The Religions of Japan Part 16

One of the most famous of books, honored especially by several of the later and larger sects in j.a.pan, and probably the most widely read and most generally studied book of the canon, is the Saddharma Pundarika.[2]

Professor Kern, who has translated this very rhetorical work into English, thinks it existed at or some time before 250 A.D., and that in its most ancient form it dates some centuries earlier, possibly as early as the opening of the Christian era. It has now twenty-seven chapters, and may be called the typical scripture of Northern Buddhism. It is overflowingly full of those sensuous images and descriptions of the Paradise, in which the imagination of the j.a.panese Buddhist so revels, and in it both rhetoric and mathematics run wild. Of this book, "the cream of the revealed doctrine," we shall hear often again. It is the standard of orthodoxy in j.a.panese Buddhism, the real genius of which is monastic asceticism in morals and philosophical scepticism in religion.

In most of the other sutras the burden of thought is ontology.

Doctrinally, Buddhism seems to be less a religion than a system of philosophy. Hundreds of volumes in the canon concern themselves almost wholly with ontological speculations. The j.a.panese mind,[3] as described by those who have studied most acutely and profoundly its manifestations in language and literature, is essentially averse to speculation. Yet the first forms of Buddhism presented to the j.a.panese, were highly metaphysical. The history of thought in j.a.pan, shows that these abstractions of dogma were not congenial to the islanders. The new faith won its way among the people by its outward sensuous attractions, and by appeals to the imagination, the fancy and the emotions; though the men of culture were led captive by reasoning which they could not answer, even if they could comprehend it. Though these early forms of dogma and philosophy no longer survive in j.a.pan, having been eclipsed by more concrete and sensuous arguments, yet it is necessary to state them in order to show: first, what Buddhism really is; second, doctrinal development in the farthest East; and, third, the peculiarities of the j.a.panese mind.

In this task, we are happy to be able to rely upon native witness and confession.[4] The foreigner may easily misrepresent, even when sincerely inclined to utter only the truth. Each religion, in its theory at least, must be judged by its ideals, and not by its failures. Its truth must be stated by its own professors. In the "History of The Twelve j.a.panese Sects," by Bunyiu Nanjio, M.A. Oxon., and in "Le Bouddhisme j.a.ponais," by Ryauon Fujishima, we have the untrammelled utterances, of nine living lights of the religion of Shaka as it is held and taught in Dai Nippon. The former scholar is a master of texts, and the latter of philosophy, each editor excelling in his own department; and the two books complement each other in value.

Buddhism, being a logical growth out of Brahmanism, used the old sacred language of India and inherited its vocabulary. In the Tripitaka, that is, the three book-baskets or boxes, we have the term for canon of scripture, in the complete collection of which are _sutra_, _vinaya_ and _abidharma_. We shall see, also, that while Gautama shut out the G.o.ds, his speculative followers who claimed to be his successors, opened the doors and allowed them to troop in again. The democracy of the congregation became a hierarchy and the empty swept and garnished house, a pantheon.

A sutra, from the root _siv_, to sew, means a thread or string, and in the old Veda religion referred to household rites or practices and the moral conduct of life; but in Buddhist phraseology it means a body of doctrine. A shaster or shastra, from the Sanskrit root _cas_, to govern, relates to discipline. Of those shastras and sutras we must frequently speak. In India and China some of those sutras are exponents, of schools of thought or opinion, or of views or methods of looking at things, rather than of organizations. In j.a.pan these schools of philosophy, in certain instances, become sects with a formal history.

In China of the present day, according to a j.a.panese traveller and author, "the Chinese Buddhists seem ... to unite all different sects, so as to make one harmonious sect." The chief divisions are those of the blue robe, who are allied with the Lamaism of Tibet and whose doctrine is largely "esoteric," and those of the yellow robe, who accept the three fundamentals of principle, teaching and discipline. Dhyana or contemplation is their principle; the Kegon or Avatamsaka sutra and the Hokke or Saddharma Pundarika sutra, etc., form the basis of their teaching; and the Vinaya of the Four Divisions (Dharmagupta) is their discipline. On the contrary, in j.a.pan there are vastly greater diversities of sect, principle, teaching and discipline.

Buddhism as a System of Metaphysics.

The date of the birth of the Buddha in India, accepted by the j.a.panese scholars is B.C. 1027--the day and month being also given with suspicious accuracy. About nine centuries after Gautama had attained Nirvana, there were eighteen schools of the Hinayana or the doctrine of the Smaller Vehicle. Then a shastra or inst.i.tute of Buddhist ontology in nine chapters, was composed, the t.i.tle of which in English, is, Book of the Treasury of Metaphysics. It had such a powerful influence that it was called an intelligence-creating, or as we say, an epoch-making book.

