‘Ye beings of earth and air, let us bow before the Order of Monks.’
When Fā-hien was on his return home and in great peril at sea, he committed his life to the protection of the Saṅgha, saying:—‘I have travelled far in search of the Law, let me, by your dread and supernatural power, return from my wanderings and reach my resting-place.’
And again, on ending his travels, he gratefully acknowledged that he had been guarded in his perils by the dread power of the ‘three honoured ones’ or ‘three precious ones’ or ‘three Holies’—thus acknowledging the personality of the Law as well as of the Buddha himself and of the Saṅgha or collective body of Monks[81].
But it must be borne in mind that this did not necessarily imply any worship of images. It is certain that for a long time even Buddha himself was not represented visibly. This is proved by the sculptures on the Bharhut Stūpa. Even in the present day the simple expression of trust in the three revered ones constitutes the only formula of worship current in Ceylon. It is true that images of the Buddha are now common in that country, and while travelling there I saw numbers of persons offering homage and flowers to these images. But no prayer was addressed to them, and I noticed no visible representations of the personified Law or Saṅgha[82].
Nor, when I was at the Buddhist monastery near Darjīling, did I see any image of the Law side by side with that of Gautama, though every book examined by me in the temple-library began with the words:—Namo Buddhāya, ‘reverence to the Buddha;’ namo Dharmāya, ‘reverence to the Law;’ namo Saṅghāya, ‘reverence to the Order.’ The only visible symbol of the three so-called ‘Holies’ was a long staff with three prongs, like the Indian Tri-ṡūla.
It seems clear, therefore, that while, in process of time, images of Gautama Buddha were multiplied everywhere—and, as we shall see, in various attitudes and shapes—images of the personified Law and Saṅgha were never common, and indeed rarely found, except among Northern Buddhists. Those images of the Law which I have examined are in the form of a man[83]with four arms and hands, two of which are folded in worship, while one holds a book (or sometimes a lotus) and the other a rosary[84].
Sometimes, however, the representation of a book alone is held to be a sufficient symbol of the Law.
The Saṅgha, on the other hand, is generally symbolized by the image of a man with two arms and hands, one of which, as in the images of Buddha, rests on the knees and the other holds a lotus.
And it may be observed here that of the three images of the Buddha, the Law, and the Order, sometimesone occupies the central position and sometimes the other. This circumstance has led scholars to speak of what it is the fashion to term a Buddhist trinity; but in real fact neither Buddhism nor Brāhmanism has any trinity in the true meaning of the term, for although Buddhists claim a kind of tri-unity for their triad, and say that the first contains the second, and that the third proceeds from the first two and contains them, yet the first is clearly never regarded as either the Father or Creator of the world, in the Christian sense.
It appears, in fact, that the earliest Buddhist worship was exactly what might have been expected to follow on the death of a religious Reformer and author of a new system. It was merely the natural expression of deep reverence for the founder of Buddhism, his doctrine, and the collective body of his disciples.
So simple a form of worship, however, did not long satisfy the devotional aspirations of the Buddha’s followers, even in the sacred land of pure Buddhism.
The mere offering of homage, either to a system of Law, or to a community of living monks or to departed human saints—even though their memory was kept alive by visible representations, and stimulated by meditation and repetition of prayer-formularies—had in it nothing calculated to support or comfort men in seasons of sickness, bereavement, or calamity. This kind of simple Buddhism might have satisfied the needs of men in times of peace and prosperity. Under other conditions it broke down. It could offer no shelter and give no help amid the storms and tempests of life. Hence the development of the later phases ofthe Mahā-yāna system, the chief feature of which was a marked change in the meaning attached to the term ‘Bodhi-sattva.’
This change will be better understood if we go back to what has already been mentioned (atp. 98). We have before explained that, according to the original theory of Buddhism, a Bodhi-sattva is one who has knowledge (derived from self-enlightening intellect) for his essence; that is, he is a being who through all his bodily existences is destined in some final existence to become a Buddha, or self-enlightened man. Until his final birth, however, a Bodhi-sattva is a being in whom true knowledge is rather latent and undeveloped than perfected. Gautama had been a Bodhi-sattva of this character (seep. 134), the merit of whose actions (Karma) in each of his countless previous existences (seep. 109) had been transmitted to succeeding corporeal forms, till in the state immediately preceding his last birth on earth he existed as a Bodhi-sattva in the Tushita heaven (seep. 120). There he continued until the time came for him to be born on earth as the Buddha of the present age, when he entered the right side of his mother in the form of a white elephant (p. 23)[85].
And it may be repeated here that the white elephant, as something rare and beautiful of its kind, was simply symbolical of the perfect Arhatship which he was destined to achieve in the ensuing birth.
