Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

BY SIR CHARLES ELIOT

In three volumes VOLUME I

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London,
E.C.4.

_First published_ 1921 _Reprinted_ 1954 _Reprinted_ 1957 _Reprinted_
1962

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

LUND HUMPHRIES LONDON {~BULLET~} BRADFORD

PREFACE

The present work was begun in 1907 and was practically complete when the
war broke out, but many circumstances such as the difficulty of
returning home, unavoidable delays in printing and correcting proofs,
and political duties have deferred its publication until now. In the
interval many important books dealing with Hinduism and Buddhism have
appeared, but having been resident in the Far East (with one brief
exception) since 1912 I have found it exceedingly difficult to keep in
touch with recent literature. Much of it has reached me only in the last
few months and I have often been compelled to notice new facts and views
in footnotes only, though I should have wished to modify the text.

Besides living for some time in the Far East, I have paid many visits to
India, some of which were of considerable length, and have travelled in
all the countries of which I treat except Tibet. I have however seen
something of Lamaism near Darjeeling, in northern China and in Mongolia.
But though I have in several places described the beliefs and practices
prevalent at the present day, my object is to trace the history and
development of religion in India and elsewhere with occasional remarks
on its latest phases. I have not attempted to give a general account of
contemporary religious thought in India or China and still less to
forecast the possible result of present tendencies.

In the following pages I have occasion to transcribe words belonging to
many oriental languages in Latin characters. Unfortunately a uniform
system of transcription, applicable to all tongues, seems not to be
practical at present. It was attempted in the _Sacred Books of the
East_, but that system has fallen into disuse and is liable to be
misunderstood. It therefore seems best to use for each language the
method of transcription adopted by standard works in English dealing
with each, for French and German transcriptions, whatever their merits
may be as representations of the original sounds, are often misleading
to English readers, especially in Chinese. For Chinese I have adopted
Wade's system as used in Giles's _Dictionary_, for Tibetan the system of
Sarat Chandra Das, for Pali that of the Pali Text Society and for
Sanskrit that of Monier-Williams's _Sanskrit Dictionary,_ except that I
write s instead of s. Indian languages however offer many difficulties:
it is often hard to decide whether Sanskrit or vernacular forms are more
suitable and in dealing with Buddhist subjects whether Sanskrit or Pali
words should be used. I have found it convenient to vary the form of
proper names according as my remarks are based on Sanskrit or on Pali
literature, but this obliges me to write the same word differently in
different places, e.g. sometimes Ajatasatru and sometimes Ajatasattu,
just as in a book dealing with Greek and Latin mythology one might
employ both Herakles and Hercules. Also many Indian names such as
Ramayana, Krishna, nirvana have become Europeanized or at least are
familiar to all Europeans interested in Indian literature. It seems
pedantic to write them with their full and accurate complement of
accents and dots and my general practice is to give such words in their
accurate spelling (Ramayana, etc.) when they are first mentioned and
also in the notes but usually to print them in their simpler and
unaccented forms. I fear however that my practice in this matter is not
entirely consistent since different parts of the book were written at
different times.

My best thanks are due to Mr R.F. Johnston (author of _Chinese
Buddhism_), to Professor W.J. Hinton of the University of Hong Kong and
to Mr H.I. Harding of H.M. Legation at Peking for reading the proofs and
correcting many errors: to Sir E. Denison Ross and Professor L. Finot
for valuable information: and especially to Professor and Mrs Rhys
Davids for much advice, though they are in no way responsible for the
views which I have expressed and perhaps do not agree with them. It is
superfluous for me to pay a tribute to these eminent scholars whose
works are well known to all who are interested in Indian religion, but
no one who has studied the early history of Buddhism or the Pali
language can refrain from acknowledging a debt of gratitude to those who
have made such researches possible by founding and maintaining during
nearly forty years the Pali Text Society and rendering many of the texts
still more accessible to Europe by their explanations and translations.

C. ELIOT.

TOKYO,

_May_, 1921.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

The following are the principal abbreviations used:

Ep. Ind. Epigraphia India.

E.R.E. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (edited by Hastings).

I.A. Indian Antiquary.

J.A. Journal Asiatique.

J.A.O.S. Journal of the American Oriental Society.

J.R.A.S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

P.T.S. Pali Text Society.

