'■ .1! ■;'■'!♦"''■ '%^ \>«^ T3T3TMm7TnKr. N. T. ^ PRINCETON, N. J. Division .,b.u,.L430 p' 9 ■>% .('.a ■- . ■'•iiiHV,'* «... t ■'.lif.*'i-- !■••- • : ' TRUBNER'8 ORIENTAL SERIES. " A knowledge of the commonplace, at least, of Oriental literature, philo- sophy, and religion is as necessary to the general reader of the present day as an acquaintance with the Latin and Greek classics was a generation or so ago. Immense strides have been made within the present century in these branches of learning; Sanskrit has been brought within the range of accurate philology, and its invaluable ancient literature thoroughly investigated ; the language and sacred books of the Zoroastrians have been laid bare ; Egyptian, Assyrian, and other records of the remote past have been deciphered, and a group of scholars speak of still more recondite Accadian and Hittite monu- ments ; but the results of all the scholarship that has been devoted to these subjects have been almost inaccessible to the public because they were con- tained for the most part in learned or expensive works, or scattered through- out the numbers of scientific periodicals. Messrs. Trubner & Co., in a spirit of enterprise whicli does them infinite credit, have determined to supply the constantly-increasing want, and to give in a popular, or, at least, a compre- hensive form, all this mass of knowledge to the world." — Times. THE FOLLOWING WORKS HAVE ALREADY APPEARED:— Third Edition, post 8vo, cloth, pp. xvi. — 428, price i6s. ESSAYS ON THE SACRED LANGUAGE, WRITINGS, AND RELIGION OF THE PARSIS. By MARTIN HAUG, Ph.D., Late of the Universities of Tiibingen, Gottingen, and Bonn ; Superintendent of Sanskrit Studies, and Professor of Sanskrit in the Pooiia College. Edited and Enlarged by Dr. E. AY. WEST. To which is added a Biographical Memoir of the late Dr. HaOG by Prof. E. P. Evans. I. History of the Researches into the Sacred Writings and Religion of the Parsis, from the Earliest Times down to the Present. II. Languages of the Parsi Scriptures. III. The Zend-Avesta, or the Scripture of the Parsis. IV. The Zoroastrian Religion, as to its Origin and Development. " ' Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis.' by the late Dr. Martin Haug, edited by Dr. E. W. West. The author intended, on his return from India, to expand tlie materials contained in this work into a comprehensive account of the Zoio;istrian religion, but the design was frustrated by his untimely death. We have, however, in a concise and readable form, a history of the researches into the sacred writings and religion of the Parsis from the earliest times down to the present — a dissertation on the laniiuages of tl}e Parsi Scriptures, a translation of the Zend-Avesta, or the Scripture of the Parsis, and a dissertation on the Zoroas- trian religfion. with especial reference to its origin and development." — Times. TliUBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. Post 8vo, clotli, pp. viii. — 176, price 7s. 6d. TEXTS FROM THE BUDDHIST CANON COMMONLY KNOWN AS " DHAMMAPADA." With Accompanyimj Narratives. Translated from tlie Chinese by S. BEAL, B.A., Professor of Chinese, University College, London. The Dlianiniapada, as hitherto known by the Pali Text Edition, as edited by Fausboll, by Max Miiller's English, and Albrecht Weber's German translations, consists only of twenty-six chapters or sections, whilst the Chinese version, or rather recension, as now translated by Mr. Beal, con- sists of thirty-nine sections. The students of Pali who possess FausboU's text, or either of the above-named translations, will therefore needs want Mr. Seal's English rendering of the Chinese version ; the thirteen above- named additional sections not being accessible to them in any other form ; for, even if they understand Chinese, the Cliinese original would be un- obtainable by them. " Mr. Beal's rendering of tlie Chinese translation is a most valuable aid to the critical study of the work. It contains authentic texts gathered from ancient canonical books, and generally connected with some incident iu the history of Buddha. Their great interest, however, consists iu tlie light which they throw upon everyday life iu India at the remote period at which they were written, and upon the method of teaching adopted by tlie founder of the religion. The method employed was principally parable, and the simplicity of tlie tales and the excellence of the morals inculcated, as well as the strange hold which they have retained upon tlie minds of millions of people, make them a very remarkable study."— J'ixits. " Mr. Beal, by making it accessible in an English dress, has added to the gi-eat ser- vices he has ah-eady rendered to the comparative study of religious history." — Academy. •' Valuable as exliibiting the doctrine of the Buddhists in its purest, least adul- terated form, it brings the modern reader face to face with that simple creed and rule of conduct which won its way over the minds of myriads, and which is now nominally professed by 145 millions, wlio have overlaid its austere simplicity with innumerable ceremonie.s, forgotten its maxims, perverted its teaching, and so inverted its leading principle that a religion wliose founder denied a God, now worships that founder as a god himself." — Scotsma7i. Third Edition, post 8vo, cloth, pp. xxiv. — 360, price los. 6d. THE HISTORY OF INDIAN LITERATURE. By ALBRECHT WEBER. Translated from the Second German Edition by John Mann, M.A., and Theodou Zachakiae, Ph.D., with the sanction of the Author. Dr. BiiHLER, Inspector of Schools in India, writes: — " When I was Pro- fessor of Oriental Languajies in Elphinstone College, I frequently felt the want of such a work to wliicli I could refer the students." Professor Coweli., of Cambridge, writes : — "It will be especially useful to the students in our Indian colleges and universities. I used to long for TRUBNEK'S ORIENTAL SERIES. such a Look when I was teaching in Calcutta. Hindu students are intensely interested in the history of Sanskrit literature, and this volume will sui^ply them with all they want on the subject." Professor Whitney, Yale College, Xewhaven, Conn., U.S.A., writes :- " 1 was one of the class to whom the work was originally given in the form of academic lectures. At their first appearance they were by far the most learned and able treatment of their subject ; and with their recent additions they still maintain decidedly the same rank." " Is perhaps the most comprehensive and lucid survey of Sanskrit literature extant The essays contained in the volume were originally delivered as academic lecture's and at the time of their first publication were acknowledged to be by far the most learned and able trcatmont of the subject. They have now been brought up to date by the addition of all the most important results of recent research. — Ti>iie-<. Post 8vo, cloth, pp. xii. — 198, accompanied by Two Language Maps, price 7s. 6d. A SKETCH OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES OF THE EAST INDIES. By ROBERT N. CUST. The Author has attempted to fill up a vacuum, the inconvenience of which pressed itself on his notice. Much had been written about the lau^ua-es of the East Indies, but the extent of our present knowledge had not°even been brought to a focus. It occurred to him that it might be of use to others to publish in an arranged form the notes which he had collected for his own edification. " Supplies a deficiency which has long been felt.''— Tu/tes. ,.,,.,. ,, "The book before us is then a valuable contribution to philological science. It msses under review a vast number of languages, and it gives, or professes to give, ui ^very case the sum and substance of the opinions and judgments of the best-mformed writers. " — Sat u nla.i/ Reviev:. Post 8vo, pp. 432, cloth, price 16s. A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY OF HINDU MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. By JOHN DOWSON, M.R.A.S., Late Professor of Hindustani, Stafif College. •'This not only forms an indispensable book of reference to students of Indian literit-n-e but s als,. of great general interest, as it gives m a concise and easily literatuie oil IS I. b | ^nown about the personages of Hindu mythology whrs'na^nes".-; so 'famlli^^^ whom so littl^ is known outside the limited '' 'mVis noshgAtllin when such subjects are treated fairly and fully in a moderate «nace an I we need only add that the few wants which we may hope to see supplied Tnlvv editions detract lit little from the general excellence of Mr Dowson s wnrV. ^Saturday Review. TR UBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. Post 8vo, with View of Mecca, pp. cxii. — 172, cloth, price 9s. SELECTIONS FROM THE KORAN. By EDWARD WILLIAM LANE, Translator of " The Thousand and One Nights ; " &c., &c. A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged, with an Introduction by Stanley Lane Poole. "... Has been lon:^ esteemed in this country as the compilation of one of the greatest Arabic scholars of the time, the late Mr. Lane, the well-known translator of the ' Arabian Nights. ' . . . Tlie present editor has enhanced the value of his relative's work by divesting the text of a great deal of extraneous matter introduced by way of comment, and prefixing an introduction." — Times. " Mr. Poole is both a generous and a learned biogr.ipher. . . . Mr. Poole tells u.* the facts ... so far as it is possible for industry and criticism to ascertain them, and for literary skill to present them in a condensed and readable iovm."— English- viaii, Calcutta. Post 8vo, pp. vi.— 368, cloth, price 14s. MODERN INDIA AND THE INDIANS, BEING A SERIES OF IMPRESSIONS, NOTES, AND ESSAYS. By MONIER WILLIAMS, D.C.L., Hon. LL.D. of the University of Calcutta, Tlon. Member of the Bombay Asiatic Society, Boden Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford. Fifth Edition, revised and augmented hy considerable Additions, with Illustrations and a Map. " In this volutne we have the thoughtful impressions of a thoughtful man on some- of the most important questions connected witli our Indian Empire. ... An en- lightened observant man. travelling among an enlightened observant people, Professor Monier Williams has brought before the public in a pleasant form more of the manners and customs of the Queen's Indian subjects than we ever remember to have seen in any one work. He not only deserves the thanks of every Englishman for this able contribution to the study of Jlodern India— a subject with which we should be specially familiar— but he deserves the thanks of every Indian, Parsee or Hindu, Buddhist and Moslem, for hia clear exiX)sition of their manners, their creeds, and their necessities." — I'iines. Post 8vo, pp. .\liv. — 376. cloth, price 14s. METRICAL TRANSLATIONS FROM SANSKRIT WRITERS. With an Introduction, many Prose Versions, and Parallel Passages from Classical Authors. By J. MUIR, CLE., D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D. "... An agreeable introduction to Hindu poetry." — Times. "... A volume which may be taken as a fair illustration alike of the religious- and moral sentiments and of the legendary lore of the best Sanskrit writers. "- Edinburgh Daily Review. TRUBXEKS ORIENTAL SERIES. Second Edition, post 8vo, pj). xxvi. — 244, cloth, price los. 6d. THE GULISTAN; Or, rose garden OF SHEKH MUSHLIU'D-DIN SADI OF SHIRAZ. Translated for the First Time into Prose and Verse, with an Introductory Preface, and a Life of the Author, from the Atish Kadah, By EDWARD B. EASTWICK, C.B., M.A., F.R.S., M.R.A.S. " It is a very fair reiideiiug of the original." — Times. " The new edition has long been desired, and will be welcomed by all who take any interest in Oriental poetry. The Gulistan is a typical Persian verse-book of the highest order. Mr. Eastwick's rhymed triinslation . . . has long estabUshed itself in a secure position as the best version of Sadi's finest wor'k.."— Academy. " It is both faithfully and gracefully executed." — Tablet In Two Volumes, post 8vo, pp. viii. — 408 and viii. — 348, cloth, price 283. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS RELATING TO INDIAN SUBJECTS. By BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON, Esq., F.R.S., Late of the Bengal Civil Service ; Corresponding Member of the Institute ; Chevalier of the Legion of Honour ; late British Minister at tiie Court of Nepal, &c. , &c. CONTENTS OF VOL. /. Section 1. — On the Kocch, Bodo, and Dhinial Tribes. — Part I. Vocabulary. — Part II. Grammar. — Part III. Their Origin, Location, Numbers, Creed, Customs, Character, and Condition, with a General Description of the Climate they dwell in. — Appendix. Section II. — On Himalayan Ethnology. — I. Comparative Vocabulary of the Lan- guages of the Broken Tribes of N^pal. — II. Vocabulary of the Dialects of the Kiranti Language. — III. Grammatical Analysis of the Viiyu Language. The Vayu Grammur. —IV. Analysis of the Bdhing Dialect of the Kiranti Language. The Bdhing Gram- mar.—V. On the Vayu or Hayu Tribe of tlie Central Himaldya.— VI. On tlie Kiranti Tribe of the Central Himalaya. CONTENTS OF VOL. IL Section III. — On the Aborigines of North-Eastern India. Comparative Vocabulary of the Tibetan, B6d6, and Garo Tongues. Section IV. — Aborigines of the North-Easteni Frontier. Section V. — Aborigines of the Eastern Frontier. Section VI. — The Indo-Chinese Borderers, and their connection with the Hima- layans and Tibetans. Comparative Vocabulary of Indo-Chinese Borderers in Arakan. Comparative Vocabulary of Indo-Chinese Borderers in Tenasserim. Section VII. — The Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians.— Comparison and Ana lysis of Caucasian and Moneolian Words. Section VIII.— Physical Type of Tibetans. Section IX.— The Aborigines of Central India. — Comparative Vocabulary of the Aboriginal Languages of Central India. — Aborigines of the Eastern Ghats.- Vocabu- lary of some of the Dialects of the Hill and Wandering Tribes in the Northeni Sircars —Aborigines of the Nilgiris, with Remarks on their AflBnities. — Supplement to the Nilgirian Vocabularies.— The Aborigines of Southern India and Ceylon. TRUBNERS ORIENTAL SERIES. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS RELATING TO INDIAN SUBJECTS- continued. Section X. — Route of Nepalese Jlission to Pekin, with Remarks on the Wafei- Shed and Phiteau of Tibet. Section XI. — Route from Katliniandv'i, the Capital of Nepal, to Darjeeling in Sikim. — Memorandum relative to the Seven Cosis of Nepal. Section XII. — Some Accounts of the Systems of Law and Police as recogni.^^ed in the State of Nepal. Section XIII. — The Native Method of making the Paper denominated Hindustan, Nepal e.se. Section XIV.— Pre-eminence of the Vernaculars ; or, the Anglicists Answered ; Being Letters on the Education of the People of India. " For the study of the less-known races of India Mr. Brian Hodgson's 'Miscellane- ous Essays ' will be found very valuable both to the philologist and the ethnologist." New and Revised Edition. Post 8vo, pp. xxiv. — 420, cloth, price i8s. CHINESE BUDDHISM. A VOLUME OF SKETCHES, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. By J. EDKINS, D.D. Author of " China's Place in Philology," "Religion in China," kc, &c. "It contains a vast deal of important information on the subject, such as is only to be gained by long-continued studj' on the spot." — Atlierunim. " Upon the whole, we know of no work comparable to it for the extent of its original research, and the simplicity with which this complicated system of philo- sophy, relision, literature, and ritual is set forth." — Srilish Quarterlti Kerieic. " The whole volume is reiilete with learning. ... It deserves most careful study from all interested in the history of the religions of the world, and expressly of those who are concerned in the propagation of Christianity. Dr. Edkins notices in terms of just condemnation the exaggerated praise bestowed upon Buddhism liy recent English writers. " — Record. Post 8vo, 1st Series, los. 6d. ; 2nd Series, with 6 Maps, 21s. ; 3rd Series, with Portrait, 21s. ; cloth. LINGUISTIC AND ORIENTAL ESSAYS. Written from the Year 1846 to 1890. By ROBERT NEEDHAM OUST, Late Member of Her Majesty's Indian Civil Service ; Hon. Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society ; and Author of " The Modern Languages of the East Indies." " We know none who lias described Indian life, especially the life of the natives, with so much learning, .sympathy, and literary talent." — Academy. " They seem to us to be full of suggestive .and original remarks. " — St. James's Gazette. " His book contains a vast amount of information. The result of thirty-five years of inquiry, reflection, and speculation, and that on subjects as full of fascination as of food for thought." — Tablet. " Exhibit such a thorough acquaintance with the hi.story and aniiquities of India as to entitle him to speak as one having authority." — Edintnirgh Vailp Rerierr. " The author speaks with the authority of personal experience It is this constant association with the covmtry and the people which gives such a vividness to many of the pages." — Athenceum. TRUBNERS ORIENTAL SER/ES. Post 8vo, pp. civ.— 348, clotb, price i8s. BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES; or, Jataka Tales. Tlie Oldest Collection of Folk-lore Extaut : BEING THE J ATAK ATTHA VANX AN A, For the first time Edited in the oiigiual Pali. By V. FAUSBOLL ; And Translated by T. W. Rhys Davids. Translation. Volume I. "These aio tales supposed to have been told by the Buddha of what he liad seen and heard in his previous births. They are probably the nearest representatives of the original Aryan stories from which sprang the I'olk-lore of lun-ope as well as India. Tue introduction contains a most interesting disquisition on the migrations of tliese fables, tracing their reayipearance in the various groups of folk-lore legends. Among other old friends, we meet with a version of the .Judgment of Solomon." — I'ivies. " It is now some years since Mr. Rhys Davids asserted his right to be heard on this siibject by his able article on Buddhism in the new edition of the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica. ' " — Leeds Mercury. " All who are interested in Buddlnst literature ought to feel deeply indebted to .Mr. llhys Davids. His well-established reputation as a Pali scholar is a sufficient guarantee for the fidelity of his version, and the style of his translations is deserving of high praise." — Academy. " No more competent expositor of Buddhism could be found than Jlr. lihys Davids. In the Jataka book we have, then, a priceless record of the earliest imaginative literature of our race ; and ... it presents to ns a nearly complete picture of the social life and customs and popular beliefs of the common people ot Aryan tribes, closely related to ourselves, just as they were passing through the first stages of civilisation." — Si. James's Gazette. Post Svo, pp. xxviii. — 362, cloth, price 14s. A TALMUDIC MISCELLANY; Or, a thousand AND ONE EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD THE MIDRASHIM, AND THE KABBALAH. Compiled and Translated by PAUL ISAAC HERSHON^ Author of " Genesis According to the Talmud," &c. With Notes and Copious Indexes. " To obtain in so concise and handy a form as this volume a general idea of the Talmud is a boon to Christians at least."— Times. " Its peculiar and popidar character will make it attractive to general readers. Mr Hershon is a very competent scholar. . . . Contains samples of the good, bad, and indifferent, and especially extracts that throw light upon the Scriptures." British Quarterly Review. " Will convey to English readers a more complete and truthful notion of the Talmud than any other work that has yet appeared."— Oaii?/ News. " Without oveVlooking in the slightest the several attractions of tlie previous volumes of the ' Oriental Series," we have no hesitation in saying that this surpasses them all in interest."— Edinburgh Daily Reviezc. " Mr. Hershon has . . . thvis given English readers what is, we believe, a fair set of specimens which they can test for themselves."— 27ie Record. " This book is bv f.ar the best fitted in the present state of knowledge to enable the TRUBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. general reader to gain a fair and vmbiassed conception of the multifarious contents of the wonderful miscellany which can only be truly understood— so Jewish pride asserts— by the life-long devotion of scholars of the Chosen People. '—Inquirer. " The value and importance of this volume consist in the fact that scarcely a single extract is given in its pages but throws some light, direct or refracted, upon those Scriptures which are the common heritage of Jew and Christian alike."— /oAii Bull. " It is a capital specimen of Hebrew scholarship ; a monument, of learned, loving, light-giving labour." — Jeioish Herald. Post 8vo. pp. xii. — 164, cloth, price los. 6*1. THE HISTORY OF ESARHADDON (Son of Sennacherib), KING OF ASSYRIA, B.C. 681-668. Translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions upon Cylinders and Tablets in the British Museum Collection ; together with a Grammatical Analysis of each Word, Explanations of the Ideographs by Extracts from the Bi-Lingual Syllabaries, and List of Eponyms, &c. By E. a. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., Litt.D., D.Lit., Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum. " Students of scriptural archaeology will also appreciate the ' History of Esar- haddon.' " — Times. " There is much to attract the scholar in this vohnne. It does not pretend to popularise studies which are yet in their infancy. Its primary object is to translate, but it does not assume to be more than tentative, and it offers both to the professed Assyriologist and to the ordinary non-Assyriological Semitic scholar the means of controlling its results.'' — Academij. "Mr. Budge's book is, of course, mainly addressed to Assyrian scholars and students. They .are not, it is to be feared, a very numerous class. But the more thanks are due to him on that account for the way in which he has acquitted liimself ;in his labc>i'io\is task." — Tablet. Post 8vo, pp. 448, cloth, price 21s. THE MESNEVI (Usually known as The Mesneviyi Sherif, or Holy Mesnevi) OF MEVLANA (OUR LORD) JELALU 'D-DIN MUHAMMED ER-RUMI. Book the First. Together with some Account of the Life and Acts of the Author, of his Ancestors, and of his Descendants. Illustrated by a Selection of Characteristic Anecdotes, as Collected by their Historian, Mevlana Shemsu-'D-Din Ahmed, el Eflaki, el 'Arifi. Translated, and the Poetry Versified, in English, By JAMES W. REDHOUSE, M.R.A. S., &c. " A complete treasiiry of occult Oriental love."— S(tt^|.rdop Review. " This book will be "a very valuable help to the reader ignorant of Persia, wlio is desirous of obtaining an insight into a very important department of the literature extant in that language."— Tai/ct. TRUBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. Post 8vo, pp. viii. — 266, cloth, price 9s. LINGUISTIC ESSAYS. By carl ABEL. " An eutiiely novel method of de:iling witli philosophical questions and impart a real human interest to the otherwise dry technicalities of the science." — Standard. " Dr. Abel is an opponent from whom it is pleasant to differ, for lie writes with enthusiasm and temper, and his mastery over the English hmguage fits him to be a champion of unpopular doctrines." — AtJienceum. Post 8vo, j)p. ix. — 281, clotli, price los. 6d. THE SARVA - DARSANA - SAMGRAHA ; Ok, review of THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF HINDU PHILOSOPHY. P,V MADHAVA ACHARYA. Translated by E. B. COWELL, M. A., Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge, and A. E. GOUGH, M.A., Professor of Philosophy in the Presidency College, Calcutta. This work is an interesting specimen of Hindu critical ability. The author successively passes in review the sixteen philosophical systems current in the fourteenth century in the South of India ; and he gives what appears to him to be their most important tenets. " The translation is trustworthy tliroiighout. A protracted sojourn in India, where there is a living traWitiim, has familiarised the translitors with Indian thought." — Atlienceum. Post 8vo, pp. Ixv. — 368, cloth, price 14s. TIBETAN TALES DERIVED FROM INDIAN SOURCES. Translated from the Tibetan of the K.\h-Gyur. Bv F. ANTON VON SCHIEFNER. Done into English from the German, with an Introduction, ]3y W. R. S. RALSTON, M.A. "Mr. Ralston, wliose name is so familiar to all li)Vers of Russian folk-lore, has supplied some interesting Western analogies and parallels, drawn, for the most part, from Slavonic sources, to tlie Eastern folk-tales, culled from tlie Kaligyur, one of tlie divisions of tlie Tibetan sacred hooks."— Academy . "The translation . . . could scarcely have fallen into better hands. An Introduc- tion . . . gives the leading facts in the lives of those scholars who liave given their attention to gaining a knowledge of the Tibetan literature and language. '—Calcutta Review. "Ought to interest all who care for the East, for amusing stories, or for conpanitive folk-lore."— P«/Z Mall (inzette. TRUBNERS ORIENTAL SER/ES. Post 8vo, pp. xvi. — 224, cloth, price 9s. UDANAVARGA. A Collection of Verses from the BuonHisx Canon. Compiled by DHARMATRATA. Being the NORTHERN BUDDHIST VERSION of DHAMMAPADA. Translated from the Tibetan of Bkah-hgyur, with Notes, and Extracts from the Commentary of Pradjnavarman, By W. WOODVILLE ROCKHILL. " Mr. Rockliill's present work is the first from which .■issist:ince will be gained for a more accurate understanding of the Pali text; it i.s, in fact, as yet the only term of comparison available to iis. The ' Udanavarga,' tlie Thibetan version, was originally discovered by tiie late M. Schiefner, wlio published tlie Tibetan text, and liad intended adding a translation, an intention frustrated by his death, but which has been carried out by Mr. Rockhill. . . . Mr. Rockliill may be congratiilaied for having well accomplished a difficult task." — Saturdai/ Review. In Two Volumes, post 8vo, pp. xxiv. — 566, cloth, accompanied by a Language Map, price i8s. A SKETCH OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES OF AFRICA. By ROBERT NEEDHAM CUST, Barrister-at-Law, and late of Her Majesty's Indian Civil Service. " Any one at all interested in African languages cannot do better than get Mr. Gust's book. It is encyclopedic in its scope, and the reader gets a start clear away in any particular language, and is left free to add to the initial sum of knowledge tliere collected." — Notal Mercury. "Mr. Gust has contrived to produce a work of value to linguistic students." — Nature. Fifth Edition. Post Svo, pp. XV.-250, cloth, price 7s. 6d. OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION TO THE SPREAD OF THE UNIVERSAL RELIGIONS. By C. P. TIELE. Doctor of Theology, Professor of tlie History of Religions in the University of Leyden. Translated from the Dutch by J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A. " Few books of its size contain the result of so much wide thinking, able and labo- rious study, or enable the reader to gain a better bird's-eye view of the latest results of investigations into the relitjioiis history of nations. As Professor Tiele modestly says, ' In this little book are outlines— pencil .sketches, I might say— nothing more. But there are some men whose sketches from a thumb-nail are of far more worth than an enormous canvas covered witli the crude painting of others, and it is easy to see that these pages, full of information, these sentences, cut and perhaps also dry, short .and clear, condense the fruits of long and thorough research."