Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 47

[Footnote 1063: Sandberg, _Handbook of Tibetan_, p. 207.]

[Footnote 1064: Authorities differ as to the name of the sect which owns Himis and other monasteries in Ladak.]

[Footnote 1065: See for some account of him and specimens of his poems, Sandberg, _Tibet and the Tibetans_, chap. XIII.]

[Footnote 1066: I do not know whether the ceremonies of the other sects offer the same resemblance. Probably they have all imitated the Gelugpa. Some authors attribute the resemblance to contact with Nestorian Christianity in early times but the resemblance is definitely to Roman costumes and ceremonies not to those of the Eastern church. Is there any reason to believe that the Nestorian ritual resembled that of western catholics?]

[Footnote 1067: See also Filchner, _Das Kloster k.u.mb.u.m_, 1906.]

[Footnote 1068: Almost the only difference that I have noticed is that whereas Tibetans habitually translate Indian proper names, Mongols frequently use Sanskrit words, such as Manjusr, or slightly modified forms such as Dara, Maidari ( = Tr, Maitreya). The same practice is found in the old Uigur translations. See _Bibl. Buddh._ XII. Tisastvustik. For an interesting account of contemporary Lamaism in Mongolia see Binstead, "Life in a Khalkha Steppe Monastery,"

_J.R.A.S._ 1914, 847-900.]

CHAPTER LIV

j.a.pAN

This work as originally planned contained a section on j.a.panese Buddhism consisting of three chapters, but after it had been sent to the publishers I was appointed H.M. Amba.s.sador in Tokyo and I decided to omit this section. Let not any j.a.panese suppose that it contained disparaging criticism of his country or its religions. It would, I hope, have given no offence to either Buddhists or Shintoists, but an amba.s.sador had better err on the side of discretion and refrain from public comments on the inst.i.tutions of the country to which he is accredited.

The omission is regrettable in so far as it prevents me from noticing some of the most interesting and beautiful developments of Buddhism, but for historical purposes and the investigation of the past the loss is not great, for j.a.panese Buddhism throws little light on ancient India or even on ancient China. It has not influenced other countries.

Its interest lies not in the relics of antiquity which it has preserved but in the new shape and setting which a race at once a.s.similative and inventive has given to old ideas.

Though the doctrine of the Buddha reached j.a.pan from China through Korea[1069], Chinese and j.a.panese Buddhism differ in several respects.

Lamaism never gained a footing in j.a.pan, probably because it was the religion of the hated Mongols. There was hardly any direct intercourse with India. Whereas the state religion of China was frequently hostile to Buddhism, in j.a.pan such relations were generally friendly and from the seventh century until the Meiji era an arrangement known as Ryo-bu Shinto or two-fold Shinto was in force, by which Shinto shrines were with few exceptions handed over to the custody of Buddhist priests, native deities and historical personages being declared to be manifestations of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Again, Buddhism in j.a.pan has had a more intimate connection with social, political and even military matters in various periods than in China. This is one reason for its chief characteristic, namely, the large number and distinct character of its sects. They are not merely schools like the religious divisions of India and China, but real sects with divergent doctrines and sometimes antagonistic to one another.

It became the fashion in j.a.pan to talk of the twelve sects, but the names given are not always the same.

One of the commonest lists is as follows[1070]:

1. Kusha. 5. Hosso. 9. Jodo.

2. Jo-jitsu. 6. Kegon. 10. Zen.

3. Ritsu-shu or Risshu 7. Tendai. 11. Shin.

4. Sanron. 8. Shingon. 12. Nichiren.

This list is historically correct, but Nos. 1-4 are almost or quite extinct, and the number twelve is therefore sometimes made up as follows:

1. Hosso. 5. Yuzu Nembutsu. 9. Obaku.

2. Kegon. 6. Jodo. 10. Shin.

3. Tendai. 7. Rinzai. 11. Nichiren.

4. Shingon. 8. Sodo. 12. Ji.

Here Nos. 7, 8, 9 are subdivisions of the Zen and 5 and 12 are two small sects.

Taking the first list, we may easily distinguish two cla.s.ses. The first eight, called by the j.a.panese Ha.s.shu, are all old and all imported from China. They represent the Buddhism of the Nara and Hei-an periods. The other four all arose after 1170 and were all remodelled, if not created, in j.a.pan. Chronologically the sects may be arranged as follows, the dates marking the foundation or introduction of each:

(i) Seventh century: Sanron, 625; Jo-jitsu, 625; Hosso, 657; Kusha, 660.

