Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 19

The Buddha's regulations contain no vow of obedience or recognition of rank other than simple seniority or the relation of teacher to pupil. As time went on various hierarchical expedients were invented in different countries, since the management of large bodies of men necessitates authority in some form, but except in Lamaism this authority has rarely taken the form familiar to us in the Roman and Oriental Churches, where the Bishops and higher clergy a.s.sume the right to direct both the belief and conduct of others. In the Sangha, no monk could give orders to another: he who disobeyed the precepts of the order ceased to be a member of it either _ipso facto_, or if he refused to comply with the expiation prescribed. Also there was no compulsion, no suppression of discussion, no delegated power to explain or supplement the truth. Hence differences of opinion in the Buddhist Church have largely taken the shape of schools of thought rather than of separate and polemical sects.

Dissension indeed has not been absent but of persecution, such as stains the annals of the Christian Church, there is hardly any record. The fact that the Sangha, though nearly five hundred years older than any Christian inst.i.tution, is still vigorous shows that this n.o.ble freedom is not unsuccessful as a practical policy.

The absence of anything that can be called worship or cultus in Gotama's regulations is remarkable. He not merely sets aside the older religious rites, such as prayer and sacrifice; he does not prescribe anything whatever which is in ordinary language a religious act. For the Patimokkha, Pavara?a, etc., are not religious ceremonies, but chapters of the order held with an ethical object, and the procedure (the proposal of a resolution and the request for an expression of opinion) is that adopted in modern public meetings, except that a.s.sent is signified by silence. It is true that the ceremonial of a religion is not likely to develop during the life of the founder, for pious recollection and recitation of his utterances in the form of scripture are as yet impossible. Still, if the Buddha had had any belief whatever in the edifying effect of ritual, he would not have failed to inst.i.tute some ceremony, appealing if not to supernatural beings at least to human emotions. Even the few observances which he did prescribe seem to be the result of suggestion from others and the only inference to be drawn is that he regarded every form of religious observance as entirely superfluous.

At first the Sangha consisted exclusively of men. It was not until about five years after its establishment that the entreaties of the Buddha's fostermother, who had become a widow, and of ananda prevailed on him to throw it open to women as well[543] but it would seem that the permission was wrung from him against his judgment. His reluctance was not due to a low estimate of female ability, for he recognized and made use of the influence of women in social and domestic life and he admitted that they were as capable as men of attaining the highest stages of spiritual and intellectual progress. This is also attested by the Pitakas, for some of the most important and subtle arguments and expositions are put into the mouths of nuns[544]. Indeed the objections raised by the Buddha, though emphatic, are as arguments singularly vague and the eight rules for nuns which he laid down and compared to an embankment built to prevent a flood seem dictated not by the danger of immorality but by the fear that women might aspire to the management of the order and to be the equals or superiors of monks.

So far as we can tell, his fears were not realized. The female branch of the order showed little vigour after its first inst.i.tution but it does not appear that it was a cause of weakness or corruption. Women were influential in the infancy of Buddhism, but we hear little of the nuns when this first ardour was over. We may surmise that it was partly due to personal devotion to Gotama and also that there was a growing tendency to curtail the independence allowed to women by earlier Aryan usage. The daughters of Asoka play some part in the narratives of the conversion of Ceylon and Nepal but after the early days of the Church female names are not prominent: subsequently the succession became interrupted and, as nuns can receive ordination only from other nuns and not from monks, it could not be restored. The so-called nuns of the present day are merely religious women corresponding to the sisters of Protestant Churches, but are not ordained members of an order. But the right of women to enjoy the same spiritual privileges as men is not denied in theory and in practice Buddhism has done nothing to support or commend the system of the harem or zenana. In some Buddhist countries such as Burma and Siam women enjoy almost the same independence as in Europe. In China and j.a.pan their status is not so high, but one period when Buddhism was powerful in j.a.pan (800-1100 A.D.) was marked by the number of female writers and among the Manchus and Tibetans women enjoy considerable freedom and authority.

Those who follow the law of the Buddha but are not members of the Sangha are called Upasakas[545], that is worshippers or adherents. The word may be conveniently rendered by laymen although the distinction between clergy and laity, as understood in most parts of Europe, does not quite correspond to the distinction between Bhikkhus and Upasakas. European clergy are often thought of as interpreters of the Deity, and whenever they have had the power they have usually claimed the right to supervise and control the moral or even the political administration of their country. Something similar may be found in Lamaism, but it forms no part of Gotama's original inst.i.tution nor of the Buddhist Church as seen to-day in Burma, Siam and Ceylon. The members of the Sangha are not priests or mediators. They have joined a confraternity in order to lead a higher life for which ordinary society has no place. They will teach others, not as those whose duty it is to make the laity conform to their standard but as those who desire to make known the truth. And easy as is the transition from this att.i.tude to the other, it must be admitted that Buddhism has rarely laid itself open to the charge of interfering in politics or of seeking temporal authority. Rather may it be accused of a tendency to indolence. In some cases elementary education is in the hands of the monks and their monasteries serve the purpose of village schools. Elsewhere they are harmless recluses whom the unsympathetic critic may pity as useless but can hardly condemn as ambitious or interfering. This is not however altogether true of Tibet and the Far East.

