110 



BUDDHISM. 



the highest deities known to Buddhism, Indra 

 and Maha Brahma ; in fact, he is represented as 

 having passed through the stages of heing both, 

 on his way to his h'nal birth, as a Buddha. 



The sources of information respecting Gau- 

 tama are, on the one hand, the Tripitaka, or 

 threefold collection of sacred books, which 

 form the canon of Southern Buddhism, and 

 may be spoken of as the books of 250 B. c. ; 

 and, on the other hand, the biographies of 

 Buddha, that of Asvaghosha, which is attrib- 

 uted to the first century, A. D, that which 

 bears the name of Buddhagosha, which may 

 belong to the fifth century, A. D., and the Lalita 

 Vistara, or " beautiful, detailed narrative," of 

 uncertain date, but between the first and sixth 

 centuries. The last works are the chief source 

 of Arnold's " Light of Asia," while the books 

 of 250 B. c. are the source of the lives given by 

 Rhys Davids in the Hibbert Lectures, and Dr. 

 Oldenberg in his "Buddha." 



Evidence exists as to the prevalence as far 

 back as about 250 B. c., of Buddha's teaching 

 and of some of the sermons and traditions, 

 carved on the rocks or on pillars, in different 

 parts of India, in the form of edicts of Asoka 

 under the name of Devanampiyo Piyadasi. 

 Their date is established by the mention of 

 contemporary Greek kings, and they are ac- 

 credited in the Si ngalese chronicle, the Mahar- 

 ranso. In comparison with whatever historical 

 matter is incorporated in the Tripitaka, the 

 sources of information of the other class are 

 untrustworthy. Whatever is included in them 

 and not in the Tripitaka that must naturally 

 have been inserted there if it had been believed, 

 can be regarded as of later fabrication. Of 

 this character are most of the points of the 

 biographies that bear any reference to Chris- 

 tianity. Singalese chronicles go much further 

 back than 250 B. o., and with the same circum- 

 stantiality. They give lists of kings who pre- 

 ceded Asoka, and lists of monks who were 

 leaders of Buddhist congregations from Gau- 

 tama's time till then. It would be unreason- 

 able to refuse all credit to the earlier part of 

 these chronicles. It is hardly possible to dis- 

 trust them so far as to doubt that the sacred 

 books, substantially as we have them, existed 

 a hundred years earlier. 



In the Pitaka substantial facts are chron- 

 icled correctly, but adorned, not overlaid, with 

 fictitious and often absurd circumstances. The 

 falsehood in the stories does not seriously 

 interfere with the truth ; it falls off directly 

 the story is handled. The incredible elements 

 of the Pitaka life of Gautama are mostly 

 of this nature. They belong to what is little 

 else than a conventional mode of narration; 

 they are little more than the epithets that we 

 used to select, without thought of truth or 

 falsehood, from our Gradus, to adorn the plain 

 substantives of our originals. The separation 

 of the history from them requires no exercise 

 of the critical faculty, and gives no room for 

 arbitrary decisions. 



The resultant biography of Gautama shows 

 nothing supernatural and nothing that in those 

 days was strange. Many high-born persons 

 went through renunciations similar to his, and 

 bore among their adherents the title of Bud- 

 dhas. A like course was prescribed in the 

 laws of Menu as a regular part of a Brah- 

 man's life. Gautama is not recorded as having 

 performed any act of conspicuous or extraordi- 

 nary goodness or self-sacrifice in his historical 

 life ; but he attributed to himself these and all 

 sorts of noble actions in former births. Most 

 probably his career was as nearly as possible 

 that of an ordinary, devoted teacher, and he 

 was distinguished, not by strange acts, but by a 

 strange degree of sympathy, insight, and con- 

 structive ability. 



The historical treatment of the life ofGan- 

 tama shows nearly all the parts of his biogra- 

 phy that are relied on as parallel to Christian 

 history to belong to the unhistorical Lalita Vis- 

 tara and the other later books. Whether these 

 northern biographies borrowed from Christian- 

 ity, is an interesting question that depends on 

 the date of Asvaghosha which some put as 

 early as 70 B. o., some as late as 70 A. D. ; on 

 the veracity of the early Christian traditions as 

 to the travels of the apostles ; and on the de- 

 gree of intercourse between Kaniska's Indian 

 court and the western countries. But even were 

 all admitted, the resemblances to Christianity 

 are small and few. In the historical narration 

 there are, to the author's view, only two points 

 that bear resemblance to anything in the life of 

 Christ. One is the visit of the old sage, who, 

 after the birth of Gautama, predicted that he 

 would be a Buddha, and rejoiced to have seen 

 him ; but this story is wanting in some of the 

 important features of the similar incident in 

 the life of Christ ; and, moreover, it only corre- 

 sponds with the common Indian custom of 

 getting a sage to visit the infant and pro- 

 nounce his horoscope. The other is the so- 

 called temptation of Buddha by Mara ; but in 

 this case the attempt is very different from that 

 which was made upon Christ by Satan, and is 

 an inevitable incident of the story. 



Other apparent instances are fictitious. By 

 a multitude of little parodies, nearly all of 

 them misleading, a total impression is conveyed 

 which is very far removed from the truth. 

 Likenesses to Christianity, and most touching 

 ones, there are ; but they are generally in the 

 expression .of man's weakness and need, not in 

 the method of meeting it. 



The Nirvana of the books and of present 

 Ceylonese conviction is the state in which there 

 is not left any capacity for re-birth. This state, 

 which sees final death within reach, might be 

 called the potentiality of final Nirvana ; and it 

 is inaccurately imagined to be happiness to 

 have attained that potential stage, and to know 

 that one has no more births before him. 

 The attainment of Nirvana, thus inaccurately 

 thought of, is possible in life; its final achieve- 

 ment, in the last death, is Paranirvana. 



