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Buddhism

CHARLES F. AIKEN
Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III

Copyright � 1908 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright � 2003 by K. Knight
Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The religious, monastic system, founded c. 500 B.C. on the basis of pantheistic
Brahminism. The speculations of the Vedanta school of religious thought, in the
eighth and following centuries, B.C., gave rise to several rival schemes of
salvation. These movements started with the same morbid view that conscious life is
a burden and not worth the living, and that true happiness is to be had only in a
state like dreamless sleep free from all desires, free from conscious action. They
took for granted the Upanishad doctrine of the endless chain of births, but they
differed from pantheistic Brahminism both in their attitude towards the Vedas and
in their plan for securing freedom from rebirth and from conscious existence. In
their absolute rejection of Vedic rites, they stamped themselves as heresies. Of
these the one destined to win greatest renown was Buddhism.

I. THE FOUNDER

Of Buddha, the founder of this great movement, legendary tradition has much to say,
but very little of historical worth is known. His father seems to have been a petty
raja, ruling over a small community on the southern border of the district now
known as Nepal. Buddha's family name was Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama), and it was
probably by this name that he was known in life. In all likelihood it was after his
death that his disciples bestowed on him a number of laudatory names, the most
common being Buddha, i.e. "the enlightened". Like the newborn youths of his day, he
must have spent some time in the study of the sacred Vedas. After the immemorial
custom of the East, he married at an early age, and, if tradition may be trusted,
exercised a prince's privilege of maintaining a harem. His principal wife bore him
a son. His heart was not at rest. The pleasures of the world soon palled upon him,
and abandoning his home he retired to the forest, where as a hermit he spent
several years in austere self-discipline, studying doubtless, the way of salvaion
as taught in the Upanishads. Even this did not bring peace to his mind. He gave up
the rigorous fasts and mortifications, which nearly cost him his life, and devoted
himself in his own way to long and earnest meditation, the fruit of which was his
firm belief that he had discovered the only true method of escaping from the misery
of rebirth and of attaining to Nirvana. He then set out to preach his gospel of
deliverance, beginning at Benares. His magnetic personality and his earnest,
impressive eloquence soon won over to his cause a number of the warrior caste.
Brahmins, too, felt the persuasiveness of his words, and it was not long before he
was surrounded by a band of enthusiastic disciples, in whose company he went from
place to place, by making converts by his preaching. These soon became very
numerous and were formed into a great brotherhood of monks. Such was the work to
which Buddha gave himself with unsparing zeal for over forty years. At length, worn
out by his long life of activity, he fell sick after a meal of dried boar's flesh,
and died in the eightieth year of his age. The approximate date of his death is 480
B.C. It is noteworthy that Buddha was a contemporary of two other famous religious
philosophers, Pythagoras and Confucius.

In the sacred books of later times Buddha is depicted as a character without flaw,
adorned with every grace of mind and heart. There may be some hesitation in taking
the highly coloured portrait of Buddhist tradition as the exact representation of
the original, but Buddha may be credited with the qualities of a great and good
man. The records depict him moving about from place to place, regardless of
personal comfort, calm and fearless, mild and compassionate, considerate towards
poor and rich alike, absorbed with the one idea of freeing all men from the bonds
of misery, and irresistible in his manner of setting forth the way of deliverance.
In his mildness, his readiness to overlook insults, his zeal, chastity, and
simplicity of life, he reminds one not a little of St. Francis of Assisi. In all
pagan antiquity no character has been depicted as so noble and attractive.

II. BUDDHIST TEXTS

The chief sources for early Buddhism are the sacred books comprised in the first
two divisions of the Ti-pitaka (triple-basket), the threefold Bible of the Southern
School of Buddhists. In India, today, the Buddhists are found only in the North, in
Nepal, and in the extreme South, in the island of Ceylon. They represent two
different schools of thought, the Northern worshipping Buddha as supreme personal
deity though at the same time adopting most of the degrading superstitions of
Hinduism, the Southern adhering in great measure to the original teachings of
Buddha. Each school has a canon of sacred books. The Northern canon is in Sanskrit,
the Southern in Pali, a softer tongue, into which Sanskrit was transformed by the
people of the South. The Southern canon, Ti-pitaka, which reflects more faithfully
the teachings of Buddha and his early disciples, embraces

