Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1. Charles Eliot

63

This is not true of the more modern Upanishads which are often short treatises specially written to extol a particular deity or doctrine.

64

Mahâparinibbâna sutta. See the table of parallel passages prefixed to Rhys Davids's translation, Dialogues of the Buddha, II. 72.

65

Much the same is true of the various editions of the Vinaya and the Mahâvastu. These texts were produced by a process first of collection and then of amplification.

66

The latter part of Mahâbhârata XII.

67

Though European religions emphasize man's duty to God, they do not exclude the pursuit of happiness: e.g. Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647). Question 1, "What is the chief end of man? A. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever."

68

Mrs Rhys Davids has brought out the importance of the will for Buddhist ethics in several works. See J.R.A.S. 1898, p. 47 and Buddhism, pp. 221 ff. See also Maj. Nik. 19 for a good example of Buddhist views as to the necessity and method of cultivating the will.

69

The words are kâmacâra and akâmacâra. Chand. Up. 8. 1-6.

70

Mahâvag. I. 6. E.g. Ajâtasattu (Dig. Nik. 2, ad fin.) would have obtained the eye of truth, had he not been a parricide. The consequent distortion of mind made higher states impossible.

71

But all general statements about Hinduism are liable to exceptions. The evil spirit Duḥsaha described in the Mârkandeya Purâna (chaps. L and LI) comes very near the Devil.

72

I can understand that the immediate reality is a duality or plurality and that the one spirit may appear in many shapes.

73

E.g. Chand. Up. V. 1. 2. Bri. Ar. Up. I. 3. In the Pâñcarâtra we do hear of a jñânabhraṃsa or a fall from knowledge analogous to the fall of man in Christian theology. Souls have naturally unlimited knowledge but this from some reason becomes limited and obscured, so that religion is necessary to show the soul the right way. Here the ground idea seems to be not that any devil has spoilt the world but that ignorance is necessary for the world process, for otherwise mankind would be one with God and there would be no world. See Schrader, Introd. to the Pâncarâtra, pp. 78 and 83.

74

The Śatapatha Brâhmana has a curious legend (XI. 1. 6. 8 ff.) in which the Creator admits that he made evil spirits by mistake and smites them. In the Kârikâ of Gauḍapâda, 2. 19 it is actually said: Mayaishâ tasya devasya yayâ sammohitaḥ svayam.

75

He does not say this expressly and it requires careful statement in India where it is held strongly that God being perfect cannot add to his bliss or perfection by creating anything. Compare Dante, Paradiso, xxix. 13-18:

76

The history of Japan and Tibet offers some exceptions.

77

There are some exceptions, e.g. ancient Camboja, the Sikhs and the Marathas.

78

But there are other kinds of worship, such as the old Vedic sacrifices which are still occasionally performed, and the burnt offerings (homa) still made in some temples. There are also tantric ceremonies and in Assam the public worship of the Vishnuites has probably been influenced by the ritual of Lamas in neighbouring Buddhist countries.

79

This position is of great importance as tending to produce a similar arrangement of religious paraphernalia. The similarity disappears when Buddhist ceremonies are performed round Stûpas out of doors.

80

As explained elsewhere, I draw a distinction between Tantrism and Śâktism.

81

It does not seem to me to have given much inspiration to Rossetti in his Aatarte Syriaca.

82

But in justice to the Tantras it should be mentioned that the Mahâ-nirvâṇa Tantra, x. 79, prohibits the burning of widows.

83

See Asiatic Review, July, 1916, p. 33.

84

E.g. Vijayanagar, the Marathas and the states of Rajputana.

85

According to the census of 1911 no less than 72 per cent. of the population live by agriculture.

86

The chief exceptions are: (a) the Tibetan church has acquired and holds power by political methods. It is an exact parallel to the Papacy, but it has never burnt people. (b) In mediæval Japan the great monasteries became fortified castles with lands and troops of their own. They fought one another and were a menace to the state. Later the Tokugawa sovereigns had the assistance of the Buddhist clergy in driving out Christianity but I do not think that their action can be compared either in extent or cruelty with the Inquisition. (c) In China Buddhism was in many reigns associated with a dissolute court and palace intrigues. This led to many scandals and great waste of money.

87

See for instance Huxley's striking definition of Buddhism in his Romanes Lecture, 1893. "A system which knows no God in the western sense; which denies a soul to man: which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin: which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice: which bids men look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation: which in its original purity knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm: yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity and is still with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind." But some of this is too strongly phrased. Early Buddhism counted the desire for heaven as a hindrance to the highest spiritual life, but if a man had not attained to that plane and was bound to be reborn somewhere, it did not question that his natural desire to be reborn in heaven was right and proper.

88

It may of course be denied that Buddhism is a religion. In this connection some remarks of Mr Bradley are interesting. "The doctrine that there cannot be a religion without a personal God is to my mind entirely false" (Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 432). "I cannot accept a personal God as the ultimate truth" (ib. 449). "There are few greater responsibilities which a man can take on himself than to have proclaimed or even hinted that without immortality all religion is a cheat, all morality a self-deception" (Appearance and Reality, p. 510).

89

Mahâvaṃsa, xii. 29, xiv. 58 and 64. Dîpavaṃsa, xn. 84 and 85, xiii. 7 and 8.

90

Essays in Criticism, Second Series, Amiel.

91

This definition of orthodoxy is due to St Vincent of Lerins. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.

92

I know that this statement may encounter objections, but I believe that few Indians would be surprised at the proposition that God is all things. Some might deny it, but as a familiar error.

93

But orthodox Christianity really falls into the same difficulty. For if God planned the redemption of the world and we are saved by the death of Christ, then the Chief Priests, Judas, Pilate and the soldiers who crucified Christ are at least the instruments of salvation.

94

Wm James, Psychology, pp. 203 and 216.

95

I quote this epitome from Wildon Carr's Henri Bergson, The Philosophy of Change, because the phraseology is thoroughly Buddhist and appears to have

Скачать книгу