 Section No. 34 of Hinduism and Buddhism, a historical sketch, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joseph Campbell. Hinduism and Buddhism, a historical sketch, Volume 1 by Charles Elliot. Beginning at Book 3. In the previous book I have treated chiefly the general characteristics of Indian religion. They persist in its later phases, but great changes and additions are made. In the present book I propose to speak about the life and teaching of the Buddha, which even hostile critics must admit to be a turning point in the history of Indian thought and institutions, and about the earliest forms of Buddhism. For twelve centuries or more after the death of this great genius, Indian religion flows in two parallel streams, Buddhist and Brahmanic, which subsequently unite. Buddhism, coloring the whole river, but ceasing within India itself to have any important manifestations distinct from Brahmanism. In a general survey, it is hardly possible to follow the order of strict chronology until comparatively modern times. We cannot, for instance, give a sketch of Indian thought in the first century BC simply because our data do not permit us to assign certain sects and books to that period, rather than to the hundred years which preceded or followed it. But we can follow, with moderate accuracy, the two streams of thought in their respective courses. I have wondered if I should not take Hinduism first. Its development from ancient Brahmanism is continuous and Buddhism is merely an episode in it, though a lengthy one. But many as are the Likunai in the history of Buddhism, it offers more data and documents than the history of Hinduism. We know more about the views of Ahsoka, for instance, than about those of Chandraglubta Mariya. I shall therefore deal first with Buddhism, then with Hinduism, while regretting that a parallel and synoptic treatment is impracticable. The eight chapters of this book deal mainly with Pali Buddhism, a convenient and non-controversial term and not with the Mahayana, though they note the tendencies which found expression in it. The first chapter I treat of the Buddha's life, in the second I venture to compare him with other great religious teachers, in the third I consider his doctrine as expounded in the Pali Tripitaka, and in the fourth the order of mendicants which he founded. The nature and value of the Pali Canon form the subject of the fifth chapter, and the sixth is occupied with the great Emperor Ahsoka, whose name is the clearest landmark in the early history of Buddhism and indeed of India. The seventh and eighth chapters discuss topics which belong to Hinduism as well as Buddhism, namely meditation and mythology. The latter is interior to Buddhism, and it is only in a special sense that it can be called an addition or accretion. Indian thought makes clearings in the jungle of mythology which become obliterated or diminished as the jungle grows over them again. Buddhism was the most thorough of such clearings, yet it was invaded more rapidly and completely than any other. Vedanta and Sankhya are really, if less obviously, similar clearings. They raise no objection to popular divinities, but such divinities do not come within the scope of religious philosophy, as they understand it. End of Section 34. Section 35 of Hinduism and Buddhism, a historical sketch, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joseph Campbell. Hinduism and Buddhism, a historical sketch, Volume 1 by Charles Elliott. Chapter 8. Life of the Buddha. Section 1. We have hitherto been occupied with obscure and shadowy personalities. The authors of the Apanishads are nameless and even Mahavira is unknown outside of India, but we now come to the career of one who must be reigned among the greatest leaders of thought that the world has seen, the Indian Prince generally known as Gautama or the Buddha. His historical character has been called in question, but at the present day probably few if any competent judges doubt that he was a real person, whose date can be fixed and whose life can be sketched at least an outline. We have seen that apart from the personality of Gautama, ancient India was familiar with the idea of a Buddha and even classified the attributes he should possess. Two styles of biography are therefore possible, an account of what Gautama actually was and did, and an account of what a Buddha is expected to be and do. This second style prevails in later Buddhist works. They contain descriptions of the deeds and teachings of a Buddha adapted to such facts in Gautama's life as seemed suitable for such treatment or could not be ignored. Rhys Davids has well compared them to Paradise Regained, but the supernatural element is, after the Indian fashion, more ornate. The reader will perhaps ask what are the documents describing Gautama's sayings and doings and what warrant we have for trusting them. I will treat of this question in more detail in a later chapter, and here will merely say that the Pali works called Vijnana, or monastic rules and sattas, or sermons, recount the circumstances in which each rule was laid down and each sermon preached. Some narrative passages, such as the sattas which relates the clothes of the Buddha's life and the portion of the Vijnana which tells how he obtained enlightenment and made his first converts, are of considerable length. Though these narratives are compilations which accepted new matter during several centuries, I see no reason to doubt that the oldest stratum contains the recollections of those who had seen and heard the master. In basing the following account on the Pali canon, I do not mean to discredit Sanskrit texts merely because they are written in that language, or to deny that many Pali texts contain miraculous and unhistorical narratives. But the principal Sanskrit sutras, such as the Lotus and the Diamond Cutter, are purely doctrinal, and those texts which profess to contain historical matter, such as the Vijnanas translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, are as yet hardly accessible to European scholars. So far as they are known, they add incidents to the career of the Buddha without altering its main lines, and when the accounts of such incidents are not in themselves improbable, they merit consideration. Among the whole, these Sanskrit texts are later and more embellished than their Pali counterparts, but it is necessary not to forget the existence of this vast storehouse of traditions which may contain many surprises. Though the Pali texts do not give the story of the Buddha's life in a connected form, they do give us details about many important events in it, and they offer a picture of the world in which he moved. The idea of biography was unknown to the older Indian literature. The Brahmanas and the Apanishads tell us of the beliefs and practices of their sages, the doctrines they taught, and the sacrifices they offered, but they rarely give even an outline of their lives. And whenever the Hindus write about a man of religion or a philosopher, their weak historical sense and their strong feeling for the importance of the teaching leave them to neglect the figure of the teacher, and present a portrait which seems to us dim and impersonal. Human saints are distinguished by what they said, not by what they did, and it is a strong testimony to Gauravan's individuality and force of character, that in spite of the centuries which separate us from him, and the misty, unreal atmosphere which in later times hangs round his name, his personality is more distinct and lifelike than that of many later teachers. Most of the stories of his youth and childhood have a mythical air, and make their first appearance in works composed long after his death, but there is no reason to distrust the traditional accounts of his lineage. He was the son of Sudodhana of the Shatriya clan, known as Sakya, or Sakya. In later literature his father is usually described as a king, but the statement needs qualification. The Sakyas were a small aristocratic republic. At the time of the Buddha's birth they recognized the suzerainty of the neighboring kingdom of Kosala or Ode, and they were subsequently annexed by it. But so long as they were independent, all that we know of their government leads us to suppose that they were not a monarchy like Kosala and Magadat. The political and administrative business of the clan was transacted by an assembly which met in a council hall at Kapilavathu. Its president was styled Raja, but we do not know how he was selected, nor for how long he held office. The Buddha's father is sometimes spoken of as Raja, sometimes as if he were a simple citizen. Some scholars think the position was temporary and elective, but in any case it seems clear that he was not a Maharaja like Ajatasattu and other monarchs of the period. He was a prominent member of a wealthy and aristocratic family rather than a despot. In some passages, Brahmans are represented as discussing the Buddha's claims to respect. It is said that he is of a noble and wealthy family, but not that he is son of a king or heir to the throne, though the statement, if true, would be so obvious and appropriate that its omission is sufficient to