the Vinaya-pitaka, a collection of books on the disciplinary rules of the order,

the Sutta-pitaka, didactic tracts consisting in part of alleged discourses of
Buddha; and
the Abhidhamma-pitaka, comprising more detailed treatises on doctrinal subjects.
Most of the Vinavas and some of the Suttas have been made accessible to English
readers in the "Sacred Books of the East". The Ti-pitaka seems to date back to the
second and third centuries B.C., but a few additions were made even after it was
committed to writing in the early part of the first century of the Christian Era.
While there may be doctrinal and disciplinary parts from the time of Buddha none of
the twenty-nine books comprised in the Ti-pitaka can be proved to be older than 300
B.C. These books stripped of their tiresome repetitions, would be about equal in
size to the Bible, though on the whole they are vastly inferior to the Sacred
Scripture in spirituality, depth of thought, variety of subject, and richness of
expression.
There are also a few extra-canonical books, likewise in Pali on which the Southern
Buddhists set great value, the Dipavansa and Mahavansa, which give an uncritical
history of Buddhism down to about A.D. 300, the "Commentaries of Buddhagosa", and
the Milinda Panha, ably translated by Rhys Davids under the title "The Questions of
King Milinda". These works belong to the fourth and following centuries of our era.
In the Tri-pitaka of the Northern School are included the well-known Saddharma-
pundarika (Lotus of the True Law), and the legendary biographies of Buddha, the
Buddha Charita, and the Lalita Vistara (Book of Exploits), which are generally
assigned to the last quarter of the first century A.D. Besides the Tri-pitaka, the
Northern Buddhists reckon as canonical several writings of more recent times
adapted from the abominable Hindu Tantras.

III. PRIMITIVE BUDDHISM

Buddhism was by no means entirely original. It had much in common with the
pantheistic Vedanta teaching, from which it sprang belief in karma, whereby the
character of the present life is the net product of the good and evil acts of a
previous existence; belief in a constant series of rebirths for all who set their
heart on preserving their individual existence; the pessimistic view that life at
its best is misery and not worth living. And so the great end for which Buddha
toiled was the very one which gave colour to the pantheistic scheme of salvation
propounded by the Brahmin ascetics, namely, the liberation of men from misery by
setting them free from attachment to conscious existence. It was in their
conception of the final state of the saved, and of the method by which it was to be
attained that they differed. The pantheistic Brahmin said:

