Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

372

This was probably written after Pâṭaliputra had become a great city but we do not know when its rise commenced.

373

She was a noted character in Vesâlî. In Mahâvag. viii. 1, people are represented as saying that it was through her the place was so flourishing and that it would be a good thing if there were some one like her in Râjagaha.

374

The whole passage is interesting as displaying even in the Pali Canon the germs of the idea that the Buddha is an eternal spirit only partially manifested in the limits of human life. In the Mahâparinib.-sutta Gotama is only voluntarily subject to natural death.

375

The phrase occurs again in the Sutta-Nipâta. Its meaning is not clear to me.

376

The text seems to represent him as crossing first a streamlet and then the river.

377

It is not said how much time elapsed between the meal at Cunda's and the arrival at Kusinârâ but since it was his last meal, he probably arrived the same afternoon.

378

Cf. Lyall's poem, on a Rajput Chief of the Old School, who when nearing his end has to leave his pleasure garden in order that he may die in the ancestral castle.

379

Dig. Nik. 17 and Jâtaka 95.

380

It is said that this discipline was efficacious and that Channa became an Arhat.

381

It is difficult to find a translation of these words which is both accurate and natural in the mouth of a dying man. The Pali text vayadhammâ saṅkhârâ (transitory-by-nature are the Saṅkhâras) is brief and simple but any correct and adequate rendering sounds metaphysical and is dramatically inappropriate. Perhaps the rendering "All compound things must decompose" expresses the Buddha's meaning best. But the verbal antithesis between compound and decomposing is not in the original and though saṅkhâra is etymologically the equivalent of confection or synthesis it hardly means what we call a compound thing as opposed to a simple thing.

382

The Buddha before his death had explained that the corpse of a Buddha should be treated like the corpse of a universal monarch. It should be wrapped in layers of new cloth and laid in an iron vessel of oil. Then it should be burnt and a Dagoba should be erected at four cross roads.

383

The Mallas had two capitals, Kusinârâ and Pâvâ, corresponding to two subdivisions of the tribe.

384

Theragâthâ 557 ff. Water to refresh tired and dusty feet is commonly offered to anyone who comes from a distance.

385

Mahâvag. VIII. 26.

386

E.g. Therîgâthâ 133 ff. It should also be remembered that orientals, particularly Chinese and Japanese, find Christ's behaviour to his mother as related in the gospels very strange.

387

E.g. Roja, the Malta, in Mahâvag. VI. 36 and the account of the interview with the Five Monks in the Nidânakathâ (Rhys Davids, Budd. Birth Stories, p. 112).

388

E.g. Maj. Nik. 36.

389

Dig. Nik. XVII. and V.

390

Maj. Nik. 57.

391

Mahâparib. Sutta, I. 61.

392

The earliest sources for these legends are the Mahâvastu, the Sanskrit Vinayas (preserved in Chinese translations), the Lalita Vistara, the Introduction to the Jâtaka and the Buddha-carita. For Burmese, Sinhalese, Tibetan and Chinese lives of the Buddha, see the works of Bigandet, Hardy, Rockhill and Schiefner, Wieger and Beal. See also Foucher, Liste indienne des actes du Buddha and Hackin, Scènes de la Vie du Buddha d'après des peintures tibétaines.

393

It was the full moon of the month Vaiśâkha.

394

The best known of the later biographies of the Buddha, such as the Lalita Vistara and the Buddha-carita of Aśvaghosha stop short after the Enlightenment.

395

There are some curious coincidences of detail between the Buddha and Confucius. Both disliked talking about prodigies (Analects. V11. 20) Confucius concealed nothing from his disciples (ib. 23), just as the Buddha had no "closed fist," but he would not discuss the condition of the dead (Anal. xi. 11), just as the Buddha held it unprofitable to discuss the fate of the saint after death. Neither had any great opinion of the spirits worshipped in their respective countries.

396

Maj. Nik. 143.

397

The miraculous cure of Suppiyâ (Mahâvag. VI. 23) is no exception. She was ill not because of the effects of Karma but because, according to the legend, she had cut off a piece of her flesh to cure a sick monk who required meat broth. The Buddha healed her.