— Seotonan. TRUBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. Revised Edition. Post 8vo, pp. 276, cloth, price 7s. 6d. RELIGION IN CHINA. By JOSEPH EDKINS, D.D., Peking. Containing a Brief Account of the Three Religions of the Chinese, with Observations on the Prospects of Christian Conversion amongst that People. " Dr. Edkins has been most careful in noting the varied and often complex phases of opinion, so as to give an account of considerable value of the subject." — Scotsman. " As a missionary, it has been part of Dr. Edkins' duty to study the existing religions in China, and his long residence in the country has enabled him to acquire an intimate knowledge of them as they at present exist." — Saturday Review. " Dr. Edkins' valuable work, of which this is a second and revised edition, has, from the time that it was published, been the standard authority upon the subject of wliich it treats." — Nonconformist. " Dr. Edkins . . . may now be faii-ly regarded as among the first .authorities on Chinese religion and language." — British Quarterly Reviev:. Post 8vo, pp. X.-274, cloth, price 9s. THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF HIS ORDER. Derived from Tibetan Works in the Bkah-hgyur and Bstan-hgyur. Followed by notices on the Early History of Tibet and Khoten. Translated by W. W. ROCKHILL, Second Secretary U. S. Legation in China. "The volume bears testimony to the diligence and fulness with which the autlior has consulted and tested the ancient documents bearing upon his remarkable sub- ject."— Times. " Will be appreciated by those who devote themselves to tliose Buddhist studies which have of late years taken in these Western regions so remarkable a develop- ment. Its matter possesses a special interest .as being derived from ancient Tibetan works, some portions of which, here analysed .and translated, have not yet attracted the attention of scholars. The volume is rich in ancient stories bearing upon the world's renovation and the origin of castes, as recorded in these venerable autho- rities."— Daily News. Third Edition. Post 8vo, pp. viii.-464, cloth, price i6s. THE SANKHYA APHORISMS OF KAPILA, With Illustrative Extracts from the Commentaries. Translated by J. R. BALLANTYNE, LL.i)., late Principal of the Benares College. Edited by FITZEDWARD HALL. "The work displays a vast expenditure of labour and scholarship, for which students of Hindoo philosophy have every reason to be gr,ateful to Dr. Hall and the publishers." — Co.lcutta Review. TRUBNER'S ORIENTAL SERIES. Post 8vo, pp. xlviii.-398, cloth, price 12s, THE ORDINANCES OF MANU. Translated from the Sanskrit, with an Introduction. By the late A. C. BURNELL, Ph.D., CLE. Completed and Edited by E. W. HOPKINS, Ph.D., of Columbia College, N.Y. "Tliis work is full of interest ; while for the student of sociology Jind tbe science of religion it is full of importance. It is a great boon to get so notable a work in so accessible a form, admirably edited, and competently translated."— Seotswaii. "Few men were more competent th;in Burnell to give us a really good translation of this well-known law book, first rendered into English by Sir William Jones. 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JOSErH EDKINS, D.D., AUTHOR OF " RELIGION IN CHINA," " INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE CHINESE CHARACTKRS," " A MANDARIN GRAMMAR," ETC. SECOND EDITION, REVISED. LONDOJs^: KEGAK PAUL, TEEXCH, TRUEXEE, & CO. i::" PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHAPIXG CROSS ROAD. 1893. The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved. ADVERTISEMENT. The Publishers have to acknowledge the efficient and disinterested aid they have received from Mr. A. Wylie, late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in China, who, owing to the absence of the author from England, has revised the proof sheets of this work iu their passage through the press; and they are also in- debted to him for the preparation of the copious and valu- able index appended to it. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITIOK The number of Buddhists in the world has been much exaggerated. Formerly it was stated to be four hundred millions ; and this incredibly large estimate led to careful consideration. Dr. Happer, resident for more than forty years in Canton, thinks that in China the tonsured Buddhist priests are twenty millions in number, and he declines to allow that the rest of the Chinese can be rightly called Buddhists. Dr. Gordon, of Japan, a good authority who has carefully studied Japanese Buddhism, considers that it would not be fair to represent only the tonsured Buddhists as followers of the Buddhist religion in Japan ; yet it is a fact that few of the laity in China and Japan make and keep Buddhist vows. The same is true of Tauism. The most of the population of China claim to be Confucianists, and conform occasionally to Buddhist and Tauist ceremonies. The rich Chinaman calls himself a Confucianist, and therefore he must count as such. But he subscribes to the rebuilding of Buddhist temples and pagodas, because he thinks the act will bring him prosperity. He worships Tauist idols more than those in Buddhist temples ; but he adores the Buddhist images also on certain occasions. He conforms to three religions, but on the whole he is made by ancestral wor- ship properly speaking a Confucianist. His religious faith viii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. is a sad jumble of inconsisteut dogmas. As to becoming a tonsured priest, he never thinks of it, unless he grows weary of the world and aspires to monastic life as a relief from social cares and domestic sorrow. Let us include lay Buddhists who keep their vows at home, and rate the whole number of those Chinese who take Buddhist vows, monastic or lay, at forty millions. The Tauists may be roughly estimated at fifteen millions, and the Confucian- is ts at 320 millions. It is ancestral worship that gives the Confucianists so large a preponderance. The schoolmasters are all Confucianists. None of the books used in education are Buddhist or Tauist. Of newly published works, ten per cent, may be Buddhist and ten per cent. Tauist. These include exhortations to virtue, and treatises urging to charity. There is no demand for Buddhist or Tauist books. Eighty per cent, of all books newly published count as Confuciauist, or as belonging to general literature. Booksellers, as a rule, keep no Bud- dhist or Tauist books. On the whole, it seems better to allow the Chinese claim, and class 320 millions of them as Confucianists. To go to school is to become a Con- fuciauist, and even those who have no book-learning wor- ship their ancestors. Yet Buddhism is powerful in China by its doctrines. It has made the Chinese idolaters, and besides this it has taught them the wind and water superstition which has proved to be an effective barrier against civilised improve- ments and a most thorough hindrance to true enlighten- ment. Tor these two reasons, after all that can be said, still it is a Buddhist country, and the people are idolaters and the victims of Hindoo superstition. The art too is Buddhist. The favourite subjects of artists are Buddhist or Tauist. Here the ascetic element prevails, and that PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. ix familiarity with nature which marks the true Buddhist. The lion, a Persian animal, is the symbol of victory, and is a common ornament in temples as symbolical of Buddha's success in argument. The lotus also is sym- bolical of Buddha's appearance as saviour. He rises suddenly from the sea of misery, an object of beauty to thousands who are rescued by his powerful teaching from their hopeless delusions. The lovely flower, the ;padme, is an indispensable ornament to Buddha's throne. Bud- dhism taught the Chinese and Japanese artists to paint animal and vegetable forms and carve them in temples. Through this medium ideas of Assyrian and Greek art found their way to these Eastern races, and elevated them. Buddhism, by introducing to China notions of Western art, has conferred a positive benefit, and she has also inspired multitudes with a sort of hope of deliverance from suffer- ing. Since the first edition of this book was published, several thousands belonging to Buddhist and Tauist sects in North China, having already an undefined longing for redemption stirring within them through Buddhist teach- ing, have found that redemption in the doctrines of the Bible and accepted the Christian faith. Buddhism alone could only awaken aspirations after belief. Christianity coming after it satisfies those aspirations. The Karma and the twelve Nidanas or causes unveil to view the chain of a twelve-fold necessity which controls human life, an impersonal fate made up of causes and inevitable effects. This idea of destiny is suggested by events such as sudden death, sickness, and old age. In Isa. Ixv. 1 2 (revised version) human destiny is said to be in the hands of the goddess Meni, as the Babylonians thought. But Meni means the " divider." The Greeks believed in the three Moirai, the Fates or the Dividers. K PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. The idea of destiny in Babylon and Greece preceded the fact of personifying. So was it in Buddhism. First the twelve causes were taught under the control of Karma ; afterwards, in Northern Buddhism, Yama, god of death, divided out, as it was said, human destiny and fixed the hour of death for every one. Since it is not a Vedic doctrine, this belief in an impersonal destiny is Babylo- nian, and is astrological, but the keen Indian intellect separated the astrological element from it carefully and made it purely metaphysical. There are five causes at work — existence, grasping firmly, love, activity, ignorance. There are seven consequences — bodily decay, birth, sensa- tion, touch, the senses, colour, consciousness. Buddhist logic not believing in the outer world is liere seen busying itself with the senses and the sensations which are the consti- tuent elements of our phenomenal life. This is destiny stated in the language of Hindoo metaphysics, and when it proceeds to detail, all we can take hold of is our sen- sations, our consciousness, our emotions, and our activity. It would certainly be clearer if put in the language of Cousin or of Sir William Hamilton. It is truly a mis- fortune for the Buddhists that they have not had their philosophical dogmas expounded as our Western philoso- phers would expound them. In describing our environ- ment Buddhism is pessimistic. Nothing could be worse than our delusions and our condition. In promising a cure, Buddhism adopts a most triumphant tone. Buddha discovered the remedy, and God had nothing to do with it. It is in every man's power to save himself. In this system the assertion that an impersonal fate, morally retributive, rules all men's destiny, and is the basis of the metempsychosis, is Babylonian. The transmigration of souls is foreign, and the moral basis of necessary law PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. xi on which it rests is, in fact, both native and foreign. Buddha found his countrymen believing in the new doc- trine of transmigration, and he himself believed it and shaped it into the twelve causes and effects. He did not resist or deny the Mesopotamian fate. He gave it logical form, and undertook to set men free from it by treating it as a delusion. Science and philosophy on arriving in India originated science and philosophy in that country under new forms. Buddhism forsook the Veda religion so far as to omit all mention of the gods Varuna, Agni, and the Maruts. Buddha did not cite the Vedas as authorities. He built his system on the ideas he found current in Central India. For himself, he claimed to have discovered the highest truth. The cause of his atheism was the poly- theism of the time. Its extreme anthropomorphism provoked a reaction in his mind against the idea of deity. The gods, thought he, are unequal to the task of saving men from delusion. There is a wisdom that can do it, and I have discovered it. To this confidence in his own insight he was led in part by the national love for argument, and for that variety of illustration in con- ducting argument which the collision between foreign and native thought had awakened. To this was to be added the effect of lonely meditation. The youthful thinker was thrown on his own resources in his chosen retirement. Shutting off all avenues by which other thoughts than his own could reach him, he waited for light till it came. He had a compassionate heart, and thus his natural disposition found its way into his system, and marked his whole life-work as a national teacher. It is this enthusiastic sympathy for humanity which drew to him so manv millions of adherents. xii PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. That this is the real explanation of Buddhism as a phenomenon in the history of mankind, can be shown in many ways. Southern Buddhism is in its development of thought very decidedly more Hindoo than Northern Buddhism. The impact from "Western philosophy pro- duced a slighter effect in Southern India, communication being entirely by sea. Northern Buddhism branched out in a striking manner from the old root of Buddhist ideas, and the cause should be sought in its close conflict with Persian and Babylonian thought. The Persians, when they came down from the north, charged with Aryan conceptions and beliefs, to conquer their country, were powerfully influenced by Babylonian civilisation. The Zoroastrian religion was the result. They became earnest believers in their new faith, and this access of national zeal reacted on the Buddhists in North-Western India. A characteristically new, original, and popular modification of Buddhist thinking was soon produced. Amitabha, the Buddha who leads to the paradise of the west, is a new Ormuzd, god of light, believed in by the Persians as the supreme deity, and promising his followers eternal joy in the paradise where he dwells. Buddhism, when it proclaimed general scepticism, opened the way for free speculation. The Buddhists found the Persians as earnest as themselves, and they incorporated the Persian view of a supreme god and a future life of happiness in their own system. Buddhism, by adopting the principle of contemplation and inward light, became mystical. The Paradise of the Western heaven was evolved by Northern Buddhists in hours of contemplation. The new teaching soon attained a widespread popularity. Continued studies in ancient Chinese philosophy have convinced me that the three religions of the Chinese PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. xiii have all been greatly influenced by Persian ideas. First, the ancient Chinese learned dualism from Persia, and adopted it in the Book of Changes. They also adopted the worship of the sun and stars with astrology. Then they accepted the belief in a future life in early Tauism, Finally, Buddhism brought them a later form of the future life as developed in the worship of Amitabha. Mr. De Groot, in his comprehensive work on the religion of the Chinese, agrees with me in these views, and conversation with him in China led me to expand them still more. Tibetan Buddhism lays great stress on astro- logy, and by so doing points plainly to Babylon. The same is true of the Hindoos. Their cosmogonies are Babylonian. Their triad of gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, is based on a Babylonian model, just as the Chaldean triad of the higher gods is derived from the Accadian. Hindu sculpture is based on that of Greece. Hindoo arithmetic is Babylonian in origin. Babylonian thought was adopted by the Hindoos, because it was more refined and profound than their own. In the history of philosophy it is as true in Asia as in Europe that every new philosophy rests on its predecessors. The origin of each new philosophy can only be satisfactorily explained when attention has been adequately given to those systems of thought which, by their influence, tended to produce it. Chinese Buddhism is Northern Buddhism, and it can only be suitably accounted for in this way. How neces- sary it is to make plain from what source the variations found in Northern Buddhism from the primitive standard have sprung, is clear from what one of my critics, Dr. Ehys Davids, has stated. In the Academy of October 2, 1880, he says that to speak of Buddha as "entering into xiv PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. Nirvana" is an expression which absolutely contradicts the doctrines of the early Buddhists. My author says there are three Nirvanas — i, a pure nature, that of heretics; 2, purity gained by practising the methods of the greater or lesser vehicle ; 3, the purity of Buddha's death. This I take from Kiau cMng fa shu, one of my best Chinese authorities. The reason is in the change which came over Buddhism through contact with Persia. Dr. Khys Davids also assumes that the Chinese have only one date for Buddha's birth. I have carefully pointed out that they have at least two, one among them being B.C. 623, given in the Imperial dynastic histories. In fact, Northern Buddhism is undervalued by Pali scholars. It has gone through the purifying process of a thousand fights with Brahmins and other sects in India, with Parsees, Manichceans, and Christians abroad, and with Confucianists in China. The Chinese author thinks much of style, and possesses an immense repertoire of elegant phrases. The original Sanskrit is changed into these phrases, and comes to mean somethinfT much nearer to men's business and bosoms, and more polished in expression, than it did in the Indian form. The Chinese translator accepts no new idioms which can be avoided. Foreign lingo must be modified to suit Confucianist taste. It would be well if Dr. Ehys Davids would allow for the influence on Northern Bud- dhism of foreign systems of thought, and also take into consideration the qualities of the Chinese translators. He says Brahmajala does not mean " net of Brahma." The Chinese author says it does. I prefer to follow my autho- rity, and leave my critic to prove that he is wrong. When the Sanskrit bears two or three meanings, the Chinese translator sometimes gives them all, wishing to get all he can out of his text. Dr. Ehys Davids,on the contrary, selects PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. xv one and denies the others. He also expects me to follow the Pali as translated by Gogerly, vouched for by Dr. Rhys Davids himself as accurate. I think, however, it is better for me to follow my Chinese guides. Native Buddhist works by Chinese are, I believe, more entertaining and in- teresting than those written in Pali by Hindoos. In saying this, I fear I shall not get Dr. Rhys Davids to agree wiih me. But however this may be, what I give is taken from Chinese authorities, except where European writers are cited expressly. I began studying Chinese Buddhism more than forty years ago. Dr. Eitel, Rev. Samuel Beal, and Mr. Consul Watters followed me, and have done well. Before they began publishing, I had already pointed out that the Chinese Buddhist schools of authorship all spread to Japan many centuries ago, and were firmly planted in that country. It is surely worth the earnest thought of Pali students that Buddhism was developed powerfully in North-Western India under Persian and Christian influence so far as to allow of the teachiucc of a future life, and to treat tlie Nirvana practically as a euphemism for death. In this state Buddhism entered China. No sooner had it arrived than controversy com- menced on immortality. The Chinese Buddhists con- tended vigorously for the immortality of the soul against the followers of Confucius. Pali Buddhism, if it had been propagated in China, would not, probably, have originated such a controversy. It was the Northern doctrines invigorated by faith in the immortality of the soul which gave Chinese Buddhism sufficient energy to fouud new schools. •JOSEPH EDKINS. PREFACE. When the first Hindoo missionaries arrived at the capital of China and were admitted to see the emperor, it was, the Buddhists tell us, in the last month of the year a.d. 68, and the 30th day of that month. By imperial com- mand they were entertained in a building called Fe-ma si, '"Office of the white horses;" so named because they had ridden on white horses on their way from Cabul. The two Brahmans enjoyed the imperial favour, and one of the books they translated has remained popular to the present time. Thirteen years before these men reached China, the first missionaries of Christianity crossed the ^gean Sea and entered Europe. Instead of being received, however, with the smiles of those in power and enjoying imperial hospi- tality, they were publicly whipped and imprisoned by the magistrates of a Roman colony, and ignominiously dismissed. Buddhism covered China witli monasteries and images ; Christianity covered Europe with churches and charitable institutions. A hundred aiithors have written on the his- tory of the spread of Christianity in the various countries of Europe. Very few have ever studied the history of Buddliism as it has spread through China, and taught its xviii . PREFACE. doctrines in every part of that empire. There is room for new information on the entrance, progress, and charac- teristics of Chinese belief in the religion founded by Shakyamuni. Especially is there a need for facts on the history of Buddhism, because it is that one among the world's religions which has acquired the greatest multitude of adherents, and has also above any other carried out most systematically the monastic institute. Isaac Taylor drew attention in liis Ancient Chnstianity .to the knowledge of Hindoo monasticism possessed by Clement of Alexandria, and traced the origin of the monasticism of Christianity to that of India. Buddhism never became the State religion of China. It has grown side by side with the State religion, and obtained only the partial faith of the people. In this it differed from Christianity, which in Europe took the place of the old State religions of the various countries, after first vanquishing them all. One of the titles of Buddha is " the Lion ; " another is " the Great hero ; " another is " Honoured one of the world ; " another is " King of the Law." His followers love to represent him as completely victorious over metaphy- sical opponents by argument, and as gaining a thorough and final conquest over temptation impersonated by demons. He is also spoken of as victorious in saving from their unbelief all sorts of heretics, of men sunk in pleasure, and every class of adversaries. He has infinite pity, as well as infinite wisdom. Such is the ideal of Buddha. Let it be compared with that of the Christian Saviour. Let the result of the teaching of Shakyamuni on the Chinese be compared with that of the teaching of Christ on Europe. Is China as PREFACE. xix much better for Buddhism as Europe is for Christianity ? If the beginnings of the world's religions are very interest- ing and important subjects of inquiry, their progress and development are not less so. The various causes which operated to aid the spread of Buddhism, if carefully inves- tigated, will be a valuable contribution to the history of humanity. Koeppen has said that, at the time of Alex- ander's conquests, while there was a tendency imparted by him to the races he conquered, which led to the breaking up of a restrictive nationalism, and to the welding of various peoples, formerly separated by blood, customs, religions, and culture, into a higher unity in the conscious- ness of a common humanity, so also India was, by the propagators of Buddhism, putting forth vigorous efforts in the same cause. Alexander sought to make all mankind one. So did Buddhism. The Greek spirit and the spirit of Buddhism sympathised with each other and helped each other. In this way he finds an explanation of the rapid spread of the Buddhist religion in the Punjab, Afghan- istan, Bactria, and the countries near. He then proceeds to compare Buddhism with Christianity, which he speaks of as cosmopolitan Judaism to which had been added Alexandrian and Essene elements. Just as Christianity conquered the Western world, so Buddhism the Eastern ; and this it was able to do because it rejected caste and taught the brotherhood of humanity. It must ever be regarded as a noble instinct of the Hindoo race, which prompted them to throw off the yoke of caste. But it should not be supposed that the yoke of caste was so strong then as it now is. It was easier then than now for a Hindoo to visit foreign countries. The social tyranny of caste was then less powerful. What gave the first Buddhists their popularity ? In XX PREFACE. 