The beauty of Jainism finds its best expression in architecture. This reached its zenith both in style and quantity during the eleventh and twelfth centuries which accords with what we know of the growth of the sect. After this period the Mohammedan invasions were unfavourable to all forms of Hindu architecture. But the taste for building remained and somewhat later pious Jains again began to construct large edifices which are generally less degenerate than modern Hindu temples, though they often show traces of Mohammedan influence. Hathi Singh's temple at Ahmadabad completed in 1848 is a fine example of this modern style.

There is a considerable difference between Jain and Buddhist architecture both in intention and effect. Jain monks did not live together in large communities and there was no worship of relics. Hence the vihara and the stupa—the two principal types of Buddhist buildings—are both absent. Yet there is some resemblance between Jain temples (for instance those at Palitana) and the larger Burmese sanctuaries, such as the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. It is partly due to the same conviction, namely that the most meritorious work which a layman can perform is to multiply shrines and images. In both localities the general plan is similar. On the top of a hill or mound is a central building round which are grouped a multitude of other shrines. The repetition of chapels and images is very remarkable: in Burma they all represent Gotama, in Jain temples the figures of Tirthankaras are nominally different personalities but so alike in presentment that the laity rarely know them apart. In both styles of art white and jewelled images are common as well as groups of four sitting figures set back to back and facing the four quarters[286]: in both we meet with veritable cities of temples, on the hill tops of Gujarat and in the plain of Pagan on the banks of the Irawaddy. As some features of Burmese art are undoubtedly borrowed from India[287], the above characteristics may be due to imitation of Jain methods. It might be argued that the architectural style of late Indian Buddhism survives among the Jains but there is no proof that the multiplication of temples and images was a feature of this style. But in some points it is clear that the Jains have followed the artistic conventions of the Buddhists. Thus Parsvanatha is sheltered by a cobra's hood, like Gotama, and though the Bo-tree plays no part in the legend of the Tirthankaras, they are represented as sitting under such trees and a living tree is venerated at Palitana.

As single edifices illustrating the beauty of Jain art both in grace of design and patient elaboration of workmanship may be mentioned the Towers of Fame and Victory at Chitore, and the temples of Mt Abu. Some differences of style are visible in north and south India. In the former the essential features are a shrine with a portico attached and surmounted by a conical tower, the whole placed in a quadrangular court round which are a series of cells or chapels containing images seated on thrones. These are the Tirthankaras, almost exactly alike and of white marble, though some of the later saints are represented as black. The Svetambaras represent their Tirthankaras as clothed but in the temples of the Digambaras the images are naked.

In the south are found religious monuments of two kinds known as Bastis and Bettus. The Bastis consist of pillared vestibules leading to a shrine over which rises a dome constructed in three or four stages. The Bettus are not temples in the ordinary sense but courtyards surrounding gigantic images of a saint named Gommatesvara who is said to have been the son of the first Tirthankara[288]. The largest of these colossi is at Sravana Belgola. It is seventy feet in height and carved out of a mass of granite standing on the top of a hill and represents a sage so sunk in meditation that anthills and creepers have grown round his feet without breaking his trance. An inscription states that it was erected about 983 A.D. by the minister of a king of the Ganga dynasty[289].

But even more remarkable than these gigantic statues are the collections of temples found on several eminences, such as Girnar and Satrunjaya[290], mountain masses which rise abruptly to a height of three or four thousand feet out of level plains. On the summit of Satrunjaya are innumerable shrines, arranged in marble courts or along well-paved streets. In each enclosure is a central temple surrounded by others at the sides, and all are dominated by one which in the proportions of its spire and courtyard surpasses the rest. Only a few Yatis are allowed to pass the night in the sacred precincts and it is a strange experience to enter the gates at dawn and wander through the interminable succession of white marble courts tenanted only by flocks of sacred pigeons. On every side sculptured chapels gorgeous in gold and colour stand silent and open: within are saints sitting grave and passionless behind the lights that burn on their altars. The multitude of calm stone faces, the strange silence and emptiness, unaccompanied by any sign of neglect or decay, the bewildering repetition of shrines and deities in this aerial castle, suggest nothing built with human purpose but some petrified spirit world.

Soon after dawn a string of devotees daily ascends the hill. Most are laymen, but there is a considerable sprinkling of ascetics, especially nuns. After joining the order both sexes wear yellowish white robes and carry long sticks. They spend much of their time in visiting holy places and usually do not stop at one rest house for more than two months. The worship performed in the temples consists of simple offerings of flowers, incense and lights made with little ceremony. Pilgrims go their rounds in small bands and kneeling together before the images sing the praises of the Jinas.

6

It is remarkable that Jainism is still a living sect, whereas the Buddhists have disappeared from India. Its strength and persistence are centred in its power of enlisting the interest of the laity and of forming them into a corporation. In theory the position of the Jain and Buddhist layman is the same. Both revere and support a religious order for which they have not a vocation, and are bound by minor vows less stringent than those of the monks. But among the Buddhists the members of the order came to be regarded more and more as the true church[291] and the laity tended to become (what they actually have become in China and Japan) pious persons who revere that order as something extraneous to themselves and very often only as one among several religious organizations. Hence when in India monasteries decayed or were destroyed, little active Buddhism was left outside them. But the wandering ascetics of the Jains never concentrated the strength of the religion in themselves to the same extent; the severity of their rule limited their numbers: the laity were wealthy and practically formed a caste; persecution acted as a tonic. As a result we have a sect analogous in some ways to the Jews, Parsis, and Quakers[292], among all of whom we find the same features, namely a wealthy laity, little or no sacerdotalism and endurance of persecution.

Another question of some interest is how far Jainism should be regarded as separate from Buddhism. Historically the position seems clear. Both are offshoots of a movement which was active in India in the sixth century B.C. in certain districts and especially among the aristocracy. Of these offshoots—the survivors among many which hardly outlived their birth—Jainism was a trifle the earlier, but Buddhism was superior and more satisfying to the intellect and moral sense alike. Out of the theory and practice of religious life current in their time Gotama fashioned a beautiful vase, Mahavira a homely but still durable pot. The resemblances between the two systems are not merely obvious but fundamental. Both had their origin outside the priestly class and owed much of their success to the protection of princes. Both preach a road to salvation open to man's unaided strength and needing neither sacrifice nor revealed lore. Both are universal, for though Buddhism set about its world mission with more knowledge and grasp of the task, the Jain sutras are addressed "to Aryans and non-Aryans" and it is said that in modern times Mohammedans have been received into the Jain Church. Neither is theistic. Both believe in some form of reincarnation, in karma and in the periodical appearance of beings possessed of superhuman knowledge and called indifferently Jinas or Buddhas. The historian may therefore be disposed to regard the two religions as not differing much more than the varieties of Protestant Dissenters to be found in Great Britain. But the theologian will perceive real differences. One of the most important doctrines of Buddhism—-perhaps in the Buddha's own esteem the central doctrine—is the non-existence of the soul as a permanent entity: in Jainism on the contrary not only the human body but the whole world including inanimate matter is inhabited by individual souls who can also exist apart from matter in individual blessedness. The Jain theory of fivefold knowledge is unknown to the Buddhists, as is their theory of the Skandhas to the Jains. Secondly as to practice Jainism teaches (with some concessions in modern times) that salvation is obtainable by self-mortification but this is the method which the Buddha condemned after prolonged trial. It is clear that in his own opinion and that of his contemporaries the rule and ideal of life which he prescribed differed widely from those of the Jains, Ajivikas and other wandering ascetics.



BOOK III

PALI BUDDHISM



BOOK III

In the previous book I have treated chiefly the general characteristics of Indian religion. They persist in its later phases but great changes and additions are made. In the present book I propose to speak about the life and teaching of the Buddha which even hostile critics must admit to be a turning point in the history of Indian thought and institutions, and about the earliest forms of Buddhism. For twelve centuries or more after the death of this great genius Indian religion flows in two parallel streams, Buddhist and Brahmanic, which subsequently unite, Buddhism colouring the whole river but ceasing within India itself to have any important manifestations distinct from Brahmanism.