Born, then, at last as the child Gautama, son of Ṡuddhodana, and purified by a long observance of the six transcendent virtues (p. 128), he ultimately attained to perfect knowledge and Arhatship under the Bodhi-tree, and in so attaining passed from the condition of a Bodhi-sattva to that of the highest of all Arhats—a supreme Buddha. Then, after about forty-five years of diligent discharge of his self-imposed task as a teacher of the right way of salvation, he ultimately passed away in Pari-nirvāṇa, or absolute non-existence.
It is important, however, to remember, that at the moment of his attaining Buddhahood he had transferred the Bodhi-sattvaship to Maitreya, ‘the loving and compassionate one,’ who became the Buddha-elect, dwelling and presiding as his predecessor had done in the heaven of contented beings (Tushita; seep. 120). There he watches over and promotes the interests of the Buddhist faith, while awaiting the time when he is to appear on earth as Maitreya, or the fifth Buddha of the present age. His advent will not take place till the lapse of five thousand years after the Nirvāṇa of Gautama, when the world will have become so corrupt that the Buddhist Law will be no more obeyed, nor even remembered.
No wonder then that this Maitreya—whose very name implies love and tenderness towards mankind, and who was destined to become, like Gautama, aSaviour of the world by teaching its inhabitants how to save themselves—became a favourite object of personal worship after Gautama Buddha’s death. Even when the worship of other Bodhi-sattvas was introduced, Maitreya retained the distinction of being the only Bodhi-sattva worshipped by all Buddhist countries, whether in the South or in the North. Not that Gautama’s memory was neglected. He was, of course, held to be superior to Maitreya, who was still a mere Bodhi-sattva or Buddha-designate. But the feeling towards Gautama Buddha, after his Nirvāṇa and death, became different, and the object of bringing flowers and offerings to his shrines was simply to honour the memory of a departed, not an existing saint. It was a mere mechanical act, fraught with beneficial consequences, but not supplying any real religious need. On the other hand actual prayers were addressed to Maitreya, as to a living merciful being, whose favour it was all-important to secure, and whose heaven was believed to be a region of perfect love and contentment, to which all his worshippers were admitted.
In Hiouen Thsang’s Travels a heavenly Ṛishi is represented as saying:—‘No words can describe the personal beauty of Maitreya. He declares a law not different from ours. His exquisite voice is soft and pure. Those who hear it can never tire; those who listen are never satiated[86].’
In fact, the aspirations of few pious Buddhists in early times ever led them to soar higher than thehappiness of living with Maitreya and listening to his voice in his own Tushita heaven.
It is true that afterwards when the worship of the Dhyāni-Buddha Amitābha came into vogue in Northern countries this Buddha’s heaven, called Sukhāvatī, fabled to be somewhere in the Western sky, seems to have taken the place of the heaven of Maitreya. But this belongs to a later phase of Buddhism, to be explained when we speak of the Dhyāni-Buddhas (p. 203).
It was for Maitreya’s Tushita heaven that Hiouen Thsang, and other devout men of his day, prayed on their death-beds, and the one Chinese inscription found at Buddha-Gayā is full of expressions indicative of the same longing[87].
If then, we are able to enter into the feelings of Buddhists everywhere in depending on the living, loving, and energizing Maitreya, rather than on the extinct Buddha who existed only in their memories, we shall find it less difficult to understand how it came to pass that the idea of, so to speak, canonizing every great saint or popular head of a monastic community, and elevating him at death to the position of a Bodhi-sattva like Maitreya, living in permanent regions of bliss, and able to help his votaries to the same position, came into vogue.
It may make the course of development of Theistic Buddhism clearer if we here revert to the early constitution of the Buddhist monastic brotherhood, and endeavour to show how the homage paid to eminentand saint-like men led, first to the multiplication of Bodhi-sattvas, and then to polytheism and every form of polytheistic superstition.
A full explanation of the early monastic system is given in the learned work of Koeppen[88]. It is clear that as long as Gautama was alive he was the sole Head of the brotherhood of monks. After his death the Headship (as in the Christian brotherhood after the death of Christ) was not assigned to any one leader. The Buddha himself forbade this. The term Saṇgha at that time merely denoted a republican fraternity of monks, bound by no irrevocable vows and subject to no hierarchical Superior, but all intent on following the example, and propagating the doctrines of their departed leader. Soon, however, the formation of separate centres of union and teaching became inevitable, and the term Saṇgha was then applied to each separate society, and sometimes even to a separate Conclave of each society, as well as to the whole body. It seems at least certain that each monastic association had the right to admit monks, to hear confession, and to excommunicate. Naturally, too, in course of time it became necessary for each society to have some sort of governing body and choose a kind of president, and this presiding officer was originally the senior monk, and accordingly had the simple title of Sthavira (Thera), ‘Elder.’ Thistitle appears to have been introduced immediately after Gautama’s death.
