Chapter XXIV.

[Footnote 23: At the great Zenkōji, a temple of the Tendai sect, at Nagano, Japan, dedicated to three Buddhist divinities, one of whom is Kwannon (Avalokitesvara, the rafters of the vast main hall are said to number 69,384, in reference to the number of Chinese characters contained in the translation of the Saddharma Pundarika.]

[Footnote 24: "The third (collection of the Tripitaka) was ... made by Manjusri and Maitreya. This is the collection of the Mahayana books. Though it is as clear or bright as the sun at midday yet the men of the Hinayana are not ashamed of their inability to know them and speak evil of them instead, just as the Confucianists call Buddhism a law of barbarians, without reading the Buddhist books at all."--B.N., p. 51.]

[Footnote 25: See the writings of Brian Hodgson, J. Edkins, E.J. Eitel, S. Beal, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc.]

[Footnote 26: See Chapter VIII. in T. Rhys Davids's Buddhism, a book of great scholarship and marvellous condensation.]

[Footnote 27: Davids's Buddhism, p. 206. Other illustrations of the growth of the dogmas of this school of Buddhism we select from Brian Hodgson's writings.

1. The line of division between God and man, and between gods and man, was removed by Buddhism.

"Genuine Buddhism never seems to contemplate any measures of acceptance with the deity; but, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinite mind, urges its followers to aspire by their own efforts to that divine perfectibility of which it teaches that man is capable, and by attaining which man becomes God--and thus is explained both the quiescence of the imaginary celestial, and the plenary omnipotence of the real Manushi Buddhas--thus, too, we must account for the fact that genuine Buddhism has no priesthood; the saint despises the priest; the saint scorns the aid of mediators, whether on earth or in heaven; 'conquer (exclaims the adept or Buddha to the novice or BodhiSattwa)--conquer the importunities of the body, urge your mind to the meditation of abstraction, and you shall, in time, discover the great secret (Sunyata) of nature: know this, and you become, on the instant, whatever priests have feigned of Godhead--you become identified with Prajna, the sum of all the power and all the wisdom which sustain and govern the world, and which, as they are manifested out of matter, must belong solely to matter; not indeed in the gross and palpable state of pravritti, but in the archetypal and pure state of nirvritti. Put off, therefore, the vile, pravrittika necessities of the body, and the no less vile affections of the mind (Tapas); urge your thought into pure abstraction (Dhyana), and then, as assuredly you can, so assuredly you shall, attain to the wisdom of a Buddha (Bodhijnana), and become associated with the eternal unity and rest of nirvritti.'"--The Phoenix, Vol. I., p. 194.

2. A specimen of "esoteric" and "exoteric" Buddhism;--the Buddha Tatkagata.

"And as the wisdom of man is, in its origin, but an effluence of the Supreme wisdom (_Prajná_) of nature, so is it perfected by a refluence to its source, but without loss of individuality; whence Prajna is feigned in the exoteric system to be both the mother and the wife of all the Buddhas, '_janani sarva Buddkánám_,' and '_Jina-sundary_;' for the efflux is typified by a birth, and the reflux by a marriage.

"The Buddha is the adept in the wisdom of Buddhism (_Bodhijnána_) whose first duty, so long as he remains on earth, is to communicate his wisdom to those who are willing to receive it. These willing learners are the 'Bodhisattwas,' so called from their hearts being inclined to the wisdom of Buddhism, and 'Sanghas,' from their companionship with one another, and with their Buddha or teacher, in the _Viháras_ or coenobitical establishments."

"And such is the esoteric interpretation of the third (and inferior) member of the Prajniki Triad. The Bodhisattwa or Sangha continues to be such until he has surmounted the very last grade of that vast and laborious ascent by which he is instructed that he can 'scale the heavens,' and pluck immortal wisdom from its resplendent source: which achievement performed, he becomes a Buddha, that is, an Omniscient Being, and a _Tathágata_--a title implying the accomplishment of that gradual increase in wisdom by which man becomes immortal or ceases to be subject to transmigration."--The Phoenix, Vol. I., pp. 194, 195.

3. Is God all, or is all God?

"What that grand secret, that ultimate truth, that single reality, is, whether all is God, or God is all, seems to be the sole _proposition_ of the oriental philosophic religionists, who have all alike sought to discover it by taking the high _priori_ road. That God is all, appears to be the prevalent dogmatic determination of the Brahmanists; that all is God, the preferential but sceptical solution of the _Buddhists_; and, in a large view, I believe it would be difficult to indicate any further essential difference between their theoretic systems, both, as I conceive, the unquestionable growth of the Indian soil, and both founded upon transcendental speculation, conducted in the very same style and manner."--The Phoenix, Vol. II., p. 45.

4. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

"In a philosophical light, the precedence of Buddha or of Dharma indicates the theistic or atheistic school. With the former, Buddha is intellectual essence, the efficient cause of all, and underived. Dharma is material essence, the plastic cause, and underived, a co-equal biunity with Buddha; or else the plastic cause, as before, but dependent and derived from Buddha. Sangha is derived from, and compounded of, Buddha, and Dharma, is their collective energy in the state of action; the immediate operative cause of creation, its type or its agent. With the latter or atheistic schools, Dharma is _Diva natura_, matter as the sole entity, invested with intrinsic activity and intelligence, the efficient and material cause of all.

"Buddha is derivative from Dharma, is the active and intelligent force of nature, first put off from it and then operating upon it. Sangha is the _result_ of that operation; is embryotic creation, the type and sum of all specific forms, which are spontaneously evolved from the union of Buddha with Dharma."--The Phoenix, Vol. II., p. 12.

5. The mantra or sacred sentence best known in the Buddhadom and abroad.

"_Amitábha_ is the fourth _Dhyani_ or celestial _Budda: Padma-pani_ his _Æon_ and executive minister. _Padma-pani_ is the _praesens Divus_ and creator of the _existing_ system of worlds. Hence his identification with the third member of the _Triad_. He is figured as a graceful youth, erect, and bearing in either hand a _lotos_ and a jewel. The last circumstance explains the meaning of the celebrated _Shadakshári Mantra_, or six-lettered invocation of him, viz., _Om! Manipadme hom!_ of which so many corrupt versions and more corrupt interpretations have appeared from Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other sources. The _mantra_ in question is one of three, addressed to the several members of the _Triad_. 1. _Om sarva vidye hom_. 2. _Om Prajnáye hom_. 3. _Om mani-padme hom_. 1. The mystic triform Deity is in the all-wise (Buddha). 2. The mystic triform Deity is in Prajna (Dharma). 3. The mystic triform Deity is in him of the jewel and lotos (Sangha). But the praesens Divus, whether he be Augustus or _Padma-pani_, is everything with the many. Hence the notoriety of this _mantra_, whilst the others are hardly ever heard of, and have thus remained unknown to our travellers."--The Phoenix, Vol. II., p. 64.]

[Footnote 28: "Nine centuries after Buddha, Maitreya (Miroku or Ji-shi) came down from the Tushita heaven to the lecture-hall in the kingdom of Ayodhya (A-ya-sha) in Central India, at the request of the Bodhisattva Asamga (Mu-jaku) and discoursed five Sastras, 1, Yoga-karya-bhumi-sastra (Yu-ga-shi-ji-ron), etc.... After that, the two great Sastra teachers, Asanga and Vasubandhu (Se-shin), who were brothers, composed many Sastras (Ron) and cleared up the meaning of the Mahayana" (or Greater Vehicle, canon of Northern Buddhism).--B.N., p. 32.]

[Footnote 29: Buddhism, T. Rhys Davids, pp. 206-211.]

[Footnote 30: Prayer-wheels in Japan are used by the Tendai and Shingon sects, but without written prayers attached, and rather as an illustration of the doctrine of cause and effect (ingwa); the prayers being usually offered to Jizo the merciful.--S. and H., p. 29; T. J., p. 360.]

[Footnote 31: For this see Edkins's Chinese Buddhism; Eitel's Three Lectures, and Hand-book; Rev. S. Beal's Buddhism, and A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese; The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha, from the Chinese; Texts from the Buddhist canon commonly known as the Dhammapeda; Notes on Buddhist Words and Phrases, the Chrysanthemum, Vol. I.; The Phoenix, Vols. I-III.

See, also, a spirited sketch of Ancient Japan, by Frederick Victor Dickins, in the Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II., pp. 4-14.]

[Footnote 32: S. and H., pp. 289, 293; Chamberlain's Hand-book for Japan, p. 220; Summer's Notes on Osaka, T.A.S.J., Vol. VIL, p. 382; Buddhism, and Traditions Concerning its Introduction into Japan, T.A.S.J., Vol. XIV., p. 78.]

[Footnote 33: S. and H., p. 344.]

[Footnote 34: T.J., p. 73.]

[Footnote 35: Vairokana is the first or chief of the five personifications of Wisdom, and in Japan the idol is especially noticeable in the temples of the Tendai sect.--"The Action of Vairokana, or the great doctrine of the highest vehicle of the secret union," etc., B.N., p. 75.]

[Footnote 36: S. and H., p. 390; B.N., p. 29.]

[Footnote 37: "Hinduism stands for philosophic spirituality and emotion, Buddhism for ethics and humanity, Christianity for fulness of God's incarnation in man, while Mohammedanism is the champion of uncompromising monotheism."--F.P.C. Mozoomdar's The Spirit of God, Boston, 1894, p. 305.]