In a general survey it is hardly possible to follow the order of strict chronology until comparatively modern times. We cannot, for instance, give a sketch of Indian thought in the first century B.C., simply because our data do not permit us to assign certain sects and books to that period rather than to the hundred years which preceded or followed it. But we can follow with moderate accuracy the two streams of thought in their respective courses. I have wondered if I should not take Hinduism first. Its development from ancient Brahmanism is continuous and Buddhism is merely an episode in it, though a lengthy one. But many as are the lacunae in the history of Buddhism, it offers more data and documents than the history of Hinduism. We know more about the views of Asoka for instance than about those of Candragupta Maurya. I shall therefore deal first with Buddhism and then with Hinduism, while regretting that a parallel and synoptic treatment is impracticable.

The eight chapters of this book deal mainly with Pali Buddhism[293]—a convenient and non-controversial term—and not with the Mahayana, though they note the tendencies which found expression in it. In the first chapter I treat of the Buddha's life: in the second I venture to compare him with other great religious teachers: in the third I consider his doctrine as expounded in the Pali Tripitaka and in the fourth the order of mendicants which he founded. The nature and value of the Pali Canon form the subject of the fifth chapter and the sixth is occupied with the great Emperor Asoka whose name is the clearest landmark in the early history of Buddhism, and indeed of India.

The seventh and eighth chapters discuss topics which belong to Hinduism as well as to Buddhism, namely, meditation and mythology. The latter is anterior to Buddhism and it is only in a special sense that it can be called an addition or accretion. Indian thought makes clearings in the jungle of mythology, which become obliterated or diminished as the jungle grows over them again. Buddhism was the most thorough of such clearings, yet it was invaded more rapidly and completely than any other. The Vedanta and Sankhya are really, if less obviously, similar clearings. They raise no objection to popular divinities but such divinities do not come within the scope of religious philosophy as they understand it.



CHAPTER VIII

LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

1

We have hitherto been occupied with obscure and shadowy personalities. The authors of the Upanishads are nameless and even MahavIra is unknown outside India. But we now come to the career of one who must be ranked among the greatest leaders of thought that the world has seen, the Indian prince generally known as Gotama or the Buddha. His historical character has been called in question, but at the present day probably few, if any, competent judges doubt that he was a real person whose date can be fixed and whose life can be sketched at least in outline.

We have seen that apart from the personality of Gotama, ancient India was familiar with the idea of a Buddha and had even classified the attributes he should possess. Two styles of biography are therefore possible: an account of what Gotama actually was and did and an account of what a Buddha is expected to be and do. This second style prevails in later Buddhist works: they contain descriptions of the deeds and teaching of a Buddha, adapted to such facts in Gotama's life as seemed suitable for such treatment or could not be ignored. Rhys Davids has well compared them to Paradise Regained, but the supernatural element is, after the Indian fashion, more ornate.

The reader will perhaps ask what are the documents describing Gotama's sayings and doings and what warrant we have for trusting them. I will treat of this question in more detail in a later chapter and here will merely say that the Pali works called Vinaya or monastic rules and Suttas[294] or sermons recount the circumstances in which each rule was laid down and each sermon preached. Some narrative passages, such as the Sutta which relates the close of the Buddha's life and the portion of the Vinaya which tells how he obtained enlightenment and made his first converts, are of considerable length. Though these narratives are compilations which accepted new matter during several centuries, I see no reason to doubt that the oldest stratum contains the recollections of those who had seen and heard the master.

In basing the following account on the Pali Canon, I do not mean to discredit Sanskrit texts merely because they are written in that language or to deny that many Pali texts contain miraculous and unhistorical narratives[295]. But the principal Sanskrit Sutras such as the Lotus and the Diamond Cutter are purely doctrinal and those texts which profess to contain historical matter, such as the Vinayas translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, are as yet hardly accessible to European scholars. So far as they are known, they add incidents to the career of the Buddha without altering its main lines, and when the accounts of such incidents are not in themselves improbable they merit consideration. On the whole these Sanskrit texts are later and more embellished than their Pali counterparts, but it is necessary not to forget the existence of this vast store-house of traditions, which may contain many surprises[296].

Though the Pali texts do not give the story of the Buddha's life in a connected form, they do give us details about many important events in it and they offer a picture of the world in which he moved. The idea of biography was unknown to the older Indian literature. The Brahmanas and Upanishads tell us of the beliefs and practices of their sages, the doctrines they taught and the sacrifices they offered, but they rarely give even an outline of their lives. And whenever the Hindus write about a man of religion or a philosopher, their weak historical sense and their strong feeling for the importance of the teaching lead them to neglect the figure of the teacher and present a portrait which seems to us dim and impersonal. Indian saints are distinguished by what they said, not by what they did and it is a strong testimony to Gotama's individuality and force of character, that in spite of the centuries which separate us from him and the misty unreal atmosphere which in later times hangs round his name, his personality is more distinct and lifelike than that of many later teachers.

Most of the stories of his youth and childhood have a mythical air and make their first appearance in works composed long after his death, but there is no reason to distrust the traditional accounts of his lineage. He was the son of Suddhodana of the Kshatriya clan known as Sakya or Sakiya[297]. In later literature his father is usually described as a king but this statement needs qualification. The Sakyas were a small aristocratic republic. At the time of the Buddha's birth they recognized the suzerainty of the neighbouring kingdom of Kosala or Oudh and they were subsequently annexed by it, but, so long as they were independent, all that we know of their government leads us to suppose that they were not a monarchy like Kosala and Magadha. The political and administrative business of the clan was transacted by an assembly which met in a council hall[298] at Kapilavatthu. Its president was styled Raja but we do not know how he was selected nor for how long he held office. The Buddha's father is sometimes spoken of as Raja, sometimes as if he were a simple citizen. Some scholars think the position was temporary and elective[299]. But in any case it seems clear that he was not a Maharaja like Ajatasattu and other monarchs of the period. He was a prominent member of a wealthy and aristocratic family rather than a despot. In some passages[300] Brahmans are represented as discussing the Buddha's claims to respect. It is said that he is of a noble and wealthy family but not that he is the son of a king or heir to the throne, though the statement, if true, would be so obvious and appropriate that its omission is sufficient to disprove it. The point is of psychological importance, for the later literature in its desire to emphasize the sacrifice made by the Buddha exaggerates the splendour and luxury by which he was surrounded in youth and produces the impression that his temperament was something like that reflected in the book of Ecclesiastes, the weary calm, bred of satiety and disenchantment, of one who has possessed everything and found everything to be but vanity. But this is not the dominant note of the Buddha's discourses as we have them. He condemns the pleasures and ambitions of the world as unsatisfying, but he stands before us as one who has resisted and vanquished temptation rather than as a disillusioned pleasure-seeker. The tone of these sermons accords perfectly with the supposition, supported by whatever historical data we possess, that he belonged to a fighting aristocracy, active in war and debate, wealthy according to the standard of the times and yielding imperfect obedience to the authority of kings and priests. The Pitakas allude several times to the pride of the Sakyas, and in spite of the gentleness and courtesy of the Buddha this family trait is often apparent in his attitude, in the independence of his views, his calm disregard of Brahmanic pretensions and the authority that marks his utterances.

The territory of the Sakyas lay about the frontier which now divides Nepal from the United Provinces, between the upper Rapti and the Gandak rivers, a hundred miles or so to the north of Benares. The capital was called Kapilavatthu[301], and the mention of several other towns in the oldest texts indicates that the country was populous. Its wealth was derived chiefly from rice-fields and cattle. The uncultivated parts were covered with forest and often infested by robbers. The spot where the Buddha was born was known as the Lumbini Park and the site, or at least what was supposed to be the site in Asoka's time, is marked by a pillar erected by that monarch at a place now called Rummindei[302]. His mother was named Maya and was also of the Sakya clan. Tradition states that she died seven days after his birth and that he was brought up by her sister, Mahaprajapati, who was also a wife of Suddhodana. The names of other relatives are preserved, but otherwise the older documents tell us nothing of his childhood and the copious legends of the later church seem to be poetical embellishments. The Sutta-Nipata contains the story of an aged seer named Asita who came to see the child and, much like Simeon, prophesied his future greatness but wept that he himself must die before hearing the new gospel.

