( 
 
 THREE 
 
 LECTURES ON BUDDHISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. ERNEST 
 
 / 
 
 J. EITEL. 
 
 HONGKONG: 
 
 AT THE LONDON MISSION HOUSE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 TRUBNER & Co., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1871 . 
 
 PRINTED BY CHARLES A. SAINT, “ CHINA MAIL ! ’ OFFICE, 
 HONGKONG. 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 Two of the following essays on Buddhism formed part of a series of popular 
 lectux’es, delivered in Union Church in the course of the winter 1870-71. To 
 complete the plan laid down in the first essay, it was necessary to add a third, 
 and the whole is herewith offered to the reader as a popular sketch of Buddhism, 
 which is hei’e viewed under its diffei’ent aspects, as an event in history,, as a 
 system of doctrine, and as a popular religion. Considering the character of the- 
 audience before which these lectux-es were delivered, the author avoided as much, 
 as possible going into details, and confined his remai'ks to the mox-e prominent 
 features of Buddhism. Those who wish to make themselves further acqixainted 
 with this impox'tant religion may x’efer to the aixthor’s “ Hand-book for the 
 Stxxdent of Chinese Buddhism; London, Triibner & Co., 1870,” to which more 
 
 I 
 
 pains-taking work the present pamphlet may serve as a general introduction. 
 
 Hongkong, March, 1871. 
 
 ERNEST J. EITEL. 
 
 
LECTURE THE FIRST 
 
 It is with considerable hesitation, that 
 I venture to address you on the subject 
 of Buddhism. Not as if i had given 
 years of study to this particular religion, 
 and yet failed to make myself familiar 
 with its general characteristics and minute 
 details. It is the magnitude and im- 
 portance of the subject that appals me 
 and in view of which I naturally feel dis- 
 trustful of my own power to deal with that 
 subject in a satisfactory and yet attractive 
 manner. Buddhism, I repeat, is a system 
 of vast magnitude, for it embraces all the 
 various branches of science, which our 
 Western nations have been long accustomed 
 to divide for separate study. It embodies 
 in one living structure grand and peculiar 
 views of physical science, relined and subtle 
 theorems on abstract metaphysics, an edi- 
 fice of fanciful mysticism, a most elaborate 
 and far-reaching system of practical mo- 
 rality, and finally a church organisation as 
 broad in its principles and as finely wrought 
 in its most intricate network as any in the 
 world. All this is moreover combined and 
 worked up in such a manner, that the 
 essence and substance of the whole may be 
 compressed into a few formulas and sym- 
 bols, plain and suggestive enough to be 
 grasped by the most simple-minded Asiatic, 
 and yet so full of philosophic depth, as to 
 provide rich food for years of meditation 
 to the metaphysician, the poet, the mystic ; 
 and pleasant pasturage for the most fiery 
 imagination of any poetical dreamer. The 
 magnitude of the subject, however, is but 
 equalled by its importance. A system 
 which takes its roots in the oldest code- 
 book of Asiatic nations, in the Veda, a 
 theory which extracted and remodelled 
 all the best ideas that were ever laid hold 
 of by ancient Brahmanism, a religion which 
 has not only managed to subsist for 2400 
 years but which has succeeded to draw 
 within the meshes of its own peculiar 
 church-organization and to bring more or 
 less under the influence of its own peculiar 
 tenets 450 millions of people, fully one 
 third of the human race, — such a system, 
 
 such a religion ought to have importance 
 enough in our eyes to deserve something 
 more than passing or passive attention. 
 
 The history of Eastern Asia is the history 
 of Buddhism. But the conquests of Bud- 
 dhism are not confined to Asia. This grand 
 system of philosophic atheism, which discards 
 from the universe the existence of a creating 
 and overruling deity and in its place deifies 
 humanity, has, since the beginning of the 
 present century, entered upon a course of 
 conquest in the West, in Europe aud Ame- 
 rica. Atheistic philosophers, unconsciously 
 attracted by the natural affiuity, which 
 draws together Atheists of all countries 
 and ages, have during the last fifty years 
 almost instinctively gone on sipping at the 
 intoxicating cup of Buddhistic philosophy. 
 The Germans Feuerbach aud Schoppen- 
 bauer, the Frenchman Comte, the English- 
 man Lewis, the American Emerson, with 
 hosts of others, have all drunk more or less 
 of this sweet poison and taken as kindly as 
 any Asiatic to this Buddhistic opium-pipe. 
 But most of all that latest product of mo- 
 dern philosophy, the so-called system of 
 positive religion, the school of Corate, with 
 its religion of humanity, is but Buddhism 
 adapted to modern civilisation, it is philo- 
 sophic Buddhism in a slight disguise. 
 
 I mention these facts only, to claim your 
 attention for the subject of my lecture, 
 being aware of the prejudices which deter 
 people from a study so unpromising at first 
 sight and uninviting as that of Buddhism. 
 But to guide you through the vast laby- 
 rinth of Buddhistic literature and doctrines 
 with something like method, I would divide 
 the subject matter under discussion into 
 three parts and treat Buddhism first as an 
 event in history, secondly as a dogmatic 
 system, and finally consider its aspects as 
 a popular religion. Considering, however, 
 that the time allotted for this lecture is too 
 limited to allow of my treating the whole 
 subject more than superficially, I shall con- 
 fine my remarks for the present to the first 
 part of this programme. Aud I propose 
 therefore to treat Buddhism as an event in 
 
2 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST, 
 
 the bistory of the world, to search for the 
 hidden roots of the gigantic tree of know- 
 ledge under the boughs of which one third 
 of the human race has flocked together. 
 Let us watch its gradual growth through 
 successive centuries, let us count the large 
 branches it has sent forth iu all directions 
 and ascertain its present condition and 
 extent. 
 
 But here, at the outset, we meet with 
 the usual difficulty that obstructs the way 
 of the historian who wants to get at the 
 roots of events : they are hidden in com- 
 plete darkness. There is such a network 
 of fiction, romance, legend and truth lying 
 around the early history of Buddhism, that 
 it is an exceedingly difficult task to sift 
 truth from fiction. And yet these legends 
 and myths ought not to be despised 
 by the historian, ought not to be 
 thrown aside as worthless rubbish. They 
 are often very significant, a very mas- 
 ter key to many specific characteristics 
 of after-developments, a rich ore of hidden 
 wealth to him who patiently works through 
 them and knows how to appreciate them 
 with discerning caution. I shall not ask 
 you, however, to follow me through the 
 tedious process of sifting out the truth from 
 among the entangled mass of legends about 
 the first origin of Buddhism. I will give 
 you but the results of careful investigations 
 and lightly sketch first the few historic data 
 that crop out of the chaos of legend and 
 fable, and then give you an outline of the 
 same according to the received tradition of 
 the Buddhist church. 
 
 One thing is absolutely certain as regards 
 the origin of Buddhism, and that is, that it 
 first arose in India. All Buddhists of all 
 countries point to India as the birthplace 
 of their religion, and strange to say all Bud- 
 dhists, North and South, are equally una- 
 nimous in singling out one and the same 
 city, the city of Benares, as the first head- 
 quarters of early Buddhism. Again, there 
 is perfect unanimity as to the name of the 
 great founder of the present Buddhist 
 church, one Shakyamuni Gautama Buddha. 
 As to the time when this man lived or died, 
 great confusion prevails, traditions of one 
 and the same country often contradicting 
 each other. One Chinese account, for in- 
 stance, places it as early as U49 B.C., an- 
 other, more modest, names the year G88 
 B.C., whilst the Buddhists of Ceylon fixed 
 upon the year 543 B.C. As the latter date 
 is confirmed by the lately discovered chro- 
 nicle of Cashmere, and as other considera- 
 tions, inscriptions and coins for instance, 
 point to the same century, it is now gene- 
 rally agreed upon auioug European scholars 
 that the year 543 B.C. is most probably the 
 
 year in which Shakyamuni Gautama Bud- 
 dha died. Regarding the private history 
 of this truly great man very little can be 
 ascertained with perfect certainty, — beyond 
 the following facts : that he claimed to be 
 of royal descent, that, dissatisfied with 
 Brahmanism, he left house and home, tried 
 first to find peace in the most austere asce- 
 ticism, but finally emerged, disentangling 
 himself from the social trammels of caste and 
 all sectarian doctrines, teaching voluntary 
 poverty and celibacy, and erecting on the 
 basis of all existing religions a grand sys- 
 tem, the chief characteristics of which were 
 socially the complete insignificance of caste 
 and property, dogmatically thorough atheism 
 and deification of humanity, morally the 
 dogma of the vanity and unreality of all 
 ! earthly good, transmigration of the soul in 
 accordance with the laws of moral retribu- 
 tion, and final absorption in Nirvana. 
 But in spite of his undoubted originality of 
 genius, it is more than probable, that he 
 was not the first Buddhist, that he was but 
 a great reformer, the Martin Luther of a 
 sect which existed perhaps for centuries be- 
 fore him, but which rose with him only into 
 historical significance, and which he inspired 
 with the courage to publicly compete with 
 the national religion of the Brahmans and 
 the various sects attached to the latter. 
 One other characteristic, imprinted upon 
 Buddhism by his master hand, is the spirit 
 of thorough liberality and absolute toler- 
 ance, which has marked the early rise and 
 progress of Buddhism and which enabled it 
 to adopt the most valuable ideas of all reli- 
 gions it came in contact with, to enter into 
 a compromise with almost every form of 
 popular superstition, and to found and 
 maintain a church, for thousaud of years, 
 without ever persecuting a single dissenter. 
 That Buddhism is to the present day a sys- 
 tem of unlimited eclecticism, is no doubt 
 the work of the clever reformer Shakya- 
 muni Buddha himself. 
 
 This is well nigh all, concerning the origin 
 of Buddhism, that may be said to belong to 
 history. But now let us see what Bud- 
 dhist tradition reports on this same first 
 epoch in the life of early Buddhism. If we 
 had the faith of an orthodox Buddhist, 
 we should say, that the history of Buddhism 
 is, like the history of the world, without a 
 beginning. As from eternity one world has 
 succeeded the other, rising into existence 
 by a law of evolution, flourishing and 
 perishing again, only to be substituted by 
 another, — thus, in all these countless num- 
 bers of worlds, which have risen into exist- 
 ence and disappeared again, before our pre- 
 sent world came into being, there have been 
 Buddhas. And the religion of each of these 
 
LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 former Buddhas was subject to the same 
 laws of rise, progress and decay. Now in 
 our present world, there have appeared 
 already seven great Buddhas, the last and 
 greatest of whom was, however, Shakya- 
 muni Gautama Buddha. But before Sha- 
 kyamuni was born a Buddha, he had ap- 
 peared on this earth at least 550 times, 
 descending perhaps first in a Hash of light- 
 ning, then may be vegetating as a humble 
 plant, reborn again as a worm, again per- 
 haps reborn as a snake, then as a beast, a 
 bird and so forth. Thus in 550 successive 
 stages of transmigration he worked his way 
 up from the lowest forms of existence to the 
 highest, through the various kingdoms of 
 nature, through the different classes of 
 sentient beings, then among the human 
 race from the lowest caste to the highest, 
 and through all the various degrees of in- 
 tellectual aud religious saiutship, exhibiting 
 all the time, in every particular walk of life 
 in which he appeared, the utmost unselfish- 
 ness, absolutely self-denying and self-for- 
 getting love and charity, constantly sacrifi- 
 cing his life for the benefit of other crea- 
 tures animate and inanimate. At last he 
 was reborn in a certain heaven whence ail 
 Buddhas come down to earth. Knowing 
 that he was now to be reborn on earth as 
 a Buddha, he goes with the assistance of 
 some other devas through the whole court 
 almanac of Indian princes and princesses, 
 and finally selects the King of Kapilavastu 
 aud his young bride for liis parents. In 
 accordance with this choice, this virgin 
 bride, whose name, Maya, . bears a curious 
 resemblance to that of the mother of our 
 Saviour, gives birth to a son, whilst a host 
 of heavenly beings hasten to the spot and 
 Hashes of light announce to all the universe 
 the birth of a Buddha : peace on earth, and 
 good will toward men. The newborn babe 
 is forthwith baptized, and an old saint, 
 called Asita, appears like the Simeon of the 
 gospel, takes him in his arms and with 
 tears in his eyes he predicts the child’s 
 future destinies. He does so, however, by 
 a phrenological examination of the baby’s 
 skull, on the top of which he remarks a 
 curious bump, the indisputable indication 
 of future Buddhaship. In further con- 
 firmation of his assertions he points out 
 altogether 80 remarkable features of beauty, 
 and especially a complete network of deli- 
 cate tracery on the child’s skin, where he 
 observes a series of 32 ornamental symbolic 
 designs most conspicuous on the palms and 
 soles of the baby. In fact this wonderful 
 child must have come into the world 
 tattooed like a North American Indian. A 
 few years afterwards the baby was presented 
 in a temple, when — lo and behold — -all the 
 
 statues and idols there rise and prostrate 
 themselves before him. When seven years 
 old, teachers are engaged for him, but the 
 teachers find to their astonishment, that he 
 knows more than they could teach him and 
 retire dumb-founded. As gymnastic exer- 
 cises seem then to have formed part of an 
 Iudian school education, he was taught 
 gymnastics, and excelled all competitors by 
 strength of muscle. He threw a large 
 elephant to a considerable distance, and 
 shot an arrow so deep into the solid ground, 
 that it laid bare a fountain of water. But 
 he, the most beautiful, the most learned, the 
 most powerful of men, came to sad grief 
 through women. He got married, and all 
 Buddhistic traditions agree in stating, that 
 it was the experiences he made with the 
 ladies of his harem which disgusted him 
 with the whole world and put him iuto such 
 a misanthropical mood, that, when he once 
 on a solitary walk met with a miserable 
 decrepid old man, a young man writhing in 
 the agonies of disease, a dead corpse and — 
 by way of striking contrast — a jolly-looking 
 friar, he suddenly ran away from house and 
 home and fled into the wilderness, and be- 
 came a friar too. But in vain he endea- 
 voured to regain his peace of mind by soli- 
 tude, fasting and self-torturing asceticism. 
 He tried all the prescriptions of Brahminism 
 aud Shivaism, — all in vain. When he wan 
 reduced by fasting and hunger to the last 
 stage of exhaustion, Satan himself appeared 
 to tempt him in various ways to a career of 
 ambition and selt-glorification and finally 
 to a life of sensual pleasure; but by keeping 
 his mind fixed on the idea of the utter un- 
 reality of all earthly things he conquers all 
 such temptations. Steeped in a sort of 
 ecstatic meditation he remains seated under 
 a tree a whole night, when at last he reaches 
 the goal of absolute intelligence : he re- 
 cognizes clearly that misery is a neces- 
 sary attribute of sentient existence, that the 
 accumulation of misery is caused by the 
 passions, that the extinction of passion is 
 possible through fixed meditation, ami 
 finally that the path to this extreme medi- 
 tation results in the absorption of existence 
 which would be a state of unlimited happi- 
 ness. With the attaining of this fourfold 
 truth he has freed himself from the bondage 
 of sense, perception and self, he has broken 
 with the material world, he lives in eternity; 
 in one word : he has become a Buddha. 
 Forthwith he leaves the wilderness, when 
 some “ wise men from the East” appear 
 and make him some offerings. He collects 
 some disciples and begins — what must have 
 been a perfectly novel thing in his time — a 
 course of public open-air preaching. Be 
 wanders about from place to place, preaches 
 
