§ 3. Sakya-muni, the Founder of Buddhism. North of Central India and of the kingdom of Oude, near the borders of Nepaul, there reigned, at the end of the seventh century before Christ, a wise and good king, in his capital city, Kapilavastu.* He was one of the last of the great Solar race, celebrated in the ancient epics of India. His wife, named Maya because of her great beauty, became the mother of a prince, who was named Siddartha, and afterward known as the Buddha.† She died seven days after his birth, and the child was brought up by his maternal aunt. The young prince distinguished himself by his personal and intellectual qualities, but still more by his early piety. It appears from the laws of Manu that it was not unusual, in the earliest periods of Brahmanism, for those seeking a superior piety to turn hermits, and to live alone in the forest, engaged in acts of prayer, meditation, abstinence, and the study of the Vedas. This practice, however, seems to have been confined to the Brahmans. It was, therefore, a grief to the king, when his son, in the flower of his youth and Christian Lassen. (Bonn, 1852.) Der Buddhismus, Seine Dogmen, Geschichte, und Literatur. Von W. Wassiljew. (St. Petersburg, 1860.) Ueber Buddha's Todesjahr. Von N. L. Westergaard. (Breslau, 1862.) Gott in der Geschichte. Von C. C. J. Bunsen. (Leipzig, 1858.) The Bhilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments of Central India. By A. Cunningham. (London, 1854.) Buddhism in Thibet. By Emil Schlagintweit. (Leipzig and London, 1863.) Travels in Eastern countries by Huc and Gabet, and others. References to Buddhism in the writings of Max Müller, Maurice, Baur, Hardwick, Fergusson, Pritchard, Wilson, Colebrooke, etc. * At the end of the fourth century of our era a Chinese Buddhist made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Buddha, and found the city in ruins. Another Chinese pilgrim visited it A. D. 632, and was able to trace the remains of the ruined palace, and saw a room which had been occupied by Buddha. These travels have been translated from the Chi nese by M. Stanislas Julien. + Buddha is not a proper name, but an official title. Just as we ought not to say Jesus Christ, but always Jesus the Christ, so we should say Siddartha the Buddha, or Sakya-muni the Buddha, or Gautama the Buddha. The first of these names, Siddârtha (contracted from Sarvârthasiddha) was the baptismal name given by his father, and means "The fulfilment of every wish." Sakya-muni means "The hermit of the race of Sakya," — Sakya being the ancestral name of his father's race. The name Gautama is stated by Koeppen to be "der priesterliche Beiname des Geschlechts der Sakya," whatever that may mean. highly accomplished in every kingly faculty of body and mind, began to turn his thoughts toward the life of an anchorite. In fact, the young Siddartha seems to have gone through that deep experience out of which the great prophets of mankind have always been born. The evils of the world pressed on his heart and brain; the very air seemed full of mortality; all things were passing away. Was anything permanent? anything stable? Nothing but truth; only the absolute, eternal law of things. "Let me see that," said he, " and I can give lasting peace to mankind. Then shall I become their deliverer." So, in opposition to the strong entreaties of his father, wife, and friends, he left the palace one night, and exchanged the position of a prince for that of a mendicant. "I will never return to the palace," said he, "till I have attained to the sight of the divine law, and so become Buddha.”* He first visited the Brahmans, and listened to their doctrines, but found no satisfaction therein. The wisest them could not teach him true peace, among that profound inward rest, which was already called Nirvana. He was twenty-nine years old. Although disapproving of the Brahmanic austerities as an end, he practised them during six years, in order to subdue the senses. He then became satisfied that the path to perfection did not lie that way. He therefore resumed his former diet and a more comfortable mode of life, and so lost many disciples who had been attracted by his amazing austerity. Alone in his hermitage, he came at last to that solid conviction, that KNOWLEDGE never to be shaken, of the laws of things, which had seemed to him the only foundation of a truly free life. The spot where, after a week of constant meditation, he at last arrived at this beatific vision, became one of the most sacred places in India. He was seated under a tree, his face to the east, not having moved for a day and night, when he attained the triple science, which was to rescue mankind from its woes. Twelve hundred years after the death of the Buddha, a Chinese pilgrim was shown what then passed for the sacred tree. It was *The Sanskrit root, whence the English "bode" and "forebode," means "to know." surrounded by high brick walls, with an opening to the east, and near it stood many topes and monasteries. In the opinion of M. Saint-Hilaire, these ruins, and the locality of the tree, may yet be rediscovered. The spot deserves to be sought for, since there began a movement which has, on the whole, been a source of happiness and improvement to immense multitudes of human beings, during twenty-four centuries. Having attained this inward certainty of vision, he decided to teach the world his truth. He knew well what it would bring him, what opposition, insult, neglect, scorn. But he thought of three classes of men: those who were already on the way to the truth, and did not need him; those who were fixed in error, and whom he could not help; and the poor