S.B.E. Sacred Books of the East (Clarendon Press).

CONTENTS

BOOK I

INTRODUCTION

1. INFLUENCE OF INDIAN THOUGHT IN EASTERN ASIA xi

2. ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF HINDUISM xiv

3. THE BUDDHA xix

4. ASOKA xxii

5. EXTENSION OF BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM BEYOND INDIA xxiv

6. NEW FORMS OF BUDDHISM xxix

7. REVIVAL OF HINDUISM xxxiii

8. LATER FORMS OF HINDUISM xl

9. EUROPEAN INFLUENCE AND MODERN HINDUISM xlvi

10. CHANGE AND PERMANENCE IN BUDDHISM xlviii

11. REBIRTH AND THE NATURE OF THE SOUL l

12. " " " " lviii

13. " " " " lxii

14. EASTERN PESSIMISM AND RENUNCIATION lxv

15. EASTERN POLYTHEISM lxviii

16. THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF HINDUISM lxx

17. THE HINDU AND BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES lxxii

18. MORALITY AND WILL lxxvi

19. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL lxxix

20. CHURCH AND STATE lxxxi

21. PUBLIC WORSHIP AND CEREMONIAL lxxxiv

22. THE WORSHIP OF THE REPRODUCTIVE FORCES lxxxvi

23. HINDUISM IN PRACTICE lxxxviii

24. BUDDHISM IN PRACTICE xcii

25. INTEREST OF INDIAN THOUGHT FOR EUROPE xcv

BOOK II

EARLY INDIAN RELIGION: A GENERAL VIEW

I. RELIGIONS OF INDIA AND EASTERN ASIA 5

II. HISTORICAL 15

III. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIAN RELIGION 33

IV. VEDIC DEITIES AND SACRIFICES 50

V. ASCETICISM AND KNOWLEDGE 71

VI. RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA 87

VII. THE JAINS 105

BOOK III

PALI BUDDHISM

VIII. LIFE OF THE BUDDHA 129

IX. THE BUDDHA COMPARED WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS TEACHERS 177

X. THE TEACHING OF THE BUDDHA 185

XI. MONKS AND LAYMEN 237

XII. ASOKA 254

XIII. THE CANON 275

XIV. MEDITATION 302

XV. MYTHOLOGY IN HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM

INTRODUCTION

1. _Influence of Indian Thought in Eastern Asia_

Probably the first thought which will occur to the reader who is
acquainted with the matters treated in this work will be that the
subject is too large. A history of Hinduism or Buddhism or even of both
within the frontiers of India may be a profitable though arduous task,
but to attempt a historical sketch of the two faiths in their whole
duration and extension over Eastern Asia is to choose a scene unsuited
to any canvas which can be prepared at the present day. Not only is the
breadth of the landscape enormous but in some places it is crowded with
details which cannot be omitted while in others the principal features
are hidden by a mist which obscures the unity and connection of the
whole composition. No one can feel these difficulties more than I do
myself or approach his work with more diffidence, yet I venture to think
that wide surveys may sometimes be useful and are needed in the present
state of oriental studies. For the reality of Indian influence in
Asia--from Japan to the frontiers of Persia, from Manchuria to Java, from
Burma to Mongolia--is undoubted and the influence is one. You cannot
separate Hinduism from Buddhism, for without it Hinduism could not have
assumed its medieval shape and some forms of Buddhism, such as Lamaism,
countenance Brahmanic deities and ceremonies, while in Java and Camboja
the two religions were avowedly combined and declared to be the same.
Neither is it convenient to separate the fortunes of Buddhism and
Hinduism outside India from their history within it, for although the
importance of Buddhism depends largely on its foreign conquests, the
forms which it assumed in its new territories can be understood only by
reference to the religious condition of India at the periods when
successive missions were despatched.

