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

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

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On attaining enlightenment he at first despaired of preaching the truth
to others. He reflected that his doctrine was abstruse and that mankind
are given over to their desires. How can such men understand the chain
of cause and effect or teaching about Nirvana and the annihilation of
desire? So he determined to remain quiet and not to preach. Then the
deity Brahma Sahampati appeared before him and besought him to preach
the Truth, pleading that some men could understand. The Buddha surveyed
the world with his mind's eye and saw the different natures of mankind.
"As in a pool of lotuses, blue, red or white, some lotuses born in the
water, grown up in the water, do not rise above the water but thrive
hidden under the water and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in
the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface: and other
lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water,
stand up out of the water and the water does not touch them." Thus did
he perceive the world to be and he said to Brahma "The doors of
immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear, show faith."

Then he began to wonder to whom he should first preach his doctrine, and
he thought of his former teachers. But a spirit warned him that they had
recently died. Then he thought of the five monks who had tended him
during his austerities but left him when he ceased to fast. By his
superhuman power of vision he perceived that they were living at Benares
in the deer park, Isipatana. So, after remaining awhile at Uruvela he
started to find them and on the way met a naked ascetic, in answer to
whose enquiries he proclaimed himself as the Buddha; "I am the Holy One
in this world, I am the highest teacher, I alone am the perfect supreme
Buddha, I have gained calm and nirvana, I go to Benares to set moving
the wheels of righteousness[325]. I will beat the drum of immortality in
the darkness of this world." But the ascetic replied. "It may be so,
friend," shook his head, took another road and went away, with the
honour of being the first sceptic.

When the Buddha reached the deer park[326], a wood where ascetics were
allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him
coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his
exertions, and turned to a luxurious life. But as he drew near they were
overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him, and
brought water to wash his feet. While showing him this honour they
called him Friend Gotama but he replied that it was not proper to
address the Tathagata[327] thus. He had become a Buddha and was ready to
teach them the Truth but the monks demurred saying that if he had been
unable to win enlightenment while practising austerities, he was not
likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease. But he
overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them, apparently during
some days, for we are told that they went out to beg alms.

Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not
perhaps the Buddha's own words but the reminiscences of some one who had
heard him describe the crisis of his life? Like so much of the Pitakas
the narrative has an air of patchwork. Many striking passages, such as
the descriptions of the raptures through which he passed, occur in other
connections but the formulae are ancient and their use here may be as
early and legitimate as elsewhere. In its main outlines the account is
simple, unpretentious and human. Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by
self-mortification: finds that this is the wrong way: tries a more
natural method and succeeds: debates whether he shall become a teacher
and at first hesitates. These are not features which the average Indian
hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would
invent or emphasize. Towards the end of the narrative the language is
more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it
is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling
his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic. The
supernatural intervention recorded is not really great. It amounts to
this, that in mental crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat
similar to those delivered by the daemon of Socrates[328]. The appearance
of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse,
which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he
found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in
this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many
generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him
describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth and his victory.

Other versions of the enlightenment give other incidents which are not
rendered less credible by their omission from the narrative quoted, for
it is clearly an epitome put together for a special didactic purpose.
But still the story as related at the beginning of the Mahavagga of the
Vinaya has a stronger smack of mythology than the passages quoted from
the Sutta-Pitaka. In these last the Bodhi-tree[329] is mentioned only
incidentally, which is natural, for it is a detail which would impress
later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be
sceptical as to the part it has played in Buddhist history. Even if we
had not been told that he sat under a tree, we might surmise that he did
so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a
homeless ascetic. The Mahavagga states that after attaining Buddhahood
he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days
uninterruptedly, enjoying the bliss of emancipation, and while there
thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the
suttas quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days
under each. Heavy rain came on but Mucalinda, the king of the serpents,
"came out of his abode and seven times encircled the body of the Lord
with his windings and spread his great hood over the Lord's head." Here
we are in the domain of mythology: this is not a vignette from the old
religious life on the banks of the Neranjara but a work of sacred art:
the Holy Supreme Buddha sitting immovable and imperturbable in the midst
of a storm sheltered by the folds of some pious monster that the
artist's fancy has created.

The narrative quoted from the Majjhima-Nikaya does not mention that the
Buddha during his struggle for enlightenment was assailed or tempted by
Mara, the personification of evil and of transitory pleasures but also
of death. But that such an encounter--in some respects analogous to the
temptation of Christ by the Devil--formed part of the old tradition is
indicated by several passages in the Pitakas[330] and not merely by the
later literature where it assumes a prominent and picturesque form. This
struggle is psychologically probable enough but the origin of the story,
which is exhaustively discussed in Windisch's _Buddha und Mara_, seems
to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his
mental struggles as in amplifications of old legends and in
dramatizations of metaphors which he may have used about conquering
death.