The personal name of the Buddha was Siddhartha in Sanskrit or Siddhattha in Pali, meaning he who has achieved his object, but it is rarely used. Persons who are introduced in the Pitakas as addressing him directly either employ a title or call him Gotama (Sanskrit Gautama). This was the name of his gotra or gens and roughly corresponds to a surname, being less comprehensive than the clan name Sakya. The name Gotama is applied in the Pitakas to other Sakyas such as the Buddha's father and his cousin Ananda. It is said to be still in use in India and has been borne by many distinguished Hindus. But since it seemed somewhat irreverent to speak of the Buddha merely by his surname, it became the custom to describe him by titles. The most celebrated of these is the word Buddha[303] itself, the awakened or wise one. But in Pali works he is described just as frequently by the name of Bhagava or the Lord. The titles of Sakya-Muni and Sakya-Simha have also passed into common use and the former is his usual designation in the Sanskrit sutras. The word Tathagata, of somewhat obscure signification[304], is frequently found as an equivalent of Buddha and is put into the mouth of Gotama himself as a substitute for the first personal pronoun.

We can only guess what was the religious and moral atmosphere in which the child grew up. There were certainly Brahmans in the Sakya territory: everyone had heard of their Vedic lore, their ceremonies and their claims to superiority. But it is probable that their influence was less complete here than further west[305] and that even before this time they encountered a good deal of scepticism and independent religious sentiment. This may have been in part military impatience of priestly pedantry, but if the Sakyas were not submissive sheep, their waywardness was not due to want of interest in religion. A frequent phrase in the Buddha's discourses speaks of the "highest goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen leave their homes and go forth into homelessness." The religious mendicant seemed the proper incarnation of this ideal to which Kshatriyas as well as Brahmans aspired, and we are justified in supposing that the future Buddha's thoughts would naturally turn towards the wandering life. The legend represents him as carefully secluded from all disquieting sights and as learning the existence of old age, sickness and death only by chance encounters which left a profound impression. The older texts do not emphasize this view of his mental development, though they do not preclude it. It is stated incidentally that his parents regretted his abandonment of worldly life and it is natural to suppose that they may have tried to turn his mind to secular interests and pleasures[306]. His son, Rahula, is mentioned several times in the Pitakas but his wife only once and then not by name but as "the princess who was the mother of Rahula[307]." His separation from her becomes in the later legend the theme of an affecting tale but the scanty allusions to his family found in the Pitakas are devoid of sentimental touches. A remarkable passage is preserved in the Anguttara Nikaya[308] describing his feelings as a young man and may be the origin of the story[309] about the four visions of old age, sickness, death and of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort in which he lived[310], he says that he reflected how people feel repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death. But is this right? "I also" he thought "am subject to decay and am not free from the power of old age, sickness and death. Is it right that I should feel horror, repulsion and disgust when I see another in such plight? And when I reflected thus, my disciples, all the joy of life which there is in life died within me."

No connected account of his renunciation of the world has been found in the Pitakas but[311] people are represented as saying that in spite of his parents' grief he "went out from the household life into the homeless state" while still a young man. Accepted tradition, confirmed by the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, says that he retired from worldly life when he was twenty-nine years old. The event is also commemorated in a poem of the Sutta-Nipata[312] which reads like a very ancient ballad.

It relates how Bimbisara, King of Magadha, looking out from his palace, saw an unknown ascetic, and feeling he was no ordinary person went himself to visit him. It would appear from this that Gotama on leaving his family went down to the plains and visited Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, now Rajgir to the south of Patna. The teachers of the Ganges valley had probably a greater reputation for learning and sanctity than the rough wits of the Sakya land and this may have attracted Gotama. At any rate he applied himself diligently to acquire what knowledge could be learned from contemporary teachers of religion. We have an account put into his own mouth[313] of his experiences as the pupil of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta but it gives few details of his studies. It would appear however that they both had a fixed system (dhamma) to impart and that their students lived in religious discipline (vinaya) as members of an Order. They were therefore doing exactly what the Buddha himself did later on a larger scale and with more conspicuous success. The instruction, we gather, was oral. Gotama assimilated it thoroughly and rapidly but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation[314]. He evidently accepted his teachers' general ideas about belief and conduct—a dhamma, a vinaya, and the practice of meditation—but rejected the content of their teaching as inadequate. So he went away.

The European mystic knows the dangers of Quietism[315]. When Molinos and other quietists praise the Interior Silence in which the soul neither speaks nor desires nor thinks, they suggest that the suspension of all mental activity is good in itself. But more robust seekers hold that this "orison of quiet" is merely a state of preparation, not the end of the quest, and valuable merely because the soul recuperates therein and is ready for further action. Some doctrine akin to that of the quietists seems to underlie the mysterious old phrases in which the Buddha's two teachers tried to explain their trances, and he left them for much the same reasons as led the Church to condemn Quietism. He did not say that the trances are bad; indeed he represented them as productive of happiness[316] in a sense which Europeans can hardly follow. But he clearly refused to admit that they were the proper end of the religious life. He felt there was something better and he set out to find it.

The interval between his abandonment of the world and his enlightenment is traditionally estimated at seven years and this accords with our other data. But we are not told how long he remained with his two teachers nor where they lived. He says however that after leaving them he wandered up and down the land of Magadha, so that their residence was probably in or near that district[317]. He settled at a place called Uruvela. "There" he says "I thought to myself, truly this is a pleasant spot and a beautiful forest. Clear flows the river and pleasant are the bathing places: all around are meadows and villages." Here he determined to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. The place is in the neighbourhood of Bodh-Gaya, near the river now called Phalgu or Lilanja but formerly Neranjara. The fertile fields and gardens, the flights of steps and temples are modern additions but the trees and the river still give the sense of repose and inspiration which Gotama felt, an influence alike calming to the senses and stimulating to the mind. Buddhism, though in theory setting no value on the pleasures of the eye, is not in practice disdainful of beauty, as witness the many allusions to the Buddha's personal appearance, the persistent love of art, and the equally persistent love of nature which is found in such early poems as the Theragatha and still inspires those who select the sites of monasteries throughout the Buddhist world from Burma to Japan. The example of the Buddha, if we may believe the story, shows that he felt the importance of scenery and climate in the struggle before him and his followers still hold that a holy life is led most easily in beautiful and peaceful landscapes.

2

Hitherto we have found allusions to the events of the Buddha's life rather than consecutive statements and narratives but for the next period, comprising his struggle for enlightenment, its attainment and the commencement of his career as a teacher, we have several accounts, both discourses put into his own mouth and narratives in the third person like the beginning of the Mahavagga. It evidently was felt that this was the most interesting and critical period of his life and for it, as for the period immediately preceding his death, the Pitakas provide the elements of a biography. The accounts vary as to the amount of detail and supernatural events which they contain, but though the simplest is perhaps the oldest, it does not follow that events consistent with it but only found in other versions are untrue. One cannot argue that anyone recounting his spiritual experiences is bound to give a biographically complete picture. He may recount only what is relevant to the purpose of his discourse.

