Sagas from the Far East Part 30

NOTES.

PREFACE.

1. Kalmuck. "The Khalmoucks or Calmuks, are very far from enjoying in Asia the importance our books of geography a.s.sign them. In the Khalmoukia of our imagining, no one knew of the Khalmouks. At last we met with a Lama who had travelled in Eastern Tibet, and he told us that one of the Kolo tribes is called Khalmouk." The Kolos are a nomad people of Eastern Tibet, of predatory habits, living in inaccessible gorges of the Bayen Kharet mountains, guarded by impa.s.sable torrents and frightful precipices, towards the sources of the Yellow River; they only leave their abode to scour the steppes on a mission of pillage upon the Mongolians. The Mongolians of the Koukou-Noor (Blue Lake) hold them in such terror, that there is no monstrous practice they do not ascribe to them. They profess Buddhism equally with the Mongolians. See "Missionary Travels in Tartary, Tibet, and China,"

by Abbe Huc, vol. i. chap. iv.

2. "The various Dekhan dialects, i.e. of the Tuluvas, Malabars, Tamuls, Cingalese, of the Carnatic, &c., though greatly enriched from Sanskrit, would appear to have an entirely independent origin. The same may be said of the popular traditions." La.s.sen, vol. i. 362-364.

3. The Tirolean legend of the Curse of the Marmolata, which I have given at pp. 278-335 of "Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,"

may well be thought to be a reproduction and reapplication of this, one of the most ancient of myths.

4. Even the Maha Bharata, however, gives no consecutive and reliable account of the original settlement in the country. Franz Bopp, one of the earliest to attempt its translation, thus happily describes it. He likens it to an Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics, "an dem die Grundform von der Erde zum Himmel strebe, aber eine Fulle von Gestalten, (von denen eine auf die andre deute, eine ohne die andre rathselhaft bleibe,) neben und durch einander hinziehe und Irdisches und Himmlisches wundersam verbinde."--The pervading plan of the work is one straining from earth upwards to heaven, but overlaid with a multiplicity of figures, each one so intimately related with the other, that any would be incomprehensible without the rest; the thread of the life of one interwoven with those of the others, and all of them together creating a wondrous bond between the things of this world and the things which are above.

5. "The only way to gain acquaintance with the early history of India is by making use of its Sagas." La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i., pref. p. vii. But I shall have more to say on this head when I come to the story of Vikramaditja.

6. Some, however, seem to go too far, when they labour to prove that this is the case with every individual European legend, many of which are manifestly created by Christianity; and write as if every accidental similarity of incident necessarily implied parentage or connexion.

7. See introduction to his Translation of Pantschatantra. I have thought it worth while to mention this on account of the present collection being Mongolian.

DEDICATION.

1. Shakjamuni--the family name of Buddha, the originator of Buddhism. It means "Hermit of the tribe of Shakja," the Shakja being one of the earliest Indian dynasties of which there are any records. His great-grandfather was Gajasena, whose son Sinahanu married Kakkana, also of the Shakja lineage. Their son Shuddhodana married Mahapragapati (more commonly called by her subsequently received name of Maja = "the creative power of the G.o.dhead") a daughter of Angana, Kakkana's brother, and became the father of Buddha [4].

According to the Mahavansha, Gajasena was descended from Ixvaku, through the fabulous number of eighty-two thousand ancestors! He was also wont to call himself Shramana-Gautama, to mark his alliance with a certain priestly family of Brahmans and thereby disarm any animosity on their part toward his teaching. He was also called Shakjasinha = "Lion of the tribe of Shakja," to show that he belonged to the warrior caste.