Recognize your identity with the great impersonal god, Brahma, you thereby cease to
be a creature of desires; you are no longer held fast in the chain of rebirths; at
death you lose your individuality, your conscious existence, to become absorbed in
the all-god Brahma.
In Buddha's system, the all-god Brahma was entirely ignored. Buddha put abstruse
speculation in the background, and, while not ignoring the value of right
knowledge, insisted on the saving part of the will as the one thing needful. To
obtain deliverance from birth, all forms of desire must be absolutely quenched, not
only very wicked craving, but also the desire of such pleasures and comforts as are
deemed innocent and lawful, the desire even to preserve one's conscious existence.
It was through this extinction of every desire that cessation of misery was to be
obtained. This state of absence of desire and pain was known as Nirvana (Nibbana).
This word was not coined by Buddha, but in his teaching, it assumed a new shade of
meaning. Nirvana means primarily a "blowing out", and hence the extinction of the
fire of desire, ill-will, delusion, of all, in short, that binds the individual to
rebirth and misery. It was in the living Buddhist saint a state of calm repose, of
indifference to life and death, to pleasure and pain, a state of imperturbable
tranquility, where the sense of freedom from the bonds of rebirth caused the
discomforts as well as the joys of life to sink into insignance. But it was not
till after death that Nirvana was realized in its completeness. Some scholars have
so thought. And, indeed, if the psychological speculations found in the sacred
books are part of Buddha's personal teaching, it is hard to see how he could have
held anything else as the final end of man. But logical consistency is not to be
looked for in an Indian mystic. If we may trust the sacred books, he expressly
refused on several occasions to pronounce either on the existence or the non-
existence of those who had entered into Nirvana, on the ground that it was
irrelevant, not conducive to peace and enlightenment. His intimate disciples held
the same view. A monk who interpreted Nirvana to mean annihilation was taken to
task by an older monk, and convinced that he had no right to hold such an opinion,
since the subject was wrapped in impenetrable mystery. The learned nun Khema gave a
similar answer to the King of Kosala, who asked if the deceased Buddha was still in
existence. Whether the Perfect One exists after death, whether he does not exist
after death, whether he exists and at the same time does not exist after death,
whether he neither exists nor does not exist after death, has not been revealed by
Buddha. Since, then, the nature of Nirvana was too mysterious to be grasped by the
Hindu mind, too subtle to be expressed in terms either of existence or of non-
existence, it would be idle to attempt a positive solution of the question. It
suffices to know that it meant a state of unconscious repose, an eternal sleep
which knew no awakening. In this respect it was practically one with the ideal of
the pantheistic Brahmin.
In the Buddhist conception of Nirvana no account was taken of the all-god Brahma.
And as prayers and offerings to the traditional gods were held to be of no avail
for the attainment of this negative state of bliss, Buddha, with greater
consistency than was shown in pantheistic Brahminism, rejected both the Vedas and
the Vedic rites. It was this attitude which stamped Buddhism as a heresy. For this
reason, too, Buddha has been set down by some as an atheist. Buddha, however, was
not an atheist in the sense that he denied the existence of the gods. To him the
gods were living realities. In his alleged sayings, as in the Buddhist scriptures
generally, the gods are often mentioned, and always with respect. But like the
pantheistic Brahmin, Buddha did not acknowledge his dependence on them. They were
like men, subject to decay and rebirth. The god of today might be reborn in the
future in some inferior condition, while a man of great virtue might succeed in
raising himself in his next birth to the rank of a god in heaven. The very gods,
then, no less than men, had need of that perfect wisdom that leads to Nirvana, and
hence it was idle to pray or sacrifice to them in the hope of obtaining the boon
which they themselves did not possess. They were inferior to Buddha, since he had
already attained to Nirvana. In like manner, they who followed Buddha's footsteps
had no need of worshipping the gods by prayers and offerings. Worship of the gods
was tolerated, however, in the Buddhist layman who still clung to the delusion of
individual existence, and preferred the household to the homeless state. Moreover,
Buddha's system conveniently provided for those who accepted in theory the teaching
that Nirvana alone was the true end of man but who still lacked the courage to
quench all desires. The various heavens of Brahminic theology, with their positive,
even sensual, delights were retained as the reward of virtuous souls not yet ripe
for Nirvana. To aspire after such rewards was permitted to the lukewarm monk; it
was commended to the layman. Hence the frequent reference, even in the earliest
Buddhist writings to heaven and its positive delights as an encouragement to right
conduct. Sufficient prominence is not generally given to this more popular side of
Buddha's teaching, without which his followers would have been limited to an
insignificant and short-lived band of heroic souls. It was this element, so
prominent in the inscriptions of Asoka, that tempered the severity of Buddha's
doctrine of Nirvana and made his system acceptable to the masses.

In order to secure that extinction of desire which alone could lead to Nirvana,
Buddha prescribed for his followers a life of detachment from the comforts,
pleasures, and occupations of the common run of men. To secure this end, he adopted
for himself and his disciples the quiet, secluded, contemplative life of the
Brahmin ascetics. It was foreign to his plan that his followers should engage in
any form of industrial pursuits, lest they might thereby be entangled in worldly
cares and desires. Their means of subsistence was alms; hence the name commonly
applied to Buddhist monks was bhikkus, beggars. Detachment from family life was
absolutely necessary. Married life was to be avoided as a pit of hot coals, for it
was incompatible with the quenching of desire and the extinction of individual
existence. In like manner, worldly possessions and worldly power had to be
renounced�everything that might minister to pride, greed, or self-indulgence. Yet
in exacting of his followers a life of severe simplicity, Buddha did not go to the
extremes of fanaticism that characterized so many of the Brahmin ascetics. He chose
the middle path of moderate asceticism which he compared to a lute, which gives
forth the proper tones only when the strings are neither too tight nor too slack.
Each member was allowed but one set of garments, of yellowish colour and of cheap
quality. These, together with his sleeping mat, razor, needle, water-strainer, and
alms bowl, constituted the sum of his earthly possessions. His single meal, which
had to be taken before noon, consisted chiefly of bread, rice, and curry, which he
gathered daily in his alms-bowl by begging. Water or rice-milk was his customary
drink, wine and other intoxicants being rigorously forbidden, even as medicine.
Meat, fish, and delicacies were rarely eaten except in sickness or when the monk
dined by invitation with some patron. The use of perfumes, flowers, ointments, and
participation in worldly amusements fell also into the class of things prohibited.
In theory, the moral code of Buddhism was little more than a copy of that of
Brahminism. Like the latter, it extended to thoughts and desires, no less than to
words and deeds. Unchastity in all its forms, drunkenness, lying, stealing, envy,
pride, harshness are fittingly condemned. But what, perhaps, brings Buddhism most
strikingly in contact with Christianity is its spirit of gentleness and forgiveness
of injuries. To cultivate benevolence towards men of all classes, to avoid anger
and physical violence, to be patient under insult, to return good for evil�all this
was inculated in Buddhism and helped to make it one of the gentlest of religions.
To such an extent was this carried that the Buddhist monk, like the Brahmin
ascetic, had to avoid with the greatest care the destruction of any form of animal
life.

