In brief, the Buddha’s enlightenment consisted, first, in the discovery of the origin and remedy of suffering, and, next, in the knowledge of the existence of an eternal Force—a force generated by what in Sanskṛit is called Karman, ‘Act.’ The accumulated force of the acts of one Universe produced another.
Every man, therefore, was created by the force of his own acts in former bodies, combined with a force generated by intense attachment to existence (upādāna). Who or what started the first act, the Buddha never pretended to be able to explain. He confessed himself in regard to this point a downright Agnostic. The Buddha himself had been created by his own acts, and had been created and re-created through countless bodily forms; but he had no spirit or soul existing separately between the intervals of each creation. By his protracted meditation he attained to no higher knowledge than this, and although he himself rose to loftier heights of knowledge than any other man of his day, he never aspired to other faculties than were within the reach of any human being capable of rising to the same sublime abstraction of mind.
He was even careful to lay down a precept that the acquisition of transcendent human faculties was restricted to the perfected saints called Arhats; and so important did he consider it to guard such faculties from being claimed by mere impostors, that one of the four prohibitions communicated to all monks on first admission to his monastic Order was that they were not to pretend to such powers (seep. 81).
Nor is there any proof that even Arhats in Gautama’stime were allowed to claimsuperhumanfaculties and the power of working physical miracles.
By degrees, no doubt, powers of this kind were ascribed to them as well as to the Buddha. Even in the Yinaya, one of the oldest portions of the Tri-piṭaka, we find it stated (Mahā-vagga I. 20, 24) that Gautama Buddha gained adherents by performing three thousand five hundred supernatural wonders (Pāli, pāṭi-hāriya; seep. 46). These were thought to be evidences of his mission as a great teacher and saviour of mankind; but the part of the narrative recording these, although very ancient, is probably a legendary addition.
It is interesting, however, to trace in portions of the early literature, the development of the doctrine that Buddhahood meant first transcendent knowledge, and then supernatural faculties and the power of working miracles.
In the Ākaṅkheyya-sutta (said to have been composed in the fourth centuryB.C.) occurs a remarkable passage, translated by Prof. Rhys Davids (S.B.E., p. 214):—
‘If a monk should desire through the destruction of the corrupting influences (āsavas), by himself, and even in this very world, to know and realise and attain to Arhatship, to emancipation of heart, and emancipation of mind, let him devote himself to that quietude of heart which springs from within, let him not drive back the ecstasy of contemplation, let him look through things, let him be much alone.
‘If a monk should desire to hear with clear and heavenly ear, surpassing that of men, sounds both human and celestial, whether far or near; if he shoulddesire to comprehend by his own heart the hearts of other beings and of other men; if he should desire to call to mind his various temporary states in the past, such as one, two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand births, or his births in many an age and æon of destruction and renovation, let him devote himself to that quietude which springs from within.’
Then, in the Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta (I. 33, Rhys Davids) occurs the following;—
‘At that time the blessed One—as instantaneously as a strong man would stretch forth his arm, or draw it back again when he had stretched it forth—vanished from this side of the river, and stood on the further bank with the company of the brethren.’
And, again, the following:—
‘I call to mind, Ānanda, how when I used to enter into an assembly of many hundred nobles, before I had seated myself there, or talked to them, or started a conversation with them, I used to become in colour like unto their colour, and in voice like unto their voice. Then, with religious discourse, I used to instruct, incite, and quicken them, and fill them with gladness. But they knew me not when I spoke, and would say, “Who may this be who thus speaks? a man or a god?” Then, having instructed, incited, quickened, and gladdened them with religious discourse, I would vanish away. But they knew me not even when I vanished away; and would say, “Who may this be who has thus vanished away? a man, or a god?”’—(Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta III. 22, Rhys Davids.)
Such passages in the early literature afford an interesting exemplification of the growth of supernatural and mystical ideas, which led to the ultimate association of the Buddhistic system with Ṡaivism, demonology, magic, and various so-called spiritual phenomena.
I now proceed to show that the development of these ideas in Buddhism resulted from its connexion with the later Yoga, which developed similar ideas.