It is believed that ever since the time of the great Aṡoka, Sthaviras or Elders who became actual superintendents of monasteries, exercised administrative powers, like those of Abbots; each over his own monastic community. This was the first kind of Headship recognized. It was simply a superiority of age.
As to any still higher form of authority corresponding to that of Pope, Archbishop, or Bishop, and extending over several monasteries, this did not belong to early Buddhism or to its earliest developments. Lists of uninterrupted series of pretended Buddhist Hierarchs exist, but are mere fanciful fabrications. Nevertheless, it is certainly a historical fact that along with the superiority of mere age, seniority, and experience, there rapidly grew uppari passua superiority of knowledge, learning, and sanctity, which were generally, though not invariably, combined in the person of the presiding Elder.
Any one, in fact, who was distinguished for the practice of the highest degree of meditation, for complete acquaintance with the Law, for special purity of conduct, and perfect fulfilment of the precepts, was naturally elevated above the class of ordinary Bhikshus. Such a monk was from the earliest times dignified by the title Arhat, ‘very reverend,’ i. e. more worthy of honour than the generality. Arhat, in short, was from the first a name for the higher grade of saint-like Bhikshu. Such a man, too, before long, was raised to a still higher level in the estimation of his fellow-monks.He was believed to have delivered himself from all the consequences of acts, whether bad or good—from all the fetters (seep. 127) of life, and therefore from all re-birth. He was even elevated to a still loftier pinnacle. He was believed by his superstitious admirers to possess unlimited dominion over nature, space, time, and matter; to be all-seeing, all-powerful, and capable of working every kind of miracle. Then, of course, at death he passed away in Pari-nirvāṇa and was, so to speak, canonized. Be it noted, however, that such canonization was never accorded to an Arhat till after his departure from the world.
Probably the immediate disciples of Gautama Buddha—that is, his so-called ‘great pupils’ (seep. 47), were all considered perfect Arhats. And these perfect Arhats were probably the only saints of the earliest period of Buddhism. Yet there was one who surpassed them all by an immeasurable interval, and that one was Gautama Buddha himself. It was the distinguishing mark of a supreme Buddha that he was infinitely greater than all other Arhats, because he had not only gained perfect knowledge himself, but had become the Saviour of the whole world by imparting to men the knowledge of how they were to save themselves.
It seems, therefore, only natural that the followers of Buddha, and probably the Buddha himself, before his decease, should have thought it desirable to establish a more systematic gradation of saintship by filling up the immense gap between ordinary Arhats and the supreme Buddha. It was this that led to the idea of Pratyeka-Buddhas, that is, self-dependent solitaryBuddhas[89](seep. 134), as well as to the notion of a still higher being called a Bodhi-sattva, who, as the Buddha-designate and future successor of Gautama, occupied a still more exalted intermediate position than a Pratyeka-Buddha.
Of course it became difficult to fix on any living man, or any recently deceased saint worthy of the highest stage of Bodhi, to which a being about to become a perfect Buddha was supposed to attain.
The first to be so elevated (though apparently not by Gautama himself) was, as frequently mentioned before, the mythical individual Maitreya. He was, we repeat, for a long time the only Bodhi-sattva recognized by all Buddhists alike, whether adherents of the Hīna-yāna or Mahā-yāna. But he was not a historical personage, like Gautama or his immediate disciples. He was a mere mythological personification of that spirit of love—of that kindly and friendly disposition towards all living beings by force of which Buddhism hoped one day to conquer the world, and win it over to itself.
And in conformity with his mythical character, and probably to prevent the rivalry of pretenders among future ambitious heads of monasteries, he was not to appear for five thousand years, till the teaching of Gautama had lost its power.
Indeed, it was only to be expected that this rank should at first have been accorded to one person alone—justas in worldly affairs there could be only one Heir-apparent to the throne.
Such was the more simple doctrine of early Buddhism in regard to the relative position of the members of the Buddhist community.
How then did the teachers of the Mahā-yāna proceed to amplify this doctrine?
They taught that there were two methods of salvation or, so to speak, two ways or two vehicles—the Great and the Little (Mahā-yāna and Hīna-yāna)—and indeed two Bodhis or forms of true knowledge which these vehicles had to convey[90]. The former was for ordinary persons, the latter for beings of larger talents and higher spiritual powers. The ‘Little Way’ was the simple doctrine, which had many Arhats but only one Bodhi-sattva; the ‘Great Way,’ on the other hand, was the wider and broader, which had many Bodhi-sattvas as well as many Arhats. He who satisfied the usual requirements of Saintship received the rank of an Arhat in both systems. But in the wider system every one who aimed at unusual sanctity on the one hand, and knowledge (Bodhi) on the other, might walk on the Great road leading to Bodhi-sattvaship, and receive the title Bodhi-sattva.
