likely willingly to insult the Giver of it? Think you that any one who accepts a snow-white robe is likely willingly to soil it by impure acts? Think you that any one who tastes life-giving Bread is likely to relish husks? or that any one who draws deep draughts at a living Well is likely to prefer the polluted water of a stagnant pool?

Beware, then, of judging by the mere letter; or, should you insist on so judging, bear in mind that everywhere the Buddha’s Law is a dead letter, because the Buddha is dead; just as the Sermon on the Mount would be a dead letter, if Christ were dead.

Finally, let me say to the admirers of Buddhism:—

If you insist on placing its moral code on the same level with that of Christianity, ask yourselves one plain question—Who would be the more likely to lead a godly, righteous, and sober life, a life of moderation and temperance, a life of holiness and happiness—the man who has learnt his morality from the dead, the extinct Buddha, or the man who draws his morality and his holiness from the living, the eternal, the life-giving Christ?

LECTURE VII. _Changes in Buddhism and its disappearance from India._

In the preceding Lectures I have confined myself chiefly to the consideration of what may be called _true Buddhism_ as taught by its Founder and developed by his immediate followers and disciples during the first two or three centuries of its existence in the land of its birth, India.

To attempt an explanation of all the subsequent phases of Buddhism would, as I have before stated, require the command of unlimited time. All I can hope to accomplish in the concluding Lectures is to give a very general idea of the nature of the changes Buddhism underwent before it died out in India, and of its corruptions in some of the countries bordering on India and in North-eastern Asia.

And I may add that those who desire correct views on this subject, ought not to trust to mere inferences and theories founded on a critical perusal of the so-called Sacred Books of the Buddhists. For it is certain that without any practical experience of what Buddhism has become in modern times—I mean such an experience as can only be gained by residing or travelling in countries where Buddhism now prevails—the mere study of its ancient scriptures is likely to be misleading.

At the same time book-knowledge is indispensable, and it is essential to bring to the study of later Buddhism a scholarlike acquaintance with Sanskṛit and Pāli. Even a knowledge of Tibetan ought to be added. Nor ought the inquirer to be ignorant of the science of comparative religion, seeing that the principles of that science may throw light on many difficult questions.

For example, a student of comparative religion will be prepared to expect that all religious systems will diverge more or less from their original type in the hands of enthusiastic disciples, who are ever inclined to amplify their master’s teaching and to explain it differently according to each man’s peculiar temperament and mental bias, until in the end the original deposit of simple doctrine becomes overlaid with layer upon layer of adventitious matter.

Nor will he be surprised to find that the tendency of every religious movement is towards deterioration and disintegration. Nor will it appear strange to him that the chief conservative force is antagonism. As time goes on disagreements among the followers of any great leader seem to be inevitable, and always lead to sectarian divisions and subdivisions. Yet it is this opposition of religious parties that usually operates to mitigate the worst extremes of corruption, and tends to bring about re-forming movements.

Even the progress of Christianity—as history shows too well—furnishes illustrations of the law of deterioration, disintegration, and re-formation. At all events, it is certain that no study of the New Testament is likely to give a true idea of the varying condition of the Christian religion as exhibited at the present day in different parts of the world.

But here it is important to caution the student of religions against forcing a comparison between two systems of doctrine like Christianity and Buddhism, which are radically and essentially opposed to each other.

The unchristianlike incrustations and divisions which have marred the original teaching of the Head of our religion exist _in spite_ of Christianity. They are not the result of any development of its first principles; whereas, on the contrary, the corruptions and schisms of Buddhism are the natural and inevitable outcome of its own root-ideas and fundamental doctrines.

In proof of this let us revert for a moment to the insight we have gained into the origin of Buddhism.

It will be seen that the most remarkable feature of the Buddha’s teaching, so far as it has been stated in the preceding Lectures, was that he altogether ignored the existence in human nature of any spiritual aspirations, affections, or instincts higher than or distinct from the natural aspirations, affections, and instincts of humanity; and of any force outside of human nature capable of aiding a man’s own efforts in his struggle for salvation. Not that he reviled, or poured contempt on the religion prevalent among his fellow-countrymen, but that he found no place in his system for an external Ruler and Controller of the Universe, and would have stultified his own teaching had he acknowledged a Supreme Creator, guiding and upholding all things by His will, and always at hand to co-operate with His creatures and listen to their supplications.

