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

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No sect of Hinduism personifies the powers of evil in one figure
corresponding to Satan, or the Ahriman of Persia. In proportion as a
nation thinks pantheistically it is disinclined to regard the world as
being mainly a contest between good and evil. It is true there are
innumerable demons and innumerable good spirits who withstand them. But
just as there is no finality in the exploits of Rama and Krishna, so
Ravana and other monsters do not attain to the dignity of the Devil. In
a sense the destructive forces are evil, but when they destroy the world
at the end of a Kalpa the result is not the triumph of evil. It is
simply winter after autumn, leading to spring and another summer.

Buddhism having a stronger ethical bias than Hinduism was more conscious
of the existence of a Tempter, or a power that makes men sin. This power
is personified, but somewhat indistinctly, as Mara, originally and
etymologically a god of death. He is commonly called Mara the Evil
One[733], which corresponds to the Mrityuh papma of the Vedas, but as a
personality he seems to have developed entirely within the Buddhist
circle and to be unknown to general Indian mythology. In the thought of
the Pitakas the connection between death and desire is clear. The great
evils and great characteristics of the world are that everything in it
decays and dies and that existence depends on desire. Therefore the
ruler of the world may be represented as the god of desire and death.
Buddha and his saints struggle with evil and overcome it by overcoming
desire and this triumphant struggle is regarded as a duel with Mara, who
is driven off and defeated[734].

Even in his most mythological aspects, Mara is not a deity of Hell. He
presides over desire and temptation, not over judgment and punishment.
This is the function of Yama, the god of the dead, and one of the
Brahmanic deities who have migrated to the Far East. He has been adopted
by Buddhism, though no explanation is given of his status. But he is
introduced as a vague but effective figure--and yet hardly more than a
metaphor--whenever it is desired to personify the inflexible powers that
summon the living to the other world and there make them undergo, with
awful accuracy, the retribution due for their deeds. In a remarkable
passage[735] called Death's Messengers, it is related that when a sinner
dies he is led before King Yama who asks him if he never saw the three
messengers of the gods sent as warnings to mortals, namely an old man, a
sick man and a corpse. The sinner under judgment admits that he saw but
did not reflect and Yama sentences him to punishment, until suffering
commensurate to his sins has been inflicted.

Buddhism tells of many hells, of which Avici is the most terrible. They
are of course all temporary and therefore purgatories rather than places
of eternal punishment, and the beings who inhabit them have the power of
struggling upwards and acquiring merit[736], but the task is difficult
and one may be born repeatedly in hell. The phraseology of Buddhism
calls existences in heavens and hells new births. To us it seems more
natural to say that certain people are born again as men and that others
go to heaven or hell. But the three destinies are really parallel[737].

The desire to accommodate influential ideas, though they might be
incompatible with the strict teaching of the Buddha, is well seen in the
position accorded to spirits of the dead. The Buddha was untiring in his
denunciation of every idea which implied that some kind of soul or
double escapes from the body at death and continues to exist. But the
belief in the existence of departed ancestors and the presentation of
offerings to them have always formed a part of Hindu domestic religion.
To gratify this persistent belief, Buddhism recognized the world of
Petas, that is ghosts or spirits. Many varieties of these are described
in later literature. Some are as thin as withered leaves and suffer from
continual hunger, for their mouths are so small that they can take no
solid food. According to strict theology, the Petas are a category of
beings just above animals and certain forms of bad conduct entail birth
among them. But in popular estimation, they are merely the spirits of
the dead who can receive nourishment and other benefits from the living.
The veneration of the dead and the offering of sacrifices to or for
them, which form a conspicuous feature in Far Eastern Buddhism, are
often regarded as a perversion of the older faith, and so, indeed, they
are. Yet in the Khuddaka-patha[738], which if not a very early work is
still part of the Sutta Pitaka, are found some curious and pathetic
verses describing how the spirits of the departed wait by walls and
crossways and at the doors, hoping to receive offerings of food. When
they receive it their hearts are gladdened and they wish their relatives
prosperity. As many streams fill the ocean, so does what is given here
help the dead. Above all, gifts given to monks will redound to the good
of the dead for a long time. This last point is totally opposed to the
spirit of Gotama's doctrine, but it contains the germ of the elaborate
system of funeral masses which has assumed vast proportions in the Far
East.

