BUDDHISM. 



miraculous power he had, to places at which, 

 without such power, he could not possibly have 

 been. Thus he is believed to have visited Ceylon, 

 where, on the top of a high mountain, the mark of 

 his foot, as he took his departure, is pointed out to 

 this day. But the range of his wanderings appears 

 to have been not extensive, but confined to a 

 hundred or two of miles eastwards and westwards 

 of the modern Patna. He is represented as 

 making everywhere prodigious numbers of con- 

 verts, but this must be taken with great allowance. 

 At last, at a place called Kusinagara, in Oude, 

 not far from his place of birth, he died, or, in 

 Buddhist phrase, sunk into Nirvana. His body 

 being burned, the relics were distributed among a 

 number of contending claimants, and monumental 

 tumuli, called topes, were erected to preserve 

 them. 



Little can be gathered as to the history of 

 Buddhism during the two or three centuries 

 following the death of its founder. A crisis in 

 its fortunes arrived in the third century before the 

 Christian era, when Asoka, a powerful monarch, 

 who seems to have been master of nearly the 

 whole of Hindustan, became a convert to Buddh- 

 ism, and did for it what Constantine did for 

 Christianity. Asoka made Buddhism the state 

 religion of India. A council had been assembled 

 to determine points of doctrine and discipline 

 immediately after the Buddha's death. Another 

 had been held about a hundred years later. In 

 Asoka's reign, a third council was held, the object 

 of which seems to have been to procure uniformity 

 of doctrine and discipline among the Buddhists, 

 who had come to be split up into many sects. 

 The latest date that can be assigned to this 

 council is 240 B.C. By this time, the art of 

 writing was known. Inscriptions bearing the 

 name of King Piyadesi, who, by most orientalists, 

 is considered to be identical with Asoka imbued 

 with the spirit of charity and tolerance which, 

 as will hereafter be seen, is characteristic of 

 Buddhism are still numerous in India. It is 

 probable, then, though not certain, that at this 

 council, the doctrines and precepts of Buddhism 

 were written down that it fixed the canon of the 

 scriptures while settling the doctrine and dis- 

 cipline of the Church. At this council it was 

 resolved to send missionaries of Buddhism all 

 over India and the adjacent countries. It was 

 now that Ceylon received the new doctrine ; 

 Prince Mahendra, Asoka's own son, being the 

 apostle. Cashmere and the countries about 

 Cabul were converted about the same time. 

 Under the governments which followed that of 

 King Asoka, the history of Buddhism seems to 

 have been somewhat checkered, but, on the whole, 

 the religion continued to gain ground. About the 

 beginning of our era, it had a second period of 

 high prosperity under a king of the White Huns, 

 named Kanishka, whose power extended from 

 Bactria to the Punjab. From this region it seems 

 to have extended through Central Asia into 

 China, where, so early as 65 A.D. it was acknow- 

 ledged as a third state religion. Its flourish- 

 ing condition in Hindustan and the countries to 

 the north-west of it, seems to have lasted from the 

 time of Asoka (250 B.C.) to the seventh century 

 after Christ. In the lands to the north-west of 

 the Indus, it was exterminated by the fanati- 

 cism of the Mohammedans. How it died out in 



| India is entirely unknown. In the 7th century, 

 | Hiouen-Thsang one of a series of Chinese pil- 

 j grims to the native land of Buddhism, from whose 

 accounts, covering several centuries, the most 

 trustworthy part of our knowledge as to the 

 state of Buddhism in India after the Christian era 

 is derived represents the religion as widely 

 prevailing, and flourishing under the protection of 

 powerful rajahs. By the nth or I2th century, 

 it had almost entirely disappeared. At what 

 period Buddhism constructed those wonderful 

 cave-temples which still exist in India, is only 

 matter of conjecture j but it is supposed that they 

 were excavated in times of persecution, and prob- 

 ably during the early centuries of the Christian 

 era. Of these excavations, about 900 are still 

 extant They are found chiefly in the presidency 

 of Bombay. 



The canonical writings of Buddhism are divided 

 into three classes, forming what is called the 

 Tripitaka, or triple basket. The first class consists 

 of the Soutras, or discourses of the Buddha ; the 

 second contains the Vinaya, or discipline ; the 

 third, the Abhidharma, or metaphysic. Though, 

 as has been stated, the scriptures of the northern 

 and southern schools of Buddhism are substan- 

 tially the same, some differences both of theory 

 and of practice have arisen between them. Into 

 these we shall not be able to enter, nor can we do- 

 more than allude to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, 

 known as Lamaism, which Buddhism has erected 

 in Tibet. Our chief aim must be to make in- 

 telligible the intellectual theory on which the 

 Buddhist system rests. 



Its view of the constitution and origin of the 

 universe, Buddhism has taken from Hinduism, 

 but with considerable variations. Besides this 

 earth of ours, it holds that there are many worlds, 

 so constituted as to cause almost endless degrees 

 of misery or happiness to sentient beings placed 

 in them. There are heavens, and there are hells ; 

 and imagination has run riot in picturing the 

 tortures endured by unhappy beings relegated to 

 the latter. And as there are other worlds than 

 ours, so there are other beings than our world 

 can exhibit ; beings ranging from gods downwards. 

 To such beings the gods of Hinduism and other 

 religions may belong ; Buddhism is under no 

 necessity of denying their existence. But it holds 

 that every state of being, from the highest to the 

 lowest, whether lasting for a day or for millions of 

 years, lasts but for a time. The due time expired, 

 every being dies and passes into another, pos- 

 sibly a far different phase of existence ; and so on 

 everlastingly, except so far as the gospel of the 

 Buddha shews a way of deliverance, at once from 

 change and from being. The god then may fall 

 from his high estate, just as that which has been 

 a worm may be exalted. Buddhism taking from 

 Hinduism the doctrine of the transmigration of 

 souls, has applied it throughout the whole range 

 of the universe. But if everybody and every- 

 thing, even the gods, are subject to change, what 

 power has created and guides the universe ? 

 Buddhism says it cannot tell ; or, rather, it 

 attributes all the changes of the universe to 

 what, for want of a better phrase, may be 

 called the nature of things, or the order of 

 nature, of which change is the settled charac- 

 teristic. This world has sprung out of the 

 ashes of a former world ; that out of the ashes 



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