Gotama's ascetic life at Uruvela is known as the wrestling or struggle for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration[318]. Fire, he thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but it can from dry wood. Even so must the body be purged of its humours to make it a fit receptacle for illumination and knowledge. So he began a series of terrible fasts and sat "with set teeth and tongue pressed against the palate" until in this spiritual wrestling the sweat poured down from his arm pits. Then he applied himself to meditation accompanied by complete cessation of breathing, and, as he persevered and went from stage to stage of this painful exercise, he heard the blood rushing in his head and felt as if his skull was being split, as if his belly were being cut open with a butcher's knife, and finally as if he were thrown into a pit of burning coals. Elsewhere[319] he gives further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself. He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on seeds and grass, and for one period literally on dung. He wore haircloth or other irritating clothes: he plucked out his hair and beard: he stood continuously: he lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented a cemetery—that is a place where corpses were thrown to decay or be eaten by birds and beasts—and lay among the rotting bodies.

But no enlightenment, no glimpse into the riddle of the world came of all this, so, although he was nearly at death's door, he determined to abstain from food altogether. But spirits appeared and dissuaded him, saying that if he attempted thus to kill himself they would nourish him by infusing a celestial elixir through his skin and he reflected that he might as well take a little food[320]. So he took a palmful or two of bean soup. He was worn almost to a shadow, he says. "When I touched my belly, I felt my backbone through it and when I touched my back, I felt my belly—so near had my back and my belly come together through this fasting. And when I rubbed my limbs to refresh them the hair fell off[321]." Then he reflected that he had reached the limit of self-mortification and yet attained no enlightenment. There must be another way to knowledge. And he remembered how once in his youth he had sat in the shade of a rose apple tree and entered into the stage of contemplation known as the first rapture. That, he now thought, must be the way to enlightenment: why be afraid of such bliss? But to attain it, he must have more strength and to get strength he must eat. So he ate some rice porridge. There were five monks living near him, hoping that when he found the Truth he would tell it to them. But when they saw that he had begun to take food, their faith failed and they went away.

The Buddha then relates how, having taken food, he began to meditate and passed through four stages of contemplation, culminating in pure self-possession and equanimity, free alike from all feeling of pain or ease. Such meditation was nothing miraculous but supposed to be within the power of any trained ascetic. Then there arose before him a vision of his previous births, the hundreds of thousands of existences with all their details of name, family and caste through which he had passed. This was succeeded by a second and wider vision in which he saw the whole universe as a system of karma and reincarnation, composed of beings noble or mean, happy or unhappy, continually "passing away according to their deeds," leaving one form of existence and taking shape in another. Finally, he understood the nature of error[322] and of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. "In me thus set free the knowledge of freedom arose and I knew 'Rebirth has been destroyed, the higher life has been led; what had to be done has been done, I have no more to do with this world[323].' This third knowledge came to me in the last watch of the night: ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen, darkness was destroyed, light had arisen, as I sat there earnest, strenuous, resolute[324]."

On attaining enlightenment he at first despaired of preaching the truth to others. He reflected that his doctrine was abstruse and that mankind are given over to their desires. How can such men understand the chain of cause and effect or teaching about Nirvana and the annihilation of desire? So he determined to remain quiet and not to preach. Then the deity Brahma Sahampati appeared before him and besought him to preach the Truth, pleading that some men could understand. The Buddha surveyed the world with his mind's eye and saw the different natures of mankind. "As in a pool of lotuses, blue, red or white, some lotuses born in the water, grown up in the water, do not rise above the water but thrive hidden under the water and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, reach to the surface: and other lotuses, blue, red or white, born in the water, grown up in the water, stand up out of the water and the water does not touch them." Thus did he perceive the world to be and he said to Brahma "The doors of immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear, show faith."

Then he began to wonder to whom he should first preach his doctrine, and he thought of his former teachers. But a spirit warned him that they had recently died. Then he thought of the five monks who had tended him during his austerities but left him when he ceased to fast. By his superhuman power of vision he perceived that they were living at Benares in the deer park, Isipatana. So, after remaining awhile at Uruvela he started to find them and on the way met a naked ascetic, in answer to whose enquiries he proclaimed himself as the Buddha; "I am the Holy One in this world, I am the highest teacher, I alone am the perfect supreme Buddha, I have gained calm and nirvana, I go to Benares to set moving the wheels of righteousness[325]. I will beat the drum of immortality in the darkness of this world." But the ascetic replied. "It may be so, friend," shook his head, took another road and went away, with the honour of being the first sceptic.

When the Buddha reached the deer park[326], a wood where ascetics were allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his exertions, and turned to a luxurious life. But as he drew near they were overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him, and brought water to wash his feet. While showing him this honour they called him Friend Gotama but he replied that it was not proper to address the Tathagata[327] thus. He had become a Buddha and was ready to teach them the Truth but the monks demurred saying that if he had been unable to win enlightenment while practising austerities, he was not likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease. But he overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them, apparently during some days, for we are told that they went out to beg alms.

Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not perhaps the Buddha's own words but the reminiscences of some one who had heard him describe the crisis of his life? Like so much of the Pitakas the narrative has an air of patchwork. Many striking passages, such as the descriptions of the raptures through which he passed, occur in other connections but the formulae are ancient and their use here may be as early and legitimate as elsewhere. In its main outlines the account is simple, unpretentious and human. Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by self-mortification: finds that this is the wrong way: tries a more natural method and succeeds: debates whether he shall become a teacher and at first hesitates. These are not features which the average Indian hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would invent or emphasize. Towards the end of the narrative the language is more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic. The supernatural intervention recorded is not really great. It amounts to this, that in mental crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat similar to those delivered by the daemon of Socrates[328]. The appearance of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse, which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth and his victory.

Other versions of the enlightenment give other incidents which are not rendered less credible by their omission from the narrative quoted, for it is clearly an epitome put together for a special didactic purpose. But still the story as related at the beginning of the Mahavagga of the Vinaya has a stronger smack of mythology than the passages quoted from the Sutta-Pitaka. In these last the Bodhi-tree[329] is mentioned only incidentally, which is natural, for it is a detail which would impress later piety rather than the Buddha himself. But there is no reason to be sceptical as to the part it has played in Buddhist history. Even if we had not been told that he sat under a tree, we might surmise that he did so, for to sit under a tree or in a cave was the only alternative for a homeless ascetic. The Mahavagga states that after attaining Buddhahood he sat crosslegged at the foot of the tree for seven days uninterruptedly, enjoying the bliss of emancipation, and while there thought out the chain of causation which is only alluded to in the suttas quoted above. He also sat under three other trees, seven days under each. Heavy rain came on but Mucalinda, the king of the serpents, "came out of his abode and seven times encircled the body of the Lord with his windings and spread his great hood over the Lord's head." Here we are in the domain of mythology: this is not a vignette from the old religious life on the banks of the Neranjara but a work of sacred art: the Holy Supreme Buddha sitting immovable and imperturbable in the midst of a storm sheltered by the folds of some pious monster that the artist's fancy has created.

The narrative quoted from the Majjhima-Nikaya does not mention that the Buddha during his struggle for enlightenment was assailed or tempted by Mara, the personification of evil and of transitory pleasures but also of death. But that such an encounter—in some respects analogous to the temptation of Christ by the Devil—formed part of the old tradition is indicated by several passages in the Pitakas[330] and not merely by the later literature where it assumes a prominent and picturesque form. This struggle is psychologically probable enough but the origin of the story, which is exhaustively discussed in Windisch's Buddha und Mara, seems to lie not so much in any account which the Buddha may have given of his mental struggles as in amplifications of old legends and in dramatizations of metaphors which he may have used about conquering death.

The Bodhi-tree is still shown at Bodh-Gaya. It stands on a low terrace behind the temple, the whole lying in a hollow, below the level of the surrounding modern buildings, and still attracts many pilgrims from all Buddhist lands though perhaps not so many as the tree at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, which is said to be sprung from one of its branches transplanted thither. Whatever title it may have to the reverence of the faithful rests on lineage rather than identity, for the growth which we see at Bodh-Gaya now cannot claim to be the branches under which the Buddha sat or even the trunk which Asoka tended. At best it is a modern stem sprung from the seeds of the old tree, and this descent is rendered disputable by legends of its destruction and miraculous restoration. Even during the time that Sir A. Cunningham knew the locality from 1862 to 1880 it would seem that the old trunk decayed and was replaced by scions grown from seed.

