Chapter 16

Thus also in the Zenith do other blessed Buddhas, led by the Tathâgata Brahmaghosha, the Tathâgata Nakshatrarâ_g_a, the Tathâgata Indraketudhva_g_arâ_g_a, the Tathâgata Gandhottama, the Tathâgata Gandhaprabhâsa, the Tathâgata Mahâr_k_iskandha, the Tathâgata Ratnakusumasampushpitagâtra, the Tathâgata Sâlendrarâ_g_a, the Tathâgata Ratnotpalasri, the Tathâgata Sarvâdarsa, the Tathâgata Sumerukalpa, equal in number to the sand, etc.(156)

Now what do you think, O _S_âriputra, for what reason is that repetition of the Law called the Favor of all Buddhas? Every son or daughter of a family who shall hear the name of that repetition of the Law and retain in their memory the names of those blessed Buddhas, will all be favored by the Buddhas, and will never return again, being once in possession of the transcendent true knowledge. Therefore, then, O _S_âriputra, believe,(157) accept, and long for me and those blessed Buddhas!

Whatever sons or daughters of a family shall make mental prayer for the Buddha-country of that blessed Amitâyus, the Tathâgata, or are making it now or have made it formerly, all these will never return again, being once in possession of the transcendent true knowledge. They will be born in that Buddha-country, have been born, or are being born now. Therefore, then, O _S_âriputra, mental prayer is to be made for that Buddha-country by faithful sons and daughters of a family.

And as I at present magnify here the inconceivable excellences of those blessed Buddhas, thus, O _S_âriputra, do those blessed Buddhas magnify my own inconceivable excellences.

A very difficult work has been done by _S_âkyamuni, the sovereign of the _S_âkyas. Having obtained the transcendent true knowledge in this world Saha, he taught the Law which all the world is reluctant to accept, during this corruption of the present Kalpa, during this corruption of mankind, during this corruption of belief, during this corruption of life, during this corruption of passions.

This is even for me, O _S_âriputra, an extremely difficult work that, having obtained the transcendent true knowledge in this world Saha, I taught the Law which all the world is reluctant to accept, during this corruption of mankind, of belief, of passion, of life, and of this present Kalpa.

Thus spoke Bhagavat joyful in his mind. And the honorable _S_âriputra, and the Bhikshus and Bodhisattvas, and the whole world with the gods, men, evil spirits, and genii, applauded the speech of Bhagavat.(158)

This is the Mahâyânasûtra called Sukhavatîvyûha.

This Sûtra sounds to us, no doubt, very different from the original teaching of Buddha. And so it is. Nevertheless it is the most popular and most widely read Sûtra in Japan, and the whole religion of the great mass of the people may be said to be founded on it. “Repeat the name of Amitâbha as often as you can, repeat it particularly in the hour of death, and you will go straight to Sukhavatî and be happy forever;” this is what Japanese Buddhists are asked to believe: this is what they are told was the teaching of Buddha. There is one passage in our Sûtra which seems even to be pointedly directed against the original teaching of Buddha. Buddha taught that as a man soweth so shall he reap, and that by a stock of good works accumulated on earth the way is opened to higher knowledge and higher bliss. Our Sûtra says No; not by good works done on earth, but by a mere repetition of the name of Amitâbha is an entrance gained into the land of bliss. This is no better than what later Brahmanism teaches, viz. “Repeat the name of Hari or of K_ri_sh_n_a, and you will be saved.” It is no better than what even some Christian teachers are reported to teach. It may be that in a lower stage of civilization even such teaching has produced some kind of good.(159) But Japan is surely ripe for better things. What the worship of Amitâbha may lead to we can learn from a description given by Dr. Edkins in his “Trip to Ning-po and T’hëen-t’hae.” “The next thing,” he writes, “shown to us was the prison, in which about a dozen priests had allowed themselves to be shut up for a number of months or years, during which they were to occupy themselves in repeating the name of Amida Buddha,(160) day and night, without intermission. During the day the whole number were to be thus engaged; and during the night they took it by turns, and divided themselves into watches, so as to insure the keeping up of the work till morning. We asked when they were to be let out. To which it was replied, that they might be liberated at their own request, but not before they had spent several months in seclusion. We inquired what could be the use of such an endless repetition of the name of Buddha. To which it was answered, that the constant repetition of the sacred name had a tendency to purify the heart, to deaden the affections towards the present world, and to prepare them for the state of Nirvâ_n_a. It was further asked whether Buddha was likely to be pleased with such an endless repetition of his name. To which it was answered, that in the Western world it was considered a mark of respect to repeat the name of any one whom we delighted to honor. The recluses seemed most of them young men; some of whom came out to the bars of their cage to look at the strangers, but kept on repeating the name of Buddha as they stood there. It appeared to us that nothing was more calculated to produce idiocy than such a perpetual repetition of a single name, and the stupid appearance of many of the priests whom we have seen seems to have been induced by some such process.”