4

What then is the position of the Buddha himself in this universe of many
worlds and multitudinous deities? European writers sometimes fail to
understand how the popular thought of India combines the human and
superhuman: they divorce the two aspects and unduly emphasize one or the
other. If they are impressed by the historical character of Gotama, they
conclude that all legends with a supernatural tinge must be late and
adventitious. If, on the other hand, they feel that the extent and
importance of the legendary element entitles it to consideration, they
minimize the historical kernel. But in India, reality and fancy, prosaic
fact and extravagant imagination are found not as successive stages in
the development of religious ideas, but simultaneously and side by side.
Keshub Chunder Sen was a Babu of liberal views who probably looked as
prosaic a product of the nineteenth century as any radical politician.
Yet his followers were said to regard him as a God, and whether this is
a correct statement or not, it is certain that he was credited with
superhuman power and received a homage which seemed even to Indians
excessive[739]. It is in the light of such incidents and such
temperaments that we should read the story of the Buddha. Could we be
transported to India in the days of his preaching, we should probably
see a figure very like the portrait given in the more sober parts of the
Pitakas, a teacher of great intelligence and personal charm, yet
distinctly human. But had we talked about him in the villages which lay
along his route, or even in the circle of his disciples, I think we
should have heard tales of how Devas visited him and how he was wont to
vanish and betake himself to some heaven. The Hindu attributes such
feats to a religious leader, as naturally as Europeans would ascribe to
him a magnetic personality and a flashing eye.

The Pitakas emphasize the omniscience and sinlessness of the Buddha but
contain no trace of the idea that he is God in the Christian or
Mahommedan sense. They are consistently non-theistic and it is only
later that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas become transformed into beings about
whom theistic language can be used. But in those parts of the Pitakas
which may be reasonably supposed to contain the ideas of the first
century after the Buddha's death, he is constantly represented as
instructing Devas and receiving their homage[740]. In the Khuddaka-patha
the spirits are invited to come and do him reverence. He is described as
the Chief of the World with all its gods[741], and is made to deny that
he is a man. If a Buddha cannot be called a Deva rather than a man, it
is only because he is higher than both. It is this train of thought
which leads later Buddhists[742] to call him Devatideva, or the Deva who
is above all other Devas, and thus make him ultimately a being
comparable with Siva or Vishnu.

The idea that great teachers of mankind appear in a regular series and
at stated intervals is certainly older than Gotama, but it is hard to
say how far it was systematized before his time. The greatness of the
position which he won and the importance of the institutions which he
founded naturally caused his disciples to formulate the vague traditions
about his predecessors. They were called indifferently Buddha, Jina,
Arhat, etc., and it was only after the constitution of the Buddhist
church that these titles received fixed meanings.

Closely connected with the idea of the Buddha or Jina is that of the
Mahapurusha or great man. It was supposed that there are born from time
to time supermen distinguished by physical marks who become either
universal monarchs (cakra-vartin) or teachers of the truth. Such a
prediction is said to have been made respecting the infant Gotama and
all previous Buddhas. The marks are duly catalogued, as thirty-two
greater and eighty[743] smaller signs. Many of them are very curious.
The hair is glossy black: the tongue is so long that it can lick the
ears: the arms reach to the knees in an ordinary upright position: the
skin has a golden tinge: there is a protuberance on the skull and a
smaller one, like a ball, between the eyebrows. The long arms may be
compared with the Persian title rendered in Latin by Longimanus[744] and
it is conceivable that the protuberances on the head may have been
personal peculiarities of Gotama. For though the thirty-two marks are
mentioned in the Pitakas as well-known signs establishing his claims to
eminence, no description of them has been found in any pre-Buddhist
work[745], and they may have been modified to suit his personal
appearance. At any rate it is clear that the early generations of
Buddhists considered that the Master conformed to the type of the
Mahapurusha and attached importance to the fact[746]. The Pitakas
repeatedly allude to the knowledge of these marks as forming a part of
Brahmanic training and in the account of the previous Buddha Vipassi
they are duly enumerated. These ideas about a Great Man and his
characteristics were probably current among the people at the time of
the Buddha's birth. They do not harmonize completely with later
definitions of a Buddha's nature, but they show how Gotama's
contemporaries may have regarded his career.