He was brought up as heir to the crown, and was trained in the use of arms and in all matters appertaining to the duties of a ruler. At the age of sixteen he was married, and we have the names of his three wives--Utpalavarna, Jashodhara, and Bhadrakakkana. Up to the age of twenty-eight he lived a life entirely devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, his time being pa.s.sed between the respective attractions of three splendid palaces built for him by his father. At about this age he appears to have grown weary of this desultory kind of life, and one day, meeting in his walks with an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a priest, he was led to turn his thoughts upon the evils and the evanescence of life. Rambling on instead of returning home he sat down to rest under the shade of a gambu-tree, and here he found fresh food for his melancholy reflections in the miserable condition of the country people living around. The legend says the Devata, or G.o.ds, appeared to him in the shape of these suffering people in order further to instruct him in his new views of existence. In all probability his previous mode of life never having brought him in contact with the actual miseries of the needy this sight appeared to him in the light of an apparition.

The result of his deliberations was the resolve to withdraw to a place of solitude, where he might be free to consider by what means human beings could be relieved from their miseries [5].

With this view he forsook his family and his palatial residences, and having laid aside his rich clothing he wandered forth unknown to all, begging his food by the way till he found the retirement he sought in the hermitages of various Brahmans of Gajashira, a hill in the neighbourhood of Gaja [6], whence he is sometimes called Gajashiras.

He first placed himself under the teaching of the Brahman Arada Kalama, afterwards under that of another called Rudraka, who was so struck with the progress he made in the acquisition of every kind of knowledge that he soon a.s.sociated him with himself in the direction of his disciples. Five of these (four of them belonging to the royal Shakja family), agnata, Ashvagit, Bhadraka, Vashpa, and Maharata, grew so much attached to him and his views that they subsequently became the first followers of his separate school of teaching.

Having after some years exhausted the satisfaction he found in the pursuit of study he set out restlessly on a new search after happiness, followed by the five disciples I have named, and retired with them to a more exclusive solitude still, where for six years he gave himself up to unbroken contemplation amid the most rigid austerities. After this he seems to have somewhat alienated his companions by relaxing his severe mode of life, for they forsook him about this time and took up their abode in the neighbourhood of Varanasi [7], where they continued to live as he had shown them at the first [8].

This mode of life even he, however, does not appear to have altered except in the matter of abridging his fasts, for his habitual meditations went on as before, and they were believed to have so illumined his understanding that he finally received the appellation of Buddha = "the enlightened one," while from his favourite habit of making these meditations under the shade of the ashvattha, the "trembling leaf" fig-tree, that tree, which has acquired so prominent a place in Buddhist records, legends, and inst.i.tutions, came to be called the bodhiruma, literally, "tree of knowledge," and it has even been distinguished by naturalists from the ficus indica, of which it is a variety, by the t.i.tle of ficus religiosa. It became so inseparable an adjunct of Buddhism that wherever the teaching of Shakjamuni was spread this tree was transplanted too [9].

The oppression of solitude appears to have overcome Shakjamuni at last, and he consequently took the resolution of journeying to Varanasi to seek out his former companions. At their first meeting they were so scandalized to see him look so well and hearty instead of emaciated by austerities that they refused to pay him any respect. But when he showed them that he had attained to the illumination of a Buddha they accepted his teaching and put themselves entirely under his guidance. The number of his disciples increased meantime amazingly. As they lived by alms they received the name of Bhixu as a term of reproach. Ere long we find him sending out sixty of them, whom he invested with a certain high dignity he called Arhat [10], to spread his teaching wherever they came. He himself wandered for nineteen years over the central and eastern districts of the country, teaching,--his agreeable presence and benevolence of manner, and, the legends say, the wonderful things he did, winning him numerous converts wherever he went [11]. Some gave themselves up to a life of contemplation in the jungle, others a.s.sociated themselves with him in his travels. When the rainy season set in they had to find shelter for the four months in such colleges of Brahmans or houses of families as they found well inclined towards them. This Varshavasana, as it was called, afforded them additional opportunity of making known their ideas.