disprove it. The point is of psychological importance, for the later literature and its desire to emphasize the sacrifice made by the Buddha exaggerates the splendor and luxury by which he was surrounded in youth, and produces the impression that his temperament was something like that reflected in the book of Ecclesiastes, the weary calm, bread of seity and disenchantment, of one who has possessed everything and found everything to be but vanity. But this is not the dominant note of the Buddha's discourses as we have them. He condemns the pleasures and ambitions of the world as unsatisfying, but he stands before us as one who has resisted and vanquished temptation, rather than as a disillusioned pleasure-seeker. The tone of these sermons accords perfectly with the supposition supported by whatever historical data we possess, that he belonged to a fighting aristocracy, active in war and debate, wealthy according to the standards of the time, and yielding imperfect obedience to the authority of kings and priests. The Patakas allude several times to the pride of the Sakyas, and in spite of the gentleness and courtesy of the Buddha, this family trait is often apparent in his attitude, in the independence of his views, his calm disregard of brahmanic pretension and the authority that marks his utterances. The territory of the Sakyas lay about the frontier which now divides Nepal from the United Provinces, between the Upper Rapti and the Gandak rivers, a hundred miles or so to the north of Benares. The capital was called Kapilavathu, and the mention of several other towns in the oldest text indicates that the country was populous. Its wealth was derived chiefly from rice fields and cattle. The uncultivated parts were covered with forest, and often infested by robbers. The spot where the Buddha was born was known as the Lumbini Park, and the site, at least what was supposed to be the site, in Ahsoka's time, is marked by a pillar, erected by that monarch at a place now called Rumende. His mother was named Maya, and was also of the Sakyaklan. Queen states that she died seven days after his birth, and that he was brought up by her sister Mahaprajapati, who was also a wife of Sudodhana. The names of other relatives are preserved, but otherwise the older documents tell us nothing of his childhood, and the copious legends of the later church seem to be poetical embellishments. The Sutandupata contains the story of an aged seer named Asita, who came to see the child in much like Simeon prophesied his future greatness, but wept that he himself must die before hearing the new gospel. The personal name of the Buddha was Siddhartha in Sanskrit, or Siddhartha in Pali, meaning he who has achieved his object, but it is rarely used. Persons who are introduced in the patakas is addressing him directly, either employ a title or call him Gotama, Sanskrit Gautama. This was the name of his Gotra, or Jins, and roughly corresponds to a seer name, being less comprehensive than the clan name Sakyak. The name Gotama is applied in the patakas to other Sakyas, such as the Buddha's father and his cousin Ananda. It is said to be still in use in India, and has been borne by many distinguished Hindus. But since it seems somewhat irreverent to speak of the Buddha merely by a seer name, it became the custom to describe him by titles. The most celebrated of these is the word Buddha itself, the awakened or wise one. But in Pali works he is described just as frequently by the name of Bhagava, or the Lord. The titles of Sakamuni and Sakasima have also passed into common use, and the former is his usual designation in the Sanskrit sutras. The word Tathagata, of somewhat obscure signification, is frequently found as an equivalent of Buddha, and is put into the mouth of Gotama himself as a substitute for the first personal pronoun. We can only guess what was the religious and moral atmosphere in which the child grew up. There were certainly Brahmans in the Sakya territory, everyone had heard of their Vedic lore, their ceremonies, and their claims to superiority. But it is probable that their influence was less complete here than further west, and that even before this time they encountered a good deal of skepticism and independent religious sentiment. This may have been in part military impatience of priestly pedantry, but if the Sakyas were not submissive sheep their waywardness was not due to want of interest in religion. A frequent phrase in the Buddhist discourses speaks of the highest goal of the holy life, for the sake of which Klansmen leave their homes and go forth into homelessness. The religious mendicant seemed the proper incarnation of this ideal to which Shetriya's as well as Brahmans aspired, and we are justified in supposing that the future Buddha's thoughts would naturally turn towards the wandering life. The legend represents him as carefully secluded from all disquieting sites, and as learning the existence of old age, sickness and death, only by chance encounters which left a profound impression. The older texts do not emphasize this view of his mental development, though they do not preclude it. It is stated incidentally that his parents regretted his abandonment of worldly life, and it is natural to suppose that they may have tried to turn his mind to secular interest and pleasures. His son, Rahula, is mentioned several times in the Patakas, but his wife only once, and then not by name but as, the princess who was the mother of Rahula. His separation from her becomes in the later legend the theme of an affecting tale, but the scanty illusions to his family found in the Patakas are devoid of sentimental touches. A remarkable passage is preserved in the Angura Nikaya describing his feelings as a young man, and may be the origin of the story about the four visions of old age, sickness, death, and of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort in which he lived, he says that he reflected how people feel repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But is this right? I also, he thought, am subject to decay, and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight? And when I reflected thus my disciples, all the joy of life which there is in life died within me. No connected account of his renunciation of the world has been found in the Patakas, but people are represented as saying that in spite of his parents' grief he went out from the household life into the homeless state while still a young man. Accepted tradition, confirmed by the Mahaparan Nabata Sada, says that he retired from worldly life when he was twenty-nine years old. The event is also commemorated in a poem of the Sata Nipata, which reads like a very ancient ballad. It relates how Bimbisara, king of Magadha, looking out from his palace saw an unknown ascetic, and feeling he was no ordinary person went himself to visit him. It would appear from this that Gotama on leaving his family went down to the plains and visited Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, now Rajgeer, to the south of Patna. The teachers of the Ganges Valley had probably a greater reputation for learning and sanctity than the rough wits of the Sakya land, and this may have attracted Gotama. At any rate he applied himself diligently to acquire what knowledge could be learned from contemporary teachers of religion. We have an account put into his own mouth of his experiences as the pupil of Alarika Lama and Udaka Ramaputa, but it gives few details of his studies. It would appear, however, that they both had a fixed system, Dhamma, to impart, and that their students lived in religious discipline, Vinyana, as members of an order. They were therefore doing exactly what the Buddha himself did later on a larger scale and with more conspicuous success. The instruction we gather was oral. Gotama assimilated it thoroughly and rapidly, but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation. He evidently accepted his teacher's general ideas about belief and conduct, Adama, Avinyana, and the practice of meditation, but rejected the content of their teaching as inadequate, so he went away. The European mystic knows the dangers of quietism. When Malinos and other quietists praise the interior silence in which the soul neither speaks nor desires nor thinks, they suggest that the suspension of all mental activity is good in itself. But more robust seekers hold that this orison of quiet is merely a state of preparation, not the end of the quest, and valuable merely because the soul recuperates therein and is ready for further action. Some doctrine akin to that of the quietists seemed to underlie the mysterious old phrases in which the Buddhist two teachers tried to explain their trances, and he left them for much the same reasons as led the church to condemn quietism. He did not say that the trances are bad. Indeed he represented them as productive of happiness, in a sense which Europeans can hardly follow. But he clearly refused to admit that they were the proper end of the religious life. He felt that there was something better and he set out to find it. The interval between his abandonment of the world and his enlightenment is traditionally estimated at