Is it not high time that the millions who live in Japan, and profess a faith in Buddha, should be told that this doctrine of Amitâbha and all the Mahâyâna doctrine is a secondary form of Buddhism, a corruption of the pure doctrine of the Royal Prince, and that if they really mean to be Buddhists, they should return to the words of Buddha, as they are preserved to us in the old Sûtras? Instead of depending, as they now do, on Chinese translations, not always accurate, of degraded and degrading Mahâyâna tracts, why should they not have Japanese translations of the best portions of Buddha’s real doctrine, which would elevate their character, and give them a religion of which they need not be ashamed? There are Chinese translations of some of the better portions of the Sacred Writings of Buddhism. They exist in Japan too, as may be seen in that magnificent collection of the Buddhist Tripi_t_aka which was sent from Japan as a present to the English Government, and of which Mr. Beal has given us a very useful Catalogue. But they are evidently far less considered in Japan than the silly and the mischievous stories of Amitâbha and his Paradise, and those which I know from translations are far from correct.

I hope that Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio and Mr. Kasawara, if they diligently continue their study of Sanskrit and Pâli, will be able to do a really great and good work, after their return to Japan. And if more young Buddhist priests are coming over, I shall always, so far as my other occupations allow it, be glad to teach them, and to help them in their unselfish work. There is a great future in store, I believe, for those Eastern Islands, which have been called prophetically “the England of the East,” and to purify and reform their religion—that is, to bring it back to its original form—is a work that must be done before anything else can be attempted.

In return, I hope that they and their friends in Japan, and in Corea and China too, will do all they can to discover, if possible, some more of the ancient Sanskrit texts, and send them over to us. A beginning, at all events, has been made, and if the members of this Society who have friends in China or in Japan will help, if H. E. the Japanese Minister, Mori Arinori, who has honored us by his presence today, will lend us his powerful assistance, I have little doubt that the dream which passed before the mind of your late President may still become a reality, and that some of the MSS. which, beginning with the beginning of our era, were carried from India to China, Corea, and Japan, may return to us, whether in the original or in copies, like the one sent to me by Mr. Shuntai Ishikawa.

With the help of such MSS. we shall be able all the better to show to those devoted students who from the extreme East have come to the extreme West in order to learn to read their sacred writings in the original Sanskrit or Pâli, what difference there is between the simple teaching of Buddha and the later developments and corruptions of Buddhism. Buddha himself, I feel convinced, never knew even the names of Amitâbha, Avalokite_s_vara, or Sukhavatî. Then, how can a nation call itself Buddhist whose religion consists chiefly in a belief in a divine Amitâbha and his son Avalokite_s_vara, and in a hope of eternal life in the paradise of Sukhavatî?