This Ku-sha shastra, from the Sanskrit _kosa_, a store, is eclectic, and contains nine chapters embodying the views of one of the schools, with selections from those of others. It was translated in A.D. 563, into Chinese by a Hindu scholar; but about a hundred years later the famous pilgrim, whom the j.a.panese call Gen-j[=o], but who is known in Europe as Hiouen Thsang,[5] made a better translation, while his disciples added commentaries.

In A.D. 658, two j.a.panese priests[6] made the sea-journey westward into China, as Gen-j[=o] had before made the land pilgrimage into India, and became pupils of the famous pilgrim. After long study they returned, bringing the Chinese translation of this shastra into j.a.pan. They did not form an independent sect; but the doctrines of this shastra, being eclectic, were studied by all j.a.panese Buddhist sects. This Ku-sha scripture is still read in j.a.pan as a general inst.i.tute of ontology, especially by advanced students who wish to get a general idea of the doctrines. It is full of technical terms, and is well named The Store-house of Metaphysics.

The Ku-sha teaches control of the pa.s.sions, and the government of thought. The burden of its philosophy is materialism; that is, the non-existence of self and the existence of the matter which composes self, or, as the j.a.panese writer says: "The reason why all things are so minutely explained in this shastra is to drive away the idea of self, and to show the truth in order to make living beings reach Nirvana."

Among the numerous categories, to express which many technical terms are necessary, are those of "forms," eleven in number, including the five senses and the six objects of sense; the six kinds of knowledge; the forty-six mental qualities, grouped under six heads; and the fourteen conceptions separated from the mind; thus making in all seventy-two compounded things and three immaterial things. These latter are "conscious cessation of existence," "unconscious cessation of existence," and "s.p.a.ce."

The Reverend Shuzan Emura, of the Shin-shu sect of j.a.pan, after specifying these seventy-five Dharmas, or things compounded and things immaterial, says:[7] "The former include all things that proceed from a cause. This cause is Karma, to which everything existing is due, s.p.a.ce and Nirvana alone excepted. Again, of the three immaterial things the last two are not subjects to be understood by the wisdom not free from frailty. Therefore the 'conscious cessation of existence' is considered as being the goal of all effort to him who longs for deliverance from misery."

In a word, this one of the many Buddhisms of Asia is vastly less a religion, in any real sense of the word, than a system of metaphysics.

However, the doctrine to be mastered is graded in three Yanas or Vehicles; for there are now, as in the days of Shaka, three cla.s.ses of being, graded according to their ability or power to understand "the truth." These are:

(I.) The Sho-mon or lowest of the disciples of Shaka, or hearers who meditate on the cause and effect of everything. If acute in understanding, they become free from confusion after three births; but if they are dull, they pa.s.s sixty kalpas[8] or aeons before they attain to the state of enlightenment.

(II.) The Engaku or Pratyeka Buddhas, that is, "singly enlightened," or beings in the middle state, who must extract the seeds or causes of actions, and must meditate on the twelve chains of causation, or understand the non-eternity of the world, while gazing upon the falling flowers or leaves. They attain enlightenment after four births or a hundred kalpas, according to their ability.

(III.) The Bodhisattvas or Buddhas-elect, who practise the six perfections (perfect practice of alms-giving, morality, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom) as preliminaries to Nirvana, which they reach only after countless kalpas.

These three grades of pupils in the mysteries of Buddha doctrine, are said to have been ordered by Shaka himself, because understanding human beings so thoroughly, he knew that one person could not comprehend two ways or vehicles (Yana) at once. People were taught therefore to practise anyone of the three vehicles at pleasure.

We shall see how the later radical and democratic j.a.panese Buddhism swept away this gradation, and declaring but the one vehicle (eka), opened the kingdom to all believers.

The second of the early j.a.panese schools of thought, is the J[=o]-jitsu,[9] or the sect founded chiefly upon the shastra which means The Book of the Perfection of the Truth, containing selections from and explanations of the true meaning of the Tripitaka. This shastra was the work of a Hindu whose name means Lion-armor, and who lived about nine centuries after Gautama. Not satisfied with the narrow views of his teacher, who may have been of the Dharmagupta school (of the four Disciplines), he made selections of the best and broadest interpretations then current in the several different schools of the Smaller Vehicle. The book is eclectic, and attempts to unite all that was best in each of the Hinayana schools; but certain Chinese teachers consider that its explanations are applicable to the Great Vehicle also.

Translated into Chinese in 406 A.D., the commentaries upon it soon numbered hundreds, and it was widely expounded and lectured upon.

Commentaries upon this shastra were also written in Korean by D[=o]-z[=o]. From the peninsula it was introduced into j.a.pan. This J[=o]-jitsu doctrine was studied by prince Sh[=o]toku, and promulgated as a division of the school called San-Ron. The students of the J[=o]-jitsu school never formed in j.a.pan a distinct organization.