It is sometimes said that the only real Buddhists are the members of the Sangha and there is some truth in this, particularly in China, where one cannot count as a Buddhist every one who occasionally attends a Buddhist service. But on the other hand Gotama accorded to the laity a definite and honourable position and in the Pitakas they notify their conversion by a special formula. They cannot indeed lead the perfect life but they can ensure birth in happy states and a good layman may even attain nirvana on his death-bed. But though the pious householder "takes his refuge in the law and in the order of monks" from whom he learns the law, yet these monks make no attempt to supervise or even to judge his life. The only punishment which the Order inflicts, to turn down the bowl and refuse to accept alms from guilty hands, is reserved for those who have tried to injure it and is not inflicted on notorious evil livers. It is the business of a monk to spread true knowledge and good feeling around him without enquiring into the thoughts and deeds of those who do not spontaneously seek his counsel. Indeed it may be said that in Burma it is the laity who supervise the monks rather than _vice versa_. Those Bhikkhus who fall short of the accepted standard, especially in chast.i.ty, are compelled by popular opinion to leave the monastery or village where they have misbehaved. This reminds us of the criticisms of laymen reported in the Vinaya and the deference which the Buddha paid to them.

The ethical character of Buddhism and its superiority to other Indian systems are shown in the precepts which it lays down for laymen.

Ceremony and doctrine have hardly any place in this code, but it enjoins good conduct and morality: moderation in pleasures and consideration for others. Only five commandments are essential for a good life but they are perhaps more comprehensive and harder to keep than the Decalogue, for they prescribe abstinence from the five sins of taking life, drinking intoxicants, lying, stealing and unchast.i.ty. It is meritorious to observe in addition three other precepts, namely, to use no garlands or perfumes: to sleep on a mat spread on the ground and not to eat after midday. Pious laymen keep all these eight precepts, at least on Uposatha days, and often make a vow to observe them for some special period. The nearer a layman can approximate to the life of a monk the better for his spiritual health, but still the aims and ideals, and consequently the methods, of the lay and religious life are different. The Bhikkhu is not of this world, he has cut himself loose from its ties, pleasures and pa.s.sions; he strives not for heaven but for arhatship. But the layman, though he may profitably think of nirvana and final happiness, may also rightly aspire to be born in some temporary heaven. The law merely bids him be a kind, temperate, prudent man of the world. It is only when he speaks to the monks that the Buddha really speaks to his own and gives his own thoughts: only for them are the high selfless aspirations, the austere counsels of perfection and the promises of bliss and something beyond bliss. But the lay morality is excellent in its own sphere-the good respectable life-and its teaching is most earnest and natural in those departments where the hard unsentimental precepts of the higher code jar on western minds. Whereas the monk severs all family ties and is fettered by no domestic affection, this is the field which the layman can cultivate with most profit. It was against his judgment that the Buddha admitted women to his order and in bidding his monks beware of them he said many hard things. But for women in the household life the Pitakas show an appreciation and respect which is ill.u.s.trated by the position held by women in Buddhist countries from the devout and capable matron Visakha down to the women of Burma in the present day. The Buddha even praised the ancients because they married for love and did not buy their wives[546].

The right life of a layman is described in several suttas[547] and in all of them, though almsgiving, religious conversation and hearing the law are commended, the main emphasis is on such social virtues as pleasant speech, kindness, temperance, consideration for others and affection. The most complete of these discourses, the Sigalovada-sutta[548], relates how the Buddha when starting one morning to beg alms in Rajagaha saw the householder Sigala bowing down with clasped hands and saluting the four quarters, the nadir and the zenith.

The object of the ceremony was to avert any evil which might come from these six points. The Buddha told him that this was not the right way to protect oneself: a man should regard his parents as the east, his teachers as the south, his wife and children as the west, his friends as the north, his servants as the nadir and monks and Brahmans as the zenith. By fulfilling his duty to these six cla.s.ses a man protects himself from all evil which may come from the six points. Then he expounded in order the mutual duties of (1) parents and children, (2) pupils and teachers, (3) husband and wife, (4) friends, (5) master and servant, (6) laity and clergy. The precepts which follow show how much common sense and good feeling Gotama could bring to bear on the affairs of every-day life when he gave them his attention and the whole cla.s.sification of reciprocal obligations recalls the five relationships of Chinese morality, three of which are identical with Gotama's divisions, namely parents and children, husband and wife, and friends.

But national characteristics make themselves obvious in the differences.

