[14]The posture assumed by Buddha at this last stage of his life has supplied the subject of an artistic composition to the Southern Buddhist sculptors. A statue representing Phra in that reclining position is to be seen in almost every pagoda. Some of these statues are made on truly gigantic proportions. I have measured one that was forty-five feet long. If we take such rough works as exhibiting the amount of skill possessed by natives in the art of carving, we must confess that that art is with them yet in its infancy. The huge idols I have met with are never made of wood or hewed stones, but are built up with bricks. The artist, having made in this way the principal parts of the statue, covers the whole with a thick coat of mortar, the softness of which enables him without much labour to put the finishing hand to his work. These statues are invariably made after a certain pattern belonging to the antiquity, and to an epoch when the art was yet in its very infancy: they are, in an artistic point of view, the worst, rudest, and coarsest attempts at statuary I have ever seen. Gold is, however, profusely lavished on those shapeless and formless works. The big idol above referred to was covered with gold, that is to say, gilt from head to feet.Idols of smaller dimensions, those in particular representing Buddha sitting in a cross-legged position, in the attitude of meditation, are likewise wretched specimens of art. A great many are made of a soft stone, almost white, resembling marble in appearance, and capable of receiving a most perfect polish. About three miles west of the old and ruined city of Tsagain is a place where the manufacturing of marble idols is carried on to a great extent. The stone used by the carvers is brought from a place north of Amerapoora, where it is abundant. It is soft, transparent, white, and sometimes, when polished, exhibits a slightly bluish appearance. The instruments used by the artists are simple and few. Were it not for the custom which obliges them to follow always the same patterns, the Burmese workmen would much improve in that branch of the fine arts.[15]If Buddha ever deserved the surname of sage, it was assuredly on this occasion that he entitled himself to such an honourable distinction. All nature reversed its course on his account: wonders of the most extraordinary character loudly proclaimed his supereminent excellencies: the most exalted beings united their voices in extolling his transcendent merits, and showing their unbounded respect for his person; all that could dazzle the eye, please the ear, and flatter the heart, was displayed on an unparalleled scale to do honour to him who was about to leave this terrestrial abode. Buddha, however, solemnly declares, and unhesitatingly says to Ananda, that such a display is infinitely below his merits and perfections, and can bear no comparison with his fathomless wisdom and boundless knowledge of truth. Such things, in his opinion, are mere externals, quite destitute of substantial worth; they confer no real honour to him. They, adds he, who truly do honour to me are those who practise all that is enjoined by the most excellent law; nothing short of the observance of the law can please me; the practice of the virtues leading to perfection alone give the right to be called my disciple. My religion can rest firmly only on such solid foundation.These expressions make every reader understand that, in Buddha’s opinion, religion is not a mere theory, teaching fine moral precepts, destined to excite a vain admiration in the mind, or elicit useless applauses; but it is a moral and practical system, making man acquainted with the duties he has to perform in order to shun vice and practise virtue. Nothing can be more explicit and positive than the notions he entertains of religion. They are worthy of the founder of a religious system now believed and admitted, with more or less considerable variety, by nearly one-fourth, or at least one-fifth, of the great human family. It must be admitted that the high religious sense entertained by Buddha, and communicated in all its purity to his immediate disciples, has almost vanished away in all Buddhist countries. With the people religion consists in certain exterior observances, such as giving alms to the Talapoins, building pagodas, and making offerings during the three months especially consecrated to religious duties. The influence of religious teachers, owing to ignorance and want of zeal, may be thought by many to be almost null, and scarcely felt by the masses of nominal Buddhists. Two causes, however, seem to be the generators and supporters of the religious sentiment that influences the people,—education, and the political institutions. The male portion of the community is brought up in the monasteries by the Phongyies. All the books that are put into their hands, and most of those that they subsequently read, are treatises on religious subjects. This system keeps up, in a wonderful manner, the knowledge of religion, which exercises a great control over the actions of individuals, and regulates their conduct. But, besides, the religious element almost predominates in the body of the civil laws; it acts indirectly upon the people, and must be allowed a great share of influence in all that regards their morals. It is, therefore, to political institutions that Buddhism owes much for the continuation of its existence in these regions. Were it deprived of such a powerful support, there is every reason to believe that it could not perhaps long retain its hold over the masses, when regularly and extensively attacked by the followers of another system. But the first cause is by far the weightier and the more influential.[16]In the first edition of this work the writer had made an error in supposing Oupalawana to have been a male religious. Another palm-leaf manuscript that he has consulted leaves no doubt about her real character. She was, among the female body of religious, the disciple of the left; and Kema, who had been for many years the first wife of King Pimpathara, was the disciple of the right. Oupalawana belonged to a distinguished family of Kapilawot. The female portion of the Thanga or assembly was constituted after the mode of the Rahans. Thariputra and Maukalan were respectively the disciples of the right and of the left. One of the duties of the Rahaness of the left was to fan Buddha on certain occasions, and render to him such services as were compatible with her sex. The order of nuns in Burmah in our days has fallen very low. Instead of the yellow colour, they have adopted the white one for their dress, which, in other respects, resembles that of the Phongyies. Their head is shaved. They are to be seen in the neighbourhood of pagodas, and in the streets, going about to beg the food required for their maintenance. The only large convent of those nuns which I have ever met is one on the right bank of the Irrawaddy, about five miles north of Tsagain. It contains about forty or fifty inmates. Some of them belong to good families, and reside in the house for a few years, after which they return into their home. That house is under the special protection of the king, who supplies the nuns with all the necessaries of life. In the valley of Tavoy a small convent also has been pointed out to the writer. It was situated on a beautiful spot, west of the river. When he went to see it, he was surprised to meet with two or three old women, habited in the canonical dress, who appeared to be wretchedly poor and slovenly in their habits. The house was in every respect in keeping with the exterior appearance of the tenants. The nuns do absolutely no work, except in certain localities where they try to do away with a portion of their time in clearing the weeds which grow so luxuriantly in the enclosure of some famous pagoda. They have no schools to teach girls the rudiments of reading and writing. They are on this head greatly behind the Buddhist monks, who have assumed to themselves the great and important task of teaching boys in the towns and villages.[17]The founder of Buddhism shows himself on this particular subject a consummate moralist. He who could have spoken as he did on this truly delicate point must have been deeply versed in the knowledge of human nature, and thoroughly acquainted with its frailties and weaknesses. Buddha desired to maintain the members of the assembly in a state of spotless purity. To attain that desirable object he raised the strongest barrier against the wildest passion of the heart. No virtue, in his opinion, can withstand the incessant assaults directed against it by daily and familiar intercourse with persons of another sex. He would have, if possible, the inmate of a cell in a monastery out of the reach of temptation itself; he knows that the best tactics against such an enemy do not consist in boldly meeting the adversary, but rather in carefully avoiding encounter with him, manœuvring in such a way as to keep far from him. Hence idle conversations with female visitors are not only forbidden in a most positive manner, but the very sight of women is to be, if possible, avoided. When duty shall oblige a recluse to come face to face with the enemy, it is his bounden obligation to keep at as great a distance from female visitors as practicable. The subject of the conversation ought to be of a purely religious character; some portions of the law may be expounded, doubts of conscience may be proposed, and a solution given to them, &c. On such occasions the spiritual adviser is never to be left alone, but he must be surrounded by some of his brethren or disciples, at all times very numerous in the monasteries.It is not without interest to place one’s self in the centre of the Buddhistic system, and examine therefrom the motives that have induced Buddha to enjoin celibacy on all the members of the assembly, and enforce it with the utmost rigour by all the means that the profoundest moralist could devise.The philosophy of Buddhism has for its primary object to lead man into the way of freeing himself from the influence produced upon the soul by exterior objects, through the medium or channel of the senses. That influence sets in motion the various passions which darken the intellect and trouble the heart, opposing an insuperable barrier to the acquirement and intuition of truth, and to the progress towards the state of quiescence, so ardently coveted and longed for by every true Buddhist. No one is ripe for the state of Neibban as long as he retains affection for things without self. The last and greatest effort of wisdom is the emancipation of self from every possible influence created and produced by objects or things distinct from self. Concupiscence, as the meaning of the word implies, is that disposition of the soul to search after, long for, and cleave to things placed without self. Such a disposition is diametrically opposed to the perfect independence aimed at by a perfect Buddhist, and leads to results the very reverse of those to be arrived at; it retains man in the vortex of never-ending existences, and precludes him from the possibility of ever reaching the state of Neibban. Concupiscence, taken in a more restricted and limited meaning, signifying the propensity to the indulgence of sensual pleasures by the union of sexes, must ever prove the greatest obstacle in the way leading to perfection, inasmuch as it fosters in men the strongest affection to external objects.Buddha is great, in his own opinion, because he has conquered all passions, not by curbing them under the yoke of reason, but by rooting them out of his very being. When he wished to become an ascetic, he practised at first self-renouncing, not merely by giving up riches, palaces, dignities and honours, but chiefly and principally by denying to himself and for ever the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. A firm and unshaken resolution of parting for ever with his wife and concubines, and living in a perpetual celibacy, was considered as a preliminary and essential step for entering upon the course of life of a sincere searcher after truth and perfection. During the six years he spent in solitude, he laboured with unremitting zeal for securing to the spiritual principle an undisputed control over the material one, by stifling the vehemence and ardour of his passions. His austerities and mortifications during that long period had no other object than that of first weakening and then finally destroying passions, and in particular concupiscence. When he is praised in the writings, he is much extolled for having come out from the net of passions. His victory over concupiscence is repeatedly alluded to as the greatest of all achievements. The master, therefore, having laid such stress on this favourite and important maxim, could not but preach and enjoin it on all his future imitators and disciples. The earliest records of Buddhism bear testimony to the paramount importance attached to the practice of chastity. It has ever been considered as an essential requirement in all those that have desired to follow the footsteps of Buddha and imitate his mode of life. No qualification, ever so great and shining, could be admitted as a substitute for chastity. Science, talent, zeal, and fervour could never entitle an individual to the distinction of member of the assembly of the perfect without having previously given up the gratification of sensual pleasures. Independently of what is found written on this subject in the Wini, or book of discipline, the opinion of the Buddhist public is on this subject positive, universal, and absolute. He who leaves the condition of layman to become a religious must live in a state of perfect continence. An infraction of the regulations on this point is looked upon with horror and indignation by the people at large. The guilty individual is inexorably expelled from the religious house, after having been previously stripped of his religious dress and subjected to a humiliating degradation in the presence of the assembled members of the community. Nothing short of such a severe treatment could satisfy a public so deeply hurt and offended in their religious feelings. How is it that the practice of perfect continence is not merely a desideratum in an individual consecrated to religion, but an absolutely required qualification, which can never be equivalently supplied by any other moral or scientific attainment? How is it that such a notion is universally adhered to by nations noted for the undoubted laxity of their morals? Can a notion so generally believed and so tenaciously retained, in spite of its direct opposition to the wildest and the dearest passion of the heart, be ever called a prejudice? Is it possible to trace its connection with some of the noblest feelings of our nature and the most refined ideas of our mind? To a superficial and biassed observer, many things appear contradictory and irreconcilable, which a serious, acute, and dispassionate inquirer after truth readily comprehends, easily connects and accounts for, and satisfactorily reconciles one with the other.[18]It is curious to investigate the origin and the real nature of the worship and honour paid by Buddhists to Gaudama, to his relics, to his statues, as well as to monuments erected for enshrining and sheltering those objects of devotion. The attempt at elucidating this point is beset with difficulties. The more we attentively reflect on the inward operations of the soul in all that relates to religion, the more we find ourselves puzzled and hesitating in qualifying and selecting the appellation most befitting them.All the simple terms of our language intended to express the several sorts of acts of worship and adoration paid to objects partaking of a religious nature, are inadequate to represent to us, by sounds, the nature of the inward workings of the soul when she carries on a pious intercourse with the object of her devotion. The terms that are used merely express to us the exterior acts of worship, as manifested by peculiar attitudes of the body (which vary according to the habits and customs of various nations), or singing, making offerings, and other visible signs. They may be, in fact they are, used with equal fitness all over the world by the worshippers of the true God as well as by the adorers of idols. The difference between the true and false worship does not consist, therefore, in the externals, nor in the ceremonies or exterior signs that make impression on the ear and the eye, but it is to be found in reality in the objects that the adorers have in view. Here lies the essential difference between the true and false worship.This being premised, we have naturally to ask: What is Gaudama, the great and principal object of worship to all Buddhists? Gaudama, in their opinion, is a mere man, that has attained, by the practice of virtue, and principally by his almost infinite science, the highest point of perfection a being can ever reach. The first qualification entitles him to the unbounded admiration of his followers; it inspires them with expressions the best calculated to eulogise him, and represent him as the first and greatest of all beings. Again, Gaudama is represented to them full of benevolence and compassion for all beings, whom he earnestly wishes to deliver from their miseries, and help to obtain that state in which they come for ever to a perfect rest from all transmigrations, or to what they emphatically call the deliverance. The second qualification is much insisted upon by Buddhists, and from it originate those feelings of love and tender affection for him who has laboured so much for enlightening all beings, and showing to them the way that leads to the deliverance. Buddhists on this subject are very eloquent. The writer has often admired many fine thoughts and truly beautiful expressions he has met in some writings devoted to the praises of Buddha.It may be asked whether the followers of Gaudama in the worship they pay the author of their religion expect any aid or assistance from him. The answer is an easy one. Gaudama to them is no more. His interference with the affairs of this world or of his religion absolutely ceased with his existence. He sees no one; he hears no prayer; he can afford no help neither here on earth nor in any other state of existence. In fact, to the Buddhists there is no Providence, and, consequently, there can be no real prayer, none of the feelings that constitute its essence. All the worship of Gaudama may be summed up in a few words: he is admired as the greatest, wisest, and most benevolent of all beings; he is praised, eulogised as much as language can express; he is the object of a tender affection for the good that he has done. No idea whatever of a supreme being is to be met in the genuine worship paid to Gaudama by his most enthusiastic adherents. It cannot be denied that, in practice, Buddhists of these parts betray often without perceiving it that they have some vague idea about a supreme being, who has a controlling power in the affairs of this world and the destiny of man. But such an idea does not come from their religious creed; it is the offspring of that innate sentiment adherent in our nature, as is maintained by some philosophers: or it is a remnant of a primitive tradition, which error has never been able entirely to obliterate, as asserted by others.The worship paid to Buddha does not extend further than it has been above stated, since it is always placed on a footing of equality with the one due to the law and to the assembly. These threeprecious thingsare always enumerated together; no distinction is made between them; they are equally entitled to the veneration of all believers.Let us come now to the veneration offered to the statues and relics of Gaudama, and to the religious monuments called dzedis. In the foregoing pages we have seen Buddha giving to two brothers who had requested him to supply them with some object of worship eight hairs of his head. After his death and the combustion of his body, the remaining bones, or parts of bones, even the very ashes and charcoals, were piously coveted, with an eagerness that indicated the high value people set on these articles. According to several Buddhist authors, Gaudama, previous to his death, intimated to his disciples that his religion was to last five thousand years; that, as he would be no longer among his believers in a visible manner, he wished that they would keep up his statues as his representatives, and pay to them the same honour they would pay to his own person. Relying upon this positive injunction, the Buddhist looks on the statues of Buddha as objects destined to remind him of Buddha: they are the visible mementoes of him who is infinitely dear to his affections; they put him, by their variety of shapes and form, in remembrance of the principal events connected with his existence. The