398

The most human and kindly portrait of the Buddha is that furnished by the Commentary on the Thera- and Therî-gâthâ. See Thera-gâthâ xxx, xxxi and Mrs Rhys Davids' trans. of Therî-gâthâ, pp. 71, 79.

399

John xvii. 9. But he prayed for his executioners.

400

John vii. 19-20.

401

See chap. VIII. of this book.

402

Cullavag, IX, I. IV.

403

Sam. Nik. LVI. 31.

404

Udâna VI. 4. The story is that a king bade a number of blind men examine an elephant and describe its shape. Some touched the legs, some the tusks, some the tail and so on and gave descriptions accordingly, but none had any idea of the general shape.

405

Or "determined."

406

Or form: rûpa.

407

The word Jiva, sometimes translated soul, is not equivalent to âtman. It seems to be a general expression for all the immaterial side of a human being. It is laid down (Dig. Nik. VI. and VII.) that it is fruitless to speculate whether the Jiva is distinct from the body or not.

408

Saññâ like many technical Buddhist terms is difficult to render adequately, because it does not cover the same ground as any one English word. Its essential meaning is recognition by a mark. When we perceive a blue thing we recognize it as blue and as like other blue things that we have marked. See Mrs Rhys Davids, Dhamma-Sangaṇi, p. 8.

409

The Saṃyutta-Nikâya XXII. 79. 8 states that the Sankhâras are so-called because they compose what is compound (sankhatam).

410

Maj. Nik. 44.

411

In this sense Sankhâra has also some affinity to the Sanskrit use of Saṃskâra to mean a sacramental rite. It is the essential nature of such a rite to produce a special effect. So too the Sankhâras present in one existence inevitably produce their effect in the next existence. For Sankhâra see also the long note by S.Z. Aung at the end of the Compendium of Philosophy (P.T.S. 1910).

412

The use of this word for Viññâṇa is, I believe, due to Mrs Rhys Davids.

413

See especially Maj. Nik. 38.

414

Pali, Khanda. But it has become the custom to use the Sanskrit term. Cf. Karma, nirvâna.

415

See Sam. Nik. XII. 62. For parallels to this view in modern times see William James, Text Book of Psychology, especially pp. 203, 215, 216.

416

Cf. Milinda Panha II. 1. 1 and also the dialogue between the king of Sauvîra and the Brahman in Vishnu Pur. II. XIII.

417

Vis. Mag. chap. XVI. quoted by Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 146. Also it is admitted that viññâṇa cannot be disentangled and sharply distinguished from feeling and sensation. See passages quoted in Mrs Rhys Davids, Buddhist Psychology, pp. 52-54.

418

Sam. Nik. XXII. 22. 1.

419

With reference to a teacher dhamma is the doctrine which he preaches. With reference to a disciple, it may often be equivalent to duty. Cf. the Sanskrit expressions: sva-dharma, one's own duty; para-dharma, the duty of another person or caste.

420

Dhamma-s. 1044-5.

421

II. 3. 8.

422

Dig. Nik. XI. 85.

423

Name and form is the Buddhist equivalent for subject and object or mind and body.

424

Mrs Rhys Davids, Buddhist Psychology, p. 39.

425

Sam. Nik. xxxv. 93.

426

The same formula is repeated for the other senses.

427

See Maj. Nik. 36 for his own experiences and Dig. Nik. 2. 93-96.

428

In Dig. Nik. xxiii. Pâyâsi maintains the thesis, regarded as most unusual (sec. 5), that there is no world but this and no such things as rebirth and karma. He is confuted not by the Buddha but by Kassapa. His arguments are that dead friends whom he has asked to bring him news of the next world have not done so and that experiments performed on criminals do not support the idea that a soul leaves the body at death. Kassapa's reply is chiefly based on analogies of doubtful value but also on the affirmation that those who have cultivated their spiritual faculties have intuitive knowledge of rebirth and other worlds. But Pâyâsi did not draw any distinction between rebirth and immortality as understood in Europe. He was a simple materialist.

429

The more mythological parts of the Pitakas make it plain that the early Buddhists were not materialists in the modern sense. It is also said that there are formless worlds in which there is thought, but no form or matter.