Shakjamuni himself seems to have won over several kings to his way of thinking; one of them, king of Pankala, he made an Arhat; another, the king of Koshala, stirred himself very much to awaken Shuddodana to a sense of the merit of his son, sending to congratulate him because one of whom he was progenitor had found the means by which mortals might attain to unending happiness. For once, making an exception to the proverb that a prophet meets with little honour in his own country, fortune favoured him in this matter also, and his father, who violently opposed his withdrawal from his due mode of life in the first instance, sent eight messengers one after the other to beg him to come and adorn his court with his wisdom. Each one of these, however, was so won by his teaching that he never returned to the king, but remained at the feet of Shakjamuni. Last of all the king sent his minister Karka, who, though he also adopted his views, prevailed on him to let him take back the message that he would satisfy his father's requests. The king meantime built a vihara for him under a grove of his favourite Njagrodha, or sacred fig-tree. His return home happened in the twelfth year after his departure, but when he had made his teaching known among his kindred he set out on his travels again, only returning at intervals, as to any other vihara, for the rainy season. A great many of his family joined themselves to him, among them his son Rahula, and his nephew ananda, who became one of his most celebrated followers.

In the twentieth year of his Buddhahood and the fifty-sixth of his age, he was seized with a serious illness, during which he announced his conviction that his end, or nirvana, was at hand, that is, his entering on that state which was the ultimate object which he bid his followers strive to attain--the completion of all possible knowledge and the consequent dissolution of personal individuality [12]; further, that it should take place at Kushinagara, the capital of the Malla people [13]. Soon after, he accomplished his prediction by setting out for this place, visiting by the way many of the spots where he had establishments of disciples, and arriving there in a state of utter exhaustion and prostration. On this journey he made more converts, but after his arrival gave himself up to contemplation which he considered necessary to perfect his fifth or highest degree of knowledge, until his death. This took place under a Shala-grove, or grove of sal-trees. His body was by his own desire treated with the honours only to be paid to a Kakravartin [14], or supreme ruler. After burning his body the ashes were preserved in an urn of gold. His death is reckoned to have taken place in the year 543 B.C. [15], according to the Buddhists of Ceylon and Southern India generally. Those of the northern provinces, the j.a.panese and Mongolians, have a very different chronology, and place his birth about the year 950 B.C. The Chinese are divided among themselves about it and say variously, 688, 1070, and 1122 [16].

A great number of claimants demanded his ashes in memorial of him, and finally, by the advice of a Brahman named Drona, they were part.i.tioned among eight cities, in each of which a kaitja, or shrine [17], was erected to receive them. A great gathering of his followers was held at Kushinagara, of which Kashj.a.pa was sanghasthavira, or president, Buddha having himself previously designated him for his successor. He had been a distinguished Brahman. It is said by one of the exaggerations common in all Indian records that there were seven hundred thousand of the new religionists present. Five hundred were selected from among the most trustworthy to draw up the Sanghiti, or good laws of Buddha. Then they broke up, determining to travel over Gambudvipa, consoling the scattered Bhixu for the loss of their master, and to meet again at Ragagriha at the beginning of the month Ashadha (answering to the end of our June) for the Varshavasana.

This synod lasted seven months. Its chief work was the compilation of the Tripitaka--"the three baskets" or "vessels" supposed to contain all Shakjamuni's teaching: 1. The Sutra-pitaka, containing the conversation of Shakjamuni (of these I have had occasion to speak in another place [18]); 2. The Vinaja-pitaka, containing maxims by which the disciple's life was to be guided; and the Ahidharma-pitaka, containing an exposition of religious and philosophical teaching. The first was under the revision of ananda; the second under that of Upali; and the third under that of Kacj.a.pa. The Tripitaka also bears the name of Sthavira, because only such took part in its compilation; also "of the five hundred," because so many were charged with its compilation.

It is important, however, to bear in mind, because of the monstrous exaggerations and extravagant incidents subsequently introduced [19]

that these were only compilations preserved by word of mouth; the art of writing was scarcely known in India at this time. "After the Nirvana of Buddha, for the s.p.a.ce of 450 years, the text and commentaries and all the words of the Tathagato were preserved and transmitted by wise priests orally. But having seen the evils attendant upon this mode of transmission, 550 rahats of great authority, in the cave called Aloka (Alu) in the province of Malaya, in Lanka, under the guardianship of the chief of that province caused the sacred books to be written [20]." As this "text and commentaries" are reckoned to consist of 6,000,000 words, and the Bible of about 500,000, we may form some idea of the impossibility of so vast a body of language being in any way faithfully preserved by so treacherous a medium as memory.