princes that have been most remarkable for their religious zeal and piety, such as Adzatathat and Athoka, were anxious to multiply the statues of Buddha and the religious monuments, to nourish in the soul of all the faithful, as says our Burmese author, a feeling of tender affection, of lovely disposition for the person of Buddha and his holy religion. The relics being articles that have been most intimately connected with Buddha’s person, are designed to act on the religious feelings of the people even more powerfully than the statues. They are treasured up with the greatest care, worshipped with the profoundest respect, looked upon with a most affectionate regard. No earthly treasure can be compared with them. As Buddha’s sacred person is more valuable in their eyes than the whole world, his relics partake of that invaluable estimation. It becomes evident that the statues and relics are so much valued, esteemed, and worshipped because of the intimate connection they have with the person of Buddha, and the great help they afford in keeping alive a religious spirit and a tender affection for him.In the worship of statues and relics, superstition has had its share too in giving an undue extension and development to the religioussentiment. This development has brought into existence the belief in prodigies and miracles wrought by the virtue of the relics. This popular error has always found a powerful support among the ignorant masses; it has been much propagated by that inordinate and irrational tendency towards all that is new and extraordinary. Man wants but a pretext, even a very futile one, to give credit to the most incredible occurrences, when they have a reference to a deeply cherished, and, as it were, favourite object. But in no way do we find genuine Buddhism countenancing such spiritual eccentricities or extravagances, which have their origin in ignorance and an inordinate fondness for the marvellous.The articles of worship offered to or placed before the statues of Buddha, and the shrines supposed to contain some of his relics, are few and remarkable for their simplicity. They consist in flowers arranged in fine bouquets, in flags and streamers made of cloth, sometimes of paper, and cut into a great variety of figures, with considerable taste and skill. There are to be seen also small wax candles, little earthen lamps, and sometimes incense and scented wood, which are consumed in large burners, placed on pedestals made of masonry. The worshippers are generally in a squatting position, the back resting on the heels, the body slightly bending forward, the joined hands raised to the forehead. Ordinarily a string of flowers, or little bits of wood adorned each with a small paper flag, are held on these occasions. On the days of worship, particularly during the three months of Lent, the crowd of people of every age, sex, and condition, resorting to the most venerated pagoda of the place, is truly extraordinary. Men and women of a certain age have in their hands a string of beads, upon which they repeat the formula Aneitsa, Duka, Anatta, or some other.Since the Buddhist knows that his Buddha is no more, and, therefore, can afford him no assistance whatever, that there is no virtue inherent in his relics or images, in fact, that there is no Providence, it is difficult to account for the zeal that he often displays in honouring the great founder of his religion, and all that has a reference to him. To account satisfactorily for such a moral phenomenon, we must bear in mind the belief that he has in the intrinsic worth of the devotional practices he performs. Those works are goodper se; they give rise, power, and energy to the law of merits, or to the good influence which will procure to him abundant rewards in future existences, and gradually lead him to the harbour of deliverance, the object of his most ardent wishes. That hope is, as it were, the great feeder of his devotion.[19]On a former occasion, Buddha had raised his voice to bestow praises on the memory of the great Thariputra, whose relics he was holding on the palm of one of his hands in the presence of the assembled Rahans. Now, a short time before he yields up the ghost, he summons all his strength, and at great length passes the highest encomium on his amiable and ever-devoted attendant, the truly kind-hearted Ananda. These are the only two instances mentioned in this compilation, when Buddha has condescended to eulogise the great virtues and eminent merits of two disciples. In Thariputra, Buddha extolled the transcendent mental attainments, the heroic achievements in the practice of virtue, the fervour and zeal for the propagation of religion, which had ever distinguished the illustrious friend of Maukalan. In Ananda, the searching and keen eye of Buddha discovered excellencies of a less shining and bright hue, but, in point of sterling worth, second to none. Ananda is a matchless pattern of gentleness, amiability, devotedness, and placid religious zeal. He loves all his brethren, and he is, in return, beloved by them all. His superior goodness of heart and placidity of temper secure to him an almost undisputed precedence over the other members of the assembly. Tearing the veil that conceals futurity from our eager regards, Buddha foretells the future conquests to be made by the mild and persuasive eloquence of his ever dearly beloved disciple. The far-spread fame of Ananda shall in days to come attract crowds of visitors, eager to see and hear him. The sight of his graceful and lovely appearance shall rivet to his person the attention and affection of all. Enraptured at the flow of this tender, touching, and heart-moving eloquence, visitors shall eagerly listen to him; they will experience sadness only when his silence shall deprive them of that food which their mind and heart were feasting on.The eulogium of Ananda by Buddha is unquestionably one of the finest passages of the legend. Divested of its original beauties by having passed through several translations, it retains, however, something that charms and pleases. The reader is involuntarily reminded of similar specimens found here and there in the earliest records of antiquity.In the instructions that Ananda is to give to laymen, it is somewhat curious to see Buddha distinctly stating that Ananda will exhort the people to make offerings both to Rahans and to pounhas; that is to say, to the members of the assembly, and to the Brahmins. From this passage, it becomes evident that, in the days of our Buddha, the two sects that were subsequently to struggle during many ages for superiority over the Indian Peninsula, subsisted free from inimical feelings towards each other. It might be said that no line of separation kept them apart, indicating or pointing out their respective limits. The wide gap that was during succeeding centuries to intervene between those two great religious sects was not perceptibly felt. The levelling results of Buddhism had not yet awakened the susceptibilities of the proud Brahmins. Buddhists and Brahminists lived on friendly terms, and looked upon each other as brethren. The discrepancies in the respective creeds were regarded with indifference, as involving only philosophical subtleties, well suited to afford occupation to ideologists, and give to disputants the opportunity of displaying their abilities in arguing, reasoning, and defining. It is not easy to determine whether the conduct of Buddha was regulated by a well-calculated policy, intended to calm the suspicious scruples of his opponents, or whether he was actuated by plain and straightforward principles. It is probable that at that time many Brahmins followed a mode of life almost similar to that of the disciples of Buddha; they were, therefore, entitled to the same honours and support.[20]Buddha had so much at heart the conversion of the heretic Thoubat, that the earnest desire of performing this great and meritorious action was one of the three motives that induced him to select the comparatively insignificant city of Koutheinaron for the last stage of his existence. Particulars regarding that personage would prove interesting, because he is the last convert Buddha made. From what has been alluded to in some Buddhistic writings regarding Thoubat, it is certain that he was of the caste of pounhas or Brahmins. He had studied in some of the numerous schools of philosophy, at that time so common in India. From his way of addressing Buddha, there is no doubt but he was acquainted with the principal theories upheld by the most renowned masters in those days. It is related of Thoubat that, in a former existence, he was tilling a field with one of his brothers, when some Rahans happened to pass by. His brother gave abundant alms to the holy personages, whilst Thoubat showed less liberal dispositions. When, then, Buddha appeared, the law was announced to the generous donor, and in company with eighteen koudes of Brahmas he obtained the state of Thautapan. The rather parsimonious Thoubat obtained the favour of conversion at the eleventh hour. He must have, however, subsequently atoned for this offence, as his dispositions seem to have been of the highest order when he came into Buddha’s presence. In a few hours he had gone over the four ways leading to perfection, and had become a Rahanda.In the days of Buddha, the philosophical schools of India seem to have had six eminent teachers, whose doctrines exhibited on some points a considerable variance. In a book of religious controversy between a Christian and a Buddhist, composed more than a hundred years ago by a Catholic priest at Ava, the writer had the chance of meeting with a faint outline of the leading tenets maintained by the six teachers, so often alluded to in this compilation. One of them maintained the existence and agency of numberless genii, who, at their will, could favour man with fortune and every possible temporal benefits, as well as visit him with their displeasure, by depriving him of all happiness and heaping misery and all sorts of calamities over his head. Geniolatry was the necessary consequence flowing from such a principle. A second teacher denied at once the dogma of metempsychosis, and maintained that every being had the innate power of reproducing by way of generation, &c., another being of similar nature. A third one had singular notions regarding the nature of man. He said that he had his beginning in the womb of his mother, and that death was the end and destruction of his being: such a destruction he called Neibban. A fourth teacher taught that all beings were without beginning and ending, and that there existed no influence of good and bad deeds. A fifth doctor defined Neibban, a long life like that of Nats and Brahmas. He saw no harm in the killing of animals, and he asserted the existence of a state of reward and punishment. The last teacher boldly asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, creator of all that exists, and alone worthy of receiving adorations.Thoubat’s mind was rather perplexed by so many contradictory and opposite opinions and doctrines. He had lived, it appears, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, fluctuating, as it were, between conflicting theories which could not carry conviction to his soul. He had heard of Buddha and wished to see him, hoping that perhaps he might fall in with the truth he was so ardently panting after. With these dispositions, he came to the spot where Buddha was lying on his couch, in the hope of easing his mind from the state of doubt and fixing it in truth. Like a man of consummate abilities in the way of arguing and convincing his adversary, Buddha sets aside all that was put forward by his antagonist, and, coming at once to the point, preaches to him the true doctrine. As light dispels darkness, so truth disperses the mist of error. Thoubat, seeing truth, at once embraced it, gladly ridding himself of the burden of errors that had hitherto weighed down his soul. All his doubts vanished away, and he found himself, on a sudden, safely anchored in the calm and never-agitated harbour of perfect truth.Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him.It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?[21]Buddha’s zeal is not chilled in the least by the cold of approaching death. His boundless knowledge enabled him at a glance to obtain the most intimate acquaintance with the inward dispositions of his disciples’ minds. If, therefore, he asked them three successive times whether they entertained doubts on any doctrinal points, it was not to satisfy himself that their faith was firm and unshaken. He wished to make them conscious of a fact which was felt and clearly understood by every one in particular, but was not as yet fully appreciated by the universality of his disciples. Every individual in particular was well aware of the unwavering dispositions of his mind respecting Buddha’s teachings, but no one ever had the opportunity of ascertaining that all his brethren had the same firmness of belief. On this solemn occasion they witnessed the most comforting sight of a perfect unity of faith in all the members of the assembly. Buddha revealed then one great truth which no one but himself could be acquainted with. A true Rahan, says he, has entered at last in the first way that leads to perfection; he is, therefore, no more exposed to the danger of wavering in his belief; he knows enough of truth to adhere firmly to it, and is enabled to prosecute safely his researches after what is still unknown to him. Every member of the assembly is a true believer, more or less advanced in the knowledge of the law, it is true, but at least he is conscious of his being in the right way. On this subject no doubt subsists in his mind; he adheres to Buddha and his doctrines as to the centre of truth, and never thinks for a moment to question the veracity of his doctor, or to call in doubt any portion of his instructions.The last words of Buddha to the assembled Bickus are designed to remind them of the great and vital principle he has endeavoured to inculcate in their minds during the forty-five years of his preaching, viz., that change and mutability are acting upon all that exists, and are inherent in all parts of nature. This world, therefore, offering but an endless vicissitude of forms, that appear and disappear, has no real existence. It is an illusion from beginning to end. As long as man remains tied up, so to speak, to nature, he is carried away by the ever-acting principle of change: nowhere can he find any rest or fixity; he quits one existence to pass into another; he leaves one form to assume a different one. What happens to man befalls all other parts of nature. From this notion, Buddha infers that there is nothing existing butnameandform. There is no substance in nature, and therefore no reality. So much stress was laid by Buddha on this capital principle that he bequeathed it, as his last Will, to his disciples: he wished that they should ever bear in their minds and remember that he came among them for the purpose of making them thoroughly acquainted with it. From this cardinal point he inferred the chief conclusions that form his religious system, viz., metempsychosis, the contempt of the world, and Neibban. By the law of endless changes, man is hurried from one state into another, or from one form of being into another form. Where is the wise man that could love a world, or an existence therein, when he finds no substance, no reality in it? Is he not induced, or rather compelled, to search after a state in which he can find fixity, reality, and truth, or at least an exemption from the harassing condition of perpetual migration from one state into another?The reader who has been almost born with and educated in theistic notions, and who sees in the world nothing but what has been created by a supreme and all-wise Being, is at a loss to understand how a grave philosopher, as undoubtedly Buddha was, gifted with great powers for observing, arguing, discussing, and inferring conclusions, could have fallen into errors so glaring and so contrary to his reason. That we might properly appreciate the efforts of such a genius, and have some correct ideas about his process of arguing, we must divest ourselves of the knowledge supplied to us by revelation, and descend to the level occupied by the founder of Buddhism. Unacquainted with a first cause, or with the existence of a Supreme Being, he studies nature as he finds it. What does he see in it? Perpetual changes, endless vicissitudes. The form that he perceives to-day has undergone some change on the following day. Everything about him grows, reaches a certain point, and then falls into decay. He finds nothing that stands always in the same condition. Hence he proclaims the great law of mutability pervading all nature, and concludes that all that we feel, see, or hear, is illusion and deception, &c.; deprived of all reality, fixity, and substance. His philosophical mind is not satisfied with such a discovery. He pants after truth and reality, which are not to be found here. He feels that he must disentangle himself from the condition of illusion and deception. But where is reality and fixity to be found? Beyond all, that exists in Neibban.[22]The epoch of Gaudama’s death is a point on which the various nations professing Buddhism do not agree. The Cingalese, Burmese, and Siamese annals place that event somewhat before the middle of the sixth century before the Christian era. The difference of dates is but of a few years, and is so inconsiderable as not to be worth notice. The Thibetans, and, as a consequence, the Mongolians with the Chinese, place that event several hundred years previous to the epoch just mentioned. Notwithstanding this discrepancy, it seems difficult not to adopt the chronology of the southern Buddhists. Thesavansin Europe, who have bestowed a considerable degree of attention on this interesting subject, give a decided preference to the opinion of the former.We have not to depend solely on the chronological tables of kings, supplied by the Hindus, for settling this point, but fortunately we are put indirectly by Greek writers in possession of a fixed and well-established epoch, from which we can take with a sufficient degree of certainty our departure for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. After the death of Alexander the Great, Seleucus, one of his lieutenants, obtained for his share all the provinces situated east of the Euphrates, in which the Indian conquered territories were included. Seleucus, at first in person, and next by an ambassador, came in contact with a powerful Indian king, named Chandragupta, who had the seat of his empire at Palibotra or Pataliputra. This intercourse took place about 310B.C.The Hindu chronological tables mention the name of this prince as well as that of his grandson, called Athoka, who, according to the testimony of the Burmese authors, ascended the throne of Palibotra two hundred and eighteen years after Gaudama’s death. We may suppose that Athoka reigned in or about 270 or 280B.C.These two periods added together will give but a sum of five hundred years. There will remain a difference of only forty years, for which it is not easy to account with sufficient precision, unless we suppose that the reign of Athoka began earlier than is generally admitted. Cunningham has given very strong reasons for fixing the period of Gaudama’s death sixty-six years later than the usual one, hitherto generally admitted, 543; that is to say, in the year 477B.C.This new epoch enables us to adhere at once with perfect safety to the computation above related, and does away with the small discrepancy of a few years that has been mentioned. Tradition and ancient inscriptions leave almost no doubt upon this important point.Our legend is positive in stating that Gaudama died under the reign of Adzatathat, as will hereafter be seen. But the Hindu chronologists place the reign of that monarch about 250 or 260 years before that of Chandragupta, who, as stated, was a contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. We have, therefore, the combined authority of both foreigners and natives for admitting the chronology of the southern Buddhists respecting the epoch of Gaudama’s death, in preference to that of the northern Buddhists, and for fixing that event during the first part of the sixth century before the Christian era, or rather sixty-six years later, in the beginning of the fourth part of the fifth century.