In course of time, Buddha extended his monastic system to include women.

Communities of nuns while living near the monks, were entirely secluded from them.
They had to conform to the same rule of life, to subsist on alms, and spend their
days in retirement and contemplation. They were never as numerous as the monks, and
later became a very insignificant factor in Buddhism. In thus opening up to his
fellow men and women what he felt to be the true path of salvation, Buddha made no
discrimination in social condition. Herein lay one of the most striking contrasts
between the old religion and the new. Brahminism was inextricably intertwined with
caste-distinctions. It was a privilege of birth, from which the Sudras and members
of still lower classes were absolutely excluded. Buddha, on the contrary, welcomed
men of low as well as high birth and station. Virtue, not blood, was declared to be
the test of superiority. In the brotherhood which he built around him, all caste-
distinctions were put aside. The despised Sudra stood on a footing of equality with
the high-born Brahmin. In this religious democracy of Buddhism lay, doubtless, one
of its strongest influences for conversion among the masses. But in thus putting
his followers on a plane of equal consideration, Buddha had no intention of acting
the part of a social reformer. Not a few scholars have attributed to him the
purpose of breaking down caste-distinctions in society and of introducing more
democratic conditions. Buddha had no more intention of abolishing caste than he had
of abolishing marriage. It was only within the limits of his own order that he
insisted on social equality just as he did on celibacy. Wherever Buddhism has
prevailed, the caste-system has remained untouched.

Strictly speaking, Buddha's order was composed only of those who renounced the
world to live a life of contemplation as monks and nuns. The very character of
their life, however, made them dependent on the charity of men and women who
preferred to live in the world and to enjoy the comforts of the household state.
Those who thus sympathized with the order and contributed to its support, formed
the lay element in Buddhism. Through this friendly association with the order, they
could look to a happy reward after death, not Nirvana but the temporary de!ights of
heaven, with the additional prospect of being able at some future birth to attain
to Nirvana, if they so desired. The majority, however, did not share the enthusiasm
of the Buddhist Arhat or saint for Nirvana, being quite content to hope for a life
of positive, though impermanent, bliss in heaven.

IV. LATER DEVELOPMENTS AND SPREAD OF BUDDHISM

The lack of all religious rites in Buddhism was not keenly felt during the lifetime
of its founder. Personal devotion to him took the place of religious fervour. But
he was not long dead when this very devotion to him began to assume the form of
religious worship. His reputed relics, consisting of his bones, teeth, alms-bowl,
cremation-vessel, and ashes from his funeral pyre, were enclosed in dome-shaped
mounds called Dagobas, or Topes, or Stupas, and were honoured with offerings of
lights, flowers, and incense. Pictures and statues of Buddha were multiplied on
every side, and similarly honoured, being carried about on festal days in solemn
procession. The places, too, associated with his birth, enlightenment, first
preaching, and death were accounted especially sacred, and became the objects of
pilgrimage and the occasion of recurring festivals. But as Buddha had entered into
Nirvana and could not be sensible of these religious honours, the need was felt of
a living personality to whom the people could pray. The later speculations of
Buddhist monks brought such a personality to light in Metteyya (Maitreya), the
loving one, now happily reigning in heaven as a bodhisattva, a divine being
destined in the remote future to become a Buddha, again to set in motion the wheel
of the law. To this Metteyya the Buddhists turned as the living object of worship
of which they had so long felt the need, and they paid him religious homage as the
future saviour of the world.