Gotama says nothing about politics or loyalty; the Chinese list, which opens with the mutual duties of sovereigns and subjects, is silent respecting the church and clergy.

The Sangha is an Indian inst.i.tution and invites comparison with that remarkable feature of Indian social life, the Brahman caste. At first sight the two seem mutually opposed, for the one is a hereditary though intellectual aristocracy, claiming the possession of incommunicable knowledge and power, the other a corporation open to all who choose to renounce the world and lead a good life. And this ant.i.thesis contains historical truth: the Sangha, like the similar orders of the Jains and other Kshatriya sects, was in its origin a protest against the exclusiveness and ritualism of the Brahmans. Yet compared with anything to be found in other countries the two bodies have something in common.

For instance it is a meritorious act to feed either Brahmans or Bhikkhus. Europeans are inclined to call both of them priests, but this is inaccurate for a Bhikkhu rarely deserves the t.i.tle [549] and nowadays Brahmans are not necessarily priests nor priests Brahmans. But in India there is an old and widespread idea that he who devotes himself to a religious and intellectual life (and the two spheres, though they do not coincide, overlap more than in Europe) should be not only respected but supported by the rest of the world. He is not a professional man in the sense that lawyers, doctors and clergymen are, but rather an aristocrat.

Though from the earliest times the n.o.bles of India have had a full share of pride and self-confidence, the average Hindu has always believed in another kind of upper cla.s.s, entered in some sects by birth, in others by merit, but in general a well-defined body, the conduct of whose members does not fail to command respect. The _do ut des_ principle is certainly not wanting, but the holy man is honoured not so much because he will make an immediate return by imparting some instruction or performing some ceremony but because to honour him is a good act which, like other good acts, will sooner or later find its reward. The Buddha is not represented as blaming the respect paid to Brahmans but as saying that Brahmans must deserve it. Birth and plaited hair do not make a true Brahman any more than a shaven head makes a Bhikkhu, but he who has renounced the world, who is pure in thought, word and deed, who follows the eight-fold path, and perfects himself in knowledge, he is the true Brahman[550]. Men of such aspirations are commoner in India than elsewhere and more than elsewhere they form a cla.s.s, which is defined by each sect for itself. But in all sects it is an essential part of piety to offer respect and gifts to this religious aristocracy.

CHAPTER XII

ASOKA

1

The first period in the history of Buddhism extends from the death of the founder to the death of Asoka, that is to about 232 B.C. It had then not only become a great Indian religion but had begun to send forth missionaries to foreign countries. But this growth had not yet brought about the internal changes which are inevitable when a creed expands far beyond the boundaries within which it was a natural expression of local thought. An intellectual movement and growth is visible within the limits of the Pali Canon and is confirmed by what we hear of the existence of sects or schools, but it does not appear that in the time of Asoka the workings of speculation had led to any point of view materially different from that of Gotama.

Our knowledge of general Indian history before the reign of Asoka is scanty and the data which can be regarded as facts for Buddhist ecclesiastical history are scantier still. We hear of two (or including the Mahasangiti three) meetings sometimes called Councils; scriptures, obviously containing various strata, were compiled, and eighteen sects or schools had time to arise and some of them to decay. Much doubt has been cast upon the councils[551] but to my mind this suspicion is unmerited, provided that too ecclesiastical a meaning is not given to the word. We must not suppose that the meetings held at Rajagaha and Vesali were similar to the Council of Nicaea or that they produced the works edited by the Pali Text Society. Such terms as canon, dogma and council, though indispensable, are misleading at this period. We want less formal equivalents for the same ideas. A number of men who were strangers to those conceptions of a hierarchy and a Bible[552] which are so familiar to us met together to fix and record the opinions and injunctions of the Master or to remove misapprehensions and abuses. It would be better if we could avoid using even the word Buddhist at this period, for it implies a difference sharper than the divisions existing between the followers of Gotama and others. They were in the position of the followers of Christ before they received at Antioch the name of Christians and the meeting at Rajagaha was a.n.a.logous to the conferences recorded in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