Megasthenes (Fragm. 27, p. 421, b.) and Nearchos (Fragm. 7, p. 60, b.) particularly mention that the Indians had no written laws, but their code was preserved in the memory of their judges; thus testifying to the practice of trusting to memory in the most important matters. Schwanbeck (Megast. Ind. p. 51) remarks that the Sanskrit word for a collection of laws--Smriti--means also memory. J. Prinsep (in his paper on the Inscriptions of the Rocks of Girnar, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Beng. vii. 271) is inclined to think some of the rock-cut inscriptions are as early as 500 B.C.; which would show they had some knowledge of a written character then; La.s.sen, however, is of opinion that this is altogether too early; but there seems no doubt that there are some both of and anterior to the reign of Ashoka, 246 B.C. Megasthenes indeed mentions that he had heard they used a kind of indurated cotton for writing on. But the use, neither of this material nor of a written character, could have been very common or extended, for Nearchos (Strabo, xvi. -- 67) wrote, "It is said by some, the Indians write on indurated cotton stuff, but others say they have not even the use of a written alphabet."

Though thus disfigured and overlaid as time went by, the great intention which Shakjamuni himself seems to have had in view in the preparation of his doctrine was to destroy the exclusiveness of the Brahmanical castes, and that most especially in its influence on the future and final condition of every man, and thus he accepted men of all castes, even the very lowest [21], and the out-caste too, among not only his disciples but among his priesthood. It was thus in its origin a system of morals rather than of faith. It was full of maxims inculcating virtue to be pursued--not indeed out of obedience to the will of a Divine and all perfect Creator--but with the object of escaping the necessity of the number of re-births taught by the Brahmans and of sooner attaining to nirvana. It set up, therefore, no mythology of its own [22], nor put forward any statement of what G.o.ds were to be honoured. Nevertheless it was grafted on to the mythology prevailing at the time, and many of the G.o.ds then honoured are incidentally mentioned in the Sutra as accepted objects of veneration. The Veda, or sacred teaching of the Brahmans, is quoted in almost every page [23]. The G.o.ds who thus come in for mention in the simple Sutra are the following [24]:--The three G.o.ds of the later mythology bear here the names of (1) Brahma and Pelamaha; (2) Hari, Ganardana, Narajana, and Upendra (it is important to note that the name of Krishna does not appear at this period at all); (3) Shiva and Shankara. Indra was now placed at the head of G.o.ds of the second rank. We have also Shakra, Vasava, and Shakipati, called the husband of Shaki. Of the other Lokapala, Kuvera and Varunna are named. It is doubtless only by accident that more do not find mention. Of the demiG.o.ds Visvakarman, the Gandharba, Kinnara, Garuda, Jaxa the Serpent-G.o.d, Asura, and Danava, along with other evil genii and serpent-G.o.ds. The most often named--particularly in the colloquies between Buddha and his disciples--is Indra with the adjunctive appellation of Kaushika. Indra was at the time of Shakjamuni himself the favourite G.o.d; the other great G.o.ds had not yet received the importance they afterwards acquired, nor had any thing like the idea of a trine unity or equality been broached [25] as we shall presently see; even these allusions were but scanty [26]. It was long before the whole Brahmanical system of divinities came to form an integral part of the Buddhist theosophy [27].