4 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 in season and out of season, proclaiming 
 every where that all earthly things are vanity 
 and vexation of spirit. By the irresistible 
 force of his soul-stirring eloquence he gra- 
 dually founds a new sect, a new religion. 
 For everywhere crowds of fanatic followers 
 gather round him, men of all ranks and all 
 classes ; all take the vow of perpetual 
 chastity and voluntary poverty ; all follow 
 him about, clad in rags, begging and preach- 
 Women also flock to him, but for a 
 
 immoral, he attacked and fought against 
 with all weapons at his command, conquer- 
 ing generally more through superiority of 
 magic power, than through logical argu- 
 mentations. He remodelled almost every 
 Brahmanic dogma, so far as it was neces- 
 sary, in order to destroy its pantheistic 
 character, for which he substituted his 
 downright atheism. But it is significant 
 that he placed every Brahmanic doctrine 
 into a new light by the preponderance of 
 
 long time he refuses to admit them to the , ethical treatment, which characterized his 
 
 vows, for he is no advocate of women's 
 rights and laid down the doctrine, which 
 has ever since been retained by Buddhism, 
 that a woman’s highest aspiration should be 
 to be reborn as a man. One of his favourite 
 disciples, who is to the present day adored 
 as the principal patron of female devotees, 
 persuaded him, however, to found an order 
 
 teaching to the almost total exclusion of 
 pure metaphysics. 
 
 In this way he laboured for a series of 
 years. But not satisfied with spreading 
 liis religion on earth he is also said to 
 have ascended up into the heavens and to 
 have gone dowm to hell, to preach every- 
 where the way of salvation. Towards 
 
 of sisters of charity, thus giving women at the end of his life he is said to have 
 least a chance of salvation. In this way been glorified, or, as the Buddhist tradi- 
 the foundation was laid for an ecclesiastical , tion literally calls it, baptized with fire. 
 
 organization, built up on the idea, that 
 man and woman must, in order to be saved 
 — be first priests and nuns. Extra ecchsiarn 
 nulla solus. Buddha is said to have 
 wandered through the length and breadth 
 
 He was on a mountain in Ceylon, discoursing 
 on religious subjects, when suddenly a flame 
 of light descended upon him, and encircled 
 the crown of his head with a halo of light. 
 When he felt his end drawing near, he turn- 
 
 of India and through Ceylon, preaching ed his way to Kushinagara, N.W. of Patna, 
 everywhere the doctrine of universal misery | Heaven and earth began to tremble and 
 
 and employing the terrors of transmigration 
 and hell, to induce rich and poor to lay 
 aside all other pursuits, and to devote 
 themselves exclusively to the salvation of 
 their souls, to religious meditation, to enter 
 the church, to become priests and nuns. 
 To give weight to his authority he also 
 worked miracles. But his miracles (as 
 afterwards those of his disciples) were more 
 like tricks of jugglery. He did not heal 
 the sick, he did not recal the dead to life, 
 but he showed himself suddenly sitting 
 cross-legged in mid-air, divided his body 
 
 loud voices were heard, all living beings 
 groaning together and bewailing his de- 
 parture. On passing through Kushinagara 
 a poor workman offered him his last meal, 
 and though he had just refused the offer- 
 ings of the highest and richest, he accepted 
 this offer, to show his humility, as he said, 
 “for the sake of humanity.” Immediately 
 afterwards he said to his disciples “stand 
 up, let us go, my time is come.” He went 
 out to a spot, where eight trees in groups of 
 two were planted together. Resting on his 
 right side he gave his final instructions to 
 
 into many portions, each shedding forth his disciples, reminded them of the immor- 
 luminous rays, or he transported himself [ tality of the spiritual body and then gave 
 through the air hither and thither, to show himself up to contemplation. Passing 
 
 that purely spiritual meditation can break 
 through all the chains of material laws, that 
 the spirit is independent of matter. On 
 the other hand, he, the son of a king, asso- 
 ciated daily with the lowest and the outcast, 
 went about in rags, begging his food from 
 door to door, and proclaiming everywhere 
 in the face of that powerful caste-spirit of 
 India that his religion was a religion of 
 mercy for all. As a teacher he displayed 
 great liberality and tolerance, adopting for 
 instance all those deities which were de- 
 cidedly popular, though be indeed assigned 
 them a signally inferior position in his sys- 
 tem, for the holy man, he used to say, is 
 above the gods. Those Brahmanic and 
 
 through the various degrees of meditation 
 which correspond to the various tiers of 
 heavens, he lost himself into Nirva.ua and 
 thus his earthly career was ended. His 
 disciples put his remains into a golden 
 coffin which immediately grew so heavy, 
 that no power could move it. But 
 suddenly his long deceased mother 
 Maya appeared from above, bewailing 
 her son, when the coffin lifted itself 
 up, the lid sprang open, and Shakyamuni 
 appeared with folded hands, saluting his 
 mother. Afterwards, when his disciples 
 wanted to perform the ceremony of crema- 
 tion, they discovered that his body was 
 iucombustible by ordinary fire, but sud- 
 
 Shivaitic sects, however, which were plainly denly a jet of flame burst out of the mystic 
 
LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 character inscribed on Buddha’s breast and 
 reduced his body to ashes. The latter 
 were eagerly collected and received thence- 
 forth almost divine worship, being carried 
 to all Buddhist countries, and for safe 
 keeping deposited in pagodas expressly 
 built for this purpose. 
 
 You will have noticed in this rough sketch 
 of Buddha’s life many details coinciding 
 with incidents of the life of our Saviour as 
 reported by the gospels. Shakyamuni Bud- 
 dha — we are told — came from heaven, was 
 born of a virgin, welcomed by angels, re- 
 ceived by an oldsaint who was endowed with 
 prophetic vision, presented in a temple, 
 baptized with water and afterwards baptized 
 with fire, he astonished the most learned 
 doctors “by his understanding andanswers,” 
 he was led by the spirit into the wilderness, 
 and having been tempted by the devil, he 
 went about preaching and doing wonders. 
 The friend of publicans and sinners, he is 
 transfigured on a mount, descends to hell, 
 ascends up to heaven, — in short, with the 
 single exception of Christ’s crucifixion, 
 almost every characteristic incident in 
 Christ’s life is also to be found narrated in 
 the Buddhistic traditions of the life of 
 Shakyamuui Gautama Buddha. And yet, 
 this Buddha lived and died 543 years before 
 Christ ! Are we to conclude then, that 
 Christ — as a certain sceptic would make us 
 believe — went to India, during the 18 years 
 which intervened between his youth and 
 manhood, and returned, 30 years old, to ape 
 and reproduce the life and doings of .Shak- 
 yamuni Buddha ? Or are we, who believe 
 iu Christ’s originality, driven to the miser- 
 able subterfuge of assuming — as some 
 Jesuit fathers do — that the devil, fore- 
 knowing the several details of the promised 
 Messiah’s life, anticipated him and all the 
 details of his life by his own caricature in 
 Shakyamuni Buddha? Unfortunately for 
 the sceptic who would delight in proving 
 Christ to have been the ape of Buddha, it 
 can be proved, that almost every single tint 
 of this Christian colouring, which Buddhist 
 tradition gives to the life of Buddha, 
 is of comparatively modern origin. There 
 is not a single Buddhist manuscript in 
 existence which could vie in antiquity, and 
 undoubted authenticity, with the oldest 
 codices of the gospels. Besides, the most an- 
 cient Buddhistic classics contain scarcelyany 
 details of Buddha’s life, and none whatever 
 of those above mentioned peculiarly Chris- 
 tian characteristics. Nearly all the above- 
 given legends, which claim to refer to events 
 that happened mauy centuries before Christ, 
 cannot be proved to have been in circulation 
 earlier than the fifth or sixth centuries after 
 Christ. Moreover 1 shall presently have 
 
 an opportunity to point out the precise 
 source from which those apparently Chris- 
 tian elements flowed into and mingled with 
 Buddhistic traditions concerning the life of 
 Buddha. 
 
 I have entered thus fully into the detail- 
 ed history of the founder of Buddhism, 
 because it is, in my opinion, an indis- 
 pensable key to the understanding of Bud- 
 dhism as a whole, for every single Bud- 
 dhist dogma is believed to have been evolved 
 from the intuitive consciousness or inward 
 experience of this one man. To the present 
 day, any dogma, even of the latest growth, 
 will be received by the most orthodox Bud- 
 dhist, if it can be made to fit into the inner 
 history of the great Shakyamuni Buddha, as 
 reported by tradition. After his death agene- 
 ral assembly of the faithful was called, ami 
 the legends assert that then and there the 
 sayings and teachings of Buddha were col- 
 lected, sifted and fixed in a triple canon, by 
 the three principal disciples of Shakyamuni. 
 But for centuries after, we have no proof 
 whatever of the existence of a written 
 canon. On the contrary, the doctrines 
 of Buddha appear to have been handed 
 down fro nr generation to generation orally. 
 Oneof Buddha’s disciples distinguished him- 
 self above his fellows and was soon looked 
 upon as the successor of Shakyamuni. He 
 appointed his successor, handing overtohim 
 his almsbowl and his mantle, together with 
 some pithy sayings, embodying the essence 
 and substance of Buddhist doctrine. This 
 one again appointed his successor in the 
 same way, and thus we have a series of 
 patriarchs, as they were called, who iu turn 
 were looked upon each as the temporary 
 head of the church of his time, and who 
 transmitted from generation to generation 
 the reputed teaching of Shakyamuni Bud- 
 dha. Of course the Buddhist dogma under- 
 went considerable alterations in thus pass- 
 ing from mouth to mouth. Naturally also 
 heresies sprang up here and there, for the 
 putting down of which again and again 
 oecumenic councils were held, to re-esta- 
 blish the orthodox doctrines in opposition 
 to heretical adulterations. About the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era many books also 
 seem to have been in circulation, claiming 
 to be authentic expositions of the orthodox 
 faith. A number of them would appear to 
 have received public approval at the cecu- 
 menic council, held in Cashmere under 
 Kanichka, who reigned from 15 B. C. to 45 
 A.D., and to have been gathered in three 
 divisions to form the standard canon of the 
 Buddhist Church. But no reliable inform- 
 ation exists as to the extent and character 
 of the Buddhist scriptures said to have been 
 finally revised by that council. The very 
 
G 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 earliest compilation of the modern Buddhist 
 cauon, that history can point out, is that of 
 Ceylon. But the canon of Ceylon was 
 handed down orally from generation to 
 generation. Part of it was reduced to writing 
 about 93 B.C. [under the reigu of YVatta- 
 gamini, 104-76 B.C.]. The whole canon, 
 however, was first compiled and fixed in 
 writing between the years 412 and 432 of 
 our present Christian era. Burmese and 
 Siamese Buddhists received their sacred 
 scriptures from Ceylon. But the canon of 
 Northern Buddhists, that is to say that of 
 Cashmere, Nepaul, Tibet, Mongolia, China, 
 Corea and Japan, this Northern canon, 
 which claims to have been formed earlier, 
 by the above-mentioned fourth council, co- 
 incides with the Buddhist scriptures of 
 Ceylon, though the Northern Buddhists 
 have apparently enlarged the original canon 
 to a great extent. 
 
 So much about the bible of the Buddhist 
 Church. As to this church itself, it was left 
 at the death of Shakyamuni Buddha with 
 the mere rudiments of an ecclesiastical or- 
 ganization. But his followers enthusiasti- 
 cally and consistently went on completing 
 the edifice. They, continued to preach and 
 to teach much in the same way as Shakya- 
 mnni himself had done. Soon, however, 
 they found it necessary to moderate their 
 demands. It was for instance practically 
 impossible that every one should become a 
 priest. Thus lay-brethren and lay-sisters 
 were admitted into the church with a relax- 
 ation of the vows. Then in the various 
 monasteries and nunneries, which sprang 
 up everywhere, discipline had to be main- 
 tained, different occupations and different 
 age produced a difference of rank, and thus 
 slowly but steadily a complete machinery 
 of ecclesiastical and monastic organization 
 was formed, with an elaborate code-book of 
 discipline and ceremonial. 
 