This book then is an attempt to give a sketch of Indian thought or
Indian religion--for the two terms are nearly equivalent in extent--and of
its history and influence in Asia. I will not say in the world, for that
sounds too ambitious and really adds little to the more restricted
phrase. For ideas, like empires and races, have their natural frontiers.
Thus Europe may be said to be non-Mohammedan. Although the essential
principles of Mohammedanism seem in harmony with European monotheism,
yet it has been deliberately rejected by the continent and often
repelled by force. Similarly in the regions west of India[1], Indian
religion is sporadic and exotic. I do not think that it had much
influence on ancient Egypt, Babylon and Palestine or that it should be
counted among the forces which shaped the character and teaching of
Christ, though Christian monasticism and mysticism perhaps owed
something to it. The debt of Manichaeism and various Gnostic sects is
more certain and more considerable, but these communities have not
endured and were regarded as heretical while they lasted. Among the
Neoplatonists of Alexandria and the Sufis of Arabia and Persia many seem
to have listened to the voice of Hindu mysticism but rather as
individuals than as leaders of popular movements.

But in Eastern Asia the influence of India has been notable in extent,
strength and duration. Scant justice is done to her position in the
world by those histories which recount the exploits of her invaders and
leave the impression that her own people were a feeble, dreamy folk,
sundered from the rest of mankind by their sea and mountain frontiers.
Such a picture takes no account of the intellectual conquests of the
Hindus. Even their political conquests were not contemptible and were
remarkable for the distance if not for the extent of the territory
occupied. For there were Hindu kingdoms in Java and Camboja and
settlements in Sumatra[2] and even in Borneo, an island about as far
from India as is Persia from Rome. But such military or commercial
invasions are insignificant compared with the spread of Indian thought.
The south-eastern region of Asia--both mainland and archipelago--owed its
civilization almost entirely to India. In Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Camboja,
Champa and Java, religion, art, the alphabet, literature, as well as
whatever science and political organization existed, were the direct
gift of Hindus, whether Brahmans or Buddhists, and much the same may be
said of Tibet, whence the wilder Mongols took as much Indian
civilization as they could stomach. In Java and other Malay countries
this Indian culture has been superseded by Islam, yet even in Java the
alphabet and to a large extent the customs of the people are still
Indian.

In the countries mentioned Indian influence has been dominant until the
present day, or at least until the advent of Islam. In another large
area comprising China, Japan, Korea, and Annam it appears as a layer
superimposed on Chinese culture, yet not a mere veneer. In these regions
Chinese ethics, literature and art form the major part of intellectual
life and have an outward and visible sign in the Chinese written
characters which have not been ousted by an Indian alphabet[3]. But in
all, especially in Japan, the influence of Buddhism has been profound
and penetrating. None of these lands can be justly described as Buddhist
in the same sense as Burma or Siam but Buddhism gave them a creed
acceptable in different forms to superstitious, emotional and
metaphysical minds: it provided subjects and models for art, especially
for painting, and entered into popular life, thought and language.

But what are Hinduism and Buddhism? What do they teach about gods and
men and the destinies of the soul? What ideals do they hold up and is
their teaching of value or at least of interest for Europe? I will not
at once answer these questions by general statements, because such names
as Hinduism and Buddhism have different meanings in different countries
and ages, but will rather begin by briefly reviewing the development of
the two religions. I hope that the reader will forgive me if in doing so
I repeat much that is to be found in the body of this work.

One general observation about India may be made at the outset. Here more
than in any other country the national mind finds its favourite
occupation and full expression in religion. This quality is geographical
rather than racial, for it is possessed by Dravidians as much as by
Aryans. From the Raja to the peasant most Hindus have an interest in
theology and often a passion for it. Few works of art or literature are
purely secular: the intellectual and aesthetic efforts of India, long,
continuous and distinguished as they are, are monotonous inasmuch as
they are almost all the expression of some religious phase. But the
religion itself is extraordinarily full and varied. The love of
discussion and speculation creates considerable variety in practice and
almost unlimited variety in creed and theory. There are few dogmas known
to the theologies of the world which are not held by some of India's
multitudinous sects[4] and it is perhaps impossible to make a single
general statement about Hinduism, to which some sects would not prove an
exception. Any such statements in this book must be understood as
referring merely to the great majority of Hindus.

As a form of life and thought Hinduism is definite and unmistakeable. In
whatever shape it presents itself it can be recognized at once. But it
is so vast and multitudinous that only an encyclopedia could describe it
and no formula can summarize it. Essayists flounder among conflicting
propositions such as that sectarianism is the essence of Hinduism or
that no educated Hindu belongs to a sect. Either can easily be proved,
for it may be said of Hinduism, as it has been said of zoology, that you
can prove anything if you merely collect facts which support your theory
and not those which conflict with it. Hence many distinguished writers
err by overestimating the phase which specially interests them. For one
the religious life of India is fundamentally monotheistic and Vishnuite:
for another philosophic Sivaism is its crown and quintessence: a third
maintains with equal truth that all forms of Hinduism are tantric. All
these views are tenable because though Hindu life may be cut up into
castes and sects, Hindu creeds are not mutually exclusive and repellent.
They attract and colour one another.