Hence Shakjamuni, as well as his contemporary and earliest succeeding disciples, lived for the most part [28] on good terms with the Brahmans, some of whom were among the most zealous in securing the custody of some part of his ashes. But they were not long ere they perceived that as this new teaching developed itself its tendency was to supersede their order. Then, a life and death struggle for the upper-hand ensued which lasted for centuries, for while the Buddhists were on the one side fighting against the attempted extermination, on the other side they were spreading their doctrines over an ever-fresh field by the journeyings of their missionaries, a proceeding the more exclusive Brahmans had never adopted. This went on till by the one means and the other Buddhism had been almost entirely banished from Central India, where it took its rise, but had established itself on an enduring basis as remote from its original centre as Ceylon, Mongolia, China, j.a.pan, the Indian Archipelago, and perhaps even Mexico [29]. This state of things was hardly established before the 14th century [30]. But from information on the condition of religion in India preserved by the Chinese pilgrim Fahien, who traversed a great part of Asia, A.D. 399-414, Buddhism had already at that time suffered great losses, for at Gaja itself the temple of Buddha was a deserted ruin. From the writings of another Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Thsang, whose travels took place in the 7th century, it would seem that the greatest Brahmanical persecution of the Buddhists did not take place before 670 [31]. That it had cleared them out of Central India by the date I have named above is further confirmed by Madhava, a writer of the 14th century, quoted by Professor Wilson, who "declares that at his date not a follower of Buddha was to be found in all Hindustan, and he had only met some few old men of that faith in Kashmir." "At the present day," adds Wilson, "I never met with a person who had met with natives of India Proper of that faith, and it appears that an utter extirpation of the Buddha religion in India Proper was effected between the 12th and 16th centuries." Nevertheless it is the system of religion which next after the Catholic Church counts the greatest number of followers.

Dr. Gutzlaff (in his "Remarks on the Present State of Buddhism," in "Journ. of R. As. Soc." xvi. 73.) tells us two-thirds of the population of China is Buddhist. In Ungewitter's Neueste Erdebeschreibung, the whole population is stated from native official statistics at 360,000,000; whence it would follow that there are 240,000,000 Buddhists in China alone; probably, however, the Chinese figures are to some extent an exaggeration.

Before concluding this brief notice of Buddhism it remains to say a few words on the later developments of the system which have too often been identified with its original utterances.

It does not appear to have been before the 10th century that Shakjamuni was reckoned to be an incarnation of a heavenly being; at least the earliest record of such an idea is found in an inscription at Gaya, ascribed to the year 948 [32], while much of his own teaching bears traces of a lingering belief in a great primeval tradition of the unity of the G.o.dhead and the promise of redemption [33], as well as the great primary laws of obedience and sacrifice more perfectly preserved to us in the inspired writings committed to the Hebrews. The history of the deluge, as given by Weber from the Maha Bharata, is almost identical in its leading features with the account in Genesis, bearing of course some additions. A great ship was laden with pairs of beasts, and seeds of every kind of plants, and was steered safely through the floods by Vishnu under the form of a great fish, who ultimately moored it on the mountain Naubandhana, one of the Himalajas in Eastern Kashmere. The early Veda hymns, too, had thus spoken of the Creation, "At that time there was neither being nor no being; no world, no air, nor any thing beyond it. Death was not, neither immortality; nor distinction of day and night. But It (tad) respired alone, and without breathing; alone in Its self-consciousness (Svadha, which hence came to be used for 'Heaven'). Besides It was nothing, only darkness. All was wrapt in darkness, and undistinguishable fluid. But the bulk thus enveloped was brought forth by the power of contemplation. Love (Kama) was first formed in Its mind, and this was the original creative germ [34]." And the Veda was, we have seen, adopted in the main by Shakjamuni; but the development of his views came to imply that there was no Creator at all, existences being only a series of necessary evolutions [35]. And when later a Creator came again to be spoken of, the term was involved in the most inconceivable contradictions [36]. A distinguished Roman Orientalist also writes:--"The Veda, and princ.i.p.ally the Jazur-Veda and the Isa-Upanishad, contain not only many golden maxims, but distinct traces of the primitive Monotheism. But these books exercise little influence on the religion of the people, which is a ma.s.s of idolatry and superst.i.tion; moreover, they are themselves filled with the most absurd stories and fables. The Jazur-Veda, which is the freest from these defects, is a comparatively recent production, and the author has manifestly drawn upon not only both Old and New Testament, but also the Koran [37]."