430

See too the story of Godhika's death. Sam. Nik. I. iv. 3 and Buddhaghosa on Dhammap. 57.

431

No. 38 called the Mahâtaṇhâsankhaya-suttam.

432

See too Dig. Nik. n. 63, "If Viññâṇa did not descend into the womb, would body and mind be constituted there?" and Sam. Nik. xii. 12. 3, "Viññâṇa food is the condition for bringing about rebirth in the future."

433

Uppajjati is the usual word.

434

Ariyasaccâni. Rhys Davids translates the phrase as Aryan truths and the word Ariya in old Pali appears not to have lost its national or tribal sense, e.g. Dig. Nik. n. 87 Ariyam âyatanam the Aryan sphere (of influence). But was a religious teacher preaching a doctrine of salvation open to all men likely to describe its most fundamental and universal truths by an adjective implying pride of race?

435

In Maj. Nik. 44 the word dukkha is replaced by sakkâya, individuality, which is apparently regarded as equivalent in meaning. So for instance the Noble Eightfold path is described as sakkâya-nirodha-gâminî patipadâ.

436

Theragâthâ 487-493, and Puggala Pañ. iv. 1.

437

But it has not been proved so far as I know.

438

Sam. Nik. XV. 3.

439

Buddhist works sometimes insist on the impurity of human physical life in a way which seems morbid and disagreeable. But this view is not exclusively Buddhist or Asiatic. It is found in Marcus Aurelius and perhaps finds its strongest expression in the De Contemptu Mundi of Pope Innocent III (in Pat. Lat. ccxvii. cols. 701-746).

440

As a general rule suicide is strictly forbidden (see the third Pârâjika and Milinda, iv. 13 and 14) for in most cases it is not a passionless renunciation of the world but rather a passionate and irritable protest against difficulties which simply lays up bad karma in the next life. Yet cases such as that of Godhika (see Buddhaghosa on the Dhammapada, 57) seem to imply that it is unobjectionable if performed not out of irritation but by one who having already obtained mental release is troubled by disease.

441

Pali Paticca-samuppâda. Sanskrit Pratîtya-samutpâda.

442

Sam. Nik. xii. 10.

443

Dig. Nik. XV.

444

"Contact comes from consciousness: sensation from contact: craving from sensation: the sankhâras from craving: consciousness from the sankhâras: contact from consciousness" and so on ad infinitum. See Mil. Pan. 51.

445

Dig. Nik. XV.

446

Sam. Nik. XII. 53. Cf. too the previous sutta 51. In the Abhidhamma Pitaka and later scholastic works we find as a development of the law of causation the theory of relations (paccaya) or system of correlation (paṭṭhâna-nayo). According to this theory phenomena are not thought of merely in the simple relation of cause and effect. One phenomenon can be the assistant agency (upakâraka) of another phenomenon in 24 modes. See Mrs Rhys Davids' article Relations in E.R.E.

447

Mrs Rhys Davids, Dhamma-sangaṇi, pref. p. lii. "The sensory process is analysed in each case into (a) an apparatus capable of reaching to an impact not itself: (b) an impinging form (rûpam): (c) contact between (a) and (b): (d) resultant modification of the mental continuum, viz. first, contact of a specific sort, then hedonistic result or intellectual result or presumably both."

448

See e.g. Maj. Nik. 38.

449

This does not mean that the same name-and-form plus consciousness which dies in one existence reappears in another.

450

Maj. Nik. 120 Sankhâruppatti sutta.

451

He should make it a continual mental exercise to think of the rebirth which he desires.

452

So too in the Sânkhya philosophy the samskâras are said to pass from one human existence to another. They may also remain dormant for several existences and then become active.

453

Maj. Nik. 9 Sammâdiṭṭhi sutta.

454

Sam. Nik. xxii. 126.

455

Mahâvag. i. 23. 4 and 5:

456

The Sânkhya might be described as teaching a law of evolution, but that is not the way it is described in its own manuals.

457

Take among hundreds of instances the account of the Buddha's funeral.

458

The Anguttara Nikâya, book iv. chap. 77, forbids speculation on four subjects as likely to bring madness and trouble. Two of the four are kamma-vipâko and loka-cintâ. An attempt to make the chain of causation into a cosmic law would involve just this sort of speculation.