1 part, doubtless, the doctrine of the common brotherhood of men; but there were several other principles in their teaching which rapidly won adherents, and must also be taken into account. They taught the universal misery of man, and offered a remedy. They met the yearning of humanity for a redemption by giving instruction, which they said came from the Buddhas and Bodhisattwas, each of whom was a powerful saviour to the devotee. These saviours, instead of being members of the Hindoo hierarchy of popular gods, like those of Olympus, were either human beings or incarnations of ideas, and combin- ing wisdom with mercy in their acts and teaching. The early Buddhists surrounded death with a halo of lofty spiritual glory, and called it the Nirvana. Deatl became synonymous with absolute peace, and so was looked on with less dread and dislike. When the Buddhists began to teach races to whom the subtle Hindoo metaphysics were a riddle beyond their comprehension, they taught, for the Nirvana, a Western Heaven ruled by a newly-invented Buddha, and additional to the paradises of the Devas. This is a new doctrine of a future life which is commonly accepted by the Northern Buddhists, from the Himalayas to the Altai mountains, and from Thibet to Japan. Another popular element was communism joined with the monastic institute. The monastery is a refuge for the unhappy, for those who have not succeeded in trade, for sickly children, for all who feel a call to enter on a monastic life. In the monastery they subsist on the common fund supplied by the gifts of the charitable. A home, a quiet life, and very little to do, was the prospect held out to those whom society can very well spare, and is not unwilling to part with. PREFACE. XXI Another popular element was the charm of nobleness attached to the monastic life. Self-denial becomes attrac- tive, and not at all difficult to those who are sensible of this charm. The renunciation of the world, and the absorb- ing occupation of a religious life, seem to many who enter the gates of the monastery a pleasant dream, and very desirable. Another attractive element in Buddhism has been the social character of the worship. The monks meet for morning and evening prayers in the presence of the images. To this should be added the agreeableness to the eye of dressed altars, lofty gilt images, and the encouraged belief that they are representative of powerful beings, who will afford substantial protection to the devotee who faithfully discharges his duty as a disciple. Then there is the doctrine of the Karma. Every act of worship, every Buddhist ceremony, every book of devo- tion read, every gift to a monastery or a begging priest, every mass for the dead, every invocation of a Buddha or Bodhisattwa, every wish for the good of others, infal- libly causes great good, through the necessary operation of the law of cause and effect in the moral sphere. How far these and other causes have helped to spread Buddhism through the many countries where it now pre- vails deserves the careful thought of the European student of the history of religions. Next to India itself, China has done more for the development of Buddhist thought than any other Buddhist country. This is a remarkable fact and very useful ; showing, as it does, that, judging from the past, the Chinese are susceptible to a very con- siderable degree of a foreign religion. They will also use intellectual energy in teaching and expanding it. Let any one who doubts this look over Kasmpfer's account of xxii PREFACE. Japanese Buddhism. He will there find nearly all the Chinese sects described in this volume occurring again. They have been transplanted entire with their books and discipline into that island empire, — a striking proof of the vigour of Chinese Buddhism. Why should they not accept Christianity with the same zeal, and apply to the task of teaching it as much mental force ? Dr. Draper says,^ " From this we may also infer how ■unphilosophical and vain is the expectation of those who would attempt to restore the aged populations of Asia to our state. Their intellectual condition has passed onward never more to return." My own conviction is, that so far as this theory of despair affects China, it is not warranted. The eras of intellectual expansion in that country may be briefly enu- merated in the following way : — After the Chow period, the most famous of all, came that of Han, when classical studies, history, and Tauist philosophy flourished together. Then followed a Buddhist age. Then came an age of poetry and elegant literature, that of the T'ang dynasty. After this came the time of the Sung philosophers, who were most prolific in moral and critical writings tinctured with a peculiarly bad philosophy of nature. The present is an age of classical criticism, a reaction from that of the Sung writers. We have six distinct periods of intellectual vigour, covering nearly three thousand years, and what do we now see ? The intellectual vigour connected with Buddhism and Tauism dead, past any hope of a resurrection. Con- fucianism is still living, but it is not very strong. The people have an excellent physique, adapting them for 1 Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. i. p. 57. PREFACE. xxiii various climates. They emigrate extensively. They have at home an autonomous empire of immense dimensions, administered by printed codes of laws, and such a mode of governing as to enable them to keep that empire from falling to pieces in a time of foreign wars and rebellions. They are not then to be despaired of intellectually. What they need is to be educated in the mass, to be ele- vated by the diffusion of a living Christianity, to have improvements in the physical condition of the poor, witli a system of scientific instruction in every province, and a development of the mineral and manufacturing resources of the country. No one need despair of the intellectual progress of the people, or of their susceptibility of spiritual development. Christianity fosters mental growth, and the science of the West is eminently stimulating to thought. The descen- dants of the men whose mariners sailed with the compass seven hundred years ago, and whose schoolmasters were at the same time making use of printed books in education, will not fail to respond to these powerful influences. That Buddhism has affected Chinese literature and thought to a considerable extent, is shown in the follow- ing pages. It taught them charity, but it did not impart a healthy stimulus to the national mind. It made them indeed more sceptical and materialistic than they were before, and weakened their morality. But since Buddhism has had among the Chinese its age of faith, prompting them to metaphysical authorship, and the formation of schools of religious thought, and also impelling them to undertake distant and perilous journeys, to visit the spots where Shakyamuni passed his life, it must be admitted that there is a very promising prospect for Christianity, and that the beneficial effect on xxiv PREFACE. the people must be in proportion to the excellence of the Christian religion. Perhaps Dr. Draper, in view of the facts contained in this book, would not be unwilling to modify his theory of the necessary decline of nations so far as it appertains to China, or at least allow the people of that country a further tenure of national life, till Christianity and educa- tion have had a trial. The present volume is the fruit of many years' studies. Some parts of it were written nearly twenty-five years ago ; nearly all is the fruit of Chinese reading. Dr. Eitel of Hongkong and Mr. Thomas Watters have since written ably and extensively on the same subject. But my mode of treatment differs from theirs, and in my revision it has been an advantage to have the results of their researches before me. My own collection of native books on Buddhism has increased, while my acquaintance with the actual form of this religion in its popular development at the present time has been considerably enlarged. The facts here collected on the esoteric sects are adapted to throw light on the history of Buddhism in India, and will help, it may be, to define the position of tlie Jains. In the section on Fcng-shtd, I ask attention to the view there given on the influence of Buddhism in produciu^r the modern Chinese doctrine of the physical influences of nature, and the part that, through the Buddhists, India and Greece have both had in producing the superstitious materialism of the Chinese in its modern shape. PiiKiNG, October 1879. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PACE Buddhism deserves examination — Researches of Remusat, Eurnouf, Koeppen, and St. Hilaire — Sanscrit manuscripts from Nepaul — Buddhist books reveal to view the ancient Hindoo world — The opening scene of the Kin-kang-king 1-9 A LIFE OF B UDDHA, IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. LIFE OF SHAKYAMUNI TILL HIS APPEARANCE AT BENARES AS A TEACHER. Previous lives — Chronology — The seventh Buddha — Birth— Early life — Becomes a hermit — Becomes Buddha — Legendary stories of his early preaching — Hwa-yen-king — Extramundune teaching — Appearance at Benares, 11-26 CHAPTER 11. LIFE OP BUDDHA FROM HIS APPEARANCE AS A TEACHER AT BENARES TO THE CONVERSION OP RAHULA. The four truths— Godinia and his four companions — The first monas- tic community— The first lay brother — Conversion of five hundred fire-worshippers in the kingdom of Magadha — Buddlia at Raja- griha^At Shravasti, in Jeta's garden — Appoints punishments for crimes of monks — Goes to see his father after twelve years' absence — Story of his son Rahula, 27-33 xxvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF RAHULa's RELIGIOUS LIFE TILL THE NEAR APPROACH OF THE NIRVANA. PAUE Buddha sends for Eahnla — Arrangements for instructing Raliula and other boys — Tutors — Boys admitted to the vows — Nuns — Kapid spread of monasticism — Disciplinary rules — Education in metaphysics — Ananda and the Leng-yen-king — Buddha in these works like Socrates in Plato — Buddha said to have gone to Cey- lon— Also to the paradise of desire— Offer of Devas to protect Buddhism — Protectors of China — Relation of Buddhism to Hin- doo polytheism — Prajna-paramita— King Prasenajit — Sutra of the Benevolent King — Daily liturgy — Ananda becomes Buddha's attendant disciple — Intrusted with the Sutras in twelve divisions — Buddha teaches his esoteric system — Virtually contained in the "Lotus Sutra" — In this the sun of Buddha culminated — His father's approaching death announced — Buddlia reaches the forty-ninth year of his public preaching 34-45 CHAPTER IV. LAST DISCOURSES AND DEATH OF BUDDHA. Buddha's immortality in his teaching — Death real and final — Object of Nirvana teaching — Buddha visits the Tau-li heaven — Descends again by Indra's staircase— The first images — Death of Buddha's aunt — Death of Shariputra — Buddha at Kushinagara — Between the Sala trees— Last instructions — Kashiapa made patriarch — Flesh prohibited — Relieves the king of Magadha — Sends for Ananda — Answers to four questions — Brahma comes — Buddha's last words — Death — Gold coffin — Maya comes — Cremation — His relics— Pagodas, 46-59 CHAPTER V. THE PATRIARCHS OF THE NORTHERN BUDDHISTS, Features of Asiatic life in the time of the patriarchs— Character, powers, and intellectual qualities of the patriarchs — Series of thirty-three patriarchs — Appointment of Kashiapa by Shakya- muni— The Svastika — Council of Rajagriha, for writing out the books of Buddha, and settling what should be received as canonical — The part taken by Ananda in the authorship of the Buddhist books — Ananda, second patriarch — The third was Shangnavasu — Remarks on samadhi and reverie — Fourth, Upagupta — Conversion of a wicked woman when dying — Fifth, sixth, and seventh patri- archs— Buddha's prophecy regarding Buddhanandi, the seventh — Struggle between filial love and Buddhist conviction in Buddha- CONTENTS. xxvii PAGE mitra — The way in which he subdued an unbelieving king — Ma- ming given to the king of the Getse to induce him to raise the siege of Pataliputra — Kapimara, the thirteenth — Nagarjuna, the four- teenth— Converts ten thousand Brahmans— "Writes the Ta-cM-tu- lun — Vigorous defence of Buddhism by Kanadeva — Assassination of Kanadeva — Sanghanandi, precocious as a boy— Prophecy re- specting him — Rahulata ascends to heaven — Sangkayasheta's dis- cussion on the nature of sound — Converts five hundred hermits — Kumarada's views on the inequaUty of present retribution — Diffi- culties met with by Manura in teaching Buddhism in Southern and Western ladia — A jjatriarch's power over birds — Haklena converts Singhalaputra, who succeeded liim as patriarch (the twenty-fourth), but was killed bj' the king of Caudahar — The orthodox school has only twenty-four patriarchs — The contempla- tive school has twenty-eight — Pradjnyatara, the twenty-seventh, converts Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth, who proceeds to China — Hindoo knowledge of the Roman empire, .... 60-86 CHAPTER VI. SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF BUDDHISM IN CHINA. The emperor Ming-ti sends an embassy to India for images, A.D. 61 — Kashiapmadanga arrives in China — Spread of Buddhism, A.D. 335 — Buddojanga — A pagoda at Nanking, A.D. 381 — The translator Kumarajiva, A.D. 405 — The Chinese traveller, Fa-hien, visits India — His book — Persecution, A.D. 426— Buddhism prosperous, 451 — Indian embassies to China in the Sung dynasty — Opposition of the Confucianists to Buddhism — Discussions on doctrine — Buddhist prosperity in the Northern AVei kingdom and the Liang kingdom — Bodhidharma — Sung-yiin sent to India — Bodhidharma leaves Liang Wu-ti and goes to Northern China — His latter years and death — Embassies from Buddhist countries in the south — Relics— The Liang emperor Wu-ti becomes a monk — Embassies from India and Ceylon — Influence of Sanscrit writing in giving the Chinese the knowledge of an alphabet— Syllabic spelling — Confucian opposition to Buddhism in theT'ang dynasty — The five successors of Bodhi- dharma— Hiuen-tsang's travels in India — Work as a translator — Persecution, A.D. 714— Hindoo calendar in China — Aniogha intro- duces the festival for hungry ghosts— Opposition of Han Yii to Buddhism— Persecution of 845— Teaching of Ma-tsu— Triumph of the Mahayana—Bodhiruchi— Persecution by the Cheu dynasty — Extensive erection of pagodas in the Sung dynasty — Encouragement of Sanscrit studies — Places of pilgrimage — P'u-to — Regulations for receiving the vows — Hindoo Buddhists in China in the Sung dynasty— Tlie Jlongol dynasty favoured Buddhism — The last Chinese Buddhist who visited India — The Ming dynasty limits the right of accumulating land — Roman Catholic controversy with Buddhists— Kang-hi of the Manchu dynasty opposes Buddhism — The literati still condemn Buddhism, 87-154 xxviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. THE SCHOOLS OF CHINESE BUDDHISM. PAGE The growth of esoteric sects in India— The Jains — Their series of twenty-four patriarchs — Bodhidharma headed a new school in Southern India, and was heretical as viewed from the Jains' stand- point—He founded the contemplative school in China— Nagarjuna, the author of the most i-evered books of this school — Tsung-men — Kiau-men— Divisions of Tsung-men — The Tsung-men sects are heretical in the view of the old orthodoxy — Specimen of the teach- ing of the Tsung-men — Lin-tsi school — Professes strict discipline — Its founder died A.D. 868 — His monument on the bank of the Hu-to river in Chi-li — Eesemblance to European speculation on the absolute — Is Buddhism pantheistic? — Exoteric sects — Lii-men (Vinaya) — Yogachara — Fa-siang—Madhyamika— Fa-sing — Tsing- tu, or sect of the " Pure land " or " Western heaven " — T'ien-t'ai' ■ — Poetry of the Tsing-tu school, 1SS-174 CHAPTER VIII ON chi-k'ai and the t'ien-t'ai school of buddhism. T'ien-t'ai, a place of great note in Chinese Buddhism — Chi-k'ai resided there in the sixth century — His cloak and rice bowl — Fu-lung feng — Faug-kwang si and the rock bridge— Legend of the Lo-hans — Twelve monasteries founded — He taught the Fa-hwa-kinrj — System of threefold contemplation — Six connectives — Eight modes of characterising Buddhism — Ten steps in progress — Derived much from Nagarjuna — T'ien-t'ai, a middle system — llegulations, 175-187 CHAPTER IX. THE BUDDHIST MORAL SYSTEM. The Ten virtues and Ten vices — The cause of human stupidity is in the passions— The Five prohibitions — The Ten prohibitions— Klap- roth's praise of Buddhism — But it is atheistic, and therefore this praise should be qualified — Kindness to animals based on the fiction of transmigration —Buddhism teaches compassion for suffer- ing without inculcating obedience to Divine law — Story of Shak- yamuni — Sin not distinguished from misery — Buddhists teach that the moral sense is innate — They assign a moral nature to animals — The Six paths of the metempsychosis — Hindoo notions of heaven and liell— Countless ages of joy and suffering — Examples — Exemp- tion from punishment gained by meritorious actions — Ten kings of future judgment — Fate or ^a»'«ia— Buddhism depreciates CONTENTS. xxix PAUK heaven and the gods — B\uldha not God, but a Saviour — Moral influence of the Paradise of the Western heaven — Figurative inter- pretation of this legend — The contemplative school identifies good and evil — No moral distinctions in the Nirvana — Buddhism has failed to produce high morality — The Confucianist condemnation of the Buddhists — Mr. P. Hordern's praise of Buddhism in Birmah — The Birmese intellectually inferior to the Chinese — Kindness to animals known to the Chinese before they received Buddhism — Buddha's reasons for not eating flesh, ..... 188-204 CHAPTER X. THE BUDDHIST CALENDAR. National festivals — Festivals in honour of celestial beings — In honour of the Buddhas and Bodhisattwas — In honour of characters in Chinese Buddhist history — Supplemental anniversaries — Sin- ghalese Buddhists keep a different day for Buddha's birthday — In the T'ang dynasty Hindoo astronomers reformed the calendar — Gaudamsiddha — The week of India and Babylon known to the Chinese — Word niit for Sunday — Peacock Sutra — The Hindoo Rahu and Ketu, 205-212 CHAPTER XI. RELATION OF BUDDHISM TO THE OLDER HINDOO MYTHOLOGY. Buddhism accepted the Hindoo mythology, with the sacred books of the Brahmans, so far as it agreed with its own dogmas — The gods Indra, Brahma, and Ishwara listen as disciples to Buddha — Eight classes of Devas — Four kings of Devas— Yakshas — Mahorngas — Pretas — Maras — Yama, king of the dead — Creation is denied to the Hindoo gods in the Chung-lun and other works, . . 213-220 CHAPTER XII. THE BUDDHIST UNIVERSE. The universe passes through incessant changes — Kalpas of various lengths — Kalpas of establishment, of destruction, &c.— Saha world — Sumeru mountain — The Southern continent is Jambudvipa — Heaven of the thirty-three — Tushita paradise — Upper tier of para- dises— Heavens of form and of desire— Heavens without form — Brahma's paradise — No wise man is born there, because Brahma says he created the universe — The hells — Story from the "Ti-tsang Sutra," 221-227 XXX CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. THE EXTENDED UNIVERSE OF THE NORTHERN BUDDHISTS. pa(;k Primitive Buddhism aimed at moral improvement and the Nirva,na — Its mythology was of popvUar growth — Tlie IMahayana mythology was introduced by the metaphysicians of Buddhism itself — Nagar- juna the chief inventor — Hica-y en-king — An extended universe invented to illustrate dogma— Ten worlds beyond the Saha world in ten different directions — New divinities to worship — Amitabha — His world in the "West— Kwan-yin and Ta-shi-chi — The world of Ach'obhya Buddha in the East— World of Yo-sh'i Fo, the heal- ing teacher — Mercy, wisdom, &c., are symbolised in the Bodhi- sattwas — Wu-t'ai shan in China is introduced in the Hwa-yen- king, . . 228-238 CHAPTER XIV. BUDDHIST IMAGES AND IMAGE-WORSHIP. Temples — Entering hall, Si-ta-tHen-icavg — These four kings described — The laughing Buddha, Mi-li Fo— Behind him, Wei-to — Chief hall, Ta-hlung-pau-tien — Shakyaniuni — Ananda — Kashiapa — Kwan-yin, Wen-shu, and other Bodhisattwas— Buddha repre- sented as teaching — Buddha of the past, present, and future — Chapels to 0-mi-to Fo, Ti-tsang, and the Ten kings — Representa- tion of the eight miseries from which Kwan-yia delivers — Temples in Ceylon — Images in temjiles near Peking — Tan-cho si snake— - Pi-yiin si — Hallof Lo-hans — Diamond throne of Buddha — Colossal images of Maitreya— Musical instruments— Reflections, . . 239-25S CHAPTER XV. MONASTERIES AT P'U-TO. This establishment more modern than T'ien-t'ai and Wu-t'ai — Blany Thibetan inscriptions — Frequent visits of Peking lamas — Dedi- cated to Kwan-yin — Gifts by Kang-hi — Images — Caves — Pagodas — Inscriptions — Resident defenders of Buddhism — The Potala of Jehol in Mongolia — It is also the name of tlie palace — Temple of the Dalai Lama — lu China an island was preferred to be the tau- ch'ang of Kwan-yin, 259-267 CHAPTER XVI. BUDDHIST PROCESSIONS, ASSOCIATIONS, PILGRIMAGES, AND CEREMONIES FOR THE DEAD. Yii-lan-hwei, "Association forgiving food to the dead" — Worship of ancestors — Liturgical services in the houses of the rich, for the liberation of the souls of the dead from hell — Village processions — CONTENTS. xxxi PAGK Based on tlie old rural processions of classical times— Masquerades — Plays —Pilgrimages to Miau-feng slian — Pilgrims wearing iron chains — Supposed efficacy of the prayers of the priests — Zeal of the laity in promoting pilgrimages to celebrated shrines, . 268-272 CHAPTER XVII. BUDDHIST LITERATURE. Buddhist libraries presented to monasteries by emperors — Ch'eng-tsu, of the Ming dynasty, was the first to print the entire series of the Buddhist accepted books — Pmjna-paramita, eighty times as large as our New Testament —The Pei-tsnng, or second printed edition, dates from the sixteenth century — The Kia-hing edition of the Pei-tsang— Division into King, Lu, Lun— First Council — Work of Ananda — The Mahayanaof Northern Buddliism- Council of Cash- mere— Authors of the Mahayana— Lung-shu wrote the Hwa-yen- king — Contrasts between the primitive and Mahayana books — List of translators, A.D. 70 to A.D. 705 — Sixteen hundred works are classified, inclusive of those by Chinese authors — On the councils for settling the canon— Translations by Burnouf and others — Lotus — Book of Forty-two Sections— Cliaracter of this and other early works — Stories illustrative of ancient life— Fan-wang-king — Chan-tsi-king translated by Beal— Pratimoksha, . . . 273-288 CHAPTER XVIII. THE LENG-TEN-KING — FIRST CHAPTER. The Sutra of firm establishment in all doctrine, describing clearly the secret merit and attainments in the religious life of Tathagata, who appears as Buddha in his great and unsurpassed stature ; also the many acts of the Bodhisattwas, 289-301 CHAPTER XIX. THE EKASHLOKA SHASTRA. The " Ekashloka Shastra," translated from the Chinese, with an analysis and notes, 302-317 CHAPTER XX. EFFECT OF BUDDHISM ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SUNG DYNASTY. The Sung philosophers differ from Confucius— Five periods of Chinese intellectual development— The Sung writers changed the old cos- mogony—The Han writers had already done so— Diagram of the Great Extreme— Other pictorial illustrations— Avoidance of the doctrine of a personal God— Materialistic philosophy of nature- New view of divination 318-326 xxxii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. FENG-SHUI, OR THE WIND AND WATER SUPERSTITION ©F THE CHINESE. paok All obstacle to civilisation — Meaning of Fetig, "Wind" — Of Shui, " Water " — Use of cyclic characters— Meaning of Lung, " Dragon " — Names of the geomancers — Hindoo nomenclature — Sha-ch'i, "Destructive vapour" — Dark arrow — Chen-wu, or "Protecting shield" — Feng-shui professedly based on the "Book of Changes" — Modern i^£M^-s/iui is based on the Han-lung-king — Buddhist eleruent in Feng-shui — The four elements of the C4reeks— The Hindoo "Air and water "is Feng-shui — Earth, water, fire, and air are creative forces, existing in successive kalpas, and forming successive worlds — Resemblance to the theories of the Ionian philosophers— Geomancy in the T'ang dynasty— ita/z it and^f^M — The Feng-shui system grew out of Buddhism — Native element in Feng-shui — Nine fancied stars — Causes of the contour of hills and plains — Stars of the six houses — Feng-shiii inconsistent with genuine Confucianism, 327-352 CHAPTER. XXII. BUDDHIST PHRASEOLOGY IN RELATION TO CHRISTIAN TEACHING. Use of Buddhist terms in the Nestorian inscription, a.d. 781 — Mo, "demon;" in Sanscrit, niara-— Ti-yil, "hell," is naraka — Ten judges of hell— Among them Pau Cheng, the famous judge of the Sung dynasty — The Sung philosophers encouraged the popular belief in future retribution — This prepares for Christianity — THen- t'ang, " heaven " — Defects of this term — Ming-kung, kc, as names for "heaven" — Buddhist paradises jjossibly borrowed from West- ern Asia or some other country farther west — Redemption — Ti- tsang and Kwan-yin — Pity — Instruction — Effect of sin— Decreed forgiveness to penitents — Secret merit — Happiness and merit confounded — Sin and misery confounded— Illustration from the narrative of a Christian convert, 353-370 CHAPTER XXIII. NOTICE OF THE WU-WEI-KIAU, A REFORMED BUDDHIST SECT. Originated two hundred and seventy years ago by a native of Shan- tung—No showy ceremonial — No images — Sacred books six in number — Interview of the founder with the emperor of the period, Cheng-te — Discussion with opponents — Victory— One of their leaders was crucified, 371-379 CONTENTS. xxxiii CHAPTER XXIV. BUDDHISM AND TAUISil IN THEIR POPULAR ASPECTS. PAGE The popularity of BucUlhism rests on its doctrine of retribution, and not on its ethics — Magical claims of the Tauists — Kvvan-yin, since the twelfth centurj-, usually a female— Powers and claims of Kwan-yin — Popular Buddhism loves to have prayers said for the dead — Hopes for paradise hereafter — Popular Tauism believes in hauntedhouses, in charms, and in the efficacy of the wizard in control- ling demons — The present head of tlie Tauists and chief magician — Went from Western China to Kiang-si, where he has ever since resided as hereditary Pope — The Tauist divinity Yii-hwang shang- ti has incarnations assigned to him — Chang Sien the bowman, a physician — Tail-cutting delusion — Tauist prayers for the dead — ■ The Buddhist Ycn-lo-wang, " God of death " — The eight genii — The eighteen Lo-hans — The Tauist delusions dangerous politically — T'ien-tsin massacre— Need of the light of education — The effect of the assault of Christianity on these religions, . . . 380-397 CHAPTER XXV. ON THE USE OP SANSCRIT BY THE CHINESE BUDDHISTS. Changes in Chinese sounds since the time of the Buddhist translitera- tion of Indian words — Examples of Sanscrit words in old and new Chinese — The importance of translations made in A.D. 60 to A.D. 76 for reading the Four Books — The Hindoo translators did not speak pure Sanscrit — Sanscrit was the language of the books — No Pali books in China — The translators spoke Pracrit — The term fo- li, "glass" — Use of Sanscrit words in magic — Dharani — Inscrip- tion in six languages at Kii-yung kwan, 398-407 CHAPTER XXVI. BOOKS AND PAPERS THAT MAY BE CONSULTED FOR THE STUDY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM. Foil koue ki by Eemusat — Works of Julien — Interesting passage from Fa-hien — Translations b}' Beal — Schott, Ucberden Buddhaismus in Hoch Asien und in China — Writings of Palladius— Eitel's Handbook for the Student of Chinese Buddhism — Watters' account of Chinese Buddhism — Eitel's Tliree Lectures, and article on Nirv&na, . 408-419 Alphabetical Index of Proper Names and Subjects, . . 422-443 Alphabetical Index of Titles of Books Mentioned, . . +^5-453 CHINESE BUDDHISM. INTEODUCTIOK Buddliism deserves examination — Eesearches of Remusat, Burnouf, Koeppeii, and St. Hilaire — Sanscrit niani:scripts from Nepaul — Buddliist books reveal to view the aucient Hindoo world— The opening scene of the Kin-lcang-hing. At the present time, when foreign intercourse with China is increasing every year, and our knowledge of that country is extending in proportion, an account of the history and literature of Buddhism in that land will perhaps find more readers than at any former period. The traveller will not fail to inquire why this Indian religion has sunk into, such helplessness and decay as he observes. The philo- sophical historian naturally will wish to know the causes of the vast extension of Buddhism, and of its present decline. The Christian missionary would willingly learn the amount and nature of the religious feeling possessed by the monks, and the strength of the opposition which the religion of Christ has to expect during its propagation, from them and from the Buddhist laity. Especially the statesman needs to be informed how far the Chinese people are likely to be offended by the introduction of Christianity, and whether the opposition to idolatry which it excites will strike at any of their most dearly- cherished prejudices and beliefs. A religion that has extended its sway over so many Eastern nations, and whose converts far outnumber those A 2 CHINESE BUDDHISM. of any other sect in the world, deserves minute investiga- tion. The present sketch will be necessarily too brief to do justice to the subject, but it is hoped some results will be brought forward that may assist the foreign observer to explain the great and long-continued success of the Buddhistic system, the causes of its growing weakness, and the many indications of its hopeless decay. Among European scholars Eemusat and his successors in the study of Chinese literature have bestowed considerable attention on Buddhism, and their labours have been re- warded with many interesting and valuable results. Espe- cially is the world indebted to Burnouf and St. Hilaire for their work in this field of Buddhist inquiry, and lucid exposition of their results. The aid to be derived from their investigations has not been neglected in the account now given to the reader. Further, the most direct means of gaining information is to study some parts of the volu- minous works extant in Chinese on this subject. The numerous Indian priests who came to China early in the Christian era were indefatigable translators, as is shown by what they have bequeathed to their disciples. These monuments of the highly civilised race that spoke the Sanscrit language, give to the inquiry a special literary interest. They were till lately inaccessible in their original form. The European students of Sanscrit for a long period sought in vain for an account of Buddhist doctrines and traditions, except in the w^ritings of their adversaries. The orthodox Indians destroyed the sacred books of their heretical brethren with assiduous care. The representations they give of the views of their opponents are necessarily partial, and it may be expected tliat what Colebrooke and otliers have done in elucidating Buddhism from the polemical writings of the Brahmans, would receive useful corrections and additions as well from Chinese sources as from the Sanscrit manuscripts of Buddhist books obtained by Hodgson.