[23]What is Neibban, the end a true Buddhist ever longs for throughout his great struggles in the practice of virtue and his constant efforts for attaining the knowledge of truth, which he finally reaches when he has become perfect? The writer confesses at once his inability to answer satisfactorily this question, because Buddhists do not agree among themselves in explaining the nature of the state of Neibban. From the earliest period of their religion we see the Brahmins keenly taunting their opponents for the discordance of their opinions on a subject of the utmost importance—a subject which had ever been prominent in Buddha’s teachings, and held up as the only one worthy of the most earnest and ardent desires, the fittest reward of the generous and extraordinary exertions of a perfected being, and the final state in which his soul, wearied after such a prolonged spiritual warfare, longed to rest for ever. A certain school of Buddhists has maintained that Neibban implied the destruction of the state of being, and consequently complete annihilation. This opinion is at once practically rejected by the portion of the southern Buddhists, who are not so well acquainted with the more philosophical part of their creed. They assert that a perfected being, after having reached Neibban, or having arrived at the end of his last existence, retains his individuality, but they utterly fail in their attempts at explaining the situation and condition of a being in Neibban. At a later period the opinion about a supreme Buddha, uncreated, eternal, and infinite, began to gain ground, and modified to a considerable extent on many points the views of the earlier Buddhists. Neibban, according to the comparatively modern school, is but an absorption into the supreme and infinite Buddha. This opinion so much approximates to that of the Brahmins that we may say it is almost the same. The means of obtaining perfection are somewhat different in both systems, but the end to be obtained is precisely the same.Setting aside idle speculations, let us try to form some idea of Neibban by explaining the meaning of the term, and the definition such as we find it in the Burmese writings.The word Neibban, in Sanscrit Nirvana, according to its etymology, means what is no more agitated, what is in a state of perfect calm. It is composed of the negative prefixnirandva, which means to be set in motion, as the wind. It implies the idea of rest in opposition to that of motion or existence. To be in the state of Neibban is therefore to be carried beyond the range of existence, as understood by Buddhists; there can be no longer migration from one state of being to another. This point is admitted by all sects of Buddhists. To the idea of Neibban is often attached that of extinction, as a lamp which ceases to burn and whose light becomes extinct when the oil is exhausted. The sum of existence being exhausted, a being ceases to be or to move within the range of existence; he becomes extinct relatively, at least to all kind of existences we have a notion of. In conversing with the Buddhists of Burmah, the writer has observed that the ideas of rest and extinction are invariably coupled with the notion of Neibban. In their rough attempt at explaining the inexplicable nature of that state they had recourse to several comparisons intended to convey to the mind that they believed Neibban to be a state of undisturbed calm and a never-ending cessation of existence, at least such as we have an idea of in this world. When questioned on the situation of Buddha in Neibban, they answer that they believe him to be in a boundless space or vacuum beyond the boundaries ever reached by other beings, alone by himself, enjoying, if the expression be correct, a perfect rest, unconcerned about this world, having no further relation with all existing beings. They assert that he is to remain for ever a stranger to all sensations of either pain or pleasure. But it must be borne in mind that this is the popular opinion rather than the philosophical one. Talking one evening with a well-informed Burman on Neibban, the light of a lamp that was burning on the writer’s table happened to die away for want of oil. The Buddhist, with an exulting tone of voice, exclaimed, “Do not ask any more what Neibban is; what has happened to the lamp just now, tells you what Neibban is. The lamp is extinct because there is no more oil in the glass. A man is in Neibban at the very moment that the principle or cause of existence is at an end or entirely exhausted.” How far such an answer can satisfy a superficial mind like that of a half-civilised Burman, it is difficult to say; but it appears certain that he does not carry his researches nor pursue his inquiries beyond these narrow boundaries. Any further attempt to penetrate deeper into the darkness of Neibban is, in his opinion, presumptuous and rash.Buddhist metaphysicians in India, in their foolish efforts to survey thatterra incognita, have originated several opinions that have had their supporters in the various schools of philosophy. The more ancient philosophers or heads of schools, in attempting to give an analysis of a thing they knew nothing about, approximated to the opinion that Neibban is nothing more or less than a complete or entire annihilation. Following the course of arguments, and admitting their premises, one is reluctantly compelled to come to the awful conclusion that the final end of a perfected Buddha is the destruction of his being, or annihilation. This opinion is still further corroborated by the short exposition of Buddhist metaphysics at the end of this volume. The crudest materialism is openly and distinctly professed. There is nothing in man distinct from the six senses. The faculty of perceiving the object they come in contact with is inherent in their nature. The sixth sense, that is to say, the heart, has the power of perceiving ideas, that is to say, things that have no form or shape. But this power is not distinct from the living sense; it disappears when the life of that sense is extinct, or, in other terms, when the heart is destroyed. To the holders of such an opinion the cessation of existence, the going out of the circle of existences, by the destruction of kan, or the influence of merits and demerits, must be and cannot but be complete annihilation.From a long period the plain sense of the masses of believers, unprejudiced by sophistical bias, revolted against such a doctrine, and at once rejected the horrible conclusion arrived at by former disputants. No one in practice openly admits that Neibban and annihilation are synonymous terms. If their views can be properly understood, we may infer from what they say that a being in Neibban retains his individuality, though isolated from all that is distinct from self. He sees the abstract truth, or truth as it is in itself, divested of the material forms under which we in our present state of existence but imperfectly see it. Passions and affections are not to be found in such a being; his position, in truth, can scarcely be understood and still less expressed by us, who can never come in communication with an object but through our passions and affections. We know that there exists a spiritual substance, but we can have no distinct idea of it. We vouch for its existence by what we observe of its operations, but it is impossible for us to explain its nature. It is not, therefore, surprising that Buddhists should be at a loss to account for the state in which a perfected being is when in Neibban. The idea of a state of apathy or rest must be understood as expressing simply a situation quite opposite to that of motion, in which all beings are as long as they are within the pale of existences. If it be admitted that the perfected being retains in Neibban his individuality, it must be inferred that he becomes, as it were, merged into the abstract truth in which he lives and rests for ever. But we must distinctly state anew that this view is in opposition to the doctrines of the earliest Buddhists, and the philosophical principles and inferences maintained as genuine. This contradiction illustrates the truth of a remark made above, that error can never entirely obliterate from man’s mind the knowledge of certain fundamental truths, which are almost constitutive of his moral being.Let us come now to a definition of Neibban translated from Pali by the Burmans. Neibban is the end of all existences, the exemption from the action ofkan,i.e., the good or bad influence produced by merits or demerits; ofTsit,i.e., the principle of all volitions, desires, and passions; of the seasons, and of taste or sensations. What means this rather curious, not to say almost unintelligible, definition? To understand it the reader must be aware thatkanis the principle which causes all beings to move incessantly from one existence into another, from a state of happiness to one of unhappiness, from a position where merits are acquired into another where further merits are to be obtained and greater proficiency in perfection secured, from a state of punishment or demerits into a worse one, &c.Kanmay be called the soul of transmigration, the hidden spring of all the changes experienced by an existing being. In Neibban the law ofkanis destroyed, and therefore there are no more changes or transmigrations.ByTsitis understood the principle of all volitions and desires. Buddhist metaphysicians, always fond of divisions and classifications, reckon one hundred and twentyTsits. Some are the root of all demerits, and their opposites are the principles of merits. Some have for object matter this material world; others have for object the immaterial world, or, as I believe, ideas and things that have no form. The last of tsits, and of course the most perfect, is entire fixity. This is the last stage ever to be reached by a perfected being in the world of existences. One step further, and he has reached the undisturbed shores of Neibban. In that latter state there is no more operation of the mind or of the heart; or at least there is no intellectual working, such as we conceive it in our actual condition.The wordUdoo, or season, is evidently used for designating a revolution of nature. The meaning is obvious, and affords no difficulty. In Neibban there is neither nature nor revolutions of nature. Neibban, if a state it be, lies in vacuum or space far beyond the extensive horizon that encircles the world or worlds, or systems of nature.The wordAhara, which literally means taste, is intended to designate all sensations acquired through the senses. By means of the senses, indeed, we obtain perceptions and acquire knowledge; but the perfected being having come to the possession of universal science, no further knowledge is needed; the senses are, therefore, useless. The senses, moreover, are the appendage of our nature, as it is during its existences. Neibban putting an end to further existences, it destroys also the constituent parts or portions of our being.Admitting that the above definition of Neibban is a correct one, and that it has been understood in a purely Buddhistic sense, we may conclude that in that state there is no moreinfluence, and consequently no transmigration, no volition of the mind, no desires of the heart, no materiality, and no sensations. The difficulty as to whether Neibban is annihilation seems all but entirely and completely solved. There is another way of arriving at a similar conclusion. Let us ascertain what are the constituent parts of an intelligent being, and then inquire whether these parts are entirely destroyed and annihilated in Neibban. In an intelligent being, according to all doctors, we find materiality, sensations, perceptions, consciousness, and intellect. These five aggregates constitute a thinking being. These, assert the same doctors, do not exist in Neibban; they are destroyed. One word more and the question would be settled; but that word has not been, at least to my knowledge, ever distinctly uttered. It is probable that these five aggregates or component parts are, in the opinion of many, the conditions of existence such as we now understand it. But it would be too hasty to conclude that a being under different conditions of existence could not retain his individuality though deprived of these five component parts. Buddhists, as already said, have very imperfect notions of a spiritual substance. It is not surprising, therefore, that they cannot express themselves in a manner more distinct, precise, and intelligible when they treat of subjects so abstruse and difficult. In practice they admit the existence of something distinct from matter, and surviving in man after the destruction of the material portion of his being; but their attempts at giving a satisfactory explanation of the nature of that surviving individuality have always proved abortive. In their process of arguing the learned reject such an admission.The question, as may be inferred from the foregoing lines, if considered in the light of purely theoretical notions, is philosophically left little open to discussion, though it will probably ever remain without a perfect solution. But the logical inferences to be deduced from the principles of genuine Buddhism inevitably lead to the dark, cold, and horrifying abyss of annihilation. If examined from a practical point of view, that is to say, taking into account the opinions of the masses of Buddhists, the difficulty may be considered as resolved too, but in an opposite sense.
[14]The posture assumed by Buddha at this last stage of his life has supplied the subject of an artistic composition to the Southern Buddhist sculptors. A statue representing Phra in that reclining position is to be seen in almost every pagoda. Some of these statues are made on truly gigantic proportions. I have measured one that was forty-five feet long. If we take such rough works as exhibiting the amount of skill possessed by natives in the art of carving, we must confess that that art is with them yet in its infancy. The huge idols I have met with are never made of wood or hewed stones, but are built up with bricks. The artist, having made in this way the principal parts of the statue, covers the whole with a thick coat of mortar, the softness of which enables him without much labour to put the finishing hand to his work. These statues are invariably made after a certain pattern belonging to the antiquity, and to an epoch when the art was yet in its very infancy: they are, in an artistic point of view, the worst, rudest, and coarsest attempts at statuary I have ever seen. Gold is, however, profusely lavished on those shapeless and formless works. The big idol above referred to was covered with gold, that is to say, gilt from head to feet.Idols of smaller dimensions, those in particular representing Buddha sitting in a cross-legged position, in the attitude of meditation, are likewise wretched specimens of art. A great many are made of a soft stone, almost white, resembling marble in appearance, and capable of receiving a most perfect polish. About three miles west of the old and ruined city of Tsagain is a place where the manufacturing of marble idols is carried on to a great extent. The stone used by the carvers is brought from a place north of Amerapoora, where it is abundant. It is soft, transparent, white, and sometimes, when polished, exhibits a slightly bluish appearance. The instruments used by the artists are simple and few. Were it not for the custom which obliges them to follow always the same patterns, the Burmese workmen would much improve in that branch of the fine arts.
[14]The posture assumed by Buddha at this last stage of his life has supplied the subject of an artistic composition to the Southern Buddhist sculptors. A statue representing Phra in that reclining position is to be seen in almost every pagoda. Some of these statues are made on truly gigantic proportions. I have measured one that was forty-five feet long. If we take such rough works as exhibiting the amount of skill possessed by natives in the art of carving, we must confess that that art is with them yet in its infancy. The huge idols I have met with are never made of wood or hewed stones, but are built up with bricks. The artist, having made in this way the principal parts of the statue, covers the whole with a thick coat of mortar, the softness of which enables him without much labour to put the finishing hand to his work. These statues are invariably made after a certain pattern belonging to the antiquity, and to an epoch when the art was yet in its very infancy: they are, in an artistic point of view, the worst, rudest, and coarsest attempts at statuary I have ever seen. Gold is, however, profusely lavished on those shapeless and formless works. The big idol above referred to was covered with gold, that is to say, gilt from head to feet.
Idols of smaller dimensions, those in particular representing Buddha sitting in a cross-legged position, in the attitude of meditation, are likewise wretched specimens of art. A great many are made of a soft stone, almost white, resembling marble in appearance, and capable of receiving a most perfect polish. About three miles west of the old and ruined city of Tsagain is a place where the manufacturing of marble idols is carried on to a great extent. The stone used by the carvers is brought from a place north of Amerapoora, where it is abundant. It is soft, transparent, white, and sometimes, when polished, exhibits a slightly bluish appearance. The instruments used by the artists are simple and few. Were it not for the custom which obliges them to follow always the same patterns, the Burmese workmen would much improve in that branch of the fine arts.
[15]If Buddha ever deserved the surname of sage, it was assuredly on this occasion that he entitled himself to such an honourable distinction. All nature reversed its course on his account: wonders of the most extraordinary character loudly proclaimed his supereminent excellencies: the most exalted beings united their voices in extolling his transcendent merits, and showing their unbounded respect for his person; all that could dazzle the eye, please the ear, and flatter the heart, was displayed on an unparalleled scale to do honour to him who was about to leave this terrestrial abode. Buddha, however, solemnly declares, and unhesitatingly says to Ananda, that such a display is infinitely below his merits and perfections, and can bear no comparison with his fathomless wisdom and boundless knowledge of truth. Such things, in his opinion, are mere externals, quite destitute of substantial worth; they confer no real honour to him. They, adds he, who truly do honour to me are those who practise all that is enjoined by the most excellent law; nothing short of the observance of the law can please me; the practice of the virtues leading to perfection alone give the right to be called my disciple. My religion can rest firmly only on such solid foundation.These expressions make every reader understand that, in Buddha’s opinion, religion is not a mere theory, teaching fine moral precepts, destined to excite a vain admiration in the mind, or elicit useless applauses; but it is a moral and practical system, making man acquainted with the duties he has to perform in order to shun vice and practise virtue. Nothing can be more explicit and positive than the notions he entertains of religion. They are worthy of the founder of a religious system now believed and admitted, with more or less considerable variety, by nearly one-fourth, or at least one-fifth, of the great human family. It must be admitted that the high religious sense entertained by Buddha, and communicated in all its purity to his immediate disciples, has almost vanished away in all Buddhist countries. With the people religion consists in certain exterior observances, such as giving alms to the Talapoins, building pagodas, and making offerings during the three months especially consecrated to religious duties. The influence of religious teachers, owing to ignorance and want of zeal, may be thought by many to be almost null, and scarcely felt by the masses of nominal Buddhists. Two causes, however, seem to be the generators and supporters of the religious sentiment that influences the people,—education, and the political institutions. The male portion of the community is brought up in the monasteries by the Phongyies. All the books that are put into their hands, and most of those that they subsequently read, are treatises on religious subjects. This system keeps up, in a wonderful manner, the knowledge of religion, which exercises a great control over the actions of individuals, and regulates their conduct. But, besides, the religious element almost predominates in the body of the civil laws; it acts indirectly upon the people, and must be allowed a great share of influence in all that regards their morals. It is, therefore, to political institutions that Buddhism owes much for the continuation of its existence in these regions. Were it deprived of such a powerful support, there is every reason to believe that it could not perhaps long retain its hold over the masses, when regularly and extensively attacked by the followers of another system. But the first cause is by far the weightier and the more influential.