The Bodhi-tree is still shown at Bodh-Gaya. It stands on a low terrace
behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow, below the level of the
surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all
Buddhist lands though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anuradhapura in
Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches transplanted
thither. Whatever title it may have to the reverence of the faithful
rests on lineage rather than identity, for the growth which we see at
Bodh-Gaya now cannot claim to be the branches under which the Buddha sat
or even the trunk which Asoka tended. At best it is a modern stem sprung
from the seeds of the old tree, and this descent is rendered disputable
by legends of its destruction and miraculous restoration. Even during
the time that Sir A. Cunningham knew the locality from 1862 to 1880 it
would seem that the old trunk decayed and was replaced by scions grown
from seed.

The texts quoted above leave the Buddha occupied in teaching the five
monks in the Deer Park and the Mahavagga gives us the text of the
sermon[331] with which he opened his instruction. It is entitled Turning
the Wheel of Righteousness, and is also known as The Sermon at Benares.
It is a very early statement of the main doctrines of primitive Buddhism
and I see no reason to doubt that it contains the ideas and phrases of
the Buddha. The gist of the sermon is extremely simple. He first says
that those who wish to lead a religious life should avoid the two
extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture and follow a middle way.
Then he enunciates what he calls the four truths[332] about evil or
suffering and the way to make an end of it. He opens very practically,
and it may be noticed that abstruse as are many of his discourses they
generally go straight to the heart of some contemporary interest. Here
he says that self-indulgence is low and self-mortification crazy: that
both are profitless and neither is the religious life. That consists in
walking in the middle path, or noble eightfold path defined in a
celebrated formula as right views, right aspirations, right speech,
right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right
rapture. He then enunciates the four truths. The first declares that all
clinging to existence involves suffering. I shall have occasion to
examine later the pessimism which is often said to characterize Buddhism
and Indian thought generally. Here let it suffice to say that the first
truth must be taken in conjunction with the others. The teaching of the
Buddha is a teaching not so much of pessimism as of emancipation: but
emancipation implies the existence of evil from which men must be freed:
a happy world would not need it. Buddhism recognizes the evil of the
world but it is not on that account a religion of despair: the essence
of it is that it provides a remedy and an escape.

The second and third truths must be taken together and in connection
with the formula known as the chain of causation (paticcasamuppada).
Everything has a cause and produces an effect. If this is, that is: if
this is not, then that is not. This simple principle of uniform
causation is applied to the whole universe, gods and men, heaven, earth
and hell. Indian thought has always loved wide applications of
fundamental principles and here a law of the universe is propounded in a
form both simple and abstract. Everything exists in virtue of a cause
and does not exist if that cause is absent. Suffering has a cause and if
that cause can be detected and eliminated, suffering itself will be
eliminated. This cause of evil is Tanha, the thirst or craving for
existence, pleasure and success. And the cure is to remove it. It may
seem to the European that this is a proposal to cure the evils of life
by removing life itself but when in the fourth truth we come to the
course to be followed by the seeker after salvation--the eightfold
path--we find it neither extravagant nor morbid. We may imagine that an
Indian of that time asking different schools of thinkers for the way to
salvation would have been told by Brahmans (if indeed they had been
willing to impart knowledge to any but an accredited pupil) that he who
performs a certain ceremony goes to the abode of the gods: other
teachers would have insisted on a course of fasting and self-torture:
others again like Sanjaya and Makkhali would have given argumentative
and unpractical answers. The Buddha's answer is simple and practical:
seven-eighths of it would be accepted in every civilized country as a
description of the good life. It is not merely external, for it insists
on right thought and right aspiration: the motive and temper are as
important as the act. It does not neglect will-power and activity, for
right action, right livelihood and right effort are necessary--a point to
be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy unpractical religion. But
no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation,
is meant to be its crown and fulfilment. It takes the place of prayer
and communion with the deity and the Buddha promises the beatific vision
in this life to those who persevere. The negative features of the Path
are also important. It contains no mention of ceremonial, austerities,
gods, many or one, nor of the Buddha himself. He is the discoverer and
teacher of the truth; beyond that his personality plays no part.

But we are here treating of his life rather than of his doctrine and
must now return to the events which are said to have followed the first
sermon.