 Whilst the Buddhist church was thus 
 internally occupied, consolidating itself 
 and gaining in stability and strength, 
 it could not be expected ^to spread to 
 any great distance, especially as India was 
 then politically divided into innumerable 
 petty kingdoms, in most of which the Brah- 
 mans exercised paramount influence. Con- 
 sequently we find, that during the first two 
 centuries after the death of Buddha, from 
 543 to 325 B.C. , the influence of the new 
 religion was confined to the countries bor- 
 dering on the Ganges and had scarcely 
 reached the Punjab. At the end of this 
 period Alexander the Great invaded India. 
 But, strange to say, of this glorious cam- 
 paign of the Greek armies, which for the 
 first time brought India into close contact 
 with Hellenic civilisation and culture, no 
 
 traces remain, except on the part of India a 
 few coins and inscriptions, and on the part 
 of the Greeks a few mysterious legends, as 
 for instance that of the Indian Hercules 
 and a few scanty notes as to the existence of 
 Buddhists in India. But out of the politi- 
 cal anarchy into which the whole conglo- 
 meration of Indian Kingdoms was thrown 
 by the invasion of Alexander, arose an em- 
 pire which soon swallowed up all the others, 
 ft was founded by an adventurer of low 
 birth called Tchandragupta by the Bud- 
 dhists, and Saudracottos by the Greek his- 
 torians. Despised on account of his low 
 birth by the Brahmans, he hated them in 
 return and began to patronize the rising 
 Buddhist church. His grandson Asohka, 
 whose cognomen Piyadasi has been handed 
 down to the present day by innumerable 
 stone inscriptions scattered all over India, 
 united nearly the whole of India under his 
 sceptre. Embracing the Buddhist faith, in 
 which he saw the safeguard of his dynasty, 
 he strengthened and extended the Buddhist 
 church with all the means at his command, 
 and became the Constantine of Indian Bud- 
 dhism. He formally acknowledged to hold 
 his power and possessions only as a fief 
 from the church, he convoked an oecumenic 
 council for the establishing of orthodox 
 teaching, tightened the reigns of church 
 discipline by the introduction of quinquen- 
 nial assemblies to be held in each diocese, 
 erected pagodas and endowed monas- 
 teries with great profusion in all parts 
 of India. But the greatest work he did 
 was the establishing of a board for for- 
 eign Missions (Dharma-Mahamatra), which 
 sent forth to all surrounding countries en- 
 thusiastic preachers who went out in self- 
 chosen poverty, clad in rags, with the 
 almsbowl in their bauds, but supported by 
 the whole weight of Ashoka’s political and 
 diplomatic influence. His own son Mahbu- 
 dra went out as a missionary to Ceylon, 
 and the whole island forthwith embraced 
 the faith of Buddha. At the same time 
 Cabulistan, Gandhara, Cashmere and Ne- 
 paul were brought under the influence of 
 Buddhism, and thenceforth every caravan 
 of traders, that left India for Central Asia, 
 was accompanied by Buddhist missionaries. 
 In this way it happened, that as early as 
 250 B.C. a number of 18 Buddhistic emis- 
 saries reached China, where they are held 
 in remembrance to the present day, their 
 images occupying a conspicuous place in 
 every larger temple. So then we observe 
 with regard to these earliest Buddhist mis- 
 sionaries three things, which may perhaps 
 contain a hint for the solution of the 
 modern question of missionary difficulties 
 in China. These Buddhist missionaries 
 
LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 7 
 
 went out, in the first instance, with even I 
 greater self-abnegation than Roman Catho- 
 lic priests, as mendicant monks ; secondly, 
 they followed in the wake of trade ; and 
 thirdly, they were backed by the “ inevi- 
 table gunboat ” of imperial influence and 
 diplomacy. 
 
 but soon after Ashoka’s death his empire 
 fell to pieces, the Brahmans lifted their 
 heads up again, and a reaction took place 
 which resulted in a severe persecution 
 of all Buddhists then living in India. In 
 the course of this dark period, which 
 reached its height under Pushpamitra in 
 178 B.C., most of the monasteries and pa- 
 godas were laid in ashes, nearly all the 
 sacred books were destroyed, and the whole 
 Buddhist church in India received a shock 
 from which it never afterwards recovered. 
 But this very persecution gave a renewed 
 impetus to the foreign missions of the Bud- 
 dhists, who now pushed their way through 
 the whole of Central Asia and gained a last- 
 ing foothold among the various Tartar 
 tribes, which were just then in great commo- 
 tion. A branch of the great tribe of the 
 Huns, pushed to the West by the advances 
 of the Chinese in Central Asia, fell over the 
 Creek provinces West of the Hindukush, 
 overran Traus-oxania, destroyed the Bac- 
 triau kingdom and finally conquered the 
 Punjab, Cashmere and the greater part of 
 India. Their greatest king Kanishka, a 
 contemporary of Christ, patronized Bud- 
 dhism as liberally as Ashdka had done. 
 During his reign the last oecumenical coun- 
 cil which revised the canon, was held in 
 Cashmere, but it was not recognized by the 
 Buddhist church of Ceylon, and thus a split 
 took place, corresponding to the division of 
 the Roman and Greek churches in the 
 ecclesiastical history of the West. The 
 Buddhist church of Ceylon, with its depen- 
 dencies in Burmah and Siam, maintained 
 with great tenacity the original teaching of 
 early Buddhism in comparative purity, 
 whilst the Northern Buddhists, that is to 
 say those of Northern India, Cashmere, 
 Nepaul and afterwards those of China, Tibet 
 and Mongolia, went on constantly adding to 
 and expanding the common stock of doc- 
 trines and traditions, and entering into 
 compromises with any form of popular 
 superstition they found too deep-rooted and 
 too popular to overcome. 
 
 About this time it was that Buddhism was 
 ofliciallyrecognized inCliiua. I have remark- 
 ed above, that as early as 250 B.C. Buddhist 
 missionaries peregrinated through China. 
 They found there a popular religion, the chief 
 characteristics of which were serpent and 
 tree-worship, the grand moral system of 
 Confucianism, and the system of Tauism, 
 
 which had already descended from its 
 sublime height of philosophic mysticism to 
 an alliance with popular forms of supersti- 
 tion, sorcery and witchcraft. The Bud- 
 dhists at once arrayed themselves on the 
 side of popular superstition and Tauism, in 
 opposition to Confucianism. But for fully 
 300 years, from 250 B.C. to 02 A.D., the 
 labours of Buddhists in China met with little 
 success ; in fact, statistic enquirers into the 
 missionary problem would have called it a 
 decided failure. Meanwhile, however, Chi- 
 nese armies had been fighting a series of 
 campaigns in Central Asia and had repeatedly 
 come into contact with Buddhism establish- 
 ed there. Repeatedly it happened that 
 Chinese generals, engaged in that war, had 
 occasion to refer in their reports to the 
 throne to the influence of Buddhism, and in 
 the second year before Christ an ambassador 
 of the Tocliari Tartars (probably sent by 
 Kanishka) presented the emperor of China 
 with a number of the sacred books of Bud- 
 dhism. More than a hundred years before 
 that time, in the year 121 B.C., a gigantic 
 golden statue of Buddha forming part of the 
 spoils of those campaigns had been brought 
 to the Chinese court. If we keep these 
 facts in mind, there is no apparent reason 
 why we should discredit the story of the 
 famous dream of the Emperor Mingti. It 
 is reported in Chinese history, that in the 
 year 61 A.D. the Emperor Mingti saw in a 
 vision of the night an image of gigantic 
 dimensions, resplendent as gold, its head 
 surrounded by a halo as bright as the sun, 
 approach his palace and enter it. At a loss 
 how to explain this dream, the Emperor ap- 
 pealed to his younger brother, the prince of 
 T'hsu, who had been known for years as the 
 most zealous protector of the Tauists and 
 who probably favoured Buddhism too. At 
 any rate, this prince at once suggested, that 
 the golden image which the Emperor saw re- 
 ferred to the statue of Buddha, and that it 
 seemed to be Heaven’s command, that Bud- 
 dhism should be introduced at court and 
 adopted by the Imperial Government. 
 Thereupon the Emperor despatched an em- 
 bassy, which passed through Central Asia, 
 to Cashmere and India, and returned in 75 
 A.D. accompanied by a Hindoo priest, with 
 a statue of Buddha, carved in sandalwood, 
 and one sacred book. The latter was forth- 
 with translated and published by Imperial 
 authority, and therewith Buddhism was 
 firmly established in China. Soon other 
 Hindoos arrived in China with more books, 
 which were likewise translated by order of 
 succeeding Emperors. In fact, Chinese 
 Buddhists appear to have been most anxious 
 to obtain and translate as many Buddhist 
 manuscripts as they could lay hold of. Se- 
 
8 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 veral Chinese Emperors interested them- 
 selves in this work. And yet, more than 
 300 years after Mingti had sent his em- 
 bassy to India to collect the sacred books 
 of -Buddhism, the emperor Yau Ling in 
 397-415 A.D. had to send an expedition to 
 Central Asia, to obtain more books, and 
 about the same time the famous traveller 
 Fahien started for India on account of the 
 absence of books treating on ecclesiastical 
 discipline. Again in 518 the Queen of the 
 Wei country sent ambassadors to India 
 for Buddhistic books, and in 629 the cele- 
 brated Hiuen-tsang set out on his travels 
 through Central Asia and India, with the 
 same object in view. In 8G0 the Emperor 
 Itsung of the Tang dynasty applied himself 
 to the study of Sanskrit and gave a new 
 impetus to the collection of Buddhistic lite- 
 rature, which was now only approaching 
 completion. The Emperor Jintsuug open- 
 ed a college for Sanskrit studies in 1035 
 and appointed fifty youths to study that 
 language. And yet, in spite of all these 
 strenuous efforts, continued for more than 
 a thousand years, it was not until the year 
 1410 that the Chinese procured a complete 
 edition of the Buddhist canon, and the 
 modern edition of it, known as the Northern 
 collection, is of still later date, having been 
 completed between the years 1573-1G19. 
 What becomes then of the assertion that the 
 Buddhist canon was closed at the time of 
 the fourth oecuinenic council under Kanish- 
 ka ? Kauiskka died in 45 A.D. Scarcely 
 25 years afterwards Miugti’s embassy ar- 
 rived in the very place, where that council 
 had been assembled, and having searched 
 all through India for Buddhistic books re- 
 turned to China with a tiny little volume ! 
 It is clear therefore that history bears me 
 out in what 1 said before, that the earliest 
 edition of the Buddhist scriptures is that 
 of Ceylon, which according to the unani- 
 mous testimony of Singhalese Buddhists 
 did not exist before the years 410-432 A.D. 
 Next comes the Chinese canon collected 
 under the Tang dynasty (about 8G0) and 
 completed in 1410. We see therefore how 
 favourably our Christian bible compares 
 with the canon of the Buddhists. Our 
 bible has been assailed by sceptics and in- 
 fidels, has been historically and critically 
 examined under the microscope of preju- 
 diced antiquarians, and yet the fact remain- 
 ed uncontested that the canon of the Old 
 Testament was completed in Esra’s time 
 about 450 B.C. and that no farther addi- 
 tions were made to the canonical books of 
 the New Testament after the close of the 
 2nd century of our era. Besides we still 
 possess ancient manuscripts of the New 
 Testament one of which, the Cod Vatic., was 
 
 written in the course of the 4th century, 
 100 years before the first edition of the 
 Buddhist scriptures wa3 undertaken, of 
 which not a single ancient manuscript has 
 withstood the ravages of time, and which 
 has never yet been examined critically by 
 friend or foe. 
 
 But to return to our subject, we have seen 
 that Buddhism split about the beginning of 
 our Christian era into two divisions, which 
 are now-a-days known under the names 
 Southern and Northern Buddhism. South- 
 ern Buddhism, represented by India, Ceylon, 
 Burmah and Siam, soon lost considerable 
 ground. New persecutions broke out again 
 and again at the instigation of the Brah- 
 mans, especially in India, where the last 
 remnants of Buddhism were exposed to the 
 most sanguinary persecution in the course 
 of the 6th and 7th centuries. But no de- 
 tailed records of this struggle remain. Cer- 
 tain, however, is it that these persecutions, 
 followed up by the invasion of the Maho- 
 medans, put an end to the reign of Bud- 
 dhism in India, and at the present day there 
 are in India but scanty traces of its former 
 existence, in the shape of ruins, rock- 
 temples, and the sect of Djains, whose con- 
 nection with Buddhism is now scarcely 
 recognizable. In Ceylon, however, and in 
 Burmah and Siam, Buddhism is still flour- 
 ishing. Its doctrines are popularly believed 
 in, and practically obeyed, though the 
 priests themselves are generally despised, 
 unless they are objects of awe on account 
 of supposed magic powers. The temples 
 and monasteries are in possession of large 
 revenues, and yet the sacred buildings are 
 everywhere allowed to fall into ruins, scarce- 
 ly an effort being made, to prevent their 
 destruction by the elements of nature. 
 The number of priests now living in Ceylou 
 does not average more than one in 400 of 
 the whole population. This would give for 
 the island about 2,500 priests. The pro- 
 portion is much less than in Burmah, where 
 again priests are fewer than in Siam, though 
 the temples are more numerous. 
 
 But whilst Southern Buddhism lost the 
 greater part of its ancient territory, North- 
 ern Buddhism has since the beginning of 
 our Christian era run a course of almost 
 unchecked conquests. It retained its foot- 
 hold in Cashmere and Nepaul, and though 
 it lost most of its influence in the Western 
 half of Central Asia, through the influx of 
 Maliomedauism, it conquered new territo- 
 ries, vastly superior in extent and import- 
 ance. We have seen how it spread to China, 
 where it was officially adopted in the year 
 61 A.D. , and though the Confmflanists in 
 successive centuries persecuted them with 
 fire and sword and put forth their beat 
 
LECTURE THE FIRST. 
 