The texts quoted above leave the Buddha occupied in teaching the five monks in the Deer Park and the Mahavagga gives us the text of the sermon[331] with which he opened his instruction. It is entitled Turning the Wheel of Righteousness, and is also known as The Sermon at Benares. It is a very early statement of the main doctrines of primitive Buddhism and I see no reason to doubt that it contains the ideas and phrases of the Buddha. The gist of the sermon is extremely simple. He first says that those who wish to lead a religious life should avoid the two extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture and follow a middle way. Then he enunciates what he calls the four truths[332] about evil or suffering and the way to make an end of it. He opens very practically, and it may be noticed that abstruse as are many of his discourses they generally go straight to the heart of some contemporary interest. Here he says that self-indulgence is low and self-mortification crazy: that both are profitless and neither is the religious life. That consists in walking in the middle path, or noble eightfold path defined in a celebrated formula as right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture. He then enunciates the four truths. The first declares that all clinging to existence involves suffering. I shall have occasion to examine later the pessimism which is often said to characterize Buddhism and Indian thought generally. Here let it suffice to say that the first truth must be taken in conjunction with the others. The teaching of the Buddha is a teaching not so much of pessimism as of emancipation: but emancipation implies the existence of evil from which men must be freed: a happy world would not need it. Buddhism recognizes the evil of the world but it is not on that account a religion of despair: the essence of it is that it provides a remedy and an escape.

The second and third truths must be taken together and in connection with the formula known as the chain of causation (paticcasamuppada). Everything has a cause and produces an effect. If this is, that is: if this is not, then that is not. This simple principle of uniform causation is applied to the whole universe, gods and men, heaven, earth and hell. Indian thought has always loved wide applications of fundamental principles and here a law of the universe is propounded in a form both simple and abstract. Everything exists in virtue of a cause and does not exist if that cause is absent. Suffering has a cause and if that cause can be detected and eliminated, suffering itself will be eliminated. This cause of evil is Tanha, the thirst or craving for existence, pleasure and success. And the cure is to remove it. It may seem to the European that this is a proposal to cure the evils of life by removing life itself but when in the fourth truth we come to the course to be followed by the seeker after salvation—the eightfold path—we find it neither extravagant nor morbid. We may imagine that an Indian of that time asking different schools of thinkers for the way to salvation would have been told by Brahmans (if indeed they had been willing to impart knowledge to any but an accredited pupil) that he who performs a certain ceremony goes to the abode of the gods: other teachers would have insisted on a course of fasting and self-torture: others again like Sanjaya and Makkhali would have given argumentative and unpractical answers. The Buddha's answer is simple and practical: seven-eighths of it would be accepted in every civilized country as a description of the good life. It is not merely external, for it insists on right thought and right aspiration: the motive and temper are as important as the act. It does not neglect will-power and activity, for right action, right livelihood and right effort are necessary—a point to be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy unpractical religion. But no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation, is meant to be its crown and fulfilment. It takes the place of prayer and communion with the deity and the Buddha promises the beatific vision in this life to those who persevere. The negative features of the Path are also important. It contains no mention of ceremonial, austerities, gods, many or one, nor of the Buddha himself. He is the discoverer and teacher of the truth; beyond that his personality plays no part.

But we are here treating of his life rather than of his doctrine and must now return to the events which are said to have followed the first sermon.

The first converts had, even before embracing the Buddha's teaching, been followers of a religious life but the next batch of recruits came from the wealthy mercantile families of Benares. The first was a youth named Yasa who joined the order, while his father, mother and former wife became lay believers. Then came first four and subsequently fifty friends of Yasa and joined the order. "At that time" says the Mahavagga. "there were sixty-one Arhats[333] in the world," so that at first arhatship seems to have followed immediately on ordination. Arhat, it may be mentioned, is the commonest word in early Buddhist literature (more common than any phrase about nirvana) for describing sanctity and spiritual perfection. The arhat is one who has broken the fetters of the senses and passions, for whom there will be no new birth or death, and who lives in this world like the Buddha, detached but happy and beneficent.

The Buddha then addressed his followers and said—"Monks, I am delivered from all fetters, human and divine, and so are you. Go now and wander for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain and for the welfare of gods and men. Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle and glorious in the end, in the spirit and in the letter; proclaim a consummate, perfect and pure life of holiness." The monks then went forth and returned bringing candidates to be formally ordained by the Buddha. But seeing that these journeys caused fatigue and trouble, he authorized the ordained monks to confer ordination without reference to himself. He then returned to Uruvela, where he had dwelt before attaining Buddhahood, and converted a thousand Jatilas, that is to say Brahmans living the life of hermits, which involved the abandonment of household life but not of sacrifices. The admission of these hermits to the order is probably historical and explains the presence among the Buddha's disciples of a tendency towards self-mortification of which he himself did not wholly approve. The Mahavagga[334] contains a series of short legends about these occurrences, one of them in two versions. The narratives are miraculous but have an ancient tone and probably represent the type of popular story current about the Buddha shortly after or even during his life. One of them is a not uncommon subject in Buddhist art. It relates how the chamber in which a Brahman called Kassapa kept his sacred fire was haunted by a fire-breathing magical serpent. The Buddha however spent the night in this chamber and after a contest in which both emitted flames succeeded in conquering the beast. After converting the Jatilas he preached to them the celebrated Fire Sermon, said to have been delivered on the eminence now called Brahma Yoen[335] near Gaya and possibly inspired by the spectacle of grass fires which at some seasons may be seen creeping over every hill-side in an Indian night, "Everything, Monks, is burning and how is it burning? The eye is burning: what the eye sees is burning: thoughts based on the eye are burning: the contact of the eye (with visible things) is burning and the sensation produced by that contact, whether pleasant, painful or indifferent is also burning. With what fire is it burning? It is burning with the fire of lust, the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with the sorrows of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair."

The Buddha now went on with his converts to Rajagaha. He stopped in a bamboo grove outside the town and here the king, Bimbisara, waited on him and with every sign of respect asked him to take food in his palace. It was on this occasion that we first hear of him accepting an invitation to dinner[336], which he did frequently during the rest of his career. After the repast the king presented a pleasure garden just outside the town "to the fraternity of monks with the Buddha at their head." At that time another celebrated teacher named Sanjaya was stopping at Rajagaha with a train of two hundred and fifty disciples. Two of them, Sariputta and Moggallana, joined the Buddha's order and took with them the whole body of their companions.

The Mahavagga proceeds to relate that many of the young nobility joined the order and that the people began to murmur saying "The Monk Gotama causes fathers to beget no sons and families to become extinct." And again "The Great Monk has come to Giribbaja of the Magadha people, leading with him all the followers of Sanjaya. Whom will he lead off next?" When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement would only last seven days and bade his followers answer with the following verse "It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the Buddhas, lead men. Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power of truth?" It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and enemies of the Buddha.

3

It now becomes difficult to give dates but the Mahavagga[337] relates that the Buddha stopped some time at Rajagaha and then revisited his native town, Kapilavatthu. That he should have done so is natural enough but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya. Its object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the rules of the order. Irrelevant incidents are ignored and those which are noticed are regarded simply as the circumstances which led to the formulation of certain regulations. "The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country near Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Grove. And in the forenoon having put on his robes and taken his alms bowl he went to the home of the Sakka Suddhodana[338] and sat down on a seat prepared for him. Then the princess who was the mother of Rahula[339] said to him 'This is your father, Rahula, go and ask him for your inheritance.' Then young Rahula went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said 'Your shadow, Monk, is a place of bliss.' Then the Lord rose from his seat and went away but Rahula followed him saying 'Give me my inheritance, Monk.' Then the Lord said to Sariputta (who had already become his chief disciple) 'Well, Sariputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young Rahula.' Sariputta asked how he should do so and the Buddha explained the forms.