459

The Pitakas insist that causation applies to mental as well as physical phenomena.

460

Sam. Nik. xii. 35.

461

Vis. Mag. xvii. Warren, p. 175.

462

See Waddell, J.R.A.S. 1894, pp. 367-38Rhys Davids, Amer. Lectures, pp. 155-160.

463

Sam. Nik. XII. 61. See too Theragâthâ, verses 125 and 1111, and for other illustrative quotations Mrs Rhys Davids, Buddhist Psychology, pp. 34, 35.

464

But see Maj. Nik. 79, for the idea that there is something beyond happiness.

465

Dig. Nik. 22.

466

Sutta-Nipâta, 787.

467

Padhânam. But in later Buddhism we also find the idea that nirvana is something which comes only when we do not struggle for it.

468

Mettâ, corresponding exactly to the Greek [Greek: agapei of the New Testament.

469

III. 7. The translation is abbreviated.

470

More literally, "All the occasions which can be used for doing good works."

471

Sutta-Nipâta, 1-8, S.B.E. vol. X. p. 25 and see also Ang. Nik. IV. 190 which says that love leads to rebirth in the higher heavens and Sam. Nik. XX. 4 to the effect that a little love is better than great gifts. Also Questions of Milinda, 4. 4. 16.

472

Ang. Nik. 1. 2. 4.

473

Cf. too Mahâvag. VIII. 22 where a monk is not blamed for giving the property of the order to his parents.

474

Sati is the Sanskrit Smriti.

475

Dhammap. 160.

476

Bhag-gîtâ, 3. 27.

477

Vishnu Pur. II. 13. The ancient Egyptians also, though for quite different reasons, did not accept our ideas of personality. For them man was not an individual unity but a compound consisting of the body and of several immaterial parts called for want of a better word souls, the ka, the ba, the sekhem, etc., which after death continue to exist independently.

478

Ueber den Stand der indischen Philosophie zur Zeit Mahâvîras und Buddhas, 1902. And On the problem of Nirvana in Journal of Pali Text Society, 1905. See too Sam. Nik. XXII. 15-17.

479

Maj. Nik. 22.

480

Compare also the sermon on the burden and the bearer and Sam Nik. XXII. 15-17. It is admitted that Nirvana is not dukkha and not aniccam and it seems to be implied it is not anattam.

481

See the argument with Yamaka in Sam. Nik. XXII. 85.

482

See Sam. Nik. III., XXII. 97.

483

Also paññâkkhandha or vijjâ.

484

Dig. Nik. II.

485

These exercises are hardly possible for the laity.

486

See chap. XIV. for details.

487

Sanskrit Nirvâṇa: Pali Nibbâna.

488

Maj. Nik. 26.

489

E.g. the words addressed to Buddha, nibbutâ nûna sâ narî yassâyam îdiso pati. Happy is the woman who has such a husband. In the Anguttara Nikâya, III. 55 the Brahman Jâṇussoṇi asks Buddha what is meant by Sanditthikam nibbâṇam, that is nirvâṇa which is visible or belongs to this world. The reply is that it is effected by the destruction of lust, hatred and stupidity and it is described as akâlikam, ehipassikam opanayikam, paccattam veditabbam viññûhi--difficult words which occur elsewhere as epithets of Dhamma and apparently mean immediate, inviting (it says "come and see"), leading to salvation, to be known by all who can understand. For some views as to the derivation of nibbana, nibbuto, etc. see J.P.T.S. 1919, pp. 53 ff. But the word nirvâṇa occurs frequently in the Mahâbhârata and was probably borrowed by the Buddhists from the Brahmans.

490

Or sa-upâdi.

491

But parinirvâṇa is not always rigidly distinguished from nirvâṇa, e.g. Sutta Nipâta, 358. And in Cullavag. VI. 4. 4 the Buddha describes himself as Brâhmaṇo parinibbuto. Parinibbuto is even used of a horse in Maj. Nik. 65 ad fin.

492

Sam. Nik. XXII. 1. 18.

493

Vimuttisukham and brahmacariyogadham sukham.