The first converts had, even before embracing the Buddha's teaching,
been followers of a religious life but the next batch of recruits came
from the wealthy mercantile families of Benares. The first was a youth
named Yasa who joined the order, while his father, mother and former
wife became lay believers. Then came first four and subsequently fifty
friends of Yasa and joined the order. "At that time" says the
Mahavagga. "there were sixty-one Arhats[333] in the world," so that at
first arhatship seems to have followed immediately on ordination. Arhat,
it may be mentioned, is the commonest word in early Buddhist literature
(more common than any phrase about nirvana) for describing sanctity and
spiritual perfection. The arhat is one who has broken the fetters of the
senses and passions, for whom there will be no new birth or death, and
who lives in this world like the Buddha, detached but happy and
beneficent.

The Buddha then addressed his followers and said--"Monks, I am delivered
from all fetters, human and divine, and so are you. Go now and wander
for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the
world, for the good, for the gain and for the welfare of gods and men.
Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine which is
glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle and glorious in the
end, in the spirit and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect and
pure life of holiness." The monks then went forth and returned bringing
candidates to be formally ordained by the Buddha. But seeing that these
journeys caused fatigue and trouble, he authorized the ordained monks to
confer ordination without reference to himself. He then returned to
Uruvela, where he had dwelt before attaining Buddhahood, and converted a
thousand Jatilas, that is to say Brahmans living the life of hermits,
which involved the abandonment of household life but not of sacrifices.
The admission of these hermits to the order is probably historical and
explains the presence among the Buddha's disciples of a tendency towards
self-mortification of which he himself did not wholly approve. The
Mahavagga[334] contains a series of short legends about these
occurrences, one of them in two versions. The narratives are miraculous
but have an ancient tone and probably represent the type of popular
story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life.
One of them is a not uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how
the chamber in which a Brahman called Kassapa kept his sacred fire was
haunted by a fire-breathing magical serpent. The Buddha however spent
the night in this chamber and after a contest in which both emitted
flames succeeded in conquering the beast. After converting the Jatilas
he preached to them the celebrated Fire Sermon, said to have been
delivered on the eminence now called Brahma Yoen[335] near Gaya and
possibly inspired by the spectacle of grass fires which at some seasons
may be seen creeping over every hill-side in an Indian night,
"Everything, Monks, is burning and how is it burning? The eye is
burning: what the eye sees is burning: thoughts based on the eye are
burning: the contact of the eye (with visible things) is burning and the
sensation produced by that contact, whether pleasant, painful or
indifferent is also burning. With what fire is it burning? It is burning
with the fire of lust, the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it
is burning with the sorrows of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation,
suffering, dejection and despair."

The Buddha now went on with his converts to Rajagaha. He stopped in a
bamboo grove outside the town and here the king, Bimbisara, waited on
him and with every sign of respect asked him to take food in his palace.
It was on this occasion that we first hear of him accepting an
invitation to dinner[336], which he did frequently during the rest of
his career. After the repast the king presented a pleasure garden just
outside the town "to the fraternity of monks with the Buddha at their
head." At that time another celebrated teacher named Sanjaya was
stopping at Rajagaha with a train of two hundred and fifty disciples.
Two of them, Sariputta and Moggallana, joined the Buddha's order and
took with them the whole body of their companions.

The Mahavagga proceeds to relate that many of the young nobility joined
the order and that the people began to murmur saying "The Monk Gotama
causes fathers to beget no sons and families to become extinct." And
again "The Great Monk has come to Giribbaja of the Magadha people,
leading with him all the followers of Sanjaya. Whom will he lead off
next?" When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement
would only last seven days and bade his followers answer with the
following verse "It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the
Buddhas, lead men. Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power
of truth?" It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two
popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and
enemies of the Buddha.

3

It now becomes difficult to give dates but the Mahavagga[337] relates
that the Buddha stopped some time at Rajagaha and then revisited his
native town, Kapilavatthu. That he should have done so is natural enough
but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya.
Its object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the
rules of the order. Irrelevant incidents are ignored and those which are
noticed are regarded simply as the circumstances which led to the
formulation of certain regulations. "The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country
near Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Grove. And in the forenoon having put on
his robes and taken his alms bowl he went to the home of the Sakka
Suddhodana[338] and sat down on a seat prepared for him. Then the
princess who was the mother of Rahula[339] said to him 'This is your
father, Rahula, go and ask him for your inheritance.' Then young Rahula
went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said 'Your
shadow, Monk, is a place of bliss.' Then the Lord rose from his seat and
went away but Rahula followed him saying 'Give me my inheritance, Monk.'
Then the Lord said to Sariputta (who had already become his chief
disciple) 'Well, Sariputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young
Rahula.' Sariputta asked how he should do so and the Buddha explained
the forms.