In the aphorisms of this later Yoga, composed by Patañjali, eight chief requisites are enumerated (II. 29); namely, 1. abstaining from five evil acts (yama); 2. performing five positive duties (niyama); 3. settling the limbs in certain postures (āsana); 4. regulating and suppressing the breath (prāṇāyāma); 5. withdrawing the senses from their objects (pratyāhāra); 6. fixing the thinking faculty (dhāraṇā); 7. internal self-contemplation (dhyāna); 8. trance-like self-concentration (samādhi).
These eight are indispensable requisites for the gaining of Patañjali’ssummum bonum—the complete abstraction or isolation (kaivalya) of the soul or spirit in its own essence—and for the acquirement of supernatural faculties.
Taking now these eight requisites of Yoga in order, we may observe, with regard to the first, that the five evil acts to be avoided correspond to the five commandments in Buddhism, viz. ‘kill not,’ ‘steal not,’ ‘commit no impurity,’ ‘lie not.’ The fifth alone—‘abstain from all worldly enjoyments’—is different, the Buddhist fifth prohibition being ‘drink no strong drink’ (p. 126).
With regard to the second requisite, the five positive duties are—self-purification, both external and internal(both called ṡauća); the practice of contentment (saṃtosha); bodily mortification (tapas); muttering of prayers, or repetition of mystical syllables (svādhyāya, or japa), and contemplation of the Supreme Being.
The various processes of bodily mortification already described (seep. 228) were repudiated by Buddhism.
As to the muttering of prayers, the repetition of mystic syllables such as Om (a symbol for the Triad of gods), or of any favourite deity’s name, is held among Hindūs to be highly efficacious[107]. In a similar manner among Tibetan Buddhists the six-syllabled sentence: ‘Om maṇi padme Hūm’—‘Om! the jewel in the lotus! Hūm!’—is used as a charm against the sixfold course of transmigration (see pp.121,371-373).
Mystical syllables are very common. Sir A. Cunningham gives the following as current in Ladāk:—Bhyo, Rakmo-bhyo! Rakmo-bhyo-bhyo! Ru-lu, Ru-lu, Hūm Bhyo Hūm! (Ladāk, 386.)
Other mystical syllables (such as Sam, Yam, Ram, Lam, etc.) are supposed to contain some occult virtue.
The third requisite—posture—would appear to us a somewhat trivial aid to the union of the human spirit with the divine; but with Hindūs it is an important auxiliary, fraught with great benefit to the Yogī.
The alleged reason is that certain sitting postures (āsana) and cramping of the lower limbs are peculiarly efficacious in producing bodily quietude and preventing restlessness. Some of the postures have curious names, for example:—Padmāsana, ‘the lotus posture;’ ‘vīrāsana,‘the heroic posture;’ siṉhāsana, ‘the lion posture’ (seenote, p. 336); kūrmāsana, ‘tortoise posture;’ kukku-ṭāsana, ‘cock posture;’ dhanur-āsana, ‘bow posture;’ mayūrāsana, ‘peacock posture.’ In the first the legs are folded under the body and the right foot is placed on the left thigh, and the left on the right thigh.
In short, the idea is that compression of the lower limbs, in such a way as to prevent the possibility of the slightest movement, is most important as a preparation for complete abstraction of soul.
Then, as another aid, particular mystical twistings (called mudrā) of the upper limbs—of the arms, hands, and fingers—are enjoined.
Even in Muhammadan countries certain movements of the limbs are practised by devotees with the view of uniting the human spirit with the Divine. Those who have seen the whirling and ‘howling’ dervishes at Cairo can testify that fainting fits result from their violent exertions, inspirations, expirations, and utterances of the name of God, and such fits are believed to be ecstatic states of union with the Deity.
The fourth requisite—regulation and suppression of the breath—is perhaps the one of all the eight which is most difficult for Europeans to understand or appreciate; yet with Hindūs it is all-important. It is sometimes called Haṭha-vidyā. Nor are the ideas connected with it wholly unknown in Europe.
According to Swedenborg[108], thought commences and corresponds with respiration:—
‘When a man thinks quickly his breath vibrates with rapid alternations; when the tempest of anger shakes his mind his breath is tumultuous; when his soul is deep and tranquil, so is his respiration.’ And he adds: ‘It is strange that this correspondence between the states of the brain or mind and the lungs has not been admitted in science.’