 9 
 
 literary efforts, to nullify its influence, they 
 not only failed to stop the progress of Bud- 
 dhism, but g >t themselves so imbued with 
 Buddhistic ideas, and so impressed witli its 
 pretences of magic power, that to the pre- 
 sent day the most thorough paced Confu- 
 cianist goes without any scruple through 
 Buddhistic ceremonies, on the occasion of 
 weddings or funerals, or in cases of illness, 
 epidemic or drought. It was only the 
 other day, that a Chinese gentleman, a Con- 
 fuciauist to the backbone, expressed in a 
 conversation with me his utmost contempt 
 for Buddhism, but at the same time, when 
 I happened to show him a certain Buddhis- 
 tic Sutra, he acknowledged to have learned 
 it by heart. When I asked him how he 
 came to study a Buddhistic book, he 
 assured me with the greatest seriousness, 
 that it was universally known and proved 
 by his own experience, that the reading of 
 this volume was a never failing panacea 
 for stomach ache. 
 
 It is certainly wrong to say, that the Chi- 
 nese are all Buddhists. The priests are not 
 very numerous in China, they are recruited 
 from the lowest classes, generally the most 
 wretched specimens of humanity, more 
 devoted to opium smoking than any other 
 class m China. They have no intellectual 
 tastes, they have ages ago ceased to culti- 
 vate the study of Sanskrit, they know next 
 to nothing about the history of their own 
 religion, living together in idleness and 
 occ tsionally going out to earn some money 
 by reading litanies for the dead or acting 
 as exorcists and sorcerers or quack doctors. 
 No community of interest, no ties of social 
 life, no object of generous ambition, beyond 
 the satisfying of those wants which bind 
 them to the cloister, diversify the monoto- 
 nous current of their daily life. And yet 
 the whole of the Chinese people is influen- 
 ced to a certain extent by the doctrines of 
 Buddhism. Tauism is but Buddhism in 
 native dress. The doctrines of transmi- 
 gration, of hell and a future paradise in 
 heaven have penetrated far and wide among 
 the mass of the people. Where then is the 
 much-talked-of exclusiveness of China ? 
 Buddhism is a foreign religion, introduced 
 by foreign priests, of whom there were at 
 the beginning of the 6th century upwards 
 of 3,000 living in China. To the present 
 day two-thirds of the whole Chinese Bud- 
 dhistic literature are translations of foreign 
 works. Every popular Buddhist book is 
 full of Sanskrit phrases. The litanies 
 which the priests read, the prayers which 
 the common people recite are Sauskrit ! 
 Why then should we despair of bringing 
 the Christian truth home to the hearts of 
 this people ? Christianity is more univer- 
 
 sal in its character and more adapted to 
 the peculiarities of all nations than Bud- 
 dhism. Christianity can be introduced in 
 China without the study of a language as 
 difficult as Sanskrit. The Chinese Chris- 
 tian bible as we already have it, is more 
 intelligible to the common people, than any 
 of the sacred books of the Buddhists. And 
 truth must prevail in the end. Let us 
 remember also, that it took Buddhism 300 
 years before it obtained official recognition, 
 and many centuries more, before the mass 
 of the people was influenced by it, and who 
 will then speak of the failure of Protestant 
 missions, which during the first 25 years of 
 their operations in China gathered 5,000 
 natives under the banner of the gospel ? 
 
 So much about China. From China 
 Buddhism spread to Corea in 372 A.D. and 
 thence to Japan, where it was first intro- 
 duced in the year 552. But in both of 
 these countries Buddhism has obtained but 
 partial success, and suffered considerable 
 adulteration by the influence of native re- 
 ligions. 
 
 The most complete triumph, however, 
 that Buddhism ever achieved was accom- 
 plished in Tibet. Buddhism was first in- 
 troduced there during the reign of Lha Lho 
 Lhori in A. D. 407, but it does not seem to 
 have found many followers at first, and was 
 already losing ground, though a great 
 grandson of that king, called Srong dsan 
 Gambo, favoured Buddhism and introduced 
 Sanskrit studies and a Sanskrit alphabet 
 in 629 A.D. But towards the end of the 
 7tli century the inroads of the Mahomedans, 
 putting an end to the Buddhist churches of 
 Trans-oxania and Cabulistan, produced a 
 new influx of Buddhist priests into Tibet. 
 King Thisroug detsan who reigned 740-786 
 was the son of a Chinese princess and had 
 inherited from his mother strong prejudices 
 in favour of Buddhism. During his mino- 
 rity the Tibetan nobles did their best to 
 extinguish Buddhism. But the moment 
 Thisrong de tsan ascended the throne, 
 all was reversed. Buddhism was official- 
 ly adopted, learned priests were sent for 
 from India, monasteries were built and 
 endowed, and a beginning made with the 
 translation of the Buddhist scriptures into 
 Tibetan. His successors also patroniz- 
 ed the Buddhists and assisted them in 
 the formation of a complete hierarchy, 
 giving them spiritual jurisdiction, grants of 
 laud and various other privileges. This 
 increase in church property and church 
 influence, which of course enraged the 
 nobility and impoverished the lower classes, 
 produced a revolution and a persecution 
 broke out which endangered the very exist- 
 ence of Buddhism. But their persecutor 
 
10 
 
 LECTURE THE FIRST 
 
 King Lang Darraa having been assassinated j 
 by a priest, the persecution ceased. Cau- 
 tiously but speedily the Buddhists regained 
 their former influence, and were soon 
 stronger than ever, establishing an hereditary 
 priesthood which thenceforth dominated 
 over king and people. This however led to 
 general political anarchy, and to maintain 
 his political influence, the spiritual metro- 
 politan of Tibet found himself compelled to 
 ask for the support of the Chinese govern- 
 ment, by means of which he and his succes- 
 sors, the so-called Grand Lamas, succeeded 
 in appropriating to the church the political 
 sovereignty over Tibet. High favour was 
 manifested towards this influential body of 
 ecclesiastics, who held in their hand the 
 government of Tibet, by the Mongol con- 
 querors of China, and by means of their 
 support it came to pass, that the heirs of the 
 Gengis Khan succeeded in reducing that 
 kingdom to afeudal dependency of theirown. 
 
 As to the inner history of the Tibetan 
 church, Buddhism had there from the first 
 entered into an alliance with the native 
 religion, a form of Shamanism. Moreover 
 Buddhism was introduced into Tibet from 
 Caferistan and Cashmere, where Shivaism 
 and Brahmanism had been for a long time 
 saturating Buddhism to the almost total 
 oblivion of many of its original characteris- 
 tics. Thus it happened, that Buddhism 
 reached Tibet in an adulterated form, and 
 entering there into an amalgamation with 
 Shamanism and especially with the necro- 
 mantic superstitions, which were indigenous 
 in Tibet, departed still farther from the 
 original form of Indian Buddhism. But 
 when the study of Sanskrit was introduced 
 in Tibet, and the canon collected and trans- 
 lated, a party arose which demanded a 
 reform. For a long time it struggled in 
 vain. Meanwhile Nestorian missionaries 
 bad reached Central Asia and some of that 
 sect of reformers became acquainted with 
 the story of Christ’s life and the ceremo- 
 nial of the Catholic church. True to the 
 eclectic instinct of Buddhism they adopted 
 many Christian ideas, traditions and cere- 
 monies, and when their party afterwards ob- 
 tained the mastery in Tibet, they reorganiz- 
 ed the Tibetan church, amalgamating with 
 it as many Christian forms as were compa- 
 tible with Buddhistic orthodoxy. There 
 
 we have then the explanation of the above- 
 mentioned coincidences in the traditions 
 concerning the life of Buddha with the 
 gospel narratives of Christ’s life. And it 
 is not a matter of surprise therefore, if we 
 are told, that the Buddhist church of Tibet 
 has its pope, cardinals, bishops, priests and 
 nuns, that the Buddhists in Tibet have their 
 infant baptism, their confirmation, their 
 mass for the souls, rosaries, chaplets, can- 
 dles and holy water, their processions, 
 saints’ days, fast days, and so forth. Many 
 of those Christian ceremonies and traditions 
 found their way into the Buddhist Church 
 of China and its literature, though never to 
 1 the extent practised in Tibet. 
 
 From Tibet Buddhism spread to Mongo- 
 lia and Manchuria, where it prospered ex- 
 ceedingly. Every third peisou one meets 
 in Mongolia is a priest, and many of their 
 monasteries are as large as a good-sized 
 town. To the Kalmyks on the Wolga, and 
 the Burjads on the Baikal sea Buddhism 
 has been carried at a comparatively recent 
 \ period. 
 
 In conclusion I will only say, that Bud - 
 ! dhism, considered merely as an event in his- 
 tory, seems to me to have been more of a 
 blessing than a curse. I sincerely believe, 
 that Buddhism has fulfilled a great mission 
 which it was appointed to fulfil, by the pro- 
 vidence of God. Nations, which were living 
 in a state of utter savageness, were brought 
 into a state of semi-civilisation, which is the 
 more apparent, if we consider in what a 
 savage state all those tribes remained which 
 rejected Buddhism. What the Mongols 
 were before they became Buddhists, is writ- 
 ten with blood on the pages of Asiatic his- 
 ; tory. Those very countries and peoples, 
 which were shut out from the ceutr*-s of 
 civilisation by mountains and deserts, were 
 visited and brought under the influence of 
 morality by those indefatigable Buddhist 
 zealots, for whom no mountain was too 
 high, do desert too dreary. In countries 
 j like China and Japan, where Buddhism 
 found a sort of civilisation existing, it acted 
 like a dissolving acid, undermining the 
 existing religious systems, and thus pre- 
 paring the way for a new religion to enter, 
 for Christianity, if we had but half the 
 enthusiasm that inspired those disciples of 
 Buddha. 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND 
 
 A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of 
 addressing you on the subject of Buddhism, j 
 I then treated this grand system of religion 
 merely as an event in history, and endea- 
 voured to give you an outline of its origin, 
 rise and progress, combined with a brief 
 sketch of its present condition and extent. I 
 If I have not altogether failed in my 
 attempt to define the place which Bud- 
 dhism occupies in the history of the world, 
 and to assist you in forming a correct 
 estimate of the manner in which it fulfilled 
 its great mission to one third of the human 
 race, you must have felt with me, that 
 Buddhism is but “a voice that crieth in 
 the wilderness.” It arose front a natural 
 reaction and protest against the abnormal 
 features, religious .and social, of Brah- 
 manism ; it was fostered and sustained by 
 the instinctive cry of the better part in 
 human nature for release from the misery 
 and hollowness of this present evil world ; 
 and thus it succeeded in spreading more or 
 less throughout Eastern Asia a lively j 
 yearning for an invisible better world, for 
 a paradise of peace and happiness beyond 
 the rauge of mortal ken. 
 
 But it remains now to show what it was 
 that that voice proclaimed, what means it 
 employed to rouse the dormant conscience, 
 what food it offered to hungry and thirsty 
 souls, what discipline it enforced to regu- 
 late man’s conduct, what elements of truth 
 it conveyed to the seekers of it. In one 
 word, having viewed Buddhism as an event 
 in history, we are now to proceed to consider 
 Buddhism as a religious system, from a 
 doctrinal point of view. 
 
 No religion on earth has ever remained 
 stationary for any length of time. Chris- 
 tianity of to-day is not and cannot be made 
 to return to what it was 1,800 years ago. 
 The Buddhist religion has undergone still 
 more changes in the course of time, through 
 the absence of a written canon at its first 
 starting, through the influence of oral pro- 
 pagation and tradition, through contact 
 with different religions and forms of super- 
 stition, and — last but not least — through the 
 
 reaction of different nationalities which it 
 more or less fully conquered. Naturally 
 therefore we feel tempted to again treat our 
 subject historically. 1 might start with a 
 sketch of the Buddhist dogma in its primi- 
 tive form, as it first came out of the hands 
 of him who gave to it the characteristics 
 and general shape which no after revolution 
 has been able to efface. It was then a sys- 
 tem, diametrically opposed to Brahmanism 
 whence it had arisen, and yet still possess- 
 ing many marks of resemblance ; a conglo- 
 meration of ideas, partly original, partly 
 borrowed from Brahmanism and early Shi- 
 vaism, but now clothed in the new garb of 
 Buddhism, hastily thrown over and as yet 
 as ill fitting as Saul’s armour upon David. 
 I might then note the first attempt made to 
 reduce the chaos of new' and borrowed ideas 
 into systematic order, the first phase of the 
 development through which the Buddhist 
 dogma passed. It is now known under the 
 name of the Hin&yana system, or the school 
 of the small conveyance, a name referring 
 to the various means bv which consecutive 
 forms of Buddhism offered to “convey” 
 the believer across the ocean of misery, to 
 the shores of salvation, into the haven of 
 Nirvana. This first period in the develop- 
 ment of the Buddhist dogma is called the 
 small conveyance, because the forms of 
 doctrine and of worship were limited, 
 plain, and simple then, compared with 
 the elaborate systems of after times. Bud- 
 dhism was then a system of exclusively 
 moral ascetic sm, teaching certain com- 
 mandments, rigorously enforcing an ascetic 
 life of strictest morality, temperance, and 
 active, self-denying, self-sacrificing charity. 
 But soon after the beginning of our Chris- 
 tian era, when Buddhism had overcome its 
 first difficulties and had leisure to enjoy the 
 first taste of triumph, having spread from 
 India to Ceylon, and northwards, through 
 the Pundjab, into Central Asia and across 
 the Himalaya as far as China, — the energe- 
 tic, practical asceticism of the Hin&yana 
 school was replaced by a new phase of doc- 
 trine, called the Mah&yana system, or the 
 