"Then the Sakka Suddhodana went to the place where the Lord was and
after respectfully saluting him asked for a boon. 'Lord, when the
Blessed One gave up the world, it was great pain to me and so it was
when Nanda[340] did the same. Great too was my pain when Rahula did it.
The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and
reaches the marrow. Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a
son without his parents' permission.' The Buddha assented. Three or four
years later Suddhodana died."

From Kapilavatthu the Buddha is said to have gone to Savatthi, the
capital of Kosala where Pasenadi was king, but now we lose the
chronological thread and do not find it again until the last years of
his life. Few of the numerous incidents recorded in the Pitakas can be
dated. The narrators resemble those Indian artists who when carving a
story in relief place all the principal figures in one panel without
attempting to mark the sequence of the incidents which are represented
simultaneously. For the connection of events with the Buddha's teaching
the compilers of the Pitakas had an eye; for their connection with his
life none at all. And though this attitude is disquieting to the
historic sense it is not unjustifiable. The object and the achievement
of the Buddha was to preach a certain doctrine and to found an order.
All the rest--years and countries, pains and pleasures--was of no
importance. And it would appear that we have not lost much: we should
have a greater sense of security if we had an orderly account of his
wanderings and his relations with the kings of his time, but after he
had once entered on his ministry the events which broke the peaceful
tenour of his long life were few and we probably know most of them
though we cannot date them. For about forty-five years he moved about
Kosala, Magadha and Anga visiting the two capitals Savatthi and Rajagaha
and going as far west as the country of the Kurus. He took little part
in politics or worldly life, though a hazy but not improbable story[341]
represents him as pacifying the Sakyas and Koliyas, who were on the
point of fighting about the water of the Rohini which irrigated the
lands of both clans. He uniformly enjoyed the respect and attention of
kings and the wealthy classes. Doubtless he was not popular with the
Brahmans or with those good people who disliked seeing fine young men
made into monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any
serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within
the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which
though peaceful was active and benevolent but aloof, majestic and
authoritative.

We are told[342] that at first his disciples wandered about at all
seasons but it was not long before he bade them observe the already
established routine for itinerant monks of travelling on foot during the
greater part of the year but of resting for three months during the
rainy season known as Vassa and beginning some time in June. When moving
about he appears to have walked from five to ten miles a day, regulating
his movements so as to reach inhabited places in time to collect food
for the midday meal. The afternoon he devoted to meditation and in the
evening gave instruction. He usually halted in woods or gardens on the
outskirts of villages and cities, and often on the bank of a river or
tank, for shade and water would be the first requisites for a wandering
monk. On these journeys he was accompanied by a considerable following
of disciples: five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often
mentioned and though the numbers may be exaggerated there is no reason
to doubt that the band was large. The suttas generally commence with a
picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was
delivered. The Buddha is walking along the high road from Rajagaha to
Nalanda with a great company of disciples. Or he is journeying through
Kosala and halting in a mango-grove on the banks of the Aciravati river.
Or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahman village and the people go
out to him. The principal Brahmans, taking their siesta on the upper
terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what
it means. On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha
should pay the first call and ultimately visit him. Or he is halting on
the shore of the Gaggara Lake at Campa in Western Bengal, sitting under
the fragrant white flowers of a campaka tree. Or he visits the hills
overlooking Rajagaha haunted by peacocks and by wandering monks. Often
he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely
rest houses for travellers. But it became more and more the custom for
the devout to erect such buildings for his special use and even in his
lifetime they assumed the proportions of monasteries[343]. The people of
Vesali built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the
Gabled Hall. It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large
room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the
Buddha. Such private rooms (especially those which he occupied at
Savatthi), were called Gandhakuti or the perfumed chamber. At
Kapilavatthu[344] the Sakyas erected a new building known as Santhagara.
The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting
late into the night which he delivered sitting with his back against a
pillar. At last he said his back was tired and lay down, leaving Ananda
to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less
exhausted than the preacher.

But perhaps the residence most frequently mentioned is that in the
garden called Jetavana at Savatthi. Anathapindika, a rich merchant of
that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Rajagaha and
invited him to spend the next rainy season at Savatthi[345]. On
returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided
that the garden of the Prince Jeta best satisfied his requirements. He
obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover
the whole ground with coins. When all except a small space close to the
gateway had been thus covered Jeta asked to be allowed to share in the
gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway
with a room over it. "And Anathapindika the householder built dwelling
rooms and retiring rooms and storerooms and halls with fireplaces, and
outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the
bath rooms and ponds and roofed open sheds[346]."