[15]If Buddha ever deserved the surname of sage, it was assuredly on this occasion that he entitled himself to such an honourable distinction. All nature reversed its course on his account: wonders of the most extraordinary character loudly proclaimed his supereminent excellencies: the most exalted beings united their voices in extolling his transcendent merits, and showing their unbounded respect for his person; all that could dazzle the eye, please the ear, and flatter the heart, was displayed on an unparalleled scale to do honour to him who was about to leave this terrestrial abode. Buddha, however, solemnly declares, and unhesitatingly says to Ananda, that such a display is infinitely below his merits and perfections, and can bear no comparison with his fathomless wisdom and boundless knowledge of truth. Such things, in his opinion, are mere externals, quite destitute of substantial worth; they confer no real honour to him. They, adds he, who truly do honour to me are those who practise all that is enjoined by the most excellent law; nothing short of the observance of the law can please me; the practice of the virtues leading to perfection alone give the right to be called my disciple. My religion can rest firmly only on such solid foundation.
These expressions make every reader understand that, in Buddha’s opinion, religion is not a mere theory, teaching fine moral precepts, destined to excite a vain admiration in the mind, or elicit useless applauses; but it is a moral and practical system, making man acquainted with the duties he has to perform in order to shun vice and practise virtue. Nothing can be more explicit and positive than the notions he entertains of religion. They are worthy of the founder of a religious system now believed and admitted, with more or less considerable variety, by nearly one-fourth, or at least one-fifth, of the great human family. It must be admitted that the high religious sense entertained by Buddha, and communicated in all its purity to his immediate disciples, has almost vanished away in all Buddhist countries. With the people religion consists in certain exterior observances, such as giving alms to the Talapoins, building pagodas, and making offerings during the three months especially consecrated to religious duties. The influence of religious teachers, owing to ignorance and want of zeal, may be thought by many to be almost null, and scarcely felt by the masses of nominal Buddhists. Two causes, however, seem to be the generators and supporters of the religious sentiment that influences the people,—education, and the political institutions. The male portion of the community is brought up in the monasteries by the Phongyies. All the books that are put into their hands, and most of those that they subsequently read, are treatises on religious subjects. This system keeps up, in a wonderful manner, the knowledge of religion, which exercises a great control over the actions of individuals, and regulates their conduct. But, besides, the religious element almost predominates in the body of the civil laws; it acts indirectly upon the people, and must be allowed a great share of influence in all that regards their morals. It is, therefore, to political institutions that Buddhism owes much for the continuation of its existence in these regions. Were it deprived of such a powerful support, there is every reason to believe that it could not perhaps long retain its hold over the masses, when regularly and extensively attacked by the followers of another system. But the first cause is by far the weightier and the more influential.
[16]In the first edition of this work the writer had made an error in supposing Oupalawana to have been a male religious. Another palm-leaf manuscript that he has consulted leaves no doubt about her real character. She was, among the female body of religious, the disciple of the left; and Kema, who had been for many years the first wife of King Pimpathara, was the disciple of the right. Oupalawana belonged to a distinguished family of Kapilawot. The female portion of the Thanga or assembly was constituted after the mode of the Rahans. Thariputra and Maukalan were respectively the disciples of the right and of the left. One of the duties of the Rahaness of the left was to fan Buddha on certain occasions, and render to him such services as were compatible with her sex. The order of nuns in Burmah in our days has fallen very low. Instead of the yellow colour, they have adopted the white one for their dress, which, in other respects, resembles that of the Phongyies. Their head is shaved. They are to be seen in the neighbourhood of pagodas, and in the streets, going about to beg the food required for their maintenance. The only large convent of those nuns which I have ever met is one on the right bank of the Irrawaddy, about five miles north of Tsagain. It contains about forty or fifty inmates. Some of them belong to good families, and reside in the house for a few years, after which they return into their home. That house is under the special protection of the king, who supplies the nuns with all the necessaries of life. In the valley of Tavoy a small convent also has been pointed out to the writer. It was situated on a beautiful spot, west of the river. When he went to see it, he was surprised to meet with two or three old women, habited in the canonical dress, who appeared to be wretchedly poor and slovenly in their habits. The house was in every respect in keeping with the exterior appearance of the tenants. The nuns do absolutely no work, except in certain localities where they try to do away with a portion of their time in clearing the weeds which grow so luxuriantly in the enclosure of some famous pagoda. They have no schools to teach girls the rudiments of reading and writing. They are on this head greatly behind the Buddhist monks, who have assumed to themselves the great and important task of teaching boys in the towns and villages.
[16]In the first edition of this work the writer had made an error in supposing Oupalawana to have been a male religious. Another palm-leaf manuscript that he has consulted leaves no doubt about her real character. She was, among the female body of religious, the disciple of the left; and Kema, who had been for many years the first wife of King Pimpathara, was the disciple of the right. Oupalawana belonged to a distinguished family of Kapilawot. The female portion of the Thanga or assembly was constituted after the mode of the Rahans. Thariputra and Maukalan were respectively the disciples of the right and of the left. One of the duties of the Rahaness of the left was to fan Buddha on certain occasions, and render to him such services as were compatible with her sex. The order of nuns in Burmah in our days has fallen very low. Instead of the yellow colour, they have adopted the white one for their dress, which, in other respects, resembles that of the Phongyies. Their head is shaved. They are to be seen in the neighbourhood of pagodas, and in the streets, going about to beg the food required for their maintenance. The only large convent of those nuns which I have ever met is one on the right bank of the Irrawaddy, about five miles north of Tsagain. It contains about forty or fifty inmates. Some of them belong to good families, and reside in the house for a few years, after which they return into their home. That house is under the special protection of the king, who supplies the nuns with all the necessaries of life. In the valley of Tavoy a small convent also has been pointed out to the writer. It was situated on a beautiful spot, west of the river. When he went to see it, he was surprised to meet with two or three old women, habited in the canonical dress, who appeared to be wretchedly poor and slovenly in their habits. The house was in every respect in keeping with the exterior appearance of the tenants. The nuns do absolutely no work, except in certain localities where they try to do away with a portion of their time in clearing the weeds which grow so luxuriantly in the enclosure of some famous pagoda. They have no schools to teach girls the rudiments of reading and writing. They are on this head greatly behind the Buddhist monks, who have assumed to themselves the great and important task of teaching boys in the towns and villages.
[17]The founder of Buddhism shows himself on this particular subject a consummate moralist. He who could have spoken as he did on this truly delicate point must have been deeply versed in the knowledge of human nature, and thoroughly acquainted with its frailties and weaknesses. Buddha desired to maintain the members of the assembly in a state of spotless purity. To attain that desirable object he raised the strongest barrier against the wildest passion of the heart. No virtue, in his opinion, can withstand the incessant assaults directed against it by daily and familiar intercourse with persons of another sex. He would have, if possible, the inmate of a cell in a monastery out of the reach of temptation itself; he knows that the best tactics against such an enemy do not consist in boldly meeting the adversary, but rather in carefully avoiding encounter with him, manœuvring in such a way as to keep far from him. Hence idle conversations with female visitors are not only forbidden in a most positive manner, but the very sight of women is to be, if possible, avoided. When duty shall oblige a recluse to come face to face with the enemy, it is his bounden obligation to keep at as great a distance from female visitors as practicable. The subject of the conversation ought to be of a purely religious character; some portions of the law may be expounded, doubts of conscience may be proposed, and a solution given to them, &c. On such occasions the spiritual adviser is never to be left alone, but he must be surrounded by some of his brethren or disciples, at all times very numerous in the monasteries.It is not without interest to place one’s self in the centre of the Buddhistic system, and examine therefrom the motives that have induced Buddha to enjoin celibacy on all the members of the assembly, and enforce it with the utmost rigour by all the means that the profoundest moralist could devise.The philosophy of Buddhism has for its primary object to lead man into the way of freeing himself from the influence produced upon the soul by exterior objects, through the medium or channel of the senses. That influence sets in motion the various passions which darken the intellect and trouble the heart, opposing an insuperable barrier to the acquirement and intuition of truth, and to the progress towards the state of quiescence, so ardently coveted and longed for by every true Buddhist. No one is ripe for the state of Neibban as long as he retains affection for things without self. The last and greatest effort of wisdom is the emancipation of self from every possible influence created and produced by objects or things distinct from self. Concupiscence, as the meaning of the word implies, is that disposition of the soul to search after, long for, and cleave to things placed without self. Such a disposition is diametrically opposed to the perfect independence aimed at by a perfect Buddhist, and leads to results the very reverse of those to be arrived at; it retains man in the vortex of never-ending existences, and precludes him from the possibility of ever reaching the state of Neibban. Concupiscence, taken in a more restricted and limited meaning, signifying the propensity to the indulgence of sensual pleasures by the union of sexes, must ever prove the greatest obstacle in the way leading to perfection, inasmuch as it fosters in men the strongest affection to external objects.Buddha is great, in his own opinion, because he has conquered all passions, not by curbing them under the yoke of reason, but by rooting them out of his very being. When he wished to become an ascetic, he practised at first self-renouncing, not merely by giving up riches, palaces, dignities and honours, but chiefly and principally by denying to himself and for ever the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. A firm and unshaken resolution of parting for ever with his wife and concubines, and living in a perpetual celibacy, was considered as a preliminary and essential step for entering upon the course of life of a sincere searcher after truth and perfection. During the six years he spent in solitude, he laboured with unremitting zeal for securing to the spiritual principle an undisputed control over the material one, by stifling the vehemence and ardour of his passions. His austerities and mortifications during that long period had no other object than that of first weakening and then finally destroying passions, and in particular concupiscence. When he is praised in the writings, he is much extolled for having come out from the net of passions. His victory over concupiscence is repeatedly alluded to as the greatest of all achievements. The master, therefore, having laid such stress on this favourite and important maxim, could not but preach and enjoin it on all his future imitators and disciples. The earliest records of Buddhism bear testimony to the paramount importance attached to the practice of chastity. It has ever been considered as an essential requirement in all those that have desired to follow the footsteps of Buddha and imitate his mode of life. No qualification, ever so great and shining, could be admitted as a substitute for chastity. Science, talent, zeal, and fervour could never entitle an individual to the distinction of member of the assembly of the perfect without having previously given up the gratification of sensual pleasures. Independently of what is found written on this subject in the Wini, or book of discipline, the opinion of the Buddhist public is on this subject positive, universal, and absolute. He who leaves the condition of layman to become a religious must live in a state of perfect continence. An infraction of the regulations on this point is looked upon with horror and indignation by the people at large. The guilty individual is inexorably expelled from the religious house, after having been previously stripped of his religious dress and subjected to a humiliating degradation in the presence of the assembled members of the community. Nothing short of such a severe treatment could satisfy a public so deeply hurt and offended in their religious feelings. How is it that the practice of perfect continence is not merely a desideratum in an individual consecrated to religion, but an absolutely required qualification, which can never be equivalently supplied by any other moral or scientific attainment? How is it that such a notion is universally adhered to by nations noted for the undoubted laxity of their morals? Can a notion so generally believed and so tenaciously retained, in spite of its direct opposition to the wildest and the dearest passion of the heart, be ever called a prejudice? Is it possible to trace its connection with some of the noblest feelings of our nature and the most refined ideas of our mind? To a superficial and biassed observer, many things appear contradictory and irreconcilable, which a serious, acute, and dispassionate inquirer after truth readily comprehends, easily connects and accounts for, and satisfactorily reconciles one with the other.
[17]The founder of Buddhism shows himself on this particular subject a consummate moralist. He who could have spoken as he did on this truly delicate point must have been deeply versed in the knowledge of human nature, and thoroughly acquainted with its frailties and weaknesses. Buddha desired to maintain the members of the assembly in a state of spotless purity. To attain that desirable object he raised the strongest barrier against the wildest passion of the heart. No virtue, in his opinion, can withstand the incessant assaults directed against it by daily and familiar intercourse with persons of another sex. He would have, if possible, the inmate of a cell in a monastery out of the reach of temptation itself; he knows that the best tactics against such an enemy do not consist in boldly meeting the adversary, but rather in carefully avoiding encounter with him, manœuvring in such a way as to keep far from him. Hence idle conversations with female visitors are not only forbidden in a most positive manner, but the very sight of women is to be, if possible, avoided. When duty shall oblige a recluse to come face to face with the enemy, it is his bounden obligation to keep at as great a distance from female visitors as practicable. The subject of the conversation ought to be of a purely religious character; some portions of the law may be expounded, doubts of conscience may be proposed, and a solution given to them, &c. On such occasions the spiritual adviser is never to be left alone, but he must be surrounded by some of his brethren or disciples, at all times very numerous in the monasteries.
It is not without interest to place one’s self in the centre of the Buddhistic system, and examine therefrom the motives that have induced Buddha to enjoin celibacy on all the members of the assembly, and enforce it with the utmost rigour by all the means that the profoundest moralist could devise.
The philosophy of Buddhism has for its primary object to lead man into the way of freeing himself from the influence produced upon the soul by exterior objects, through the medium or channel of the senses. That influence sets in motion the various passions which darken the intellect and trouble the heart, opposing an insuperable barrier to the acquirement and intuition of truth, and to the progress towards the state of quiescence, so ardently coveted and longed for by every true Buddhist. No one is ripe for the state of Neibban as long as he retains affection for things without self. The last and greatest effort of wisdom is the emancipation of self from every possible influence created and produced by objects or things distinct from self. Concupiscence, as the meaning of the word implies, is that disposition of the soul to search after, long for, and cleave to things placed without self. Such a disposition is diametrically opposed to the perfect independence aimed at by a perfect Buddhist, and leads to results the very reverse of those to be arrived at; it retains man in the vortex of never-ending existences, and precludes him from the possibility of ever reaching the state of Neibban. Concupiscence, taken in a more restricted and limited meaning, signifying the propensity to the indulgence of sensual pleasures by the union of sexes, must ever prove the greatest obstacle in the way leading to perfection, inasmuch as it fosters in men the strongest affection to external objects.
Buddha is great, in his own opinion, because he has conquered all passions, not by curbing them under the yoke of reason, but by rooting them out of his very being. When he wished to become an ascetic, he practised at first self-renouncing, not merely by giving up riches, palaces, dignities and honours, but chiefly and principally by denying to himself and for ever the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. A firm and unshaken resolution of parting for ever with his wife and concubines, and living in a perpetual celibacy, was considered as a preliminary and essential step for entering upon the course of life of a sincere searcher after truth and perfection. During the six years he spent in solitude, he laboured with unremitting zeal for securing to the spiritual principle an undisputed control over the material one, by stifling the vehemence and ardour of his passions. His austerities and mortifications during that long period had no other object than that of first weakening and then finally destroying passions, and in particular concupiscence. When he is praised in the writings, he is much extolled for having come out from the net of passions. His victory over concupiscence is repeatedly alluded to as the greatest of all achievements. The master, therefore, having laid such stress on this favourite and important maxim, could not but preach and enjoin it on all his future imitators and disciples. The earliest records of Buddhism bear testimony to the paramount importance attached to the practice of chastity. It has ever been considered as an essential requirement in all those that have desired to follow the footsteps of Buddha and imitate his mode of life. No qualification, ever so great and shining, could be admitted as a substitute for chastity. Science, talent, zeal, and fervour could never entitle an individual to the distinction of member of the assembly of the perfect without having previously given up the gratification of sensual pleasures. Independently of what is found written on this subject in the Wini, or book of discipline, the opinion of the Buddhist public is on this subject positive, universal, and absolute. He who leaves the condition of layman to become a religious must live in a state of perfect continence. An infraction of the regulations on this point is looked upon with horror and indignation by the people at large. The guilty individual is inexorably expelled from the religious house, after having been previously stripped of his religious dress and subjected to a humiliating degradation in the presence of the assembled members of the community. Nothing short of such a severe treatment could satisfy a public so deeply hurt and offended in their religious feelings. How is it that the practice of perfect continence is not merely a desideratum in an individual consecrated to religion, but an absolutely required qualification, which can never be equivalently supplied by any other moral or scientific attainment? How is it that such a notion is universally adhered to by nations noted for the undoubted laxity of their morals? Can a notion so generally believed and so tenaciously retained, in spite of its direct opposition to the wildest and the dearest passion of the heart, be ever called a prejudice? Is it possible to trace its connection with some of the noblest feelings of our nature and the most refined ideas of our mind? To a superficial and biassed observer, many things appear contradictory and irreconcilable, which a serious, acute, and dispassionate inquirer after truth readily comprehends, easily connects and accounts for, and satisfactorily reconciles one with the other.