POSTSCRIPT: _Oxford, March 10, 1880._

The hope which I expressed in my paper on “Sanskrit Texts discovered in Japan,” viz. that other Sanskrit texts might still come to light in Japan or China, has been fulfilled sooner than I expected. Mr. A Wylie wrote to me on March 3 that he had brought a number of Sanskrit-Chinese books from Japan, and he afterwards kindly sent them to me to examine. They were of the same appearance and character as the dictionary which Dr. Edkins had lent me, and the Sukhavatî-vyûha which I had received from Japan. But with the exception of a collection of invocations, called the Va_g_ra-sûtra, and the short Pra_gñ_â-h_ri_daya-sûtra, they contained no continuous texts. The books were intended to teach the Sanskrit alphabet, and every possible and impossible combination of the Devanâgarî letters, and that was all. Still, so large a number of books written to teach the Sanskrit alphabet augurs well for the existence of Sanskrit texts. There was among Mr. Wylie’s books a second Chinese-Sanskrit-Japanese vocabulary, of which Mr. Kasawara has given me the following account: “This vocabulary is called ‘A Thousand Sanskrit and Chinese Words’ and it is said to have been arranged by I-tsing, who left China for India in 671, about twenty-seven years after Hiouen-thsang’s return to China, and who is best known as the author of a book called Nanhae-ki-kwei-_k_ou’en, on the manners and customs of the Indian Buddhists at that time.

“This vocabulary was brought from China to Japan by Zikaku, a Japanese priest, who went to China in 838 and returned in 847. It is stated at the end of the book, that in the year 884 a Japanese priest of the name of Rioyiu copied that vocabulary from a text belonging to another priest, Yûĭkai. The edition brought from Japan by Mr. Wylie was published there in the year 1727 by a priest called Jakumio.”

The following curious passage occurs in the preface of Jakumio’s edition: “This vocabulary is generally called ‘One Thousand Sanskrit and Chinese Words.’ It is stated in Annen’s work, that this was first brought (from China) by Zikaku. I have corrected several mistakes in this vocabulary, comparing many copies; yet the present edition is not free from blunders; I hope the readers will correct them, if they have better copies.

“In the temple Hôriuji, in Yamato, there are treasured Pra_gñ_âpâramitâh_ri_dayasûtram, and Son-shio-dhâra_n_i, written on two palm leaves, handed down from Central India; and, at the end of these, fourteen letters of the ‘siddha’ are written. In the present edition of the vocabulary the alphabet is in imitation of that of the palm leaves, except such forms of letters as cannot be distinguished from those prevalent among the scriveners at the present day.

“Hôriuji is one of eleven temples founded by the prince Umayado (who died A. D. 621). This temple is at a town named Tatsuta, in the province Yamato, near Kioto, the western capital.”

Here, then, we have clear evidence that in the year 1727 palm leaves containing the text of Sanskrit Sûtras were still preserved in the temple of Hôriuji. If that temple is still in existence, might not some Buddhist priest of Kioto, the western capital of Japan, be induced to go there to see whether the palm leaves are still there, and, if they are, to make a copy and send it to Oxford?

F. M. M.

SECOND POSTSCRIPT: _Oxford, August 2, 1880._

At the end of my paper on “Sanskrit Texts in Japan” I mentioned in a postscript (March 10) that I had received from Mr. Wylie a copy of a vocabulary called “A Thousand Sanskrit and Chinese Words,” compiled by I-tsing, about 700 A. D., and brought to Japan by Zikaku, a Japanese priest, in 847 A. D. The edition of this vocabulary which Mr. Wylie bought in Japan was published by Jakumio in 1727, and in the preface the editor says: “In the temple Hôriuji, in Yamato, there are treasured Pra_gñ_âpâramitâh_ri_daya-sûtram and Sonshio-dhâra_n_î, written on two palm leaves, handed down, from Central India.”

Hôriuji is one of eleven temples founded by Prince Umayado, who died in A. D. 621. This temple is in a town named Tatsuta, in the province Yamato, near Kioto, the western capital. I ended my article with the following sentence: “Here, then, we have clear evidence that in the year 1727 palm leaves containing the text of Sanskrit Sûtras were still preserved in the temple of Hôriuji. If that temple is still in existence, might not some Buddhist priest of Kioto, the western capital of Japan, be induced to go there to see whether the palm leaves are still there, and, if they are, to make a copy and send it to Oxford?”

