Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 10

[Footnote 210: O. Frankfrter, "King Mongkut," _Journal of Siam Society_, vol. I. 1904.]

[Footnote 211: But it was his son who first decreed in 1868 that no Siamese could be born a slave. Slavery for debt, though illegal, is said not to be practically extinct.]

[Footnote 212: = Cllan?kra.]

[Footnote 213: The word has been derived from Vta, a grove, but may it not be the Pali Vatthu, Sanskrit Vstu, a site or building?]

[Footnote 214: = Uposatha.]

[Footnote 215: These finials are very common on the roof ends of Siamese temples and palaces. It is strange that they also are found in conjunction with multiple roofs in Norwegian Churches of eleventh century. See de Beyli, _Architecture hindoue dans l'extrme Orient_, pp. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 216: The Buddha is generally known as Phra: Khodom ( = Gotama).]

[Footnote 217: In an old Siamese bronze from Kampeng Pet, figured in Grnwedel's _Buddhist Art in India_, p. 179, fig. 127, the Sir r't seems to be in process of evolution.]

[Footnote 218: P.A. Thompson, _Lotus Land_, 1906, p. 100.]

[Footnote 219: Four images facing the four quarters are considered in Burma to represent the last four Buddhas and among the Jains some of the Tirthankaras are so represented, the legend being that whenever they preached they seemed to face their hearers on every side.]

[Footnote 220: These figures only take account of twelve out of the seventeen provinces.]

[Footnote 221: Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 120.]

[Footnote 222: They bear the t.i.tle of So??mde~t Phra: Cho Rjagama and have authority respectively over (_a_) ordinary Buddhists in northern Siam, (_b_) ordinary Buddhists in the south, (_c_) hermits, (_d_) the Dhammayut sect.]

[Footnote 223: For this and many other details I am indebted to P.A.

Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 123.]

[Footnote 224: When gifts of food are made to monks on ceremonial occasions, they usually acknowledge the receipt by reciting verses 7 and 8 of this Sutta, commonly known as _Yath_ from the first word.]

[Footnote 225: Kathina in Pali. See Mahvag. cap. VII.]

[Footnote 226: Fournereau, p. 225.]

[Footnote 227: The ploughing festival is a recognized imperial ceremony in China. In India ceremonies for private landowners are prescribed in the Gr?ihya Stras but I do not know if their performance by kings is anywhere definitely ordered. However in the Nidna Kath 270 the Buddha's father celebrates an imposing ploughing ceremony.]

[Footnote 228: _I.e._ Tusita. Compare such English names descriptive of beautiful scenery as Heaven's Gate.]

[Footnote 229: See Keith, _Aitereya Aranyaka_, pp. 174-178. The ceremony there described undoubtedly originated in a very ancient popular festival.]

[Footnote 230: _I.e._ float-raft. Most authors give the word as Krathong, but Pallegoix prefers Kathong.]

[Footnote 231: _Chulakantamangalam_, Bangkok, 1893.]

[Footnote 232: P.A. Thompson, _Lotus Land_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 233: For the Brahmans of Siam see Frankfrter, _Oriental.

Archiv._ 1913, pp. 196-7.]

[Footnote 234: _Chulakantamangala_, p. 56.]

[Footnote 235: They are mostly observances such as Gotama would have cla.s.sed among "low arts" (tracchnavijj). At present the monks of Siam deal freely in charms and exorcisms but on important occasions public opinion seems to have greater confidence in the skill and power of Brahmans.]

[Footnote 236: King Sr Sryavam?sa Rma relates in an inscription of about 1365 how he set up statues of Paramesvara and Vishn?ukarma (?) and appointed Brahmans to serve them.]

[Footnote 237: Maj. Nik. 47.]

[Footnote 238: _Siam Society_, vol. IV. part ii. 1907. _Some Siamese ghost-lore_ by A.J. Irwin.]

[Footnote 239: _Jour. Siam Soc._ 1909, p. 28. "In yonder mountain is a demon spirit Phra Khaphung that is greater than every other spirit in this realm. If any Prince ruling this realm reverences him well with proper offerings, this realm stands firm, this realm prospers. If the spirit be not reverenced well, if the offerings be not right, the spirit in the mountain does not protect, does not regard:--this realm perishes."]

[Footnote 240: The most popular life of the Buddha in Siamese is called Pa:tho??mma So??mphthiyan, translated by Alabaster in _The Wheel of the Law_. But like the Lalita vistara and other Indian lives on which it is modelled it stops short at the enlightenment.

