437 



BUDDHA, BUDDHISM. 



BUDDHA, BUDDHISM. 



433 



emperor Ming Ti. (Du Halde, ' Hist, of China,' &c., vol. iii., Eng. trans. 

 1741, 8vo.) A translation of some of the sacred writings of the Buddhists 

 into Chinese is, however, stated to have been made in A.D. 418, by a 

 priest from the northern part of India, whose name was Foo-too-pa-to-lo. 

 (Re'musat, ' Melanges Asiat.,' vol. i. p. 116.) According to the Chinese 

 and Japanese list of Bodhisattwas, Pan-jo-to-lo or Banneyadara, the 

 27th of the series, was the last representative of Buddha, who died in 

 India (A.D. 457) ; his successor, Bodhidharma, went to China (A.D. 499), 

 and was followed by five Buddhist patriarchs there. From China 

 Buddhism was subsequently extended to Corea, A.D. 528, and to Japan, 

 A.D. 552. M. Stanislaus Julien says, Buddhism was introduced into 

 China about A.D. 65, and spread rapidly the Buddhist books of India 

 having been brought immediately by missionaries, by pilgrims on 

 their return, and by the exiles driven oxit by the persecution of the 

 Brahmans ; and he gives a list (' Journal Asiatique,' for Nov.-Dec., 

 1849), of the works translated into Chinese. He states also, that there 

 is a Chinese catalogue, printed in 1306, with the Sanskrit and Chinese 

 titles ranged side by side, to the number of 1440, forming 5586 

 volumes. Some of these works are translated also into Tibetan and 

 Ugrian. In 1853 and 1857, M. Julien also published the translation 

 of a Chinese work, the ' Pilgrimage of a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, 

 from China to India, to study the religion of the great reformer in his 

 own country.' The volumes contain much interesting matter, par- 

 ticularly as relates to the geography of the countries he passed through ; 

 but his statements as to the doctrines of Sakya differ in no material 

 degree from those of Burnouf. 



About the middle of the 5th century, Buddhism seems to have been 

 carried to Java ; whither, however, Brahmanical settlers had probably 

 preceded it. It ia as yet uncertain whether the Buddhism of Java was 

 of Ceylonese or of Indian origin. According to a tradition current in 

 Java, the strangers, who civilised the island, came from Kling (that in, 

 Kalinga, or the northern Circars), a name by which the modern nation 

 of Java seem to designate the whole continent of India. 



Buddhism was also introduced into Cashmir very early. According 

 to the local history it continued to flourish there till the reign of 

 Xara, B.C. 298, when the Brahmans expelled the followers of Buddha, 

 and burned their temples. (Wilson, 'Asiat. Res.,, vol. xv. pp. 26 

 and 81.) 



Dr. F. Buchanan (Hamilton) is of opinion that the time of the intro- 

 duction of Buddhism into Nepal may be fixed about the commencement 

 of the Christian era, when "Sakya, the last great teacher of the 

 Buddhists, passed through the country and settled at Lassa, where he 

 is supposed to be still alive in the person whom we call the Grand 

 Lama." ('Account of Nepal,' p. 10. Compare pp. 32, 56, 190.) 



From the Mongol chronicle, published by Schmidt, we learn that 

 Buddhism was for the first time introduced into Tibet during the reign 

 of Hlatotori, in A.D. 407. The great grandson of that king, Srongdsau 

 Oambo, who ascended the throne in A.D. 629, sent Tungini Ssarnbhoda, 

 attended by sixteen companions, into India, for the purpose of being 

 instructed in the art of writing. Along with an alphabet, which lias 

 till the present day preserved its similarity to the Indian Devanagari 

 character (see the plates accompanying Mr. Hodgson's paper in the 

 18th voL of the ' Asiatic Researches') these missionaries seem to have 

 carried the first writings on the religion of Buddha into their native 

 country. But not all the succeeding kings of Tibet were favourable 

 to the new religion. Clang Dharrua, who reigned from 902 to 925, as 

 well as hi son Gorel Shakikchi (925 977), were hostile to Buddhism, 

 and persecuted its followers. After a period of persecution which 

 lasted 86 years, the doctrine was re-established in Tibet, in the year 

 988. M. Hue (in his ' Souvenirs') has given specimens of a Tibetan 

 work attributed to Sakya, entitled the ' Forty-two points of instruc- 

 tion delivered by Buddha,' and these points are entirely hi unison with 

 those produced from the Sanskrit by M. Burnouf. Nearly three centu- 

 ries subsequent to this restoration Buddhism was introduced among 

 the Mongols, during the reign of Godan, a grandson of Gengiskhan, 

 who was converted to the new religion AD. 1247, by Sakya Pandita, 

 a teacher (Bodhiaattwa ?) who came from the south. (Schmidt's 

 Saanang Ssetaen, 1 pp. 25, 29, 48, 113, &c., and the notes of the 

 translator, pp. 325, 329, &c.) 



M. Hue says (' Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et 

 la Chine, pendant les annees 1314, 1845, et 1846 '), that of all the 

 Buddhist nations he has visited, the Mongolians appear to be the most 

 incere ; then couie the Tibetans and the Cingalese ; but that the 

 Chinese are merely nominal followers, and have almost universally 

 fallen into complete scepticism. 