The emergence of the Northern School

Such was the character of the religious worship observed by those who departed the
least from Buddha's teachings. It is what is found today in the so-called Southern
Buddhism, held by the inhabitants of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. Towards the end of
first century A.D., however, a far more radical change took place in the religious
views of the great mass of Buddhists in Northern India. Owing, doubtless, to the
ever growing popularity of the cults of Vishnu and Siva, Buddhism was so modified
as to allow the worship of an eternal, supreme deity, Adi-Buddha, of whom the
historic Buddha was declared to have been an incarnation, an avatar. Around this
supreme Buddha dwelling in highest heaven, were grouped a countless number of
bodhisattvas, destined in future ages to become human Buddhas for the sake of
erring man. To raise oneself to the rank of bodhisattva by meritorious works was
the ideal now held out to pious souls. In place of Nirvana, Sukhavati became the
object of pious longing, the heaven of sensuous pleasures, where Amitabha, an
emanation of the eternal Buddha, reigned. For the attainment of Sukhavati, the
necessity of virtuous conduct was not altogether forgotten, but an extravagant
importance was attached to the worship of relics and statues, pilgrimages, and,
above all, to the reciting of sacred names and magic formulas. Many other gross
forms of Hindu superstition were also adopted. This innovation, completely
subversive of the teaching of Buddha, supplanted the older system in the North. It
was known as the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, in distinction to the other and
earlier form of Buddhism contemptuously styled the Hinayana or Little Vehicle,
which held its own in the South. It is only by the few millions of Southern
Buddhists that the teachings of Buddha have been substantially preserved.

Buddha's order seems to have grown rapidly, and through the good will of rulers,
whose inferior origin debarred them from Brahmin privileges, to have become in the
next two centuries a formidable rival of the older religion. The interesting rock-
edicts of Asoka�a royal convert to Buddhism who in the second quarter of the third
century B.C. held dominion over the greater part of India�give evidence that
Buddhism was in a most flourishing condition, while a tolerant and kindly spirit
was displayed towards other forms of religion. Under his auspices missionaries were
sent to evangelize Ceylon in the South, and in the North, Kashmer, Kandahar, and
the so-called Yavana country, identified by most scholars with the Greek
settlements in the Kabul valley and vicinity, and later known as Bactria. In all
these places Buddhism quickly took root and flourished, though in the Northern
countries the religion became later on corrupted and transformed into the Mahayana
form of worship.

Buddhism in China

In the first century of the Christian Era, the knowledge of Buddha made its way to
China. At the invitation of the Emperor Ming-ti, Buddhist monks came in A.D. 67
with sacred books, pictures, and relics. Conversions multiplied, and during the
next few centuries the religious communications between the two countries were very
close. Not only did Buddhist missionaries from India labour in China, but many
Chinese monks showed their zeal for the newly adopted religion by making
pilgrimages to the holy places in India. A few of them wrote interesting accounts,
still extant, of what they saw and heard in their travels. Of these pilgrims the
most noted are Fahien, who travelled in India and Ceylon in the years A.D. 399-414,
and Hiouen-Tsang who made extensive travels in India two centuries later (A.D. 629-
645). The supplanting of the earlier form of Buddhism in the northern countries of
India in the second century led to a corresponding change in the Buddhism of China.
The later missionaries, being mostly from the North of India, brought with them the
new doctrine, and in a short time the Mahayana or Northern Buddhism prevailed. Two
of the bodhisattvas of Mahayana theology became the favourite objects of worship
with the Chinese�Amitabha, lord of the Sukhavati paradise, and Avalokitesvara,
extravagantly praised in the "Lotus of the True Law" as ready to extricate from
every sort of danger those who think of him or cherish his name. The latter, known
as Fousa Kwanyin, is worshipped, now as a male deity, again as the goddess of
mercy, who comes to the relief of the faithful. Amitabha goes by the Chinese name
Amita, or Mito. Offerings of flowers and incense made before his statues and the
frequent repetition, of his name are believed to ensure a future life of bliss in
his distant Western paradise. An excessive devotion to statues and relics, the
employment of magic arts to keep off evil spirits, and the observance of many of
the gross superstitions of Taoism, complete the picture of Buddhism in China, a
sorry representation of what Buddha made known to men. Chinese Buddhism was
introduced into Korea in the fourth century, and from there taken to Japan two
centuries later. The Buddhism of these countries is in the main like that of China,
with the addition of a number of local superstitions. Annam was also evangelized by
Chinese Buddhists at an early period.

Tibetan Buddhiism (Lamaism)

Buddhism was first introduced into Tibet in the latter part of the seventh century,
but it did not begin to thrive till the ninth century. In 1260, the Buddhist
conqueror of Tibet, Kublai Khan, raised the head lama, a monk of the great Sakja
monastery, to the position of spiritual and temporal ruler. His modern successors
have the title of Dalai Lama. Lamaism is based on the Northern Buddhism of India,
after it had become saturated with the disgusting elements of Siva worship. Its
deities are innumerable, its idolatry unlimited. It is also much given to the use
of magic formulas and to the endless repetition of sacred names. Its favourite
formula is, Om mani padme hum (O jewel in the lotus, Amen), which, written on
streamers exposed to the wind, and multiplied on paper slips turned by hand or wind
or water, in the so-called prayer-wheels, is thought to secure for the agent
unspeakable merit. The Dalai Lama, residing in the great monastery at Lhasa, passes
for the incarnation of Amitabha, the Buddha of the Sukhavati paradise. Nine months
after his death, a newly born babe is selected by divination as the reincarnate
Buddha.