The Hindū belief certainly is that deep inspirations of breath assist in concentrating and abstracting the thoughts and preventing external impressions. But, more than this, five sorts of air are supposed to permeate the human body and play an important part in its vitality. They are called Prāṇa, Vyāna, Apāna, Samāna, Udāna. In the Ćhāndogya Upanishad (V. 19, etc.) they are described as if they were divine beings to be adored and to be honoured by offerings of food. The Haṭha-dīpikā says: ‘As long as the air remains in the body, so long life remains. Death is the exit of the breath. Hence the air should be retained in the body.’
In regulating the breath, the air must first be drawn up through one nostril (the other being closed with the finger), retained in the lungs, and then expelled through the other nostril. This exercise must be practised alternately with the right and left nostril. Next, the breath must be drawn forcibly up through both nostrils, and the air imprisoned for as long a time as possible in the lungs. Thence it must be forced by an effort of will towards the internal organs of the body, or made to mount to the centre of the brain.
The Hindūs, however, do not identify the breathwith the soul. They believe that a crevice or suture called the Brahma-randhram at the top of the skull serves as an outlet for the escape of the soul at death. A Hindū Yogī’s skull is sometimes split at death by striking it with a sacred shell. The idea is to facilitate the exit of the soul. It is said that in Tibet the hair is torn out of the top of the head, with the same object.
In the case of a wicked man the soul is supposed to escape through one of the lower openings of the body.
The imprisonment of the breath in the body by taking in more air than is necessary for respiration, is the most important of the breath exercises. It is said that Hindū ascetics, by constant practice, are able by this means to sustain life under water, or to be buried alive for long periods of time. Many alleged feats of suspended animation are of course mere and sheer trickery. It seems, however, open to question, whether it may not be possible for human beings of particular constitutions to practise a kind of hibernation like that of animals, or acquire some power of suspending temporarily the organic functions. A certain Colonel Townsend is said to have succeeded in doing so.
A well-known instance of suspended animation occurred in the Panjāb in 1837. A Hindū Yogī was there, by his own request, buried alive in a vault for forty days in the presence of Runjit Singh and Sir Claude Wade; his eyes, ears, and every orifice of his body having been first stopped with plugs of wax. Dr. McGregor, the then residency surgeon, also watched the case. Every precaution was taken to prevent deception. English officials saw the man buried, aswell as exhumed, and a perpetual guard over the vault was kept night and day by order of Runjit Singh himself. At the end of forty days the disinterment took place. The body was dried up like a stick, and the tongue, which had been turned back into the throat, had become like a piece of horn. Those who exhumed him followed his previously-given directions for the restoration of animation, and the Yogī told them he had only been conscious of a kind of ecstatic bliss in the society of other Yogīs and saints, and was quite ready to be buried over again.
What amount of fraud there may be in these feats it is difficult to say. They may possibly be accounted for by the fact that Indian Yogīs have studied the habits of hibernating animals; but in some cases the secret introduction of food has been detected.
I may add that it is commonly believed throughout India that a man whose body is sublimated by intense abstract meditation never dies, in the sense of undergoing corruption and dissolution. When his supposed death occurs he is held to be in a state of trance, which may last for centuries, and his body is, therefore, not burnt, but buried—generally in a sitting posture—and his tomb is called a Samādh.
With regard to the fifth requisite—the act of withdrawing the senses from their object, as, for example, the eye from visible forms—this is well compared to the act of a tortoise withdrawing its limbs under its shell.
The sixth requisite—fixing the principle of thought—comprises the act of directing the thinking faculty(ćitta) towards various parts of the body, for example, towards the heart, or towards the crown of the head, or concentrating the will-force on the region between the two eyebrows, or even fixing the eyes intently on the tip of the nose. (Compare Bhagavad-gītā VI. 13.)
The seventh and eighth requisites—viz. internal self-contemplation and intense self-concentration—are held (when conjoined with the sixth) to be most important as leading to the acquisition of certain supernatural powers, of which the following are most commonly enumerated:—(1) Animan, ‘the faculty of reducing the body to the size of an atom;’ (2) Mahiman, or Gariman, ‘increasing the size or weight at will;’ (3) Laghiman, ‘making the body light at will;’ (4)Prāpti, ‘reaching or touching any object or spot, however apparently distant;’ (5) Prākāmya, ‘unlimited exercise of will;’ (6) Īṡitva, ‘gaining absolute power over one’s self and others;’ (7) Vaṡitā, ‘bringing the elements into subjection;’ (8) Kāmāvasāyitā, ‘the power of suppressing all desires.’