An infusion of the revealed doctrines taught by Christianity was also received into it from the teaching of the missionaries of the first ages after the birth of Christ, though similarly disfigured and overwrought. To distinguish the influence of the one and the other would be a fascinating study, but one too vast for the limits of the present pages. When we come presently to the history of Vikramaditja we shall find it presents us with a striking idea of the facility with which various ideals can be heaped upon one personality; this will serve as a key to the mode in which an unenlightened admiration for the story of our Divine Redeemer's life on earth may be supposed to have induced the ascribing of His supernatural manifestations to another being, already accepted as Divine. It is true that certain appearances of Vishnu and Shiva on earth would seem to have been believed before the Christian era; and apart from the Indian writings, the dates of which are so difficult to fix, the testimony of Megasthenes (the Historian of Seleucus Nicanor, who wrote B.C. 300) is quoted in proof that at his time such incarnations were already held. But the pa.s.sages in Megasthenes, by the very fact that he identifies Vishnu with Hercules, tend only to demonstrate a belief in a different kind of manifestation of Divine power. Those who labour most to prove that the Brahmanical idea of incarnation preceded the Christian have to allow that it was only subsequently to the spread of Christian teaching that it was fully developed. Thus La.s.sen writes, "I have, therefore (i. e. in consequence of the allusions in Megasthenes), no hesitation in maintaining that the dogma of Vishnu's incarnations was in existence 300 years before the birth of Christ; still, however, it only received its full development at a subsequent period [38]." And in another place, speaking of the Avatara (incarnations) of Vishnu, in the persons of the heroes of the epic poems, he adds, "this dogma is unknown (fremd) to the Veda, and the few allusions to such an idea existing in some of its myths, and which were later reckoned among the incarnations of Vishnu, show that in the earliest ages the recurring appearance in man's nature of 'the preserving G.o.d'

for the destruction of evil was not yet invented. [39]" And even of the early epic poems he writes, that though such ideas are introduced, yet the heroes still maintain their individuality. They are actuated and indwelt by Vishnu, but they are not he. This, it will be seen, is very different from the Christian dogma of the Incarnation.

Whether the extremely interesting and ancient tradition be genuine (as maintained by Tillemont) or not, that Abgarus, king of Edessa, sent messengers to our Lord in Judaea, begging Him to come and visit him and heal him of his sickness, and that our Lord in reply sent him word that He must do the work of Him Who sent Him and then return to Him above, but that after His Ascension He would send an Apostle to him, and that in consequence of this promise St. Thomas received the far East for the field of his labours--and, however much be chronologically correct of the ma.s.s of records and traditions which tell that this Apostle travelled over the whole Asian continent, from Edessa to Tibet, and perhaps China--it would appear to be intrinsically probable and as well attested as most facts of equally remote date, that both this Apostle and Thaddaeus, one of the seventy-two disciples, preached the Gospel in countries east of Syria, and that his successors, more or less immediate, extended their travels farther and farther east. It is mentioned in Eusebius (Book v. c. 10), that S. Pantaeus, going to India to preach the Gospel early in the 3rd century (Eusebius himself wrote at the end of the same century), met with Brahmans who showed him a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which they said had been given to their forerunners by St. Bartholomew [40]. La.s.sen himself allows, that in all probability certain Brahmans, at a very early date, fell in with Christian teachers, and brought them back home with them. Further, that the idea of there being any merit in bhakti, or pious faith, and a development in the teaching concerning the duty of prayer may be traced to this circ.u.mstance. Nor does he deny that when in 435, Eustathius, Bp. of Antioch, with the help of Thomas Kama, a rich local merchant, went to found a mission at Mahadevapatma (Cranganore), he found Christians who dated their conversion from St. Thomas living there. His further efforts to disprove that St. Thomas himself penetrated very far east, and that the early Christian establishments at Taprobane and Ceylon were founded by Persian Christians, though far from conclusive, tend as far as they go but to support all the more the theory of an admixture of Christian with Brahmanical and Buddhist teaching; because, the less pure the source of teaching the more likely it was to have resulted in producing such an admixture in place of actual conversion. Nor does the circ.u.mstance on which he lays much weight, that the Brahmans resented the inroads of Christian teaching on their domain, even with severe persecutions, at all afford any proof that there were not Brahmanical teachers, who either through sincere admiration (for which they were prepared by their early monotheistic tradition), or from a conviction of the advantage to be derived in increase of influence by its means, or other cause, may have thought fit, or been even unconsciously led to incorporate certain ideas of the new school with their own.

