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

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BOOK III

PALI BUDDHISM

BOOK III

In the previous book I have treated chiefly the general characteristics
of Indian religion. They persist in its later phases but great changes
and additions are made. In the present book I propose to speak about the
life and teaching of the Buddha which even hostile critics must admit to
be a turning point in the history of Indian thought and institutions,
and about the earliest forms of Buddhism. For twelve centuries or more
after the death of this great genius Indian religion flows in two
parallel streams, Buddhist and Brahmanic, which subsequently unite,
Buddhism colouring the whole river but ceasing within India itself to
have any important manifestations distinct from Brahmanism.

In a general survey it is hardly possible to follow the order of strict
chronology until comparatively modern times. We cannot, for instance,
give a sketch of Indian thought in the first century B.C., simply
because our data do not permit us to assign certain sects and books to
that period rather than to the hundred years which preceded or followed
it. But we can follow with moderate accuracy the two streams of thought
in their respective courses. I have wondered if I should not take
Hinduism first. Its development from ancient Brahmanism is continuous
and Buddhism is merely an episode in it, though a lengthy one. But many
as are the lacunae in the history of Buddhism, it offers more data and
documents than the history of Hinduism. We know more about the views of
Asoka for instance than about those of Candragupta Maurya. I shall
therefore deal first with Buddhism and then with Hinduism, while
regretting that a parallel and synoptic treatment is impracticable.

The eight chapters of this book deal mainly with Pali Buddhism[293]--a
convenient and non-controversial term--and not with the Mahayana, though
they note the tendencies which found expression in it. In the first
chapter I treat of the Buddha's life: in the second I venture to compare
him with other great religious teachers: in the third I consider his
doctrine as expounded in the Pali Tripitaka and in the fourth the order
of mendicants which he founded. The nature and value of the Pali Canon
form the subject of the fifth chapter and the sixth is occupied with the
great Emperor Asoka whose name is the clearest landmark in the early
history of Buddhism, and indeed of India.

The seventh and eighth chapters discuss topics which belong to Hinduism
as well as to Buddhism, namely, meditation and mythology. The latter is
anterior to Buddhism and it is only in a special sense that it can be
called an addition or accretion. Indian thought makes clearings in the
jungle of mythology, which become obliterated or diminished as the
jungle grows over them again. Buddhism was the most thorough of such
clearings, yet it was invaded more rapidly and completely than any
other. The Vedanta and Sankhya are really, if less obviously, similar
clearings. They raise no objection to popular divinities but such
divinities do not come within the scope of religious philosophy as they
understand it.

CHAPTER VIII

LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

1

We have hitherto been occupied with obscure and shadowy personalities.
The authors of the Upanishads are nameless and even MahavIra is unknown
outside India. But we now come to the career of one who must be ranked
among the greatest leaders of thought that the world has seen, the
Indian prince generally known as Gotama or the Buddha. His historical
character has been called in question, but at the present day probably
few, if any, competent judges doubt that he was a real person whose date
can be fixed and whose life can be sketched at least in outline.

We have seen that apart from the personality of Gotama, ancient India
was familiar with the idea of a Buddha and had even classified the
attributes he should possess. Two styles of biography are therefore
possible: an account of what Gotama actually was and did and an account
of what a Buddha is expected to be and do. This second style prevails in
later Buddhist works: they contain descriptions of the deeds and
teaching of a Buddha, adapted to such facts in Gotama's life as seemed
suitable for such treatment or could not be ignored. Rhys Davids has
well compared them to _Paradise Regained_, but the supernatural element
is, after the Indian fashion, more ornate.

The reader will perhaps ask what are the documents describing Gotama's
sayings and doings and what warrant we have for trusting them. I will
treat of this question in more detail in a later chapter and here will
merely say that the Pali works called Vinaya or monastic rules and
Suttas[294] or sermons recount the circumstances in which each rule was
laid down and each sermon preached. Some narrative passages, such as the
Sutta which relates the close of the Buddha's life and the portion of
the Vinaya which tells how he obtained enlightenment and made his first
converts, are of considerable length. Though these narratives are
compilations which accepted new matter during several centuries, I see
no reason to doubt that the oldest stratum contains the recollections of
those who had seen and heard the master.