seven years, and this accords with other data, but we are not told how long he remained with the two teachers nor where they live. He says, however, that after leaving them he wandered up and down the land of Magadah so that their residence was probably in or near that district. He settled at a place called Uravela. There he says, I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant spot and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river and pleasant are the bathing places. All around are meadows and villages. Here he determined to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. The place is in the neighborhood of Bodgya, near the river now called Phalgu, or Lilanja, but formerly Naranjara. The fertile fields and gardens, the flights of steps and the temples are modern additions, but the trees and the river still give the sense of repose and inspiration which go to Mefelt, and influence alike calming to the senses and stimulating to the mind. Buddhism, though in theory setting no value on the pleasures of the eye, has not in practice disdainful of beauty as witnessed the many allusions to the Buddha's personal appearance, the persistent love of art, and the equally persistent love of nature, which is found in such early poems as the Theragatha, and still inspires those who select the sights and monasteries throughout the Buddhist world from Burma to Japan. The example of the Buddha, if we may believe the story, shows that he felt the importance of scenery and climate in the struggle before him and his followers, still hold that a holy life is led most easily in beautiful and peaceful landscapes. Section 2. Hitherto we have found allusions to the events of the Buddha's life rather than consecutive statements and narratives, but for the next period, comprising his struggle for enlightenment, its attainment, and the commencement of his career as a teacher, we have several accounts, both discourses put into his own mouth and narratives in the third person, like the beginning of the Mahavaga. It evidently was felt that this was the most interesting and critical period of his life, and for it, as for the period immediately preceding his death, the patakas provide the elements of a biography. The accounts vary as to the amount of detail and supernatural events which they contain, but though the simplest is perhaps the oldest, it does not follow that events consistent with it, but only found and other versions are untrue. One cannot argue that anyone recounting his spiritual experiences is bound to give a biographically complete picture. He may recount only what is relevant to the purpose of his discourse. Gorma's ascetic life at Uravela is known as the wrestling more struggle for truth. The story, as he tells it in the patakas, gives no dates, but is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration. Fire, he thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but it can from dry wood. Even so, the body must be purged of its humours to make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began with a series of terrible fasts and sat with set teeth and tongue pressed against the pallet, until in the spiritual wrestling the sweat poured down from his armpits. Then he applied himself to meditation, accompanied by complete cessation of breathing, and as he persevered and went from stage to stage of this painful exercise, he heard the blood rushing in his head, and felt as if his skull was being split, as if his belly were being cut open with a butcher's knife, and finally, as if he were thrown into a pit of burning coals. Elsewhere he gives further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself. He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on seeds and grass, and for one period literally on dung. He wore hair-cloth, or other irritating clothes. He plucked out his hair and beard. He stood continuously. He lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented his cemetery, that is, a place where corpses were thrown to decay or be eaten by birds and beasts, and lay among the rotting bodies. But no enlightenment. No glimpse into the riddle of the world came of all this, so, although he was nearly at death's door, he determined to abstain from food altogether. But spirits appeared and dissuaded him, saying that if he attempted thus to kill himself they would nourish him by infusing a celestial elixir through his skin, and he reflected that he might as well take a little food. So he took a palm-full or two of bean-soup. He was worn almost to a shadow, he says. When I touched my belly I felt my backbone through it, and when I touched my back I felt my belly. So near had my back and my belly come together through this fasting, and when I rubbed my limbs to refresh them the hair fell off. Then he reflected that he had reached the limit of self-mortification and yet attained no enlightenment. There must be another way to knowledge, and he remembered how once in his youth he had sat in the shade of a rose-apple-tree and entered into the stage of contemplation known as the first rapture. That he now thought must be the way to enlightenment. Why be afraid of such bliss? But to attain it he must have more strength, and to get strength he must eat, so he ate some rice porridge. There were five monks living near him hoping that when he found the truth he would tell it to them, but when they saw that he had begun to take food their faith failed, and they went away. The Buddha then relates how having taken food he began to meditate and pass through four stages of contemplation, culminating in pure self-position and equanimity, free alike from all feeling of pain or ease. Such meditation was nothing miraculous but supposed to be within the power of any trained ascetic. Then there arose before him a vision of his previous birds, the hundreds of thousands of existences with all of their details of name, family, and cast through which he had passed. This was succeeded by a second and wider vision in which he saw the whole universe as a system of karma and reincarnation, composed of beings noble or mean, happy or unhappy, continually passing away according to their deeds, leaving one form of existence and taking shape in another. Finally he understood the nature of error and of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. In me thus set free the knowledge of freedom arose and I knew rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been led, what had to be done has been done. I have no more to do with this world. This third knowledge came to me in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen, darkness was destroyed, light had arisen. As I sat there, earnest, strenuous, resolute. On attaining enlightenment he at first despaired of preaching the truth to others. He reflected that his doctrine was obtuse and that mankind are given over to their desires. How can such men understand the chain of cause and effect or teaching about nirvana and the annihilation of desire? So we determined to remain quiet and not to preach. Then the deity Brahma Sahampati appeared before him and besought him to preach the truth, pleading that some men could understand. The Buddha surveyed the world with his mind's eye and saw the different natures of mankind. As in a pool of lotuses, blue, red or white, some lotuses, born in the water, grown up in the water, do not rise above the water, but thrive hidden under the water, and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface, and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, stand up out of the water, and the water does not touch them. Thus did he perceive the world to be, and said to Brahma, The doors of immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear show faith." He then began to wonder to whom he should first preach his doctrine, and he thought of his former teachers, but a spirit warned him that they had recently died. Then he thought of the five monks who attended him during his austerities, but left him when he ceased to fast. By his superhuman power of vision he perceived that they were living at Benares in the Deer Park, Isiputana. So after remaining a while at Uravela, he started to find them and on the way met a naked ascetic in answer to whose inquiries he proclaimed himself as the Buddha. I am the holy one in this world. I am the highest teacher. I alone am the perfect Supreme Buddha. I have gained calm and nirvana. I go to Benares to set moving the wheels of righteousness. I will beat the drum of immortality in the darkness of this world. But the ascetic replied, It may be so friend. Shook his head, took another road, and went away with the honor of being the first skeptic. When the Buddha reached the Deer Park, a wood where ascetics were allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his exertions and turned to a luxurious life. But as he drew near they were overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him and brought water to wash his feet. While showing him this honor they called him Fringotama, but he replied that it was not proper to address the Tathagata thus. He had become a Buddha and was ready to teach them the truth, but the monks demured saying that if he had been unable to win enlightenment while practicing austerities he was not likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease. But he overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them. Apparently during some days we are told that they went out to beg alms. Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not perhaps the Buddha's own words, but the reminiscences of someone who had heard him describe the crisis of his life? Like so much of the Patakas the narrative has an air of patchwork. Many striking passages such as the descriptions of the raptures through which he passed occur in other connections, but the formulae are ancient and their use here may be as early and legitimate as elsewhere. In its main outlines the account is simple, unpretentious and human. Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by self-mortification, finds that this is the wrong way, tries a more natural method and succeeds, debates whether he shall become a teacher and at first hesitates. These are not features which the average Indian hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would invent or emphasize. Towards the end of the narrative the language is more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic. The supernatural intervention recorded is not really great. It amounts to this, that in mental crisis the Buddha received warnings somewhat similar to those delivered by the demon of Socrates. The appearance of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse, which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he found ready to hand. But on the whole I am inclined to believe that in this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many generations, and going back to those who had themselves heard him describe his wrestling to obtain the truth and his victory. Other versions of the Enlightenment give other incidents which are not rendered less credible by their omission from the narrative quoted, for it is clearly an epitome put together for a special didactic purpose. But still the story is related at the beginning of the Mahavaga of the Vinyana has a stronger smack of mythology than the passages quoted from the Sutta Pataka. In these lasts the Bodhi tree is mentioned only incidentally, which is natural for it is a detail which would impress later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be skeptical as to the part it played in Buddhist history. Even if we had not been told that he sat under a tree we might surmise that he did so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a homeless ascetic. The Mahavaga states that after attaining Buddhahood he sat cross-legged at the foot of the tree for seven days uninterruptedly enjoying the bliss of emancipation, and while there thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the Sutta quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days under each. Heavy rain came, but Mukulinda, the king of the serpents, came out of his abode and seven times encircled the body of the Lord with his windings, and spread his great hood over the Lord's head. Here we are in the domain of mythology. This is not a vinyet from the old religious life on the banks of the Naranjara, but a work of sacred art. The holy supreme Buddha sitting immovable and impeturbable in the midst of a storm sheltered by the folds of some pious monster that the artist fancy has created. The narrative quoted from the Majima Nakaya does not mention that the Buddha during a struggle for enlightenment was assailed or tempted by Mara, the personification of evil and of transitory pleasures, but also of death. But that such an encounter, in some respects analogous to the temptation of Christ by the devil, form part of the old tradition is indicated by several passages in the patakas, and not merely by the later literature where it assumes a prominent and picturesque form. This struggle is psychologically probably enough, but the origin of the story which is exhaustively discussed in Windish's Buddha-Undamara seems to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his mental struggles as in amplifications of old legends and in dramatizations of metaphors which he may have used about conquering death. The Bodhi tree is still shown at Bodhgaya. It stands on a low terrace behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow below the level of the surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all Buddhist lands, though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anur Dupura and Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches, transplanted thither. Whatever title it may have to the reverence of the faithful rest on lineage rather than identity, for the growth which we see at Bodhgaya now cannot claim to be the branches under which the Buddha sat, or even the trunk which Ahsoka tended. At best it is a modern stem sprung from the seeds of the old tree, and this descent is rendered disputable by legends of its destruction and miraculous restoration. Even during the time that Seray Cunningham knew the locality from 1862 to 1880, it would seem that the old trunk decayed and was replaced by scions grown from seed. The text quoted above leave the Buddha occupied in teaching the five monks of the deer park, and the Mahavaga gives us the text of the sermon with which he opened his instruction. It is entitled Turning the Wheel of Righteousness, and is also known as the Sermon at Benares. It is a very early statement of the main doctrines of primitive buddhism, and I see no reason to doubt that it contains the ideas and phrases of the Buddha. The gist of the sermon is extremely simple. He first says that those who wish to lead a religious life should avoid the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture, and follow a middle way. Then he annunciates what he calls the four truths about evil or suffering, and the way to make an end of it. He opens very practically, and it may be noticed that abtruse as are many of his discourses, they generally go straight to the heart of some contemporary interest. Here he says that self-indulgence is low and self-mortification crazy, that both are profitless and neither is the religious life. That consists in walking the middle path or noble eightfold path, defined in a celebrated formula as right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture. He then annunciates the four truths. The first declares that all clinging to existence involves suffering. I shall have occasion to examine later the pessimism which is often said to characterize buddhism and indian thought generally. Here let it suffice to say that the first truth must be taken in conjunction with the others. The teaching of the Buddha is a teaching not so much of pessimism as of emancipation. But emancipation implies the existence of evil from which men must be freed. A happy world would not need it. Buddhism recognizes the evil of the world, but it is not on that account a religion of despair. The essence of it is that it provides a remedy and an escape. The second and third truths must be taken together and in connection with the formula known as the chain of causation, patichasamupada. Everything has a cause and produces an effect. If this is, that is. If this is not, then that is not. This simple principle of uniform causation is applied to the whole universe, gods and men, heaven, earth and hell. Indian thought has always loved wide applications of fundamental principles, and here a law of the universe is propounded in a form both simple and abstract. Everything exists in virtue of a cause and does not exist if that cause is absent. Suffering has a cause, and if that cause can be detected and eliminated, suffering itself will be eliminated. This cause of evil is tana, the thirst or craving for existence, pleasure and success, and the cure is to remove it. It may seem to the European that this is a proposal to cure the evils of life by removing life itself, but when in the fourth truth we come to the course to be followed by the seeker after salvation, the Eightfold Path, we find it neither extravagant nor morbid. We may imagine that an Indian of that time asking different schools of thinkers for the way to salvation would have been told by Brahmins, if indeed they had been willing to impart knowledge to any but an accredited pupil, that he who performs a certain ceremony goes to the abode of the gods. Other teachers would have insisted on a course of fasting and self-torture. Others again, like Sanjaya and Makali, would have given argumentative and unpractical answers. The Buddha's answer is simple and practical. Seven eighths of it would be accepted in every civilized country as a description of the good life. It is not merely external, for it insists on right thought and right aspiration. The motive and temper are as important as the act. It does not neglect willpower and activity for right action, right livelihood, and right effort are necessary. A point to be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy, unpractical religion. But no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation, is meant to be its crown and fulfillment. It takes the place