I have only s.p.a.ce left to touch upon two of the most important of these identifications. And first the imitation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. La.s.sen (i. 784 and iv. 570) fixes as late a date as 1420-1445 for the introduction of the Trimurti worship, or, as he expresses it, the bootless attempt to unite various schools by propounding the equality and unity of the three great rival G.o.ds, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who were the chief G.o.ds favoured by each respectively. Devaraja of Vigajanagara erected the first temple to the Trimurti about this date. Ganesha, the G.o.d of wisdom and knowledge, appeared to his minister Laxmana and bid him build a temple on the banks of the Penar to the Hiranjagarbha, called Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; this is the first example of any inscription of honour paid to the Trimurti [41].

Secondly, the worship of the G.o.d Crishna, whose name and attributes as well as his subst.i.tution for Vishnu, the second G.o.d of the Trimurti, present so many a.n.a.logies with the teaching concerning our Divine Lord [42]. Whatever difficulty there may be in fixing the date of the origin of the great Pankaratra sect, there appears none in affirming that the full development of its teaching in the direction of these a.n.a.logies was subsequent to the establishment of Christianity. This is how A. Weber speaks of it [43]. Brahmans, who had travelled to Alexandria, and perhaps Asia Minor, at a time when Christianity was in its first bloom, brought back its teaching respecting a Supreme G.o.d and a Christ whom they identified with and fastened upon their sage or hero, who had already in some measure received Divine honours--Crishna Devakiputra (Son of the divine woman). He also dwells on the influence exercised by the teaching of Christian missionaries. The importance given to Devaki would point to an incorporation of Christian teaching concerning the Virgin Mary. Weber, in a paper ent.i.tled "Einige Data auf das Geburtsfest Krishna's," instances many pa.s.sages in the Bavrishjottara-Purana (one of the latest Puranas), which it is impossible to read without being reminded of the place of "the Virgin and Child" in Christian tradition, and which find no counterpart in earlier Indian writings. Similarly it was the later schools which dwelt on the fact of his having Nanda the herdsman for his father, seemingly suggested by our Lord's character of "the good Shepherd,"

because in the earlier Crishna Legends [44] this fact is sunk in the view that (though sprung from the herdsmen) he was a warrior and a hero. Nor was the teaching concerning this character of Crishna at all rapid in its extension. Its chief seat, according to La.s.sen [45], in what he expresses as "the earliest times," was Madura; but the first date he mentions in connexion with it is 1017, when a Crishna temple was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazna, Lalitaditja, king of Cashmere, built him a temple containing a statue of solid silver, and he reigned from 695 to 732; but the gold armour the image bore would point to his warrior character still prevailing down to this time. La.s.sen even finds [46] the introduction of the worship of Crishna [47] a subject of opposition by certain Brahmans as late as the tenth century. The great epic poem concerning him, the Gitagovinda, by Gajadeva (still sung at the present day at the Resa festival), was not written till the end of the 12th century [48]. In an inscription at Gajanagara, not very far from Madura, Crishna is mentioned as an incarnation of Vishnu, but the date of this is 1288; and the idea does not seem to have reached Orissa till the end of the 15th century [49].

2. From this exordium we must plainly gather that the original collector of these Tales was himself a Madhjamika, since he begins his work with an invocation of Nagarg'una, founder of that school. He calls him "second teacher" because his undertaking was, not to supersede, but to develope and perfect the teaching of Shakjamuni, whom he himself reverenced as first teacher [50].