[18]It is curious to investigate the origin and the real nature of the worship and honour paid by Buddhists to Gaudama, to his relics, to his statues, as well as to monuments erected for enshrining and sheltering those objects of devotion. The attempt at elucidating this point is beset with difficulties. The more we attentively reflect on the inward operations of the soul in all that relates to religion, the more we find ourselves puzzled and hesitating in qualifying and selecting the appellation most befitting them.All the simple terms of our language intended to express the several sorts of acts of worship and adoration paid to objects partaking of a religious nature, are inadequate to represent to us, by sounds, the nature of the inward workings of the soul when she carries on a pious intercourse with the object of her devotion. The terms that are used merely express to us the exterior acts of worship, as manifested by peculiar attitudes of the body (which vary according to the habits and customs of various nations), or singing, making offerings, and other visible signs. They may be, in fact they are, used with equal fitness all over the world by the worshippers of the true God as well as by the adorers of idols. The difference between the true and false worship does not consist, therefore, in the externals, nor in the ceremonies or exterior signs that make impression on the ear and the eye, but it is to be found in reality in the objects that the adorers have in view. Here lies the essential difference between the true and false worship.This being premised, we have naturally to ask: What is Gaudama, the great and principal object of worship to all Buddhists? Gaudama, in their opinion, is a mere man, that has attained, by the practice of virtue, and principally by his almost infinite science, the highest point of perfection a being can ever reach. The first qualification entitles him to the unbounded admiration of his followers; it inspires them with expressions the best calculated to eulogise him, and represent him as the first and greatest of all beings. Again, Gaudama is represented to them full of benevolence and compassion for all beings, whom he earnestly wishes to deliver from their miseries, and help to obtain that state in which they come for ever to a perfect rest from all transmigrations, or to what they emphatically call the deliverance. The second qualification is much insisted upon by Buddhists, and from it originate those feelings of love and tender affection for him who has laboured so much for enlightening all beings, and showing to them the way that leads to the deliverance. Buddhists on this subject are very eloquent. The writer has often admired many fine thoughts and truly beautiful expressions he has met in some writings devoted to the praises of Buddha.It may be asked whether the followers of Gaudama in the worship they pay the author of their religion expect any aid or assistance from him. The answer is an easy one. Gaudama to them is no more. His interference with the affairs of this world or of his religion absolutely ceased with his existence. He sees no one; he hears no prayer; he can afford no help neither here on earth nor in any other state of existence. In fact, to the Buddhists there is no Providence, and, consequently, there can be no real prayer, none of the feelings that constitute its essence. All the worship of Gaudama may be summed up in a few words: he is admired as the greatest, wisest, and most benevolent of all beings; he is praised, eulogised as much as language can express; he is the object of a tender affection for the good that he has done. No idea whatever of a supreme being is to be met in the genuine worship paid to Gaudama by his most enthusiastic adherents. It cannot be denied that, in practice, Buddhists of these parts betray often without perceiving it that they have some vague idea about a supreme being, who has a controlling power in the affairs of this world and the destiny of man. But such an idea does not come from their religious creed; it is the offspring of that innate sentiment adherent in our nature, as is maintained by some philosophers: or it is a remnant of a primitive tradition, which error has never been able entirely to obliterate, as asserted by others.The worship paid to Buddha does not extend further than it has been above stated, since it is always placed on a footing of equality with the one due to the law and to the assembly. These threeprecious thingsare always enumerated together; no distinction is made between them; they are equally entitled to the veneration of all believers.Let us come now to the veneration offered to the statues and relics of Gaudama, and to the religious monuments called dzedis. In the foregoing pages we have seen Buddha giving to two brothers who had requested him to supply them with some object of worship eight hairs of his head. After his death and the combustion of his body, the remaining bones, or parts of bones, even the very ashes and charcoals, were piously coveted, with an eagerness that indicated the high value people set on these articles. According to several Buddhist authors, Gaudama, previous to his death, intimated to his disciples that his religion was to last five thousand years; that, as he would be no longer among his believers in a visible manner, he wished that they would keep up his statues as his representatives, and pay to them the same honour they would pay to his own person. Relying upon this positive injunction, the Buddhist looks on the statues of Buddha as objects destined to remind him of Buddha: they are the visible mementoes of him who is infinitely dear to his affections; they put him, by their variety of shapes and form, in remembrance of the principal events connected with his existence. The princes that have been most remarkable for their religious zeal and piety, such as Adzatathat and Athoka, were anxious to multiply the statues of Buddha and the religious monuments, to nourish in the soul of all the faithful, as says our Burmese author, a feeling of tender affection, of lovely disposition for the person of Buddha and his holy religion. The relics being articles that have been most intimately connected with Buddha’s person, are designed to act on the religious feelings of the people even more powerfully than the statues. They are treasured up with the greatest care, worshipped with the profoundest respect, looked upon with a most affectionate regard. No earthly treasure can be compared with them. As Buddha’s sacred person is more valuable in their eyes than the whole world, his relics partake of that invaluable estimation. It becomes evident that the statues and relics are so much valued, esteemed, and worshipped because of the intimate connection they have with the person of Buddha, and the great help they afford in keeping alive a religious spirit and a tender affection for him.In the worship of statues and relics, superstition has had its share too in giving an undue extension and development to the religioussentiment. This development has brought into existence the belief in prodigies and miracles wrought by the virtue of the relics. This popular error has always found a powerful support among the ignorant masses; it has been much propagated by that inordinate and irrational tendency towards all that is new and extraordinary. Man wants but a pretext, even a very futile one, to give credit to the most incredible occurrences, when they have a reference to a deeply cherished, and, as it were, favourite object. But in no way do we find genuine Buddhism countenancing such spiritual eccentricities or extravagances, which have their origin in ignorance and an inordinate fondness for the marvellous.The articles of worship offered to or placed before the statues of Buddha, and the shrines supposed to contain some of his relics, are few and remarkable for their simplicity. They consist in flowers arranged in fine bouquets, in flags and streamers made of cloth, sometimes of paper, and cut into a great variety of figures, with considerable taste and skill. There are to be seen also small wax candles, little earthen lamps, and sometimes incense and scented wood, which are consumed in large burners, placed on pedestals made of masonry. The worshippers are generally in a squatting position, the back resting on the heels, the body slightly bending forward, the joined hands raised to the forehead. Ordinarily a string of flowers, or little bits of wood adorned each with a small paper flag, are held on these occasions. On the days of worship, particularly during the three months of Lent, the crowd of people of every age, sex, and condition, resorting to the most venerated pagoda of the place, is truly extraordinary. Men and women of a certain age have in their hands a string of beads, upon which they repeat the formula Aneitsa, Duka, Anatta, or some other.Since the Buddhist knows that his Buddha is no more, and, therefore, can afford him no assistance whatever, that there is no virtue inherent in his relics or images, in fact, that there is no Providence, it is difficult to account for the zeal that he often displays in honouring the great founder of his religion, and all that has a reference to him. To account satisfactorily for such a moral phenomenon, we must bear in mind the belief that he has in the intrinsic worth of the devotional practices he performs. Those works are goodper se; they give rise, power, and energy to the law of merits, or to the good influence which will procure to him abundant rewards in future existences, and gradually lead him to the harbour of deliverance, the object of his most ardent wishes. That hope is, as it were, the great feeder of his devotion.
[18]It is curious to investigate the origin and the real nature of the worship and honour paid by Buddhists to Gaudama, to his relics, to his statues, as well as to monuments erected for enshrining and sheltering those objects of devotion. The attempt at elucidating this point is beset with difficulties. The more we attentively reflect on the inward operations of the soul in all that relates to religion, the more we find ourselves puzzled and hesitating in qualifying and selecting the appellation most befitting them.
All the simple terms of our language intended to express the several sorts of acts of worship and adoration paid to objects partaking of a religious nature, are inadequate to represent to us, by sounds, the nature of the inward workings of the soul when she carries on a pious intercourse with the object of her devotion. The terms that are used merely express to us the exterior acts of worship, as manifested by peculiar attitudes of the body (which vary according to the habits and customs of various nations), or singing, making offerings, and other visible signs. They may be, in fact they are, used with equal fitness all over the world by the worshippers of the true God as well as by the adorers of idols. The difference between the true and false worship does not consist, therefore, in the externals, nor in the ceremonies or exterior signs that make impression on the ear and the eye, but it is to be found in reality in the objects that the adorers have in view. Here lies the essential difference between the true and false worship.
This being premised, we have naturally to ask: What is Gaudama, the great and principal object of worship to all Buddhists? Gaudama, in their opinion, is a mere man, that has attained, by the practice of virtue, and principally by his almost infinite science, the highest point of perfection a being can ever reach. The first qualification entitles him to the unbounded admiration of his followers; it inspires them with expressions the best calculated to eulogise him, and represent him as the first and greatest of all beings. Again, Gaudama is represented to them full of benevolence and compassion for all beings, whom he earnestly wishes to deliver from their miseries, and help to obtain that state in which they come for ever to a perfect rest from all transmigrations, or to what they emphatically call the deliverance. The second qualification is much insisted upon by Buddhists, and from it originate those feelings of love and tender affection for him who has laboured so much for enlightening all beings, and showing to them the way that leads to the deliverance. Buddhists on this subject are very eloquent. The writer has often admired many fine thoughts and truly beautiful expressions he has met in some writings devoted to the praises of Buddha.
It may be asked whether the followers of Gaudama in the worship they pay the author of their religion expect any aid or assistance from him. The answer is an easy one. Gaudama to them is no more. His interference with the affairs of this world or of his religion absolutely ceased with his existence. He sees no one; he hears no prayer; he can afford no help neither here on earth nor in any other state of existence. In fact, to the Buddhists there is no Providence, and, consequently, there can be no real prayer, none of the feelings that constitute its essence. All the worship of Gaudama may be summed up in a few words: he is admired as the greatest, wisest, and most benevolent of all beings; he is praised, eulogised as much as language can express; he is the object of a tender affection for the good that he has done. No idea whatever of a supreme being is to be met in the genuine worship paid to Gaudama by his most enthusiastic adherents. It cannot be denied that, in practice, Buddhists of these parts betray often without perceiving it that they have some vague idea about a supreme being, who has a controlling power in the affairs of this world and the destiny of man. But such an idea does not come from their religious creed; it is the offspring of that innate sentiment adherent in our nature, as is maintained by some philosophers: or it is a remnant of a primitive tradition, which error has never been able entirely to obliterate, as asserted by others.
The worship paid to Buddha does not extend further than it has been above stated, since it is always placed on a footing of equality with the one due to the law and to the assembly. These threeprecious thingsare always enumerated together; no distinction is made between them; they are equally entitled to the veneration of all believers.
Let us come now to the veneration offered to the statues and relics of Gaudama, and to the religious monuments called dzedis. In the foregoing pages we have seen Buddha giving to two brothers who had requested him to supply them with some object of worship eight hairs of his head. After his death and the combustion of his body, the remaining bones, or parts of bones, even the very ashes and charcoals, were piously coveted, with an eagerness that indicated the high value people set on these articles. According to several Buddhist authors, Gaudama, previous to his death, intimated to his disciples that his religion was to last five thousand years; that, as he would be no longer among his believers in a visible manner, he wished that they would keep up his statues as his representatives, and pay to them the same honour they would pay to his own person. Relying upon this positive injunction, the Buddhist looks on the statues of Buddha as objects destined to remind him of Buddha: they are the visible mementoes of him who is infinitely dear to his affections; they put him, by their variety of shapes and form, in remembrance of the principal events connected with his existence. The princes that have been most remarkable for their religious zeal and piety, such as Adzatathat and Athoka, were anxious to multiply the statues of Buddha and the religious monuments, to nourish in the soul of all the faithful, as says our Burmese author, a feeling of tender affection, of lovely disposition for the person of Buddha and his holy religion. The relics being articles that have been most intimately connected with Buddha’s person, are designed to act on the religious feelings of the people even more powerfully than the statues. They are treasured up with the greatest care, worshipped with the profoundest respect, looked upon with a most affectionate regard. No earthly treasure can be compared with them. As Buddha’s sacred person is more valuable in their eyes than the whole world, his relics partake of that invaluable estimation. It becomes evident that the statues and relics are so much valued, esteemed, and worshipped because of the intimate connection they have with the person of Buddha, and the great help they afford in keeping alive a religious spirit and a tender affection for him.
In the worship of statues and relics, superstition has had its share too in giving an undue extension and development to the religioussentiment. This development has brought into existence the belief in prodigies and miracles wrought by the virtue of the relics. This popular error has always found a powerful support among the ignorant masses; it has been much propagated by that inordinate and irrational tendency towards all that is new and extraordinary. Man wants but a pretext, even a very futile one, to give credit to the most incredible occurrences, when they have a reference to a deeply cherished, and, as it were, favourite object. But in no way do we find genuine Buddhism countenancing such spiritual eccentricities or extravagances, which have their origin in ignorance and an inordinate fondness for the marvellous.
The articles of worship offered to or placed before the statues of Buddha, and the shrines supposed to contain some of his relics, are few and remarkable for their simplicity. They consist in flowers arranged in fine bouquets, in flags and streamers made of cloth, sometimes of paper, and cut into a great variety of figures, with considerable taste and skill. There are to be seen also small wax candles, little earthen lamps, and sometimes incense and scented wood, which are consumed in large burners, placed on pedestals made of masonry. The worshippers are generally in a squatting position, the back resting on the heels, the body slightly bending forward, the joined hands raised to the forehead. Ordinarily a string of flowers, or little bits of wood adorned each with a small paper flag, are held on these occasions. On the days of worship, particularly during the three months of Lent, the crowd of people of every age, sex, and condition, resorting to the most venerated pagoda of the place, is truly extraordinary. Men and women of a certain age have in their hands a string of beads, upon which they repeat the formula Aneitsa, Duka, Anatta, or some other.
Since the Buddhist knows that his Buddha is no more, and, therefore, can afford him no assistance whatever, that there is no virtue inherent in his relics or images, in fact, that there is no Providence, it is difficult to account for the zeal that he often displays in honouring the great founder of his religion, and all that has a reference to him. To account satisfactorily for such a moral phenomenon, we must bear in mind the belief that he has in the intrinsic worth of the devotional practices he performs. Those works are goodper se; they give rise, power, and energy to the law of merits, or to the good influence which will procure to him abundant rewards in future existences, and gradually lead him to the harbour of deliverance, the object of his most ardent wishes. That hope is, as it were, the great feeder of his devotion.