"Then the Sakka Suddhodana went to the place where the Lord was and after respectfully saluting him asked for a boon. 'Lord, when the Blessed One gave up the world, it was great pain to me and so it was when Nanda[340] did the same. Great too was my pain when Rahula did it. The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and reaches the marrow. Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a son without his parents' permission.' The Buddha assented. Three or four years later Suddhodana died."

From Kapilavatthu the Buddha is said to have gone to Savatthi, the capital of Kosala where Pasenadi was king, but now we lose the chronological thread and do not find it again until the last years of his life. Few of the numerous incidents recorded in the Pitakas can be dated. The narrators resemble those Indian artists who when carving a story in relief place all the principal figures in one panel without attempting to mark the sequence of the incidents which are represented simultaneously. For the connection of events with the Buddha's teaching the compilers of the Pitakas had an eye; for their connection with his life none at all. And though this attitude is disquieting to the historic sense it is not unjustifiable. The object and the achievement of the Buddha was to preach a certain doctrine and to found an order. All the rest—years and countries, pains and pleasures—was of no importance. And it would appear that we have not lost much: we should have a greater sense of security if we had an orderly account of his wanderings and his relations with the kings of his time, but after he had once entered on his ministry the events which broke the peaceful tenour of his long life were few and we probably know most of them though we cannot date them. For about forty-five years he moved about Kosala, Magadha and Anga visiting the two capitals Savatthi and Rajagaha and going as far west as the country of the Kurus. He took little part in politics or worldly life, though a hazy but not improbable story[341] represents him as pacifying the Sakyas and Koliyas, who were on the point of fighting about the water of the Rohini which irrigated the lands of both clans. He uniformly enjoyed the respect and attention of kings and the wealthy classes. Doubtless he was not popular with the Brahmans or with those good people who disliked seeing fine young men made into monks. But it does not appear that his teaching provoked any serious tumults or that he was troubled by anything but schism within the order. We have, if not a history, at least a picture of a life which though peaceful was active and benevolent but aloof, majestic and authoritative.

We are told[342] that at first his disciples wandered about at all seasons but it was not long before he bade them observe the already established routine for itinerant monks of travelling on foot during the greater part of the year but of resting for three months during the rainy season known as Vassa and beginning some time in June. When moving about he appears to have walked from five to ten miles a day, regulating his movements so as to reach inhabited places in time to collect food for the midday meal. The afternoon he devoted to meditation and in the evening gave instruction. He usually halted in woods or gardens on the outskirts of villages and cities, and often on the bank of a river or tank, for shade and water would be the first requisites for a wandering monk. On these journeys he was accompanied by a considerable following of disciples: five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often mentioned and though the numbers may be exaggerated there is no reason to doubt that the band was large. The suttas generally commence with a picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was delivered. The Buddha is walking along the high road from Rajagaha to Nalanda with a great company of disciples. Or he is journeying through Kosala and halting in a mango-grove on the banks of the Aciravati river. Or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahman village and the people go out to him. The principal Brahmans, taking their siesta on the upper terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what it means. On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha should pay the first call and ultimately visit him. Or he is halting on the shore of the Gaggara Lake at Campa in Western Bengal, sitting under the fragrant white flowers of a campaka tree. Or he visits the hills overlooking Rajagaha haunted by peacocks and by wandering monks. Often he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely rest houses for travellers. But it became more and more the custom for the devout to erect such buildings for his special use and even in his lifetime they assumed the proportions of monasteries[343]. The people of Vesali built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the Gabled Hall. It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the Buddha. Such private rooms (especially those which he occupied at Savatthi), were called Gandhakuti or the perfumed chamber. At Kapilavatthu[344] the Sakyas erected a new building known as Santhagara. The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting late into the night which he delivered sitting with his back against a pillar. At last he said his back was tired and lay down, leaving Ananda to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less exhausted than the preacher.

But perhaps the residence most frequently mentioned is that in the garden called Jetavana at Savatthi. Anathapindika, a rich merchant of that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Rajagaha and invited him to spend the next rainy season at Savatthi[345]. On returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided that the garden of the Prince Jeta best satisfied his requirements. He obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover the whole ground with coins. When all except a small space close to the gateway had been thus covered Jeta asked to be allowed to share in the gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway with a room over it. "And Anathapindika the householder built dwelling rooms and retiring rooms and storerooms and halls with fireplaces, and outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the bath rooms and ponds and roofed open sheds[346]."

Buddhaghosa has given an account[347] of the way in which the Buddha was wont to spend his days when stopping in some such resting-place, and his description is confirmed by the numerous details given in the Pitakas. He rose before dawn and would often retire and meditate until it was time to set out on the round for alms but not unfrequently he is represented as thinking that it was too early to start and that he might first visit some monk of the neighbourhood. Then he went round the town or village with his disciples, carrying his almsbowl and accepting everything put into it. Sometimes he talked to his disciples while walking[348]. Frequently, instead of begging for alms, he accepted an invitation to dine with some pious person who asked the whole band of disciples and made strenuous culinary efforts. Such invitations were given at the conclusion of a visit paid to the Buddha on the previous day and were accepted by him with silence which signified consent. On the morning of the next day the host announced in person or through a messenger that the meal was ready and the Buddha taking his mantle and bowl went to the house. The host waited on the guests with his own hands, putting the food which he had prepared into their bowls. After the repast the Buddha delivered a discourse or catechized the company. He did the same with his own disciples when he collected food himself and returned home to eat it. He took but one meal a day[349], between eleven and twelve, and did not refuse meat when given to him, provided that he did not know the animals had been slaughtered expressly for his food. When he had given instruction after the meal he usually retired to his chamber or to a quiet spot under trees for repose and meditation. On one occasion[350] he took his son Rahula with him into a wood at this hour to impart some of the deepest truths to him, but as a rule he gave no further instruction until the late afternoon.

The Pitakas represent all believers as treating the Buddha with the greatest respect but the salutations and titles which they employ hardly exceed those ordinarily used in speaking to eminent persons[351]. Kings were at this time addressed as Deva, whereas the Buddha's usual title is Bhagava or Bhante, Lord. A religious solemnity and deliberation prevails in the interviews which he grants but no extravagance of adoration is recorded. Visitors salute him by bowing with joined hands, sit respectfully on one side while he instructs them and in departing are careful to leave him on their right hand. He accepts such gifts as food, clothes, gardens and houses but rejects all ceremonial honours. Thus Prince Bodhi[352] when receiving him carpeted his mansion with white cloths but the Buddha would not walk on them and remained standing at the entrance till they were taken up.

The introduction to the Ariyapariyesana-Sutta gives a fairly complete picture of a day in his life at Savatthi. It relates how in the morning he took his bowl and mantle and went to the town to collect food. While he was away, some monks told his personal attendant Ananda that they wished to hear a discourse from him, as it was long since they had had the privilege. Ananda suggested that they had better go to the hermitage of the Brahman Rammaka near the town. The Buddha returned, ate his meal and then said "Come, Ananda, let us go to the terrace of Migara's mother[353] and stay there till evening." They went there and spent the day in meditation. Towards evening the Buddha rose and said "Let us go to the old bath to refresh our limbs." After they had bathed, Ananda suggested that they should go to Rammaka's hermitage: the Buddha assented by his silence and they went together. Within the hermitage were many monks engaged in instructive conversation, so the Buddha waited at the door till there was a pause in the talk. Then he coughed and knocked. The monks opened the door, and offered him a seat. After a short conversation, he recounted to them how he had striven for and obtained Buddhahood.