12 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 school of the great conveyance. The cha- 
 racteristics of this system are an excess of 
 transcendental speculation, which soon 
 drifted into listless quietism, or abstract 
 nihilism, and substituted fanciful degrees 
 of contemplation and ecstatic meditation 
 for plain practical morality. It was the 
 former school, the system of the small con- 
 veyance, that produced the men who actu- 
 ally resigned their all and with irresistible 
 energy and enthusiasm spread Buddhism 
 far and wide all over Eastern Asia, the 
 men, who for their faith in Buddha scaled 
 the snowy mountains of the Himalaya and 
 crossed the sandy deserts of Central Asia. 
 But now this Mahayana system, this school 
 of the great conveyance, with its refined 
 philosophy and abstruse metaphysics, with 
 its elaborate ritual and idolatrous symbol- 
 ism, produced an entirely different type of 
 heroes ; men, who would glory in public 
 disputations, who would let the most sub- 
 tle dialectician come forth and split a hair, 
 — they would split it over and over again ; 
 men, who would retire into the stillness of 
 deserts or the solitude of mountain dens, 
 or shut themselves up in the monotony of 
 cloister life, to muse, brood and dream, 
 like Tennyson’s lotos-eaters ; men, who 
 like the first Chinese patriarch would sit 
 twelve years gazing at a wall without mov- 
 ing, without speaking, without thinking. 
 The Hiuayana school however remained, 
 though overpowered, yet still exerting some 
 influence, and an attempt was made in the 
 so-called Madhyimayana school, or the 
 system of the medium conveyance, to com- 
 bine the above mentioned two schools, to 
 find the golden mean between practical 
 asceticism and quietistic transcendentalism, 
 but — like all compromises — it never gained 
 much influence and found but few follow- 
 ers. For a new system soon arose, more 
 powerful, more fascinating than any of its 
 predecessors. It is known by the name of 
 the Tantra school. The hermits of the 
 mountains had become acquainted with the 
 medicinal properties of many herbs and 
 professed to possess the elixir of immorta- 
 lity (which — I suspect — was but opium from 
 India). The monks in the cloisters had 
 become adepts in the black art and became 
 mantists, sorcerers and exorcists, who 
 would banish drought, famine, pestilence, 
 disease and devils by magic incantations. 
 Thus practically useful, and fortified by 
 alliance with the various forms of popular 
 superstition, the Tantra school extracted 
 moreover from the Mahayana system all 
 that was congenial with its own tendencies, 
 and thus produced a new system of practi- 
 cal philosophic mysticism, sorcery and 
 witchcraft, and overlaid the ritual of the 
 
 Buddhist church with fantastic ceremonies 
 and mystic liturgies. It was this school 
 that turned out the priests, who as rain- 
 makers, geomancers, or astrologers duped 
 emperors and peoples, and who exercise to 
 the present day in the whole of E stern 
 Asia the strongest influence i ver the lower 
 classes, as sorcerers, exorcists, physicians. 
 They chant the litanies for the dead, they 
 save souls from hell. But while the Tan- 
 tra school thus gained the day with the 
 multitude, through its practical usefulness 
 and politic accommodation to the supersti- 
 tious element in human nature, the Maha- 
 yana school continued to exert a powerful 
 influence in the province of literature, 
 among the educated, among the learned, 
 aud produced many different schools of 
 philosophy, of which not less than eighteen 
 are known by name. Moreover the ancient 
 Hin&vaua school also retained its foothold 
 to some extent, or was revived here and 
 there, in different countries by certa’n 
 sects In fact, every one of the above 
 mentioned forms of development, through 
 which the Buddhist dogma passed in the 
 course of centuries, has left its deposit 
 behind, in the form of sects, or schools, or 
 parlies, still existing in modern Buddhism. 
 But these are not separated by prominent 
 landmarks from each other, they run into 
 aud intermingle with each other, more or 
 less, in almost every country. 
 
 Now under these circumstances it seems 
 to me, that, at least for a popular lecture 
 like this, an historical synthetic treatment 
 of the rise, progress, and development of the 
 Buddhist dogma would become an exceed- 
 ingly complicated task, necessitating many 
 reiterations, multifarious distinctions and 
 limitations And after all, if treated with 
 the necessary minuteness and detailed accu- 
 racy, it would fail to produce a complete 
 aud at the same time intelligible picture. 
 It would be more like a drama, not 
 wanting indeed in progress of action, rich 
 in striking incidents, difference of cha- 
 racters and varied beauty of pageantry, 
 but too complicated to be perspicuous 
 and too full of promiscuous details to 
 bring home to the spectator the hidden 
 unity of the whole. 1 prefer therefore to 
 adopt a different course. Instead of build- 
 ing up before your eyes the whole edifice of 
 Buddhistic doctrines from the very founda- 
 tions, instead of showing you how one stone 
 was laid upon the other, how one tier was 
 raised upon the other, how one gallery 
 intercommunicates with or crosses the other, 
 I will give you a general sketch of the com- 
 pleted structure, a bird’s-eye view of the 
 whole. For vast, intricate, and puzzling as 
 the system of Buddhism appears to you, 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 13 
 
 when you enter its sacred halls, wander 
 from shrine to shrine, through its temples 
 and cloisters, gaze at its pagodas, altars, and 
 images, or search through its libraries, 
 rich in ancient and modern lore, — the 
 whole labyrinth becomes plain and intelli- 
 gible, when you look at it from a distance, 
 when you see the very ground plan on 
 which it has been constructed, when no 
 bewildering details obstruct your view of 
 the grand but simple and natural outlines 
 of the whole. For one plau, clear and dis- 
 tinct, underlies the whole network of Bud- 
 dhistic doctrines One continuous thread 
 runs straight through the whole tangled 
 woof of seeming dogmatic confusion. In 
 spite of the changes which time, difference 
 of nationalities, different schools and mode 
 of thinking have wrought, there is still 
 discernible a group of fundamental doc- 
 trines which remained through all ages, iu 
 all countries, the common property of all 
 Buddhists. And these very doctrines will 
 be found to contain the essence and sub- 
 stance of the whole system. 
 
 Let us then treat our subject analytically, 
 let us first of all take hold of those general 
 characteristics, arrange them systemati- 
 cally, and examine them more or less mi- 
 nutely. Then we may go on to the disput- 
 ed points, to the points of difference, and 
 see how Buddhism varies in different coun- 
 tries. This latter subject will however be 
 reserved for the third lecture. 
 
 But one remark more is necessary, before 
 I can begin with this task. 'Die materials 
 for a systematic exposition of the Buddhist 
 dogma, in an intelligible and scientific 
 form, are not ready to hand, and especially 
 do not easily fit into our way of expressing 
 thoughts and connecting ideas. Again, 
 there is nowhere in Buddhistic literature a 
 Hutterus redivims, a short but complete 
 compendium of the whole range of dogmas ; 
 there is no catechism that would give you 
 the whole system in a condensed, popular 
 and intelligible form. 'S ou have to search 
 through all the mines of Buddhistic litera- 
 ture, hunt up a stone here and there, quarry 
 it, dress it, before you can handle it with 
 the finer tools of European logic and fit 
 it into the systematic classifications of 
 Western thought. Asiatic diction loves to 
 clothe naked truths in the gaudy glittering 
 apparel of symbolic, typical aud allegorical 
 language. As Asiatic architecture is cha- 
 racterized by richness of decoration, thus 
 the grand structure of Bhuddhist dogmato- 
 logy is so encumbered and overlaid with 
 fantastic ornament, most of its truths so 
 disguised in the form of myths, fables, 
 parables or symbols, that many mistake the 
 outer form for the substance, the shell for 
 
 the kernel, and the result is, that a very 
 master thought of vast speculative depth 
 becomes ridiculous nonsense in the hand of 
 a superficial expositor. I will give but one 
 example. It is said for instance in all Bud- 
 dhistic works treating on cosmogony, that 
 every universe comes into existence in the 
 following manner : out of the chaos of 
 waters rises a lotos flower, out of this 
 flower rises the universe unfolding succes- 
 sively its various spheres, heavenly and 
 terrestrial. Now this same idea you can see 
 repeated in popular Buddhistic literature, 
 illustrated by wood-cuts which represent 
 the chaos of water, with 1,000 flowers float- 
 ing on it, each lotos flower supporting a 
 whole universe. And European expositors 
 of Buddhism, repeating this gross repre- 
 sentation of a speculative truth, treat it as 
 a piece of absurdity, fancying that it is the 
 belief of Buddhists that every universe 
 sprouts out of anactual lotos flower of gigan- 
 tic dimensions ! But in reality the whole 
 is a mere simile, and the idea conveyed in 
 this flowery language of Buddhism is of 
 highly poetic and truly speculative import, 
 amounting to this : that, as a lotos flower, 
 growing out of a hidden germ beneath the 
 water, rises up, slowly, mysteriously, until 
 it suddenly appears above the surface and 
 unfolds its bud, leaves and pistils, in mar- 
 vellous richness of colour and chastest 
 beauty of form ; thus also, in the system of 
 worlds, each single universe rises into 
 being, growing up out of a germ the first 
 origin of which is veiled in mystery, and 
 finally emerges out of the chaos, gradually 
 unfolding itself, one kingdom of nature 
 s- cceeding the other, all forming one com- 
 pact whole, pervaded by one breath, but 
 varied iu beauty and form. Truly an idea, 
 so far removed from uonsense, that it might 
 be taken for an utterance of Darwin him- 
 self. It reminds one in fact of that un- 
 pretending little poem of Tennyson’s : 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 
 I pluck yon out of the crannies ; — 
 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower — -but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
 In the same way many other doctrines 
 of Buddhism, handed down from anti- 
 quity in language borrowed from types in 
 vegetable or animal life, in allegories or 
 by the use of symbols and mystic emblems, 
 have been misunderstood and supercilious- 
 ly classed among antiquated notions and 
 infantile babblings. But considering that 
 Buddhism was started when humanity was 
 in its infancy, and that Buddhism address- 
 ed itself to the primary work of educating 
 savage tribes, it was not only natural, but 
 
11 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 educationally wise, when it chose a crude, ! 
 imperfect, infantile mode of expressing its 
 thoughts, when it spoke to those rude | 
 tribes of Asia, children as they wore, in the 
 langua.e of children. I do not deny that | 
 in many cases, and especially in all refer- 
 ences to cosmology, astronomy, geography, 
 and the various branches of natural science, 
 it is not only the form of expression, but 
 the ideas themselv* s, which are childish. 
 The Buddhist scriptures have not observed 
 the wise reticence with regard to natural 
 science by which < ur Christian Bible is 
 marked. They abound therefore with state- 
 meats of extreme absurdity. They tell 
 you for instance with the utmost gravity 
 and with the authority of inspiration, that 
 iu the centre of every uuiverse there is a 
 high mountain, the lofty peak of which 
 supports the heavenly mansious, whilst at 
 the roots of this same mouutain far beneath 
 the earth there are grouped the innumerable 
 chambers of hell ; they tell you that in the 
 centre of the Himalaya mountains there is 
 one large sea, from which all the large 
 rivers of the world take their origin, the 
 Hoangho, the Ganges, the Indus and the 
 Oxus ; they inform you that the sea water 
 contains salt, because the dragon-god of the 
 Ocean whenever one of his temporary fits 
 of rage comes over him, throws up with his 
 gigantic tail volumes of water which inun- 
 date even the heavenly mansions above, 
 and it is this water, which flowing back 
 carries with it all the filth, accumulated in 
 the drains and sewers of heaven, and thus, 
 we are told, the sea water gets its nasty 
 taste. 
 
 I alluded to these things, because I be- 
 lieve it would be unjust to pick out all 
 the queer and childish sayings with which 
 the Buddhist scriptures and especially 
 popular Buddhistic books abound, and lead 
 people to imagine that Buddhism is little 
 better than a string of nonsense. The 
 Buddhists never cared to preserve their 
 sacred scriptures in their original integrity. 
 Unlike our bible, the Buddhist canon has 
 undergone wholesale textual alterations ; it 
 has been edited and re-edite l a great many 
 times, and every editor introduced into the 
 text the favourite ideas of his time and his 
 school. As to the popu'ar literature of 
 Buddhism and its absurdities, we might as 
 well collect those little pamphlets on dreams, 
 on sorcery, on lucky and unlucky days, on 
 the lives and miracles of saints, which cir- 
 culate among Roman Catholic peasants, — 
 but would that give us a true picture of 
 Roman Catholicism ? Thus it is with 
 Buddhism. Those crude, childish and ab- 
 surd notions concerning the uuiverse and 
 physical science do not constitute Bud- 
 
 dhism. This great religion, imperfect and 
 false as it is to a great extent, does not 
 stand or fall with such absurdities. They 
 are merely accidental, unimportant out- 
 works, which may fall by the advance of 
 knowledge, which may be rased to the 
 ground by the progress of civilisation, and 
 yet the Buddhist fortress may remain as 
 strong, as impregnable, as before. A Bud- 
 dhist may adopt all the results of modern 
 science, he may become a follower of New- 
 ton, a disciple of Darwin, and yet remain a 
 Buddhist. The strong point of Buddhism 
 lies in its morality, and this morality is 
 equal to the non-chri3tian morality of our 
 civilised world. It is not civilisation there- 
 fore, but Christianity alone, that has a 
 chance against Buddhism, because Chris- 
 tianity alone teaches a morality loftier, 
 stronger, holier than that of Buddhism, 
 because Christianity alone can touch, can 
 convert the heart, for there — in the heart 
 of the natural man — it is where the roots 
 of Buddhism lie. 
 