^ ^ During his residence in Nepaul. Of these works, the Lotus of the Good INTRODUCTION. 3. An extended critique of the Buddhist literature of China and the other countries professing Buddhism, such as Burnouf planned and partly accomplished for India, would be a valuable contribution to the history of the Hindoo race. The power of this religion to chain the human mind, the peculiar principles of its philosophy, its mytho- logical characteristics, its mode of viewing human life, its monastic and ascetic usages, all result from the early intel- lectual development of the nation whose home is south of the Himalayas. In the Buddhist classics it is not the life of China that is depicted, but that of Hindostan, and that not as it is now, but as it was two thousand years ago. The words and grammatical forms that occur in their perusal, when deciphered from the hieroglyphic Chinese form that they have been made to assume, remind the reader that they spring from the same stem of which the classical languages of Europe are branches. Much of their native literature the Buddhist missionaries left untouched — for example, the highly-wrought epic poems and dramas that have recently attracted the admiring notice of Europeans; but a large number of fables and tales with a moral are found in Chinese Buddhist books. Many specimens of this peculiar mode of composition, which, originating in Greece, was adopted by the Hindoos, and spread into the various literatures of modern Europe and Asia, have long since been made to wear a Chinese garb.i Further, the elements of grammar and the know- ledge of the alphabet, with some important contributions from mathematical science, have reached China throug^h the same medium. Several openings are thus presented into the old Hindoo world. The country where specula- tive philosophy, with grammatical and arithmetical science, Law, in Chinese M iau-fa-lien-hwa- tares, and llie Romantic Legend oj king, has been translated by Bur- Sdkija Buddha. nouf, Paris, 1852. The Rev. S. Beal, ^ Of these works Stanislas Julien Professor of Chinese in University has translated Les Avadanas, con- College, London, has translated from sisting of tales and apologues. 1859. Chinese A Catena of Buddhist Scrip- 4 CHINESE BUDDHISM. attained greater perfection than anywhere else in ancient times, is seen spreading its civilisation into the neighbour- ing countries, and producing remarkable and permanent chano-es in the national life of China. To witness this, as may be done in the Buddhist books, cannot be regarded as devoid of attraction. The very existence of Buddhism is sufficient evidence of the energy of the Indian race as it was long ago. The Mongols, Thibetans, and Singhalese, with the inhabitants of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, com- bine with the Chinese and Japanese to prove by the faith they still maintain in Buddhism the enthusiasm of its first missionaries, and their power to influence mankind. Buddhism was not always that decrepit and worn-out superstition that it now appears. Having said thus much by way of preface, it is time to introduce to the reader's attention the founder of the re- ligion. No way of doing this suggests itself as more suit- able than to translate from the opening scene of a popular Buddhist work called the "Diamond Classic" afew passages, where he appears in the midst of his disciples, instructing them in some of the principles of his system. The time, according to the Singhalese chronology, was in the sixth century before Christ. The place is Sha-wei,i a city in Central India. The hero is Shakyamuni himself, i.e., Bud- dha or Julai. The subordinate characters are the Bikshu ^ or religious mendicants, who are so denominated because they beg instruction for the mind and food for the body. They consist of two classes, says the editor of the Diamond Classic. Those who have abandoned vice and are aiming at virtue are the small Bikshu. Those who are released from both alike are great Bikshu. Among the latter, who 1 Slia-wfi was on the north of the according to K'ang-hi Bi-h'u. The Ganges, about 200 miles above Ben- orthography liere adopted for Chinese ares. It is also written Shravasti. and Sanscrit words, agrees nearly with All the upper part of the v;illey of that of Sir T. Wade and of the the Ganges was enibiactHl in what French writers on kindred subjects, was known as Central India. rt>r ou, the 00 of Morrison, u is here - This Sanscrit word is pronounced written. INTRODUCTION. 5 have gone deeper than the others into the profundities of Buddhist doctrine, are included those called Bosat and Lahan, or, as these characters are now pronounced by the Cliinese, P'usa and Lohan. ■ The chief minister of the king having at Eajagriha heard Buddha's instructions, and been deeply impressed by them, wished to invite him to some suitable dwelling. Jeta, the king's son, had a garden. The minister offered to buy it. The prince said by way of jest that he was willing if he would cover it with gold. The minister, who was child- less, obtained gold-leaf and spread it over the garden. The prince then gave it liim free of cost. According to another account the minister ordered eighty elephants loaded with gold to come immediately. The prince, admir- in think " on the phenomena of the sensuous world " or have ceased to think," i.e., become so far enlightened as to pay no attention to passing scenes, " or arc neither with thought nor without thought," that is, have become entirely indiffer- ent to life or death, appetite or aversion, love or hatred, " they should thus seek salvation in destruction." Wliy do not all living men obtain this immeasurably great re- lease ? " If the Bodhisattwa (Bosat, lie who knows and feels) has for his aim self, or man, or the world of living thinc^s, or old age, he is not a true Bodhisattwa." Buddha now bade Subhuti resume his seat, and went on to in- form him concerning the fixed place of rest for which he had inquired. "The Bodhisattwa in action should have no fixed resting-place for his thoughts. In wliat he does he should not rest on colour, sound, smell, taste, collision, or any particular action. He should not rest in forms of things, that is, allow himself to attend to any special sensational phenomena. If he thus acts, his happiness and virtue will be boundless." Buddha is asked by his disciple for a further explanation of this doctrine. He replies by inquiring if the four quarters of space can be measured by thought. Eeceiving a negative answer, he says that the same is true of the doctrine that the Bodhi- sattwa in acting without regard to particular objects obtains great happiness and virtue. He then asks if with the material body and its senses Julai or Buddha can be truly perceived. No, says the disciple, for body and form are not truly body and form. Buddha himself replies by denying the existence of all matter in the words " what- ever has form is an empty delusion. If any one sees that all things having forms are not forms, i.e., nothing, he then Chinese equivalent of this Sanscrit may be, by a Hindoo who pronounced term is, to announce that lie is at the word Nirbana. It is called in rest, and that it is applied to describe some translations Nirwan. TheHin- the death of Buddha, becauge his is doo translator would pronounce Nir- not a true death like that of other wana. The Chinese character used men, whose tsinri-shin (soul) does not for ni was called nit in some parts die." The sound taji was selected, it of China, and nir in others. '8 CHINESE BUDDHISM. truly perceives Julai " in his formless and matterless reality ; that is, has attained to a profound understanding of Buddhist doctrines. In these few passages from the Kin-hang -Icing or " Diamond Sutra," some of the most prominent doctrines of Buddhism are brought to view, viz. : — (i.) The happiness of the Nirvana or state of unconsciousness which frees him who attains it from the miseries of existence. (2.) The mischievous influence of human life, with its struggles after particular forms of happiness, and of the sensuous world with its deceptive phenomena. (3.) The non-exist- ence of matter, to be convinced of which is to take the first grand step on the road to enlightenment. This introduction into the Buddhist sphere of thought makes the system appear to be based rather on philosophy than on any religious principle. More will subsequently occur to confirm the correctness of this opinion. With regard to the real character of Buddhism, piety towards the Pailer of the world does not form either its foundation or the result to which it aims to elevate its votaries. It will be seen that, while striving to escape from the evils incident to life, and from every selfish aim, it is nothing but selfishness in an abstract philosophical form, stripped of the grosser qualities which are manifested in the com- mon course of human history. In enumerating the various kinds of sensations conveyed to our minds by the senses, a verb "to strike or pierce," cli'it, is employed in place of "touch," the familiar term of our own popular philosophy. All these sensations are said by the Buddhists to be produced by the respective organs with which they are connected. They are called the six kinds of " dust " or " worldly things " — the unwelcome accretions that attach themselves to our garments as we walk through the world. " Action," /a, said to emanate from the "will," yi, is classed with them as the sixth mode assumed by worldly phenomena. The preceding specimen of Buddha's teaching, sur- INTRODUCTION. g rounded by his disciples in a city of ancient India, is sufficient to introduce the subject. The principal facts in the life of that sage will now be detailed. Buddha will be here represented as he appears in the Chinese biographies. They describe him as a sort of divine man, possessed of unbounded magical power, and visiting the most distant spots, as, for example, the paradises of the gods, in an instant of time. In giving an account of Chinese Buddhism, I feel the importance of exhibiting Shakyamuni in the form which is familiar to the Chinese devotee. It is well, in our pic- ture, to retain the details of a marvellous nature which have been so abundantly added by the Northern Bud- dhists to the simplicity of the first narrative. Man cannot live without God. This was an effort to recover the divine. When God, through the absurdities of polytheism, was pushed out of view, the substitute was Buddha, the perfect sage, the model ascetic, the patient and loving teacher, the wonder-working magician, the acknowledged superior of gods and men. Sucli was the conception worked out by the Hindoo mind to take the place of the old polytheism of India, and accepted by all the Buddhist nations north of Shaky amuni's birthplace. In the history of religions it is of extreme importance that this fact should be recognised and appreciated. A LIFE OF BUDDHA IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTEE L LIFE OF SITAKYA1\IUNI TILL HIS APPEARANCE AT BEXAPvES AS A TEACHER. Previous lives — Chronology — The seventh Buddha — Birth — Early life — Becomes a hermit — Becomes Buddha— Legendary stories of his early preaching — Hwa-yen-lcing — Extramundane teaching — Appearance at Benares. In examining the Buddhist writings, the reader is at once reminded that he has entered a field where he is deprived of the trustworthy guidance and careful adherence to facts and dates of native Chinese authors. Not only is this true of works that contain the wilder extravagances of Indian mythology, and introduce the wondering disciple to the scenery and inhabitants of numberless other worlds, even those that wear an historical look, and yield the most in- formation, do not fail thus to betray their foreign origin. The doctrine of transmigrations, and an eternal succession of kaliMS past and future, is tempting to the biographer who wishes for variety of incident. He can place his hero wherever he pleases, in the universe boundless in space and time of the Indian imagination. The founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni, or the " Sage of the house of Shakya," is a case in point. It is said of him that before his birth more than two thousand years since in the present Mlpa, he had during many previous ones taken religious vows, 12 CHINESE BUDDHISM. and honoured the Buddhas who then instructed the world. His name is associated particuharly with Dipan- kara, in Chinese, Janteng, a iictitious Buddha, who re- ceived him as liis disciple, and foretold that he would in a subsequent Izal'pa become Buddha, and bear the name by which he is now known. The time when this hap- pened was too long ago to be expressed by common Chinese numerals. It was at a distance of numberless halpas} In modern Chinese temples, an image behind that of Julai sometimes represents Janteng. In tiie Jcalpa immediately preceding the present, Shakya is said to have risen to the rank of Bodhisattwa. He was then born in the heaven called Tushita,^ and when the time was come his soul descended to our world. He came on a white elephant having six tnsks. The date of Shakya's birth is very variously given. The Siamese, Peguans, and Singhalese, all using the Pali versions of the Buddhist classics, differ among themselves. The numbers as stated by them are B.C. 744, 638, and 624.^ The Chinese historian, Ma Twan-lin, mentions two dates as assigned by various authorities to this event, viz., 1027 and 668. The former is what is commonly given in Chinese books. Burnouf rightly prefers the chrono- logy of the Southern Buddhists. Their discrepancies between themselves form an objection, but not at all a fatal one, to such a conclusion. The uncertainty tliat involves this question is an instance of the difficulty attending researches in Indian chronology and history, as contrasted with the fulness and accuracy of Chinese writers. Wliat was the original language of Buddhism is another point not yet fully determined. The settle- ment of it would throw light on the chronology. Only one of the dates can be right, for there is no doubt as ^ A-scnf/-gi-kap. The Sanscrit word " Tushita now pronounced r?w; liu — r. NIVA - YEN-KING. 2 1 on the Sumeru Mountain, and utters an encomium upon him in a speech in wliicli he states that Kashiapa Buddha had discoursed on the same spot. He is followed by ten Bodhisattwas, who all speak in praise of Buddha's wisdom. Buddha is next found in the heaven of Yama, the Indian Pluto, and after this in that called Tushita, liter- ally " the happy," where his mother Maya resides. After this, the scene of tlie instructions and encomiums of the Bodhisattwas in the presence of Buddha is transferred to other Deva paradises, where Indra and other gods of the Brahmauical mythology hold conference with them. Last of all, at the close of this long Sutra, the scene is laid in the garden of Jeta as in the " Sutra of the Diamond," Kin-hang -king. Shariputra and other disciples are there by anticij)ation, but do not see Buddha, nor the magnifi- cent assemblage of Bodhisattwas. Before the assembly breaks up, Manjusiri takes his farewell of Buddha, and sets forth on a southward journey among mankind. Shariputra and 6coo Bikshus went to him for instruction. He exhorted them to practise the duties of the Bodhisatt- was, that they might obtain the samadhi of faultless vision, and see the Buddha regions and all the Buddhas. Man- jusiri then proceeded to the " city of happiness," on the east of which he met the youth familiarly known among the Northern Buddhists as Shan-ts'ai-t'unGr-tsi, who be- came his disciple and learned from him the knowledge of Bodhi. He also traversed Southern India, where he taught in I lo cities. Shakyamuni himself says very little in the course of this Sutra. It is intended rather for developing the my- thology of the great Bodhisattwas. As such, it is highly valued in China, where the images of Wen-shu (Manjusiri) and P'u-hien are common in the temples. P'u-hien in one speech mentions China under the name Chen-tan,^ as a * Hwa-yen-kiny, chap. xxvi. Tan means "countrv," as in Hindostan, Af"rhanistan. 22 CHINESE BUDDHISM. region where many Bodhisattwas have been engaged in past times in instructing the people. But the time had arrived when Shakyamuni must be- come a teacher of mankind, and we now find him suddenly making his appearance at Benares. Legend having resolved to exalt Shakyamuni to the utmost extent of her resources, busied herself particularly with the year when he attained that perfect vision of truth which is called the state of Buddha. He had passed six years in the exercises of severe absti- nence and meditation. One day he thought, " I had better eat, lest the heretics should say that Nirvana is attained in famishing the body. Let me eat, and then attain to perfect knowledge." He went to the Nairanjana river to bathe. Here a shepherdess gave him food which suddenly grew on a lotus-flower at her feet. He took it, and felt liis strength return. He went to sit under a banyan tree (Pippala), or tree of Bodlii. The god Indra brought him a straw seat. He sat here, resolved not to move till the transformation he was about to undergo should be com- pleted. The king of the IMaras, perceiving that the walls and foundations of his palace were shaking, thought in him- self, " Gautama is now attaining perfect knowledge. Before he has reached the height of wisdom, I will go and trouble him." Ho M'ent with bow and arrows, and attendant demons, to tlie tree where the object of his attack was sitting. He then addressed him — " Bodhisattwa ! give up the monastic principle {c'hu-l-ia fa), and become a 'wheel king.' 1 If you rise not, I will shoot my darts at you." The Bodhisattwa was unmoved. The darts, as they fell, became lotus flowers. The king of the Maras then offered him his three daughters to attend on him. Shakyamuni said, "You attained, by a small act of virtue, the body ^ A king who rules the world, and C/ioA-rffrar^'in Sanscrit, from C/m^Ta, causes the -wheel of doctrine every- "wheel," the symbol of activity, ■where to revolve. The great Ashoka whether of Buddha in preaching, or was a wheel king. The word is of kings like Ashoka in ruling. RANK OF BUDDHA A TTAINED. 23 of a Dcva, You tliink not on the perishing, but seek to tempt me. You may leave me; I need you not." The king of the Maras again said, " I will resign to you my tlirone as a Deva, with the instruments of all the five ] Measures." "No," replied the Bodhisattwa, "you attained the rank of Ishwara by some charitable deed. 15ut this happiness has an end. I wish it not." An army of spirits now issued from the ground and rebuked the tempter, who, as his last device, summoned a liost of demons to assault the unconquerable youth. The air was filled with grim faces, gnashing teeth, and bristling spears. The Bodhisattwa looked on this scene as if it M-ere child's play. A spirit in tlie air was now suddenly lieard to say, " The Bodhisattwa attains this day, under the Bodhi tree, the perfection of knowledge. Here stands the diamond throne of many past Buddhas. It is not for you to disturb him. Cease your hostility, and wait upon him with respect." The king of the Maras then returned to his palace. It was on the seventh day of the second month that Shakyamuni, after this victory, attained the rank of Buddha. This is described as entering into a state of reverie, emitting a bright light, and reflecting on the four modes of truth.^ It is added, that he comes to the com- plete knowledge of the unreality of all he once knew as good and evil acting, long and short life, and the five paths of the metempsychosis, leading all living beings into a perpetual interchange of sorrow and joy. As the morning star of the eighth day of the month appeared, he suddenly awoke to this consciousness, and attained the perfect view of the highest truth. As soon as Shakyamuni had risen from tlie state of ^ These are, Ku, "misery," Tsi, separation from the ties of passion, "assembling," Mie, "destruction," the possibility of destroying the de- and Tan, "the path," consisting in sires, and the path of salvation as knowledge of misery, truth, and regards the practical Buddliist life, ujipressive restraints, the need of 24 CHINESE BUDDHISM. P'usa to that of Fo, the assembly of the forty-one great teachers embodying the law, and of innumerable Devas, Nagas, and other supernatural beings, gathered round him, as the clouds gather round the moon. To them he discoursed, as already described, in the Hwa- yen-ldng. While he was meditating on the hopelessness of attempt- ing the instruction of mankind, none but a Buddha being able to comprehend what Buddha knew, it first appeared better that he should enter at once into the Nirvana. But from this wish he was dissuaded by Brahma and Indra, who came to intercede for mortals, and induce Buddha to become a public teacher. During seven days he received in silence Brahma's entreaties. In the second week he reflected on the sufferings and sorrows of man. In the third week, he said, " I ought to open the gate of the sweet law. Who should first hear it ? The hermit Arara, who desired the perfect knowledge of truth ? Let me first save him." A voice in the air said, " He died yesterday." Again he thought, " Then let the hermit Nalana be the first." The voice again said, " He died last night." He thought once more, " The five messengers sent by the minister of state had a like wish. Let them first hear the law." Buddha accordingly set out for Benares. On the way, he sat by a pool in a state of samadhi for seven days. A blind Naga (snake or dragon) that lay in the pool felt the light that shone from Buddha restore his vision. He came out of the water, Avas transformed into a youth, and received the vows as a disciple. On the seventh day of the third month, the spirit of the tree under which Buddha had for seven days been in a state of samadhi, took notice of Buddha's long abstinence from food. Five hundred travelling merchants passed at the moment, and the oxen that drew their waggons proved unable to pull the vehicles over the obstacles that lay in tlie road Two of the merchants came to the tree to ask APPEARANCE A T BENARES. 25 the spirit's aid. The spirit advised them of the presence of Buddha near tlie pool, and said they should offer him food. They gave him barley mixed with honey. The four kings of the Devas (who are seen in the front hall of Buddhist temples) took from the mountain stones four sweet-smelling bowls, which they found there by a happy chance. In these they offered the food. Buddha took all the bowls, for fear of giving offence to any of the kings. He then piled them up on his left hand, and, with his right (by magical manipulation), formed them into one, holding it so that all present might see it. Then, after uttering a charm, he ate the food, and proceeded at once to administer the vows to the two merchants, who, with their companions, all attained high grades in Buddhist knowledire. Buddha, in this instance, imposed on the neophytes the ordinary five prohibitions suited for men and Devas. This must be regarded, therefore, as exoteric teaching. But as the grade attained was high in proportion to the amount of training, it belongs so far to the unfixed or arbitrary division of the exoteric doctrine Kien-lu-cJii-pu-ting-ldau, " manifested, and not fixed teaching." It is at this point in Shakya's biography that a new section beoius. Mankind were not at this time in a state to receive the doctrine of the Greater development, and Buddha must be content to leave the brilliantly-illuminated regions of the great Bodhisattwas and shine upon the retired valleys, where he will, by a gradual process of teaching, reform and make happy such groups as he may meet of ordinary mortals in their wretchedness and desolation. He will, for the time, postpone his more elevated discourses, and proceed to Benares to teach the rudiments of his system. The shininfT robes of the recocrnised Buddha must be exchanged for the tattered garb of the ascetic. This is to him a temporary disguise. CHINESE BUDDHISM. The ISTortliern school, witli all the looseness of its chrono- logy, professes great exactness in dates. Month. Day. Event. 2 3 3> 8 29 6 7 8 Shakyamiini becomes Buddlia. Teaches the Hwa-yen doctrine. In reverie by the pool. Receives food from the merchants. In the garden at Benares. In these dates, says tlie biographer, intervals of three, four, and five weeks may be observed. ( 27 ) CHAPTEE II. LIFE CF BUDDHA FKOM HIS APPEAKANCE AS A TEACHER AT BENAEES TO THE CONVERSION OF EAHULA. Tlie four truths — Godinia and his four companions — The first monastic community — Tlie first lay brother — Conversion of five hundred fire-worshippers in tlie kingdom of Magadha — Buddha at Eajagriha— At Shravasti, in Jeta's garden — Appoints punish- ments for crimes of monks — Goes to see his father after twelve years' absence — Story of his son Raliula. It was exactly thirty-five days after his arriving at perfect wisdom that Buddha opened his public life at Eenares, by discoursincj to Godinia and others on the four truths. " You should know," he said to his auditors, " the fact of misery (Duk'a), and the need of becoming separated from the accumulation of entanglements caused by the passions (Samudaya). These two truths belong to the world from which you are now exhorted to take your departure. You should also experience the extinction of these miseries and entanglements (Nieoda), and the path of reformation (Marga). These two truths belong to the monastic life on which you should now enter." Having these subjects to discourse on, Buddha went forth to appeal to the youth of India, the hermits, the followers of the Zoroastrian fire-worship, the Brahman who studied the Vedas, and to men of every class. The wheel of doctrine revolved thrice. There was first didactic statement, then exhortation, and lastly appeal to evidence and personal experience. The image is that of grinding-. The chaff and refuse are forced from the 28 CHINESE BUDDHISM. good flour by repeated revolutions of the wheel. The statement of facts, the urgent appeal, and the proof are repeated in the inculcation of each of the " four truths." The wheel of Buddhist preaching was thus made to per- form twelve revolutions.