In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding
Gotama[747], namely Vipassi, Sikhi, Vessabhu, Kakusandha, Konagamana and
Kassapa. The last three at least may have some historical character. The
Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, who visited India from 405 to 411 A.D., saw
their reputed birthplaces and says that there still existed followers of
Devadatta (apparently in Kosala) who recognized these three Buddhas but
not Gotama. Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konagamana in Nepal
with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved. In the
Majjhima-Nikaya[748] we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples
and Gotama once gave[749] an extended account of Vipassi, whose teaching
and career are represented as almost identical with his own. Different
explanations have been given of this common element. There is clearly a
wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its
exponents in all ages. But are we to believe that the stories, true or
romantic, originally told of Gotama were transferred to his mythical
forerunners or that before his birth there was a Buddha legend to which
the account of his career was accommodated? Probably both processes went
on simultaneously. The notices of the Jain saints show that there must
have been such legends and traditions independent of Gotama. To them we
may refer things like the miracles attending birth. But the general
outline of the Buddha's career, the departure from home, struggle for
enlightenment and hesitation before preaching, seem to be a reminiscence
of Gotama's actual life rather than an earlier legend.

There is an interesting discourse describing the wonders that attend the
birth of a Buddha[750], such as that he passes from the Tusita heaven to
his mother's womb; that she must die seven days after his birth: that
she stands when he is born: and so on. We may imagine that the death of
the mother is due to the historical fact that Gotama's mother did so
die, while the other circumstances are embellishments of the old Buddha
and Mahapurusha legend. But the construction of this sutta is curious.
The monks in the Jetavana are talking of the wondrous powers possessed
by Buddhas. Gotama enters and asks what is the subject of their
discourse. They tell him and he bids Ananda describe more fully the
wondrous attributes of a Buddha. Ananda gives a long list of marvels and
at the end Gotama observes, "Take note of this too as one of the
wondrous attributes of a Buddha, that he has his feelings, perceptions
and thoughts under complete control[751]."

No passage has yet been adduced from the suttas mentioning more than
seven Buddhas but later books, such as the Buddha-vamsa and the
introduction to the Jataka, describe twenty-five[752]. There are
twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras and according to some accounts twenty-four
incarnations of Vishnu. Probably all these lists are based on some
calculation as to the proper allowance of saints for an aeon. The
biographies of these Buddhas are brief and monotonous. For each sage
they record the number of his followers, the name of his city, parents,
and chief disciples, the tree under which he attained enlightenment, his
height and his age, both in extravagant figures. They also record how
each met Gotama in one of his previous births and prophesied his future
glory. The object of these biographies is less to give information about
previous Buddhas than to trace the career of Gotama as a Bodhisattva.
This career began in the time of Dipankara, the first of the twenty-five
Buddhas, incalculable ages ago, when Gotama was a hermit called Sumedha.
Seeing that the road over which Dipankara had to pass was dirty, he
threw himself down in the mire in order that the Buddha might tread on
him and not soil his feet. At the same time he made a resolution to
become a Buddha and received from Dipankara the assurance that ages
afterwards his wish would be fulfilled. This incident, called pranidhana
or the vow to become a Buddha, is frequently represented in the frescoes
found in Central Asia.

The history of this career is given in the introduction to the Jataka
and in the late Pali work called the Cariya-pitaka, but the suttas make
little reference to the topic. They refer incidentally to Gotama's
previous births[753] but their interest clearly centres in his last
existence. They not infrequently use the word Bodhisattva to describe
the youthful Gotama or some other Buddha before the attainment of
Buddhahood, but in later literature it commonly designates a being now
existing who will be a Buddha in the future. In the older phase of
Buddhism attention is concentrated on a human figure which fills the
stage, but before the canon closes we are conscious of a change which
paves the way for the Mahayana. Our sympathetic respect is invited not
only for Gotama the Buddha, but for the struggling Bodhisattva who,
battling towards the goal with incredible endurance and self-sacrifice
through lives innumerable, at last became Gotama.

It is only natural that the line of Buddhas should extend after as well
as before Gotama. In the Pitakas there are allusions to such a posterior
series, as when for instance we hear[754] that all Buddhas past and to
come have had and will have attendants like Ananda, but Metteya the
Buddha of the future has not yet become an important figure. He is just
mentioned in the Digha Nikaya and Buddha-Vamsa and the Milinda Panha
quotes an utterance of Gotama to the effect that "He will be the leader
of thousands as I am of hundreds," but the quotation has not been
identified.