 1 remarked above, that there is a train of 
 ideas which form the foundation of the 
 whole system of Buddhism and have been 
 retained through all ages and in all coun- 
 tries as the common property of all Bud- 
 dhists. To place these fundamental doc- 
 trines before you iu a connected systematic 
 form 1 will begin with the Buddhist views 
 of physical nature. 
 
 Before Buddhism arose, the thinking 
 minds of India had been taught to look 
 upon the visible universe “as one stupen- 
 dous wdiole, whose body nature is and God 
 the soul.” But this God, or Brahma, was 
 viewed only in a pantheistic sense, as an 
 impersonal substauce, as the one uncreat- 
 ed, self-existent, immutable entity, from 
 which the whole universe emanated, which 
 pervades all forms of existence as the prin- 
 ciple of life pervades the body, and into 
 which all will ultimately be re-absorbed. 
 Buddhism took a different view of the uni- 
 verse. Buddhism knows no creative prime- 
 agent, no supra-mundane or ante-mundane 
 principle, no pre-existing spirit, no primi- 
 tive matter. The very idea of existence 
 has no room in the Buddhist system. For 
 all and everything is in a constant flux, 
 rising into existence, ebbing aw'ay again, 
 perpetually changing and reproducing itself 
 in an eternal circle, without beginning, 
 without end. But Buddhism does not say 
 that our world is without beginning or 
 without end. For the universe, in which 
 we live, is but one of an endless number of 
 world systems. Every one of these innu- 
 merable co-existing worlds has a beginning 
 and comes to an end, but only to be re- 
 constructed again, iu order to be destroyed 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND 
 
 1.5 
 
 again in endless succession. What is eter- 
 nal therefore and absolutely without begin- 
 ning is not any individual world or uni- 
 verse, but the mere law of revolution, the 
 mere idea of constant rotation through for- 
 mation, destruction and re-construction. 
 To the question, how the very first universe 
 was originally brought into existence, and 
 whence that eternal law of ceaseless repro- 
 duction came, Buddhism honestly confesses 
 to have no reply. When this very query 
 was put before Buddha, he remained silent, 
 and after some pressure explained, that 
 none but a Buddha might comprehend this 
 problem, that the solution of it was abso- 
 lutely beyond the understanding of a finite 
 mind. This acknowledgment of the limits 
 of religious thought, honest and praisewor- 
 thy as it is, reveals to us the weakness of 
 this system of Atheism. It acknowledged 
 a design in nature, it recognized immutable 
 laws underlying the endless modifications 
 of organic and inorganic life, and attained, 
 even so long as 2,000 years ago, to that 
 grand “ Darwinian ” idea of a pre-existing 
 spontaneous tendency to variation as the 
 real prime agent of the origin of species, 
 but — like Darwin and his school — it stop- 
 ped short of pointing out Him, who origi- 
 nated the first commencement of that so- 
 called spontaneous tendency, and who laid 
 into nature the law which regulates the 
 whole process of natural selection, God, the 
 creator and sustainer of the universe. 
 
 Regarding the way in which each world- 
 system rises into being out of the gertn of a 
 previous universe, the Buddhist scriptures 
 speak in a rather obscure phraseology, out 
 of the chaos, produced by the destruction 
 of a former universe, rises a cloud which 
 sends down fructifying rain. Thereupon 
 numberless buds of new worlds sprout up 
 like lotos flowers, floating on the water, 
 each world developing first its sublimest 
 heavenly portion and then its terrestrial 
 parts. In the latter also the lower regions 
 and forms of existence are developed out 
 of the nobler ones, the lower classes of 
 sentient beings out of the higher ones. 
 The earth itself is formed out of a mould 
 that resembles the honey distilled in the 
 cup of the lotos. The whole surface of the 
 earth is of a golden colour, emitting a de- 
 lightful fragrance, whilst a liquid is exuded 
 that forms the first ambrosian food of sen- 
 tient beings. This whole process of forma- 
 tion is supported by four winds, a moist 
 wind, a dry wind, a strengthening wind, 
 and a beautifying wind, also by five clouds 
 or atmospheric influences, one that de- 
 stroys all heat, one that saturates all with 
 moisture, one that dries up all moisture, 
 one that produces the minerals, and one 
 
 that keeps the different worlds asunder and 
 produces a chasm between heaven and 
 earth. This is called the period (Kalpa) of 
 formation. Then comes the stationary pe- 
 riod, a time of continued formation, at the 
 opening of which in each world a sun and 
 a moon rise out of the water, whereupon — • 
 in consequence of the coarser food of which 
 sentient beings begin to partake, arises the 
 difference of sex, before not existing ; soon 
 after, heroes distinguish themselves above 
 their fellows, and next, with the distinction 
 of the four castes, society is established, 
 and monarchs arise, followed in due course 
 by Buddhas. This period of continued 
 formation is succeeded by a time of gradual 
 destruction through the elements of water, 
 fire and wind, the work of destruction be- 
 ginning in every universe at the lowest 
 forms and reaching to the highest, leaving 
 however a germ for future re-construction 
 untouched. The period of destruction is 
 supplemented by a period of continued de- 
 struction, working on the same principles 
 and resulting finally in a total chaos, called 
 the period of emptiness, which in turn 
 again is followed by periods of formation, 
 continued formation, destruction, continu- 
 ed destruction, emptiness and so on in end- 
 less succession. But in spite of these 
 alternate destructions and renovations of 
 every universe, each successive world is 
 homogeneous in its constituent parts, hav- 
 ing the same continents of the same size, 
 the same divisions of mountains, river-sys- 
 tems, nationalities, countries and even 
 cities though under different names. Again, 
 every world in all the infinite systems of 
 the cosmos is floating in empty space, each 
 earth having nothing beneath it but the 
 circumambient air, whilst the interior of 
 each earth is incandescent. The structure 
 also of each earth is the same in every uni- 
 verse. Four continents lie around a gigantic 
 central mountain, about which sun, moon, 
 planets and stars involve. But the four 
 continents are separated from each other 
 by the sea and from the central mountain, 
 (which in fact represents the axis of the 
 world) by seven concentric circles of rocks, 
 each separated from the other by an ocean, 
 an idea suggested probably by the orbit of 
 the seven planets. Above that central 
 mountain are ranged the various tiers of 
 heavens, inhabited like our earth by sentient 
 beings, called devas, who take a constant 
 interest in the spread of the Buddhist reli- 
 gion on earth. These heavens are however 
 very different from the Christian idea qf a 
 heavenly paradise, for they represent but 
 different stages of moral and intellectual 
 life, aud though the inhabitants of them 
 heavens enjoy comparatively greater happi- 
 
1 <> 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 ness and length of life than any being on 
 earth, they live in the flesh and are subject 
 to the same evils that flesh is heir to, though 
 in a minor degree, in proportion to their 
 moral and intellectual advancement. At 
 the foot of that central mountain are ranged 
 the various tiers of hell, and as the heavens 
 increase in ascending gradation in purity 
 and happiness of life, so these hells increase 
 downwards iu horror and duration of tor- 
 ture, the lowest hell being the worst ge- 
 lienna. Strange to say, though the Bud- 
 dhists know a devil, whom they call M&ra, 
 and ascribe to him the power of assuming 
 any shape he pleases, especially that of 
 woman, in order to tempt men from the 
 path of virtue, the abode of this Satan is 
 not iu hell, he rules in the air like the 
 Christian or rather Anti-Christian “ prince 
 of the power of the air.” The Buddhist 
 hells are ruled by Yama, who himself is 
 suffering torture there, being among the 
 hosts of criminals but primus inter pares 
 Now those heavens above and all the hea- 
 venly bodies, the hells below with their in- 
 numerable chambers, the earth and even 
 the air that surrounds the earth, all these 
 localities are peopled with sentient beings, 
 divided indeed into different classes, but all 
 form one community of living beings, all 
 pervaded by the desire to live, all doomed 
 to die. Neither the pains of hell nor the joys 
 of heaven are endless. Everywhere there 
 is death. And death is everywhere follow- 
 ed, so long as the desire of existence has 
 not been overcome, by re-birth either into 
 one of the hells or heavens, or on earth or 
 in the air, in some form of sentient exist- 
 ence or other, the particular condition of 
 each individual being determined by the 
 accumulated merit or demerit of his or her 
 previous existence. 
 
 There we have the doctrine of ti’ansmi- 
 gration. It is not an invention of Bud- 
 dhism, though it fits marvellously well into 
 its conception of the universe with its rota- 
 tion of formation and renovation. Long 
 before Buddha arose, metempsychosis was 
 taught by Brahmanism. In fact, the foun- 
 tain source of this doctrine may be traced 
 back to the oldest code book of Asiatic na- 
 tions, to the Veda itself, which plainly 
 taught the immortality of the soul, and ac- 
 customed the Hindoo mind to consider death 
 as but a second birth, thus paving the way 
 for the development which the dogma of 
 metempsychosis soon after received by suc- 
 ceeding generations. It was the system 
 of Brahmanism that first promulgated in 
 India the idea of transmigration Of 
 Brahma it is said in the Upanishads and in 
 the code of Mauu, that the whole universe 
 emanated from it, by evolution, not by 
 
 creation. But as everything emanates 
 from Brahma, so everything returns to it. 
 Brahma is the alpha and omega, it is both 
 the fountain from which the stream of life 
 breaks forth and the ocean into which it 
 hastens to lose itself. Thus the human 
 soul emanates from Brahma, descends to a 
 contact with matter, defiles itself and has 
 therefore to pass through all the gradations 
 of animate nature, from the lowest form of 
 existence to the highest and noblest, before 
 it is purified enough to be fit for a final 
 return into the pure shoreless ocean of 
 Brahma. All nature is animate to the 
 Pantheist, and the circle of transmigration 
 is therefore of immense width. The soul 
 may after the dissolution of the body as- 
 ceud to the moon, to be clothed in a watery 
 form, and returning pass successively 
 through ether, air, vapour, mist and cloud 
 into rain, and thus find its way into a 
 vegetating plant and thence through the 
 medium of nourishment into an animal 
 embryo. Only those who have succeeded 
 iu destroying all selfish thoughts and feel- 
 ings by means of mental abstraction, the 
 saints only, will rest after death by being 
 fieed from all distinctions of form or name ; 
 they will be dissolved into Brahma, with 
 which they commingle and in which they 
 lose themselves like a river in the ocean. 
 Those however, who during their life time 
 indulged in selfishness, lust and passions, 
 will be subject to innumerable births accoi d- 
 ing to their moral condition. Every breath- 
 ing being will after death be reborn iu 
 accordance with the general tendency of its 
 inner life. Those who were moved by 
 noble instincts or motives will be reborn as 
 men of a high caste. To those who were 
 inflamed by low desires and passions a 
 lower caste will be allotted in their next 
 birth, whilst those who degraded their 
 souls by beastly desires will be reborn as 
 beasts, say as rats or pigs or tigers. Their 
 souls may even descend to a still lower 
 circle of transmigration and, in the way 
 above mentioned, be finally reborn as 
 plants, whence they will have to work their 
 way up again through the class of beasts 
 and the various classes of human society, 
 until they at last reach the goal of Buddha 
 by continued self-purification. Such are 
 the main outlines of this grand popular 
 system. It starts with the idea handed 
 down from primitive antiquity by the Veda, 
 that the soul is indestructible and immor- 
 tal because it is of divine origin. It pro- 
 ceeds then to work out the general princi- 
 ple, that every soul must be materially 
 what it is spiritually, that is to say, it must 
 be clothed in a body the nature of which 
 corresponds to the inmost bent of the 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 17 
 
 mind ; a beastly man must be reborn a 
 beast, a godly man must be united with 
 God. Dividing the empire of nature ac- 
 cording to the different castes of Hindoo 
 society, it lays down the rule that the soul 
 as it gradually purifies itself from con- 
 tact with matter may have to pass through 
 some or all of the different classes of nature 
 until it is finally united with the deity. 
 For only in absolute union and absorption 
 in the deity can be found peace, rest and 
 happiness. 
 
 Buddha adopted this pantheistic dogma 
 of metempsychosis, though not without re- 
 moulding and re-casting it, so as to fit into 
 his own atheistic system. Buddha first of 
 all stripped this Brahmanic idea of the soul’s 
 transmigration of the metaphysical garb in 
 which his contemporaries had received it 
 through the Vedanta philosophy. In vain 
 you search Buddhistic literature for a me- 
 taphysical treatment of this deeply interest- 
 ing problem. In vain you search for a dis- 
 tinct notion of the origin of each individual 
 soul, which the Vedanta philosophy placed 
 in Brahma. Buddha gave the dogma of 
 the soul’s transmigration an exclusively 
 moral basis. In the place of Brahma, the 
 fountain source and goal of Brahmanic 
 metempsychosis, he substituted the idea of 
 Karma, i.e. merit and demerit. Whilst the 
 Brahman believed each human soul to 
 originate in and to be part and parcel of 
 Brahma, Buddha taught, that about the 
 primitive origin of each human soul nothing 
 further could be said but this : that each 
 living soul after the dissolution of its 
 previous embodiment comes again into 
 being and is endowed with a new body in 
 accordance with its moral merit or demerit 
 accumulated in a previous form of existence. 
 In other words, each sentient being is the 
 product of its own moral worth, each living 
 soul is born out of the germ of its moral 
 actions. Again, the Brahmans looked upon 
 the stream of transmigration as flowing on 
 by its own innate force, each soul being 
 driven on by its own tendency, gravitating 
 towards its original source, Brahma. Con- 
 sequently transmigration was but a na- 
 tural process, ruled by the laws of 
 nature. But Buddha remodelled this 
 doctrine into a moral process guided by 
 the will and ruled by the moral or im- 
 moral actions of each individual soul. 
 Man, he said, is doomed to pilgrimage 
 through the whole creation only as far he 
 himself will have it. He is the maker of 
 his own fate. Happiness and misery lie 
 in his own hands. As his present condi- 
 tion has been determined by his previous 
 appearance in human existence, so will his 
 future position be dependent on his actions 
 
 in his present life. Cruelty, covetousness, 
 falsehood, lust, drunkenness and other vices 
 will heap up a stock of demerit producing 
 re-birth in one of the hells, or at least in 
 some wretched condition of life upon earth, 
 according to the amount of demerit in store. 
 The practice of the opposite virtues will 
 insure re-birth in one of the heavens or in 
 some desirable condition upon earth accord- 
 ing to the store of accumulated merit. But 
 all such rewards or punishments awarded 
 during the pilgrimage of the soul through 
 manifold repetitions of sentient existence 
 will continue only for a limited period and 
 are not eternal. Transmigration therefore, 
 and its bitterest sting, hell, with all its 
 horrors of torture, is but chastisement not 
 aimless punishment, is but intended to 
 purify, to wean the soul from its cleaving 
 to existence, to expiate the sinful guilty 
 being, not to extinguish it. Another dif- 
 ference observable between the Brahmanic 
 and Buddhistic conceptions of the doctrine 
 of metempsychosis is this, that Buddhism 
 narrowed the circle of transmigration. 
 Whilst according to the Upanishads the 
 path of transmigration passes even through 
 inanimate nature, through the mineral and 
 vegetable kingdoms, Buddha limited it to 
 the sphere of animal organic life. No 
 doubt, he did so, because he looked upon 
 transmigration altogether as a moral pro- 
 cess. 
 