[19]On a former occasion, Buddha had raised his voice to bestow praises on the memory of the great Thariputra, whose relics he was holding on the palm of one of his hands in the presence of the assembled Rahans. Now, a short time before he yields up the ghost, he summons all his strength, and at great length passes the highest encomium on his amiable and ever-devoted attendant, the truly kind-hearted Ananda. These are the only two instances mentioned in this compilation, when Buddha has condescended to eulogise the great virtues and eminent merits of two disciples. In Thariputra, Buddha extolled the transcendent mental attainments, the heroic achievements in the practice of virtue, the fervour and zeal for the propagation of religion, which had ever distinguished the illustrious friend of Maukalan. In Ananda, the searching and keen eye of Buddha discovered excellencies of a less shining and bright hue, but, in point of sterling worth, second to none. Ananda is a matchless pattern of gentleness, amiability, devotedness, and placid religious zeal. He loves all his brethren, and he is, in return, beloved by them all. His superior goodness of heart and placidity of temper secure to him an almost undisputed precedence over the other members of the assembly. Tearing the veil that conceals futurity from our eager regards, Buddha foretells the future conquests to be made by the mild and persuasive eloquence of his ever dearly beloved disciple. The far-spread fame of Ananda shall in days to come attract crowds of visitors, eager to see and hear him. The sight of his graceful and lovely appearance shall rivet to his person the attention and affection of all. Enraptured at the flow of this tender, touching, and heart-moving eloquence, visitors shall eagerly listen to him; they will experience sadness only when his silence shall deprive them of that food which their mind and heart were feasting on.The eulogium of Ananda by Buddha is unquestionably one of the finest passages of the legend. Divested of its original beauties by having passed through several translations, it retains, however, something that charms and pleases. The reader is involuntarily reminded of similar specimens found here and there in the earliest records of antiquity.In the instructions that Ananda is to give to laymen, it is somewhat curious to see Buddha distinctly stating that Ananda will exhort the people to make offerings both to Rahans and to pounhas; that is to say, to the members of the assembly, and to the Brahmins. From this passage, it becomes evident that, in the days of our Buddha, the two sects that were subsequently to struggle during many ages for superiority over the Indian Peninsula, subsisted free from inimical feelings towards each other. It might be said that no line of separation kept them apart, indicating or pointing out their respective limits. The wide gap that was during succeeding centuries to intervene between those two great religious sects was not perceptibly felt. The levelling results of Buddhism had not yet awakened the susceptibilities of the proud Brahmins. Buddhists and Brahminists lived on friendly terms, and looked upon each other as brethren. The discrepancies in the respective creeds were regarded with indifference, as involving only philosophical subtleties, well suited to afford occupation to ideologists, and give to disputants the opportunity of displaying their abilities in arguing, reasoning, and defining. It is not easy to determine whether the conduct of Buddha was regulated by a well-calculated policy, intended to calm the suspicious scruples of his opponents, or whether he was actuated by plain and straightforward principles. It is probable that at that time many Brahmins followed a mode of life almost similar to that of the disciples of Buddha; they were, therefore, entitled to the same honours and support.
[19]On a former occasion, Buddha had raised his voice to bestow praises on the memory of the great Thariputra, whose relics he was holding on the palm of one of his hands in the presence of the assembled Rahans. Now, a short time before he yields up the ghost, he summons all his strength, and at great length passes the highest encomium on his amiable and ever-devoted attendant, the truly kind-hearted Ananda. These are the only two instances mentioned in this compilation, when Buddha has condescended to eulogise the great virtues and eminent merits of two disciples. In Thariputra, Buddha extolled the transcendent mental attainments, the heroic achievements in the practice of virtue, the fervour and zeal for the propagation of religion, which had ever distinguished the illustrious friend of Maukalan. In Ananda, the searching and keen eye of Buddha discovered excellencies of a less shining and bright hue, but, in point of sterling worth, second to none. Ananda is a matchless pattern of gentleness, amiability, devotedness, and placid religious zeal. He loves all his brethren, and he is, in return, beloved by them all. His superior goodness of heart and placidity of temper secure to him an almost undisputed precedence over the other members of the assembly. Tearing the veil that conceals futurity from our eager regards, Buddha foretells the future conquests to be made by the mild and persuasive eloquence of his ever dearly beloved disciple. The far-spread fame of Ananda shall in days to come attract crowds of visitors, eager to see and hear him. The sight of his graceful and lovely appearance shall rivet to his person the attention and affection of all. Enraptured at the flow of this tender, touching, and heart-moving eloquence, visitors shall eagerly listen to him; they will experience sadness only when his silence shall deprive them of that food which their mind and heart were feasting on.
The eulogium of Ananda by Buddha is unquestionably one of the finest passages of the legend. Divested of its original beauties by having passed through several translations, it retains, however, something that charms and pleases. The reader is involuntarily reminded of similar specimens found here and there in the earliest records of antiquity.
In the instructions that Ananda is to give to laymen, it is somewhat curious to see Buddha distinctly stating that Ananda will exhort the people to make offerings both to Rahans and to pounhas; that is to say, to the members of the assembly, and to the Brahmins. From this passage, it becomes evident that, in the days of our Buddha, the two sects that were subsequently to struggle during many ages for superiority over the Indian Peninsula, subsisted free from inimical feelings towards each other. It might be said that no line of separation kept them apart, indicating or pointing out their respective limits. The wide gap that was during succeeding centuries to intervene between those two great religious sects was not perceptibly felt. The levelling results of Buddhism had not yet awakened the susceptibilities of the proud Brahmins. Buddhists and Brahminists lived on friendly terms, and looked upon each other as brethren. The discrepancies in the respective creeds were regarded with indifference, as involving only philosophical subtleties, well suited to afford occupation to ideologists, and give to disputants the opportunity of displaying their abilities in arguing, reasoning, and defining. It is not easy to determine whether the conduct of Buddha was regulated by a well-calculated policy, intended to calm the suspicious scruples of his opponents, or whether he was actuated by plain and straightforward principles. It is probable that at that time many Brahmins followed a mode of life almost similar to that of the disciples of Buddha; they were, therefore, entitled to the same honours and support.
[20]Buddha had so much at heart the conversion of the heretic Thoubat, that the earnest desire of performing this great and meritorious action was one of the three motives that induced him to select the comparatively insignificant city of Koutheinaron for the last stage of his existence. Particulars regarding that personage would prove interesting, because he is the last convert Buddha made. From what has been alluded to in some Buddhistic writings regarding Thoubat, it is certain that he was of the caste of pounhas or Brahmins. He had studied in some of the numerous schools of philosophy, at that time so common in India. From his way of addressing Buddha, there is no doubt but he was acquainted with the principal theories upheld by the most renowned masters in those days. It is related of Thoubat that, in a former existence, he was tilling a field with one of his brothers, when some Rahans happened to pass by. His brother gave abundant alms to the holy personages, whilst Thoubat showed less liberal dispositions. When, then, Buddha appeared, the law was announced to the generous donor, and in company with eighteen koudes of Brahmas he obtained the state of Thautapan. The rather parsimonious Thoubat obtained the favour of conversion at the eleventh hour. He must have, however, subsequently atoned for this offence, as his dispositions seem to have been of the highest order when he came into Buddha’s presence. In a few hours he had gone over the four ways leading to perfection, and had become a Rahanda.In the days of Buddha, the philosophical schools of India seem to have had six eminent teachers, whose doctrines exhibited on some points a considerable variance. In a book of religious controversy between a Christian and a Buddhist, composed more than a hundred years ago by a Catholic priest at Ava, the writer had the chance of meeting with a faint outline of the leading tenets maintained by the six teachers, so often alluded to in this compilation. One of them maintained the existence and agency of numberless genii, who, at their will, could favour man with fortune and every possible temporal benefits, as well as visit him with their displeasure, by depriving him of all happiness and heaping misery and all sorts of calamities over his head. Geniolatry was the necessary consequence flowing from such a principle. A second teacher denied at once the dogma of metempsychosis, and maintained that every being had the innate power of reproducing by way of generation, &c., another being of similar nature. A third one had singular notions regarding the nature of man. He said that he had his beginning in the womb of his mother, and that death was the end and destruction of his being: such a destruction he called Neibban. A fourth teacher taught that all beings were without beginning and ending, and that there existed no influence of good and bad deeds. A fifth doctor defined Neibban, a long life like that of Nats and Brahmas. He saw no harm in the killing of animals, and he asserted the existence of a state of reward and punishment. The last teacher boldly asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, creator of all that exists, and alone worthy of receiving adorations.Thoubat’s mind was rather perplexed by so many contradictory and opposite opinions and doctrines. He had lived, it appears, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, fluctuating, as it were, between conflicting theories which could not carry conviction to his soul. He had heard of Buddha and wished to see him, hoping that perhaps he might fall in with the truth he was so ardently panting after. With these dispositions, he came to the spot where Buddha was lying on his couch, in the hope of easing his mind from the state of doubt and fixing it in truth. Like a man of consummate abilities in the way of arguing and convincing his adversary, Buddha sets aside all that was put forward by his antagonist, and, coming at once to the point, preaches to him the true doctrine. As light dispels darkness, so truth disperses the mist of error. Thoubat, seeing truth, at once embraced it, gladly ridding himself of the burden of errors that had hitherto weighed down his soul. All his doubts vanished away, and he found himself, on a sudden, safely anchored in the calm and never-agitated harbour of perfect truth.Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him.It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?
[20]Buddha had so much at heart the conversion of the heretic Thoubat, that the earnest desire of performing this great and meritorious action was one of the three motives that induced him to select the comparatively insignificant city of Koutheinaron for the last stage of his existence. Particulars regarding that personage would prove interesting, because he is the last convert Buddha made. From what has been alluded to in some Buddhistic writings regarding Thoubat, it is certain that he was of the caste of pounhas or Brahmins. He had studied in some of the numerous schools of philosophy, at that time so common in India. From his way of addressing Buddha, there is no doubt but he was acquainted with the principal theories upheld by the most renowned masters in those days. It is related of Thoubat that, in a former existence, he was tilling a field with one of his brothers, when some Rahans happened to pass by. His brother gave abundant alms to the holy personages, whilst Thoubat showed less liberal dispositions. When, then, Buddha appeared, the law was announced to the generous donor, and in company with eighteen koudes of Brahmas he obtained the state of Thautapan. The rather parsimonious Thoubat obtained the favour of conversion at the eleventh hour. He must have, however, subsequently atoned for this offence, as his dispositions seem to have been of the highest order when he came into Buddha’s presence. In a few hours he had gone over the four ways leading to perfection, and had become a Rahanda.
In the days of Buddha, the philosophical schools of India seem to have had six eminent teachers, whose doctrines exhibited on some points a considerable variance. In a book of religious controversy between a Christian and a Buddhist, composed more than a hundred years ago by a Catholic priest at Ava, the writer had the chance of meeting with a faint outline of the leading tenets maintained by the six teachers, so often alluded to in this compilation. One of them maintained the existence and agency of numberless genii, who, at their will, could favour man with fortune and every possible temporal benefits, as well as visit him with their displeasure, by depriving him of all happiness and heaping misery and all sorts of calamities over his head. Geniolatry was the necessary consequence flowing from such a principle. A second teacher denied at once the dogma of metempsychosis, and maintained that every being had the innate power of reproducing by way of generation, &c., another being of similar nature. A third one had singular notions regarding the nature of man. He said that he had his beginning in the womb of his mother, and that death was the end and destruction of his being: such a destruction he called Neibban. A fourth teacher taught that all beings were without beginning and ending, and that there existed no influence of good and bad deeds. A fifth doctor defined Neibban, a long life like that of Nats and Brahmas. He saw no harm in the killing of animals, and he asserted the existence of a state of reward and punishment. The last teacher boldly asserted the existence of a Supreme Being, creator of all that exists, and alone worthy of receiving adorations.
Thoubat’s mind was rather perplexed by so many contradictory and opposite opinions and doctrines. He had lived, it appears, in a state of doubt and uncertainty, fluctuating, as it were, between conflicting theories which could not carry conviction to his soul. He had heard of Buddha and wished to see him, hoping that perhaps he might fall in with the truth he was so ardently panting after. With these dispositions, he came to the spot where Buddha was lying on his couch, in the hope of easing his mind from the state of doubt and fixing it in truth. Like a man of consummate abilities in the way of arguing and convincing his adversary, Buddha sets aside all that was put forward by his antagonist, and, coming at once to the point, preaches to him the true doctrine. As light dispels darkness, so truth disperses the mist of error. Thoubat, seeing truth, at once embraced it, gladly ridding himself of the burden of errors that had hitherto weighed down his soul. All his doubts vanished away, and he found himself, on a sudden, safely anchored in the calm and never-agitated harbour of perfect truth.
Next to the conversion of Thoubat, follows an interesting instruction delivered to Ananda and the assembled Rahans. Here Buddha displays the superiority of his lofty mind. Clinging to the principles of abstract truth, he has no regard for persons or things. This material world, man included, is, in his opinion, a mere illusion, exhibiting nothing real, but only an uninterrupted succession of changes, which exclude the idea of immutable fixity. He apparently has no wish to infuse consolation into the afflicted souls of his disciples. He supposes that, being all initiated in the knowledge of truth, and having entered in the ways of perfection, they must know that the person of a Buddha is subjected to the law of mutability, and, therefore, to destruction or to death. He says plainly to them that his absence from among them is a circumstance scarcely worth noticing: by his doctrines contained in the Abidama, the Thoots and the Wini, he will ever be present among them. In these sacred writings they will possess something more valuable than his material being: they will have and enjoy the truth that was in him, and that he has communicated to them by his oral instructions. He earnestly invites them to lay stress only on that doctrine which they have received from him.
It is hardly necessary to notice a serious anachronism made by the unskilful compiler of this legend on this occasion. We know that Buddha wrote nothing, and that the compilation of his doctrines with its division in three distinct portions was the work of the three great councils held after Gaudama’s death or Neibban. How could the dying originator of Buddhism speak of compilations of his doctrines, which were not as yet existing?