Another well-known religious book is the Traiphm ( = Tribhmi), an account of the universe according to Hindu principles, compiled in 1776 from various ancient works.

The Pali literature of Siam is not very large. Some account of it is given by Coeds in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1915, III. pp. 39-46.]

[Footnote 241: When in Bangkok in 1907 I saw in a photographer's shop a photograph of the procession which escorted these relics to their destination. It was inscribed "Arrival of Buddha's tooth from Kandy."

This shows how deceptive historical evidence may be. The inscription was the testimony of an eye-witness and yet it was entirely wrong.]

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

CAMBOJA[242]

1

The French Protectorate of Camboja corresponds roughly to the nucleus, though by no means to the whole extent of the former Empire of the Khmers. The affinities of this race have given rise to considerable discussion and it has been proposed to connect them with the Mun?d?a tribes of India on one side and with the Malays and Polynesians on the other[243]. They are allied linguistically to the Mons or Talaings of Lower Burma and to the Khasias of a.s.sam, but it is not proved that they are similarly related to the Annamites, and recent investigators are not disposed to maintain the Mon-Annam family of languages proposed by Logan and others. But the undoubted similarity of the Mon and Khmer languages suggests that the ancestors of those who now speak them were at one time spread over the central and western parts of Indo-China but were subsequently divided and deprived of much territory by the southward invasions of the Thais in the middle ages.

The Khmers also called themselves Kambuja or Kamvuja and their name for the country is still either Srok Kmpcha or Srok Khmer[244]. Attempts have been made to find a Malay origin for this name Kambuja but native tradition regards it as a link with India and affirms that the race is descended from Kambu Svayambhuva and Mer or Per who was given to him by Siva as wife[245]. This legend hardly proves that the Khmer people came from India but they undoubtedly received thence their civilization, their royal family and a considerable number of Hindu immigrants, so that the mythical ancestor of their kings naturally came to be regarded as the progenitor of the race. The Chinese traveller Chou Ta-kuan (1296 A.D.) says that the country known to the Chinese as Chn-la is called by the natives Kan-po-chih but that the present dynasty call it Kan-p'u-chih on the authority of Sanskrit (Hsi-fan) works. The origin of the name Chn-la is unknown.

There has been much discussion respecting the relation of Chn-la to the older kingdom of Fu-nan which is the name given by Chinese historians until the early part of the seventh century to a state occupying the south-eastern and perhaps central portions of Indo-China. It has been argued that Chn-la is simply the older name of Fu-nan and on the other hand that Fu-nan is a wider designation including several states, one of which, Chn-la or Camboja, became paramount at the expense of the others[246]. But the point seems unimportant for their religious history with which we have to deal. In religion and general civilization both were subject to Indian influence and it is not recorded that the political circ.u.mstances which turned Fu-nan into Chn-la were attended by any religious revolution.

The most important fact in the history of these countries, as in Champa and Java, is the presence from early times of Indian influence as a result of commerce, colonization, or conquest. Orientalists have only recently freed themselves from the idea that the ancient Hindus, and especially their religion, were restricted to the limits of India.

In medival times this was true. Emigration was rare and it was only in the nineteenth century that the travelling Hindu became a familiar and in some British colonies not very welcome visitor. Even now Hindus of the higher caste evade rather than deny the rule which forbids them to cross the ocean[247]. But for a long while Hindus have frequented the coast of East Africa[248] and in earlier centuries their traders, soldiers and missionaries covered considerable distances by sea. The Jtakas[249] mention voyages to Babylon: Vijaya and Mahinda reached Ceylon in the fifth and third centuries B.C. respectively.

There is no certain evidence as to the epoch when Hindus first penetrated beyond the Malay peninsula, but Java is mentioned in the Ramayana[250]: the earliest Sanskrit inscriptions of Champa date from our third or perhaps second century, and the Chinese Annals of the Tsin indicate that at a period considerably anterior to that dynasty there were Hindus in Fu-nan[251]. It is therefore safe to conclude that they must have reached these regions about the beginning of the Christian era and, should any evidence be forthcoming, there is no reason why this date should not be put further back. At present we can only say that the establishment of Hindu kingdoms probably implies earlier visits of Hindu traders and that voyages to the south coast of Indo-China and the Archipelago were probably preceded by settlements on the Isthmus of Kra, for instance at Ligor.