^ Having once launched the subject under these four heads, it was natural that the Hindoo minds of the time, fond as they were of dialectical hair-splitting, should ramify them into numberless subdivisions. They talked of the eighty- one states of misery, the eighty-eight varieties of deception, the thirty-seven methods of reformation, &c. One of Buddha's earliest converts was Godinia, who was attracted by his teaching upon the four truths, and attained the first grade of clear vision. It was at Benares, the ancient Varanasi, in the Mrigadava garden {Lu-ye-yucn), that this conversion and that of four others took place. Thus becran the revolving of the wheel of the Buddhist law, which was destined to spread the new doctrine over so wide a portion of Asia, and to continue for so many centuries. These new disciples asked to be permitted to commence the monkish life. This Shakya allowed, say- ing, " Bikshus ! it is for you to take off your hair, wear the kasha, and become Shramanas." He discoursed of the non-permanence of human actions, of the emptiness of the external world, the non-existence of the Ego, the deliver- ance of the mind from thraldom by the cessation of faults, ind the consequent attainment of the moral and intellec- tual rank of Arhan. "Thus," adds the delighted Buddhist historian, "the world for the first time had six Arhans, and (including the new doctrine) the Three Precious Ones {San Pan). The first was Buddha, the second was the revolving of the wheel of the doctrine of the four truths {Dharma), and the third was the company of the five Arhans {Sanga). Well might that garden be regarded as the happy laud of men and Devas {Tien)." ^ Shi-er-hing-falun. THE FIRST LAY BROTHER. 29 This was the foundation of the spiritual communities of Buddhism. The Sanga, or assembly of believers, distin- guished by common vows of abstinence from marriage, from animal food, and the occupations of social life, now commenced. The Sangarama and Vihara,^ or monastery, vras soon rendered necessary for the residence of the voluntary coenobites, who daily grew in numbers, and the greatest social revolution that ever took place in India was fairly begun. Soon afterwards, a youth of great intelligence saw in the night-time a light. He opened the door of the house, and went out in search of the light. He soon reached Buddha's garden, was taught, became an Arhan, and re- quested permission to take the vows, to which Buddha at once consented. The father of this youth came in search of him, and was also tauglit by Buddha. He became a convert; with purged vision took the vows of adherence to the Three Precious Ones, and returned home to become the first Upasaka, or lay brother, keeping the rules, but living at his own house. It was permitted to the neophyte? if he preferred it, to continue in the position which he held in social life, and not to join the monastic community. As soon as the number had increased to fifty-six, another great step was taken by Shakyamuni. He broke up the community, and dismissed all its members to travel every- where, giving instruction in the doctrine of the four miseries to all persons with whom they met. This occu- pation was connected with begging for food. At this time the Buddhist community had no property. It was supported by the liberality of the new members, or by the gifts of rich persons. Whether the monks were in the monastery or upon their travels, the normal mode of gain- ing support was by the charity of neighbours, of passers- by, of kings and nobles, and all the kindly disposed. The system was thus gradually, in the early years of Shakya- 1 Savga, "assembly;" ardma, "garden;" Vihdra, "a place for walking about in." 30 CHINESE BUDDHISM. muni's teadiinfr, assumincj the form it has taken in all Buddhist countries. Monastic vows, living in spiritual communities, voluntary poverty, and universal preaching — these formed the basis on which the great Buddhist structure was erected. We cannot but admire the won- derful practical genius of the man who conceived the system, and carried it out with such triumphant success. In a few years India was covered, through the labours of the Buddhist preachers, with flourishing communities of monks, and in the cool season of the year the Bik- shus, or religious mendicants, w^ere everywhere seen on the roads and in the cities teaching the true path to the Nirvana. As Shakyamuni w^as the first in time of the founders of monastic communities, so he surpassed them all in the originality of his conceptions, in the success of his system, and in the force of his influence. The Buddhist preachers left their master, wdio proceeded from Benares to Magadha. At evening he slept in the house of TJluvilva Kashiapa. He there subdued a fiery snake, and administered to him the vows of adherence to Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood. To produce an impression on Kashiupa's mind, he enclosed the snake in a rice bowl. Kashiapa was still deficient in knowledge, but from this time he ripened and progressed visibly. On the banks of the Nairaiijana river, Shakyamuni had an interview, says the legend, with his old enemy, tlie king of the Maras (the Chinese mo in mo-hwci, " devil "),who wished to enter the Nirvana. But Buddha refused his thrice re- peated request, on the ground that he was not iiicntallypre- parcd for the change. Thus, legend — which was never more active in inventing wonderful stories about any one than about Shakyamuni — makes him sovereign over the most pow^erful supernatural beings. He did not, however, always refuse applicants for salvation from other worlds. He is said to have gone up to the Tushita paradise to instruct his mother Maya in ihe new law. J ETA'S GARDEN A T SHRA VAST!. 31 Oil the banks of the same river, five hundred fire-wor- shippers, after liearing his discourse on the four miseries, became Arhans, and threw their implements of worship into the river. Their religion — frequently mentioned in early Buddhist history — was, as it would appear, propa- gated from Persia to India not long before the time of Cyrus. In Persia, fire-worship had been added to the old Marian worship of the heavenly bodies. But while it had triumphed through Zoroaster's influence in Persia, it was destined to be expelled from India by Buddhism. With these new converts, Buddha went to the city of Rajagriha, and was received there with perfect confidence and admira- tion. The king Vimbasara, Ajatashatru's father,^ and all the principal persons in the city, Brahmans, officers, and people, became his disciples. The ruins of this city are still visited by the Jains, at a spot sixteen miles south-west of Baliar.- It was the metro- polis of the Magadha princes till the era of Ashoka, the Buddhist monarch who ruled all India about two hundred years after the time of Shakyamuni. Here Buddha taught for many years, and received some of his most celebrated disciples, such as Shariputra, Maudgalyayana, and Ka- shiapa. At this time Buddha began to appoint the wear- ing of the shangati, or upper robe, reaching to the knees. It is worn outside the kasha, or long robe, which was in use from the commencement of the monastic institute. Three years later, Shakya was invited to Shravasti, to occupy a house and garden expressly provided for him by the king's eldest son and. a rich noble, as already described. It was the Jetavana Vihara, or Monastery of Jeta's Garden. Here he was in the kingdom of Kosala, then ruled by Pra- senajita, who, with the chief persons of influence, were all in favour of the new doctrine. Buddha was obliged to become a legislator. As thefts, assassination, and evil-speaking occurred in his community, 1 From Fim6a, "shadow;" sdra, ^ Eitel's Handbook of Chinese "strengtli." In old Chiuese, .Bjm6a- Buddhism, sala. , 32 CHINESE BUDDHISM. he made special rules for the punishment of such crimes (Fo-tsu-t'ung-ki, iii. 30). His father sent a messenger to him, after he had been absent from home for twelve years, to inform him that he wished to see him, and to invite him to come for a visit. The messenger was a Brahmachari (a religious student or observer of Brahmanical rules of purity), named Udaya. On hearing Buddha discourse, Udaya at once attained to the state of Arhan (Lohan). Buddha now resolved to go to see his father, and attempt, by teaching, to save botli him and his mother. He sent forward Udaya to inform the king, and perform before him the eighteen changes — a series of magical effects. The king was delighted, and went out of the city thirteen miles, accompanied with an escort of ten thousand persons, to welcome Sliakyamuni, who was conspicuous for his stature — being sixteen feet in height — and his brilliant golden colour. He appeared like the moon among the clouds. Around him were many Brahmachari who had long been in the woods and moun- tains, and whose bodies were black. Tiiey seemed like those black-winged birds that fly round the purple-golden mountain. The king then ordered five hundred youths of distinguished families to become monks and attend on Buddha, like phoenixes round Mount Sumeru. The hermit life in India preceded the monastic life. Buddha himself was at first a hermit, like the Brahmachari of the time. But while they aimed at the old Brahmanical purity, his mind swelled with new thoughts and aims. They were content to avoid the stains of a secular life. He was bent on saving multitudes by teaching. When Buddha was come to see his father after twelve years' absence, his wife brought his little son, Ptahula, to see him. The boy was just six years old, and the courtiers doubted if Buddha was his father. Buddha said to the doubters, " Yashodara has been true to her duty. I will give proof of it." He then, by his magical power, caused the monks present all to become Buddhas in STORY OF RAHULA. 33 appearance. Yasliodara then took a signet ring and gave it to the boy, saying to him, " This is your father's ; give it to him." Eahula took it and gave it at once to Buddha. The king and all the courtiers said, " Good ! this boy is truly the son of Buddha."^ ^ Other stories take the place of this in Mr. Beal's translation of The Romantic Legend of Sdkya Buddha. 0 34 ) CHAPTER III. FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF EAHULA's RELIGIOUS LIFE TILL THE NEAR APPROACH OF THE NIRVANA. Buddha sends for Raliula — Arrangements for instructing Raliula and other boys — Tutors — Boj^s admitted to the vows — Nuns — Rapid spread of monasticism — Disciplinary rules — Education in meta- physics— Ananda and the Leng-yen-hing — Buddha in these worlcs like Socrates in Plato — Buddha said to have trone to Ceylon — Also to the jjaradise of desire — Offer of Devas to pro- tect Buddhism — Protectors of China — Relation of Buddhism to Hindoo polytheism — Pradjna Paramita — King Prasenajit — Sutra of the Benevolent King — Daily liturgy — Ananda becomes Buddha's attendant disciple — Intrusted with the Sutras in twelve divisions — Buddha teaches his esoteric system — Virtuallv contained in the " Lotus Sutra " — In this the sun of Buddha culminated — His father's approaching death announced — • Buddha reaches the forty-nintli year of his public preaching. When Buddha was forty-four years old he sent a messen- ger to his father and wife to say that his son Eahnla was now nine years of age, and ought to commence the reli- gious life. IMaudgalyayana was the messenger. The mother replied, "When Julai (Tathfigata) was a prince he married me, and before we had been married three years he went away to lead a mountain life. Having after six years become Buddha, and retnrned to visit his country, he now wishes me to give him my son. What misery can be so great as this?" She was, however, persuaded to consent to this sacrifice, and committed him to the care of the messenger. With him the kin" BOVS AND NUNS ADMITTED. 35 sent fifty sons of noble families to be his companions in taking the vows and receiving instruction. They were placed, says the legend, under the care of Shariputra and Maudgalyayana as their iwtom—Eo-shang (Updsaka), and A-che-li {Acharija)} The original meaning of the ordinary Chinese term for Buddhist priest thus appears to be " tutor," The primary duty of the Ho-shang was to be the guide of young monks. The term was afterwards extended in Eastern Turkestan to all monks. From that country it was introduced into China, where it is still used in the wider sense, all monks being called Ho-shang. It was now arranged by Buddha that while boys might be received into the community, if the parents were will- ing, when still of tender years, as from twelve to seventeen, they should not receive the full vows till they were twenty. He also ordered the erection of an altar for administer- ing the vows. It is called Kiai-t'an, " Vow altar." It is ascended by three flights of steps. On the top sit the officiating priest and his assessors. The flights of steps are so arranged that the neophyte passes three times round the altar on his way up, to indicate his triple sub- mission to Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood. Women began to ask and received permission to take the vows. They were called in India Bikshimi, and in China MIcu. M is the Sanscrit feminine termination of Bil-sMc; and Jcu is a common respectful term used of aunts, young girls, &c. In twelve years from the commencement of his public teaching Buddha's doctrines had spread over sixteen Indian kingdoms, the monastic system was founded, and the out- line of the regulations for the monks and nuns was already drawn. Shakyamuni taught morality by rules. He hedged 1 Eitel's ffandhook. The word From Turkestan it was introduced Ho-shang is translated from Updsaka into G\\\n&.—(Fan-iii-miiig-i). into the former language of Khoten. 36 CHINESE BUDDHISM. round his community witli the strictest regulations, but he made metaphysics the staple article of his oral instruc- tions. He tried first to bring his disciples out of danger from the world's temptations by introducing them to the spiritual association of the Bikshus. Here there was community of goods, brotherhood, the absence of secular cares, strict moral discipline, and regular instruction. The only respite was when the whole community M'ent out into the streets of the city to receive the alms of the householders in the form of money or food. The instruc- tion consisted of high metaphysics and a morality which speaks chiefly of mercy, and only looks at duty on its human side. Obedience to the law of God is in Shakya- muni's morality kept assiduously out of view. Instead of theology he taught metaphysics, and instead of a his- tory of God's dealings with mankind, such as the Bible is to the Christian, he supplied them with an unlimited series of the benevolent actions of the Buddhas and Bodhi- sattwas. This is true of Northern and Southern Buddhism, but the system prevailing in Ceylon and Siam has perhaps somewhat less of the metaphysical and more of the moral element than that found in China and Mongolia. One of the most striking examples of the use of meta- physics as a cure for moral weakness, is found in the Lcng-yen-kiiKj. The incident, which is of course legendary, is placed by Buddha's biographers in the forty-fifth year of his age and in the city Shravasti. Anauda, the fa- vourite disciple, lingered one evening in the streets, where he proceeded alone from door to door begging. He acci- dentally met a wicked woman named Matenga. The god Brahma had already resolved to injure Ananda, and now drew him by a spell into the house of Matenga, Buddha, knowing of the spell, after the evening meal returncnl from the house of the rich man who entertained him, sent forth a bright lotus light from his head and received a charm. He then directed Maujusiri to take the charm ANANDA AND THE LENG-Y EN-KING. 37 with wliich lie had thus been miraculously furnished, and go to save Ananda. By means of it he was told to bring Ananda and Matenga for instruction. Ananda on arriving made his bow and wept, blaming himself that he had not come before, and that after much teaching his " strength " {tau-li) was so far from perfect. Earnestly he asked the aid of the Buddhas of the ten regions that he might obtain the first benefits of knowledge (Bodhi). Buddha in agree- ing to his desire announced to him the doctrine of the Leng-y en-king. The attempt is made to strengthen the disciple against temptation by a grand display of meta- physical skill. The man who founded the monastic in- stitute as a cure for worldliness, might consistently teach philosophical negations as a remedy against bad morality. But it is for ever to be regretted that Shakyamuni failed to see the true foundations of morality. Confucius was able to uncover the secret of the origin of virtue and duty so far as to trace it to conscience and natural liglit. Judaism found it in the revealed law of God. Christian- ity combined the law written on the heart with the re- vealed law of the Divine Kuler, But Shakyamuni failed to express rightly the relation of morality to God or to human nature. Here is the most grievous failure of his system. He knew the longing of humanity for delifver- ance from misery, and the struggle which takes place perpetually in the heart of mankind between good and evil ; but he misunderstood them because he was destitute not only of Christian and Jewish, but even of Confucian light. Fortunately, however, all the imperfect teaching in the world cannot destroy the witness which conscience in every land bears to the distinctions of eternal and immutable morality, or Buddha's teaching would have been still more harmful. The occurrence of the Leng-yen-Jcing early in Buddha's public life constitutes a difficulty to the Buddhist com- mentators. Buddha is perfect. He commences with the superficial, and finishes with the profound. How was it 3S CHINESE BUDDHISM. that this most polished specimen of his acumen, acknow- ledged to be so by noted Chinese Confucian ists like Chn- fu-tsi, should equal the Sutras which were delivered at the end of his life ? They therefore deny its equality with the Fa-lnca-ldng, "The Lotus of the Good Law," delivered, so they say, wdien Shakyamuni was an old man. It has cost much labour to reduce the Sutras into a self-consistent chronological order. The Xorthern Bud- dhists when they added the literature of the Mahayana to that which was composed by Shaky am uni's immediate disciples, felt obliged to show in a harmonious scheme of his long life, to what years the various Sutras of the Hina- yana and Mahayana, or " Smaller " and " Greater Develop- ment," should be assigned. Imagine a life of Socrates composed by a modern author on the hypothesis that he really spoke all that Xenophon and Plato said in his name. Each of these authors im- parted his own colouring to his account, and introduced his own thoughts in various proportion ; and Plato's works certainly constitute the record of his own intellectual life rather than that of Socrates. His rambles in the world of thought have ever since his time been regarded as his own much more than they were those of his revered teacher. How foolish and useless would be the endeavour to construct a biography of Socrates on the principle that he wrote Plato, that the Platonic dialogues were all the products of his mind, that the ijicidents real or fictitious they record were all capable of arrangement in a self- consistent scheme, and that the philosophical principles they contain Avere all developed in a symmetrical succes- sion, and at definite epochs in the life of Socrates ! Such is the hopeless task undertaken by Buddha's Northern biographers. Buddha, in the eighteenth year of his public teaching, is said to have gone to Ceylon, called in the Sutras Lenga Island. He went to the top of Adam's Peak, and here THE PARADISE OF DESIRE. 39 delivered the Lcnga Sittra. A Bodhisattwa said to him, " Heretics prohibit the eating of flesh. How much more should Buddha enforce abstinence from flesh ! " Buddha assented, and gave several reasons why Bodhisattwas and others should conform to this rule. Lenga Island is de- scribed as inhabited by Yakshas, and as unapproachable by men except by those who are endowed with magical power. During the next year Buddha is said to have visited one of the heavenly paradises, in the middle of the second range of the heaven of colour and desire, where an assem- blage of Buddhas and Bodhisattwas from the ten regions gathered before him. Here he delivered the Ta-tsi-king. Each P'usa appeared in the form of the element he governed, whether it were "air" (Joung), water, or any other. The Devas and Nagas now came forward, and said, " We will henceforth protect correct doctrine. If any kings scourge members of the monkish community, we will not protect their kingdoms. The disciples of Buddha will abandon their inhospitable territories, which will then remain un- blessed. Not having the religious establishments which bring happiness on a country, pestilence, famine, and war will commence, while wind, and rain, and drought will bring ruin on the agriculture." After the gods and dragons had finished this speech, Buddha addressed himself to a son of a Deva called Vishvakarma, the patron of artisans,^ the Yaksha Kapila, and fifteen daughters of Devas, having eyes with two pupils, and directed them to become the patrons of China. Each of them was told to take 5000 followers and wherever there was strife, litigation, war, or pestil- ence, to put a stop to those evils, so that the eye of Buddha's law midit Ion"; remain in that land. The mythology of India appears in this description in its true light. The aboriginal inhabitants of a distaui - * Eitel's Handbook. 40 CHINESE BUDDHISM. island like Ceylon were thought of as a race of demons. The beings called Devas, the Tlicoi of Greece, and the Bei of the Latins, were a class subordinate to Buddha, the self- elevated sage. For want of a better word, the Chinese term for " Heaven," Tien, is applied to them. The " dragons," or oiajas, — with which the Hebrew nahash i and English snaJce may be compared, — are here viewed as a class of celestial beings. All these beings, however exalted, are regarded by the Buddhists as subject to the commands of their sage. Con- tinuing to rule the world, they do so in the interest of the new law which Shakyamuni has introduced. Hence in Buddhist temples they are placed at the door, and are worshipped as invisible protectors of all faithful Bud- dhists. Wlien the legend says that "gods" (Devas) and "dragons" (ISTagas) agreed to protect Buddhism, the meaning is, that at this period in Buddha's life the Indian kings began to favour his religion in a more public and extended manner than before. Shakyamuni next delivered — according to the Chinese account of him — the Frajna Paramita {Pat-no-pa-la-mit- ta). Frajna is " wisdom." Para is " the farther side " of a river, Mita is " known," "measured," "arrived at." There are six means of arriving at the farther shore of the sea of misery. They constitute the six Paramitas. Of these, that called the Prajna is the highest. The original works con- taining this system were thought too voluminous to be translated in full by Kumarajiva. It was not till the seventh century that Hiuen-tsang the traveller, after his return from India, undertook the laborious task of trans- lating one of these works, which extended to six hundred chapters, and one hundred and twenty volumes. Nagar- juna, the most noted writer among the twenty-eight patriarchs, founded on some of these works the Shastra ^ Nnhaslb in Hebrew, "serpent," is said to be named from the lii.ssing Eound of the animal. To " utter incantations " is nahash or lahash. KING PRASENAJIT. 41 of the "Measure of Wisdom."^ The Chinese CJa-k'ai, the sage of T'ien-t'ai, made nnich use of the Prajna in constructing his system. He had only Kumara- jiva's fragmentary translations, such as the "Diamond Classic." The " Benevolent King " {Jen-wang), here takes his place in the Chinese narrative of Shakyamuni's life. This oft- mentioned personage was Prasenajita, king of Shravasti. It was to him that Buddha is said to have delivered one of the Prajna discourses, and to have given the advice that he should, for the avoidance of national calamities, invite a hundred priests to recite this Sutra upon a hundred elevated seats twice in one day. Thus he would be able to prevent rebellion, the invasion of hostile armies, portents in the sun, moon, and stars, great fires, inundations, dearth, destructive winds, and drought. The king, when travel- ling, should have the Sutra placed upon a table ornamented with the Seven Precious Things, viz., articles of gold, silver, crystal, glass, cornelian, coral, and pearls, and it sliould be fully a hundred paces in advance of himself. Wlien at home, it should be kept on an elevated throne, over whicli hang curtains ornamented with the same precious things. It should be honoured daily with reverential bows, as a man would honour his father and mother. Here is the first mention of the daily service, and of the superstitious reverence for the sacred books called Sutras common among the Buddhists of all countries. The possession of a "Sutra" or noni among the Mongols, and a Mng among the Chinese, is believed to bring good luck to the family and the state. They are often written in gilt letters, and occupy an honourable position near the domestic idol. The rulers of nature will protect those who honour Buddha's true words. Such is the Asiatic fetishism. Buddha himself, and the books containing his teaching, become worshipped objects ; and the grand litur- gical services performed by large companies of priests at ^ Chi-tu-lun. See Fo-tsu-t'ung-ki, xxx. 13. 42 CHINESE BUDDHISM. tlie call of emperors and rich men in times of drouglit, sickness, death, and other calamities, are believed by the people to be beneficial on the ground of such passages as that just given. When the same Sutra — thaPrajna Faraiiiita — was heard by the kings of sixteen Indian States, they were, says the enthusiastic but evidently not truthful narrator, so de- lighted, that they gave over the affairs of their govern- ments to their brothers, adopted the monastic life, and became devoted seekers after Buddhist perfection. The names of the countries or cities they ruled were — Slira- vasti, Mao;adha, Paranai or Benares, Vaishali the seat of the second synod, Kapilavastu Buddha's birthplace, Kushi- naia the citv where he died, Kosala the modern Oude and Berar, Cophen the modern Cabul, Kulu, Gatalvana, Kucha, &c. — [Fo-tsu-V%ing-ki). In the sixtieth year of his age, Ananda was selected to be the personal attendant of Shakyamuni, and in his care were deposited the Sutras in twelve great divisions. This statement means that Ananda was the most active of the disciples in preserving the sayings of his teacher, and perhaps in composing the older Sutras. Godinia's offer of service was declined on account of his age. Maudgal- yayana, in a state of reverie, saw that Shakyamuni's thoughts were on Ananda. He told Godinia, who per- suaded Ananda to accept the duty. In temples Ananda is placed on the right hand of Buddha, for, says the legend, Shakyamuni set his heart upon him, as the sun at his rising sheds his light straight on the western wall. In Singhalese temples Ananda's image is not placed in that close proximity to Buddha whicli is common in China.