In basing the following account on the Pali Canon, I do not mean to
discredit Sanskrit texts merely because they are written in that
language or to deny that many Pali texts contain miraculous and
unhistorical narratives[295]. But the principal Sanskrit Sutras such as
the Lotus and the Diamond Cutter are purely doctrinal and those texts
which profess to contain historical matter, such as the Vinayas
translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, are as yet hardly accessible to
European scholars. So far as they are known, they add incidents to the
career of the Buddha without altering its main lines, and when the
accounts of such incidents are not in themselves improbable they merit
consideration. On the whole these Sanskrit texts are later and more
embellished than their Pali counterparts, but it is necessary not to
forget the existence of this vast store-house of traditions, which may
contain many surprises[296].

Though the Pali texts do not give the story of the Buddha's life in a
connected form, they do give us details about many important events in
it and they offer a picture of the world in which he moved. The idea of
biography was unknown to the older Indian literature. The Brahmanas and
Upanishads tell us of the beliefs and practices of their sages, the
doctrines they taught and the sacrifices they offered, but they rarely
give even an outline of their lives. And whenever the Hindus write about
a man of religion or a philosopher, their weak historical sense and
their strong feeling for the importance of the teaching lead them to
neglect the figure of the teacher and present a portrait which seems to
us dim and impersonal. Indian saints are distinguished by what they
said, not by what they did and it is a strong testimony to Gotama's
individuality and force of character, that in spite of the centuries
which separate us from him and the misty unreal atmosphere which in
later times hangs round his name, his personality is more distinct and
lifelike than that of many later teachers.

Most of the stories of his youth and childhood have a mythical air and
make their first appearance in works composed long after his death, but
there is no reason to distrust the traditional accounts of his lineage.
He was the son of Suddhodana of the Kshatriya clan known as Sakya or
Sakiya[297]. In later literature his father is usually described as a
king but this statement needs qualification. The Sakyas were a small
aristocratic republic. At the time of the Buddha's birth they recognized
the suzerainty of the neighbouring kingdom of Kosala or Oudh and they
were subsequently annexed by it, but, so long as they were independent,
all that we know of their government leads us to suppose that they were
not a monarchy like Kosala and Magadha. The political and administrative
business of the clan was transacted by an assembly which met in a
council hall[298] at Kapilavatthu. Its president was styled Raja but we
do not know how he was selected nor for how long he held office. The
Buddha's father is sometimes spoken of as Raja, sometimes as if he were
a simple citizen. Some scholars think the position was temporary and
elective[299]. But in any case it seems clear that he was not a Maharaja
like Ajatasattu and other monarchs of the period. He was a prominent
member of a wealthy and aristocratic family rather than a despot. In
some passages[300] Brahmans are represented as discussing the Buddha's
claims to respect. It is said that he is of a noble and wealthy family
but not that he is the son of a king or heir to the throne, though the
statement, if true, would be so obvious and appropriate that its
omission is sufficient to disprove it. The point is of psychological
importance, for the later literature in its desire to emphasize the
sacrifice made by the Buddha exaggerates the splendour and luxury by
which he was surrounded in youth and produces the impression that his
temperament was something like that reflected in the book of
Ecclesiastes, the weary calm, bred of satiety and disenchantment, of one
who has possessed everything and found everything to be but vanity. But
this is not the dominant note of the Buddha's discourses as we have
them. He condemns the pleasures and ambitions of the world as
unsatisfying, but he stands before us as one who has resisted and
vanquished temptation rather than as a disillusioned pleasure-seeker.
The tone of these sermons accords perfectly with the supposition,
supported by whatever historical data we possess, that he belonged to a
fighting aristocracy, active in war and debate, wealthy according to the
standard of the times and yielding imperfect obedience to the authority
of kings and priests. The Pitakas allude several times to the pride of
the Sakyas, and in spite of the gentleness and courtesy of the Buddha
this family trait is often apparent in his attitude, in the independence
of his views, his calm disregard of Brahmanic pretensions and the
authority that marks his utterances.