494

Maj. Nik. 139, cf. also Ang. Nik. II. 7 where various kinds of sukham or happiness are enumerated, and we hear of nekkhammasukham nirupadhis, upekkhâs, arûparamanam sukham, etc.

495

E.g. Maj. Nik. 9 Ditthe dhamme dukkhass' antakaro hoti.

496

Ang. Nik. V. xxxii.

497

Maj. Nik. 79.

498

Asankhatadhâtu, cf. the expression asankhâraparinibbâyî. Pugg. Pan. l. 44.

499

Tabulated in Mrs Rhys Davids' translation, pp. 367-9.

500

Such a phrase as Nibbâṇassa sacchikiriyâya "for the attainment or realization of Nirvana" would be hardly possible if Nirvana were annihilation.

501

Udâna VII. near beginning.

502

These are the formless stages of meditation. In Nirvana there is neither any ordinary form of existence nor even the forms of existence with which we become acquainted in trances.

503

This negative form of expression is very congenial to Hindus. Thus many centuries later Kabir sung "With God is no rainy season, no ocean, no sunshine, no shade: no creation and no destruction: no life nor death: no sorrow nor joy is felt .... There is no water, wind, nor fire. The True Guru is there contained."

504

IV. 7. 13 ff.

505

See also Book VII. of the Milinda containing a long list of similes illustrating the qualities necessary for the attainment of arhatship. Thirty qualities of arhatship are mentioned in Book VI. of the same work. See also Mahâparinib. Sut. III. 65-60 and Rhys Davids' note.

506

E.g. Dig. Nik. xvi. ii. 7, Cullavag. ix. 1. 4.

507

E.g. Pugg. Pan. 1. 39. The ten fetters are (1) sakkâyadiṭṭhi, belief in the existence of the self, (2) vicikicchâ, doubt, (3) silabbataparamâso, trust in ceremonies of good works, (4) kâmarâgo, lust, (5) paṭigho, anger, (6) rûparâgo, desire for rebirth in worlds of form, (7) arûparâgo, desire for rebirth in formless worlds, (8) mano, pride, (9) uddhaccam, self-righteousness, (10) avijjâ, ignorance.

508

There is some diversity of doctrine about the Sakadâgâmin. Some hold that he has two births, because he comes back to the world of men after having been born once meanwhile in a heaven, others that he has only one birth either on earth or in a devaloka.

509

Avyâkatani. The Buddha, being omniscient, sabaññu, must have known the answer but did not declare it, perhaps because language was incapable of expressing it

510

Jiva not attâ.

511

Maj. Nik. 63.

512

Sam. Nik. xvii. 85.

513

Maj. Nik. 72.

514

Which is said not to grow up again.

515

It may be that the Buddha had in his mind the idea that a flame which goes out returns to the primitive invisible state of fire. This view is advocated by Schrader (Jour. Pali Text Soc. 1905, p. 167). The passages which he cites seem to me to show that there was supposed to be such an invisible store from which fire is born but to be less conclusive as proving that fire which goes out is supposed to return to that store, though the quotation from the Maitreyi Up. points in this direction. For the metaphor of the flame see also Sutta-Nipâta, verses 1074-6.

516

XLIV. 1.

517

Maj. Nik. 9, ad init. Asmîti diṭṭhim ânânusayam samûhanitvâ.

518

See especially Sutta-Nipâta, 1076 Atthan gatassa na pamâṇam atthi, etc.

519

Sam. Nik. XXII. 85.

520

Maj. Nik. 22, Alagaddûpama-suttam.

521

Later in the same Sutta: Kevalo paripûro bâladhammo.

522

Four emphatic synonyms in the original.

523

Dig. Nik. I. 73 uccinna-bhava-nettiko.

524

I recommend the reader to consider carefully the passage at the end of Book IV. of Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (Haldane and Kemp's translation, vol. I. pp. 529-530). Though he evidently misunderstood what he calls "the Nirvana of the Buddhists" yet his own thought throws much light on it.

525

Sk. Bhikshu, beggar or mendicant, because they live on alms. Bhikshâcaryam occurs in Brihad-Âr. Up. III. 5. I.