The record of this meeting and of the subsequent meeting at Vesali is contained in Chapters XI. and XII. of the Cullavagga, which must therefore be later than the second meeting and perhaps considerably later. Other accounts are found in the Dipava?sa, Maha-Bodhi-Va?sa and Buddhaghosa's commentaries. The version given in the Cullavagga is abrupt and does not entirely agree with other narratives of what followed on the death of the Buddha[553]. It seems to be a combination of two doc.u.ments, for it opens as a narrative by Ka.s.sapa, but it soon turns into a narrative about him. But the clumsiness in compilation and the errors of detail are hardly sufficient to discredit an event which is probable in itself and left an impression on tradition. The Buddha combined great personal authority with equally great liberality. While he was alive he decided all questions of dogma and discipline himself, but he left to the Order authority to abolish all the minor precepts. It seems inevitable that some sort of meeting should have been held to consider the position created by this wide permission. Brief and confused as the story in the Cullavagga is, there is nothing improbable in its outline-namely that a resolution was taken at Kusinara where he died to hold a synod during the next rains at Rajagaha, a more central place where alms and lodgings were plentiful, and there come to an agreement as to what should be accepted as the true doctrine and discipline. Accordingly five hundred monks met near this town and enquired into the authenticity of the various rules and suttas. They then went on to ask what the Buddha had meant by the lesser and minor precepts which might be abolished. ananda (who came in for a good deal of blame in the course of the proceedings) confessed that he had forgotten to ask the Master for an explanation and divergent opinions were expressed as to the extent of the discretion allowed. Ka.s.sapa finally proposed that the Sangha should adopt without alteration or addition the rules made by the Buddha. This was approved and the Dhamma and Vinaya as chanted by the a.s.sembled Bhikkhus were accepted. The Abhidhamma is not mentioned. The name usually given to these councils is Sangiti, which means singing or chanting together. An elder is said to have recited the text sentence by sentence and each phrase was intoned after him by the a.s.sembly as a sign of acceptance. Upali was the princ.i.p.al authority for the Vinaya and ananda for the Dhamma but the limits of the authority claimed by the meeting are ill.u.s.trated by an anecdote[554] which relates that after the chanting of the law had been completed Pura?a and his disciples arrived from the Southern Hills. The elders asked him to accept the version rehea.r.s.ed by them. He replied, "The Dhamma and Vinaya have been well sung by the Theras, nevertheless as they have been received and heard by me from the mouth of the Lord, so will I hold them." In other words the council has put together a very good account of the Buddha's teaching but has no claim to impose it on those who have personal reminiscences of their own.

This want of a central authority, though less complete than in Brahmanism, marks the early life of the Buddhist community. We read in later works[555] of a succession of Elders who are sometimes called Patriarchs[556] but it would be erroneous to think of them as possessing episcopal authority. They were at most the chief teachers of the order.

From the death of the Buddha to Asoka only five names are mentioned. But five names can fill the interval only if their bearers were unusually long-lived. It is therefore probable that the list merely contains the names of prominent Theras who exercised little authority in virtue of any office, though their personal qualities a.s.sured them respect. Upali, who comes first, is called chief of the Vinaya but, so far as there was one head of the order, it seems to have been Ka.s.sapa. He is the Brahman ascetic of Uruvela whose conversion is recorded in the first book of the Mahavagga and is said to have exchanged robes with the Buddha[557]. He observed the Dhutangas and we may conjecture that his influence tended to promote asceticism. Dasaka and Sonaka are also designated as chiefs of the Vinaya and there was perhaps a distinction between those who studied (to use modern phrases) ecclesiastical law and dogmatic theology.

The accounts[558] of the second Council are as abrupt as those of the first and do not connect it with previous events. The circ.u.mstances said to have led to its meeting are, however, probable. According to the Cullavagga, a hundred years after the death of the Buddha certain Bhikkhus of Vajjian lineage resident at Vesali upheld ten theses involving relaxations of the older discipline. The most important of these was that monks were permitted to receive gold and silver, but all of them, trivial as they may seem, had a dangerous bearing for they encouraged not only luxury but the formation of independent schools. For instance they allowed pupils to cite the practice of their preceptors as a justification for their conduct and authorized monks resident in one parish to hold Uposatha in separate companies and not as one united body. The story of the condemnation of these new doctrines contains miraculous incidents but seems to have a historical basis. It relates how a monk called Yasa, when a guest of the monks of Vesali, quarrelled with them because they accepted money from the laity and, departing thence, sought for support among the Theras or elders of the south and west. The result was a conference at Vesali in which the princ.i.p.al figures are Revata and Sabbakami, a pupil of ananda, expressly said to have been ordained one hundred and twenty years earlier[559]. The ten theses were referred to a committee, which rejected them all, and this rejection was confirmed by the whole Sangha, who proceeded to rehea.r.s.e the Vinaya. We are not however told that they revised the Sutta or Abhidhamma.

Here ends the account of the Cullavagga but the Dipava?sa adds that the wicked Vajjian monks, to whom it ascribes wrong doctrines as well as errors in discipline, collected a strong faction and held a schismatic council called the Mahasangiti. This meeting recited or compiled a new version of the Dhamma and Vinaya[560]. It is not easy to establish any facts about the origin and tenets of this Mahasangitika or Mahasanghika sect, though it seems to have been important. The Chinese pilgrims Fa Hsien and Hsuan Chuang, writing on the basis of information obtained in the fifth and seventh centuries of our era, represent it as arising in connection with the first council, which was either that of Rajagaha or some earlier meeting supposed to have been held during the Buddha's lifetime, and Hsuan Chuang[561] intimates that it was formed of laymen as well as monks and that it accepted additional matter including dhara?is or spells rejected by the monkish council. Its name (admitted by its opponents) seems to imply that it represented at one time the opinions of the majority or at least a great number of the faithful. But it was not the sect which flourished in Ceylon and the writer of the Dipava?sa is prejudiced against it. It may be a result of this animus that he connects it with the discreditable Vajjian schism and the Chinese tradition may be more correct. On the other hand the adherents of the school would naturally be disposed to a.s.sign it an early origin.