A Yogī who has acquired these powers can rise aloft to the skies, fly through space, pass through the key-hole of a door, pierce the mysteries of planets and stars, cause storms and earthquakes, understand the language of animals, ascertain what occurs in any part of the world, or of the universe, recollect the events of his own previous lives, prolong his present life, see into the past and future, discern the thoughts of others, assume any form he likes, disappear, reappear, and even enter into another man’s body and make it his own.
Such were some of the extravagant ideas which grew with the growth of the Yoga system, and were incorporated into the later developments of Buddhism.
We learn from Mr. Sarat Chandra Dās that in the monastery of Galdan in Tibet there is at this moment a college specially devoted to the teaching of Esoteric and Mystical Buddhism; while magic and sorcery are taught in the monasteries founded by Padma-sambhava (see pp.272,274,441).
Of course it was only natural that, with the association of Buddhism with the later Yoga and Ṡaivism, the Buddha himself should have become a centre for the growth of supernatural and mystical ideas.
Hence the Buddha is fabled by his followers to have ascended to the Trayastriṉṡa heaven of Indra, walked on water, stepped from one mountain to another, and left impressions of his feet on the solid rock. Although in the Dhamma-pada it is twice declared (254, 255), ‘There is no path through the air.’
Perhaps the climax was reached when the later doctrine made every Buddha possess a threefold existence or three bodies, much in the same way as in Hindūism three bodies are assigned to every being.
The first of the Buddha’s bodies is the Dharma-kāya, ‘body of the Law,’ supposed to be a kind of ethereal essence of a highly sublimated nature and co-extensive with space. This essence was believed to be eternal, and after the Buddha’s death, was represented by the Law or Doctrine (Dharma) he taught. The idea seemsto have been invented as an analogue to Brahman, or the Universal spiritual Essence of Brāhmanism[109].
The second body is the Sambhoga-kāya, ‘body of conscious bliss,’ which is of a less ethereal and more material nature than the last. Its Brāhmanical analogue appears to be the intermediate body (belonging to departed spirits) called Bhoga-deha, which is of an ethereal character, though composed of sufficiently gross (sthūla) material particles to be capable of experiencing happiness or misery.
For observe that it is an essential part of the Hindū doctrine of transmigration or metempsychosis, that a soulwithout a bodyis incapable of feeling either happiness in heaven or pain in hell.
The third body is the Nirmāṇa-kāya, ‘body of visible shapes and transformations,’ that is to say, those various concrete material forms in which every Buddha who exists as an invisible and eternal essence, is manifested on the earth or elsewhere for the propagation of the true doctrine.
The Brāhmanical analogue of this third body appears to be the earthly gross body, called Sthūla-ṡarīra.
It is evident that the extravagances of mystical Buddhism have their counterparts in Brāhmanism.
There is a Brāhmanical legend which relates how the great Brāhman sage Ṡaṅkarāćārya entranced his gross body, and then, having forced out his soul along with his subtle body, entered the dead body of a recently deceased king, which he occupied for several weeks.
The Yoga of the Brāhmans, in fact, held that adepts, skilled in occult science, might throw their gross bodies into a state of unconsciousness, and by a determined effort of will project or force out the ethereal body through the pores of the skin, and make this phantasmal form visible in distant places[110].
And now it is declared to be a fact that a community of Buddhist ‘Brothers’ called Mahātmas, are living at this moment in the deserts of Tibet, who, having emancipated their interior selves from physical bondage by profound abstract meditation, have acquired ‘astral’ bodies (distinct from their gross bodies), with which they are able to rise in the air, or move through space, by the mere exercise of will.
Sir Edwin Arnold on the other hand, in his ‘India Revisited’ (p. 273), states that he asked Ṡrī Weligama of Ceylon whether there existed anywhere Mahātmas, who elevated in this way above humanity, possessed larger powers and more profound insight than any other living philosophers? Weligama answered, ‘No! such do not exist; you would seek them vainly in this island, or in Tibet, or in Siam, or in China. It is true, O my friend, that if we had better interpretations of the Lord Buddha’s teaching, we might reach to heights and depths of power and goodness now quite impossible, but we have fallen from the old wisdom, and none of us to-day are so advanced.’