If it were possible, in short, to condense into a categorical statement the scattered utterances of a man whose teaching was rarely dogmatic, we might affirm that it was to the effect that for any man to depend on a Being higher than himself, or to centre the noblest affections of his nature on a merciful, just, and holy God, whose presence he yearned for, whose aid he prayed for, and to whose image he longed to be assimilated—was a mere delusion, though perhaps a harmless one. He therefore set aside every supposed supernatural revelation as useless and incapable of proof. He prescribed no prayer, he enjoined no form of worship, he established no real church, and instead of a priesthood or clergy, ordained to aid men in their progress heavenwards or to console them in the trials of life, he founded an Order of Monks pledged to denounce human life as not worth living, and bound to abstain from all participation in human affairs.

It is true that he deserves commendation for having substituted moral conduct for useless superstitious rites, but his moral code had no other aim than the suppression of lusts and desires (p. 139, note 2), and his peculiar stoical philosophy had no other object than the removal of the ignorance which obstructed the path to true knowledge—the knowledge that all life is fraught with pain and misery, and not worth perpetuating.

It is admitted, too, that its moral precepts were of a high order; but it promised man no divine aid in observing them, it supplied him with no motive power except the selfish hope of benefiting himself in future states of corporeal existence, and it provided no remedy in case his attempts to obey its injunctions ended in failure. How, indeed, could it do any of these things when its only idea of sin was not the infraction of God’s law, but the commission of an act fraught with evil consequences to the doer?

Furthermore, it was guilty of the inconsistency of bidding a man cherish a fellow-feeling for others and diligently engage in all good works, while it made his true salvation depend on his giving up all love for wife and children, and setting before himself, as his final goal, a condition of absolute indifference and inactivity.

What, therefore, I am at present concerned to point out is that, if the essential doctrines of primitive Buddhism were of the character thus summarized, a rebound from one extreme to another became inevitable, and that such a reaction was due to the very nature of the original teaching of its Founder. In point of fact it was not a development that took place, but a recoil—like the recoil of a spring held down for a time by a powerful hand and then released. And this resulted from the simple working of the eternal instincts of humanity, which insisted on making themselves felt notwithstanding the unnatural restraint to which the Buddha had subjected them; so that every doctrine he taught developed by a kind of irony of fate into a complete contradiction of itself.

Let us take a few examples:—

Buddhism, we know, started with the doctrine that all idea of marriage, or of happy home-life, was to be abandoned by wise men—by all who aimed at becoming true Buddhists (in direct contradistinction, we may note, to the primary Christian truth that it is not good for created man to be alone, and that therefore his Creator created a help meet for him—a truth confirmed in a remarkable manner by the Founder of the Christian Church when He gave the first sign of His divine commission at a marriage ceremony).

What, then, followed on the Buddha’s original unnatural teaching in regard to marriage?

Of course an immediate result was that, although according to the Buddha’s ordinance any one who aimed at perfect sanctity was bound to lead a celibate life, the rule against marriage was admitted to be inapplicable to the majority of human beings living in the world. The mass of the people, in short, were necessarily offenders against the primary law of Buddhism. Though called lay-Buddhists, they were not ‘wise men’ in the Buddhist sense of the term (pp. 86, 88). There is even evidence that among certain monkish communities in Northern countries the law against marriage was soon relaxed. It is well known that at the present day Lamaseries in Sikkim and Tibet swarm with the children of monks, though called their nephews and nieces[62]. And far worse than this, Buddhism ultimately allied itself with Tāntrism or the worship of the female principle (ṡakti), and under its sanction encouraged the grossest violations of decency and the worst forms of profligacy.

It was the same in regard to the unnatural vow of poverty. Monasteries and Lamaseries now possess immense revenues, and monks are often wealthy men.

Then again, what resulted from the Buddha’s ignoring the existence of a God, and telling his disciples to abstain from depending on any Being higher than what man himself could become? Of course this was opposed to every man’s innermost sense of his own needs and of his own nature. For man is so constituted that he cannot be happy without loving and trusting a Being higher than himself—a Being who takes the initiative in loving His creatures and is the proper object of their loftiest affections. Nor can man in his secret heart regard either himself or any one of his fellow-men as a being worthy of his highest adoration. Nor can he set his affections on a blank or an abstraction. And so, in spite of the Buddha’s teaching, his followers would act on their own convictions. They would believe in beings higher than themselves, and in a personal Creator knowable and lovable by themselves, and knowing and loving His creatures. Nay, they ultimately converted the Buddha himself into the very God he denied, calling him ‘The chief god of all the gods’ (Devātideva).