[21]Buddha’s zeal is not chilled in the least by the cold of approaching death. His boundless knowledge enabled him at a glance to obtain the most intimate acquaintance with the inward dispositions of his disciples’ minds. If, therefore, he asked them three successive times whether they entertained doubts on any doctrinal points, it was not to satisfy himself that their faith was firm and unshaken. He wished to make them conscious of a fact which was felt and clearly understood by every one in particular, but was not as yet fully appreciated by the universality of his disciples. Every individual in particular was well aware of the unwavering dispositions of his mind respecting Buddha’s teachings, but no one ever had the opportunity of ascertaining that all his brethren had the same firmness of belief. On this solemn occasion they witnessed the most comforting sight of a perfect unity of faith in all the members of the assembly. Buddha revealed then one great truth which no one but himself could be acquainted with. A true Rahan, says he, has entered at last in the first way that leads to perfection; he is, therefore, no more exposed to the danger of wavering in his belief; he knows enough of truth to adhere firmly to it, and is enabled to prosecute safely his researches after what is still unknown to him. Every member of the assembly is a true believer, more or less advanced in the knowledge of the law, it is true, but at least he is conscious of his being in the right way. On this subject no doubt subsists in his mind; he adheres to Buddha and his doctrines as to the centre of truth, and never thinks for a moment to question the veracity of his doctor, or to call in doubt any portion of his instructions.The last words of Buddha to the assembled Bickus are designed to remind them of the great and vital principle he has endeavoured to inculcate in their minds during the forty-five years of his preaching, viz., that change and mutability are acting upon all that exists, and are inherent in all parts of nature. This world, therefore, offering but an endless vicissitude of forms, that appear and disappear, has no real existence. It is an illusion from beginning to end. As long as man remains tied up, so to speak, to nature, he is carried away by the ever-acting principle of change: nowhere can he find any rest or fixity; he quits one existence to pass into another; he leaves one form to assume a different one. What happens to man befalls all other parts of nature. From this notion, Buddha infers that there is nothing existing butnameandform. There is no substance in nature, and therefore no reality. So much stress was laid by Buddha on this capital principle that he bequeathed it, as his last Will, to his disciples: he wished that they should ever bear in their minds and remember that he came among them for the purpose of making them thoroughly acquainted with it. From this cardinal point he inferred the chief conclusions that form his religious system, viz., metempsychosis, the contempt of the world, and Neibban. By the law of endless changes, man is hurried from one state into another, or from one form of being into another form. Where is the wise man that could love a world, or an existence therein, when he finds no substance, no reality in it? Is he not induced, or rather compelled, to search after a state in which he can find fixity, reality, and truth, or at least an exemption from the harassing condition of perpetual migration from one state into another?The reader who has been almost born with and educated in theistic notions, and who sees in the world nothing but what has been created by a supreme and all-wise Being, is at a loss to understand how a grave philosopher, as undoubtedly Buddha was, gifted with great powers for observing, arguing, discussing, and inferring conclusions, could have fallen into errors so glaring and so contrary to his reason. That we might properly appreciate the efforts of such a genius, and have some correct ideas about his process of arguing, we must divest ourselves of the knowledge supplied to us by revelation, and descend to the level occupied by the founder of Buddhism. Unacquainted with a first cause, or with the existence of a Supreme Being, he studies nature as he finds it. What does he see in it? Perpetual changes, endless vicissitudes. The form that he perceives to-day has undergone some change on the following day. Everything about him grows, reaches a certain point, and then falls into decay. He finds nothing that stands always in the same condition. Hence he proclaims the great law of mutability pervading all nature, and concludes that all that we feel, see, or hear, is illusion and deception, &c.; deprived of all reality, fixity, and substance. His philosophical mind is not satisfied with such a discovery. He pants after truth and reality, which are not to be found here. He feels that he must disentangle himself from the condition of illusion and deception. But where is reality and fixity to be found? Beyond all, that exists in Neibban.
[21]Buddha’s zeal is not chilled in the least by the cold of approaching death. His boundless knowledge enabled him at a glance to obtain the most intimate acquaintance with the inward dispositions of his disciples’ minds. If, therefore, he asked them three successive times whether they entertained doubts on any doctrinal points, it was not to satisfy himself that their faith was firm and unshaken. He wished to make them conscious of a fact which was felt and clearly understood by every one in particular, but was not as yet fully appreciated by the universality of his disciples. Every individual in particular was well aware of the unwavering dispositions of his mind respecting Buddha’s teachings, but no one ever had the opportunity of ascertaining that all his brethren had the same firmness of belief. On this solemn occasion they witnessed the most comforting sight of a perfect unity of faith in all the members of the assembly. Buddha revealed then one great truth which no one but himself could be acquainted with. A true Rahan, says he, has entered at last in the first way that leads to perfection; he is, therefore, no more exposed to the danger of wavering in his belief; he knows enough of truth to adhere firmly to it, and is enabled to prosecute safely his researches after what is still unknown to him. Every member of the assembly is a true believer, more or less advanced in the knowledge of the law, it is true, but at least he is conscious of his being in the right way. On this subject no doubt subsists in his mind; he adheres to Buddha and his doctrines as to the centre of truth, and never thinks for a moment to question the veracity of his doctor, or to call in doubt any portion of his instructions.
The last words of Buddha to the assembled Bickus are designed to remind them of the great and vital principle he has endeavoured to inculcate in their minds during the forty-five years of his preaching, viz., that change and mutability are acting upon all that exists, and are inherent in all parts of nature. This world, therefore, offering but an endless vicissitude of forms, that appear and disappear, has no real existence. It is an illusion from beginning to end. As long as man remains tied up, so to speak, to nature, he is carried away by the ever-acting principle of change: nowhere can he find any rest or fixity; he quits one existence to pass into another; he leaves one form to assume a different one. What happens to man befalls all other parts of nature. From this notion, Buddha infers that there is nothing existing butnameandform. There is no substance in nature, and therefore no reality. So much stress was laid by Buddha on this capital principle that he bequeathed it, as his last Will, to his disciples: he wished that they should ever bear in their minds and remember that he came among them for the purpose of making them thoroughly acquainted with it. From this cardinal point he inferred the chief conclusions that form his religious system, viz., metempsychosis, the contempt of the world, and Neibban. By the law of endless changes, man is hurried from one state into another, or from one form of being into another form. Where is the wise man that could love a world, or an existence therein, when he finds no substance, no reality in it? Is he not induced, or rather compelled, to search after a state in which he can find fixity, reality, and truth, or at least an exemption from the harassing condition of perpetual migration from one state into another?
The reader who has been almost born with and educated in theistic notions, and who sees in the world nothing but what has been created by a supreme and all-wise Being, is at a loss to understand how a grave philosopher, as undoubtedly Buddha was, gifted with great powers for observing, arguing, discussing, and inferring conclusions, could have fallen into errors so glaring and so contrary to his reason. That we might properly appreciate the efforts of such a genius, and have some correct ideas about his process of arguing, we must divest ourselves of the knowledge supplied to us by revelation, and descend to the level occupied by the founder of Buddhism. Unacquainted with a first cause, or with the existence of a Supreme Being, he studies nature as he finds it. What does he see in it? Perpetual changes, endless vicissitudes. The form that he perceives to-day has undergone some change on the following day. Everything about him grows, reaches a certain point, and then falls into decay. He finds nothing that stands always in the same condition. Hence he proclaims the great law of mutability pervading all nature, and concludes that all that we feel, see, or hear, is illusion and deception, &c.; deprived of all reality, fixity, and substance. His philosophical mind is not satisfied with such a discovery. He pants after truth and reality, which are not to be found here. He feels that he must disentangle himself from the condition of illusion and deception. But where is reality and fixity to be found? Beyond all, that exists in Neibban.
[22]The epoch of Gaudama’s death is a point on which the various nations professing Buddhism do not agree. The Cingalese, Burmese, and Siamese annals place that event somewhat before the middle of the sixth century before the Christian era. The difference of dates is but of a few years, and is so inconsiderable as not to be worth notice. The Thibetans, and, as a consequence, the Mongolians with the Chinese, place that event several hundred years previous to the epoch just mentioned. Notwithstanding this discrepancy, it seems difficult not to adopt the chronology of the southern Buddhists. Thesavansin Europe, who have bestowed a considerable degree of attention on this interesting subject, give a decided preference to the opinion of the former.We have not to depend solely on the chronological tables of kings, supplied by the Hindus, for settling this point, but fortunately we are put indirectly by Greek writers in possession of a fixed and well-established epoch, from which we can take with a sufficient degree of certainty our departure for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. After the death of Alexander the Great, Seleucus, one of his lieutenants, obtained for his share all the provinces situated east of the Euphrates, in which the Indian conquered territories were included. Seleucus, at first in person, and next by an ambassador, came in contact with a powerful Indian king, named Chandragupta, who had the seat of his empire at Palibotra or Pataliputra. This intercourse took place about 310B.C.The Hindu chronological tables mention the name of this prince as well as that of his grandson, called Athoka, who, according to the testimony of the Burmese authors, ascended the throne of Palibotra two hundred and eighteen years after Gaudama’s death. We may suppose that Athoka reigned in or about 270 or 280B.C.These two periods added together will give but a sum of five hundred years. There will remain a difference of only forty years, for which it is not easy to account with sufficient precision, unless we suppose that the reign of Athoka began earlier than is generally admitted. Cunningham has given very strong reasons for fixing the period of Gaudama’s death sixty-six years later than the usual one, hitherto generally admitted, 543; that is to say, in the year 477B.C.This new epoch enables us to adhere at once with perfect safety to the computation above related, and does away with the small discrepancy of a few years that has been mentioned. Tradition and ancient inscriptions leave almost no doubt upon this important point.Our legend is positive in stating that Gaudama died under the reign of Adzatathat, as will hereafter be seen. But the Hindu chronologists place the reign of that monarch about 250 or 260 years before that of Chandragupta, who, as stated, was a contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. We have, therefore, the combined authority of both foreigners and natives for admitting the chronology of the southern Buddhists respecting the epoch of Gaudama’s death, in preference to that of the northern Buddhists, and for fixing that event during the first part of the sixth century before the Christian era, or rather sixty-six years later, in the beginning of the fourth part of the fifth century.
[22]The epoch of Gaudama’s death is a point on which the various nations professing Buddhism do not agree. The Cingalese, Burmese, and Siamese annals place that event somewhat before the middle of the sixth century before the Christian era. The difference of dates is but of a few years, and is so inconsiderable as not to be worth notice. The Thibetans, and, as a consequence, the Mongolians with the Chinese, place that event several hundred years previous to the epoch just mentioned. Notwithstanding this discrepancy, it seems difficult not to adopt the chronology of the southern Buddhists. Thesavansin Europe, who have bestowed a considerable degree of attention on this interesting subject, give a decided preference to the opinion of the former.
We have not to depend solely on the chronological tables of kings, supplied by the Hindus, for settling this point, but fortunately we are put indirectly by Greek writers in possession of a fixed and well-established epoch, from which we can take with a sufficient degree of certainty our departure for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. After the death of Alexander the Great, Seleucus, one of his lieutenants, obtained for his share all the provinces situated east of the Euphrates, in which the Indian conquered territories were included. Seleucus, at first in person, and next by an ambassador, came in contact with a powerful Indian king, named Chandragupta, who had the seat of his empire at Palibotra or Pataliputra. This intercourse took place about 310B.C.The Hindu chronological tables mention the name of this prince as well as that of his grandson, called Athoka, who, according to the testimony of the Burmese authors, ascended the throne of Palibotra two hundred and eighteen years after Gaudama’s death. We may suppose that Athoka reigned in or about 270 or 280B.C.These two periods added together will give but a sum of five hundred years. There will remain a difference of only forty years, for which it is not easy to account with sufficient precision, unless we suppose that the reign of Athoka began earlier than is generally admitted. Cunningham has given very strong reasons for fixing the period of Gaudama’s death sixty-six years later than the usual one, hitherto generally admitted, 543; that is to say, in the year 477B.C.This new epoch enables us to adhere at once with perfect safety to the computation above related, and does away with the small discrepancy of a few years that has been mentioned. Tradition and ancient inscriptions leave almost no doubt upon this important point.
Our legend is positive in stating that Gaudama died under the reign of Adzatathat, as will hereafter be seen. But the Hindu chronologists place the reign of that monarch about 250 or 260 years before that of Chandragupta, who, as stated, was a contemporary of Seleucus Nicator. We have, therefore, the combined authority of both foreigners and natives for admitting the chronology of the southern Buddhists respecting the epoch of Gaudama’s death, in preference to that of the northern Buddhists, and for fixing that event during the first part of the sixth century before the Christian era, or rather sixty-six years later, in the beginning of the fourth part of the fifth century.