Catholic missionaries to Tibet in the early part of the last century were struck by
the outward resemblances to Catholic liturgy and discipline that were presented by
Lamaism�its infallible head, grades of clergy corresponding to bishop and priest,
the cross, mitre, dalmatic, cope, censer, holy water, etc. At once voices were
raised proclaiming the Lamaistic origin of Catholic rites and practices.
Unfortunately for this shallow theory, the Catholic Church was shown to have
possessed these features in common with the Christian Oriental churches long before
Lamaism was in existence. The wide propagation of Nestorianism over Central and
Eastern Asia as early as A.D. 635 offers a natural explanation for such
resemblances as are accretions on Indian Buddhism. The missionary zeal of Tibetan
lamas led to the extension of their religion to Tatary in the twelfth and following
centuries. While Northern Buddhism was thus exerting a widespread influence over
Central and Eastern Asia, the earlier form of Buddhism was making peaceful
conquests of the countries and islands in the South. In the fifth century
missionaries from Ceylon evangelized Burma. Within the next two centuries, it
spread to Siam, Cambodia, Java, and adjacent islands.

Statistics

The number of Buddhists throughout the world is commonly estimated at about four
hundred and fifty millions, that is, about one-third of the human race. But on this
estimate the error is made of classing an the Chinese and Japanese as Buddhists.
Professor Legge, whose years of experience in China give special weight to his
judgment, declares that the Buddhists in the whole world are not more than, one
hundred millions, being far outnumbered not only by Christians, but also by the
adherents of Confucianism and Hinduism. Professor Monier Williams holds the same
views. Even if Buddhism, however, outranked Christianity in the number of
adherents, it would be a mistake to attribute to the religion of Buddha, as some
do, a more successful propagandism than to the religion of Christ. The latter has
made its immense conquests, not by compromising with error and superstition, but by
winning souls to the exclusive acceptance of its saving truths. Wherever it has
spread, it has maintained its individuality. On the other hand, the vast majority
of the adherents of Buddhism cling to forms of creed and worship that Buddha, if
alive, would reprobate. Northern Buddhism became the very opposite of what Buddha
taught to men, and in spreading to foreign lands accommodated itself to the
degrading superstitions of the peoples it sought to win. It is only the Southern
Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam who deserve to be identified with the order
founded by Buddha. They number at most but thirty millions of souls.

V. BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Between Buddhism and Christianity there are a number of resemblances, at first

sight striking.

The Buddhist order of monks and nuns offers points of similarity with Christian
monastic systems, particularly the mendicant orders.
There are moral aphorisms ascribed to Buddha that are not unlike some of the
sayings of Christ.
Most of all, in the legendary life of Buddha, which in its complete form is the
outcome of many centuries of accretion, there are many parallelisms, some more,
some less striking, to the Gospel stories of Christ.
A few third-rate scholars taking for granted that all these resemblances are pre-
Christian, and led by the fallacious principle that resemblance always implies
dependence, have vainly tried to show that Christian monasticism is of Buddhist
origin, and that Buddhist thought and legend have been freely incorporated into the
Gospels. To give greater speciousness to their theory, they have not scrupled to
press into service, besides the few bona fide resemblances many others that were
either grossly exaggerated, or fictitious, or drawn from Buddhist sources less
ancient than the Gospels. If, from this vast array of alleged Buddhist
infiltrations, all these exaggerations, fictions, and anachronisms are eliminated,
the points of resemblance that remain are, with perhaps one exception, such as may
be explained on the ground of independent origin.

The exception is the story of Buddha's conversion from the worldly life of a prince
to the life of an ascetic, which was transformed by some Oriental Christian of the
seventh century into the popular medieval tale of "Barlaam and Josaphat". Here is
historic evidence of the turning of a Buddhist into a Christian legend just as, on
the other hand, the fifth-century sculptures of Gospel scenes on the ruined
Buddhist monasteries of Jamalgiri, in Northern Panjab, described in the scholarly
work of Fergusson and Burgess, "The Cave Temples of India", offer reliable evidence
that the Buddhists of that time did not scruple to embellish the Buddha legend with
adaptations from Christian sources.