Fa Hsien says[562] that the Vinaya of the Mahasanghikas was considered "the most complete with the fullest explanations." A translation of this text is contained in the Chinese Tripitaka[563].

Early Indian Buddhism is said to have been divided into eighteen sects or schools, which have long ceased to exist and must not be confounded with any existing denominations. Fa Hsien observes that they agree in essentials and differ only in details and this seems to have been true not only when he wrote (about 420 A.D.) but throughout their history. In different epochs and countries Buddhism presents a series of surprising metamorphoses, but the divergences between the sects existing in India at any given time are less profound in character and less violent in expression than the divisions of Christianity. Similarly the so-called sects[564] in modern China, Burma and Siam are better described as schools, in some ways a.n.a.logous to such parties as the High and Low Church in England. On the other hand some of the eighteen schools exceeded the variations permitted in Christianity and Islam by having different collections of the scriptures. But at the time of which we are treating these collections had not been reduced to writing: they were of considerable extent compared with the Bible or Koran and they admitted later explanatory matter. The record of the Buddha's words did not profess to be a miraculous revelation but merely a recollection of what had been said. It is therefore natural that each school should maintain that the memory of its own scholars had transmitted the most accurate and complete account and that tradition should represent the successive councils as chiefly occupied in reciting and sifting these accounts.

It is generally agreed that the eighteen[565] schools were in existence during or shortly before the reign of Asoka, and that six others[566]

arose about the same period, but subsequently to them. The best materials for a study of their opinions are afforded by the text and commentary[567] of the Katha-vatthu, a treatise attributed to Tissa Moggaliputta, who is said to have been President of the Third Council held under Asoka. It is an examination and refutation of heretical views rather than a description of the bodies that held them but we can judge from it what was the religious atmosphere at the time and the commentary gives some information about various sects. Many centuries later I-ching tells us that during his visit to India (671-695 A.D.) the princ.i.p.al schools were four in number, with eighteen subdivisions. These four[568]

are the Mahasanghika, the Sthavira (equivalent to the old Theravada), the Mulasarvastivada and the Sammitiya, and from the time of Asoka onwards they throw the remaining divisions into the shade[569]. He adds that it is not determined which of the four should be grouped with the Mahayana and which with the Hinayana, that distinction being probably later in origin. The differences between the eighteen schools in I-ching's time were not vital but concerned the composition of the canon and details of discipline. It was a creditable thing to be versed in the scriptures of them all[570]. It is curious that though the Kathavatthu pays more attention to the opinions of the six new sects than to those held by most of the eighteen, yet this latter number continued to be quoted nearly a thousand years later, whereas the additional six seem forgotten. It may be that they were more unorthodox than the others and hence required fuller criticism. Five of their names are geographical designations, but we hear no more of them after the age of Asoka.

The religious horizon of the heretics confuted in the Kathavatthu does not differ materially from that of the Pitakas. There are many questions about arhatship, its nature, the method of obtaining it and the possibility of losing it. Also we find registered divergent views respecting the nature of knowledge and sensation. Of these the most important is the doctrine attributed to the Sammitiyas, that a soul exists in the highest and truest sense. They are also credited with holding that an arhat can fall from arhatship, that a G.o.d can enter the paths or the Order, and that even an unconverted man can get rid of all l.u.s.t and ill-will[571]. This collection of beliefs is possibly explicable as a result of the view that the condition of the soul, which is continuous from birth to birth, is stronger for good or evil than its surroundings. The germs of the Mahayana may be detected in the opinions of some sects on the nature of the Buddha and the career of a Bodhisattva. Thus the Andhakas thought that the Buddha was superhuman in the ordinary affairs of life and the Vetulyakas[572] held that he was not really born in the world of men but sent a phantom to represent him, remaining himself in the Tusita heaven. The doctrines attributed to the Uttarapathakas and Andhakas respectively that an unconverted man, if good, is capable of entering on the career of a Bodhisattva and that a Bodhisattva can in the course of his career fall into error and be reborn in state of woe, show an interest in the development of a Bodhisattva and a desire to bring it nearer to human life which are foreign to the Pitakas. An inclination to think of other states of existence in a manner half mythological half metaphysical is indicated by other heresies, such as that there is an intermediate realm where beings await rebirth, that the dead benefit by gifts given in the world[573], that there are animals in heaven, that the Four Truths, the Chain of Causation, and the Eightfold Path, are self-existent (asankhata).