Nagarg'una was the 15th Patriarch in the Buddhist succession, born in South India, and educated a Brahman; he wrote a Treatise, in 100 chapters, on the Wisdom of the Buddhist Theology, and died B.C. 212 (La.s.sen, "Indische Alterthumskunde," ii., Appendix, p. vi.); but at p. 887 of the same volume, and again at p. 1072, he tells us he lived in the reign of Abhimanju, king of Cashmere, and that it was by the a.s.sistance of his sage advice that the Buddhists were enabled for a while successfully to withstand opposition dictated by the Brahmanical proclivities of this king, whose date he fixes at 45-65 A.C. The difference between the two dates arises out of that existing between the computations of the northern and southern Buddhists [51]. In the Raga-Tarangini, ii. v. 172-177 (a chronicle of Cashmere, written not later than A.D. 1148) Nagarg'una is thus alluded to: "When 150 years had pa.s.sed by, since sacred Shakjamuni had completed his time in this world of sufferers, there was a Bodhisattva [52], who was supreme head of all the earth. This was Nagarg'una, who possessed in himself the power of six Archats [53].... Protected by Nagarg'una the Buddhists obtained the chief influence in the country."

Among the Chinese Buddhists he is called Lung-shu, which name Abel Remusat tells us was given him because after death he was taken up into the serpent-Paradise [54].

The following legend has been told concerning the manner of his conversion from Brahmanism; but it is probable that what is historically true in it belongs to the life of another and much later Buddhist patriarch.

A Samanaer [55] came wandering by his residence. Seeing it to be n.o.bly built, and pleasantly situated amid trees and fountains, and provided with all that was needful and desirable for the life of man, made up his mind to obtain admission to it. Nagarg'una, before admitting him, required to know whence, and what manner of man he was. On his declaring himself a teacher of Buddhism the door was immediately closed against him. Determined not to be so easily repulsed the Samanaer knocked again and again, till Nagarg'una, provoked by his pertinacity, appeared on the terrace above, and cried out to him, "It is useless for you to go on knocking. In this house is nothing."

"Nothing!" retorted the Samanaer; "what sort of a thing is that, pray?"

Nagarg'una saw by this answer the man must be of a philosophical turn of mind, and was thus induced to break his rule, which forbid him intercourse with Buddhists, and let him in that he might have more discourse with him. The Samanaer by degrees fascinated his mind with the whole Buddhist doctrine, and ultimately told him that Buddha had left a prophecy, saying, that long years after he had departed this life there should arise a great teacher out of Southern India, who by the wisdom of his teaching should renew the face of the earth; that this prophecy he was destined to accomplish. Nagarg'una believed his words, and subsequently fulfilled them.

His peculiar school received the name of Madhjamika, because of three prevailing interpretations of the earlier Buddhist teaching he chose the one which steered its course midway (madhjana) between two extremes, one of which held that the Buddhist nirvana, implied the return and absorption of the soul at death into the creative essence whence it had emanated; and the other, its total annihilation.

He left his ideas to posterity in a treatise, bearing the name of Karika, denoting an exposition of a theory in verse [56]. Some idea of its intricacy may be formed from the fact that the shortest edition of it contains eight thousand sections; while the most complete has a hundred thousand. His teaching was followed up by two chief disciples, arjadeva, a Cingalese, and Buddhapalita, and still holds sway in the higher schools of Tibet, which accounts for the homage of the editor of these Mongolian tales. He is honoured almost everywhere where Buddhism is honoured; near Gaja is a kaitja, or rock-cut temple, called Nagarguni, probably commemorating some visit of his to the shrine of Shakjamuni.

3. The whole of Buddhist literature is spoken of by its followers as contained in three "vessels," or "baskets"--tripitaka (Wa.s.siljew, p. 118, quoted by Julg); in Tibetian called samatog (Koppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie, p. 57).

4. Madhjamika. See above, Note 2.