[23]What is Neibban, the end a true Buddhist ever longs for throughout his great struggles in the practice of virtue and his constant efforts for attaining the knowledge of truth, which he finally reaches when he has become perfect? The writer confesses at once his inability to answer satisfactorily this question, because Buddhists do not agree among themselves in explaining the nature of the state of Neibban. From the earliest period of their religion we see the Brahmins keenly taunting their opponents for the discordance of their opinions on a subject of the utmost importance—a subject which had ever been prominent in Buddha’s teachings, and held up as the only one worthy of the most earnest and ardent desires, the fittest reward of the generous and extraordinary exertions of a perfected being, and the final state in which his soul, wearied after such a prolonged spiritual warfare, longed to rest for ever. A certain school of Buddhists has maintained that Neibban implied the destruction of the state of being, and consequently complete annihilation. This opinion is at once practically rejected by the portion of the southern Buddhists, who are not so well acquainted with the more philosophical part of their creed. They assert that a perfected being, after having reached Neibban, or having arrived at the end of his last existence, retains his individuality, but they utterly fail in their attempts at explaining the situation and condition of a being in Neibban. At a later period the opinion about a supreme Buddha, uncreated, eternal, and infinite, began to gain ground, and modified to a considerable extent on many points the views of the earlier Buddhists. Neibban, according to the comparatively modern school, is but an absorption into the supreme and infinite Buddha. This opinion so much approximates to that of the Brahmins that we may say it is almost the same. The means of obtaining perfection are somewhat different in both systems, but the end to be obtained is precisely the same.Setting aside idle speculations, let us try to form some idea of Neibban by explaining the meaning of the term, and the definition such as we find it in the Burmese writings.The word Neibban, in Sanscrit Nirvana, according to its etymology, means what is no more agitated, what is in a state of perfect calm. It is composed of the negative prefixnirandva, which means to be set in motion, as the wind. It implies the idea of rest in opposition to that of motion or existence. To be in the state of Neibban is therefore to be carried beyond the range of existence, as understood by Buddhists; there can be no longer migration from one state of being to another. This point is admitted by all sects of Buddhists. To the idea of Neibban is often attached that of extinction, as a lamp which ceases to burn and whose light becomes extinct when the oil is exhausted. The sum of existence being exhausted, a being ceases to be or to move within the range of existence; he becomes extinct relatively, at least to all kind of existences we have a notion of. In conversing with the Buddhists of Burmah, the writer has observed that the ideas of rest and extinction are invariably coupled with the notion of Neibban. In their rough attempt at explaining the inexplicable nature of that state they had recourse to several comparisons intended to convey to the mind that they believed Neibban to be a state of undisturbed calm and a never-ending cessation of existence, at least such as we have an idea of in this world. When questioned on the situation of Buddha in Neibban, they answer that they believe him to be in a boundless space or vacuum beyond the boundaries ever reached by other beings, alone by himself, enjoying, if the expression be correct, a perfect rest, unconcerned about this world, having no further relation with all existing beings. They assert that he is to remain for ever a stranger to all sensations of either pain or pleasure. But it must be borne in mind that this is the popular opinion rather than the philosophical one. Talking one evening with a well-informed Burman on Neibban, the light of a lamp that was burning on the writer’s table happened to die away for want of oil. The Buddhist, with an exulting tone of voice, exclaimed, “Do not ask any more what Neibban is; what has happened to the lamp just now, tells you what Neibban is. The lamp is extinct because there is no more oil in the glass. A man is in Neibban at the very moment that the principle or cause of existence is at an end or entirely exhausted.” How far such an answer can satisfy a superficial mind like that of a half-civilised Burman, it is difficult to say; but it appears certain that he does not carry his researches nor pursue his inquiries beyond these narrow boundaries. Any further attempt to penetrate deeper into the darkness of Neibban is, in his opinion, presumptuous and rash.Buddhist metaphysicians in India, in their foolish efforts to survey thatterra incognita, have originated several opinions that have had their supporters in the various schools of philosophy. The more ancient philosophers or heads of schools, in attempting to give an analysis of a thing they knew nothing about, approximated to the opinion that Neibban is nothing more or less than a complete or entire annihilation. Following the course of arguments, and admitting their premises, one is reluctantly compelled to come to the awful conclusion that the final end of a perfected Buddha is the destruction of his being, or annihilation. This opinion is still further corroborated by the short exposition of Buddhist metaphysics at the end of this volume. The crudest materialism is openly and distinctly professed. There is nothing in man distinct from the six senses. The faculty of perceiving the object they come in contact with is inherent in their nature. The sixth sense, that is to say, the heart, has the power of perceiving ideas, that is to say, things that have no form or shape. But this power is not distinct from the living sense; it disappears when the life of that sense is extinct, or, in other terms, when the heart is destroyed. To the holders of such an opinion the cessation of existence, the going out of the circle of existences, by the destruction of kan, or the influence of merits and demerits, must be and cannot but be complete annihilation.From a long period the plain sense of the masses of believers, unprejudiced by sophistical bias, revolted against such a doctrine, and at once rejected the horrible conclusion arrived at by former disputants. No one in practice openly admits that Neibban and annihilation are synonymous terms. If their views can be properly understood, we may infer from what they say that a being in Neibban retains his individuality, though isolated from all that is distinct from self. He sees the abstract truth, or truth as it is in itself, divested of the material forms under which we in our present state of existence but imperfectly see it. Passions and affections are not to be found in such a being; his position, in truth, can scarcely be understood and still less expressed by us, who can never come in communication with an object but through our passions and affections. We know that there exists a spiritual substance, but we can have no distinct idea of it. We vouch for its existence by what we observe of its operations, but it is impossible for us to explain its nature. It is not, therefore, surprising that Buddhists should be at a loss to account for the state in which a perfected being is when in Neibban. The idea of a state of apathy or rest must be understood as expressing simply a situation quite opposite to that of motion, in which all beings are as long as they are within the pale of existences. If it be admitted that the perfected being retains in Neibban his individuality, it must be inferred that he becomes, as it were, merged into the abstract truth in which he lives and rests for ever. But we must distinctly state anew that this view is in opposition to the doctrines of the earliest Buddhists, and the philosophical principles and inferences maintained as genuine. This contradiction illustrates the truth of a remark made above, that error can never entirely obliterate from man’s mind the knowledge of certain fundamental truths, which are almost constitutive of his moral being.Let us come now to a definition of Neibban translated from Pali by the Burmans. Neibban is the end of all existences, the exemption from the action ofkan,i.e., the good or bad influence produced by merits or demerits; ofTsit,i.e., the principle of all volitions, desires, and passions; of the seasons, and of taste or sensations. What means this rather curious, not to say almost unintelligible, definition? To understand it the reader must be aware thatkanis the principle which causes all beings to move incessantly from one existence into another, from a state of happiness to one of unhappiness, from a position where merits are acquired into another where further merits are to be obtained and greater proficiency in perfection secured, from a state of punishment or demerits into a worse one, &c.Kanmay be called the soul of transmigration, the hidden spring of all the changes experienced by an existing being. In Neibban the law ofkanis destroyed, and therefore there are no more changes or transmigrations.ByTsitis understood the principle of all volitions and desires. Buddhist metaphysicians, always fond of divisions and classifications, reckon one hundred and twentyTsits. Some are the root of all demerits, and their opposites are the principles of merits. Some have for object matter this material world; others have for object the immaterial world, or, as I believe, ideas and things that have no form. The last of tsits, and of course the most perfect, is entire fixity. This is the last stage ever to be reached by a perfected being in the world of existences. One step further, and he has reached the undisturbed shores of Neibban. In that latter state there is no more operation of the mind or of the heart; or at least there is no intellectual working, such as we conceive it in our actual condition.The wordUdoo, or season, is evidently used for designating a revolution of nature. The meaning is obvious, and affords no difficulty. In Neibban there is neither nature nor revolutions of nature. Neibban, if a state it be, lies in vacuum or space far beyond the extensive horizon that encircles the world or worlds, or systems of nature.The wordAhara, which literally means taste, is intended to designate all sensations acquired through the senses. By means of the senses, indeed, we obtain perceptions and acquire knowledge; but the perfected being having come to the possession of universal science, no further knowledge is needed; the senses are, therefore, useless. The senses, moreover, are the appendage of our nature, as it is during its existences. Neibban putting an end to further existences, it destroys also the constituent parts or portions of our being.Admitting that the above definition of Neibban is a correct one, and that it has been understood in a purely Buddhistic sense, we may conclude that in that state there is no moreinfluence, and consequently no transmigration, no volition of the mind, no desires of the heart, no materiality, and no sensations. The difficulty as to whether Neibban is annihilation seems all but entirely and completely solved. There is another way of arriving at a similar conclusion. Let us ascertain what are the constituent parts of an intelligent being, and then inquire whether these parts are entirely destroyed and annihilated in Neibban. In an intelligent being, according to all doctors, we find materiality, sensations, perceptions, consciousness, and intellect. These five aggregates constitute a thinking being. These, assert the same doctors, do not exist in Neibban; they are destroyed. One word more and the question would be settled; but that word has not been, at least to my knowledge, ever distinctly uttered. It is probable that these five aggregates or component parts are, in the opinion of many, the conditions of existence such as we now understand it. But it would be too hasty to conclude that a being under different conditions of existence could not retain his individuality though deprived of these five component parts. Buddhists, as already said, have very imperfect notions of a spiritual substance. It is not surprising, therefore, that they cannot express themselves in a manner more distinct, precise, and intelligible when they treat of subjects so abstruse and difficult. In practice they admit the existence of something distinct from matter, and surviving in man after the destruction of the material portion of his being; but their attempts at giving a satisfactory explanation of the nature of that surviving individuality have always proved abortive. In their process of arguing the learned reject such an admission.The question, as may be inferred from the foregoing lines, if considered in the light of purely theoretical notions, is philosophically left little open to discussion, though it will probably ever remain without a perfect solution. But the logical inferences to be deduced from the principles of genuine Buddhism inevitably lead to the dark, cold, and horrifying abyss of annihilation. If examined from a practical point of view, that is to say, taking into account the opinions of the masses of Buddhists, the difficulty may be considered as resolved too, but in an opposite sense.
[23]What is Neibban, the end a true Buddhist ever longs for throughout his great struggles in the practice of virtue and his constant efforts for attaining the knowledge of truth, which he finally reaches when he has become perfect? The writer confesses at once his inability to answer satisfactorily this question, because Buddhists do not agree among themselves in explaining the nature of the state of Neibban. From the earliest period of their religion we see the Brahmins keenly taunting their opponents for the discordance of their opinions on a subject of the utmost importance—a subject which had ever been prominent in Buddha’s teachings, and held up as the only one worthy of the most earnest and ardent desires, the fittest reward of the generous and extraordinary exertions of a perfected being, and the final state in which his soul, wearied after such a prolonged spiritual warfare, longed to rest for ever. A certain school of Buddhists has maintained that Neibban implied the destruction of the state of being, and consequently complete annihilation. This opinion is at once practically rejected by the portion of the southern Buddhists, who are not so well acquainted with the more philosophical part of their creed. They assert that a perfected being, after having reached Neibban, or having arrived at the end of his last existence, retains his individuality, but they utterly fail in their attempts at explaining the situation and condition of a being in Neibban. At a later period the opinion about a supreme Buddha, uncreated, eternal, and infinite, began to gain ground, and modified to a considerable extent on many points the views of the earlier Buddhists. Neibban, according to the comparatively modern school, is but an absorption into the supreme and infinite Buddha. This opinion so much approximates to that of the Brahmins that we may say it is almost the same. The means of obtaining perfection are somewhat different in both systems, but the end to be obtained is precisely the same.
Setting aside idle speculations, let us try to form some idea of Neibban by explaining the meaning of the term, and the definition such as we find it in the Burmese writings.
The word Neibban, in Sanscrit Nirvana, according to its etymology, means what is no more agitated, what is in a state of perfect calm. It is composed of the negative prefixnirandva, which means to be set in motion, as the wind. It implies the idea of rest in opposition to that of motion or existence. To be in the state of Neibban is therefore to be carried beyond the range of existence, as understood by Buddhists; there can be no longer migration from one state of being to another. This point is admitted by all sects of Buddhists. To the idea of Neibban is often attached that of extinction, as a lamp which ceases to burn and whose light becomes extinct when the oil is exhausted. The sum of existence being exhausted, a being ceases to be or to move within the range of existence; he becomes extinct relatively, at least to all kind of existences we have a notion of. In conversing with the Buddhists of Burmah, the writer has observed that the ideas of rest and extinction are invariably coupled with the notion of Neibban. In their rough attempt at explaining the inexplicable nature of that state they had recourse to several comparisons intended to convey to the mind that they believed Neibban to be a state of undisturbed calm and a never-ending cessation of existence, at least such as we have an idea of in this world. When questioned on the situation of Buddha in Neibban, they answer that they believe him to be in a boundless space or vacuum beyond the boundaries ever reached by other beings, alone by himself, enjoying, if the expression be correct, a perfect rest, unconcerned about this world, having no further relation with all existing beings. They assert that he is to remain for ever a stranger to all sensations of either pain or pleasure. But it must be borne in mind that this is the popular opinion rather than the philosophical one. Talking one evening with a well-informed Burman on Neibban, the light of a lamp that was burning on the writer’s table happened to die away for want of oil. The Buddhist, with an exulting tone of voice, exclaimed, “Do not ask any more what Neibban is; what has happened to the lamp just now, tells you what Neibban is. The lamp is extinct because there is no more oil in the glass. A man is in Neibban at the very moment that the principle or cause of existence is at an end or entirely exhausted.” How far such an answer can satisfy a superficial mind like that of a half-civilised Burman, it is difficult to say; but it appears certain that he does not carry his researches nor pursue his inquiries beyond these narrow boundaries. Any further attempt to penetrate deeper into the darkness of Neibban is, in his opinion, presumptuous and rash.
Buddhist metaphysicians in India, in their foolish efforts to survey thatterra incognita, have originated several opinions that have had their supporters in the various schools of philosophy. The more ancient philosophers or heads of schools, in attempting to give an analysis of a thing they knew nothing about, approximated to the opinion that Neibban is nothing more or less than a complete or entire annihilation. Following the course of arguments, and admitting their premises, one is reluctantly compelled to come to the awful conclusion that the final end of a perfected Buddha is the destruction of his being, or annihilation. This opinion is still further corroborated by the short exposition of Buddhist metaphysics at the end of this volume. The crudest materialism is openly and distinctly professed. There is nothing in man distinct from the six senses. The faculty of perceiving the object they come in contact with is inherent in their nature. The sixth sense, that is to say, the heart, has the power of perceiving ideas, that is to say, things that have no form or shape. But this power is not distinct from the living sense; it disappears when the life of that sense is extinct, or, in other terms, when the heart is destroyed. To the holders of such an opinion the cessation of existence, the going out of the circle of existences, by the destruction of kan, or the influence of merits and demerits, must be and cannot but be complete annihilation.
From a long period the plain sense of the masses of believers, unprejudiced by sophistical bias, revolted against such a doctrine, and at once rejected the horrible conclusion arrived at by former disputants. No one in practice openly admits that Neibban and annihilation are synonymous terms. If their views can be properly understood, we may infer from what they say that a being in Neibban retains his individuality, though isolated from all that is distinct from self. He sees the abstract truth, or truth as it is in itself, divested of the material forms under which we in our present state of existence but imperfectly see it. Passions and affections are not to be found in such a being; his position, in truth, can scarcely be understood and still less expressed by us, who can never come in communication with an object but through our passions and affections. We know that there exists a spiritual substance, but we can have no distinct idea of it. We vouch for its existence by what we observe of its operations, but it is impossible for us to explain its nature. It is not, therefore, surprising that Buddhists should be at a loss to account for the state in which a perfected being is when in Neibban. The idea of a state of apathy or rest must be understood as expressing simply a situation quite opposite to that of motion, in which all beings are as long as they are within the pale of existences. If it be admitted that the perfected being retains in Neibban his individuality, it must be inferred that he becomes, as it were, merged into the abstract truth in which he lives and rests for ever. But we must distinctly state anew that this view is in opposition to the doctrines of the earliest Buddhists, and the philosophical principles and inferences maintained as genuine. This contradiction illustrates the truth of a remark made above, that error can never entirely obliterate from man’s mind the knowledge of certain fundamental truths, which are almost constitutive of his moral being.
Let us come now to a definition of Neibban translated from Pali by the Burmans. Neibban is the end of all existences, the exemption from the action ofkan,i.e., the good or bad influence produced by merits or demerits; ofTsit,i.e., the principle of all volitions, desires, and passions; of the seasons, and of taste or sensations. What means this rather curious, not to say almost unintelligible, definition? To understand it the reader must be aware thatkanis the principle which causes all beings to move incessantly from one existence into another, from a state of happiness to one of unhappiness, from a position where merits are acquired into another where further merits are to be obtained and greater proficiency in perfection secured, from a state of punishment or demerits into a worse one, &c.Kanmay be called the soul of transmigration, the hidden spring of all the changes experienced by an existing being. In Neibban the law ofkanis destroyed, and therefore there are no more changes or transmigrations.
ByTsitis understood the principle of all volitions and desires. Buddhist metaphysicians, always fond of divisions and classifications, reckon one hundred and twentyTsits. Some are the root of all demerits, and their opposites are the principles of merits. Some have for object matter this material world; others have for object the immaterial world, or, as I believe, ideas and things that have no form. The last of tsits, and of course the most perfect, is entire fixity. This is the last stage ever to be reached by a perfected being in the world of existences. One step further, and he has reached the undisturbed shores of Neibban. In that latter state there is no more operation of the mind or of the heart; or at least there is no intellectual working, such as we conceive it in our actual condition.
The wordUdoo, or season, is evidently used for designating a revolution of nature. The meaning is obvious, and affords no difficulty. In Neibban there is neither nature nor revolutions of nature. Neibban, if a state it be, lies in vacuum or space far beyond the extensive horizon that encircles the world or worlds, or systems of nature.
The wordAhara, which literally means taste, is intended to designate all sensations acquired through the senses. By means of the senses, indeed, we obtain perceptions and acquire knowledge; but the perfected being having come to the possession of universal science, no further knowledge is needed; the senses are, therefore, useless. The senses, moreover, are the appendage of our nature, as it is during its existences. Neibban putting an end to further existences, it destroys also the constituent parts or portions of our being.
Admitting that the above definition of Neibban is a correct one, and that it has been understood in a purely Buddhistic sense, we may conclude that in that state there is no moreinfluence, and consequently no transmigration, no volition of the mind, no desires of the heart, no materiality, and no sensations. The difficulty as to whether Neibban is annihilation seems all but entirely and completely solved. There is another way of arriving at a similar conclusion. Let us ascertain what are the constituent parts of an intelligent being, and then inquire whether these parts are entirely destroyed and annihilated in Neibban. In an intelligent being, according to all doctors, we find materiality, sensations, perceptions, consciousness, and intellect. These five aggregates constitute a thinking being. These, assert the same doctors, do not exist in Neibban; they are destroyed. One word more and the question would be settled; but that word has not been, at least to my knowledge, ever distinctly uttered. It is probable that these five aggregates or component parts are, in the opinion of many, the conditions of existence such as we now understand it. But it would be too hasty to conclude that a being under different conditions of existence could not retain his individuality though deprived of these five component parts. Buddhists, as already said, have very imperfect notions of a spiritual substance. It is not surprising, therefore, that they cannot express themselves in a manner more distinct, precise, and intelligible when they treat of subjects so abstruse and difficult. In practice they admit the existence of something distinct from matter, and surviving in man after the destruction of the material portion of his being; but their attempts at giving a satisfactory explanation of the nature of that surviving individuality have always proved abortive. In their process of arguing the learned reject such an admission.
The question, as may be inferred from the foregoing lines, if considered in the light of purely theoretical notions, is philosophically left little open to discussion, though it will probably ever remain without a perfect solution. But the logical inferences to be deduced from the principles of genuine Buddhism inevitably lead to the dark, cold, and horrifying abyss of annihilation. If examined from a practical point of view, that is to say, taking into account the opinions of the masses of Buddhists, the difficulty may be considered as resolved too, but in an opposite sense.