Again, what was the effect of the Buddha’s leading men to believe that all supernatural revelation was unneeded—that all enlightenment came from within, and that every man was competent to think out true knowledge for himself by the exercise of his own reasoning powers, in the way that the Buddha himself had done?

Of course the result was that the generality of men who shrank from the effort of thinking out truth for themselves, and were wholly destitute of any faculty for doing so, insisted on believing in a revelation from an external power, and ended in attributing infallibility to the Buddha’s own teaching, and worshipping the Law of Buddhism—as a visible embodiment of their deceased teacher—with all the ardour of enthusiastic bibliolatrists.

Furthermore, what followed on the Buddha’s denying that any prayer, however earnest, could have any power to modify the operation of natural laws?

Of course men longed for some form of supplication to a higher power, and so the Buddha’s disciples not only composed prayer-formularies, but invested the mere letters and syllables of such forms with an efficacy which no other body of religionists has ever thought of attributing to prayer of any kind.

They not only repeated mystical sentences, which were called prayers, though really mere charms, believing that an occult virtue was inherent in the words, but invented a method of manufacturing such sentences (Dhāraṇī) like marketable commodities.

They fabricated prayers, in fact, by machinery, inscribing them on wheels or on rolls inserted in cylinders, which in the present day are made to revolve by hand or by the force of water and wind, and will possibly, with the spread of science, be impelled by steam-power, so that each revolution may count for an infinite number of repetitions, and be set down to the credit of the owner or manager of the mechanism.

Yet again, what was the inevitable consequence of the Buddha’s rejection of the doctrine that any benefit could accrue to human beings from religious services conducted by regularly ordained priests, and of his instituting in their stead an Order of Monks, who were little better than a community of drones, contributing nothing to the wealth of the world, doing nothing of any utility to any one, and taught to regard inaction as the path of true wisdom?

Naturally, men craved for spiritual helpers, guides, and intercessors, and so by degrees these very monks conducted elaborate religious services, and a complicated hierarchy was organized in Tibet, even more intricate and far-reaching in its ramifications than that of the modern Romish Church.

And once more, what resulted from the Buddha’s objection to provide visible images and material objects of worship, with a view to stimulate devotion or aid meditation?

Of course concrete and objective Buddhism of some kind became a necessity. It became essential to make concessions to the weakness and infirmity of human nature, which required external aids, and declined to be devoted to an ideal void, or to meditate on a pure abstraction. Even the Founder of Buddhism himself seems to have felt, as we shall see, that his hold on the memory of his followers would depend on their venerating certain objects and symbols after his death. Unhappily for the purity of Buddhism, but quite in conformity with the inveterate tendencies of humanity, the Buddha’s disciples pushed veneration of external objects to an extreme. They were not contented with mere reverence shown to the relics of the Buddha’s burnt body and the shrines containing them. They worshipped the tree under which he attained Buddhahood, the seat on which he sat, the prints of his feet, his shadow supposed to be impressed on rocks, the utensils he used, the books containing the Law, the wheel which symbolized both the propagation and the character of his doctrine, and finally bowed down before carved representations of his body and images of all kinds. It is remarkable that in Buddhist countries idols are far more numerous than among any other idolatrous people in the world.

Lastly, what resulted from the Buddha’s teaching that the ultimate end to which men’s efforts ought to be directed was Nirvāṇa—that is, the total extinction of all individual existence and personal identity?

Of course men instinctively recoiled from utter self-annihilation, and so the Buddha’s followers ended in changing the true idea of Nirvāṇa and converting it from a condition of non-existence into a state of hazy beatitude in celestial regions, while they encouraged all men—whether monks or laymen—to make a sense of dreamy bliss in heaven, and not total extinction of life, the end of all their efforts.

But it was not only this natural and inevitable recoil to the opposite extreme that ultimately brought about an entire change in primitive Buddhism. Another cause must also be taken into account.

We have already explained the nature of the tie which bound Buddhism to Brāhmanism, from the first day on which Gautama sat as a disciple at the feet of the Brāhman philosophers Udraka and Āḷāra (p. 29). Now, although this tie was soon loosened, and although the Buddha struck out a line of his own, and a separation took place, yet the two systems stood on so much common ground that they were always ready to draw together again.