We have seen (p. 136) that the Hīna-yāna, or ‘Little system,’ taught that there were only twenty-four Buddhas who had preceded Gautama. Three of these (viz. Kraku-ććhanda, Kanaka-muni, and Kāṡyapa), with Gautama as a fourth, had appeared in the present age, and only one Bodhi-sattva (Maitreya) was to come.
But according to the ‘Great System,’ it was a mistake to limit the acquisition of the highest Saintship in this manner. It maintained that there would be numberless supreme Buddhas (and, in addition to them, self-taught, solitary Buddhas, called Pratyeka-Buddhas), as well as numberless Bodhi-sattvas, even in the present age of the world. In other words, it propounded the doctrine that the practice of the six (or ten) transcendent virtues (p. 128), and especially the acquisition of transcendent wisdom (prajñā pāramitā), might qualify many saints for the attainment of Bodhi-sattvaship and Buddhaship. According to one theory, there were to be at least a thousand Bodhi-sattvas, followed by a thousand Buddhas, while, according to others, Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas were to be reckoned by myriads.
But this theory of numberless Bodhi-sattvas involved an entirely new view of their nature and of the meaning of the term.
In fact, the Bodhi-sattvas of the more developed Mahā-yāna school were not Bodhi-sattvas at all, according to the strict sense of the term. It is true they resembled the genuine Bodhi-sattva in having gone through a long series of existences leading them at last to perfect saintship and to a heaven of their own, but they were under no obligation to give up their Bodhi-sattvaship, quit their celestial abodes, or descend ultimately as human Buddhas upon earth.
Furthermore, they never appeared to aim at Pari-nirvāṇa like their earthly counterparts. Their most obviousraison d’êtreseems to have been to supply the need of personal objects of worship, and though in Tibet theywere believed to have their own secondary corporeal emanations—sometimes called their ‘incarnations,’ but more properly described as descents (avatāra) of portions of their essence in a constant succession of human saints,—they never really left their own permanent stations in the heavenly regions. Indeed, it is probable that the chief cause of their popularity, as personal objects of adoration, was that they were able to help their worshippers to attain to the same permanent and unchangeable regions of bliss.
It was thus that the ‘Great Vehicle’ took up an attitude which raised it not only above the simple effort to suppress the passions and desires, but also above the hopeless Nihilism of early Buddhism; for it soon became the fashion for the most devoted and pious of Buddhist monks to aspire to the title and actual blessedness of Bodhi-sattvaship rather than to the doubtful blessedness of utter personal annihilation involved in Buddhahood. At any rate the numerous Bodhi-sattvas of the ‘Great Method’ appear to have remained quite contented with their condition, so long as it involved perpetual residence in the heavens, and quite willing to put off all desire for Buddhahood and Pari-nirvāṇa.
Without doubt, this more amplified system was the result of a reaction of Brāhmanism on Buddhism. It was at first a mere plan for creating a close Hierarchy like that of the Brāhman caste—that is to say, a privileged class of men possessed of higher knowledge and sanctity and superior to the majority of Bhikshus of the common stamp. Then it soon developed into a scheme for satisfying the craving of the masses for divinities ofsome kind to whom they might appeal for help in time of need.
In all probability the first to receive the title of Bodhi-sattva, next to Maitreya, were the most celebrated Arhats before mentioned, who were immediate disciples of Gautama, not however till death had separated them from their human frames, when, as a matter of course, they received a kind of worship like that accorded to all leaders of men, just as the earliest saints, heroes, and teachers of Brāhmanism did.
To specify all the Arhats who were elevated to the rank of Bodhi-sattva and became objects of veneration in later times would be a difficult and unprofitable task.
We may also dismiss, as unworthy of note, statements such as that in the Lalita-vistara, in which it is declared that 32,000 Bodhi-sattvas joined the Buddha’s assembly in the Jetavana garden. But we may notice the quasi-deification of a few historical personages mentioned by the two Chinese travellers, whose account of the state of Buddhism in India from the fourth to the seventh centuries has been so often quoted.
First of all came the immediate followers and so-called ‘great pupils’ (seep. 47) of Gautama, namely, his two chief disciples, Ṡāri-puttra and Moggallāna (Maudgalyāyana = Modgala-puttra)[91], both of whom are believed to have died before him. Then came the three great leaders at the first Council: 1. Kāṡyapa (pp.46,55); 2. Gautama’s cousin and beloved pupil Ānanda; 3. Upāli (note, p. 56).