The point of view of the Katha-vatthu, and indeed of the whole Pali Tripitaka, is that of the Vibhajjavadins, which seems to mean those who proceed by a.n.a.lysis and do not make vague generalizations. This was the school to which Tissa Moggaliputta belonged and was identical with the Theravada (teaching of the elders) or a section of it. The prominence of this sect in the history of Buddhism has caused its own view, namely that it represents primitive Buddhism, to be widely accepted. And this view deserves respect for it rests on a solid historical basis, namely that about two and a half centuries after the Buddha's death and in the country where he preached, the Vibhajjavadins claimed to get back to his real teaching by an examination of the existing traditions[574]. This is a very early starting-point. But the Sarvastivadins[575] were also an early school which attained to widespread influence and had a similar desire to preserve the simple and comparatively human presentment of the Buddha's teaching as opposed to later embellishments. Only three questions in the Katha-vatthu are directed against them but this probably means not that they were unimportant but that they did not differ much from the Vibhajjavadins. The special views attributed to them are that everything really exists, that an arhat can fall from arhatship, and that continuity of thought const.i.tutes Samadhi or meditation. These theses may perhaps be interpreted as indicative of an aversion to metaphysics and the supernatural. A saint has not undergone any supernatural transformation but has merely reached a level from which he can fall: meditation is simply fixity of attention, not a mystic trance. In virtue of the first doctrine European writers often speak of the Sarvastivadins as realists but their peculiar view concerned not so much the question of objective reality as the difference between being and becoming. They said that the world _is_ whereas other schools maintained that it was a continual process of becoming[576]. It is not necessary at present to follow further the history of this important school. It had a long career and flourished in Kashmir and Central Asia.

Confused as are the notices of these ancient sects, we see with some clearness that in opposition to the Theravada there was another body alluded to in terms which, though hostile, still imply an admission of size and learning, such as Mahasanghika or Mahasangitika, the people of the great a.s.sembly, and acaryavada or the doctrine of the Teachers. It appears to have originated in connection with some council and to embody a popular protest against the severity of the doctrine there laid down.

This is natural, for it is pretty obvious that many found the argumentative psychology of the Theravadins arid and wearisome. The Dipavamsa accuses the Mahasanghikas of garbling the canon but the Chinese pilgrims testify that in later times their books were regarded as specially complete. One well-known work, the Mahavastu, perhaps composed in the first century B.C., describes itself as belonging to the Lokuttara branch of the Mahasanghikas. The Mahasanghikas probably represent the elements which developed into the Mahayana. It is not possible to formulate their views precisely but, whereas the Theravada was essentially teaching for the Bhikkhu, they represented those concessions to popular taste from which Buddhism has never been quite dissociated even in its earliest period.

2

For some two centuries after Gotama's death we have little information as to the geographical extension of his doctrine, but some of the Sanskrit versions of the Vinaya[577] represent him as visiting Muttra, North-west India and Kashmir. So far as is known, the story of this journey is not supported by more ancient doc.u.ments or other arguments: it contains a prediction about Kanishka, and may have been composed in or after his reign when the flourishing condition of Buddhism in Gandhara made it seem appropriate to gild the past. But the narratives about Muttra and Kashmir contain several predictions relating to the progress of the faith 100 years after the Buddha's death and these can hardly be explained except as references to a tradition that those regions were converted at the epoch mentioned. There is no doubt of the connection between Kashmir and the Sarvastivadins nor anything improbable in the supposition that the first missionary activity was in the direction of Muttra and Kashmir.

But the great landmark in the earlier history of Buddhism is the reign of Asoka. He came to the throne about 270 B.C. and inherited the vast dominions of his father and grandfather. Almost all that we know of the political events of his reign is that his coronation did not take place until four years later, which may indicate a disputed succession, and that he rounded off his possessions by the conquest of Kalinga, that is the country between the Mahanadi and the G.o.davari, about 261 B.C. This was the end of his military career. Nothing could be gained by further conquests, for his empire already exceeded the limits set to effective government by the imperfect communications of the epoch, seeing that it extended from Afghanistan to the mouths of the Ganges and southwards almost to Madras. No evidence substantiates the later stories which represent him as a monster of wickedness before his conversion, but according to the Dipava?sa he at first favoured heretics.