doubters, uncertain of their way. It was to help these last, the doubters, that the Buddha went forth to preach. On his way to the holy city of India, Benares, a serious difficulty arrested him at the Ganges, namely, his having no money to pay the boatman for his passage. At Benares he made his first converts," turning the wheel of the law" for the first time. His discourses are contained in the sacred books of the Buddhists. He converted great numbers, his father among the rest, but met with fierce opposition from the Hindoo Scribes and Pharisees, the leading Brahmans. So he lived and taught, and died at the age of eighty years. Naturally, as soon as the prophet was dead he became very precious in all eyes. His body was burned with much pomp, and great contention arose for the unconsumed fragments of bone. At last they were divided into eight parts, and a tope was erected, by each of the eight fortunate possessors, over such relics as had fallen to him. The ancient books of the North and South agree as to the places where the topes were built, and no Roman Catholic relics are so well authenticated. The Buddha, who believed with Jesus that "the flesh profiteth nothing," and that "the word is spirit and life," would probably have been the first to condemn this idolatry. But fetichworship lingers in the purest religions. The time of the death of Sakya-muni, like most Orient al dates, is uncertain. The Northern Buddhists, in Thibet, Nepaul, etc., vary greatly among themselves. The Chinese Buddhists are not more certain. Lassen, therefore, with most of the scholars, accepts as authentic the period upon which all the authorities of the South, especially of Ceylon, agree, which is B. C. 543. Lately Westergaard has written a monograph on the subject, in which, by a labored argument, he places the date about two hundred years later. Whether he will convince his brother savans remains to be seen. Immediately after the death of Sakya-muni a general council of his most eminent disciples was called, to fix the doctrine and discipline of the church. The legend runs that three of the disciples were selected to recite from memory what the sage had taught. The first was appointed to repeat his teaching upon discipline; "for discipline," said they, "is the soul of the law." Whereupon Upali, mounting the pulpit, repeated all of the precepts concerning morals and the ritual. Then Ananda was chosen to give his master's discourses concerning faith or doctrine. Finally, Kasyapa announced the philosophy and metaphysics of the system. The council sat during seven months, and the threefold division of the sacred Scriptures of Buddhism was the result of their work; for Sakya-muni wrote nothing himself. He taught by conversation only. The second general council was called to correct certain abuses which had begun to creep in. It was held about a hundred years after the teacher's death. A great fraternity of monks proposed to relax the conventual discipline, by allowing greater liberty in taking food, in drinking intoxicating liquor, and taking gold and silver if offered in alms. The schismatic monks were degraded, to the number of ten thousand, but formed a new sect. The third council, held during the reign of the great Buddhist Emperor Asoka, was called on account of heretics, who, to the number of sixty thousand, were degraded and expelled. After this, missionaries were despatched to preach the word in different lands. The names and success of these missionaries are recorded in the Mahawanso, or Sacred History, translated by Mr. George Turnour from the Singhalese. But what is remarkable is, that the relics of some of them have been recently found in the Sanchi topes, and in other sacred buildings, contained in caskets, with their names inscribed on them. These inscribed names correspond with those given to the same missionaries in the historical books of Ceylon. For example, according to the Mahawanso, two missionaries, one named Kassapo (or Kasyapa), and the other called Majjhima (or Madhyama), went to preach in the region of the Himalayan Mountains. They journeyed, preached, suffered, and toiled, side by side, so the ancient history informs us, a history composed in Ceylon in the fifth century of our era, with the aid of works still more ancient ; * and now, when the second Sanchi tope was opened in 1851, by Major Cunningham, the relics of these very missionaries were discovered. The tope was perfect in 1819, when visited by Captain Fell,-"not a stone fallen." And though afterward injured, in 1822, by some amateur relic-hunters, its contents remained intact. It is a solid hemisphere, built of rough stones without mortar, thirtynine feet in diameter; it has a basement six feet high, projecting all around five feet, and so making a terrace. It is surrounded by a stone railing, with carved figures. In the centre of this tope was found a small chamber, made of six stones, containing the relic-box of white sandstone, about ten inches square. Inside this were four caskets of steatite (a sacred stone among the Buddhists), each containing small portions of burnt human bone. On the outside lid of one of these boxes was this inscription: "Relics of the emancipated Kasyapa Gotra, missionary to the whole Hemawanta." And on the inside of the lid was carved: "Relics of the emancipated Madhyama." These relics, with those of eight other leading men of the Buddhist Church, had rested in this monument since the age of Asoka, and cannot have been placed there later than B. C. 220. The missionary spirit displayed by Buddhism distinguishes it from all other religions which preceded Christian+ Bhilsa Topes. * Saint-Hilaire. |