Next to these perhaps the most celebrated teacher elevated to Bodhi-sattvaship was Nāgārjuna[92]—noticed before as the alleged founder of the Mahā-yāna system and its introducer into Tibet. According to one account he was the son of a Brāhman of Vidarbha, and taught Buddhism in the south of India. He had a celebrated disciple named Deva (or Ārya-deva)[93]. Nāgārjuna was at any rate a great teacher and developer of the Mahā-yāna. A legend relates that he was skilled in magic, and was able thereby to prolong his own and a Southern Indian king’s life indefinitely. This caused great grief to the mother of the Heir-apparent, who instigated her son to ask Nāgārjuna for his own head. Nāgārjuna complied with the request, and cut his own head off with a blade of Kuṡa grass, nothing else having the power to injure him. He is said by Hiouen Thsang to have lived in Southern Koṡala about 400 years after the death of Gautama, and is worshipped under different epithets in Tibet, China, Mongolia, and even Ceylon. Probably he lived in the first or second century—Beal places him betweenA.D.166 and 200. Wassiljew considers him a wholly mythical personage. The additions he made to Buddhist doctrines were undoubtedly great. When he died Stūpas were erected to his memory, and in some places he was even worshipped as Buddha.
Among other deified, or partially deified Bodhi-sattvas, whose images and Stūpas (p. 161) the Chinese pilgrims found scattered in various parts of India, may be mentioned, those of the mythical Buddhas who preceded Gautama, especially Kāṡyapa[94]. Then we have Rāhula (son of Gautama), the patron of all novices, and founder of the realistic school called Vaibhāshika[95]; Dharma-pāla, Vasu-mitra (or Vasu-bandhu), Aṡva-ghosha, Guṇamati, Sthiramati, and others. In this practice of deifying their saints, Buddhists merely followed the example of the adherents of Hindūism. And we may add that this tendency is constantly repeating itself in the religious history of all nations.
There is even a tendency to press the saints of other countries into the service. This is remarkably exemplified in the history of Barlaam and Josaphat, current in Europe in the Middle Ages. The zealous Roman Catholics of those days thought that they could not exclude so noble a monk as Buddha from the catalogue of their own saints, and so they registered him in their list as St. Josaphat (Josaphat being a corruption of Bodhisat). Colonel Yule, in his Marco Polo, states that a church in Palermo is dedicated to this saint.
And here mention may be made of a modern deified Hindū teacher or sage, named Gorakh-nāth, who is said to have gone from India into Nepāl, and is worshippedthere as well as at Gorakh-pur and throughout the Panjāb. Very little is known about him, and he belongs more to Hindūism than to Buddhism. Some say that he was a contemporary of Kabīr (1488-1512), and, according to a Janamsākhī, he once had an interview with Nānak, the founder of the Sikh sect. Such legendary accounts as are current are wrapped in much mystery. One legend describes him as born from a lotus.
Others describe him as the third or fourth in a series of Ṡaiva teachers, and the founder of the Kānphāṭā sect of Yogīs. The remarkable thing about him is that he succeeded in achieving an extraordinary degree of popularity among Northern Hindūs and among some adherents of Buddhism in Nepāl. His tomb is in the Panjāb, and he is to this day adored as a kind of god by immense numbers of the inhabitants of North Western India under the hills.
But the canonization of such historical teachers in India and their elevation to semi-divine rank did not satisfy the craving of the uneducated masses, either among Buddhists or Hindūs, for personal deities, possessed of powers over human affairs far greater than any departed human beings, however eminent. In Buddhism the supposed existence of the more god-like Bodhi-sattva Maitreya—venerated by both the Mahā-yāna and the Hīna-yāna schools—was not sufficient to satisfy this craving.
Hence the ‘Great Vehicle’ soon began to teach the existence of numerous mythological Bodhi-sattvas, other than Maitreya, to whom no historical character belonged, but whose functions were more divine.
In the preceding Lecture I have endeavoured to sketch the rise of theistic and polytheistic Buddhism.
We have now to turn our attention to its development, especially in regard to the worship of mythical Bodhi-sattvas, and of the Hindū gods and other mythological beings.
Some of the Bodhi-sattvas of the Mahā-yāna or Great System were merely quasi-deifications of eminent saints and teachers. Others were impersonations of certain qualities or forces; and just as in early Buddhism we have the simple triad of the Buddha, his Law, and his Order, so in Northern Buddhism the worship of mythical Bodhi-sattvas—other than Maitreya—was originally confined to a triad, namely (1) Mañju-ṡrī, ‘he of beautiful glory;’ (2) Avalokiteṡvara, ‘the looking-down lord,’ often called Padma-pāṇi, ‘the lotus-handed;’ (3) Vajra-pāṇi or Vajra-dhara, ‘the thunderbolt-handed.’
These three mythical Bodhi-sattvas were not known to early Buddhists, nor to the Buddhists of Ceylon. They are not even found in the oldest books of the Northern School (such as the Lalita-vistara), though they occur conspicuously in the Saddharma-puṇḍarīka.