The general effect of Asoka's rule on the history of Buddhism and indeed of Asia is clear, but there is still some difference of opinion as to the date of his conversion. The most important doc.u.ment for the chronology of his reign is the inscription known as the first Minor Rock Edict[578]. It is now generally admitted that it does not state the time which has elapsed since the death of the Buddha, as was once supposed, and that the King relates in it how for more than two and a half years after his conversion to Buddhism he was a lay-believer and did not exert himself strenuously, but subsequently joined the Sangha[579] and began to devote his energies to religion rather more than a year before the publication of the edict. This proclamation has been regarded by some as the first, by others as the last of his edicts. On the latter supposition we must imagine that he published a long series of ethical but not definitely Buddhist ordinances and that late in life he became first a lay-believer and then a monk, probably abdicating at the same time. But the King is exceedingly candid as to his changes of life and mind: he tells us how the horrors of the war with Kalinga affected him, how he was an easygoing layman and then a zealous monk. Had there been a stage between the war and his acceptance of Buddhism as a layman, a period of many years in which he devoted himself to the moral progress of his people without being himself a Buddhist, he would surely have explained it. Moreover in the Bhabru edict, which is distinctly ecclesiastical and deals with the Buddhist scriptures, he employs his favourite word Dhamma in the strict Buddhist sense, without indicating that he is giving it an unusual or new meaning. I therefore think it probable that he became a lay Buddhist soon after the conquest of Kalinga, that is in the ninth or tenth year after his accession, and a member of the Sangha two and a half years later. On this hypothesis all his edicts are the utterances of a Buddhist.

It may be objected that no one could be a monk and at the same time govern a great empire: it is more natural and more in accordance with Indian usage that towards the end of his life an aged king should abdicate and renounce the world. But Wu Ti, the Buddhist Emperor of China, retired to a monastery twice in the course of his long reign and the cloistered Emperors of j.a.pan in the eleventh and twelfth centuries continued to direct the policy of their country, although they abdicated in name and set a child on the throne as t.i.tular ruler. The Buddhist Church was not likely to criticize Asoka's method of keeping his monastic vows and indeed it may be said that his activity was not so much that of a pious emperor as of an archbishop possessed of exceptional temporal power. He definitely renounced conquest and military ambitions and appears to have paid no attention to ordinary civil administration which he perhaps entrusted to Commissioners; he devoted himself to philanthropic and moral projects "for the welfare of man and beast," such as lecturing his subjects on their duties towards all living creatures, governing the Church, building hospitals and stupas, supervising charities and despatching missions. In all his varied activity there is nothing unsuitable to an ecclesiastical statesman: in fact he is distinguished from most popes and prelates by his real indifference to secular aspirations and by the unusual facilities which he enjoyed for immediately putting his ideals into practice.

Asoka has won immortality by the Edicts which he caused to be engraved on stone[580]. They have survived to the present day and are the most important monuments which we possess for the early history of India and of Buddhism. They have a character of their own. A French writer has said "On ne bavarde pas sur la pierre," and for most inscriptions the saying holds good, but Asoka wrote on the rocks of India as if he were dictating to a stenographer. He was no stylist and he was somewhat vain although, considering his imperial position and the excellence of his motives, this obvious side of his character is excusable. His inscriptions give us a unique series of sermons on stones and a record, if not of what the people of India thought, at least of what an exceptionally devout and powerful Hindu thought they ought to think.

Between thirty and forty of these inscriptions have been discovered, scattered over nearly the whole of India, and composed in vernacular dialects allied to Pali[581]. Many of them are dated by the year of the King's reign and all announce themselves as the enactments of Piyada.s.si, the name Asoka being rarely used[582]. They comprise, besides some fourteen single edicts[583], two series, namely:

(1) Fourteen Rock Edicts, dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth years of Asoka's reign[584] and found inscribed in seven places but the recensions differ and some do not include all fourteen edicts.

(2) Seven Pillar Edicts dating from the 27th and 28th years, and found in six recensions.

The fourteen Rock Edicts are mostly sermons. Their style often recalls the Pitakas verbally, particularly in the application of secular words to religious matters. Thus we hear that righteousness is the best of lucky ceremonies and that whereas former kings went on tours of pleasure and hunting, Asoka prefers tours of piety and has set out on the road leading to true knowledge. In this series he does not mention the Buddha and in the twelfth edict he declares that he reverences all sects. But what he wished to preach and enforce was the _Dhamma_. It is difficult to find an English equivalent for this word[585] but there is no doubt of the meaning. It is the law, in the sense of the righteous life which a Buddhist layman ought to live, and perhaps religion is the simplest translation, provided that word is understood to include conduct and its consequences in another world but not theism. Asoka burns with zeal to propagate this Dhamma and his language recalls[586] the utterances of the Dhammapada. He formulates the law under four heads[587]: "Parents must be obeyed: respect for living creatures must be enforced: truth must be spoken ... the teacher must be reverenced by the pupil and proper courtesy must be shown to relations." In many ways the Sacred Edict of the Chinese Emperor K'ang Hsi resembles these proclamations for it consists of imperial maxims on public morality addressed by a Confucian Emperor to a population partly Buddhist and Taoist, just as Asoka addressed Brahmans, Jains and other sects as well as Buddhists.

But when we find in the thirteenth Rock Edict the incidental statement that the King thinks nothing of much importance except what concerns the next world, we feel the great difference between Indian and Chinese ideas whether ancient or modern.