Sooner than expected this wish of mine has been fulfilled. On April 28 Mr. Shigefuyu Kurihara, of Kioto, a friend of one of my Sanskrit pupils, Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio, who for some years had himself taken an interest in Sanskrit, went to the temple or monastery of Hôriuji to inquire whether any old Sanskrit MSS. were still preserved there. He was told that the priests of the monastery had recently surrendered their valuables to the Imperial Government, and that the ancient palm leaves had been presented to the emperor.

In a chronicle kept at the monastery of Hôriuji it is stated that these palm leaves and other valuables were brought by Ono Imoko, a retainer of the Mikado (the Empress Suiko), from China (during the Sui dynasty, 589-618) to Japan, in the thirty-seventh year of the age of Prince Umayado—_i. e._, A. D. 609. The other valuable articles were:

1. Niô, _i. e._, a cymbal used in Buddhist temples;

2. Midzu-game, a water vessel;

3. Shaku-jio, a staff, the top of which is armed with metal rings, as carried by Buddhist priests;

4. Kesa (Kashâya), a scarf, worn by Buddhist priests across the shoulder, which belonged to the famous Bodhidharma;

5. Ha_k_i, a bowl, given by the same Bodhidharma.

These things and the Sanskrit MSS. are said to have belonged to some Chinese priests, named Hwui-sz’ (Yeshi) and Nien-shan (Nenzen), and to four others successively, who lived in a monastery on the mountain called Nan-yo (Nangak), in the province of Hăng (Kô) in China. These palm-leaf MSS. may, therefore, be supposed to date from at least the sixth century A. D., and be, in fact, _the oldest Sanskrit MSS. now in existence_.(161)

May we not hope that His Excellency Mori Arinori, who expressed so warm an interest in this matter when he was present at the meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, will now lend us his powerful aid, and request the Minister of the Department of the Imperial Household to allow these MSS. to be carefully copied or photographed?

INDEX.

Academic freedom not without dangers, 39.

_Adams_, H. C., quoted, 25.

Alphabet, phonetic, table of, 150; reading according to, 151 sq.

_Amyot_, quoted, 131.

Analogies, false, in comparative theology, 98 sq.

_Anaxagoras_, quoted, 56.

Anglo-Saxon names for the days of the week, 118.

Apostles, The, read the Veda, 127.

Archbishops have no official position in English universities, 8.

_Aristotle_, disrespectful remarks about, 38; quoted, 56.

Babylonian system of dividing gold and silver still found in the English sovereign, 19; of reckoning time found on the dial-plates of our clocks, 19.

_Beveridge_, Bishop, quoted, 30.

_Bochart_, quoted, 98.

_Brackett_, A. C., quoted, 88.

Budha, day of, 121.

-- and Buddha, distinction between, 115, 119.

Buddha, a personal and historical character, 122; repetition of his name meritorious, 235.

Buddhism, when recognized in China, 191 sq.; Japan converted to, 213; and Scandinavian mythology, connection between, 113 sq., 122.

_Buhler_, Dr., quoted, 208.

_Burnouf_, quoted, 112.

_Cassius, Dio_, quoted, 118.

Chinese translators of Sanskrit texts, 189.

Christian religion, historical and individual, 62.

_Cicero_, quoted, 72.

_Clement of Alexandria_, quoted, 58, 61.

_Clodd_, E., quoted, 84.

Coincidences between Jewish and Pagan religious, 98 sq.

_Colbourne_, Wm., quoted, 153.

Counting possible without language, 67.

Daphne, meaning of, 82.

_Davids Rhys_, quoted, 16.

Dictionaries, value of, 17.

Dogmatic teaching, evil of, 31.

Donar, 120.