But is there any historical basis for the assertion that Buddhist influence was a
factor in the formation of Christianity and of the Christian Gospels? The advocates
of this theory pretend that the rock-inscriptions of Asoka bear witness to the
spread of Buddhism over the Greek-speaking world as early as the third century
B.C., since they mention the flourishing existence of Buddhism among the Yavanas,
i.e. Greeks within the dominion of Antiochus. But in the unanimous judgment of
first-rate scholars, the Yavanas here mentioned mean simply and solely the Greek-
speaking peoples on the extreme frontier next to India, namely, Bactria and the
Kabul valley. Again the statement in the late Buddhist chronicle, Mahavansa, that
among the Buddhists who came to the dedication of a great Stupa in Ceylon in the
second century B.C., "were over thirty thousand monks from the vicinity of
Alassada, the capital of the Yona country" is taken to prove that long before the
time of Christ, Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of flourishing Buddhist
communities. It is true that Alassada is the Pali for Alexandria; but the best
scholars are agreed that the city here meant is not the ancient capital of Egypt,
but as the text indicates, the chief city of the Yona country, the Yavana country
of the rock-inscriptions, namely, Bactria and vicinity. And so, the city referred
to is most likely Alexandria ad Caucasum.

In short, there is nothing in Buddhist records that may be taken as reliable

evidence for the spread of Buddhism westward to the Greek world as early as the
foundation of the Christian religion. That Buddhist institutions were at that time
unknown in the West may be safely inferred from the fact that Buddhism is
absolutely ignored in the literary and archaeological remains of Palestine, Egypt,
and Greece. There is not a single remains of Buddhist monastery or stupa in any of
these countries; not a single Greek translation of a Buddhist book; not a single
reference in all Greek literature to the existence of a Buddhist community in the
Greek world. The very name of Buddha is mentioned for the first time only in the
writings of Clement of Alexandria (second century). To explain the resemblances in
Christianity to a number of pre-Christian features of Buddhism, there is no need of
resorting to the hypothesis that they were borrowed. Nothing is more common in the
study of comparative ethnology and religion than to find similar social and
religious customs practised by peoples too remote to have had any communication
with one another. How easily the principle of ascetic detachment from the world may
lead to a community life in which celibacy as observed, may be seen in the monastic
systems that have prevailed not only among Buddhists, Essenes, and Christians, but
also among the early Aztecs and Incas in the New World. Nor is this so strange when
it is recalled that men everywhere have, to a large extent, the same daily
experiences, the same feelings, the desires. As the laws of human thought are every
here the same, it lies in the very nature of things that men, in so far as they
have the same experiences, or face the same religious needs, will think the same
thoughts, and give expression to them in sayings and customs that strike the
unreflecting old server by their similarity. It is only by losing sight of this
fundamental truth that one can unwittingly fall into the error of assuming that
resemblance always implies dependence.

It is chiefly the legendary features of Buddha's life, many of which are found for
the first time only in works of later date than the Gospels, that furnish the most
striking resemblances to certain incidents related of Christ in the Gospels,
resemblances which might with greater show of reason be traced to a common historic
origin. If there has been any borrowing here, it is plainly on the side of
Buddhism. That Christianity made its way to Northern India in the first two
centuries is not only a matter of respectable tradition, but is supported by
weighty archaeological evidence. Scholars of recognized ability beyond the
suspicion of undue bias in favour of Christianity�Weber, Goblet d'Alviella, and
others�think it very likely that the Gospel stories of Christ circulated by these
early Christian communities in India were used by the Buddhists to enrich the
Buddha legend, just as the Vishnuites built up the legend of Krishna on many
striking incidents in the life of Christ.