(ii) Eighth century: Kegon, 735; Ritsu, 745.

(iii) Ninth century: Tendai, 805; Shingon, 806.

(iv) Twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Yuzu Nembutsu, 1123; Jodo, 1174; Zen, 1202; Shin, 1224; Nichiren, 1253; Ji, 1275.

All j.a.panese sects of importance are Mahayanist. The Hinayana is represented only by the Kusha, Jo-jitsu and Risshu. The two former are both extinct: the third still numbers a few adherents, but is not anti-Mahayanist. It merely insists on the importance of discipline.

Though the Hosso and Kegon sects are not extinct, their survival is due to their monastic possessions rather than to the vitality of their doctrines, but the great sects of the ninth century, the Tendai and Shingon, are still flourishing. For some seven hundred years, especially in the Fujiwara period, they had great influence not only in art and literature, but in political and even in military matters, for they maintained large bodies of troops consisting of soldier monks or mercenaries and were a considerable menace to the secular authority. So serious was the danger felt to be that in the sixteenth century n.o.bunaga and Hideyoshi destroyed the great monasteries of Hieizan and Negoro and the pretensions of the Buddhist Church to temporal power were brought to an end.

But apart from this political activity, new sects which appeared in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suited the popular needs of the time and were a sign of true religious life. Two of these sects, the Jodo and Shinshu[1071], are Amidist--that is to say they teach that the only or at least the best way of winning salvation is to appeal to the mercy of Amida, who will give his worshippers a place in his paradise after death. The Jodo is relatively old fashioned, and does not differ much in practice from the worship of Amida as seen in China, but the Shinshu has no exact parallel elsewhere. Though it has not introduced many innovations in theology, its abandonment of monastic discipline, its progressive and popular spirit and its conspicuous success make it a distinct and remarkable type. Its priests marry and eat meat: it has no endowments and relies on voluntary subscription, yet its temples are among the largest and most conspicuous in j.a.pan. But the hierarchical spirit is not absent and since Shinshu priests can marry, there arose the inst.i.tution of hereditary abbots who were even more like barons than the celibate prelates of the older sects.

The Nichiren sect is a purely j.a.panese growth, without any prototype in China, and is a protest against Amidism and an attempt to restore Shaka--the historical Buddha--to his proper position from which he has been ousted. Nichiren, the founder, is one of the most picturesque figures of j.a.panese history. His teaching, which was based on the Lotus Stra, was remarkable for its combative spirit and he himself played a considerable part in the politics of his age. His followers form one of the most influential and conspicuous sects at the present day, although not so numerous as the Amidists.

Zen is the j.a.panese equivalent of Ch'an or Dhyna and is the name given to the sect founded in China by Bodhidharma. It is said to have been introduced into j.a.pan in the seventh century, but died out.

Later, under the Hojo Regents, and especially during the Ashikaga period, it flourished exceedingly. Zen ecclesiastics managed politics like the French cardinals of the seventeenth century and profoundly influenced art and literature, since they produced a long line of painters and writers. But the most interesting feature in the history of this sect in j.a.pan is that, though it preserves the teaching of Bodhidharma without much change, yet it underwent a curious social metamorphosis, for it became the chosen creed of the military cla.s.s and contributed not a little to the Bushido or code of chivalry. It is strange that this mystical doctrine should have spread among warriors, but its insistence on simplicity of life, discipline of mind and body, and concentration of thought harmonized with their ideals.

Apart from differences of doctrine such as divide the Shinshu, Nichiren and Zen, j.a.panese sects show a remarkable tendency to multiply subdivisions, due chiefly to disputes as to the proper succession of abbots. Thus the Jodo sect has four subsects, and the first and second of these are again subdivided into six and four respectively. And so with many others. Even the little Ji sect, which is credited with only 509 temples in all j.a.pan, includes thirteen subdivisions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1069: The accepted date is A.D. 552.]

[Footnote 1070: These names are mostly borrowed from the Chinese and represent: 1. Ch-sh; 2. Ch'ng-shih; 3. L; 4. San-lun; 5.

Fa-hsiang; 6. Hua-yen; 7. T'ien-t'ai; 8. Chn-yen; 9. Ching-t'u; 10.

Ch'an. See my remarks on these sects in the section on Chinese Buddhism. See Haas, _Die Sekten dea j.a.panischen Buddhismus_, 1905: many notices in the same author's _Annalen des j.a.p. Bud._ cited above and Ryauon Fujishima, _Le Buddhisme j.a.ponais_, 1889.]