of prayer and communion with the deity, and the Buddha promises the beatific vision in this life, to those who persevere. The negative features of the path are also important. It contains no mention of ceremonial austerities, gods many or one, nor of the Buddha himself. He is the discoverer and teacher of the truth. Beyond that, his personality plays no part. But we are here treating of his life, rather than of his doctrine, and must now return to the events which are said to have followed the first sermon. The first converts had, even before embracing the Buddha's teaching, been followers of a religious life. But the next batch of recruits came from the wealthy mercantile families of Benares. The first was a youth named Yassa, who joined the order, while his father, mother and former wife became lay believers. Then came first four and subsequently fifty friends of Yassa, and joined the order. At that time, says the Mahavaga, there were sixty-one Arhats in the world. So that at first, Arhat ship seems to have followed immediately on ordination. Arhat, it may be mentioned, is the commonest word in early Buddhist literature, more common than any phrase about nirvana, for describing sanctity and spiritual perfection. The Arhat is one who has broken the fetters of the senses and passions, for whom there will be no new birth or death, and who lives in this world like the Buddha, detached, but happy and beneficent. The Buddha then addressed his followers and said, Monks, I am delivered from all fetters, human and divine, and so are you. Go now and wonder for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain, and for the welfare of gods and men. Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the end, in the spirit and in the letter. Proclaim a consummate, perfect and pure life of holiness. The monks then went forth, and returned bringing candidates to be formally ordained by the Buddha. But seeing that these journeys caused fatigue and trouble, he authorized the ordained monks to confer ordination without reference to himself. He then returned to Uravela, where he had dwelt before attaining Buddhahood, and converted a thousand gatillas, that is to say, Brahmins living the life of hermits, which involved the abandonment of household life, but not of sacrifices. The admission of these hermits to the order is probably historical, and explains the presence among the Buddha's disciples of a tendency towards self-mortification, of which he himself did not wholly approve. The Mahavaga contains a series of short legends about these occurrences, one of them in two versions. The narratives are miraculous, but have an ancient tone, and probably represent the type of popular story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life. One of them is not an uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how the chamber in which a Brahmin called Kasapa, kept his sacred fire, was haunted by a fire breathing magical serpent. The Buddha, however, spent the night in this chamber, and after a contest in which both emitted flames, succeeded in conquering the beast. After converting the gatillas, he preached to them the celebrated fire sermon, said to have been delivered on the eminence now called Brahma-Yohan, Nirgaya, and possibly inspired by the spectacle of grass fires, which at some seasons may be seen creeping over every hillside in an Indian night. Everything, monks, is burning and how is it burning? The eye is burning, what the eye sees is burning, thoughts based on the eye are burning, the contact of the eye with visible things is burning, and the sensation produced by that contact, whether pleasant, painful, or indifferent, is also burning. With what fire is it burning? It is burning with the fire of lust, the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance. It is burning with the sorrows of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair. The Buddha now went on with his converts to Rajagaha. He stopped in a bamboo robe outside of town, and here the king Bimbisara waited on him, and with every sign of respect asked him to take food in his palace. It was on this occasion that we first hear of him accepting an invitation to dinner, which he did frequently during the rest of his career. After the repasse the king presented a pleasure-garden just outside of town to the fraternity of monks with the Buddha at their head. At that time another celebrated teacher named Sanjaya was stopping at Rajagaha with a train of two hundred and fifty disciples. Two of them, Sariputta and Mogulana, joined the Buddha's order and took with them the whole body of their companions. The Mahavaga proceeds to relate that many of the young nobility joined the order, and that the people begun to murmur, saying, the monk Gotama causes fathers to beget no sons, and families to become extinct. And again the great monk has come to Girabhaja of the Magara people, leading with him all the followers of Sanjaya. Whom will he lead off next? When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement would last only seven days and bade his followers to answer with the following verse. It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the Buddhas, lead men. Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power of truth? It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and enemies of the Buddha. Section 36 of Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical Sketch, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hinduism and Buddhism and Historical sketch Volume 1 by Charles Elliott, Life of the Buddha, Part 3. It now becomes difficult to give dates, but the Mahavaga relates that the Buddha stopped some time at Rajagaha and then revisited his native town Kapilavattu. That he should have done so is natural enough, but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya. His object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the rules of the order. Irrelevant incidents are ignored, and those which are noticed are regarded simply as the circumstances which led to the formulation of certain regulations. Quote, The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country near Kapilavattu in the Banyan Grove, and in the forenoon, having put on his robes and taken his alms bowl, he went to the home of the Sakka Sudhadana and sat down on a seat prepared for him. Footnote, 338. His father. End footnote. Then the princess, who was the mother of Rahula, said to him, This is your father, Rahula. Go and ask him for your inheritance. Footnote, 339. The Buddha's former wife. End footnote. Then young Rahula went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said, Your shadow monk is a place of bliss. Then the Lord rose from his seat and went away, but Rahula followed him, saying, Give me my inheritance, monk. Then the Lord said to Sariputta, who had already become his chief disciple, Well Sariputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young Rahula. Sariputta asked how he should do so, and the Buddha explained the forms. Quote, Then the Sakka Sudhadana went to the place where the Lord was, and after respectfully saluting him, asked for a boon. Lord, when the blessed one gave up the world, it was great pain to me, and so it was when Nanda did the same. Footnote, 340. Half-brother of the Buddha and Sudhadana's son, Mahapraja Patti. End footnote. Great too was my pain when Rahula did it. The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and reaches the marrow. Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a son without his parents' permission. The Buddha assented. Three or four years later, Sudhadana died. From Kapilavattu, the Buddha is said to have gone to Savatti, the capital of Kossala, where Pasenadi was king. But now we lose the chronological thread and do not find it again until the last years of his life. Few of the numerous incidents recorded in the pitakas can be dated. The narrators resemble those Indian artists who, when carving a story in relief, place all the principal figures in one panel without attempting to mark the sequence of the incidents which are represented simultaneously. For the connection of events with the Buddha's teaching, the compilers of the pitakas had an eye. For their connection with his life, none at all. And though this attitude is disquieting to the historic sense, it is not unjustifiable. The object and the achievement of the Buddha was to preach a certain doctrine and to found an order. All the rest, years and countries, pains and pleasures, was of no importance. And it would appear that we have not lost much. We should have a greater sense of security if we had an orderly account of his wanderings and his relations with the kings of his time, but after he had once entered on his ministry, the events which broke the peaceful tenor of his long life were few, and we probably know most of them, though we cannot date them. For about forty-five years he moved about Kusala, Magadha, and Anga visiting the two capitals Savatthi and Rajagaha, and going as far west as the country of the Kurus. He took little part in politics or worldly life, though a hazy but not improbable story represents him as pacifying the Sakyas and