_Du Bois-Reymond_, quoted, 9.

Duhitar, a Sanskrit word for daughter, 17.

Dyaus, 121.

_Edkins_, Dr., quoted, 205.

Education, academic, 28; elementary, 23; scholastic, 24; in the beginning purely dogmatic, 22; compulsory, mark of a new era, 21; dangers of compulsory, 22.

_Ellis_, quoted, 111 sq.

_Ellis_, A. J., quoted, 155 sq.

_Empedokles_, quoted, 56, 65.

English, society, intolerance of, 7.

-- universities described, 10; too little of academic freedom in, 40.

-- names for the days of the week, 118.

-- written in hieroglyphics, 17 sq.

-- spelling, a national misfortune, 22.

-- present number of speaking, 138; future number of speaking, 138.

_Epicharmos_, quoted, 55.

Esquimaux, tale among the, quoted, 83 sq.

Esthonian tale, quoted, 86 sq.

Examinations, good, to be rewarded by honor, 44; a means to ascertain how pupils have been taught, 43; strong feeling against, 42 sq.

_Fergusson_, Jas., quoted, 113 sq.

Figures, our, received from the Arabs, 20.

Forgeries in Sanskrit MSS., 109.

Freedom, address on, 1 sq.; of thought, meaning of, 3.

Freethinkers, a title of honor, 6.

French, names for the days of the week, 118; present number of speaking, 137; future number of speaking, 138.

Freyja, day of, 120.

Friday, 120.

Genus and Species, meaning of, 32 sq.

German names for the days of the week, 119.

-- Middle-High, names for the days of the week, 119.

-- Old-High, names for the days of the week, 119.

-- present number of speaking, 138; future number of speaking, 138.

-- Universities, how much time spent in lecturing in, 39.

Grammars, Latin and Greek, deficiencies of, 26.

Greek and Roman classics not read enough, 25.

Greek philosophy, its development chiefly due to the absence of an established religion and influential priesthood, 63; religion, national and traditional, 62.

_Gutzlaff_, quoted, 205.

_Haekel_, quoted, 182.

_Hall_, Newman, quoted, 154.

Helios, meaning of, 80.

_Helmholtz_, quoted, 7, 40.

_Herakleitos_, quoted, 58.

Heredity, meaning of, 14 sq.

_Herodotus_, quoted, 58.

_Herschel_, Sir John, quoted, 74 sq.

_Herzen_, quoted, 4.

_Hillebrand_, quoted, 9.

_Hipparchus_, a Greek astronomer, 19.

_Hobbes_, referred to, 3, 32.

_Holwell_, quoted, 102.

_Homer_, quoted, 71, 79; condemned by Plato, 59; his soul hanging in Hades on a tree, 58.

Hottentot fables quoted, 85 sq.

_Huet_, quoted, 99.

Indians of Nicaragua, quotation from a compendium of the theology of, 70.

Individualism, what? 4.

Individuality, principle of, suffering more now than before, 11.

Italian, present number of speaking, 137; future number of speaking, 138.

_Jacolliott_, quoted and criticised, 123 sq.

Japan converted to Buddhism, legend about, 213.

Jehovah, name of, found in Chinese literature, 131, 132.

_Jones_, Sir. W., quoted, 100, 101 sq., 107 sq.

-- Eduard, quoted, 144 sq.

_Josephus_, quoted, 116 sq.

Jovis dies, 120.

_Julien_, St., quoted, 132.

Jupiter, the name, no mere accident, 90 sq.; the thunderer, 120.

Justin Martyr, quoted, 117.

Karman, meaning of, 15 sq.

Knowledge, dead, dangerous, 28.

Kû-fa-lan, works ascribed to him, 194.

Kukai, founder of a sect in Japan, 214.

Language and thought inseparable, 67; its influence on thought, 79.

Lapland, legend of, quoted, 88.

Latin names for the days of the week, 118.

Mars, the god of war, 121.

_Meiklejohn_, quoted, 147.