I believe that the Psychical Research Society once sentdelegates to India who inquired into this subject, and exposed the absurdity of some of the alleged phenomena.
Curiously in agreement with these extravagant notions are the beliefs of various uncivilized races. Dr. Tylor, in his ‘Primitive Culture’ (i. 440), relates how the North American Indians and others believe that their souls quit their bodies during sleep, and go about hunting, dancing, visiting, etc. It is stated by Mr. Finn, late H. M. Consul for North Persia, that he never could induce his Persian servants to awaken him in the morning. They gave as their reason that the soul during sleep wanders away from the body, and that a sleeper will die if awakened before the soul has time to rejoin the body. The Indian tribes in Central Brazil have the same belief, so says Dr. Karl von den Steinen (recently quoted in theTimesnewspaper).
Furthermore it is clear that the possibility of acquiring supernatural faculties is not an idea confined to one country.
Old legends relate how Simon Magus made statues walk; how he flew in the air; how he lept into the fire, made bread of stones, changed his shape, assumed two faces, made the vessels in a house move of themselves (Colonel Yule’s Marco Polo, i. 306).
We are told that the phenomena of European spiritualism are to be kept distinct from those of Asiatic occultism. Modern spiritualism, it is said, requires the intervention of ‘mediums,’ who neither control nor understand the manifestations of which they are the passive instruments; whereas the phenomena of occultism are the ‘achievements of a conscious living operator,’produced on himself by an effort of his own will. According to Mr. Sinnett, the important point ‘which occultism brings out is, that the soul of man, while something enormously subtler and more ethereal and more lasting than the body, is itself a material body. The ether that transmits light is held to be material by any one who holds it to exist at all; but there is a gulf of difference between it and the thinnest of gases.’ In another place he advances an opinion that the spirit is distinct from the soul. It is the soul of the soul.
And again: ‘The body is the prison of the soul for ordinary mortals. We can see merely what comes before its windows; we can take cognisance only of what is brought within its bars. But the adept has found the key of his prison, and can emerge from it at pleasure. It is no longer a prison for him—merely a dwelling. He can project his soul out of his body to any place he pleases with the rapidity of thought[111].’
It is perhaps worth noting that many believers in Asiatic occultism hold that a hitherto unsuspected force exists in nature called Odic force (is this to be connected with Psychic force?), and that it is by this that the levitation of entranced persons is effected.
Others, like the Yogīs, maintain that any one may lighten his body by swallowing large draughts of air, and by an effort of will forcing this air to diffuse itself through every part of the frame. It is alleged that this phenomenon has been actually witnessed.
The connexion, however, of similar phenomena withfeats of conjuring is undeniable. In the Asiatic Monthly Journal (March, 1829), an account is given of a Brāhman who poised himselfapparentlyin the air, about four feet from the ground, for forty minutes, in the presence of the Governor of Madras. Another juggler sat on three sticks put together to form a tripod. These were removed, one by one, and the man remained sitting in the air[112].
Long ago Friar Ricold related that ‘a man from India was said to fly. The truth was that he did walk close to the surface of the ground without touching it, and would seem to sit down without any substance to support him’ (Colonel Yule’s Marco Polo, i. 307).
On the other hand, it is contended, that ‘since we have attained, in the last half-century, the theory of evolution, the antiquity of man, the far greater antiquity of the world itself, the correlation of physical forces, the conservation of energy, spectrum analysis, photography, the locomotive engine, electric telegraph, spectroscope, electric light, and the telephone (to which we may now add the phonograph), who shall dare to fix a limit to the capacity of man[113]?’ Few will deny altogether the truth of such a contention, however much they may dissent from Colonel Olcott’s theosophical views.
There may be, of course, latent faculties in humanity which are at present quite unsuspected, and yet are capable of development in the future.
According to Sir James Paget, in his recent address on ‘Scientific Study,’ many things, now held to be inconceivable and past man’s imagination, are profoundly and assuredly true, and it will be in the power of Science to prove them to be so[114].
Most persons will assent to these propositions, and at the same time agree with me when I express my conviction that mystical Buddhism and Asiatic occultism are no more likely than modern European spiritualism, to bear the searching light of true scientific investigation.