 Of course this dogma of the soul’s pil- 
 grimage through nature is a mighty weapon 
 in the bands of an eloquent preacher. 
 There is nothing so very frightful to us 
 descendants of Western nations in the idea 
 of transmigration. There may be rather 
 something attractive in it for many. For 
 life is to us the highest blessing and death 
 we hate. Many would therefore submit to 
 a thousand deaths if they were to live again 
 a thousand times, and they would not care 
 much how their lives might be, for life is 
 precious to us in itself. But a different 
 thing altogether it is with the sons of hot 
 climates, with the lazy indolent Hindoo, 
 with the sedentary Chinaman. To him 
 life itself has no particular fascination. He 
 counts death — if he may rest after that — a 
 blessing. To suffer, to suffer even the 
 fiercest tortures of hell, to suffer even for 
 millions of years, is not half as frightful 
 an idea to him as to be forced to act, to 
 labour, to work for aeon after aeon, being 
 subject to death indeed, but with no wel- 
 come rest after death, being condemned to 
 die only to be immediately reborn again, 
 perhaps as a hard worked animal or an 
 unclean cur. This it is which makes the 
 hearts of Oriental nations tremble with 
 terror, and this is the weapon with which 
 
18 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 crafty Buddhistic priests subdued the stub- 
 born hearts of Eastern Asia. The clever 
 founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni himself, 
 knew this well, and therefore he made this 
 dogma of the soul’s transmigration the very 
 centre of his system, and daily he preached 
 it, and daily his fanatic followers spread 
 this doctrine farther and farther. They 
 did not handle it, however, as a tenet of 
 speculative philosophy, they did not treat 
 it as a sort of esoteric mystery, only to be 
 revealed to the initiated, but directly ap- 
 pealing to man’s moral conscience they 
 proffered this doctrine to all as the ouly 
 satisfactory explanation of the unequal 
 distribution of rewards and punishments 
 for good and evil in this present world. 
 Thus practically dealing with the doctrine 
 of metempsychosis they passed over in 
 silence all purely metaphysical questions 
 which Brahmanism had been so busy with. 
 The consequence of these tactics was, that 
 Buddhism succeeded in bringing home this 
 doctrine to every heart in all its practical 
 bearings, so that at the present day every 
 class of society in Buddhistic countries, 
 educated and uneducated, young and old, 
 man and woman, among half-civilized and 
 among nomadical communities, think and 
 speak and act in perfect accordance with 
 this dogma. It is to them exactly what 
 hell and damnation is to Christian peo- 
 ples. 
 
 Naturally therefore the question arises, 
 what escape is there from this dizzy round 
 of birth and death, what ultimate goal is 
 there beyond the circle of transmigration 1 
 The answer is, there is indeed an escape. 
 The means of it lie in morality and medi- 
 tation and the haven of fiual deliverance 
 is Nirvana. This answer, echoed with 
 perfect unanimity by all Buddhistic schools 
 though they differ from each other as to 
 the relative merits of morality and medi- 
 tation and as to the nature of Nirvana, 
 makes it necessary for a complete sketch of 
 the Buddhist dogma to discuss these further 
 points, Buddhist morality, Buddhist philo- 
 sophy and the Buddhist Nirv&na. 1 will 
 do so as briefly as posible. 
 
 The Buddhist system of morality is based 
 on the example of Buddha’s life. Imitate 
 Buddha, conform yourself as much as pos- 
 sible to this type of perfection, such is the 
 supreme precept of the religion. Now 
 Buddha distinguished himself first of all 
 during his 550 previous births by self-for- 
 getting, self-sacrificing charity. To get rid 
 of self, therefore, is the primary condition 
 of a holy life. He who is without desire, 
 dead to himself, he alone truly lives. This 
 may be considered the elementary princi- 
 ple of Buddhist morality. But as Buddha 
 
 in his last birth renounced not only his 
 own self, but the world and all worldly 
 good and pleasure, as he left society, retired 
 into solitude, observed the strictest chas- 
 tity and temperance, Buddhist morality 
 makes correspondingly further demands 
 upon the self-denial of its adherents. The 
 first five commandments of the Buddhist 
 religion run as follows : thou shalt not kill 
 that which has life, thou shalt not steal, 
 thou shalt not commit any unchaste act, 
 thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not drink any 
 intoxicating liquor. Here we have no 
 doubt the form and extent of the system of 
 Buddhistic morality as it was originally 
 promulgated. We observe that the starting 
 point of this code of morality is the idea of 
 absolute self-renunciation. Human life ap- 
 peared to Buddha as full of misery because 
 of its being full of selfish desire, whence he 
 inferred, that the path of deliverauce lies in 
 the entire renunciation of all seltish desire 
 including the desire of exist nee. Here 
 lies the moral strength of Buddhism. It is 
 | a religion of unselfishness. But here also 
 lies the radical defect of Buddhism. For 
 this idet of utter se'f-abnegation sprang in 
 Buddha but from a lively conviction of the 
 imperumnency and unreality of the world 
 of sense, not from that aspiration after 
 communing with a being of perfectly unsel- 
 fish goodness, which kindled the geniu3 of 
 Plato and forms the deep root of Christian 
 morality. Buddhist morality is a morality 
 without a God and without a conscience. 
 There appears in Buddhism an utter waut 
 of an active principle of goodness. Bud- 
 dhist morality does not endeavour to pro- 
 duce in man a conviction of sin, it does not 
 appeal to his own inner sense of moral 
 goodness. Buddhism does not attempt to 
 purify the affections, to govern desire, to 
 control passion, to renovate the heart, to 
 regenerate, to sanctify the whole being. 
 Its virtue is essentially negative. It en- 
 joins men to cease fron doing evil, it de- 
 mands the total extinction of all desire, of 
 all passion, but stops short of urging men 
 to do good and has no assistance to offer by 
 way of strengthening humanity in its 
 struggle with the powers of evil. This 
 very absence of an active principle of good- 
 ness, the denial of God and the disregard 
 of the human conscience, gave to Buddhist 
 morality that spirit of melancholy despair 
 which it breathes. When Sh&kyamuni 
 became a Buddha through recognising that 
 everything earthly is impermanent and 
 unreal, that human existence is necessa- 
 rily and inseparably welded with misery, 
 he was simply in a state of moral and 
 intellectual despair. He threw overboard 
 all faith in God and moral consciousness ; 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 19 
 
 he abandoned all hope for the actual world 
 which appeared to him radically and irre- 
 mediably bad; he saw no way of escape but 
 that of the extinction of existence itself. 
 The greatest happiness, he said, is not to 
 be born, the next greatest is for those who 
 have been born to die soon. 
 
 It was however but a consistent develop- 
 ment of Buddha’s own ethical principles 
 when his followers, feeling the want of a 
 positive code of morality, constructed a 
 moral system, the chief characteristics of 
 which are comprehended in a formula that 
 was ever after the rudimentary confession 
 of faith of all Buddhist neophytes, the 
 so-called formula of refuge : I take my 
 
 refuge in Buddha, i.e., 1 will imitate him 
 and all his doings ; I take my refuge in 
 Dharma, i.e., I accept all his ideas of the 
 impermanency of all earthly things and the 
 necessity of absolute self-renunciation ; I 
 take my refuge in Samglia, i.e., 1 renounce 
 society, property, matrimonial and family 
 life and see no salvation outside the pale of 
 the church. In short, Buddhist morality 
 developed itself into a code of monasticism 
 which coudesceudingly allowed or rather 
 connived at the existence of lay-brethren 
 and lay sisters, but which held out hope of 
 salvation to none but those who renounced 
 the woild and entered the church as men- 
 dicant priests and nuns. This system pro- 
 duced the most elaborate rules for the 
 guidance of the priesthood, regulating their 
 dress, their diet, their occupation, and 
 prescribing the very manner of standing up 
 and sitting down with the most pains-taking 
 and pedantic minuteness. It enjoined 
 public confession of faults, which led to a 
 complete code-book of casuistry. It pro 
 duced a code of criminal law for the main- 
 tenance of discipline. It developed ecclesi- 
 astical rank, grades of saintship, an elabo- 
 rate ritual, a complete religious calendar 
 aud so forth. 
 
 Now this system of morality viewed as a 
 whole was not without its good effects. It 
 was admirably adapted to the preservation 
 of religious and moral life in times of im- 
 morality and political anarchy, and espe- 
 cially to the primary work of taming sav- 
 age tribes whom it weaned from habits of 
 cruelty, blood-thirstiness and bestiality, 
 whose intemperate habits were successfully 
 checked by enjoining complete abstinence, 
 and who were taught to obey the law and 
 to submit to the rules of morality, and thus 
 prepared for civilisation. Again, this sys- 
 tem of monasticism, which offered a welcome 
 to people of all classes and all nations, 
 formed an excellent substitute for the nar- 
 row-minded exclusiveness of caste in India. 
 In countries where Buddhism failed to 
 
 extirpate caste, as for instance in Ceylon, 
 this monastic and ecclesiastical system mo- 
 dified the pretensions of caste and c unter* 
 balanced its evils. In other countries, 
 where warfare, despotism and feudal sys- 
 tems lacerated the peace of Asiatic peo- 
 ples, producing even greater evils than 
 caste in India ever did, there this Buddhist 
 system of monasticism came in most suit- 
 ably, teaching the equality of all nations 
 ancl establishing a common brotherhood, a 
 grand international league of morality, 
 fraternity and abstinence. 
 
 On the other hand, every system of mo- 
 nasticism is morally bad arid leads to cramp 
 the intellect. I say it is morally to be con- 
 demned because the self-abnegation origi- 
 nally involved in giving up a worldly life is 
 soon for consistency’s sake supplemented 
 by a life of selfish or cowardly seclusion. 
 Monasticism is also detrimental to a heal- 
 thy development of the intellectual facul- 
 ties, as history and experience abuudautly 
 prove. In the case of Buddhism I need 
 only point to the fact, that it produced no 
 literature worthy to be compared with even 
 that of China, let alone that of European 
 nations ; that it never encouraged art or 
 science ; that it failed to comprehend the 
 importance of any of the problems of poli- 
 tical and social life, and that Buddhist 
 priests are now-a-days generally noted for 
 their ignorance and indolence. Moreover 
 this grand system of Buddhist mouachism 
 inherited the inevitable tendency of every 
 system of minutely regulated observances, 
 to degenerate into an external formalism. 
 When the first burst of enthusiasm has 
 passed, the religion that overleaps all 
 earthly piety soon col'apses into a religion 
 of forms, into a system of Phariseeisna 
 equally irrational and immoral. This has 
 actually happened in the case of Buddhism. 
 But the best test for the value of auy system 
 of morality is the position it assigns to wo- 
 man. Here Buddhist morality is found 
 signally wanting. The system of Buddhism 
 leaves woman where it found her 2,000 
 years ago. Instead of educating and eleva- 
 ting her, instead of breaking those chains 
 of slavery in which women were held all 
 over Asia, instead of giving woman a posi- 
 tion in society worthy of her innate purity, 
 Buddhism grudgingly allowed women a 
 place in the hierarchy as nuns, but with 
 the distinct understanding that there was 
 no hope of salvation for them unless 
 through being reborn as men. This idea 
 of re-birth brings us to the last and most 
 important defect of Buddhist morality. 
 The idea of transmigration pervades the 
 whole system of Buddhist ethics like a 
 deadly poison. For the theory of a man’» 
 
20 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 destiny being determined by the accumu- 
 lated stock of merits and demerits in pre- 
 vious forms of existence, constitutes Bud- 
 dhism a system of fatalism ; whilst the idea 
 of improving one’s future prospect by 
 accumulating a stock of merit, converts 
 morality into a vast scheme of profit and 
 loss. Hence the Chinese Buddhist for 
 instance keeps a debtor and creditor account 
 with himself of the acts of each day, and 
 at the end of the year he winds it up. If 
 the balance is in his favour, it is carried on 
 to the account of the next year, but if 
 against him, something extra must be done 
 to make up the deficiency. Thus it hap- 
 pens, that this grand moral system of 
 Buddhism, starting with the idea of the 
 entire renunciation of self, ends in that 
 downright selfishness, which abhors crime, 
 not because of its sinfulness, but because 
 it is a personal injury, which sees no moral 
 pollution in sin, but merely a calamity to 
 be deprecated, or a misfortune to be shun- 
 ned. 
 
