DMA ; BUDDHISM. 



: r.rnnmsM.' 



with curled locks was to that eAVt, that it was considered a |--int of 

 beauty ; still the notion is, a* Mr. Hodgson obMrves, an odd one for 

 a sect which iiwista on tonsure. 



The Buddhists themselves, huweiui much they may disagree as to 

 the period at which the founder of their religion lirrd. make no ,.,,- 

 tendons to a rery high antiquity uf their sect, but admit on every 



.... ...- | . ; 



The BuddhisU of Ceylon place the period of Sakya, or Buddha, at 

 the 6th century before the Christian era, which date is confirmed by the 

 testimony of the Buddhistic writings, by inscriptions and by medals. 

 The Chinese Buddhists claim a far higher antiquity, but this claim 

 is rejected by M. Eugene Burnout, and is contradicted by the 

 Sanskrit texts : that it cannot be much later is proved by the writings 

 of rlaesinl authors, to whom they were known as Sarmanes, Sarna- 

 ueans (a corruption of the Sanskrit tamana, stable, unalterable), or 

 Oymoosophista, though the Brahmanic ascetics appear to have been 

 confounded with them under the hitter name. ' The Mahawansn,' a 

 chronicle in the Pali tongue, which has been translated by Mr. Edw. 

 Upturn in three volumes in 1833, gives a series of continuous dates, 

 which, dating from the death of the last Buddha (Sakya), is no 

 longer embarrassed by the indefinite system of fictions peculiar to the 

 Brahmanic works. 



According to the concurrent traditions of the Buddhists, in various 

 parts of Asia, the founder of the sect was the son of Suddhodana, king 

 of Magadha in South Behar, and May*. His name is said to have been 

 Sirvirthjuuddh.i ; but he bore several designations, either as Sakya or 

 Buddha, among which are the following : Muni, Sastri, Munindra, 

 Vinayara, Samanta, Bhadra, Dharma Raja, Sugata; and his titles 

 are, Sakyamuni, Sokyaaingha, Sarvartha-eiddha, Suil'hodhani, tiautama, 

 Arcabandliu, or kinsman of the sun ; Maya, or child of Maya (delusion), 

 or Maytderisuta. The title of Buddha, or " the sage," does not seem 

 to have been given to him till after he had attained eminent sanctity 

 as a teacher of religion. Several of these names appear under some- 

 what modified shapes in the languages of the various Buddhist nations ; 

 thus Sakyamuni has, by the Mongols, been corrupted into Shigimuni ; 

 (Jautama, preceded by the honorific Sanskrit title of Sramana, " the 

 ascetic,'' has, in Siamese, become Sommonacodom ; the Chinese hare 

 converted Magadha into Moki-to, under which name they comprehend 

 India generally ; Buddha they have corrupted into Fo-ta and Fo ; and 

 Suddhodana, like many other Sanskrit compound names, they have 

 analysed and translated into their own language by Zing-fan-wang, that 

 is, " the eater of pure food." 



The circumstances of the life of Buddha, which we find recorded, 

 are only few. Conformably to the prevailing usage of the country, the 

 infant was, a few days after his birth, presented before the image of 

 a deity, which is said to have inclined its head when the child was 

 brought near its shrine, as a presage of his future greatness. In his 

 tenth year the boy was placed under the guidance of a spiritual in- 

 structor, whose name, according to a Mongol account of the life of 

 Bnddha, was Bah-Burenu Bakshi. He soon developed mental faculties 

 of the first order, and became equally distinguished by the uncommon 

 beauty of his person. At the age of 20 years he married a noble 

 virgin called Yasddhara Deri in the Ceylonese account of his lit. II, 

 had by her two children, a son (whom the Mongols call Racholi ; the 

 Ceyloneae, Hahula Kumareyo) and a daughter. At this period of his 

 life it i related that earnest meditations concerning the depravity and 

 misery of mankind began to engage his mind, and he conceived a plan 

 of retiring from human society and becoming a hermit. His father 

 endeavoured in vain to frustrate this design ; Buddha escaped the 

 vigilance of the guards appointed to watch him, and took his abode on 

 the banks of a river, named in the Mongol history Amosora or Naro- 

 aara, in the kingdom of Udipa. Here he lived during six years, undis- 

 turbed in his devout contemplations. At the expiration of this period 

 he came forward at Warnashi ( Voranasi, that is, Benares) as a religious 

 teacher. It is said that, by some who heard him, doubts were at first 

 entertained as to the soundness of his mind ; but his doctrines soon 

 pined credit, and were propagated so rapidly that Buddha himself 

 live,! to see them spread all over India. He died in his 80th year. 

 (KUproth's ' Asia Polyglotta,' p. 122, &c. ; I. J. Schmidt's ' Gcschichte 

 der Ost-Mongolen,' pp. 812, 813.) 



To become a disciple, of liuddha it was sufficient to declare a Mief 

 in him ; but the neophyte had to shave his hair, to wear a cloak mode 

 of yellow, rags, and to study under an older Micver. No person 

 could be admitted to the society by a single member : it must be done 

 in general assembly. This assembly, of which Sakya was the chief, 

 nnmirtiul of male and female mendicants, who bound themselves to 

 perpetual chastity and poverty, and of believers who had not adopted 

 any ascetic rule. From among the ascetics, however, were chosen the 

 elders, according to their merit and seniority. The highest rank was 

 that of the aryas, or those who bad com|.rehended the four axioms 

 which are the foundation of the Buddhist doctrine: that is, 1, that 

 there exists pain ; 2, that all that is born in this world suffers pain; 

 , that it is necessary to liberate ourselves from it ; and, 4, that know- 

 ledge alone offers the means of this deliverance. 