Koliyas who were on the point of fighting about the water of the Rohini which irrigated the lands of both clans. Footnote 341, Jataka 356, end footnote. He uniformly enjoyed the respect and attention of kings and the wealthy classes. Doubtless he was not popular with the Brahmins or with those good people who disliked seeing fine young men made into monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which, though peaceful, was active and benevolent, but aloof, majestic, and authoritative. We are told that at first his disciples wandered about at all seasons, but it was not long before he bade them observe the already established routine for itinerant monks of travelling on foot during the greater part of the year but of resting for three months during the rainy season known as Vasa and beginning sometime in June. Footnote 342, Mahavaga 31, end footnote. When moving about he appears to have walked from five to ten miles a day regulating his movements so as to reach inhabited places in time to collect food for the midday meal. The afternoon he devoted to meditation and in the evening gave instruction. He usually halted in woods or gardens on the outskirts of villages and cities and often on the bank of a river or tank, for shade and water would be the first requisites for a wandering monk. On these journeys he was accompanied by a considerable following of disciples. Five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often mentioned and, though the numbers may be exaggerated, there is no reason to doubt that the band was large. The suttas generally commence with a picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was delivered. The Buddha is walking along the high road from Rajagaha to Nalanda with a great company of disciples, or he is journeying through Kosala and halting in a mango grove on the banks of the Asiravati river, or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahmin village and the people go out to him. The principal Brahmins, taking their siesta on the upper terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what it means. On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha should pay the first call and ultimately visit him. Or he is halting on the shore of the Kagara lake at Kampa in western Bengal, sitting under the fragrant white flowers of a Kampa tree. Or he visits the hills overlooking Rajagaha, haunted by peacocks and by wandering monks. Often he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely rest houses for travellers. But it became more and more the custom for the devout to erect such buildings for his special use, and even in his lifetime they assumed the proportions of monasteries. Footnote 343. Thus we hear how Dasama of Athakam, Majhima Nikaya 52, built one for 1500 monks, and Gotamuka another in Pataliputa, which bore his name. End, footnote. The people of Vesali built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the Gabled Hall. It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the Buddha. Such private rooms, especially those which he occupied at Savatti, were called Gantakuti or the Perfumed Chamber. At Kapilavattu, the Sakyas erected a new building known as Santagara. Footnote 344. Majhima Nikaya 53. End, footnote. The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting late into the night, which he delivered sitting with his back against a pillar. At last he said his back was tired and laid down, leaving Ananda to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less exhausted than the preacher. But perhaps the residents most frequently mentioned is that in the garden called Jetavana at Savatti. Anatha Pindika, a rich merchant of that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Rajagaha and invited him to spend the next rainy season at Savatti. Footnote 345. Kulavagha 64. End, footnote. On returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided that the garden of the prince Jetta best satisfied his requirements. He obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover the whole ground with coins. When all except a small space close to the gateway had been thus covered, Jetta asked to be allowed to share in the gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway with a room over it. And Anatha Pindika, the householder, built dwelling rooms and retiring rooms and store rooms and halls with fireplaces and outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the bathrooms and ponds and roofed open sheds. End, quote. Footnote 346. Probably sheds consisting of a roof set on posts but without walls. End, footnote. Buddha Kosa has given an account of the way in which the Buddha was wanted to spend his days when stopping in some such resting place and his description is confirmed by the numerous details given in the pitakas. End, footnote 347. Translated by Reese Davids, American Lectures, pages 108 and forward. End, footnote. He rose before dawn and would often retire and meditate until it was time to set out on the round for alms but not unfrequently he is represented as thinking that it was too early to start and that he might first visit some monk of the neighborhood. Then he went round the town or village with his disciples carrying his alms bowl and accepting everything put into it. Sometimes he talked to his disciples while walking. Footnote 348. Example, Majima Nikaya 62. End, footnote. Frequently instead of begging for alms he accepted an invitation to dine with some pious person who asked the whole band of disciples and made strenuous culinary efforts. Such invitations were given at the conclusion of a visit paid to the Buddha on the previous day and were accepted by him with silence which signified consent. On the morning of the next day the host announced in person or through a messenger that the meal was ready and the Buddha taking his mantle and bowl went to the house. The host waited on the guests with his own hands putting the food which he had prepared into their bowls. After the repast the Buddha delivered a discourse or cataclyzed the company. He did the same with his own disciples when he collected food himself and returned home to eat it. He took but one meal a day between eleven and twelve and did not refuse meat when given to him provided that he did not know the animals had been slaughtered expressly for his food. Footnote, 349. But in Majima Nikaya, 25, he says he is not bound by rules as to eating. End, footnote. When he had given instruction after the meal he usually retired to his chamber or to a quiet spot under trees for repose and meditation. On one occasion he took his son Rahula with him into a wood at this hour to impart some of the deepest truths to him but as a rule he gave no further instruction until the late afternoon. Footnote, 350. Majima Nikaya, 147. End, footnote. The pitakas represent all believers as treating the Buddha with the greatest respect but the salutations and titles which they employ hardly exceed those ordinarily used in speaking to eminent persons. Footnote, 351. In an exceedingly curious passage, Diga Nikaya, 4, the Brahman Sonadanda, while accepting the Buddha's teaching, asks to be excused from showing the Buddha such extreme marks of respect as rising from his seat or dismounting from his chariot on the ground that his reputation would suffer. He proposes and apparently is allowed to substitute less demonstrative salutations. End, footnote. Kings were at this time addressed as deva whereas the Buddha's usual title is bhagava or bhante, lord. A religious solemnity and deliberation prevails in the interviews which he grants but no extravagance of adoration is recorded. Visitors salute him by bowing with joined hands, sit respectfully on one side while he instructs them and, in departing, are careful to leave him on their right hand. He accepts such gifts as food, clothes, gardens and houses but rejects all ceremonial honors. Thus Prince Bodhi, when receiving him, carpeted his mansion with white cloths but the Buddha would not walk on them and remained standing at the entrance till they were taken up. Footnote, 352. Kula Vaga, 521. And Majima Nikaya, 85. End, footnote. The introduction to the Arya Pariyasana Sutta gives a fairly complete picture of a day in his life at Savatti. It relates how in the morning he took his bowl and mantle and went to the town to collect food. While he was away some monks told his personal attendant Ananda that they wished to hear a discourse from him, as it was long since they had had the privilege. Ananda suggested that they had better go to the hermitage of the Brahmin Ramaka near the town. The Buddha returned, ate his meal and then said, Come, Ananda, let us go to the terrace of Megara's mother and stay there till evening. Footnote, 353. Visakha, a lady of noted piety. It was probably a raised garden planted with trees. End, footnote. They went there and spent the day in meditation. Towards evening the Buddha rose and said, Let us go to the old bath to refresh our limbs. After they had bathed, Ananda suggested that they should go to Ramaka's hermitage. The Buddha assented by his silence and they went together. Within the hermitage were many monks engaged in instructive conversation, so