The territory of the Sakyas lay about the frontier which now divides
Nepal from the United Provinces, between the upper Rapti and the Gandak
rivers, a hundred miles or so to the north of Benares. The capital was
called Kapilavatthu[301], and the mention of several other towns in the
oldest texts indicates that the country was populous. Its wealth was
derived chiefly from rice-fields and cattle. The uncultivated parts were
covered with forest and often infested by robbers. The spot where the
Buddha was born was known as the Lumbini Park and the site, or at least
what was supposed to be the site in Asoka's time, is marked by a pillar
erected by that monarch at a place now called Rummindei[302]. His mother
was named Maya and was also of the Sakya clan. Tradition states that she
died seven days after his birth and that he was brought up by her
sister, Mahaprajapati, who was also a wife of Suddhodana. The names of
other relatives are preserved, but otherwise the older documents tell us
nothing of his childhood and the copious legends of the later church
seem to be poetical embellishments. The Sutta-Nipata contains the story
of an aged seer named Asita who came to see the child and, much like
Simeon, prophesied his future greatness but wept that he himself must
die before hearing the new gospel.

The personal name of the Buddha was Siddhartha in Sanskrit or Siddhattha
in Pali, meaning he who has achieved his object, but it is rarely used.
Persons who are introduced in the Pitakas as addressing him directly
either employ a title or call him Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama). This was
the name of his _gotra_ or gens and roughly corresponds to a surname,
being less comprehensive than the clan name Sakya. The name Gotama is
applied in the Pitakas to other Sakyas such as the Buddha's father and
his cousin Ananda. It is said to be still in use in India and has been
borne by many distinguished Hindus. But since it seemed somewhat
irreverent to speak of the Buddha merely by his surname, it became the
custom to describe him by titles. The most celebrated of these is the
word Buddha[303] itself, the awakened or wise one. But in Pali works he
is described just as frequently by the name of Bhagava or the Lord. The
titles of Sakya-Muni and Sakya-Simha have also passed into common use
and the former is his usual designation in the Sanskrit sutras. The word
Tathagata, of somewhat obscure signification[304], is frequently found
as an equivalent of Buddha and is put into the mouth of Gotama himself
as a substitute for the first personal pronoun.

We can only guess what was the religious and moral atmosphere in which
the child grew up. There were certainly Brahmans in the Sakya territory:
everyone had heard of their Vedic lore, their ceremonies and their
claims to superiority. But it is probable that their influence was less
complete here than further west[305] and that even before this time they
encountered a good deal of scepticism and independent religious
sentiment. This may have been in part military impatience of priestly
pedantry, but if the Sakyas were not submissive sheep, their waywardness
was not due to want of interest in religion. A frequent phrase in the
Buddha's discourses speaks of the "highest goal of the holy life for the
sake of which clansmen leave their homes and go forth into
homelessness." The religious mendicant seemed the proper incarnation of
this ideal to which Kshatriyas as well as Brahmans aspired, and we are
justified in supposing that the future Buddha's thoughts would naturally
turn towards the wandering life. The legend represents him as carefully
secluded from all disquieting sights and as learning the existence of
old age, sickness and death only by chance encounters which left a
profound impression. The older texts do not emphasize this view of his
mental development, though they do not preclude it. It is stated
incidentally that his parents regretted his abandonment of worldly life
and it is natural to suppose that they may have tried to turn his mind
to secular interests and pleasures[306]. His son, Rahula, is mentioned
several times in the Pitakas but his wife only once and then not by name
but as "the princess who was the mother of Rahula[307]." His separation
from her becomes in the later legend the theme of an affecting tale but
the scanty allusions to his family found in the Pitakas are devoid of
sentimental touches. A remarkable passage is preserved in the Anguttara
Nikaya[308] describing his feelings as a young man and may be the origin
of the story[309] about the four visions of old age, sickness, death and
of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort
in which he lived[310], he says that he reflected how people feel
repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But
is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free
from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should
feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight?
And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there
is in life died within me."