Transmigration, attaching rewards to good acts and punishments to 

 bad, leads to the notion of expiation, which ought to Iw effected by the 

 performance of good actions ; but the only form which it receives in 

 practice is confession, and this was instituted by Bakyo himself. 



The worship of Buddhism is extremely simple; the ceremonies con- 

 sist in offering flowers and perfume, accompanied with instrumental 

 music, hymns, and prayers. There were no bloody sacrifices, and the 

 worship is in fact not addressed to one god, or a number of god-, Imt 

 to a figure of Sakyamuni, and the buildings enshrining a part of his 

 bones. An image and relics, this is the whole of the won-hip of the 

 Buddhists. Hence the legends dwell so much on the personal beauty 

 of Sakya, ascribing to him 82 characteristics of beauty, and 80 

 secondary signs, and hence also Buddha is always represented as a man 

 tutting anil meditating, and not with the exaggerated attribute" of the 

 Brahmanical deities. This system has undergone considerable modifi- 

 cations. Other images have been introduced, such as the fire dliyiini 

 Buddhas, of which drawings have been published by Mr. Hodgson, but 

 which he considers as mere personifications of the phenomena 

 physical world : they on the whole, however, maintain the form of a 

 man who meditates or teaches. 



The relics consist of the ashes of the body of Sakya, which, af i 

 body was burnt, were collected into eight metal cylinders, au<l buried 

 under the like number of chaitnyaa. The uninterrupted tradition 

 of 1 7 centuries confirms the destination of these topes, or columnar 

 erections, of which many have been opened within the last few years, 

 by General Ventura, Major Cunningham, Lieut. Maisey, and others. 



The books now extant form three classes : the Sutrapitaka, or 

 discourses of Buddha ; the Vinayapitaka, or the diHciplinc ; and the 

 Abhidluuiumapitaka, or the manifested lawn or metaphysics. The 

 whole are termed Tripitaka. This division is also recognised among 

 the Chinese, who name them sacred books, precepts, and discourses. 



The Sutras are dialogues in which Sakya is the teacher. Sakya 

 always commences a Sutra with the formula, " Lo, what I have learnt." 

 They were evidently written when the system of castes prevail. .1 in 

 India, and which were then Brahmans, Ksattriyas, Vaisayas, Sudras, 

 and Chandalas, with some subdivisions ; the names of the castes are 

 continually quoted. 



A second class of the Nepalese works are the Avedanas, which are 

 legends ; they are later and of various dates. 



The Indian books, Sanskrit and Pali, show us in Buddha a religious 

 reformer, desirous above everything to change the manners of his con- 

 temporaries. An infinite charity, the desire of imparting to others the 

 satisfaction enjoyed under the rule of an excellent doctrine, giving a 

 strong impulse to proselytism among all ranks and from all castes, 

 the admission to the priesthood of persona from classes the most 

 despised, whenever they had rendered themselves worthy of this 

 supreme honour by their virtue, in one word, equality before God, 

 such were the characters of the doctrine presented by Sakya. M. Eugene 

 Burnouf c Introduction a 1'Histoire du Buddhisme Indien ') relates a 

 response of the great reformer, which at once enables us to comprehend 

 the principle of the new religion. The Brahmans had been ridii -uliii- 

 him on account of a new disciple, whom he hod converted when sunk 

 to the lowest degree of abasement and misery. " My law," he said. i 

 a law of grace for all ; and what is this but a law of grace for all ! It 

 is. a law under which the most miserable mendicants may moke them- 

 selves religious." "Remarkable words," says M. Burnouf, " of which 

 the spirit lias propagated Buddhism, and which was still vivid at Cey- 

 lon even at the beginning of the present century, when a religious, 

 disgraced by the king for preaching to the miserable and despised caste 

 of Hhodios, answered nearly the some as Buddha himself : licligion 

 ought to be the common good of all." 



The Buddish compositions are not written in the rich but simple 

 style of the Mahdbhdrat, but yet not in the monotonous idiom of tlie 

 PurAnos, and the plan is somewhat inartificial. In the Shtras liuddha 

 is usually placed in some town of India, where he is represented as 

 surrounded by on assembly of religious hearers, sometimes with the 

 addition of a number of gods, to whom he preaches his dot! 

 which, however, contain nothing of the mythological marl 

 subsequently introduced. None are mentioned but Buddhas, of 

 whom Shkya was the last, and all are men like himself, the sons of 

 Brahmans, or kings. He, however, claimed a previous existence, and 

 occasionally confirms his doctrine by relating what happened to him- 

 self, or his disciples, in a former life. 



Sakya admits and names a number of tin- bralim.mieal gods, but 

 deems their power inferior to that of Buddha ; and he taught that the 

 I'.uddli.i, a supreme intelligence, was involved in an always moving pro- 

 gress of transmigration, through animals, criminals, men, and gods ; 

 that all the visible world is in perpetual change ; that death succeeds 

 life and life death ; but by the. practice of six transccndant perfections 

 alms, morals, science, energy, patience, and charity, a nmn might 

 hope to obtain rest from this continued change, and arrive at the state 

 of Nirvana, deliverance or annihilation. 



The means of conversion used by SJiky.i were preaching, wit! 

 ence to his own holy life, the possession of knowledge, and the per- 

 formance of miracles. 



To dilfime his doctrines, Sakya employed preaching, a new menus in 

 India (absolutely unknown to Brahmonism, which then reigned para- 

 mount i. fry>. which |M-rfiH-tly suited the popular character of 

 his instruction, and which wa< the foundation of his proselytism. 

 Krligious truth wan no longer, as with the Brahman*, t lie exclusive 

 possession f privileged castes, but became the patrimony of all who 

 were willing to acquire it. It was this mode uf propagation ti 