the Buddha waited at the door till there was a pause in the talk. Then he coughed and knocked. The monks opened the door and offered him a seat. After a short conversation he recounted to them how he had striven for and obtained Buddhahood. These congregations were often prolonged late into the night. We hear, for instance, how he sat on the terrace belonging to Megara's mother in the midst of an assembly of monks waiting for his words, still and silent in the light of the full moon. How a monk would rise, adjusting his robe so as to leave one shoulder bare. Bow with his hands joined and raised to his forehead and ask permission to put a question, and the Lord would reply, Be seated, monk, ask what you will. Footnote 354. Majima Nikaya 110. End footnote. But sometimes in these nightly congregations the silence was unbroken. When King Ajatasattu went to visit him in the mango grove of Jivaka he was seized with sudden fear at the unearthly stillness of the place and suspected an ambush. Footnote 355. Diga Nikaya No. 2. Compare Jataka 150 which shows how much variation was permitted in the words ascribed to the Buddha. End footnote. Fear not, O King, said Jivaka. I am playing you no tricks. Go straight on. There in the pavilion hall the lamps are burning, and there is the blessed one sitting against the middle pillar facing the east with the brethren round him. And when the king beheld the assembly seated in perfect silence, calm as a clear lake, he exclaimed, Would that my son might have such calm as this assembly now has. The major part of the Buddha's activity was concerned with the instruction of his disciples and the organization of the sangha or order. Though he was ready to hear and teach all, the portrait presented to us is not that of a popular preacher who collects and frequents crowds, but rather that of a master occupied with the instruction of his pupils. A large band indeed, but well prepared and able to appreciate and learn by heart, teaching which, though freely offered to the whole world, was somewhat hard to untrained ears. In one passage an inquirer asks him why he shows more zeal in teaching some than others. Footnote, 356. Samana Fala Nikaya, 42, 7. End footnote. The answer is, if a landowner had three fields, one excellent, one middling, and one of poor soil, would he not first sow the good field, then the middling field, and last of all the bad field thinking to himself it will just produce fodder for the cattle. So the Buddha preaches first to his own monks, then to label-eavers, and then, like the landowner who sows the bad field last, to Brahmins, ascetics and wandering monks of other sects, thinking if they only understand one word, it will do them good for a long while. It was to such congregations of disciples or to inquirers belonging to other religious orders that he addressed his most important discourses, iterating in grave numbered periods the truths concerning the reality of sorrow and the equal reality of salvation as he sat under a clump of bamboos or in the shade of a banyan, in sight, perhaps, of a tank where the lotuses, red, white, and blue, submerged or rising from the water, typified the various classes of mankind. He did not start by laying down any constitution for his order. Its rules were formed entirely by case law. Each incident and difficulty was referred to him as it arose, and his decision was accepted as the law on that point. During his last illness, he showed a noble anxiety not to hamper his followers by the prestige of his name, but to leave behind him a body of free men able to be a light and a help to themselves. But a curious passage represents an old monk as saying immediately after his death, Weep not, brethren, we are well rid of the great monk. We used to be annoyed by being told, this besieges you and this does not besiege you, but now we shall be able to do what we like and not have to do what we don't like. Footnote 357. Mahaparinib sutta, 620. The monk Subhada, in whose mouth these words are put, was apparently not the person of the same name who was the last convert made by the Buddha when dying. End, footnote. Clearly the laxer disciples felt the master's hand to be somewhat heavy, and we might have guessed as much. For though Gotama had a breadth of view rare in that or in any age, though he refused to multiply observances or to dogmatize, every sutta indicates that he was a man of exceptional authority and decision. What he has laid down, he has laid down. There is no compulsion or punishment, no vow of obedience or sacrificial intellectus, but it is equally clear that there is no place in the order for those who in great or small think differently from the master. In shepherding his flock, he had the assistance of his senior disciples. Of these, the most important were Sariputta and Mogallana, both of them Brahmins, who left their original teacher, Sanjaya, to join him at the outset of his ministry. Sariputta enjoyed his confidence so fully that he acted as his representative and gave authoritative expositions of doctrine. Footnote 358, his personal name was Upatissa, and footnote. The Buddha even compared him to the eldest son of an emperor who assists his father in the government, but both he and Mogallana died before their master and thus did not labor independently. Another important disciple, Upali, survived him and probably contributed materially to the codification of the Vinaya. Anuruddha and Ananda, both of them, Sakyas, are also frequently mentioned, especially the latter, who became his personal attendant and figures in the account of his illness and death as the beloved disciple to whom his last instructions were committed. Footnote 359, this position was also held, previously no doubt, by Sagata and footnote. These two together, with four other young Sakya nobles and Upali, joined the order 25 years before Guttama's death and perhaps formed an inner circle of trusted relatives, though we have no reason to think there was any friction between them and Brahmans like Sariputta. Upali is said to have been barber of the Sakyas. It is not easy to say what his social status may have been, but it probably did not preclude intimacy. The Buddha was frequently occupied with maintaining peace and order among his disciples. Though the profession of a monk excluded worldly advancement, it was held in great esteem and was hence adopted by ambitious and quarrelsome men who had no true vocation. The troubles which arose in the Sangha are often ascribed in the Vinaya to the Chabagiyas, six brethren who became celebrated in tradition as spirits of mischief and who are evidently made the peg on which these old monkish anecdotes are hung. As a rule, the intervention of the Buddha was sufficient to restore peace, but one passage indicates resistance to his authority. Footnote 360. Mahavaga 10-2. Compare the singular anecdote in 622 where the Buddha quite unjustifiably suspects a doctor of making an indelicate joke. The story seems to admit that the Buddha might be wrong and also that he was sometimes treated with want of respect. End footnote. The brethren quarreled so often that the people said it was a public scandal. The Buddha endeavored to calm the disputants, but one of them replied, Lord, let the blessed one quietly enjoy the bliss which he has obtained in this life. The responsibility for these quarrels will rest with us alone. This seems a clear hint that the blessed one had better mind his own business. Renewed injunctions and parables met with no better result. And the blessed one thought, says the narrative, truly these fools are infatuated and he rose from his seat and went away. Other troubles are mentioned, but by far the most serious was the schism of Devadatta, represented as occurring in the old age of Gotama when he was about 72. The story, as told in the Kula Vaga, is embellished with supernatural incidents and seems not to observe the natural sequence of events, but perhaps three features are historical. Namely, that Devadatta wished to supersede the Buddha as head of the order, that he was the friend of Ajatasattu Crown Prince and afterwards King of Magadha, and that he advocated a stricter rule of life than the Buddha chose to enforce. Footnote 361. Seven, two and following pages. End footnote. Footnote 362. The introductions to Jataka's 26 and 150 say that Ajatasattu built a great monastery for him at Gaya Sisa. End footnote. This combination of piety and ambition is perhaps not unnatural. He was a cousin of the Buddha and entered the order at the same time as Ananda and other young Sakya nobles. Sprung from that quarrelsome breed, he possessed in a distorted form some of Guttama's own ability. He is represented as publicly urging the master to retire and dwell at ease, but met with an absolute refusal. Sariputta was directed to proclaim him in Rajagaha, the proclamation being to the effect that his nature had changed and that all his words and deeds were disowned by the order. Then Devadatta incited the crown prince to murder his father, Bimbisara. The plot was prevented by the ministers, but the king told Ajatasattu that if he wanted the kingdom, he could have it and abdicated, but his unnatural son put