The burden of the teachings of this school is pure nihilism, or the non-existence of both self and of matter. There is an utter absence of substantiality in all things. Life itself is a prolonged dream. The objects about us are mere delusive shadows or mirage, the product of the imagination alone. The past and the future are without reality, but the present state of things only stands as if it were real. That is to say: the true state of things is constantly changing, yet it seems as if the state of things were existing, even as does a circle of fire seen when a rope watch is turned round very quickly.

j.a.panese Pilgrims to China.

The Ris-shu or Vinaya sect is one of purely Chinese origin, and was founded, or rather re-founded, by the Chinese priest D[=o]sen, who lived on Mount Shunan early in the seventh century, and claimed to be only re-proclaiming the rules given by Gautama himself. He was well acquainted with the Tripitaka and especially versed in the Vinaya or rules of discipline. His purpose was to unite the teachings of both the Greater and the Lesser Vehicle in a sutra whose burden should be one of ethics and not of dogma.

The founder of this sect was greatly honored by the Chinese Emperor.

Furthermore, he was honored in vision by the holy Pindola or Binzura,[10] who praised the founder as the best man that had promulgated the discipline since Buddha himself. In later centuries, successors of the founder compiled commentaries and reproclaimed the teachings of this sect.

In A.D. 724 two j.a.panese priests went over to China, and having mastered the Ris-shu doctrine, received permission to propagate it in j.a.pan. With eighty-two Chinese priests they returned a few years later, having attempted, it is said, the journey five times and spent twelve years on the sea. On their return, they received an imperial invitation to live in the great monastery at Nara, and soon their teachings exerted a powerful influence on the court. The emperor, empress and four hundred persons of note were received into the Buddhist communion by a Chinese priest of the Ris-shu school in the middle of the eighth century. The Mikado Sh[=o]-mu resigned his throne and took the vow and robes of a monk, becoming H[=o]-[=o] or cloistered emperor. Under imperial direction a great bronze image of the Vairokana Buddha, or Perfection of Morality, was erected, and terraces, towers, images and all the paraphernalia of the new kind of Buddhism were prepared. Even the earth was embroidered, as it were, with sutras and shastras. Symbolical landscape gardening, which, in its mounds and paths, variously shaped stones and lanterns, artificial cascades and streamlets, teaches the holy geography as well as the allegories and hidden truths of Buddhism, made the city of Nara beautiful to the eyes of faith as well as of sight.

This sect, with its excellence in morality and benevolence, proved itself a beautifier of human life, of society and of the earth itself.

Its work was an irenicon. It occupied itself exclusively with the higher ethics, the higher meditations and the higher knowledge. Interdicting what was evil and prescribing what was good, its precepts varied in number and rigor according to the status of the disciple, lay or clerical. It is by the observance of the _sila_, or grades of moral perfection, that one becomes a Buddha. Besides making so powerful a conquest at the southern capital, this sect was the one which centuries afterward built the first Buddhist temple in Yedo. Being ordinary human mortals, however, both monk and layman occasionally ill.u.s.trated the difference between profession and practice.

These three schools or sects, Ku-sha, J[=o]-jitsu, and Ris-shu, may be grouped under the Hinayana or Smaller Vehicle, with more or less affiliation with Southern Buddhism; the others now to be described were wholly of the Northern division.

The Hoss[=o]-shu, or the Dharma-lakshana sect, as described by the Rev.

Dai-ryo Takashi of the Shin-gon sect, is the school which studies the nature of Dharmas or things. The three worlds of desire, form and formlessness, consist in thought only; and there is nothing outside thought. Nine centuries after Gautama, Maitreya,[11] or the Buddha of kindness, came down from the heaven of the Bodhisattva to the lecture-hall in the kingdom in central India at the request of the Buddhas elect, and discounted five shastras. After that two Buddhist fathers who were brothers, composed many more shastras and cleared up the meaning of the Mah[=a]yan[=a]. In 629 A.D., in his twenty-ninth year, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Gen-j[=o] (Hiouen-thsang), studied these shastras and sciences, and returning to China in 645 A.D., began his great work of translation, at which he continued for nineteen years.

One of his disciples was the author of a hundred commentaries on sutras and shastras. The doctrines of Gen-j[=o] and his disciples were at four different times, from 653 to 712 A.D., imported into j.a.pan, and named, after the monasteries in which they were promulgated, the Northern and Southern Transmission.

The Middle Path.