Nevertheless the subject of mystical Buddhism ought not to be brushed aside as unworthy of consideration. It furnishes, in my opinion, a highly interesting topic of inquiry, especially in its bearing on the ‘neo-Buddhism,’ and ‘Theosophy’ of the present day. At all events it is clear from what we have advanced in the present Lecture, that the practices connected with spiritualism, mesmerism, animal magnetism, telepathy, clairvoyance, thought-reading[115], etc., have their counterparts in the Yoga system prevalent in India more than 2,000 years ago, and in the practices of mystical Buddhism prevalent in Tibet and the adjacent countries for many centuries.
‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’
Early Buddhism was, as we have seen, opposed to all ecclesiastical organization. It had no hierarchy in the proper sense of that term—no church, no priests, no true form of prayer, no religious rites, no ceremonial observances. It was simply a Brotherhood consisting of men who had renounced all family ties, all worldly desires—even all desire for life—and were pledged to devote themselves to meditation, recitation of the Law, self-restraint, and the accumulation of merit, not for the sake of saving others, but for their own deliverance.
It was on this account that when the Buddha died he abstained from appointing a successor, and gave no directions to his followers as to any particular form of government. All that he said was, ‘Hold fast to the Law; look not to any one but yourselves as a refuge.’ In short, the Society (Saṅgha) he left behind was a simple brotherhood of monks which claimed some kind of corporate authority for the enforcement of discipline, but had no Head except the Law. Nor did Buddhism for a long time think of contravening the last injunctions of its Founder. Nor has it ever attempted to establish a universal hierarchy under one Head and under one central authority, and although the greatKāṡyapa as president of the first Council (p. 55) is sometimes held to have been the first successor of Buddha, and Ānanda the second (p. 56), these men never claimed any supremacy like that of Popes. In point of fact Buddhism simply organized itself in separate monastic institutions according to local ideas and necessities. And indeed the exigencies of healthy growth, and even the simple instinct of self-preservation compelled the scattered members of the Buddhist Brotherhood to attempt some such organization very soon after the death of their Founder. In ancient times communication was carried on with difficulty, and the Buddhist Brotherhood could only hold together by combining for mutual support in various centres, and adopting some sort of monastic government.
It was thus that every collection of monks naturally tended to crystallize into a distinct organized society with certain definite rules.
Naturally, the earliest constitution of each was moulded according to the family pattern. The living Head of every monastery was a kind of spiritual father, while its inmates were his children, and these, again, resolved themselves into two classes: the first consisting of the more youthful members of the society; the second, of those whose more mature experience entitled them to greater respect and reverence. Then, again, some kind of pre-eminence was assigned to individuals who were remarkable for greater knowledge, or sanctity of character.
It is easy to understand, therefore, how it happened that the Saṅgha or collective community of monks wascompelled in the end to establish several gradations of rank and position among its members.
The following were soon recognized:—1. The Ṡrāmaṇera or ‘novice’ (who began by being a Ćhela or ‘pupil’ under education); 2. The Ṡramaṇa (also called Bhikshu) or full monk; 3. The Sthavira or ‘elder,’ who was merely superior to others in virtue of his age; 4. The Mahā-sthavira or ‘great elder’ (sometimes called Sthaviraḥ Sthavirāṇām); 5. The Upādhyāya and Āćārya. These last were teachers of different kinds, who received honour in virtue of their knowledge; the two positions of elder and teacher being frequently united in the President of particular monasteries.
No doubt gradations of this kind existed in very early times in India, Ceylon, and Burma. But in India the whole Buddhistic Order of monks passed away.
In Ceylon and Burma, on the contrary, Buddhism has held its own. It may even now be found in a purer form in those countries and in Siam than in any other region of Eastern Asia, although it must be borne in mind that, when it was introduced there, it was grafted on serpent-worship, Nāga-worship[116], demon-worship, and Nath-worship[117], with all of which, as well as with the worship of numerous Hindū gods, it continues to be adulterated in the present day.
The Sinhalese (Koeppen, i. 207, 386) give a list of the first five successive enforcers of discipline (viz.Upāli, Dāsaka, Sonaka, Siggava, and Moggali-putta), and another list of ten successive Sthaviras or elders, beginning with Sāri-putta. These lists are untrustworthy, especially as omitting the great Kāṡyapa.
And I may here state that the condition of Buddhism in Ceylon is a subject which I have had an opportunity of investigating personally. I visited Ceylon in 1877, and had many interesting conversations with intelligent monks, heads of monasteries, and a few really learned men, including a leading monk named Sumaṅgala, who described himself to me as ‘High Priest of Adam’s Peak[118].’