^ Tliis circumstance suggests that he does not, among the Southern Buddhists, occupy so prominent a position as keeper of the Sutras and per- sonal attendant on Shakyamuni as he is entitled to in the opinion of their Northern brethren. In the sentence "Thus 1 When at Galle in 1858 I noticed this. ESOTERIC SYSTEM. 43 have I heard," which opens all the Sutras, the persou who speaks is Ananda. At seventy-one years of age, Buddha gave instruction in his esoteric or mystic doctrine. It was in answer to thirty-six questions propounded to him by Kashiapa. JSTagarjuna lays it down as a rule that " every Buddha has both a revealed and a mystic doctrine." The exoteric is for the multitude of new disciples. The esoteric is for the Bodhisattwas and advanced pupils, such as Kashiapa. It is not communicated in the form of definite lansuaf^e and could not, therefore, be transmitted by Ananda as definite doctrine among the Sutras. Yet it is virtually contained in the Sutras. For example, the Fa-hwa-king, or " Sutra of the Lotus of the Good Law," which is regarded as containing the cream of the revealed doctrine, is to be viewed as a sort of original document of the esoteric teaching, while it is in form exoteric. This work, the Saddharma Pundarika, or " Great Lotus of the Good Law," takes its name from the illustrations employed in it. The good law is made plain by flowers of rhetoric. For example, in the fifth chapter, Maitreya rises in the assembly and addresses Buddha, reminding him of the time, forty and more years before, when ho became an ascetic, left the palace of the Shakya clan, and lived near the city of Gaya as a iiermit. He then points to the multitude of immeasurably exalted Bodhisattwas, the fruit of his teaching. " The wonderful result is," he says, " to men incredible. It is as if a man of beautiful countenance and black hair, about twenty-five years of age, should say, pointing to an old man of a hundred, ' This is my son ; ' and the old man should point to the young man and say, ' This is my father.' Their M'ords would be hard to believe, but it is not less so to credit the fact of the marvellous results of Buddha's exertions in so short a space of time. How is it, too," he asks, " that these innumerable disciples have, during past periods of boundless time, been practising Buddha's law, exercising magical powers, studying the doctrines of the Bodliisattwas, 44 CHINESE BUDDHISM. escaping the stains of the world, emerging, like the lotus from its miry bed, and now appear here with reverence in the presence of the "World's Honoured one ? " This Sutra marks the time when, say the biographers, Buddha's sun reached the zenith and cast no shadow. They take the opportunity to remark here that Central India, where Buddha lived, is in fact the Middle kingdom, as shown by the gnomon, which, at the summer solstice, in that latitude casts no shadow. China, they say, cannot so well be called the Central kingdom, because there is a shadow there on the day mentioned. When Buddha's fatherwas an old man, and was seized with a threatening sickness, the son sent him a comforting mes- sage by Ananda. Having, by attending to the prohibitions of purity, caused the removal of pollution from his heart, he should rejoice and meditate on the doctrine of the Sutras. The messenger was directed first to leap in the air, so as to produce a supernatural light, which should shine npon the sick king, causing relief from pain. Then he was to put his hand upon his forehead, and state the message. Immediately afterwards, the king, placing his hand on his heart in an attitude of worship, suddenly took his de- parture preparatory to his next transmigration. Members of the Shakya clan placed him in his coffin, and set him upon the throne ornamented with lions. At the funeral, the four kings of the Devas, at their own request, officiated as coffin-bearers, having for this purpose assumed the human form. Buddha himself went in front carrying an incense-holder. The coffin was burnt, with sandal-wood for fuel, and the bones were collected in gold caskets by various kings, who afterwards erected Dagobas and Stiipas over them. Buddha informed his followers that the de- ceased, on account of his purity of life, had been born into one of the higher paradises above the Sumeru mountain. Early Buddhism favoured no castes. Persons of all castes were equal in the eyes of Buddha. This circum- stance made the new religion very popular with men of humble origin. This, perhaps, was the cause of the pre- APPROACHL^^G END. 45 servation of Buddha and Ananda when the clan of Shakya, to which they belonged, was massacred. Prasenajita had a son by a woman of low caste. This boy, when eight years old, had been insulted by the Shakya clan. He was learn- ing archery in the house of a tutor. A new house for Buddha to discourse in had just been completed, and the sage had been invited with his followers. Euli, the young prince, mounted the lion throne, when he was sarcastically reviled by members of the Shakya clan for presuming to sit on the throne, he being of ignoble birth. On succeeding to the kingdom, he went to make war on the Shakyas, and had an immense number of them trodden to death by elephants in pits. His brother, Jeta, giver of the garden of that name, was also killed by him for refusing to take part in this cruel act. Buddha told his followers that Jeta was born anew in the Faradise of Indra. usually called in Chinese " The thirty-three heavens." He also foretold the early destruc- tion of Euli and his soldiers in a thunder-storm, which took place, it is said, according to the prediction, when they all went to the hell called Avichi. Buddha also said that the unhappy fate of the Shakyas was due to their mode of life. They were fishermen, and, as they had been destroyers of life, so were they destroyed. In the view of Shakyamuni, a moral fate rules the world. Innumerable causes are constantly working out their retributive effects. These are the yin-yueii of which we hear the Chinese Buddhists say so much. This moral fate is impersonal, but it operates with rigid justice. Every good action is a good yin-yuen, securing at some future time an infallible reward. All virtuous and wise persons are supposed to be so, as the result of good actions accumu- lated in former lives. Buddha was now approaching the last year of his life. In the eleventh month he said to the Bikshus gathered round him in the city Vaishali, " I shall enter the Nirvana in the third month of next year." C 46 ) CHAPTER IV. LAST DISCOURSES AND DEATH OF BUDDHA, Buddha's immortality in his teaching— Death real and final— Object of Nirvana teaching— Buddha visits the Tau-li heaven— Descends again by Indra's staircase— The first images— Death of Buddha's aunt— Death of Shariputra— Buddha at Kushinagara— Between the Sala trees — Last instructions — Kashiapa made patriarch- Flesh prohil)ited— Relieves the king of Magadha— Sends for Ananda — Answers to four questions — Brahma comes — Buddha's last words — Death — Gold coffin — Maya comes —Cremation — His relics —Pagodas. The fifth period of development in the discourses of Buddha embraces those books which belong to tue "Lotus of the Good Law," and the " Nirvana." They close his public life as a teacher, and are regarded as the mellowest and richest of his productions. They were adapted to excite the longing of his disciples for higher attainments. Thiswas his meaning when he said, " I am not to be destroyed, but shall be constantly on the ' mountain of instruction ' {ling-shan, ' efficacious mountain ')." This, says the writer, is what is intended by Buddha entering the Nirvana, where there is neither life nor death. He is not dead, because he lives in his teacliing. Thus interpreted, the claim of the Northern Buddhists on behalf of their sage amounts to an immortality in the results of ins instructions. This is the Buddhist non omnia mortar. It is consistent willi much scepticism, and may amount by implication to a denial of the future life, and the continued existence of the soul in any form. We must not forget that the enthusiastic Buddhists BUDDHA'S IMMORTALITY. 47 who wrote the treatises we are now examining belonged to the same actual waking, moving world with ourselves. They fell back, not seldom, from a state of metaphysical reverie into the condition of common men under the do- minion of the senses. Then they took a firm grasp of the world. Metaphysics vanished. Death they looked on as a real death. The destruction of the material organisation is real. As for the soul, it lives in its actions. A great hero like Buddha lives only in the results of his life work. Perhaps our Sung dynasty author of six centuries ago felt satisfaction occasionally in resting the truth of his philo- sophy, as an expounder of the Mahayana, on the reality of visible things. In this case he finds the Nirvana of Shakyamuni in the unbroken continuance of the results of his teaching. The same tendency to look out on the actual world accounts for the view here taken of the Nirvana as a system of ultimate doctrine adapted to correct the faults of neoii^ent and misguided monks and others. After the earlier instructions had been delivered, down to the period of the " Lotus of the Good Law," there were still some men who failed to comprehend the full sense of Buddha's teach- ing. To them it was necessary still to discourse on the true nature of Buddha, that they might learn what is " really permanent " (chen-c'hang), and so enter the Nirvana. As the farmer has the early and the late harvest, so Buddha, when the first sowing of instruction had been followed by the ripening and the harvest, proceeded to a later sow'ing and harvest. It was then that a multitude of disciples, high and low in attainment, came to see, as never before, the true nature of Tathagata, and to Lear the fruit of a ripe experience. After their autumn harvesting and winter garnering, there was no more for them to do. Among them were those who advanced from the Prajna Paramita to the Fa-lnva (lotus), and others who, their perceptions still blunted, found the Fa-htca beyond their reach, and w'ere only capable of being reduced to a stale of mental 48 CHINESE BUDDHISM. and moral submission by the Nirvana. They find in the Nirvana doctrine that which enables them to see Buddha's nature. The historian has his eye upon those monks of later times who like to read other books than those of Buddha himself, and cease to use the books of Buddha for their instruction. They learn to encourage injurious and de- structive thoughts, even when under the control of Buddha's law. They shorten wisdom's life, and let go completely from their possession the " embodiment of the law" {f ashen). It is for such backsliders that the doc- trine of permanence was introduced. Its fulness and reality were to furnish them wdth a firm support. This was why, near the close of his life, Shakyamuui dis- coursed specially on the Nirvana before himself enter- ing into that state of blissful extinction. By this means he is stated to have strengthened the authority of the monkish system of rules, and with it that of the three divisions of the Buddhist library. We see the teaching of the Nirvana to be the doctrine of Buddha in his old age, when his experience was ripe. It was the result of his observation of the needs of the Buddhist community. It was the completing process in the development of doctrine, and was adapted to affect minds which remained unmoved under earlier and simpler forms of teaching. In the year 947 B.C., according to the chronology of the Northern school, Buddha went to the Tau-li heaven, and re- mained three months. He sent Manjusiri to his mother to ask her for a time to bend before the Three Precious Things. She came. Immediately milk flowed from her and reached Buddha's mouth. She came with IManjusiri to the place where Buddha was, who instructed her. She attained the Su-da-wan fruit. In the third month, when Buddha was about to enter Nirvana, Indra made three flights of steps. By these Buddha, after saying farewell to his mother, descended to the world, led by a multitude of disciples. DEATH OF BUDDHA'S AUNT. 49 and went to the Jetavaua garden in the city of Shravasti. The king Udayana, of Kaushambi, felt for Buddha a lov- ing admiration, and made a golden image. Hearing that Buddlia was about to descend by the steps Indra had made, he came with the image and bowed before Buddha. The image was of " sandal-wood " (chan-tan), and five feet high. When the king Prasenajita heard of it, he also caused an image to be made of purple gold. It was five feet high. These were the first two images of Buddha known to have been made in the world of Jambudvipa. These images radiated light while the sky rained flowers. Buddha joined his hands, and said to the image, " After my entrance into the state of extinction and salvation, I give into your charge my disciples." Buddha's aunt, Mahaprajapatl, could not bear the thought of seeing Buddha enter the state of extinction and sal- vation that would hide him from mortal view for ever. She took with her five hundred women and girls under vows of fasting, and made obeisance to Buddha. They then re- turned to the house, where they resided according to their rules, and each then exhibited the eighteen movements, attitudes, and marvellous performances. Some walked on the water as on dry land; others, leaving the ground, walked in the air, or sat, or lay down, or stood still, all in the same element. Fire and water were seen flowing from the right side of some, and from the left side of others. In others it was seen issuing from their mouths. They then all together entered the Nirvana. Buddha now ordered Ananda to go into the city, and announce to all the resident Buddhist householders, that it would be proper for them to make five hundred coffins. When the burning of the bodies with the coffins was com- pleted, the relics were gathered and placed in temples erected for the purpose, where they might be continually honoured with worship. Shariputra and Maudgalyayana were also grieved at the prospect of witnessing the entrance of their master into D so CHINESE BUDDHISM. the Nirvana, and themselves died first. At the same time 70,000 Lohans also entered the state of extinction. Buddha, seeing that his disciples of all four classes were also exceed- ingly disturbed in mind, made use of his magical power, and changed the two proficient ones into the form of two attendant disciples, one on his right and the other on his left. All living beings rejoiced when they saw this, and were at once liberated from every anxiety and vexation. On the fifteenth day of the second month, Buddha was at the city Kushinagara. He went to a spot between two Sala trees, and here iu a short time entered Nirvana. A great voice was heard proclaiming to all the assembly, " To-day the World's Honoured One is about to enter the Nirvana. Whoever has any doubts, now let him come forward and ask for a solution of them. It is the last opportunity of asking Buddha for instruction." At this time the great Bodhisattwas, the various kings of the Jambudvipa continent, the kings of the Devas, the kincjs of the mountains and rivers, and of the birds and beasts, with the personal disciples of Buddha, all arrived with offerino's, wishing? to administer to the wants of the World's Honoured One. In silence he firmly declined to receive anything. Chunda, a "lay disciple" {U-jKisaha)^ addressed him in the words, " We look to Julai for food in the future. Now we desire to receive sorrowfully the vows of the obedient, and to make our small offering." Buddha replied, " I accept your offering, for it is the last offering you will present to me." Chunda said in reply, " Though I know the benefit that is derived to mankind from Buddha entering the Nirvana in a ])ublic manner, yet I cannot but grieve." For this Buddha commended him. At this time tlie kiniis of the Devas and Nagas urged Shakyamuni, but in vain, not to enter the Nirvana at present. In reply, the World's Honoured One discoursed on the symbol " I," wiitten with three dots (.*.), arranged as a triangle resting on its base. This he used as a symbol KASHIAPA MADE PATRIARCH. 51 of the embodied form of TathaGrata when released from the three methods of the Prajua. All the assembly of Bikshus then invited him to discourse on the cessation of permanence, on misery, on emptiness, and on the negation of self. Buddha, in consequence, gave them instruction in the four antitheses, viz., the permanence which is not permanent, the joy that involves sorrow, the I that is not I, and the purity that contains impurity. The vast audience of Bikshus said, " Julai beino; with- out these four contradictions, wliy will he not remain with us for a halpa or half a halpa, that we may be informed how to escape from the four contradictions ? " Buddha said in answer, " I have already committed to Maha Kashiapa the complete and unsurpassed doctrine, to keep in trust, that you may all have a form of teaching on which you can rely. It will be the same as if you had Buddha himself." He then added, " I also intrust to you, kings of countries and leaders of supernatural armies, the deposit of sound doctrine that you may defend it by punish- ments and lawful force, in case of want of diligence, negli- gence, or wilful breaking of monkish rules." The prohibition of animal food is referred by the Great Development school to this period. The compiler takes the opportunity here to throw blame on the Lesser Development school, because it allows fish and flesh to be eaten on certain occasions. This refers to the teaching of Shakyamuni in the Deer garden at Benares, where the Agama Sutras of the Lesser Development school were delivered. In the first Sutras, those of the Hwa-yen and Fan-wawj class, the Bodhisattwas could not eat animal food. Tliis was the state of the question also at the time of the teach- ing in Benares. It occurs again in the Lcnga Sutra, as a restriction on the Bodhisattwa. In the work called Shik tsien, "Tallies of the Shakya communities," it is said, that the restriction on the entire Buddhist community began subsequent to the Agama period. In the Nirvana teach- 52 CHINESE BUDDHISM. iiK' of Buddha it was that the law was first made bindincr on all disciples of the Buddhist religion. Thus the Nirvana teaching made an important addition to the Buddhist code of discipline. Ajatashatru, king of Magadha, had killed his father, and in consequence, by natural retribution, suffered from a painful ulcer. He had six ministers of depraved minds who counselled him, in their deceptive way, to apply for relief to the six heretical teachers, Purana Kashiapa, &c., who taught that there is no need to honour prince or parents, and that happiness and misery do not depend on the moral character of actions, but come by chance. Another adviser informed tlie king that Buddha could cure him. While the king was lamenting that Buddha was about to enter the Nirvana, Shakyamuni himself went into a remarkable state of samadhi, by which lie was enabled to radiate pure and cool light as far as to the body of the king, whose ulcer was at once healed. The king, with the queen and 580,000 of his subjects, then proceeded to Kushinagara to see the sage, who there taught them. In consequence, the heavy crime of Ajatashatru became much lightened. He, his wife and daughters, made high attainments in the Bodhi wisdom, and then bade farewell to the sage, and returned to their palace. Buddha now said to Godinia, " Where is Ananda ? " Godinia replied, that he was beyond Salaribhu, involved in the delusions of sixty-four thousand millions of de- mons. These demons had transformed themselves into so many Buddhas, discoursing on the law and displaying marvellous powers. Ananda was led to think himself receiving instruction from true Buddhas, while he was at the same time entangled in a demon thrall. Consequently he did not come, and remained in this state of great unhappiness. Buddha then addressed Manjusiri in the words, "Ananda has been my disciple and has served me for more than twenty years. My teaching of the law has been heard by him in its entireness. As water flows into BUDDHA SENDS FOR ANANDA. 53 a vessel, so he received my instructions. Therefore, I ask, Wliere is he ? I wish him to hear from me the Nirvana Sutra. He is now vexed with demons. Take in your hand this 'charm' (dliarani) of mighty power, and go and save him." JManjusiri took it and went. The kings of the Maras, on hearing the charm recited, at once began to feel "wise thoughts" {Bodhi) stirring within them. They immediately abandoned the devices of Maras, and released Ananda, who returned to Buddha. Buddha now informed Ananda that Subhadra, an " as- cetic " {Brahmachdri) of a hundred and twenty years old, who lived beyond the Salaribhii kingdom, although he had acquired the eyesight and hearing of a Deva, and the power to search into other persons' minds and purposes, had not been able to put away his pride. He directed Ananda to go to him and say that Buddha, who came into the world like the "Udumbara tree" {Ficus glomerata)} would to-night enter the Nirvana. If he would do any- thing he should do it quickly. Ananda went as commanded. Subhadra came with him to see Buddha, who discoursed to him so effectively that he attained the rank of Arhan, and immediately used his endeavours to induce Buddha to delay entering the Nirvana. The sage made silent signs that his resolution was unchanged, and Subhadra, not able to bear the pain of witnessing the entrance into the Nirvana, himself first entered the state of destruction. On this, Buddha said to the assembled multitude, " From the time that I attained wisdom I have been engaged in saving men. The first was Godinia, the last was Subhadra. I have now nothing more to do." Ananda, at the instance of Anuruddha, asked him four questions: — "With whom should we live ? Whom shall we take as our teacher ? Where shall we live ? What words shall we use as a sig) ? " ' This tree, a fig-bearing fruit without distinct flowers, is said to bloom once ill three tliousand years. 54 CHINESE BUDDHISM. Buddha replied, " In regard to your first question, my judgment is that, after my death (entrance into the Nir- vana), such men as Chandaka, belonging to the six classes of unreformed Bikshus, must come under the yoke, and put away their evil dispositions. " As to the question. Whom after Buddha's death you should take as your teacher ? I reply that your teacher will be the Shipara system of discipline. " As to the question. Where shall you reside ? I reply, In the four places of meditation, i. Meditation on the body. The body and the moral nature are identical in vacancy. 2. Meditation on receptiveness. Eeception is not inside; nor is it outside; nor is it in the middle. 3. Meditation on the heart. It is only a name. The name differs from the nature. 4. Meditation on ' the Law ' (Dliarma). The good Dharma cannot be attained ; nor can the evil Dharma be attained. " As to the w^ords you should regard as a sign, there should be in all Sutras, at the beginning, the sentence Ju-shi-wo-wen — ' Thus have I heard.' This should be followed by an announcement of the place where Buddha was teaching, and of whom his audience was composed." Ananda atrain asked, "After Julai has entered the Nir- vana, how should the burial be conducted?" Answer, " Like that of the wheel kings. The body should be wrapped in fine white hair-cloth,^ and coated with a pulp of odoriferous dust. The inner coffin should be of gold, the outer of iron. When the body of the king is placed in it, it should be sprinkled with melted butter and burned with fragrant wood. When the burning is completed, let the remaining fragments of bone be taken up and placed under a pagoda, tower, or other monumental building. Those who see it will both rejoice and grieve as they think of the king who ruled his country justly. Li this our land the multitudes of men still to live wdll continue to bury with washing, and with burning, and construct 1 Tie, 8, dip, "Fine hair-clotli," cf. tapis, tapestry. BRAHMA COMES. 55 tombs and pagodas with a great variety of customary practices." " Within the Jamhii continent is the kincfdom of China. I will send three sages to renovate and instruct the people there, so that in pity and sympathy, and in the institution of all needful ceremonies, there may be completeness." This passage is founded on statements in the Sutra Tsung-mu-yin~yuen-hi7ig, " Sutra of Tombs in connection with sympathetically operating causes." The three sages are Confucius, Laou-tsi, and Yen Hwei. They are called the Bodhisattwa of light and purity, the Kashiapa Bodhi- sattwa and the Bodhisattwa of moonlight. Northern Buddhism gives its approval to the morality of Confuciu.s, the ascetic philosophy of Li Laou-tan, and the high purpose of Yen Hwei. It also looks benevolently on the funeral customs of the Chinese. Brahma not appearing in the assembly when Buddha was about to enter the Nirvana, was sent for by the angry multituele, who appointed the immortal man of a hundred thousand charms to go on this mission. Brahma's city was found to be in a filthy condition. Filthy things filled the moat, and the hermit died. Buddha created a diamond king by the exercise of his magical power, who went to Brahma's abode, and pointing to the filth, transformed the moat into good land. He then pointed to Brahma, and made use of a small portion of his adamantine and indestructible strem^th. This had its effect in inducing Brahma to come to the place w^here Buddha M'as. Buddha then proceeded to tell his disciples that they must follow the instructions of the book of discipline called Pratimokslia Sutra. This work details the laws by which the priests are to conduct their lives. They must not trade, or tell fortunes, or make profit by land, or train slaves and serving girls for families. They must not cultivate plantations for gain, or concoct medicines, or study astrology. The rules he ordered them to maintain 56 CHINESE BUDDHISM were of this kind. This treatise was to "be their teacher in place of himself. The last words ascribed to Buddha by tlie author of Fo-tsu-Pung-hi (iv. 12) are, "While I have been in this continent of Jambudvipa, I have appeared several times ; and though I have entered the Nirvana, it has not been a complete Nirvana. Therefore you ought to know the ' Law ' [Dliarma) that constantly remains, the unchanging law." Buddha then, as he lay on the couch of the Seven Precious Things, reclined on his right side, with his head to the north, his feet to the south, his face to the west, and his back to the east. At midnight, without a sound, he entered the Paranirvdna. He lay between eight Sala trees, arranged in four pairs. When he had entered the Nirvana, the two pairs that lay east and west became one tree, as did also tlie two pairs that lay north and south. They united to spread their shade over Buddha, and through extreme grief changed to a storklike whiteness. The grief of the multitude, manifested in loud cries, now filled the universe with sadness. A large number going into the city made a gold coffin, ornamented with the Seven Precious Things. They also prepared banners and canopies of sandal-wood, aloes, and other fragrant substances. They came to where Buddha was, and pre- sented them respectfully. With sincere grief the multi- tude raised Buddha and placed him in the coffin of gold. Four strong men were appointed to invite the coffin to enter the city. They could not raise it. Then sixteen strong men tried to lift it, but failed. Aimruddha now said, " If all the people in the city were to try to lift it, they would be unable. The Devas must be appealed to, for they can do it." Before he had finished speaking, Indra Sliakra appeared in the air carry- ing a magnificent canopy. A host of Devas of the A'isible heavens came with Shakra offering service. Buddha was moved with pity. He himself lifted the culfiu into the MAYA COMES. 