2. _Origin and Growth of Hinduism_

The earliest product of Indian literature, the Rig Veda, contains the
songs of the Aryan invaders who were beginning to make a home in India.
Though no longer nomads, they had little local sentiment. No cities had
arisen comparable with Babylon or Thebes and we hear little of ancient
kingdoms or dynasties. Many of the gods who occupied so much of their
thoughts were personifications of natural forces such as the sun, wind
and fire, worshipped without temples or images and hence more indefinite
in form, habitation and attributes than the deities of Assyria or Egypt.
The idea of a struggle between good and evil was not prominent. In
Persia, where the original pantheon was almost the same as that of the
Veda, this idea produced monotheism: the minor deities became angels and
the chief deity a Lord of hosts who wages a successful struggle against
an independent but still inferior spirit of evil. But in India the
Spirits of Good and Evil are not thus personified. The world is regarded
less as a battlefield of principles than as a theatre for the display of
natural forces. No one god assumes lordship over the others but all are
seen to be interchangeable--mere names and aspects of something which is
greater than any god.

Indian religion is commonly regarded as the offspring of an Aryan
religion, brought into India by invaders from the north and modified by
contact with Dravidian civilization. The materials at our disposal
hardly permit us to take any other point of view, for the literature of
the Vedic Aryans is relatively ancient and full and we have no
information about the old Dravidians comparable with it. But were our
knowledge less one-sided, we might see that it would be more correct to
describe Indian religion as Dravidian religion stimulated and modified
by the ideas of Aryan invaders. For the greatest deities of Hinduism,
Siva, Krishna, Rama, Durga and some of its most essential doctrines such
as metempsychosis and divine incarnations, are either totally unknown to
the Veda or obscurely adumbrated in it. The chief characteristics of
mature Indian religion are characteristics of an area, not of a race,
and they are not the characteristics of religion in Persia, Greece or
other Aryan lands[5].

Some writers explain Indian religion as the worship of nature spirits,
others as the veneration of the dead. But it is a mistake to see in the
religion of any large area only one origin or impulse. The principles
which in a learned form are championed to-day by various professors
represent thoughts which were creative in early times. In ancient India
there were some whose minds turned to their ancestors and dead friends
while others saw divinity in the wonders of storm, spring and harvest.
Krishna is in the main a product of hero worship, but Siva has no such
historical basis. He personifies the powers of birth and death, of
change, decay and rebirth--in fact all that we include in the prosaic
word nature. Assuredly both these lines of thought--the worship of nature
and of the dead--and perhaps many others existed in ancient India.

By the time of the Upanishads, that is about 600 B.C., we trace three
clear currents in Indian religion which have persisted until the present
day. The first is ritual. This became extraordinarily complicated but
retained its primitive and magical character. The object of an ancient
Indian sacrifice was partly to please the gods but still more to coerce
them by certain acts and formulae[6]. Secondly all Hindus lay stress on
asceticism and self-mortification, as a means of purifying the soul and
obtaining supernatural powers. They have a conviction that every man who
is in earnest about religion and even every student of philosophy must
follow a discipline at least to the extent of observing chastity and
eating only to support life. Severer austerities give clearer insight
into divine mysteries and control over the forces of nature. Europeans
are apt to condemn eastern asceticism as a waste of life but it has had
an important moral effect. The weakness of Hinduism, though not of
Buddhism, is that ethics have so small a place in its fundamental
conceptions. Its deities are not identified with the moral law and the
saint is above that law. But this dangerous doctrine is corrected by the
dogma, which is also a popular conviction, that a saint must be a
passionless ascetic. In India no religious teacher can expect a hearing
unless he begins by renouncing the world.