him to death all the same by starving him slowly in confinement. Footnote 363. The Buddha says so himself. Diganikaya too, but does not mention the method. End footnote. With the assistance of Ajatasattu, Devadatta then tried to compass the death of the Buddha. First he hired assassins, but they were converted as soon as they approached the sacred presence. Then he rolled down a rock from the vultures peak with the intention of crushing the Buddha, but the mountain itself interfered to stop the sacrilege and only a splinter scratched the Lord's foot. Then he arranged for a mad elephant to be let loose in the road at the time of collecting alms, but the Buddha calmed the furious beast. It is perhaps by some error of arrangement that after committing such unpardonable crimes, Devadatta is represented as still a member of the order and endeavoring to provoke a schism by asking for stricter rules. The attempt failed, and according to later legends, he died on the spot, but the Vinaya merely says that hot blood gushed from his mouth. That there are historical elements in this story is shown by the narrative of Fa Xian, the Chinese pilgrim who traveled in India about 400 A.D. He tells us that the followers of Devadatta still existed in Kusala and revered the three previous Buddhas but refused to recognize Gotama. This is interesting, for it seems to show that it was possible to accept Gotama's doctrine or the greater part of it as something independent of his personality and an inheritance from earlier teachers. The Udana and Jataka relate another plot without specifying the year. Some heretics induced a nun called Sundari to pretend she was the Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her. They then accused the bhikkhus of killing her to conceal their master's sin, but the real assassins got drunk with the money they had received and revealed the conspiracy in their cups. But these are isolated cases. As a whole, the Buddha's long career was marked by a peace and friendliness which are surprising if we consider what innovations his teaching contained. Though in contending that priestly ceremonies were useless, he refrained from neither direct condemnation nor satire. Yet he is not represented as actively attacking them and we may doubt if he forbade his lay disciples to take part in rights and sacrifices as a modern missionary might do. Footnote 364. The Dhamma Sangani defines courtesy as being of two kinds, hospitality and considerateness in matters of doctrine. End footnote. We find him sitting by the sacred fire of a Brahmin and discoursing but not denouncing the worship carried on in the place. Footnote 365. Majima Nikaya 75. End footnote. When he converted Siha, the general of the Likavis, who had been a Jain, he made him continue to give food and gifts as before to the Jain monks who frequented his house, an instance of toleration in a proselytizing teacher which is perhaps without parallel. Footnote 366. Mahavaga 631.11. End footnote. Similarly, in the Sigal of Vadasutta, it is laid down that a good man ministers to monks and to Brahmins. If it is true that Ajata Sattu countenanced Devadatta's attempts to murder him, he ignored such disagreeable details with a sublime indifference, for he continued to frequent Rajagaha, received the king and preached to him one of his finest sermons without alluding to the past. He stands before us in the Suttas as a man of amazing power of will, inaccessible to fear, promises, and one may add, to argument, but yet in comparison with other religious leaders, singularly gentle in taking the offensive against error. Often he simply ignored it as irrelevant. Never mind, he said on his deathbed to his last convert. Never mind whether other teachers are right or wrong. Listen to me, I will teach you the truth. And when he is controversial, his method is often to retain old words in honorable use with new meanings. The Brahmins are not denounced like the Pharisees in the New Testament, but the real Brahmin is a man of uprightness and wisdom. The real sacrifice is to abstain from sin and follow the truth. Women played a considerable part in the entourage of Gotama. They were not secluded in India at that time, and he admitted that they were capable of attaining saintship. The work of ministering to the order of supplying it with food and raiment naturally fell largely to pious matrons, and their attentive forethought delighted to provide for the monks those comforts which might be accepted but not asked for. Prominent among such donors was Visakha, who married the son of a wealthy merchant at Savatti and converted her husband's family from Jainism to the true doctrine. The Vinaya recounts how, after entertaining the Buddha and his disciples, she asked eight boons, which proved to be the privileges of supplying various classes of monks with food, clothing, and medicine, and of providing the nuns with bathing dresses. Four said she, it shocked her sense of propriety to see them bathing naked. But the anecdotes respecting the Buddha and women, whether his wife or others, are not touched with sentiment, not even so much as is found in the conversation between Yajnavalkya and Mithrei in the Upanishad. To women as a class, he gave their due, and perhaps in his own opinion, more than their due. But if he felt any interest in them as individuals, the sacred texts have obliterated the record. In the last year of his life, he dined with a courtesan, Ambhapali, and the incident has attracted attention on account of its supposed analogy to the narrative about Christ and the woman which was a sinner. But the resemblance is small. There is no sign that the Buddha, then 80 years of age, felt any personal interest in Ambhapali. Whatever her morals may have been, she was a benefactress of the order, and he simply gave her the same opportunity as others of receiving instruction. When the Likavi princes tried to induce him to dine with them instead of with her, he refused to break his promise. The invitations of princes had no attraction for him, and he was a prince himself. A fragment of conversation introduced irrelevantly into his deathbed discourses is significant. How, Lord, are we to conduct ourselves with regard to womankind? Don't see them, Ananda. But if we see them, what are we to do? Abstain from speech. But if they should speak to us, what are we to do? Keep wide awake. Footnote 367. Kulavaga, 10, 1, 3, and footnote. This spirit is even more evident in the account of the admission of nuns to the order. When the Buddha was visiting his native town, his aunt and foster mother, Mahapraja Patti, thrice begged him to grant this privilege to women, but was thrice refused and went away in tears. Then she followed him to Vesali and stood in the entrance of the Kutagara Hall with swollen feet and covered with dust and sorrowful. Ananda, who had a tender heart, interviewed her and, going in to the Buddha, submitted her request but received a triple refusal. But he was not to be denied and urged that the Buddha admitted women to be capable of attaining saintship and that it was unjust to refuse the blessings of religion to one who had suckled him. At last Gautama yielded, perhaps the only instance in which he is represented as convinced by argument, but he added, if Ananda women had not received permission to enter the order, the pure religion would have lasted long. The good law would have stood fast a thousand years, but since they had received that permission, it will now stand fast for only 500 years. Footnote 368 Mahaparinibbana 523 Perhaps the Buddha was supposed to be giving Ananda last warnings about his besetting weakness. End footnote. He maintained and approved the same hard detached attitude in other domestic relations. His son Rahula received special instruction but is not represented as enjoying his confidence like Ananda. A remarkable narrative relates how when the monk Sangamaji was sitting beneath a tree absorbed in meditation, his former wife whom he had left on abandoning the world laid his child before him and said, Here, monk is your little son, nourish me and nourish him. But Sangamaji took no notice and the woman went away. The Buddha, who observed what happened, said, He feels no pleasure when she comes, no sorrow when she goes. Him I call a true Brahman released from passion. Footnote 369 Uddhana 1.8 End footnote. This narrative is repulsive to European sentiment, particularly as the chronicler cannot spare the easy charity of a miracle to provide for the wife and child. But in taking it as an index of the character of Gotama, we must bear in mind such sayings of Christ as, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Footnote 370 Compare, too, the language of Angela of Foligno, 1248-1309. By God's will, there died my mother who was a great hindrance unto me in following the way of God. My husband died likewise and all my children, and because I had commenced to follow the aforesaid way and had prayed God that he would rid me of them, I had great consolation of their deaths, although I did also feel some grief. Beate Angelae de Folgenio visionum et instructionum, chapter 9. End, footnote. End, section 36, recording by Linda Johnson.