57 air to the height of a Sala tree. The coffin of itself entered the west gate, and came out by the east. It then entered the south gate, and came out by the north. In this way Buddha went the round of the city gates seven times, and arrived at last slowly at the place of cremation. When the coffin reached the grove of the Seven Pre- cious Things, the four kings of the Devas arrived carrying branches of sandal-wood and aloes. On the twenty-second of the second month, Buddha, hav- ing entered the Mrvana seven days, wished to leave his coffin. His disciples carried him weeping to the grove of the Seven Precious Things. They then took odoriferous water and sprinkled liim with it, and wrapped him from liead to foot in silk and fine hair-cloth. After this they lifted him into the coffin, and placed him as he lay in the coffin upon a high framework constructed of fragrant wood. Each of them then took a torch of fragrant wood, proceeded to the wooden structure, and all was consumed. Anuruddha \vent up to the Tushita heaven to announce these events to Maya, the motlier of Buddha. Maya at once came down, and the coffin opened of itself. The Honoured One of the world rose up, joined his hands, and •said, " You have condescended to come down here from your abode far away." Then he said to Auanda, " You should know that it is for an example to the unfilial of after ages that I have risen from my coffin to address inquiries to my mother." Kashiapa was instructing five hundred disciples at the Gridhrakuta mountain when an earthquake occurred, from which he knew that Buddha had entered the Nirvana. At once he set out with his disciples to go to the spot where the coffin was. Buddha compassionated him. The coffin opened of itself, and presented to view the golden and purple body of Buddha, strong and beautiful. Ka- shiapa, weeping, sprinkled it with fragrant water, and wrapped it again with the hair-cloth. The coffin again closed, and a Gallia was chanted by 58 CHINESE BUDDHISM. Kashiapa, when the feet of Buddha Lccame again visible, and the representations of the wheel of a thousand spokes (on which Buddha sits) appeared outside of the coffin. Kashiapa performed reverent salutations to the feet indes- tructible as the diamond, and saw^ them return within the coffin. Anotlier wonder was added. Flame from the heart and bones of Buddha was seen extendincr out of the coffin. The process of cremation went gradually on till the seventh day, when the entire frame of fragrant wood on which the coffin rested was consumed. According to another account, Kashiapa took fire and lit the pile of fragrant wood. The Sung dynasty author, Clu-p'an, prefers the statement that the cremation was caused by a flame issuing from Buddha's own body. Seven days had passed after the death (literally de- struction and extrication) of Buddha, when Kashiapa announced to 500 Arhans tliat they should go to all worlds and gather Arlians who possess the six powers of penetration.! No fewer than 808,000 came and received instruction in Dharma near the two trees. On the twenty-ninth of tlie second month, seven days after the cremation of Buddha, Indra Shakra opened the coffin and took out a right tooth of Buddha. He caused two pagodas to be erected in his paradise. A Eaksha also took two teeth. The people of the city came and filled eight golden pots with relics. They took them into the city, and made offerings to them for seven days in succession. There was much contention among those who desired a share in the relics. Those who struGjoled were the kings of the Devas, the kings of the Nagas, and eight kings of India. To end the strife, Upakutta proposed a division into three parts for the Devas, the dragon kings, and the Indian kings respectively. His advice was followed. King Ashoka obtained 84,000 relics, and also the mous- 1 These are such as the power of ties of form, life, deatli, and rctribu- distin^'uishing all sounds, the feel- tion, &c. iiii's and aims of all persons, varie- PAGODAS. jr, taclies of Buddha. On his way home he met Nanda, a king .of the Nagas, who begged relics from him, threaten- ing to destroy his kingdom if he refused. Ashoka gave him a hair of Buddha's moustaches, which he took to the Sumeru mountain. He there erected a pagoda of rock- crystal for its safe keeping. In various parts of the Jambudvipa continent ten pagodas M-ere soon erected witli a similar object in view. ( 6o ) CHAPTER V. THE PATRIARCHS OF THE NORTHERN BUDDHISTS. Features of Asiatic life in the time of the patriarchs — Character, powers, and intellectual qualities of the patriarchs — Series of thirty-three patriarchs — Appointment of Kasliiapa Ly Shakya- niuni — The Svastika council of Eajagriha, for writing out tlie books of Buddha, and settling what should be received as canonical — The part taken by Ananda in tlie autliorship of the Buddhist books — Ananda, second patriarch — The tliird was Shangnavasu — Remarks on samadhi and reverie — Fourth, Upagupta — Conversion of a wicked woman when dying— Fifth, sixtli, and seventh patriarchs — Buddlia's prophecy regarding Buddhanandi, the seventh — Struggle between filial love and Buddhist conviction in Buddhamitra — Tlie way in which lie subdued an unbelieving; kino; — Maminpf rjiven to the kinrr of tlie •Getaj to induce him to raise the siege of Pataliputra — Kapimara, the thirteenth — Nagarjuna, the fourteenth — Converts ten thou- sand Brahmans — Writes the Ta-clii-tu-lun — Vigorous defence of Buddhism by Kanadeva — Assassination of Kanadeva — Sangha- nandi, precocious as a boy — Prophecy respecting him — Rahulata ascends to heaven — Sangkayasheta's discussion on the nature of sound — Converts five hundred hermits — Kumarada's views on the inequality of present retribution — Difficulties met with by Mainira in teaching Buddhism in Southern and Western India — A patriarch's power over birds — Haklena converts Singhala- putra, who succeeded him as patriarch (the twenty-fourth), but was killed by the king of Candahar — The orthodox school has only twenty-four patriarchs — The contemplative school has twenty-eight — Pradjnyatara, the twenty-seventh converts Bodhi- dharina, the twenty-eighth, who proceeds to China — Hindoo knowledge of the Roman empire. We are now in the midst of the Asiatic world of two thousand and sixteen hundred years ago. In India, in Afghanistan, and FEATURES OF ASIATIC LIFE. 61 in Turkestan, Buddhist priests had entered actively on that pilgrim life to which monasticism inevitably gives origin. With the object either of instructing, or of worshipping at some celebrated shrine, travellers were constantly seen on each foot-worn mountain path proceeding to some distant monastery. Such scenes as the following, illustrating the beliefs of the time and locality, would not seldom occur. A wayfarer in the country of the Getse (Jats) (Afghanistan) knocks at the door of a Brahman family. A young man within answers, " There is no one in this house." The traveller was too well taught in Buddhism not to know the meaning of this philosophical nihilism, and at once answered, " Who is no one ? " The young man, when he heard this, felt that he was understood. A kindred spirit was outside. Hurriedly he oj)ened the door, and invited the stranger to enter. The visitor was the patriarch of the time (seventeenth), with staff and rice bowl, travelling to teach and make new disciples. On his entrance, he at once proceeded to utter a statement that this young man was the object of a long foretold destiny. A thousand years after Buddha's death, a distinguished teacher would appear in the country of the Getse, who would reform his contemporaries, and follow up the work of illustrious pre- decessors. This meant that he was to become patriarch. He is eighteenth in the series. A patriarch is represented as one who does not look at evil and dislike it; nor does he, when he sees that which is good, make a strong effort to attain it. He does not put wisdom aside and approach folly ; nor does he fling away delusion and aim at comprehending truth. Yet he has an acquaintance with great truths which is beyond being measured, and he penetrates into Buddha's mind to a depth that cannot be fathomed. His lodging is noc with the sage, nor with the common class. Because he is above every one else in his attainments, he is called a patriarch. A patriarch has magical powers. He can fly through 6-^ CHINESE BUDDHISM. the air, cross rivers on a boat of leaves, rain milk "^ at will from the air, and enter into a very great variety of trances or samacUd. A patriarch has the keenest intellectual perception. lie can dive into men's thoughts, and explain tlie meaning of the longest and most obscure compositions. The superiority of his mental faculties to those of common men is most marked. He can accomplish intellectual feats where others fail. Possessed of such gifts and qualifications as these, a patriarch is the chief defender of Buddliism against the heretics and opposers of his time. Selected by the last patriarch from the crowd of common disciples, he takes the chief place ever after as champion of tlie Buddhist law and discipline. He cares nothing for luxurious living or social rank. He lives poorly, is meanly clad, and keeps up the dignity of his position by the influence of mind, of character, and of supernatural acts. The succession was broken at the fifth Chinese patriarch, and has never been restored. The rank of patriarch could be the more easily dis- continued because he had no ruling power. He was simply a defender, teacher, and example of the Buddhist doctrine and life. The following paragraphs are taken from papers I wrote many years ago. After the der.th of Shakyamuni, or, to speak honorifi- cally, his entrance into the Nirvana at Kushinagara, a series of thirty-three patriarchs, if we include live Chinese holders of the dignity, superintended in succession the affairs of the religious community he had founded. Eemusat has given an abstract of the biography of the patriarclis taken from a Japanese encyclopcedia. He says, Buddha, before his death, committed the secret of his mysteries to his disciple, Maha Kashiapa. He was a Brahman, born in the ' Tliis is stated in the life of grant milk." This is the name of a S'.Kingnavasu, the third patriarcli. milky plant, Eschycholtzia cristata, The word used is hiang-ju, " f ra- allied to the vervain. — Williams. APPOINTMENT OF KASHIAPA. 63 kingdom Magadha, in Central India. To him was intrusted the deposit of esoteric doctrine, called Chcng-fa-yen-tsang, " the pure secret of the eye of right doctrine." The symbol of this esoteric principle, communicated orally without books, is ^man or ?m7i. Tiiis, in Chinese, means " 10,000," and implies the possession of 10,000 perfections. It is usually placed on the heart of Buddha in images and pictures of that divinity. It is sometimes called sin-yin, " heart's seal." It contains within it the whole mind of Buddha. In Sanscrit it is called svasHIca. It was the monogram of Vishnu and Shiva, the battle-axe of Thor in Scandinavian inscriptions, an ornament on the crowns of the Bonpa deities in Thibet, and a favourite symbol with the Peruvians. The appointment of Kashiapa to be successor of Buddha and patriarch is described in the following manner : — " The World-honoured teacher ascended the platform from which he gave his instructions, holding in his hand a flower, the gift of a king. His disciples were all regardless of his teaching. Only Kashiapa showed attention and pleasure in his countenance. Buddha understood what was passing in liis mind, and gave him the pure mystery of right doc- trine, the secret heart of the Nirvana, that true know- ledge of existing things which consists in knowing them not to exist, and the method of enlightenment and refor- mation." Kashiapa distinguished himself by severely ascetic prac- tices. Buddha knew his excellence, and wished him to sit on the same seat with himself, as being not inferior in merit. But to this he would not consent. He also easily comprehended the ideas of Buddha. Buddha, on one occasion, used the following illustration: — "A notable man's house took fire. He brought goat-carts, drawn by goats, deer, and bullocks, to rescue his sons. He after- wards gave them a lofty, broad waggon, drawn by white bullocks. The first are the methods of Hinayana. Tlie last is that of Mahayana." Kashiapa understood that 64 CHINESE BUDDHISM. Buddha, when he thus alluded to the various modes of teaching employed by him to save men, wished to point out that the Mahayana is superior to the others in capacity, adaptability, and utility. He taught at Rajagriha after the Nirvana. The king, Ajatashatru, supplied daily -with food for a whole summer a thousand Arhans, who were engaged under Kashiapa in collecting the bool^s containing the sayings of Buddha, i.e., the TripitaJca. This is what is called by Koeppen the First Buddhist council. Kashiapa taught after this for twenty years, and then intrusted to Ananda the secret of pure doctrine. After this we hear of his proceeding to the four places of pil- grimage to worship. These were — the place of Shakya- muni leaving his home to become a recluse, the place of his becoming Buddha, of first preaching, and of entering the Nirvana. The second patriarch, Ananda, figures in many narra- tives as the constant attendant and disciple of Buddha. In temples he is represented as the corresponding figure to the old man Kashiapa, where he stands on Buddha's right hand. He was tlie second son of Shakyamuni's uncle, and was therefore first cousin of the sage. His name means " joy." His face was like the full moon, and his eyes like the lotus flower. He became a disciple at eioht vears old. At the assembly of the Lotus of the Good Law, Buddha foretold of Ananda that he would ultimately become Buddha. This was to be a reward for his joy at hearing the law, and his diligent listening to it. Buddha obtained knowledge and taught the law. The Bodhi was perceived ; and the Dharma became its embodiment. The part of Ananda was to grasp, hold firmly, and save from destruc- tion the Dharma as uttered by Buddha. In so doing lie also saved from oblivion the Dharma which will be uttered by coming Buddhas, as foretold by Shakyamuni. Kashiapa appointed that Ananda should sit on the lion AN AND A, SECOND PATRIARCH. 65 throne, with a thousand secretaries before him. They took down his words while he repeated the Dharma as he had heard it from Buddha. Evidently he had a good memory. Kashiapa was an old man, and Ananda was comparatively young. Both were alike anxious to pre- serve the teaching of Buddha ; and the thousand Arhans, who received the sacred Dharma, were selected from a vast multitude of those who had accepted Buddha as the lion of the law, the mighty hero of the new and popular religion. It is not said that they wrote. They may have com- mitted to memory the sacred Dharma as Ananda gave it, hut writing became the common mode of preserving Buddhist teaching so soon after, that this narrative may describe actual dictation and the work of a diligent secre- tariat, or company of disciples, who acted as scribes. The aged patriarch, Kashiapa, when he died, intrusted to Ananda the very victorious law, and told him the following story, which throws light on ancient Buddhism as represented by the Northern school. " Anciently, when Ting-kwang Fo was a ' Shamen ' {Shramana), he had under his protection a ' Shami ' (Shramanera) whom he required to recite prayers and meditations constantly, reproving him severely if he failed in reading the whole of his tasks. The Shami sometimes went out to beg for his instructor; but if he delayed beyond the due time, and did not complete his daily readings, he had to bear heavy blame from that very instructor for whom he begged. This led him to feel unhappy, and he com- menced reciting on the road as he went his rounds. A. kind and friendly man asked him the reason, and finding how matters stood, addressed him as follows : — ' Do not be sad. In future I will provide for your wants.' The Shami ceased to beg, and gave his whole attention to recitations of the sacred books, and was never deficient in the number of pages read. This Shami afterwards became Shaky amuni Buddha. His kind friend became Ananda in a later birth, and his sagacity, his power of E 66 CHINESE BUDDHISM. retention, and diligence in learning resulted from his meritorious treatment of tlie Shami." The third patriarch was Shangnavasu of Eajagriha. In a former life he had been a merchant. On the road, as he travelled, he had met a Pratyeka Buddha, very sick, and poorly clad. He gave him medicine, and clothing of a beautiful grass-cloth.^ This is what, by Buddhists, is called sowing the " field of happiness " {fii-Vicn). Other ways of acting so as to reap happiness are improving roads, building bridges, respect to parents, care of the poor, and opening common wells. The Pratyeka Buddha said, " This is called the SJiangna robe. With it the acquirement of wisdom can be made, and with it the Nirvana of destruction should be entered." He then took wing, performed the eighteen movements in the air, and entered the Nirvana. Shangnavasu collected fragrant wood, burned the body, and raised a dagoba over the relics. He also, as he wept, uttered a wish that in five hundred future births he might always wear a robe of this kind, and have a merit equal to that of his present life. He went to sea, obtained valuable pearls, and became a rich man. He then invited large numbers to a free feasting assembly in a forest, such as was held once in three years. He built a tower at the entrance of the place of meeting. Ananda said to him, "You sliould learn our doctrine, and live to benefit mankind." To this he consented. He took the vows and became an Arhan. Going away to the Manda mountain, he there by means of the samadhi of mercy, changed two poisonous young Nagas into beings having a good disposition. Samadhi means ecstatic reverie, and as there is some uncertainty as to its nature in some writers on Buddhism, 1 This cloth was brought to China plant of which it was made had nine from Thibet and other western coun- stalks. When an Arhan is born this tries in the T'ang dynasty. It was plant is found growing iu some clean white, fine, thick, and strong. The spot. REMARKS ON SAMADHI AND REVERIE. 67 it may be well to draw attention to this instance of snake- clianAing, It means a mesmerising power, a fixing of the mind and eye which has an effect on the snake. To fix the faculties in Buddhist contemplation is to enter into san-mei or samadhi. Those phenomena which we call trance, brown study, reverie, are examples of an inactive samadhi. The addition of an effort of will makes an active samadhi, as that used in snake charming by Bud- dhists, and as that of mesmerists. He founded a house to be used by monks as a con- templation hall at the spot, and perhaps the snakes he tamed may have been kept there in a box, as is sometimes done now in China. But the account does not say. He went thence to Candahar, at that time called Kipin, and there propagated the doctrines of Buddhism about eighty years before the conquests of Alexander. He lived in the Siang- (elephant) pe (white) mountain, sat on his chair, and entered into a trance. While this was happen- ing, Upagupta, his successor, was being much troubled with five hundred pupils, who were self-opinionated and proud. He felt that they were beyond his power to guide and elevate. There was not existing between him and them the " secret link of influence " {yuen, " cause." Sansc. nidana) that would have overcome this difficulty. This conviction he acquired in a samadhi, and learned or rather thought at the same time, while still in the ecstatic state, that only Shangnavasu could reform them. The samadhi here appears to be an elevated state of inspiration. But it has also a magical power. The next point in the narrative is the arrival of Shangnavasu himself flying through the air. He was habited most shabbily, and when he sat down on Upagupta's chair, the pupils stared angrily at him for daring to do this. But Upagupta came before him and bowed to him most respectfully. Shangnavasu pointed to the air, and fragrant milk fell as if from a spring on the side of a high mountain. This was the result of a samadhi, which the patriarch said was the samadhi of a Naga rushing eagerly forward. 68 CHINESE BUDDHISM. He then exhibited five hundred different kinds of samadhi. At the same time he observed to Upagupta, that when Buddha performed any magical act by samadhi, his pupil Maudgalyayana did not know what samadhi it was. Nor did inferior disciples know the name of any samadhi by help of A\hich Maudgalyayaua might do anything won- derful. " Nor do I," he said, " understand that of Ananda. Nor do vou understand mine." " When I enter the Nirvana," he continued, " 77,000 Sutras will perish with me; also 10,000 Shastras and 80,000 works of the class of discipline." After this the five hundred pupils bitterly repented, received the patriarch's instructions, and became Arhans. Upon this the patriarch entered into the Nirvana. Upagupta, the fourth patriarch, w^as a native of the Ma- dura country. He had a noble countenance which indi- cated his integrity, and was highly intelligent and eloquent. His instructor, Shangnavasu, the third patriarch, told him to keep black and white pebbles. When he had a ba I thought he was to throw down into a basket a black pebble ; when he had a good thought he wns to throw down a white pebble. U]:agupta did as he was told. At first bad thoughts abounded, and black pebbles were very nume- rous. Then the white and black were about equal. On the seventh day there were only white pebbles. Shang- navasu then undertook to expound to him the four truths. He at once attained the fruit " Srotapanna " {Su-t'o-hiuan). At that time a woman of wicked life in the same city with Upagupta, hearing of his upright conduct, sent mes- sengers to invite him to go and see her. He refused. The son of a citizen in good repute at about the same time went to stay with her. This youth she slew, because a rich traveller came with presents of valuable precious stones and pearls, which he offered for her acceptance. She buried the voutli in a court of lier house. His rela- tions came to seek liim and dug up the body. The king, informed of what had occurred, ordered the woman to have her arms and legs cut off, and also her nose and ears. She CONVERSION OF A WICKED WOMAN. 69 was then thrown out among graves in the open ground "beyond the city. When Upagupta went out on his begging round he arrived at the spot. She said to him, " When I invited you to come and see me I hud a beautiful face, but you refused. Now that I am maimed, my beauty gone, and my death near, you have come to see me. Why is this ? " He replied, " I have come to see you from a wish to know what you truly are, and not through evil desire. You have by your beauty corrupted and ruined many. You were like a painted vase always giving out evil odours. It was no pleasure to the truly enlightened to approach you. They knew that this beauty would not be permanent. Now all miseries have gathered on you like numberless boils and ulcers. You ought diligently to seek liberation by means which are in your power." The woman as she listened opened the eye of Dharma, and obtained the purification of her heart. At death she was born anew in paradise. Upagupta, when still a youth, saw that all the common methods of redemption were marked by bitterness, empti- ness, and non-permanence, and at once attained tlie fruit Anagamin, the third degree of saintship, or that from which there is "no" {anoC) "return " [gamin). He was then seventeen. Sbaugnavasu at once received him to the vows on liis application, and he became an Arhan. He was contemporary during the later years of his patri- archate with king Ashoka, who, hearing that he was on Mount Uda discoursinii to a lariie audience of believers, sent messengers to him, inviting him to come to the city where the king was, and bless him, by touching him on the crown of the head. The king much desired to learn at what spots he should erect pagodas in honour of Buddha. To this the patriarch responded, by pointing out to him all the places where Buddha had done anything remarkable during his life. The number of converts was immense. Each of them threw down a tally four inches long. The tallies filled a storehouse which was sixteen feet high, Upagupta became, i 70 CHINESE BUDDHISM. in virtue and wisdom, almost a Buddlia, lacking, however, he thirty-two points of characteristic heautj. When he had finished his journeys for reforming others, and the '' accomplishment of destiny in meetings with them " (Jiwa- yucn-yi-pi, " renovating destiny already ended "), he per- formed the eighteen metamorphoses, and seized on the sal- vation that consists in destruction, i.e., he died. The tallies in the house were used as offerings, yajun {ijajur), to burn. The people all wept aloud, collected the '•' relics" (sharira), erected a i'a (stupa), and performed regular wor- ship before it. In tliis example of the saint worship of Buddhism may be observed the upgrowth of superstitious practices. It aptly illustrates the way in which the religious principle in man works outward. Buddha, a sort of human god, was first worshipped. Other highly venerated men of a secondary type were in succession added, and became the inferior gods of a new pantheon. Drikata, the fifth patriarch, was given by his father to Upagupta as a disciple, to be in constant attendance on him as Ananda was upon Shakyamuni. Upagupta received liim to the vows at twenty years old. It was in this way. Upagupta was on a religious journey. He came to the door of an elderly man, who asked him, " Why do you, a holy sage, travel unattended ? " He replied, " I have left the world, and am without family ties. No one has given me an attendant disciple. It may be you who will bestow this kindness." The elderly man replied, " If I have a son I will respectfully offer him to you." He afterwards had a son whom he named Drikata, who devoted himself in youth to the study of the Sutras and other books, and then went in search of Upagupta. When Upagupta was old, he said to Drikata, '" My time for enteriuGj the Nirvana is come. The Dharma which I have taught I intrust to you. It will be your duty to teach it in regions far and near." This he did in Central India, and when he died (seized on the Nirvana) Devas and men were sad. SE VENTH PA TRIARCH. 