The motives which prompted this eastward movement have been variously connected with religious persecution in India, missionary enterprise, commerce and political adventure. The first is the least probable.

There is little evidence for the systematic persecution of Buddhists in India and still less for the persecution of Brahmans by Buddhists.

Nor can these Indian settlements be regarded as primarily religious missions. The Brahmans have always been willing to follow and supervise the progress of Hindu civilization, but they have never shown any disposition to evangelize foreign countries apart from Hindu settlements in them. The Buddhists had this evangelistic temper and the journeys of their missionaries doubtless stimulated other cla.s.ses to go abroad, but still no inscriptions or annals suggest that the Hindu migrations to Java and Camboja were parallel to Mahinda's mission to Ceylon. Nor is there any reason to think that they were commanded or encouraged by Indian Rajas, for no mention of their despatch has been found in India, and no Indian state is recorded to have claimed suzerainty over these colonies. It therefore seems likely that they were founded by traders and also by adventurers who followed existing trade routes and had their own reasons for leaving India. In a country where dynastic quarrels were frequent and the younger sons of Rajas had a precarious tenure of life, such reasons can be easily imagined. In Camboja we find an Indian dynasty established after a short struggle, but in other countries, such as Java and Sumatra, Indian civilization endured because it was freely adopted by native chiefs and not because it was forced on them as a result of conquest.

The inscriptions discovered in Camboja and deciphered by the labours of French savants offer with one lacuna (about 650-800 A.D.) a fairly continuous history of the country from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries. For earlier periods we depend almost entirely on Chinese accounts which are fragmentary and not interested in anything but the occasional relations of China with Fu-nan. The annals of the Tsin dynasty[252] already cited say that from 265 A.D. onwards the kings of Fu-nan sent several emba.s.sies to the Chinese Court, adding that the people have books and that their writing resembles that of the Hu. The Hu are properly speaking a tribe of Central Asia, but the expression doubtless means no more than alphabetic writing as opposed to Chinese characters and such an alphabet can hardly have had other than an Indian origin. Originally, adds the Annalist, the sovereign was a woman, but there came a stranger called Hun-Hui who worshipped the Devas and had had a dream in which one of them gave him a bow[253] and ordered him to sail for Fu-nan. He conquered the country and married the Queen but his descendants deteriorated and one Fan-Hsn founded another dynasty. The annals of the Ch'i dynasty (479-501) give substantially the same story but say that the stranger was called Hun-T'ien (which is probably the correct form of the name) and that he came from Chi or Chiao, an unknown locality. The same annals state that towards the end of the fifth century the king of Fu-nan who bore the family name of Ch'iao-ch'n-ju[254] or Kaun?d?inya and the personal name of Sh-yeh-po-mo (Jayavarman) traded with Canton. A Buddhist monk named Ngasena returned thence with some Cambojan merchants and so impressed this king with his account of China that he was sent back in 484 to beg for the protection of the Emperor. The king's pet.i.tion and a supplementary paper by Ngasena are preserved in the annals. They seem to be an attempt to represent the country as Buddhist, while explaining that Mahesvara is its tutelary deity.

The Liang annals also state that during the Wu dynasty (222-280) Fan Chan, then king of Fu-nan, sent a relative named Su-Wu on an emba.s.sy to India, to a king called Mao-lun, which probably represents Murun?d?a, a people of the Ganges valley mentioned by the Purn?as and by Ptolemy. This king despatched a return emba.s.sy to Fu-nan and his amba.s.sadors met there an official sent by the Emperor of China[255]. The early date ascribed to these events is noticeable.

The Liang annals contain also the following statements. Between the years 357 and 424 A.D. named as the dates of emba.s.sies sent to China, an Indian Brahman called Ch'iao-ch'n-ju (Kaun?d?inya) heard a supernatural voice bidding him go and reign in Fu-nan. He met with a good reception and was elected king. He changed the customs of the country and made them conform to those of India. One of his successors, Jayavarman, sent a coral image of Buddha in 503 to the Emperor Wu-ti (502-550). The inhabitants of Fu-nan are said to make bronze images of the heavenly genii with two or four heads and four or eight arms. Jayavarman was succeeded by a usurper named Liu-t'o-pa-mo (Rudravarman) who sent an image made of sandal wood to the Emperor in 519 and in 539 offered him a hair of the Buddha twelve feet long. The Sui annals (589-618) state that Citrasena, king of Chn-la, conquered Fu-nan and was succeeded by his son Isnasena.