The Rock Edicts also deal with the sanct.i.ty of animal life. Asoka's strong dislike of killing or hurting animals cannot be ascribed to policy, for it must have brought him into collision with the Brahmans who offered animals in sacrifice, but was the offspring of a naturally gentle and civilized mind. We may conjecture that the humanity of Buddhism was a feature which attracted him to it. In Rock Edict I. he forbids animal sacrifices and informs us that whereas formerly many thousand animals were killed daily for the royal kitchens now only three are killed, namely two peac.o.c.ks and a deer, and the deer not always. But in future even these three creatures will not be slaughtered. In Rock Edict II. he describes how he has cared for the comfort of man and beast. Wells have been dug; trees, roots and healing herbs have been planted and remedies-possibly hospitals-have been provided, all for animals as well as for men, and this not only in his own dominions but in neighbouring realms. In the fourteenth year of his reign he appointed officers called Dhamma-mahamata, Ministers or Censors of the Dhamma.

Their duty was to promote the observance of the Dhamma and they also acted as Charity Commissioners and superintendents of the households of the King's relatives. We hear that "they attend to charitable inst.i.tutions, ascetics, householders and all the sects: I have also arranged that they shall attend to the affairs of the Buddhist clergy, as well as the Brahmans, the Jains, the ajivikas and in fact all the various sects." Further he tells us that the local authorities[588] are to hold quinquennial a.s.semblies at which the Dhamma is to be proclaimed and that religious processions with elephants, cars, and illuminations have been arranged to please and instruct the people. Similar processions can still be seen at the Perahera festival in Kandy.

The last Rock Edict is of special interest for the light which it sheds both on history and on the King's character. He expresses remorse for the bloodshed which accompanied the conquest of Kalinga and declares that he will henceforth devote his attention to conquest by the Dhamma, which he has effected "both in his own dominions and in all the neighbouring realms as far as six hundred leagues (?), even to where the Greek King named Antiochus dwells and beyond that Antiochus to where dwell the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas and Alexander[589], and in the south the kings of the Colas and Pandyas[590] and of Ceylon and likewise here in the King's dominions, among the Yonas[591] and Kambojas[592] in Nabhaka of the Nabhitis[593] among the Bhojas and Pitinikas, among the andhras and Pulindas[594]. Asoka thus appears to state that he has sent missionaries to (1) the outlying parts of India, on the borders of his own dominions, (2) to Ceylon, (3) to the h.e.l.lenistic Kingdoms of Asia, Africa and Europe.

This last statement is of the greatest importance, but no record has. .h.i.therto been found of the arrival of these missionaries in the west.

The language of the Edict about them is not precise and in fact their despatch is only an inference from it. Of the success of the Indian missions there is no doubt. Buddhism was introduced into southern India, where it flourished to some extent though it had to maintain a double struggle against Jains as well as Brahmans. The statement of the Dipa and Maha-va?sas that missionaries were also sent to Pegu (Suva??abhumi) is not supported by the inscriptions, though not in itself improbable, but the missions to the north and to Ceylon were remarkably successful.

The Sinhalese Chronicles[595] give the names of the princ.i.p.al missionaries despatched and their statements have received confirmation in the discoveries made at Sanchi and Sonari where urns have been found inscribed with the names of Majjhima, Ka.s.sapa, and Gotiputta the successor of Dundhubhissara, who are called teachers of the Himalaya region. The statement in the Maha and Dipa-va?sas is that Majjhima was sent to preach in the Himalaya accompanied by four a.s.sistants Ka.s.sapa, Malikadeva, Dundhabhinossa and Saha.s.sadeva.

About the twenty-first year of his reign Asoka made a religious tour and under the guidance of his preceptor Upagupta, visited the Lumbini Park (now Rummindei) in the Terai, where the Buddha was born, and other spots connected with his life and preaching. A pillar has been discovered at Rummindei bearing an inscription which records the visit and the privileges granted to the village where "the Lord was born." At Nigliva a few miles off he erected another inscribed pillar stating that he had done reverence to the stupa of the earlier Buddha Konagamana and for the second time repaired it.

During this tour he visited Nepal and Lalitpur, the capital, founding there five stupas. His daughter Carumati is said to have accompanied him and to have remained in Nepal when he returned. She built a convent which still bears her name and lived there as a nun. It does not appear that Asoka visited Kashmir, but he caused a new capital (Srinagar) to be built there, and introduced Buddhism.

In the 27th and 28th year of his reign he composed another series of Edicts and this time had them carved in pillars not on rocks. They are even more didactic than the Rock Edicts and contain an increasing number of references to the next world, as well as stricter regulations forbidding cruelty to animals, but the King remains tolerant and says[596] that the chief thing is that each man should live up to his own creed. It is probable that at this time he had partially abdicated or at least abandoned some of the work of administration, for in Edict IV. he states that he has appointed Commissioners with discretion to award honours and penalties and that he feels secure like a man who has handed over his child to a skilful nurse.