7 r Micliaka was the sixth patriarch. When he met first with Drikata, he said to him, " I was formerly born with you in tlie heaven of Brahma. I met with Asita/ who taught me tiie doctrine of the Eishis. You met with good and wise teachers who instructed you in the priuciples of Buddhism. So your path differed from mine for a period of six kalpas. The record of the Eisliis said, 'After six halpas you shall meet with a fellow learner. Through him you shall obtain the holy fruit.' To-day, in meetiug with you, is it not the fulfilment of destiny ? " Drikata tlieu instructed him in Dharma, and he made eminent attainments. The Eishis, his companions, did not believe, until Drikata performed before them various magical transformations, when they all believed and ob- tained the fruit of doctrine. When Drikata died, Michaka took his place in renovating mankind by teaching the Nirvana. The seventh (should be eighth) patriarch was Buddha- nandi, a native of Northern India. When Michaka came to his country, Buddhanandi saw on the city battlements a jrolden-coloured cloud. He thought that there must be a safje beneath the cloud, who would transmit the Dliarma. He went to search, and found Buddhanandi in the street leading to the market-place. Michaka said, " Formerly Buddha, when travelling in Nortliern India, said to An- anda, ' Three hundred years after my death there will be a sao-e named Buddhanandi. He will make the Dharma great in this region.' " Buddhanandi replied, " I remember that in a former kalpa I presented to Buddha a throne. It was on this account that he made reference to me, and foretold that I should in the 'kalioa of tlie sages' {Bliadra- halpa) spread the Dharma far and wide. Since this agrees exactly with what you have said, I wish to become a disciple." He at once obtained the four fruits of enlightenment. The ninth patriarch, Buddhamitra, was found by his 1 A. EisLi who was able to detect the niiuks of Buddha on a child. Shakjamuni was his slave in a former birth. —Eitel. 72 CHINESE BUDDHISM. predecessor in the patriarchate in the following manner. Buddhanandj came to his country to teach. Seeing a white light over a house, he said to his disciples, " There is a sage here, who has a mouth, but does not speak, and has feet, but does not walk." He went to the door, and was asked by an old man why he came. The answer was, " In search of a disciple." The old man replied, " I have a son just fifty. He neither speaks nor walks." " That," said Buddhauandi, " is my disciple." Buddhamitra rose, made obeisance, walked seven steps, and then pronounced the following Gatlia : — " If my father and mother are not my nearest of kin, who is so ? If the Buddhas are not my teachers, who are my teachers?" Buddhanandi replied, " You speak of your nearest relative being the heart. To this your love for your parents is not comparable. Your acting in accordance with ' doctrine ' {ta%C) is the mind of the Buddhas. The Buddha of the wai tau (heretical teachers) belongs to the world of forms. Their Buddha and you are not alike. You should know that your real mind is neither closely attached nor sepa- .rated," He further said to the father :^ — " Your son formerly met with Buddha, and, stimulated by compassion, had great loncrinQ;s to benefit others. But because he has thought too much of his father's and mother's love, who could not let him go, lie has not spoken nor walked." The aged father hearing this, at once let iiim leave the family to become a monk. When ]\Iichaka (in Eitel, Mikkaka ; in San-hiau-yi-su, Misuchaka) was about to die, he intrusted to Buddhanandi the correct Dharma to teach to mankind. Such is the statement of Chi-p'an of the Kiau-men in Fo-tsu-Vung-hi. He rejects Vasumitra, the seventh patri- arch of the contemplatist school. He does not even men- tion Vasumitra, wlio yet was very distinguished. He took a cliief ]iart in tlie last revision of the canon, as pre- sident of the third or fourth synod, under Kanishka, Eajah of Cashmere, B.C. 153. To this, Eitel adds, that he must SUBMISSION OF AN UNBELIEVING KING. 73 have died soon after, though Chinese chronology places his death in B.C. 590. The Kiau-men writers apparently say little about the synods or councils, perhaps because they were presided over by the patriarchs, who favoured the contempla- tist school. Can this be the reason that Chi-p'an has neglected the seventh patriarch and caused Michaka to nominate Buddhanandi (the eiglith) as his successor, making him the seventh ? From this point I prefer to follow San-hiau-yi-su and Eitel in numbering the patriarchs, while continuing to take the story of their lives from the interesting pages of Fo-tsu-t'ung-hi, because the author is full of anecdote. Chi-p'an, to fill the vacancy caused by the omission of Vasumitra, mentions Madhyantika, a disciple of Ananda, who converted Cashmere. He was contemporary with Shangnavasu. Buddhamitra passed at once through the steps of enlightenment, and began to teach the correct Dharma. There was a king then reigning who followed another school, and wished to destroy the influence of Buddhism, a religion which he despised. Buddhamitra, wishing to bring this king to submission, took a red flag in his hand, and carried it before the king for twelve years. The king at last asked who this man was. Buddhamitra replied, "I am a man of knowledge, who can discuss reliijion." The king ordered an assembly of Brahmans to meet him in a lar^e hall, and discuss religion with him. Buddha- mitra took his seat, and delivered a discourse. A man weak in knowledge was pitted against him, whose reason- ings he at once subverted. The rest declined to ar^ue. The king then entered himself into argument with him, but soon gave way, and announced his intention to follow the Buddhist religion. In the same kingdom was a " Nirgrantha " {Nihan), who reviled Buddhism, and was an expert calculator. Nirgrantha means a devotee who has cut the ties of food and clothing, 74 CHINESE BUDDHISM. -^n-.-, aud can live M'ithout feeling hungry or cold. It is from grantlia, " tie." Buddlianiitra went to bini and received information in regard to his calculations. The Nirgrantha spared no abuse in speaking of Buddha. The Buddhist then said, "You are now working ^ out punishment to yourself, and wull fall into hell. If you do not believe what I say, try your calculations, and you will find whether it is so or not." The heretic calculated, and found tliat it w^as so. He then said to the Buddhist teacher, " How can I avoid this calamity ? " The reply was, " You should become a believer in Buddha. You may then have this demerit annulled." Nirgrantha (or the Nirgrantha) upon this, pronounced five hundred sentences in praise of Buddha, and repented of his former faults. Buddhamitra then said, " Having performed these meri- torious actions, you will certainly be born in one of the heavenly paradises. If you doubt this, make the calcula- tions, that you may know it to be so." He did this, and found that his demerit was gone, and that he would be born in heaven. He and five hundred of his followers joyfully enrolled themselves as Buddhist monks, shaved their locks, and placed themselves under the protection of the Three Precious Things. The tenth patriarch was Parshva, and the eleventh I'unayaja. Parshva came to the city of " Pataliputra " (Chinese, Hwa-shl), and rested under a tree. He pointed to the ground and said. " If this earth should change to a golden colour, a sage must be here." As soon as he had said this, the ground changed its colour, and immediately Punayaja arrived. He was received to the vows by Parshva, and became his successor. The twelfth patriarch was Ashwagosha, or Maming, " a liorse neighing." In the city of Pataliputra, five hundred youtlis of princely families became at one time converts ' Tsaii-tgui, "creating sin," i.e., the i>uiiishmeut of sin. Sin and its Ijuiiishment are confusuil and loosely identitied. M AMINO GIVEN TO THE KING OF THE GET^. 75 to his doctrine, and took the tonsure. The king feared that his Kingdom would become depopulated, and issued an order tliat there should be no more chanting. This decree was levelled against the use of some very popular and sweet music introduced by Maming. The music must have excited great attention, and must have had its effect in leading many persons to resolve on leading the Buddhist life. This would lead to diminution in popula- tion. The country would Ijecome poorer. There would be fewer workers, fewer tax-payers, fewer soldiers, and fewer traders. At this juncture the king of the Getse (Indo-Scythians) besieged Pataliputra. There were 900,000 men in the city, and the besieging king required 900,000 pieces of gold as a ransom. The king of Pataliputra gave him Maming, a Buddha's rice bowl, and a cock, observing that each of these gifts was worth 300,000 gold pieces. Maming's wisdom was unrivalled. Buddha had boundless virtue, and a merciful heart. The cock would not drink water that had insects in it. All three would be able to drive away enemies. The king of the Getse was delighted, drew back his troops, and returned to his country. After a time, the Parthians attacked him. He gained a victory, and killed 900,000 of the enemy. Maming was born at Benares, but taught chiefly at Pataliputra. One day, while he was causing the wheel of the wonderful law to revolve, an old man suddenly fell on the ground just before him. The patriarch said, " This is no ordinary person. There will be some remarkable appearance." No sooner was this said than he vanished. Then, in a trice, a man with a golden skin rose out of the ground. He soon became changed into a young woman, who pointed with her right hand at Maming and said, " I bow to the aged and honoured patriarch. Let me receive the mark of Julai." She disappeared. The patriarch said, '^A demon must be coming to struggle with me." 76 CHINESE BUDDHISM. There was a violent wind and heavy rain. The sky became dark. The patriarcli remarked, " The demon is indeed come. I must expel him." When he pointed into the air, a golden dragon appeared, who showed marvellous power, and shook the mountains. The patriarch sat calmly, and the demon's agency came to an end. After seven days, a small insect appeared, which hid itself under the chair of the patriarch, who took it up and said to the assembly, " This is the demon in an assumed shape come stealthily to hear my teaching." He set the insect free, and told it to go, but the demon in it could not move. The patriarch then said to the demon, " If you only place yourself under the direction of the Three Precious Things, you may at once obtain mar- vellous po"\vers." The demon at once returned to his ori- ginal shape, made a prostration and a penitent confession. The patriarch, asking him his name, he replied, " Kapi- mara." When the inquiry, what was the extent of his powers, was addressed to him, he replied that to transform the sea was easy to him. " Can you," asked the patriarch, " transform the ' sea of the moral nature ' {sing-hai) ? " He answered that he did not know what was meant. ]\Iaming explained that the physical world rests on this moral nature for its existence. So also the powers of samadhi, and of far-reaching perception on the part of Buddhist proficients, also depend on this for all their value. Kapimara became a believer, and three thousand of his adherents all entered the ranks of the shaven monks. The patriarch called in five thousand Arhans to aid in administering the vows to this large crowd of applicants. Kapimara became the thirteenth patriarch. His nume- rous followers spread the Buddhist religion in Southern India. He compiled a Shastra {Lun), called the " Shastra of the Non-ego." It extended to the length of lOO Gathas (JCie). Wherever this Shastra came, the demons and heretics were pitiably discomfited. NAGARJUNA, THE FOURTEENTH PATRIARCH. 77 Lung-s]LU,ov "Nagarjuna," was the fourteenth patriarch. lie belonged to Southern India. A king there was very much opposed to Buddhism, and influenced by what tliat religion calls "depraved views" (sie-kien). Lung shu wished to convert him, and for seven years carried a red banner before him when travelling. The Eajah asked, "Who is this man ? " He replied for himself, " I am a man pos- sessing all kinds of knowledge." The Eajah asked, " What are the Devas now doing ? " He replied, " Just now the Devas are fi<'hting with the Asuras." In a moment they became aware of the conflict of swords in the sky, and, to the Eajah's astonishment, some ears and noses of the giants fell on the ground. The Eajah reve- rentially performed a prostration before Lung-shu. Ten thousand Brahmans who were at the time in the hall of audience all joined in praising the marvellous virtue of the patriarch, and at once submitted themselves to the tonsure, and entered on the monkish life. Lung-shu wrote several important Shastras. Among them was that one called Ta-chi-tu-lun, " Shastro. ol the Method of Great Wisdom." He was one of the most prolific authors of the ]\Iahayana school. On this account he be- came the object of the jealous dislike of the older school of the Lesser Conveyance. When drawing near the end of his life, he unexpectedly fell one day into the trance called the samadhi of the moon's wheel, in which he only heard words of the Dharma, but saw no forms. His pupil, Deva, compre- hended him, and said, " The Buddha nature which you. my teacher, make known to us, does not consist in sights and sounds." Lung-shu intrusted to him the care of the Dharma, and entered a vacant room. As he did not come out for a day, the pupils broke open the door. He had gone into a state of samadhi, and died. In all the king- doms of India, temples were erected for him, and he was honoured as if he were Buddha. The fifteenth patriarch was Kanadeva, a native of South 78 CHINESE BUDDHISM. India. The king of his country followed a form of depraved doctrine. Wlien men were invited to act as guards, Kana- deva responded to the call, and took his place, spear in hand, in the front rank, discharging his duties in so regular and exemplary a manner that the king's attention was attracted. In reply to the king's inquiries, he said he was a man who studied wisdom and practised argumentative oratory. The king opened for him a discussion hall. Here Kanadeva proposed three theses : — (i.) Buddha is the most excellent of sages ; (2.) No law can compare with the law of Buddha ; (3.) There is no happiness {or merit) on earth equal to that of the Buddhist monk. " If any one can vanquish me in regard to these three theses, I consent to have my head taken off." In the discussion that ensued, all the heretics were worsted, and asked permission to become monks, A follower of one of the scholars who were vanquished in argument felt ashamed for his master, was much enraged, and resolved to kill Kanadeva. He attacked him while engrased in writing a controversial work, and with his sword pierced him through. Before life was extinct, the patriarch said, "You can take my robe and rice bowl, and go quickly to my disciples and inform them, that if any among them have not made progress, they should keep firmly to their purpose without despairing." The pupils came to see their master with loud lamentation. He said to them, " All methods and systems are empty. I do not exist, and cannot be injured. I do not receive love or hatred from any. What that man has injured is the form of retribution for my past. It is not I myself." He then cast off the body, as a cicada does its outer covering. His disciples collected the relics after his cremation, erected a dagoba, and paid him the regular honours of worship. The sixteenth patriarch was Eahulata, a native of Ka- pila. When a certain Brahman wrote a work of ico,ooo Gatlias, extremely difiicult to explain, Nagarjuna was able SANGHANANDI PRECOCIOUS AS A BOY. yc, to understand the whole at first hearing, and Kanadeva at the second hearing. Eahulata was able to comprehend the whole wlien he had heard Kanadeva's explanation. On this, the Brahman said, nnder the influence of great astonishment, " The Shramana knows it as clearly as if he had known it all of old." He then became a believer. After his destined work of reformation and instruction was done, Eahulata entered (the word is " took," '^ seized on ") the Xirvana. The seventeenth patriarch, Sanghauandi, of the city Shravasti, was the son of the king. He could speak as soon as he was born, and read the books of Buddha when an infant. At seven years old he formed a dislike to a worldly life. His parents tried in vain to check him in resolving to be a monk. Two years later, Eahulata came to the banks of the Golden-water river and said, pointing with his finger, " At a distance of five hundred li from this spot, there is a holy jjerson, named Sanghanandi, who will, a thousand years after Buddha, succeed him on the throne of purity." Eahulata led his disciples to see him. He had just awaked from a trance of twenty-one days, and at once desired to take the monastic vows. He very soon understood the principles of Buddha's teaching, and be- came liimself an instructor. One day Eahulata ascended to the heaven of Brahma with a golden rice bowl in his hand to obtain rice for a multitude of believing Buddhists. On a sudden they dis- liked its taste. Eahulata said, " The fault is not in me. It is in yourselves." He then desired Sanghanandi to dis- tribute the food and eat with the others. All wondered. Eahulata then said, " He is a Buddha of bygone times, and you also were disciples of the law of Buddha in ages long past. However, you had not attained to the rank of Arhan, but only realised the first three fruits of the monastic life." They replied, " The marvellous power of our teacher can lead to faith. This Buddha of the past has still secret doubts." Sanghanandi observed that when Buddha was So CHINESE BUDDHISM. living, the earth was at peace and the waters made every- thing beautiful ; but after his death, when eight hundred years had passed, men had lost faith. They did not believe the true form of beauty. They only loved marvellous powers and deeds that astonish. He had no sooner ended, than he seized a crystal jar, and slowly entered the earth. He went witli it to the boundary of the diamond wheel region, and filled it with the "drink of the immortals" {kan-lu). This he brought back to the assembly, and placed before them. They all repeuted of their thought, and thanked him. An Arhan, full of all virtue and merit, came there, Sanghanandi tried his powers by a question. " One born of the race of the wheel kings was neither Buddha nor an Arhan. He was not received by after ages as real, nor was he a Pratyeka Buddha." The Arhan, unable to solve this problem, went to the paradises of the Devas, and asked Maitreya, who replied, " The custom of the world is to form a lump of clay, and with a wheel make it into a porcelain image. How can this image compare with the sages or be continued to later generations ? " The Arhan came back with this answer. Sanghanandi replied, " It must have been Maitreya that told you this." When his destined course was finished, he grasped a tree with his right hand, and entered the state of destruc- tion and salvation. The corpse could not be removed by his disciples on account of iis great weight. A large ele- phant also came to try his strength, but was unable to move it. The disciples then piled up fragrant wood against the tree, and performed the process of cremation. The tree became still more luxuriantly beautiful. A dagoba was erected, and the relics were worshi])ped. The eighteenth patriarch was named Sangkayasheta. "When he heard the bells of a temple ringing on account of the wind blowing, his teacher asked him, " Is it the bells that make the sound, or the wind ? " The youth replied, "It is neither the bells nor the wind, it is my CONVERSION OF FIVE HUNDRED HERMITS. 85 mind." Walking on the sea-side, he came to a temple and went into it to beg food, saying, " Hunger is the greatest evil. Action is the greatest suffering. He who knows the reality of Dharma that there is in this statement, may enter the path of Nirvana." He was invited to enter and supplied with food, ' Sangkayasheta saw in the house two hungry ghosts, naked and chained, " What is the meaning of this ? " he asked. His host said, "These ghosts were in a foimer life my son-in-law and daughter-in-law. They were angry because I gave away food in charity, and when I instructed them they refused to listen, I then took an oath and said, ' When you suffer the penalty of your sin I will cer- tainly come and see you.' Accordingly, at the time of their suffering their retribution, I arrived at a certain, place where monks, at the sound of the bell, had assembled for food. When the food was nearly all eaten, it changed to blood, and the monks began to use their bowls and other utensils employed at meals, in fighting with one- another, and said, ' Why are you saving of food ? The- misery we bear now is a recompense for the past.' I asked them to tell me what they had done. They replied, that in the time of Kashiapa Buddha, they had been guilty on one occasion, when Bikshus came asking food, of conceal- ing their store and angrily refusing to share it with them. This was the cause of their present retribution." Sangkayasheta went on the sea and saw all the five hun- dred hells. This taught him fear, and the desire to avoid, by some means, such a fate as to be condemned to live there. He attained the rank of Arhan, and finding in a wood five hundred " hermits " {sien) who were practising ascetic rules, lie converted them to Buddhism by j^raising Buddha, the Law, and the Priesthood. When his destined course was run, he entered the Nirvana, B.C. 1 3. In the account of Kumarada, the nineteenth patriarch, is included an answer he gave to a youth who was puzzled at the inequality of rewards and punishments in the pre- 82 CHINESE BUDDHISM. sent life. The youth's parents were devout Buddhistg, but in very feeble health. Their neighbour was a butcher, and enjoyed an immunity from all sickness and pain. Why should a man whose business it was to take animal life escape retribution from this sin ? Kumarada told him that the inequality of men's con- dition in the present life is mainly on account of sins and virtuous acts in a former life. Virtue and vice belong to t.lie present. Happiness and misery are the recompense of the virtue and vice of the past. The virtue and vice of the present will be rewarded in the future life. Jayata was charmed with this conversation. His doubts w^ere dissi- pated. He subsequently became the twentieth patriarch, kumarada also said to him, " Activity, in which you have hitherto believed, comes from doubt, doubt from knowledge, knowledge from a man's not possessing the perceptive power, and the absence of perception from the mind's being in a morbid state. Let your mind be pure and at rest, and with- out life or death, victory or defeat, action or retribution, and you will then have attained the same eminence as the Bud- dhas of the past. All vice and virtue, action and inaction, are a dream and a delusion." Kumarada died a.d. 23. The work of the patriarchs was to engage in a perpetual ar-Tument against unbelief. There were differences in loca- l.ities. Some parts of India were more favourable to Budd- hism than others. In the account of the life of Manura, the " twenty-first " patriarch, in Fo-tsu-t'unrj-ki (but really the twenty-second), it is said that in the two Indias south of tlie Ganges, Western and Southern India, there was great perversity of view. Manura was well skilled in the analysis of alphabetic sounds, and was recommended by a learned Buddhist named Yaja, to proceed to Western and Southern India to teach Buddhism. Evidently he would aid in giving alphabets to tiie Tamil and other lan- suaiies. which at that time were first committed to writing. On the other hand, in Northern, Central, and Eastern India, all stated to be to the north of the Ganges, the work DIFFICULTIES MET WITH BY MANURA. 83 of Buddhist teaching is said to be easy. Yaja undertook to teach in tliis part of India. The campaign of Manura is described as a long struggle •with errors and heresies. He specially made use of a book by the twelfth patriarch called the Sutra of the Not-me. He found Western India under the control of kino- Teda, who one day when travelling passed a small pagoda. His attendants could not say what was the occasion of its being erected. He asked the " Brahmans of pure life " {Fan- ^m^), the " contemplatists " {cli'un-hwan), and the "utterers of charms " (cheu-shu), who formed three classes of the community of that day. They did not know. Manura was then asked; who said it was a pagoda erected by king Ashoka, and which had now come to light through the good fortune of the king.^ The king was much impressed with Manura's teaching, and became a disciple. He gave over his royal authority to his son, and himself took vows as a monk. In seven days he advanced to the fourth grade of the understanding of Buddhist doctrine. Manura gave the work of reforming the kingdom by Buddhist teaching into the hands of the king, and went himself to the kingdom of the Indian Getse, who — retreat- ing westward before the Hiung-nu, B.C. 180 — conquered the Punjab and Cashmere in a.d. 126. Manura taught in Western India and in Ferghana in the third Christian century. He is author of the Vibhasha Shastra. The twenty-third patriarch was Haklena. He was of the country of the Getse (Candaliar). At seven years old he began to rebuke those people who visited temples to sacrifice to the gods. He said they were deceivers of the people, by wrong statements of the causes of calamities and of happiness. " Besides, you are," he said, " wasting the lives of innocent cattle, which is a very great evil." On a sudden the temple and images fell down in ruins. At thirty-eight years of age he met with Manura, and was ^ "Good fortune," fu-li, " i^ower fortune is always deserved by some of the king's merit." Fu, "happi- good action done, either in tlie present ness," is in a Buddhist sense "merit." or in some former life. By the law of hidden causation, good 84 CHINESE BUDDHISM. instructed. Manura told liim that formerly five hundred of his disciples had, on account of small merit, been born as storks. " These are the flock that are now followin-* you, wishing to delude you into showing them favour," Haklena asked him, " How can they be removed ? " Manura spoke some sentences in the form of Gathas. " The mind follows the ten thousand forms in their revo- lutions. At the turning-points of revolution, there really must be darkness. By following the stream and recog- nising the true nature, you attain a position ^vhe^e there is no joy or sorrow." The birds hearing these words, flew away with loud cries. This is inserted by the Chinese biographer as an example of a patriarch's power over the animal creation. Haklena went to Central India. While he was teachint^ in the presence of a Eajah, two men appeared dressed in dark red mantles and white togas. They came to worshi]), and stayed a long time. Suddenly they went away. Tlie Rajah asked, " Who are they ? " Haklena replied, " They are the sons of the Devas of the sun and moon." His most promising disciple was Singhalaputra (Lion :