I found, too, that a lofty idea prevails in Ceylon in regard to the status of the monkhood. Theoretically, a true monk is regarded as a kind of inferior Buddha, and revered accordingly. There are boy-pupils, novices, and full monks, as in Burma (seep. 259). The admission-ceremonies resemble those before described (p. 77). Admission confers no priestly powers. Those monks who are Anglicized by contact with our civilization call themselves ‘priests,’ but they are not real priests, and have no sacerdotal functions except teaching, intoning the Law, and preaching. They live as celibates and cœnobites in Pān-sālās (‘houses made of leaves,’p. 430), or monastic buildings of the simplest structure.
The number of such monks is said to be about 8,000, and their chief duties are supposed to be to meditate a great deal, to perform Baṇa, that is, to recite theTri-piṭaka with its commentary the Aṭṭha-kathā in a sing-song voice, to repeat constantly the three-refuge formula (p. 78)[119], to teach and to preach, to fast and to make confession to each other on at least four days in every month, at the four changes of the moon called Uposatha (or commonly Poya) days (seep. 84); these days being generally in modern times made to coincide with the Christian Sunday.
True Buddhism does not require monks to perform public religious services in temples. Nor is it the daily practice of monks to set the people an example of worshipping and presenting offerings there. So far as I was able to observe, the duty of visiting temples belongs rather to the laity. The monks receive offerings, rather than present them. As to their dress, it resembles that represented in the Buddha’s images, and ought to consist of three pieces of cloth stained yellow or of a dull yellowish colour. The principal garment is in one piece, but torn and sewn together again, the object being to reduce its value and assimilate it to a dress made of rags. The end of the dress is brought over the left shoulder, and generally so as to leave the right shoulder bare. In some cases both shoulders are covered, or the right partially so.
A good deal of care seems to be taken in Ceylon to instruct the youthful members of the Order in Pāli;that is, in the language of their sacred books (p. 60), and to make them conversant with the sacred texts.
I visited two principal colleges for monks at Kandy, which enjoy a reputation rather like that of Oxford and Cambridge in our own country. One is called Mālwatte, and the other Āsgīrīya. In the former I noticed a large central hall, in which the ceremony of admission to the monkhood takes place.
At Colombo there has been recently a revival of learning, and a modern Oriental College (called Vidyodaya), for the cultivation of Sanskṛit, Pāli, and Sinhalese, has been established under the superintendence of the learned Sumaṅgala, ‘the High Priest of Adam’s Peak,’ mentioned before.
Each monastery in Ceylon has a presiding Head, and generally a temple and library attached, with considerable property in land, but there is clearly no organized hierarchy in the proper sense of the term, and no supreme authority like that of an Archbishop; though it is said that the Heads of the two Kandy Colleges exercise a kind of control over the after-career of the monks they have trained. I found that a certain amount of intelligence and learning exists among the monks both at Colombo and Kandy, but it must be evident to every impartial observer that the habit of living in houses apart from the laity, of repeating the Law by rote, and of engaging in a kind of meditation which generally amounts to thinking about nothing in particular, must tend, in the majority of instances, to contract the mind, induce laziness, and give a vacant and listless expression to the countenance. It maybe safely affirmed that the chief religious aim of the Buddhists of Ceylon is to acquire merit with a view to ‘better’ themselves in future states of existence, and that their highest aspiration is to attain to the heaven of Indra (Ṡakra,p. 207). They have no real desire for Nirvāṇa (p. 141), and still less for Pari-nirvāṇa (p. 142).
Passing on to Burma we may remark that although in Burma, as in Ceylon, a pure form of Buddhism has prevailed ever since its introduction by Buddha-ghosha (p. 65), and is still existent, yet we find that the purer system is mixed up, as in Ceylon, with the worship of Nāgas, demons, spirit-gods called Naths (commonly spelt Nats,p. 217), and with a kind of Shamanism derived from the surrounding hill-tribes.
In regard to the gradations of the monkhood a more complete organization exists in Burma than in Ceylon.