The fundamental tenets of Buddhism are marked by grave defects that not only betray
its inadequacy to become a religion of enlightened humanity, but also bring into
bold relief its inferiority to the religion of Jesus Christ. In the first place,
the very foundation on which Buddhism rests�the doctrine of karma with its implied
transmigrations�is gratuitous and false. This pretended law of nature, by which the
myriads of gods, demons, men, and animals are but the transient forms of rational
beings essentially the same, but forced to this diversity in consequence of varying
degrees of merit and demerit in former lives, is a huge superstition in flat
contradiction to the recognized laws of nature, and hence ignored by men of
science. Another basic defect in primitive Buddhism is its failure to recognize
man's dependence on a supreme God. By ignoring God and by making salvation rest
solely on personal effort, Buddha substituted for the Brahmin religion a cold and
colourless system of philosophy. It is entirely lacking in those powerful motives
to right conduct, particularly the motive of love, that spring from the
consecration of religious men and women to the dependence on a personal all-loving
God. Hence it is that Buddhist morality is in the last analysis a selfish
utilitarianism. There is no sense of duty, as in the religion of Christ, prompted
by reverence for a supreme Lawgiver, by love for a merciful Father, by personal
allegiance to a Redeemer. Karma, the basis of Buddhist morality, is like any other
law of nature, the observance of which is prompted by prudential considerations.
Not infrequently one meets the assertion that Buddha surpassed Jesus in holding out
to struggling humanity an end utterly unselfish. This is a mistake. Not to speak of
the popular Swarga, or heaven, with its positive, even sensual delights the fact
that Nirvana is a negative ideal of bliss does not make it the less an object of
interested desire. Far from being an unselfish end, Nirvana is based wholly on the
motive of self-love. It thus stands on a much lower level than the Christian ideal,
which, being primarily and essentially a union of friendship with God in heaven,
appeals to motives of disinterested as well as interested love.

Another fatal defect of Buddhism is its false pessimism. A strong and healthy mind
revolts against the morbid view that life is not worth living, that every form of
conscious existence is an evil. Buddhism stands condemned by the voice of nature
the dominant tone of which is hope and joy. It is a protest against nature for
possessing the perfection of rational life. The highest ambition of Buddhism is to
destroy that perfection by bringing all living beings to the unconscious repose of
Nirvana. Buddhism is thus guilty of a capital crime against nature, and in
consequence does injustice to the individual. All legitimate desires must be
repressed. Innocent recreations are condemned. The cultivation of music is
forbidden. Researches in natural science are discountenanced. The development of
the mind is limited to the memorizing of Buddhist texts and the study of Buddhist
metaphysics, only a minimum of which is of any value. The Buddhist ideal on earth
is a state of passive indifference to everything. How different is the teaching of
Him who came that men might have life and have it more abundantly. Again Buddhist
pessimism is unjust to the family. Marriage is held in contempt and even abhorrence
as leading to the procreation of life. In thus branding marriage as a state
unworthy of man, Buddhism betrays its inferiority to Christianity, which recommends
virginity but at the same time teaches that marriage is a sacred union and a source
of sanctification. Buddhist pessimism likewise does injustice to society. It has
set the seal of approval on the Brahmin prejudice against manual labor. Since life
is not worth living, to labour for the comforts and refinements of civilized life
is a delusion. The perfect man is to subsist not by the labour of his hands but on
the alms of inferior men. In the religion of Christ, "the carpenter's son", a
healthier view prevails. The dignity of labour is upheld, and every form of
industry is encouraged that tends to promote man's welfare.

Buddhism has accomplished but little for the uplifting of humanity in comparison
with Christianity. One of its most attractive features, which, unfortunately, has
become wellnigh obsolete, was its practice of benevolence towards the sick and
needy. Between Buddhists and Brahmins there was a commendable rivalry in
maintaining dispensaries of food and medicine. But this charity did not, like the
Christian form, extend to the prolonged nursing of unfortunates stricken with
contagious and incurable diseases, to the protection of foundlings, to the bringing
up of orphans, to the rescue of fallen women, to the care of the aged and insane.
Asylums and hospitals in this sense are unknown to Buddhism. The consecration of
religious men and women to the lifelong service of afflicted humanity is foreign to
dreamy Buddhist monasticism. Again, the wonderful efficacy displayed by the
religion of Christ in purifying the morals of pagan Europe has no parallel in
Buddhist annals. Wherever the religion of Buddha has prevailed, it has proved
singularly inefficient to lift society to a high standard of morality. It has not
weaned the people of Tibet and Mongolia from the custom of abandoning the aged, nor
the Chinese from the practice of infanticide. Outside the establishment of the
order of nuns, it has done next to nothing to raise woman from her state of
degradation in Oriental lands. It has shown itself utterly helpless to cope with
the moral plagues of humanity. The consentient testimony of witnesses above the
suspicion of prejudice establishes the fact that at the present day Buddhist monks
are everywhere strikingly deficient in that moral earnestness and exemplary conduct
which distinguished the early followers of Buddha. In short, Buddhism is all but
dead. In its huge organism the faint pulsations of life are still discernible, but
its power of activity is gone. The spread of European civilization over the East
will inevitably bring about its extinction.