These congregations were often prolonged late into the night. We hear for instance how he sat on the terrace belonging to Migara's mother[354] in the midst of an assembly of monks waiting for his words, still and silent in the light of the full moon; how a monk would rise, adjusting his robe so as to leave one shoulder bare, bow with his hands joined and raised to his forehead and ask permission to put a question and the Lord would reply, Be seated, monk, ask what you will. But sometimes in these nightly congregations the silence was unbroken. When King Ajatasattu went to visit him[355] in the mango grove of Jivaka he was seized with sudden fear at the unearthly stillness of the place and suspected an ambush. "Fear not, O King," said Jivaka, "I am playing you no tricks. Go straight on. There in the pavilion hall the lamps are burning ... and there is the Blessed One sitting against the middle pillar, facing the east with the brethren round him." And when the king beheld the assembly seated in perfect silence, calm as a clear lake, he exclaimed "Would that my son might have such calm as this assembly now has."

The major part of the Buddha's activity was concerned with the instruction of his disciples and the organization of the Sangha or order. Though he was ready to hear and teach all, the portrait presented to us is not that of a popular preacher who collects and frequents crowds but rather that of a master, occupied with the instruction of his pupils, a large band indeed but well prepared and able to appreciate and learn by heart teaching which, though freely offered to the whole world, was somewhat hard to untrained ears. In one passage[356] an enquirer asks him why he shows more zeal in teaching some than others. The answer is, if a landowner had three fields, one excellent, one middling and one of poor soil, would he not first sow the good field, then the middling field, and last of all the bad field, thinking to himself; it will just produce fodder for the cattle? So the Buddha preaches first to his own monks, then to lay-believers, and then, like the landowner who sows the bad field last, to Brahmans, ascetics and wandering monks of other sects, thinking if they only understand one word, it will do them good for a long while. It was to such congregations of disciples or to enquirers belonging to other religious orders that he addressed his most important discourses, iterating in grave numbered periods the truths concerning the reality of sorrow and the equal reality of salvation, as he sat under a clump of bamboos or in the shade of a banyan, in sight perhaps of a tank where the lotuses red, white and blue, submerged or rising from the water, typified the various classes of mankind.

He did not start by laying down any constitution for his order. Its rules were formed entirely by case law. Each incident and difficulty was referred to him as it arose and his decision was accepted as the law on that point. During his last illness he showed a noble anxiety not to hamper his followers by the prestige of his name but to leave behind him a body of free men, able to be a light and a help to themselves. But a curious passage[357] represents an old monk as saying immediately after his death "Weep not, brethren; we are well rid of the Great Monk. We used to be annoyed by being told, 'This beseems you and this does not beseem you. But now we shall be able to do what we like and not have to do what we don't like.'" Clearly the laxer disciples felt the Master's hand to be somewhat heavy and we might have guessed as much. For though Gotama had a breadth of view rare in that or in any age, though he refused to multiply observances or to dogmatize, every sutta indicates that he was a man of exceptional authority and decision; what he has laid down he has laid down; there is no compulsion or punishment, no vow of obedience or sacrificium intellectus; but it is equally clear that there is no place in the order for those who in great or small think differently from the master.

In shepherding his flock he had the assistance of his senior disciples. Of these the most important were Sariputta and Moggallana, both of them Brahmans who left their original teacher Sanjaya to join him at the outset of his ministry. Sariputta[358] enjoyed his confidence so fully that he acted as his representative and gave authoritative expositions of doctrine. The Buddha even compared him to the eldest son of an Emperor who assists his father in the government. But both he and Moggallana died before their master and thus did not labour independently. Another important disciple Upali survived him and probably contributed materially to the codification of the Vinaya. Anuruddha and Ananda, both of them Sakyas, are also frequently mentioned, especially the latter who became his personal attendant[359] and figures in the account of his illness and death as the beloved disciple to whom his last instructions were committed. These two together with four other young Sakya nobles and Upali joined the order twenty-five years before Gotama's death and perhaps formed an inner circle of trusted relatives, though we have no reason to think there was any friction between them and Brahmans like Sariputta. Upali is said to have been barber of the Sakyas. It is not easy to say what his social status may have been, but it probably did not preclude intimacy.

The Buddha was frequently occupied with maintaining peace and order among his disciples. Though the profession of a monk excluded worldly advancement, it was held in great esteem and was hence adopted by ambitious and quarrelsome men who had no true vocation. The troubles which arose in the Sangha are often ascribed in the Vinaya to the Chabbaggiyas, six brethren who became celebrated in tradition as spirits of mischief and who are evidently made the peg on which these old monkish anecdotes are hung. As a rule the intervention of the Buddha was sufficient to restore peace, but one passage[360] indicates resistance to his authority. The brethren quarrelled so often that the people said it was a public scandal. The Buddha endeavoured to calm the disputants, but one of them replied, "Lord, let the Blessed One quietly enjoy the bliss which he has obtained in this life. The responsibility for these quarrels will rest with us alone." This seems a clear hint that the Blessed One had better mind his own business. Renewed injunctions and parables met with no better result. "And the Blessed One thought" says the narrative "'truly these fools are infatuated,' and he rose from his seat and went away."

Other troubles are mentioned but by far the most serious was the schism of Devadatta, represented as occurring in the old age of Gotama when he was about seventy-two. The story as told in the Cullavagga[361] is embellished with supernatural incidents and seems not to observe the natural sequence of events but perhaps three features are historical: namely that Devadatta wished to supersede the Buddha as head of the order, that he was the friend of Ajatasattu, Crown Prince and afterwards King of Magadha[362], and that he advocated a stricter rule of life than the Buddha chose to enforce. This combination of piety and ambition is perhaps not unnatural. He was a cousin of the Buddha and entered the order at the same time as Ananda and other young Sakya nobles. Sprung from that quarrelsome breed he possessed in a distorted form some of Gotama's own ability. He is represented as publicly urging the Master to retire and dwell at ease but met with an absolute refusal. Sariputta was directed to "proclaim" him in Rajagaha, the proclamation being to the effect that his nature had changed and that all his words and deeds were disowned by the order. Then Devadatta incited the Crown Prince to murder his father, Bimbisara. The plot was prevented by the ministers but the king told Ajatasattu that if he wanted the kingdom he could have it and abdicated. But his unnatural son put him to death all the same[363] by starving him slowly in confinement. With the assistance of Ajatasattu, Devadatta then tried to compass the death of the Buddha. First he hired assassins, but they were converted as soon as they approached the sacred presence. Then he rolled down a rock from the Vulture's peak with the intention of crushing the Buddha, but the mountain itself interfered to stop the sacrilege and only a splinter scratched the Lord's foot. Then he arranged for a mad elephant to be let loose in the road at the time of collecting alms, but the Buddha calmed the furious beast. It is perhaps by some error of arrangement that after committing such unpardonable crimes Devadatta is represented as still a member of the order and endeavouring to provoke a schism by asking for stricter rules. The attempt failed and according to later legends he died on the spot, but the Vinaya merely says that hot blood gushed from his mouth.

That there are historical elements in this story is shown by the narrative of Fa Hsien, the Chinese pilgrim who travelled in India about 400 A.D. He tells us that the followers of Devadatta still existed in Kosala and revered the three previous Buddhas but refused to recognize Gotama. This is interesting, for it seems to show that it was possible to accept Gotama's doctrine, or the greater part of it, as something independent of his personality and an inheritance from earlier teachers.

The Udana and Jataka relate another plot without specifying the year. Some heretics induced a nun called Sundari to pretend she was the Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her. They then accused the Bhikkhus of killing her to conceal their master's sin, but the real assassins got drunk with the money they had received and revealed the conspiracy in their cups.