Mercurii dies, 119, 121.

_Metrodorus_, quoted, 56.

_Mill_, J. S., quoted, 1, 12, 21; his plea for liberty decried, 4, without reason, 5; his election to Parliament a triumph, 6.

_Milligan_, quoted, 76.

_Montucci_, quoted, 130.

Mosaic account of creation found among the Tahitians, 111.

Müller’s, M., rejoinder to Prof. Blackie, 91 sq.

Mythology, meaning of, 55, 64 sq., 66; interest of, in our days, 53; religion of the Greeks, 61; now as there was in time of Homer, 65; pervades the sphere of religion and of thought, 69; philosophy of, lecture on, 53 sq.

Names to be submitted to very careful snuffing, 37.

Nihilism, defined, 4; dangers of, 5.

Nirvana, definition of, 16.

Nominalism, higher, or Science of Language, 37.

Odin, 120, 121, 122.

Old-Norse names for the days of the week, 118.

Omniscience to be avoided, 47.

Oriental tongue, now spoken in Europe, 16 sq.

Over-examinations, complaints against, 46.

Paradise. See Sukhavati.

Phoibos, meaning of, 81; and Daphne, story of, 81 sq.

Phonetic alphabet, table of, 150; reading according to, 151 sq.

Pioneer (an Indian paper), quoted, 113.

Planets, their names, 118; used for the names of the days of the week, 116.

_Plato_, quoted, 59 sq., 79.

Population, table of supposed number of years required for doubling the, in different countries, 138.

Portuguese, number of speaking, 137.

Power and Responsibility of English Universities, 10.

Psyche, meaning of, 69, 72.

Public opinion, 11, 12.

Religions, division of, 62.

_Remusat_ quoted, 131.

Russian, number of speaking, 138; society described, 4.

Sabbath mentioned by Roman and Greek writers, 117 sq.

Sanskrit names for the days of the week, 118.

-- MSS., materials on which they were written, 206 sq.; searched for in China, 203 sq.; in Japan, 210; texts discovered in Japan, 181 sq.; translated by Chinese, 189 sq.

Saturni dies, 116 sq., 121.

Scandinavian mythology and Buddhism, connection between, 113 sq., 122.

Schools in England and on the Continent, shortcomings of, 25 sq.

Self-government, dangers of, 10.

Semiphonotopy, name for a style of spelling, 141; reading according to, 191 sq.

_Sextus Empiricus_, quoted, 58.

Snow, name for, 77.

Society, human, secret of, 13.

_Sokrates_, quoted, 56.

Sokratic method, 24.

Spanish, present number of speaking, 137; future number of speaking, 138.

_Species_ and _Genus_, meaning of, 32 sq.

Spelling, reform of, 133 sq., 135 sq.; favorite subject with Roman scholars, 140.

_Stahl_, quoted, 69.

_Sueton_, quoted, 116.

Sukhavati-vyûha, a title of a Buddhist Sutra, 214; list of MSS. of, now extant, 216 sq.; translation of, 220 sq.

Sukhavati, or Paradise, described, 223 sq.

Sun, sign or name for, 75 sq., 78.

Sunrise, feelings at the, 74.

_Swift_, Dean, quoted, 134.

Table of the names of the days of the week in— Anglo-Saxon, 118. English, 118. French, 118. German, 119. -- Middle-High, 119. -- Old-High, 119. Latin, 118. Old Norse, 118. Sanskrit, 118.

Table of the names of the Planets, 118, 119.

_Tacitus_, quoted, 121.

Teachers to be natural examiners, 43.

Testament, the Old, accounts of, found in the literature of the Brahmans, 100, 106.

-- Old and New, found in the Vedas., 123; borrowed from Brahmans and Buddhists, 101 sq.

Theology, on false analogies in comparative, 98 sq.

_Thirlwall_, Bishop, quoted, 143.

Thought and language inseparable, 67.

Thor, 120.

Thunar, 120.