The Buddhas enumerated are supreme Buddhas (Samma-sam-buddha) but there
is another order called Pacceka (Sanskrit Pratyeka) or private Buddhas.
Both classes attain by their own exertions to a knowledge of the four
truths but the Pacceka Buddhas are not, like the supreme Buddhas,
teachers of mankind and omniscient[755]. Their knowledge is confined to
what is necessary for their own salvation and perfection. They are
mentioned in the Nikayas as worthy of all respect[756] but are not
prominent in either the earlier or later works, which is only natural,
seeing that by their very definition they are self-centred and of little
importance for mankind. The idea of the private Buddha however is
interesting, inasmuch as it implies that even when the four truths are
not preached they still exist and can be discovered by anyone who makes
the necessary mental and moral effort. It is also noticeable that the
superiority of a supreme Buddha lies in his power to teach and help
others. A passionless and self-centred sage falls short of the ideal.

[Footnote 1: The frontier seems to be about Long. 65 deg. E.]

[Footnote 2: See Coedes's views about Srivijaya in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1918, 6.
The inscriptions of Rajendracola I (1012-1042 A.D.) show that Hindus in
India were not wholly ignorant of Indian conquests abroad.]

[Footnote 3: But the Japanese syllabaries were probably formed under
Indian influence.]

[Footnote 4: Probably the Christian doctrine of the atonement or
salvation by the death of a deity is an exception. I do not know of any
Indian sect which holds a similar view. The obscure verse Rig Veda x.
13. 4 seems to hint at the self-sacrifice of a deity but the hymn about
the sacrifice of Purusha (x. 90) has nothing to do with redemption or
atonement.]

[Footnote 5: It is possible (though not, I think, certain) that the
Buddha called his principal doctrines _ariya_ in the sense of Aryan not
of noble. But even the Blessed One may not have been infallible in
ethnography. When we call a thing British we do not mean to refer it to
the ancient Britons more than to the Saxons or Normans. And was the
Buddha an Aryan? See V. Smith, _Oxford History of India_, p. 47 for
doubts.]

[Footnote 6: This is not altogether true of the modern temple ritual.]

[Footnote 7: It is very unfortunate that English usage should make this
word appear the same as Brahman, the name of a caste, and there is much
to be said for using the old-fashioned word Brahmin to denote the caste,
for it is clear, though not correct. In Sanskrit there are several
similar words which are liable to be confused in English. In the
nominative case they are:

(1) Brahmanah, a man of the highest caste.

(2) Brahmanam, an ancient liturgical treatise.

(3) Brahma, the Godhead, stem Brahman, neuter.

(4) Brahma, a masculine nominative also formed from the stem Brahman and
used as the name of a personal deity.

For (3) the stem Brahman is commonly used, as being distinct from
Brahma, though liable to be confounded with the name of the caste.]

[Footnote 8: For some years most scholars accepted the opinion that the
Buddha died in 487 B.C. but the most recent researches into the history
of the Saisunaga dynasty suggest that the date should be put back to 554
B.C. See Vincent Smith, _Oxford History of India_, p. 52.]

[Footnote 9: This is sometimes rendered simply by desire but _desire_ in
English is a vague word and may include feelings which do not come
within the Pali _tanha_. The Buddha did not reprobate good desires. See
Mrs Rhys David's _Buddhism_, p. 222 and _E.R.E._ s.v. Desire.]

[Footnote 10: It is practically correct to say that Buddhism was the
first universal and missionary religion, but Mahavira, the founder of
the Jains and probably somewhat slightly his senior, is credited with
the same wide view.]

[Footnote 11: It may be conveniently and correctly called Pali Buddhism.
This is better than Southern Buddhism or Hinayana, for the Buddhism of
Java which lies even farther to the south is not the same and there were
formerly Hinayanists in Central Asia and China.]

[Footnote 12: See Finot, _J.A._ 1912, n. 121-136.]

[Footnote 13: There is no Indian record of Bodhidharma's doctrine and
its origin is obscure, but it seems to have been a compound of Buddhism
and Vedantism.]

[Footnote 14: This is proved by coins and also by the Besnagar
inscription.]