The collection of writings regarded as sacred by the Buddhists is 

 probably as voluminous ag -that of any sect that ever existed. The 

 language in which the Buddha sages originally committed then- 

 doctrine to writing we believe to have been the Sanskrit, from which 

 they were subsequently translated into the Pali, and into other 

 languages current in the several countries where Buddhism was intro- 

 duced. A considerable number of Sanskrit records of Buddhism were 

 some years back procured in Nepal by Mr. B. H. Hodgson ; and it is 

 but natural to suppose, that among them some of the ancient and 

 original treatises on the doctrines of Buddhism nhould have been pre- 

 served. The most important of these sacred writings in the estimation 

 of the Nepaleae Buddhints are nine " Parana*," also named the nine 

 "Dharmas," narrative works, in which elucidations of the Buddha 



doctrines seem to be blended with a legendary account of the life o 

 Buddha and the most eminent sages of the sect. Besides these they 

 possess works called " Tantras," which contain prayers and forms of 

 invocations, and are illustrated by ample commentaries; and also- 

 collections of prayers, apparently composed for use on certain occasions, 

 which are called " Dharanis." (See Mr. Hodgson's enumeration of the 

 principal existing Buddha writings of Nepal, in the 16th volume of 

 the ' Asiatic Researches,' p. 422, &c.) Quotations in Sanskrit from a 

 collection of " Sutras," or short aphorisms, attributed to Buddha him- 

 self, occur in Sanskrit works on the Vedanta philosophy. 



In the Essay on Buddhism by Kitelegama Dewamitta Unnanse, a, 

 native of Ceylon (printed in the Ceylon Almanac for 1835, pp. 211 



called " Gandjour," which is written in the Tibetan language. Tim- 

 kowski saw a copy of it in a temple at Purga, in the country of the 

 Kalkas Mongols, which consisted of 108 volumes. Chests revolving 

 on an axis, and covered with prayers in large gold letters, are fre- 

 quently placed in the Buddhist temples among the Mongols, in order 

 that persons who cannot read may come and turn them round as long 

 as their zeal prompts them, which is considered as efficacious as if they 

 recited the prayers themselves. 



It is a notion deeply rooted in the minds of all Hindus, often 

 repeated in the Vedas, and variously explained and commented upou 

 by the different schools of Brahmanic philosophy, that the visible 

 world and everything relating to it is but the transient manifestatiou 

 of the Deity, without real or permanent existence ; that the confine- 

 ment of the human soul, itself an emanation of the Divine spirit, in a 

 perishable body, subject to all the changeful accidents of matter, is a 

 state of misery ; and that every effort of man during life should b 

 directed towards ensuring the entire emancipation of his soul after 

 death, that is, not only its liberation from the necessity of undergoing 

 another birth, and being invested with a body, but altogether its 

 release from individual existence, and its direct return to a lasting 

 union with the Divine Being. This notion developed in a peculiar 

 manner, forms likewise the basis of the Buddha creed. 



The Buddhists of Nepal, who have preserved the ancient doctrine.-; 

 of the sect with the greatest purity, and concerning whose religious 

 notions our information is as yet more explicit than any that we 

 possess of the tenets held by the Buddhists of other countries, are 

 divided into four schools, which differ partly in the manner in which 

 they teach that the Divine spirit was active in the production of the 

 world, and partly in the method which they prescribe for effecting the 

 liberation of the soul after death. We will endeavour briefly to state 

 the peculiar doctrines of each of these schools, following chiefly the 

 ' Quotations in Proof," published by Mr. Hodgson in the ' Journal of 

 the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. ii. p. 295, &c. All concur in admitting 

 the primeval existence of the Deity, who was when nothing else was, 

 and who is thence called Adi-Buddha or " the Firnt Buddha." 



1. According to the Swabhavika school, Swabhava, a sort of plastic 

 faculty, springing from, or rather identical with, Iswara, or God, is the 

 source from which the elements and all things and beings proceed, and 

 into which they are ultimately to be re-absorbed. The universe con- 

 stantly revolves between Pravrltti and Nirvrltti, or creation and re- 

 absorption or annihilation ; and this eternal change of existence and 

 non-existence ia the system and law of nature, without any co-opera- 

 tion of will or design on the part of Iswara. (Hodgson, 1, c. p. 297, 

 No. 9.) 



2. The Aiswarika school attributes more of a personal character to 

 the Deity, and asserts that the creation of the world was the deliberate 

 act of Iswara. Nirvrltti, that is, perfect calmness or repose, is his 

 proper and enduring state : but for the sake of creating the universe 

 he became Panchajnanatmika, or " endowed with five-fold conscious- 

 ness," and produced the five divine Buddhas (Vairochana, Akshobhya, 

 Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddha), who became the 

 authors of the elements, and by the agency of the five Bodhisattwas, 

 beings produced by them, were the creators of the world. These five 

 Bodhisattwas therefore, as delegates of Iswara, produced all things by 

 their fiat. (Hodgson, 1. c. p. 299.) 



3. The Karmika school (which along with the Yatnika is supposed 

 by Mr. Hodgson to be of more recent origin than the two first) appears 

 to have speculated chiefly on the means best calculated to procure the 

 release of the soul from its connexion with matter ; and as it deduces 

 the procession of all things into existence from avidya (error, delusion), 

 so it maintains that the regressive movement towards non-existence 

 must be effected by true knowledge. The " error " here alluded to is 

 the groundless belief in the reality of the external world. This belief, 

 when arising in the un-einbodied sentient principle, is attended with a 

 longing after the objects which it supposes to exist : hence individual 

 consciousness springs, and a subtile personal frame forms itself as the 

 seat of that consciousness : a perception of sensual objects follows, 

 which produces desire in the subtile frame, and leads to its corporeal 

 conception and physical birth. The progress of the soul towards 

 matter is therefore the effect of a succession of acts (Karma whence 

 the name of the school Karmika) on the part of the soul ; and its 

 liberation must be sought by relinquishing the erroneous notion of the 

 reality and stability of external objects; for when this great error ii 