No connected account of his renunciation of the world has been found in
the Pitakas but[311] people are represented as saying that in spite of
his parents' grief he "went out from the household life into the
homeless state" while still a young man. Accepted tradition, confirmed
by the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, says that he retired from worldly life
when he was twenty-nine years old. The event is also commemorated in a
poem of the Sutta-Nipata[312] which reads like a very ancient ballad.

It relates how Bimbisara, King of Magadha, looking out from his palace,
saw an unknown ascetic, and feeling he was no ordinary person went
himself to visit him. It would appear from this that Gotama on leaving
his family went down to the plains and visited Rajagaha, the capital of
Magadha, now Rajgir to the south of Patna. The teachers of the Ganges
valley had probably a greater reputation for learning and sanctity than
the rough wits of the Sakya land and this may have attracted Gotama. At
any rate he applied himself diligently to acquire what knowledge could
be learned from contemporary teachers of religion. We have an account
put into his own mouth[313] of his experiences as the pupil of Alara
Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta but it gives few details of his studies. It
would appear however that they both had a fixed system (dhamma) to
impart and that their students lived in religious discipline (vinaya) as
members of an Order. They were therefore doing exactly what the Buddha
himself did later on a larger scale and with more conspicuous success.
The instruction, we gather, was oral. Gotama assimilated it thoroughly
and rapidly but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not
conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation[314]. He evidently accepted
his teachers' general ideas about belief and conduct--a dhamma, a vinaya,
and the practice of meditation--but rejected the content of their
teaching as inadequate. So he went away.

The European mystic knows the dangers of Quietism[315]. When Molinos and
other quietists praise the Interior Silence in which the soul neither
speaks nor desires nor thinks, they suggest that the suspension of all
mental activity is good in itself. But more robust seekers hold that
this "orison of quiet" is merely a state of preparation, not the end of
the quest, and valuable merely because the soul recuperates therein and
is ready for further action. Some doctrine akin to that of the quietists
seems to underlie the mysterious old phrases in which the Buddha's two
teachers tried to explain their trances, and he left them for much the
same reasons as led the Church to condemn Quietism. He did not say that
the trances are bad; indeed he represented them as productive of
happiness[316] in a sense which Europeans can hardly follow. But he
clearly refused to admit that they were the proper end of the religious
life. He felt there was something better and he set out to find it.

The interval between his abandonment of the world and his enlightenment
is traditionally estimated at seven years and this accords with our
other data. But we are not told how long he remained with his two
teachers nor where they lived. He says however that after leaving them
he wandered up and down the land of Magadha, so that their residence was
probably in or near that district[317]. He settled at a place called
Uruvela. "There" he says "I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant
spot and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river and pleasant are the
bathing places: all around are meadows and villages." Here he determined
to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. The place is in
the neighbourhood of Bodh-Gaya, near the river now called Phalgu or
Lilanja but formerly Neranjara. The fertile fields and gardens, the
flights of steps and temples are modern additions but the trees and the
river still give the sense of repose and inspiration which Gotama felt,
an influence alike calming to the senses and stimulating to the mind.
Buddhism, though in theory setting no value on the pleasures of the eye,
is not in practice disdainful of beauty, as witness the many allusions
to the Buddha's personal appearance, the persistent love of art, and the
equally persistent love of nature which is found in such early poems as
the Theragatha and still inspires those who select the sites of
monasteries throughout the Buddhist world from Burma to Japan. The
example of the Buddha, if we may believe the story, shows that he felt
the importance of scenery and climate in the struggle before him and his
followers still hold that a holy life is led most easily in beautiful
and peaceful landscapes.