[Footnote 15: I do not think that this view is disproved by the fact
that Patanjali and the scholiasts on Panini allude to images for they
also allude to Greeks. For the contrary view see Sten Konow in _I.A._
1909, p. 145. The facts are (_a_) The ancient Brahmanic ritual used no
images. (_b_) They were used by Buddhism and popular Hinduism about the
fourth century B.C. (_c_) Alexander conquered Bactria in 329 B.C. But
allowance must be made for the usages of popular and especially of
Dravidian worship of which at this period we know nothing.]

[Footnote 16: Few now advocate an earlier date such as 58 B.C.]

[Footnote 17: His authorship of _The Awakening of Faith_ must be
regarded as doubtful.]

[Footnote 18: Much of the Ramayana and Mahabharata must have been
composed during this period, both poems (especially the latter)
consisting of several strata.]

[Footnote 19: _E.g._ the Vyuhas of the Pancaratras, the five Jinas of
the Mahayanists and the five Sadasiva tattvas. See Gopinatha Rao,
_Elements of Indian Iconography_, vol. III p. 363.]

[Footnote 20: I draw a distinction between Saktism and Tantrism. The
essence of Saktism is the worship of a goddess with certain rites.
Tantrism means rather the use of spells, gestures, diagrams and various
magical or sacramental rites, which accompanies Saktism but may exist
without it.]

[Footnote 21: According to _Census of India_, 1911, _Assam_, p. 47,
about 80,000 animists were converted to Hinduism in Goalpara between
1901 and 1911 by a Brahman called Sib Narayan Swami.]

[Footnote 22: It is said that in Burma Hindu settlers become absorbed in
the surrounding Buddhists. _Census of India_, 1911, I. p. 120.]

[Footnote 23: The life and writings of Vasubandhu illustrate the
transition from the Hina-to the Mahayana. In the earlier part of his
life he wrote the Abhidharmakosa which is still used by Mahayanists in
Japan as a text-book, though it does not go beyond Hinayanism. Later he
became a Mahayanist and wrote Mahayanist works.]

[Footnote 24: As already mentioned, I think Saktism is the more
appropriate word but Tantrism is in common use by the best authorities.]

[Footnote 25: In India proper there are hardly any Buddhists now. The
Kumbhipathias, an anti-Brahmanic sect in Orissa, are said to be based on
Buddhist doctrines and a Buddhist mission in Mysore, called the Sakya
Buddhist Society, has met with some success. See _Census of India_,
1911, i. pp. 122 and 126.]

[Footnote 26: See the quotation in Schomerus, _Der Saiva Siddhanta_, p.
20 where a Saiva Hindu says that he would rather see India embrace
Christianity than the doctrine of Sankara.]

[Footnote 27: Some think that the sect called Nimavats was earlier.]

[Footnote 28: The determination of his precise date offers some
difficulties. See for further discussion Book v.]

[Footnote 29: The Kadianis and Chet Ramis in the N.W. Provinces are
mentioned but even here the fusion seems to be chiefly between Islam and
Christianity. See also the article Radha Soarai in _E.R.E._]

[Footnote 30: According to the Census of 1911.]

[Footnote 31: There are curious survivals of paganism in out of the way
forms of Christianity. Thus animal sacrifices are not extinct among
Armenians and Nestorians. See _E.R.E._ article "Prayer for the Dead" at
the end.]

[Footnote 32: The Buddhism of Siam and Burma is similar but in Siam it
is a mediaeval importation and the early religious history of Burma is
still obscure.]

[Footnote 33: Although stability is characteristic of the Hinayana its
later literature shows a certain movement of thought phases of which are
marked by the Questions of Milinda, Buddhaghosa's works and the
Abhidhammattha Sangaha.]

[Footnote 34: _E.g._ the way a monastic robe should be worn and the
Sima.]

[Footnote 35: I believe this to be the orthodox explanation but it is
open to many objections.

(1) It is a mere phrase. If to create means to produce something out of
nothing, then we have never seen such an act and to ascribe a sudden
appearance to such an act is really no explanation. Perhaps an act of
imagination or a dream may justly be called a creation, but the relation
between a soul and its Creator is not usually regarded as similar to the
relation between a mind and its fancies.

(2) The responsibility of God for the evil of the world seems to be
greatly increased, if he is directly responsible for every birth of a
child in unhappy conditions.

(3) Animals are not supposed to have souls. Therefore the production of
an animal's mind is not explained by this theory and it seems to be
assumed that such a complex mind ag a dog's can be explained as a
function of matter, whereas there is something in a child which cannot
be so explained.