To begin with the boy-pupils:—In Burma nearly all boys become inmates of monastic houses (called Kyoung) with the one object of learning to read and write. They are simply school-boys and nothing more. Indeed, until our advent, the monasteries monopolized the education of the country, and to a great extent do so still. The real gradations are as follow:—
1. The Sheṅ or Shiṅ, that is Ṡrāmaṇeras or novices. These are properly youths of at least fifteen years of age (but seep. 307); their hair is cut off and yellow garments are put on for a time.
It should be noted that every male throughout Burma is required to enter a monastery and become a novice for a portion of his life, if only for a single Vassa. This is because the Buddha taught that every true Buddhistought to conform to his example and become a monk, although he wisely abstained from imposing any irrevocable vows. The whole process is often merely formal, and sometimes only lasts for seven days.
2. The Pyit-seṅ or Pyit-siṅ (sometimes pronounced Patzin) or full monks, who have the title Pungī or Phungī (sometimes spelt Phungee or Phongie), ‘full of great glory,’ when they have been at least ten years members of the order. They correspond to the Ṡramaṇas, and are by Europeans called Talapoins (from their carrying fans of palm leaves). Their dress usually consists of three pieces of yellow cotton cloth.
3. The Hsayā (always a Phungī) or Head of a separate monastery, who corresponds to the Abbot of European countries.
4. The Gaiṇ-ok or provincial Head, who has a kind of episcopal jurisdiction over all the monasteries of a district.
5. The Thāthanā-paing (Thāthanā = Sanskṛit Ṡāsanā) or supreme rulers, who correspond to Archbishops. They superintend all religious affairs. According to Mr. Scott, there are now eight of them.
Occasionally instances occur of hermit-monks who lead solitary lives, and sit motionless in meditation for years.
In Siam the gradations of monkhood are nearly similar to those in Burma, and we learn from Mr. Alabaster that the monastic vow is not binding for life, but can be cancelled at any time. This rule leads to every Siamese man spending at least three months of his life in a monastery.
We have now to pass from Ceylon, Burma, and Siam to Tibet (properly called Bod or Bot or Bhot, Sanskṛit Bhoṭa). And here we leave the simpler forms of Buddhism and are brought face to face with that highly developed system which, though nominally resulting from an expansion of the Hīna-yāna, ‘Little Method,’ into the Mahā-yāna, ‘Great Method’ (p. 158), was really the product of a still further expansion of the ‘Great Method’ and its combination with other creeds.
In truth, Tibetan Buddhism is so different from every other Buddhistic system that it ought to be treated of separately in a separate volume, as Koeppen has done. In his elaborate and excellent work on this subject he has remarked that for the development of a hierarchy no circumstance is more favourable than isolation, and that this advantage was offered in the highest degree by Tibet. Up to the moment of its conversion to Buddhism a profound darkness had rested on it. The inhabitants were ignorant and uncultivated, and their indigenous religion, sometimes called Bon, consisted chiefly of magic based on a kind of Shamanism.
To describe exactly what Shamanism is would be no easy task. The word is said to be of Tungusic origin[120], and to be used as a name for the earliest religion of Mongolia, Siberia, and other Northern countries.
Perhaps we shall not be far wrong in asserting that the two principal constituents of Shamanism are the worship of nature and the dread of spirits.
The inhabitants of Tibet and Mongolia and indeed of other Northern countries believed that spirits, good and bad, influenced the whole course of nature. They held that such spirits were able either to cause or to avert diseases and disasters, to control the destinies of men, and even to decide the fate of the lower animals. Hence it is easy to understand that the chief function of the Shamans, or wizard-priests, was to exorcise evil demons, or to propitiate them by sacrifices and various magical practices. In this way they pretended to prevent storms, pestilences, and other calamities. They were supposed, too, to understand omens and to predict the future by watching the flights of birds, by examining the shoulder-blades of sheep, and by similar devices. Shamanism, in fact, with its Tibetan offshoot, Bon, had much in common with the lowest types of Ṡaivism, Ṡāktism, and Tāntrism, with which the Buddhism of Northern India, Nepāl, and the countries bordering on Tibet, had already become adulterated.
When, therefore, this mixed form of Buddhism advanced from those countries into Tibet, its approach was not resisted as an intrusion. On the contrary, Tibetan Shamanism, although it had possession of the field, was quite ready to meet the new religion halfway. The result was an alliance, or rather perhaps an amalgamation; and this led to the establishment of a complex religious system which I have ventured to call Lāmism[121].