All we can say with certainty is, that when Fā-hien visited Mathurā on the Jumnā 400 years after Christ, their cult certainly existed there at that time.
We shall not be far wrong if we assert that it was adopted in about the third century of our era.
As already indicated (seep. 175), the idea of the first Buddhist triad—the Buddha, the Law, and the Monastic Order—accepted by the adherents of both Vehicles—was probably derived from the earliest Brāhmanical triad. (See also Brāhmanism and Hindūism, pp. 9, 44. 74.)
In the same way the second Buddhist triad introduced by the advanced teachers of the ‘Great Vehicle,’ viz. Mañju-ṡrī, Avalokiteṡvara (= Padma-pāṇi), and Vajra-pāṇi, corresponded to the later Hindū triad (tri-mūrti) of deities, Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Ṡiva.
I have explained in ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism’ (pp. 54, 73) how the gods Vishṇu and Ṡiva gradually usurped the position of the god Brahmā, whom they dispossessed of his co-equality with themselves, and how the whole mythology of the Hindūs, which was originally complicated by a large admixture of pre-Āryan and Vedic elements, ultimately became more simplified by arranging itself under the two heads of Vaishṇavism and Ṡaivism, all other mythological personages being regarded as forms of either Vishṇu or Ṡiva.
In contradistinction to this, we find that each member of the two Buddhist triads holds its own, and we are led on to a system which bewilders us by ever increasing complications—a system which preserves the individuality of its own triads and deified saints, and yet recognizes almost all the gods, demigods, demons, and supernatural beings of Hindūism.
I propose now to offer some account of the developmentof the Buddhist Pantheon, beginning with the mythical conceptions peculiar to Buddhism, and passing on to those held in common with Hindūism.
And first as to the second Buddhist triad above-named, it may be noted, as a proof of the very gradual growth of Buddhistic mythology, that in the earlier developments of Buddhism the three Bodhi-sattvas constituting that triad have very restricted functions.
When I visited the Buddhist caves at Ellora, I noticed that in the ancient sculptures there, Padma-pāṇi and Vajra-pāṇi (but not Mañju-ṡrī) are represented as attendants of the human Buddha.
Of course it is easy to understand that the duty of guarding the Buddha ultimately expanded into that of watching over and protecting the whole Buddhist world, though it is difficult to determine which of the three mythical Bodhi-sattvas became first celebrated for the effective discharge of this duty, or to which of the three chronological precedence ought to be assigned.
Without taking the order already given, we may begin with Padma-pāṇi as the most popular, and may note that he has a name, Avalokiteṡvara, composed of the two Sanskṛit words avalokita, ‘looking down[96],’ and Īṡvara, ‘lord,’ the latter being the Brāhmanical name for the Supreme God—a name wholly unrecognized by early Buddhism, but assigned by the Hindūs to the three personal gods, Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Ṡiva, especially to the latter.
In the duty of watching over and protecting the whole Buddhist world, Avalokiteṡvara (= Padma-pāṇi), that is, ‘the lord who looks down with pity on all men,’ certainly takes the lead, and his name was in keeping with the reputation for answering prayer which he soon achieved.
In the Lāmism of Tibet, he is, as we shall see hereafter, a kind of divine Pope, existing eternally in the heavens as Vicar of one of the Buddhas of the present age, but delegating his functions to a succession of earthly Popes in whom he is perpetually incarnated and re-incarnated, while at the same time preserving his own personality in his own heaven.
Indeed, the popularity of his worship is one of the chief characteristics of the Mahā-yāna system, and is not confined to Tibet, though he is believed to be the special patron of that country. It is he who during the continuance of the present age of the world presides over the whole cycle of soul-migration. In a word, the temporal welfare of all living beings, and of all who have to wander through the worlds of the gods, men, demons, ghosts, animals, and livers in hell, is especially assigned to him.
People, therefore, pray to him more frequently than to any other Bodhi-sattva, and not only for release from the misery of future re-births, but in all cases of present bodily danger and domestic affliction. Hence he has numerous other names or epithets, such as ‘God of mercy,’ ‘Ocean of pity’ (Karuṇārṇava), ‘Deliverer from fear’ (Abhayaṃ-da), ‘Lord of the world’ (Lokeṡ-vara), ‘World-protector’ (Loka-pāla), ‘Protector of theĀryas’ (Ārya-pāla); and the Chinese traveller Fā-hien says of himself, that he prayed in his heart for the aid of Avalokiteṡvara when in great peril during a storm at sea.
That his worship was very prevalent among Buddhists of the Mahā-yāna School all over India, as well as in Tibet, from the fourth to the seventh century, is attested also by Hiouen Thsang. Both travellers tell us that they frequently met with his images, which were often placed on the tops of mountains. Possibly this fact may account for the name he acquired of the ‘Looking-down lord.’ Or, on the other hand, it is possible that his name may have led to the selection of high situations for his temples and images.