Thirdly, the deepest conviction of Hindus in all ages is that salvation
and happiness are attainable by knowledge. The corresponding phrases in
Sanskrit are perhaps less purely intellectual than our word and contain
some idea of effort and emotion. He who knows God attains to God, nay he
is God. Rites and self-denial are but necessary preliminaries to such
knowledge: he who possesses it stands above them. It is inconceivable to
the Hindus that he should care for the things of the world but he cares
equally little for creeds and ceremonies. Hence, side by side with
irksome codes, complicated ritual and elaborate theology, we find the
conviction that all these things are but vanity and weariness, fetters
to be shaken off by the free in spirit. Nor do those who hold such views
correspond to the anti-clerical and radical parties of Europe. The
ascetic sitting in the temple court often holds that the rites performed
around him are spiritually useless and the gods of the shrine mere
fanciful presentments of that which cannot be depicted or described.

Rather later, but still before the Christian era, another idea makes
itself prominent in Indian religion, namely faith or devotion to a
particular deity. This idea, which needs no explanation, is pushed on
the one hand to every extreme of theory and practice: on the other it
rarely abolishes altogether the belief in ritualism, asceticism and
knowledge.

Any attempt to describe Hinduism as one whole leads to startling
contrasts. The same religion enjoins self-mortification and orgies:
commands human sacrifices and yet counts it a sin to eat meat or crush
an insect: has more priests, rites and images than ancient Egypt or
medieval Rome and yet out does Quakers in rejecting all externals. These
singular features are connected with the ascendancy of the Brahman
caste. The Brahmans are an interesting social phenomenon without exact
parallel elsewhere. They are not, like the Catholic or Moslem clergy, a
priesthood pledged to support certain doctrines but an intellectual,
hereditary aristocracy who claim to direct the thought of India whatever
forms it may take. All who admit this claim and accord a nominal
recognition to the authority of the Veda are within the spacious fold or
menagerie. Neither the devil-worshipping aboriginee nor the atheistic
philosopher is excommunicated, though neither may be relished by average
orthodoxy.

Though Hinduism has no one creed, yet there are at least two doctrines
held by nearly all who call themselves Hindus. One may be described as
polytheistic pantheism. Most Hindus are apparently polytheists, that is
to say they venerate the images of several deities or spirits, yet most
are monotheists in the sense that they address their worship to one god.
But this monotheism has almost always a pantheistic tinge. The Hindu
does not say the gods of the heathen are but idols, but it is the Lord
who made the heavens: he says, My Lord (Rama, Krishna or whoever it may
be) is all the other gods. Some schools would prefer to say that no
human language applied to the Godhead can be correct and that all ideas
of a personal ruler of the world are at best but relative truths. This
ultimate ineffable Godhead is called Brahman[7].

The second doctrine is commonly known as metempsychosis, the
transmigration of souls or reincarnation, the last name being the most
correct. In detail the doctrine assumes various forms since different
views are held about the relation of soul to body. But the essence of
all is the same, namely that a life does not begin at birth or end at
death but is a link in an infinite series of lives, each of which is
conditioned and determined by the acts done in previous existences
(karma). Animal, human and divine (or at least angelic) existences may
all be links in the chain. A man's deeds, if good, may exalt him to the
heavens, if evil may degrade him to life as a beast. Since all lives,
even in heaven, must come to an end, happiness is not to be sought in
heaven or on earth. The common aspiration of the religious Indian is for
deliverance, that is release from the round of births and repose in some
changeless state called by such names as union with Brahman, nirvana and
many others.

3. _The Buddha_

As observed above, the Brahmans claim to direct the religious life and
thought of India and apart from Mohammedanism may be said to have
achieved their ambition, though at the price of tolerating much that the
majority would wish to suppress. But in earlier ages their influence was
less extensive and there were other currents of religious activity, some
hostile and some simply independent. The most formidable of these found
expression in Jainism and Buddhism both of which arose in Bihar in the
sixth century[8] B.C. This century was a time of intellectual ferment in
many countries. In China it produced Lao-tz[u] and Confucius: in Greece,
Parmenides, Empedocles, and the sophists were only a little later. In
all these regions we have the same phenomenon of restless, wandering
teachers, ready to give advice on politics, religion or philosophy, to
any one who would hear them.

At that time the influence of the Brahmans had hardly permeated Bihar,
though predominant to the west of it, and speculation there followed
lines different from those laid down in the Upanishads, but of some
antiquity, for we know that there were Buddhas before Gotama and that
Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, reformed the doctrine of an older
teacher called Parsva.