October 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



345 



^^LLUSTRATED^MAGAZINE ^ 

 eEMCE,UTERATUREAABl* 



LONDON: OCTOBER 1, 1886. 



THE UNKNOWABLE. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



A DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE BUDDHA. 



CORRESPONDENT pleasantly points out 

 what he considers an error in my remarks 

 upon Buddliism in the August number. 

 He says that the Buddha is not held to be 

 a virgin-born saviour, but was " the son of 

 King Suddhodana and Queen Maia, who 

 reigned over the Sakyas. The white ele- 

 phant which Maia in a dream saw enter 

 her side is understood to be the symbol of the Arahat, that 

 is, of ' one having the perfect wisdom.' So many Buddhist 

 stories," proceeds my correspondent, " have merely a sym- 

 bolical meaning that it is difficult for an outsider to 

 find the real esoteric doctrine.'' Regarding me manifestlj- 

 as very much outside, he directs my attention to the Bud- 

 dhist Catechism compiled by my entertaining but by no 

 means erudite friend, Colonel Hy. Olcott, president of the 

 Theosophical Society, and to Mr. A. P. Sinnett's " Esoteric 

 Buddhism," by which, he thinks, the Buddhist doctrines 

 will be properly presented to me. 



AV'hile gratefvil to my correspondent for his evidently 

 kind intention, I must explain that I should deem it a very 

 serious offence against the readers of Knowledge if I had 

 undertaken to introduce any remarks about so important 

 a subject as Buddhism, the religion of more than one-thii-d 

 of the human i-ace, when so ill-informed that Colonel 

 Olcott's feeble compilation or Jlr. Sinnett's borrowed mysti- 

 cism could be of the least use to me. Colonel Olcott may 

 tell his theosophist followers that Buddha, as he insists on 

 calling Gautama, had " that many disciples," and that 

 Buddhists ofl'er flowers to the statue of Buddha, " but not 

 ■with the sentiment of the idolater," and otherwise ungram- 

 matically or inexactly catechLsc them ; but every page of 

 his Catechism shows how little he has really studied his 

 subject. Mr. Sinnett is more careful, yet my correspondent 

 will find it well to turn from his pages to some such 

 thoroughly trustworthy work as " Buddhism," by ilr. Rhys 

 Davids. 



It is quite true, however, that a religion so widespread as 

 Buddhism, and one which can be adapted (without artifice) 

 to minds of so many varying orders, deserves to be care- 

 fully guarded against erroneous ideas. My own belief that 

 Christian doctrines were derived from the East, and are 

 altogether Aryan in origin (their apparent Semitic source 

 being comparable to the apparent origin of a river in a lake 

 which has derived eveiy drop of its waters from snow-clad 

 heights around it), makes me the more careful to explain in 

 what sense I spoke of the Buddha, in the August number, 

 as " a virgin-born saviour." I did, indeed, carefully explain 

 at the time that there was no legend of virgin birth till 



long after Gautama's death, when his history underwent the 

 usual modification, by which features of the undying solar 

 legend were worked into it. But I will now deal with the 

 point more particularly. 



In considering this matter we shall not re;illy be losing 

 ground. For in the first place we have in the history of 

 Gautama the most striking illustration of the adajitation of 

 the solar ideas to the history of a truly great teacher who 

 passed a reiil though by no means an ordinary life upon 

 earth ; and, in the second place, a religion which stands 

 absolutely first in the number of its followers, and can 

 claim very favourable comparison with all other religions 

 alike for the intelligence and character of the races holding 

 it, and for the inherent beauty of its doctrines, deserves 

 full consideration in an essay seeking, as this does, to sketch 

 the search men have made after the unknowable and infinite 

 mystery lying at the back of physical, mental, and moral 

 phenomena.* 



The original versions of the story of Gautama were 

 doubtless free from the miraculous and impossible details 

 which appear later. Yet quite early he was regarded as 

 having been absolutely sinless and perfectly wise. Later 

 this dweloped into the belief that he could not have 

 been born as other men are. For the doctrine that all men 

 born in the ordinary way must of necessity be imperfect is 

 Aryan in origin. (It probably reached Paul of Tarsus, 

 directly or indu-ectly, from the East ; indeed it seems almost 

 impossible to explain the essentially Buddhist doctrines of 

 Semitic religious teacherein the first century of the Christian 

 era in any other way than as derived, with such modifica- 

 tions as were inevitable in such a transfer, from Buddhist 

 sources.) Hence quite naturally arose the teaching that, as 

 Mr. Rhys Davids puts it, " Gautama had no earthly father." 

 " He descended " (according to this later account of him) 

 " of bis own accord into his mother's womb from iiis throne 

 in heaven." " He gave," further, " unmistakable signs, 

 immediately after his birth, of his high character and of his 

 future greatness. Earth and heaven at his birth united to 

 pay him homage ; the very trees bent of their own accord 

 over his mother, and the very angels and archangels were 

 present with their help. His mother was the best and 

 purest of the daughters of men,t and his father was of royal 

 lineage, and a prince of wealth and power. It was a pious 

 task to make his abnegation and his condescension greater 



* The seeming delay of a month in the appearance of this 

 digressive matter will be explained by certain remarks -in " Notes 

 on Americanisms.'' I do not know that it matters much. The 

 considerations bearing on the religions of the world, and on the 

 search after adequate reasons for ceasing to look for an interpreta- 

 tion of the mystery of the universe, are too numerous to be even 

 touched on in very limited space. I try to give in each contribution 

 matter for independent study. 



f 1 have not found any traces of such further development of the 

 ideas here indicated, as we find in the Catholic doctrine that Mary, 

 the virgin mother of Christ, was born free from the stain of original 

 sin. In Inman's " Ancient Faiths " the doctrine of the Immaculate 

 Conception of Jlary is confounded with the doctrine of the Colly- 

 ridians, that Mary was born of a virgin. The Catholic Church has 

 not taught that. In fact, the danger of such a doctrine (with the 

 manifest sorites which must presently be associated with it — since 

 if there is no difference in this respect between Jesus and Mary, 

 neither should there be between Mary and Anne, or between Anne 

 and her mother, and so on indefinitely) would prevent its being 

 ever adopted by adepts in theology. The doctrine of the Immaculate 

 Conception involves no such risk. It teaches only that by divine 

 intervention the stain of Adam's sin, which in all other cases, it 

 appears, marks every child of Adam from the moment of his or her 

 conception, was not suffered to fall on Mary. So far from being a 

 difficult doctrine of Catholicity, this one, viewing the matter entirely 

 from the outside, seems singularly easy to believe: the real dilficulty 

 lying not so much in the doctrine that this little Jewess was free 

 from Adam's primeval offence, ;is in believing that every one else, 

 Jew or Gentile, must be stained by it. 