And it may be observed here that although Avalokiteṡvara bears a close resemblance in character to Vishṇu, yet his images often conform to the Brahmā type, and sometimes to that of Ṡiva[97]. He has generally several faces—sometimes even eleven or twelve—and usually four or eight arms. These faces are placed one above the other in the form of a pyramid, in three tiers, and probably indicate that he looks down on all three worlds, namely, the worlds of desire, of true form, and of no form (pp.213,214), from all points of the horizon.
Note, however, that two of his hands are generally folded, as if adoring the Buddha, while his two other hands hold such emblems as the lotus and wheel (especially the lotus). This distinguishes the imagesof the mere Bodhi-sattva Avalokiteṡvara from those of the god Vishṇu, who, although he has four arms, is never represented in an attitude of adoration. Note, too, that the many-headed images of Avalokiteṡvara probably belong to the later phase of the Mahā-yāna, when he was regarded as an emanation or spiritual son of the Dhyāni-Buddha Amitābha, whose head forms the eleventh above his own ten. There are descriptions of earlier idols, which make it probable that Avalokiteṡvara was originally represented in ordinary human shape.
When his worship was introduced into China the name he received was Kwan-she-yin or Kwan-yin (in Japan Kwan-non)—a name denoting (according to Professor Legge) ‘one who looks down on the sounds of the world, and listens to the voices of men.’
We know that each of the chief Hindū gods had his female counterpart or Ṡakti, who is often more worshipped than the male. Similarly the female counterpart of the male Avalokiteṡvara is the form of the god chiefly worshipped in China and Japan[98]. In those countries he is only known in the feminine character of ‘goddess of mercy,’ and in this form is represented with two arms, but oftener with four or more, and even with a thousand eyes.
The connexion of Avalokiteṡvara with Ṡiva, as well as with Vishṇu, is proved by the fact that in some characteristics Kwan-yin corresponds to the Durgāform of Ṡiva’s wife, and in others to the form called Pārvatī, who, as dwelling on mountains, may be supposed to look down with compassion on the world.
As to Vajra-pāṇi (or Vajra-dhara), ‘the thunderbolt-handed,’ this Bodhi-sattva corresponds in some respects to Indra. He is the fiercest and most awe-inspiring of all the Bodhi-sattvas, and was, in time, converted into a kind of Buddhistic form of Ṡiva, resembling that god in his character of controller of the demon-host and destroyer of evil spirits. Hiouen Thsang describes how eight Vajra-pāṇis surrounded the Buddha as an escort, when he journeyed to visit his father Ṡuddhodana. Vajra-pāṇi is of course a popular object of veneration in all Northern Buddhist countries, where a dread of malignant spirits is so prevalent that the waving to and fro of an implement symbolizing a thunderbolt (Vajra, or in Tibetan Dorje) is practised as a method of keeping them at bay and averting their malice.
Nevertheless, Vajra-pāṇi is not so popular as the third Bodhi-sattva, Mañju-ṡrī, ‘he of glorious beauty,’ also called Mañju-ghosha, ‘having a beautiful voice,’ and Vāgīṡvara, ‘lord of speech.’ This Bodhi-sattva, as ‘wisdom personified,’ and as ‘lord of harmony,’ may be regarded as a counterpart of the Brāhmanical Brahmā or Viṡva-Karman, the supposed creator of the universe. Brahmā, however, in his character of chief god, needed no Buddhistic substitute, having been incorporated by name into Buddhism. Mañju-ṡrī, as ‘lord of speech,’ seems also to be a counterpart of Brahmā’s consort Sarasvatī.
According to some, a learned and eloquent Brāhman teacher, named Mañju-ṡrī, introduced Buddhism fromIndia into Nepāl about 250 years after the Nirvāṇa of Buddha, and the mythical Mañju-ṡrī may have been a development of the historical personage. His worship is mentioned by both Fā-hien and Hiouen Thsang[99], and seems to have been very popular.
A personification of Prajñā pāramitā, ‘transcendent wisdom,’ is also named. And indeed it seems natural that so soon as the Buddhists began to personify qualities and invest them with divine attributes, learning should have been among the first selected for deification, as it was by the Hindūs in early times.
Mark, however, that the popular Mañju-ṡrī has no place assigned to him in the Dhyāni-Buddha theory.
This mystical theory was a later development. It may be explained thus:—The term Dhyāna (Jhāna) is a general expression for the four gradations of mystic meditation which have ethereal spaces or worlds corresponding to them (p. 209), and a Dhyāni-Buddha is a Buddha who is supposed to exist as a kind of spiritual essence in these higher regions of abstract thought.