[Footnote 1071: As well as the smaller sects called Ji and Yuzunembutsu.]:

BOOK VII

MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF EASTERN AND WESTERN RELIGIONS

CHAPTER LV

INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA

In phrases like the above t.i.tle, the word influence is easy and convenient. When we hesitate to describe a belief or usage as borrowed or derived, it comes pat to say that it shows traces of external influence. But in what circ.u.mstances is such influence exercised? It is not the necessary result of contact, for in the east of Europe the Christian Church has not become mohammedanized nor in Poland and Roumania has it contracted any taint of Judaism. In these cases there is difference of race as well as of religion. In business the Turk and Jew have some common ground with the oriental Christian: in social life but little and in religion none at all. Europe has sometimes shown an interest in Asiatic religions, but on the whole an antipathy to them. Christianity originated in Palestine, which is a Mediterranean rather than an Asiatic country, and its most important forms, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, took shape on European soil. Such cults as the worship of Isis and Mithra were prevalent in Europe but they gained their first footing among Asiatic slaves and soldiers and would perhaps not have maintained themselves among European converts only. And Buddhism, though it may have attracted individual minds, has never produced any general impression west of India. Both in Spain and in south-eastern Europe Islam was the religion of invaders and made surprisingly few converts. Christian heretics, such as the Nestorians and Monophysites, who were expelled from Constantinople and had their home in Asia, left the west alone and proselytized in the east. The peculiar detestation felt by the Church for the doctrines of the Manichans was perhaps partly due to the fact that they were in spirit Asiatic. And the converse of this antipathy is also true: the progress of Christianity in Asia has been insignificant.

But when people of the same race profess different creeds, these creeds do influence one another and tend to approximate. This is specially remarkable in India, where Islam, in theory the uncompromising opponent of image worship and polytheism, is sometimes in practice undistinguishable from the lower superst.i.tions of Hinduism. In the middle ages Buddhism and Hinduism converged until they coincided so completely that Buddhism disappeared. In China it often needs an expert to distinguish the manifestations of Taoism and Buddhism: in j.a.pan Buddhism and the old national religion were combined in the mixed worship known as Ryobu Shinto. In the British Isles an impartial observer would probably notice that Anglicans and English Roman Catholics (not Irish perhaps) have more in common than they think.

There are clearly two sets of causes which may divide a race between religions: internal movements, such as the rise of Buddhism, and external impulses, such as missions or conquest. Conquest pure and simple is best ill.u.s.trated by the history of Islam, also by the conversion of Mexico and South America to Roman Catholicism. But even when conversion is pacific, it will generally be found that, if it is successful on a large scale, it means the introduction of more than a creed. The religious leader in his own country can trust to his eloquence and power over his hearers. The real support of the missionary, however little he may like the idea, is usually that he represents a superior type of civilization. At one time in their career Buddhism and Christianity were the greatest agencies for spreading civilization in Asia and Europe respectively. They brought with them art and literature: they had the encouragement of the most enlightened princes: those who did not accept them in many cases remained obviously on a lower level. Much the same thing happens in Africa to-day. The natives who accept Mohammedanism or Christianity are moved, not by the arguments of the Koran or Bible, but by the idea that it is a fine thing to be like an Arab or a European. A pagan in Uganda is literally a pagan; an uninstructed rustic from a distant village.

Now if we consider the relations of India with the west, we find on neither side the conditions which usually render propaganda successful. Before the Mohammedan invasions and the Portuguese conquest of Goa, no faith can have presented itself to the Hindus with anything like the prestige which marked the advent of Buddhism in China and j.a.pan. Alexander opened a road to India for h.e.l.lenic culture and with it came some religious ideas, but the Greeks had no missionary spirit and if there were any early Christian missions they must have been on a small scale. The same is true of the west: if Asoka's missions reached their destination, they failed to inspire any record of their doings. Still there was traffic by land and sea. The Hindus, if self-complacent, were not averse to new ideas, and before the establishment of Christianity there was not much bigotry in the west, for organized religion was unknown in Europe: practices might be forbidden as immoral or anti-social but such expressions as contrary to the Bible or Koran had no equivalent. Old worships were felt to be unsatisfying: new ones were freely adopted: mysteries were relished. There was no invasion, nothing that suggested foreign conquest or alarmed national jealousy, but the way was open to ideas, though they ran some risk of suffering transformation on their long journey.