The burden of the teachings of this sect is subjective idealism. They embrace principles enjoining complete indifference to mundane affairs, and, in fact, thorough personal nullification and the ignoring of all actions by its disciples. In these teachings, thought only, is real. As we have already seen with the Ku-sha teaching, human beings are of three cla.s.ses, divided according to intellect, into higher, middle and lower, for whom the systems of teachings are necessarily of as many kinds. The order of progress with those who give themselves to the study of the Hoss[=o] tenets, is,[12] first, they know only the existence of things, then the emptiness of them, and finally they enter the middle path of "true emptiness and wonderful existence."

From the first, such discipline is long and painful, and ultimate victory scarcely comes to the ordinary being. The disciple, by training in thought, by destroying pa.s.sions and practices, by meditating on the only knowledge, must pa.s.s through three kalpas or aeons. Constantly meditating, and destroying the two obstacles of pa.s.sion and cognizable things, the disciple then obtains four kinds of wisdom and truly attains perfect enlightenment or Pari-Nirvana.

The San-ron Shu, as the Three-Shastra sect calls itself, is the sect of the Teachings of Buddha's whole life.[13] Other sects are founded upon single sutras, a fact which makes the student liable to narrowness of opinion. The San-ron gives greater breadth of view and catholicity of opinion. The doctrines of the Greater Vehicle are the princ.i.p.al teachings of Gautama, and these are thoroughly explained in the three shastras used by this sect, which, it is claimed, contain Buddha's own words. The meanings of the t.i.tles of the three favorite sutras, are, The Middle Book, The Hundred, and The Book of Twelve Gates. Other books of the canon are also studied and valued by this sect, but all of them are apt to be perused from a particular point of view; i.e., that of Pyrronism or infinite negation.

There are two lines of the transmission of this doctrine, both of them through China, though, the introduction to j.a.pan was made from Korea, in 625 A.D. Not to dwell upon the detail of history, the burden of this sect's teaching, is, infinite negation or absolute nihilism. Truth is the inconceivable state, or, in the words of the j.a.panese writer: "The truth is nothing but the state where thoughts come to an end; the right meditation is to perceive this truth. He who has obtained this meditation is called Buddha. This is this doctrine of the San-ron sect."

This sect, by its teachings of the Middle Path, seems to furnish a bridge from the Hinayana or Southern school, to the Mah[=a]yan[=a] or Northern school of Buddhism. Part of its work, as set forth by the Rev.

K[=o]-ch[=o] Ogurasu, of the Shin sect, is to defend the authenticity, genuineness and canonicity of the books which form the Northern body of scriptures.

In these two sects Hos-s[=o] and San-ron, called those of Middle Path, and much alike in principle and teaching, the whole end and aim of mental discipline, is nihilism--in the one case subjective, and in the other absolute, the end and goal being nothing--this view into the nature of things being considered the right one.

Is it any wonder that such teachings could in the long run satisfy neither the trained intellects nor the unthinking common people of j.a.pan? Is it far from the truth to suspect that, even when accepted by the j.a.panese courtiers and n.o.bles, they were received, only too often, in a Platonic, not to say a Pickwickian, sense? The j.a.panese is too polite to say "no" if he can possibly say "yes," even when he does not mean it; while the common people all over the world, as between metaphysics and polytheism, choose the latter. Is it any wonder that, along with this propagation of Nihilism as taught in the cloisters and the court, history informs us of many scandals and much immorality between the women of the court and the Buddhist monks?

Such dogmas were not able to live in organized forms, after the next importations of Buddhism which came in, not partly but wholly, under the name of the Mah[=a]yan[=a] or Great Vehicle, or Northern Buddhism. By the new philosophy, more concrete and able to appeal more closely to the average man, these five schools, which, in their discussions, dealt almost wholly with _noumena_, were absorbed. As matter of fact, none of them is now in existence, nor can we trace them, speaking broadly, beyond the tenth century. Here and there, indeed, may be a temple bearing the name of one of the sects, or grades of doctrine, and occasionally an eccentric individual who "witnesses" to the old metaphysics; but these are but fossils or historical relics, and are generally regarded as such.

Against such baldness of philosophy not only might the cultivated j.a.panese intellect revolt and react, but as yet the common people of j.a.pan, despite the modern priestly boast of the care of the imperial rulers for what the bonzes still love to call "the people's religion,"

were but slightly touched by the Indian faith.

The Great Vehicle.

The Kegon-Shu or Avatamsaka-sutra sect, is founded on a certain teaching which Gautama is said to have promulgated in nine a.s.semblies held at seven different places during the second week of his enlightenment. This sutra exists in no fewer than six texts, around each of which has gathered some interesting mythology. The first two tests were held in memory and not committed to palm leaves; the second pair are secretly preserved in the dragon palace of Riu-gu[14] under the sea, and are not kept by the men of this world. The fifth text of 100,000 verses, was obtained by a Bodhisattva from the palace of the dragon king of the world under the sea and transmitted to men in India. The sixth is the abridged text.