That is to say, every Buddha who appears on earth in a temporary human body—with the object of teaching men how to gain Nirvāṇa—exists also in an ideal counterpart, or ethereal representation of himself, in the formless worlds of meditation (p. 213). These ideal Buddhas are as numerous as the Buddhas, but as there are only five chief human Buddhas in the present age—Kraku-ććhanda, Kanaka-muni, Kāṡyapa, Gautama, andthe future Buddha Maitreya—so there are only five corresponding Dhyāni-Buddhas:—Vairoćana, Akshobhya, Ratna-sambhava, Amitābha, and Amogha-siddha (sometimes represented in images as possessing a third eye). But this is not all; each of these produces by a process of evolution a kind of emanation from himself called a Dhyāni-Bodhi-sattva, to act as the practical head and guardian of the Buddhist community between the interval of the death of each human Buddha and the advent of his successor. Hence there are five Bodhi-sattvas—Samanta-bhadra, Vajra-pāṇi, Ratna-pāṇi, Padma-pāṇi (= Avalokiteṡvara), and Viṡva-pāṇi—corresponding to the five Dhyāni-Buddhas and to the five earthly Buddhas respectively. In Nepāl five corresponding female Ṡaktis or Tārā-devīs are named (seep. 216).
It is remarkable that the Chinese pilgrims from the fifth to the seventh centuries, while often mentioning the Bodhi-sattvas, make no allusion to any of the Dhyāni-Buddhas—whence we may gather that Amitābha, though adopted into Indian Buddhism, was not actually worshipped in India at least as a personal god.
In point of fact, it was only the Buddhism of the North which was not satisfied with the original triad of the Buddha, the Law, and the Monkhood. It, therefore, invented in addition five triads, each consisting of a Dhyāni-Buddha, a Dhyāni-Bodhi-sattva, and an earthly Buddha, though of these triads only one was of importance, namely, that consisting of Amitābha, Avalokiteṡvara, and the human Buddha, Gautama. But the Lalita-vistara does not mention this theory.
It should be observed, too, that an important additionto the Mahā-yāna doctrine was made in certain Northern countries about the tenth century of our era.
A particular sect of Buddhists in Nepāl, calling themselves Aiṡvarikas, propounded a theory of a Supreme Being (Īṡvara), to whom they gave the name of a ‘primordial Buddha’ (Ādi-Buddha), and who was declared to be the source and originator of all things, and the original Evolver of the Dhyāni-Buddhas, or Buddhas of contemplation, while they again were supposed to evolve their corresponding Dhyāni-Bodhi-sattvas.
It is clear, of course, that this addition was a mere adaptation of Buddhism to Brāhmanism, and that the Ādi-Buddha was invented to serve as a counterpart of the One Universal Spirit Brahmă—the one eternally existing spiritual Essence, from which all existing things are mere emanations.
Sometimes, however, this Ādi-Buddha is said to have produced all things through union with Prajñā (mentioned before,p. 202), in which case he is rather to be identified with the personal Creator Brahmā.
Observe, moreover, that even in early times one of the Dhyāni-Buddhas—the one called Amitābha, ‘diffusing infinite light,’—lost his purely abstract character, and was worshipped by Northern Buddhists as a personal God. He is in the present day held by them to be an eternal Being, the ideal of all that is beautiful and good, who receives his worshippers into a heaven called Sukhāvati, ‘paradise of pleasures’ (seep. 183).
But it must also be noted that neither Ādi-Buddha nor Amitābha, when regarded as personal gods, were held to be Creators of the World in the Christian sense.They were merely Supreme rulers outside and above it; for Northern Buddhists agree with Southern in thinking that the world exists of itself, and that its only Creator is the force of its own acts.
We pass on now to consider how far and with what modifications the mythology of Brāhmanism and Hindūism was incorporated into Buddhism.
I have already pointed out that although the Buddha changed the character of much of the existing mythology, he never prohibited his lay-followers from continuing their old forms of worship, or bowing down before the deities honoured by their fathers and grandfathers.
Apart indeed from the shrewd policy of not assuming an attitude of hostility to popular creeds and usages, the tolerant tendency and universality of the Buddha’s teaching obliged him, in common consistency, to recognize, and as far as possible appropriate, the various religious elements existing around him, and to subordinate them to his own purposes.
In fact, according to the theory of true Buddhism, as has been well pointed out by other writers, there was only one system of doctrine and only one Law—that Law (Dharma) which Gautama Buddha came to renovate for the benefit of the world in the present age.
Hence all the apparently conflicting creeds, dogmas, forms, ceremonies, and usages of all nations, tribes, and races, were in reality mere outcomes, or dim recollections, or corruptions, of that one and the same universal Dharma which countless Buddhas had preached to mankind, in countless ages before the time of Gautama, and would continue to preach in ages to come.