But these are isolated cases. As a whole the Buddha's long career was marked by a peace and friendliness which are surprising if we consider what innovations his teaching contained. Though in contending that priestly ceremonies were useless he refrained from neither direct condemnation nor satire, yet he is not represented as actively attacking[364] them and we may doubt if he forbade his lay disciples to take part in rites and sacrifices as a modern missionary might do. We find him sitting by the sacred fire of a Brahman[365] and discoursing, but not denouncing the worship carried on in the place. When he converted Siha[366], the general of the Licchavis, who had been a Jain, he bade him continue to give food and gifts as before to the Jain monks who frequented his house—an instance of toleration in a proselytizing teacher which is perhaps without parallel. Similarly in the Sigalovada-sutta it is laid down that a good man ministers to monks and to Brahmans. If it is true that Ajatasattu countenanced Devadatta's attempts to murder him, he ignored such disagreeable details with a sublime indifference, for he continued to frequent Rajagaha, received the king, and preached to him one of his finest sermons without alluding to the past. He stands before us in the suttas as a man of amazing power of will, inaccessible to fear, promises and, one may add, to argument but yet in comparison with other religious leaders singularly gentle in taking the offensive against error. Often he simply ignored it as irrelevant: "Never mind" he said on his deathbed to his last convert "Never mind, whether other teachers are right or wrong. Listen to me, I will teach you the truth." And when he is controversial his method is often to retain old words in honourable use with new meanings. The Brahmans are not denounced like the Pharisees in the New Testament but the real Brahman is a man of uprightness and wisdom: the real sacrifice is to abstain from sin and follow the Truth.

Women played a considerable part in the entourage of Gotama. They were not secluded in India at that time and he admitted that they were capable of attaining saintship. The work of ministering to the order, of supplying it with food and raiment, naturally fell largely to pious matrons, and their attentive forethought delighted to provide for the monks those comforts which might be accepted but not asked for. Prominent among such donors was Visakha, who married the son of a wealthy merchant at Savatthi and converted her husband's family from Jainism to the true doctrine. The Vinaya recounts how after entertaining the Buddha and his disciples she asked eight boons which proved to be the privileges of supplying various classes of monks with food, clothing and medicine and of providing the nuns with bathing dresses, for, said she, it shocked her sense of propriety to see them bathing naked. But the anecdotes respecting the Buddha and women, whether his wife or others, are not touched with sentiment, not even so much as is found in the conversation between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi in the Upanishad. To women as a class he gave their due and perhaps in his own opinion more than their due, but if he felt any interest in them as individuals, the sacred texts have obliterated the record. In the last year of his life he dined with the courtezan Ambapali and the incident has attracted attention on account of its supposed analogy to the narrative about Christ and "the woman which was a sinner." But the resemblance is small. There is no sign that the Buddha, then eighty years of age, felt any personal interest in Ambapali. Whatever her morals may have been, she was a benefactress of the order and he simply gave her the same opportunity as others of receiving instruction. When the Licchavi princes tried to induce him to dine with them instead of with her, he refused to break his promise. The invitations of princes had no attraction for him, and he was a prince himself. A fragment of conversation introduced irrelevantly into his deathbed discourses[367] is significant—"How, Lord, are we to conduct ourselves with regard to womankind? Don't see them, Ananda. But if we see them, what are we to do? Abstain from speech. But if they should speak to us what are we to do? Keep wide awake."

This spirit is even more evident in the account of the admission of Nuns to the order. When the Buddha was visiting his native town his aunt and foster mother, Mahaprajapati, thrice begged him to grant this privilege to women but was thrice refused and went away in tears. Then she followed him to Vesali and stood in the entrance of the Kutagara Hall "with swollen feet and covered with dust, and sorrowful." Ananda, who had a tender heart, interviewed her and, going in to the Buddha, submitted her request but received a triple refusal. But he was not to be denied and urged that the Buddha admitted women to be capable of attaining saintship and that it was unjust to refuse the blessings of religion to one who had suckled him. At last Gotama yielded—perhaps the only instance in which he is represented as convinced by argument—but he added "If, Ananda, women had not received permission to enter the Order, the pure religion would have lasted long, the good law would have stood fast a thousand years. But since they had received that permission, it will now stand fast for only five hundred years[368]."

He maintained and approved the same hard detached attitude in other domestic relations. His son Rahula received special instruction but is not represented as enjoying his confidence like Ananda. A remarkable narrative relates how, when the monk Sangamaji was sitting beneath a tree absorbed in meditation, his former wife (whom he had left on abandoning the world) laid his child before him and said "Here, monk, is your little son, nourish me and nourish him." But Sangamaji took no notice and the woman went away. The Buddha who observed what happened said "He feels no pleasure when she comes, no sorrow when she goes: him I call a true Brahman released from passion[369]." This narrative is repulsive to European sentiment, particularly as the chronicler cannot spare the easy charity of a miracle to provide for the wife and child, but in taking it as an index of the character of Gotama, we must bear in mind such sayings of Christ as "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple[370]."

4

Political changes, in which however he took no part, occurred in the last years of the Buddha's life. In Magadha Ajatasattu had come to the throne. If, as the Vinaya represents, he at first supported the schism of Devadatta, he subsequently became a patron of the Buddha. He was an ambitious prince and fortified Pataligama (afterwards Pataliputra) against the Vajjian confederation, which he destroyed a few years after the Buddha's death. This confederation was an alliance of small oligarchies like the Licchavis and Videhans. It would appear that this form of constitution was on the wane in northern India and that the monarchical states were annexing the decaying commonwealths. In Kosala, Vidudabha conquered Kapilavatthu a year or two before the Buddha's death, and is said to have perpetrated a great massacre of the Sakya clan[371]. Possibly in consequence of these events the Buddha avoided Kosala and the former Sakya territory. At any rate the record of his last days opens at Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha.

This record is contained in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the longest of the suttas and evidently a compilation. The style is provokingly uneven. It often promises to give a simple and natural narrative but such passages are interrupted by more recent and less relevant matter. No general estimate of its historical value can be given but each incident must be apprized separately. Nearly all the events and discourses recorded in it are found elsewhere in the canon in the same words[372] and it contains explanatory matter of a suspiciously apologetic nature. Also the supernatural element is freely introduced. But together with all this it contains plain pathetic pictures of an old man's fatigue and sufferings which would not have been inserted by a later hand, had they not been found ready in tradition. And though events and sermonettes are strung together in a way which is not artistic, there is nothing improbable in the idea that the Buddha when he felt his end approaching should have admonished his disciples about all that he thought most important.

The story opens at Rajagaha about six months before the Buddha's death. The King sends his minister to ask whether he will be successful in attacking the Vajjians. The Buddha replies that as long as they act in concord, behave honourably, and respect the Faith, so long may they be expected not to decline but prosper. The compiler may perhaps have felt this narrative to be an appropriate parallel to the Buddha's advice to his disciples to live in peace and order. He summoned and addressed the brethren living in Rajagaha and visited various spots in the neighbourhood. In these last utterances one phrase occurs with special frequency, "Great is the fruit, great the advantage of meditation accompanied by upright conduct: great is the advantage of intelligence accompanied by meditation. The mind which has such intelligence is freed from intoxications, from the desires of the senses, from love of life, from delusion and from ignorance."

He then set forth accompanied by Ananda and several disciples. Judging from the route adopted his intention was to go ultimately to Savatthi. This was one of the towns where he resided from time to time, but we cannot tell what may have been his special motives for visiting it on the present occasion, for if the King of Kosala had recently massacred the Sakyas his presence there would have been strange. The road was not direct but ran up northwards and then followed the base of the mountains, thus enabling travellers to cross rivers near their sources where they were still easy to ford. The stopping-places from Rajagaha onwards were Nalanda, Pataliputra, Vesali, Bhandagama, Pava, Kusinara, Kapilavatthu, Setavya, Savatthi. On his last journey the Buddha is represented as following this route but he died at the seventh stopping-place, Kusinara. When at Pataligama, he prophesied that it would become a great emporium[373]. He was honourably entertained by the officers of the King who decided that the gate and ferry by which he left should be called Gotama's gate and Gotama's ferry. The gate received the name, but when he came to the Ganges he vanished miraculously and appeared standing on the further bank. He then went on to Vesali, passing with indifference and immunity from the dominions of the King of Magadha into those of his enemies, and halted in the grove of the courtezan Ambapali[374]. She came to salute him and he accepted her invitation to dine with her on the morrow, in spite of the protests of the Licchavi princes.