2

Hitherto we have found allusions to the events of the Buddha's life
rather than consecutive statements and narratives but for the next
period, comprising his struggle for enlightenment, its attainment and
the commencement of his career as a teacher, we have several accounts,
both discourses put into his own mouth and narratives in the third
person like the beginning of the Mahavagga. It evidently was felt that
this was the most interesting and critical period of his life and for
it, as for the period immediately preceding his death, the Pitakas
provide the elements of a biography. The accounts vary as to the amount
of detail and supernatural events which they contain, but though the
simplest is perhaps the oldest, it does not follow that events
consistent with it but only found in other versions are untrue. One
cannot argue that anyone recounting his spiritual experiences is bound
to give a biographically complete picture. He may recount only what is
relevant to the purpose of his discourse.

Gotama's ascetic life at Uruvela is known as the wrestling or struggle
for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but
is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration[318]. Fire, he
thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but
it can from dry wood. Even so must the body be purged of its humours to
make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began a
series of terrible fasts and sat "with set teeth and tongue pressed
against the palate" until in this spiritual wrestling the sweat poured
down from his arm pits. Then he applied himself to meditation
accompanied by complete cessation of breathing, and, as he persevered
and went from stage to stage of this painful exercise, he heard the
blood rushing in his head and felt as if his skull was being split, as
if his belly were being cut open with a butcher's knife, and finally as
if he were thrown into a pit of burning coals. Elsewhere[319] he gives
further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself.
He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on
seeds and grass, and for one period literally on dung. He wore haircloth
or other irritating clothes: he plucked out his hair and beard: he stood
continuously: he lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate
till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented a cemetery--that is
a place where corpses were thrown to decay or be eaten by birds and
beasts--and lay among the rotting bodies.

But no enlightenment, no glimpse into the riddle of the world came of
all this, so, although he was nearly at death's door, he determined to
abstain from food altogether. But spirits appeared and dissuaded him,
saying that if he attempted thus to kill himself they would nourish him
by infusing a celestial elixir through his skin and he reflected that he
might as well take a little food[320]. So he took a palmful or two of
bean soup. He was worn almost to a shadow, he says. "When I touched my
belly, I felt my backbone through it and when I touched my back, I felt
my belly--so near had my back and my belly come together through this
fasting. And when I rubbed my limbs to refresh them the hair fell
off[321]." Then he reflected that he had reached the limit of
self-mortification and yet attained no enlightenment. There must be
another way to knowledge. And he remembered how once in his youth he had
sat in the shade of a rose apple tree and entered into the stage of
contemplation known as the first rapture. That, he now thought, must be
the way to enlightenment: why be afraid of such bliss? But to attain it,
he must have more strength and to get strength he must eat. So he ate
some rice porridge. There were five monks living near him, hoping that
when he found the Truth he would tell it to them. But when they saw that
he had begun to take food, their faith failed and they went away.

The Buddha then relates how, having taken food, he began to meditate and
passed through four stages of contemplation, culminating in pure
self-possession and equanimity, free alike from all feeling of pain or
ease. Such meditation was nothing miraculous but supposed to be within
the power of any trained ascetic. Then there arose before him a vision
of his previous births, the hundreds of thousands of existences with all
their details of name, family and caste through which he had passed.
This was succeeded by a second and wider vision in which he saw the
whole universe as a system of karma and reincarnation, composed of
beings noble or mean, happy or unhappy, continually "passing away
according to their deeds," leaving one form of existence and taking
shape in another. Finally, he understood the nature of error[322] and of
suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path that leads to the
cessation of suffering. "In me thus set free the knowledge of freedom
arose and I knew 'Rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been
led; what had to be done has been done, I have no more to do with this
world[323].' This third knowledge came to me in the last watch of the
night: ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen, darkness was
destroyed, light had arisen, as I sat there earnest, strenuous,
resolute[324]."