 Morality however is not in itself sufficient 
 to break through the circle of transmigra- 
 tion, to carry men across the ocean of mi- 
 sery, to save them from the evils of exist- 
 ence. The object of morality is to practi- 
 cally extinguish the passions, to root out 
 desire. But the deepest root, the first 
 cause of desire, lies in theoretical ignorance, 
 misconception, delusion. To eradicate this 
 delusion, therefore, to remove this ignor- 
 ance and misconception regarding the outer 
 and inner world, would be the final means 
 of deliverance, would rid the self from all 
 the trammels of existence, would actually 
 lift the individual practically and theoreti- 
 cally out of the circle of transmigration 
 and land him on the shores of Nirvana. 
 In oue word, whilst morality practically 
 extinguishes the desire of existence, ab- 
 stract meditation or philosophy extinguish- 
 es existence itself. Morality and philoso- 
 phy therefore are indispensable to each 
 other, whatever their relative importance 
 may be. .As Christianity requires both, 
 good works and faith, thus also Buddhism 
 bases the idea of salvation on a combina- 
 tion of the two factors, moral action and 
 abstract thought or intelligence. As Bud- 
 dhist morality requires men to imitate the 
 doings of Buddha, thus also Buddhist phi- 
 losophy invites men to conform to and to 
 follow up the very idea of Buddha, for the 
 word Buddha means literally “intelli- 
 gence,” which is looked upon as the result 
 of abstract meditation. The way in which 
 Buddha departed from this world, by the 
 mental process of inwardly realising the 
 total impermanency and nothingness of all 
 earthly forms of existence, of overcoming 
 
 not only the desire of existence, but de- 
 stroying existence itself by a purely intel- 
 lectual logical process — this is the object of 
 Buddhist philosophy, this is the final path 
 to Nirvana. Unfortunately however Bud- 
 dha’s followers differed from each other in 
 no other detail of doctrine so much as in 
 the manner in which they built up their 
 systems of philosophy. They seemed to 
 take a delight in contradicting each other, 
 and the consequence was, that Buddhism 
 split into a great number of different phi- 
 losophical schools, each starting from the 
 same circle of ideas, as given above, and 
 each coming to pretty nearly the same 
 result, to the idea of Nirvana. Buddhism 
 developed nominalistic and realistic schools, 
 divided itself into schools of Idealism and 
 Materialism, produced systems of Positi- 
 vism and Nihilism. And there is very lit- 
 tle they have in common with each other 
 beyond the following propositions, which 
 form the fundamental ideas of the philoso- 
 phic systems of all shades and all ages in 
 the sphere of Buddhist orthodoxy. All 
 start from the so-called 4 truths (Ary&ni- 
 satyani) or the idea that misery is a neces- 
 sary attribute of sentient existence, that 
 the accumulation of misery is caused by 
 desire, that the extinction of desire is pos- 
 sible and that there is a path that leads to 
 that extinction. Another leading proposi- 
 tion, common to all schools, is this, that 
 individual existence (personality) is made 
 up by the following 5 constituents (Skan- 
 dhas), the organized body, sensation, per- 
 ception, discrimination and consciousness. 
 Again, there is tolerable unanimity as 
 to a certain concatenation of cause and 
 effect, which is considered to form, the real 
 explanation of the riddle of existence. 
 There are 12 links (Nidanas) in this endless 
 chain of cause and effect. Existence, it is 
 said, is caused by 1, ignorance or delu- 
 sion ; ignorance produced 2, action ; from 
 action arises 3, consciousness, thence 4, 
 substantiality, thence 5, the 6 organs of 
 perception (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body 
 and mind) ; from the action of these organs 
 arises 6, sensation, thence comes 7, per- 
 ception ; thence 8, desire or lust ; from 
 this desire springs 9, the cleaving to exist- 
 ence, which produces 10, individual exist- 
 ence ; the latter finds its expression in 11, 
 birth, but birth invariably produces 12, 
 decrepitude and death, and death, though 
 it breaks up the above-mentioned 5 consti- 
 tuents (Skandhas) of individual life, leaves 
 behiud the reproductive power, a germ as 
 it were, which has to run the same round 
 again through ignorance, action, conscious- 
 ness and so forth. 
 
 Here we have then again, in philosophy 
 
LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 21 
 
 also, the same circle, which we observed 
 before in the system of the physical uni- 
 verse and — in the form of transmigration — 
 in the moral order of the world. We see 
 therefore, how fitly Buddhism at its very 
 outset adopted the emblem of a wheel in 
 order to typify the leading characteristics 
 of its faith. What the cross is to the 
 Christian Church, emblematically pointing 
 to the central truth of theoretical and 
 practical Christianity, the same as regards 
 fulness of significance is to the Buddhist 
 his Dharma Tchakra, the so-called “wheel 
 of doctrine.” As the Christian speaks of 
 preaching the cross, so the Buddhist speaks 
 of “ turning the wheel of doctrine.” For 
 the idea of ceaseless rotation running 
 through the whole system, branch and 
 root, has made of Buddism altogether a 
 system of wheels within wheels. Ecce 
 signurn. 
 
 I have been turning this wheel before 
 your mind’s eye, and it is time now to stop 
 it by way of pointing out what the final 
 escape from this weary dizzy round is, 
 which Buddhism offers by means of mental 
 abstraction. What is Nirvana ? 
 
 There has been much dispute in the 
 learned world among Buddhists and among 
 European scholars, whether Nirvana meaus 
 absolute annihilation or not. I would 
 humbly suggest, that if the learned writers 
 on the subject, instead of presuming Bud- 
 dhism to have been one and the same thing 
 everywhere, and in all ages, instead of 
 overlooking that Buddhism is one thing as 
 a scientific system and another as a popular 
 practical religion, had taken into considera- 
 tion that there are as many different Bud- 
 dhistic denominations, schools and parties, 
 as there are Christian sects, it would have 
 saved much useless disputation. The 
 doctrine of Nirvana, like all other Bud- 
 dhist doctrines, has been differently handled 
 in different ages, by different schools, 
 writers, preachers. I have given much 
 thought to the subject, and the con- 
 clusions I arrive at are these. In the 
 absence of ancient manuscripts and by 
 reason of the repeated textual altera- 
 tions which the Buddhist canon suffered 
 before it was fixed in the form in which we 
 now have it, it is practically impossible to 
 determine what Shakyamuni Buddha him- 
 self taught on the subject. He may have 
 looked upon Nirvana as a state of personal 
 immortality of the spirit, exempt from the 
 eddies of transmigration and revelling in 
 the enjoyment of unlimited happiness 
 through the annihilation of all desire. He 
 may have viewed Nirvana as a state of ab- 
 solute annihilation of personality and indi- 
 vidual existence. It is impossible to decide 
 
 which of the two views he actually held. 
 But I am inclined to think he most proba- 
 bly left the question undecided in his own 
 mind. After Buddha’s death, his followers 
 may likewise have left the problem un- 
 touched for some time. But the most 
 ancient Sutras which we possess coincide 
 with the popular literature of modern Bud- 
 dhism in describing Nirvana as a state of 
 exemption from birth and death, as a con- 
 dition of peace and felicity, implying not 
 only the continuation of consciousness and 
 personality, but an active interest in the 
 progress of religion on earth, which occa- 
 sionally prompts individuals, after having 
 entered Nirvana, to reappear on earth in 
 order to interfere on behalf of the faithful. 
 On the other hand, both ancient and mo- 
 dern philosophical schools of Buddhism 
 have always had a leaning to and in most 
 instances have actually defined Nirvana 
 as a state of absolute annihilation, 
 where there is neither consciousness nor 
 personality, nor existence of any kind. 
 And I do believe that a consistent develop- 
 ment of the principles of Buddhism must 
 always lead to the same negative result, 
 that existence is but a curse and that 
 therefore the aim of human effort should 
 be the total. annihilation of the personality 
 and existence of each individual soul. Mo- 
 dem philosophical schools of Buddhism are 
 all more or less influenced by a spirit of 
 sophistic nihilism. They deal with Nir- 
 vana as they deal with every other dogma, 
 with heaven and hell : they deny its objec- 
 tive reality, placing it altogether in the 
 abstract. They dissolve every proposition 
 into a thesis and its anti-thesis and deny 
 both. Thus they say Nirvana is not anni- 
 hilation, but they also deny its positive 
 objective reality. According to them the 
 soul enjoys in Nirvana neither existence 
 nor non-existence, it is neither eternal nor 
 non-eternal, neither annihilated nor non- 
 annihilated. Nirvana is to them a state of 
 which nothing can be said, to which no 
 attributes can be given ; it is altogether an 
 abstract, devoid alike of all positive and 
 all negative qualities. 
 
 What shall we say of such empty useless 
 speculations, such sickly, dead words, whose 
 fruitless sophistry offers to that natural 
 yearning of the human heart after an eter- 
 nal rest nothing better than — a philoso- 
 phical myth ? It is but natural that a 
 religion which started with moral and 
 intellectual bankruptcy should end in 
 moral and intellectual suicide. But 
 sad, pitiably sad it is to see a reli- 
 gion that contains so many true ideas to 
 produce results so barren, so deadly. 
 Bunsen was right in his estimate of the 
 
22 
 
 LECTURE THE SECOND. 
 
 value of this purposeless religion. Bud- 
 dhism, he said, may be regarded as a sort 
 of repose of humanity after its deliverauce 
 from the heavy yoke of Brahmanism and 
 the wild orgies of nature worship. But 
 this repose is that of a weary wanderer, who 
 is withheld from the prosecution of God's 
 work on this earth by his utter despair of 
 
 the triumph of justice and truth in actual 
 life. In the plan of the world’s order it 
 seems even now producing the effect of a 
 mild dose of opium on the raving or de- 
 spairing tribes of weary-hearted Asia. The 
 sleep lasts long, but it is a gentle one, and 
 who knows how near may be the dawn of 
 the resurrection morning 1 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD 
 
 In the preceding lecture 1 exhibited Bud- 
 dhism from a doctrinal point of view. I 
 endeavoured to do so with due impartiality, 
 taking for my basis the more ancient scrip- 
 tures of the Buddhists and confining my 
 remarks to those features of doctrine, which 
 are the common property 7 of all the Bud- 
 dhistic schools and sects. What is then the 
 value of Buddhism as a system of doctrine ? 
 
 No doubt Buddhism has brought to light 
 many valuable and true ideas, and being 
 free from any trammels of nationality it 
 was peculiarly adapted to impress these 
 truths upon all the peoples of Eastern Asia, 
 among whom it obtained a footing. We 
 have seen with what broad and enlarged 
 views the Buddhists expounded that mys- 
 terious book of revelation, Nature ; antici- 
 pating, centuries before Ptolemy 7 , thelatter’s 
 system of cycle and epicycle, orb in orb. 
 Though no Buddhist ever attained to the 
 clearer insight and mathematical analysis 
 of a Copernicus, Newton. Laplace or Her- 
 schel, it must be acknowledged that Bud- 
 dhism fore-stalled in several instances the 
 most splendid discoveries of modern astro- 
 nomy. Teaching the origin of each world 
 to have taken place out of a cloud, the 
 Buddhists anticipated 2000 years ago Her- 
 schel’s nebular hypothesis. And when those 
 very patches of cloudy light or diffused 
 nebulosities which Herschel supposed to be 
 “ diffused matter hastening to a woild- 
 birth” dissolved themselves before the 
 monster telescope of Lord Rosse into as 
 many assemblages of suns, into thousands 
 of other world-systems dispersed through 
 the wilds of boundless space, modern astro- 
 nomy was but verifying the more ancient 
 Buddhistic dogma of a plurality of worlds, 
 of the co-existence of thousands of clniio- 
 cosmoi inhabited by multitudes of living 
 beings. Again, the Buddhist idea of each 
 world being subject to destruction by 7 fire, 
 in order to be re-constructed again iu a 
 similar form, cannot be repugnant to 
 modern astronomers who witnessed the dis- 
 appearance of stars through blazing eonfla- j 
 grations and who believe in the existence ! 
 
 of a resisting medium in space, which re- 
 tarding every year the movement of every 
 planet and every sun finally results in the 
 dissolution of every globe, to give way — as 
 our Bible teaches us — to a new heaven and 
 a new earth. Even some of the results of 
 modern geology may be said to have been 
 intuitively divined by Buddhism. For the 
 Buddhists knew the interior of our earth to 
 be in an incandescent state, they spoke of 
 the formation of each earth as having occu- 
 pied successive periods of incalculable dura- 
 tion, they strongly in iuiated that we are 
 walking on the catacombs of dead genera- 
 tions, that we subsist on a world resting on 
 worlds vanished. Another spark of divine 
 light which the Buddhists possessed is dis- 
 cernible in their recognizing and constantly 
 teaching the most intimate connection be- 
 tween the visible and iuvis ble world. They 
 kuew that “ things seen are not the only 
 realities.” They looked upon the planets as 
 inhabited by multitudes, all eagerly listen- 
 ing to Buddha’s preaching. They peopled 
 the air with spirits, the firmament with 
 legions of human beings, superior to our- 
 selves in purity and happiness, but con- 
 stantly inter-communicating with us pig- 
 mies. They saw heaven open to each as- 
 piring soul and mansions prepared there for 
 those of a pure and tranquil heart. They 
 understood that an immense crowd of spec- 
 tators is watching us unseen with intense 
 interest, a crowd of devils griuning with 
 delight at the progress of evil, and hosts of 
 angelic beings rejoicing over the spread of 
 truth. The Bud ihist system of morality 
 also possesses, in spite of the many defects 
 which 1 pointed out in the preceding lecture, 
 many praiseworthy features. It started 
 with the recognition of sin and evil as the 
 heir-loom of mortal man. It pointed out 
 in the strongest terms the impermanency 
 and hollowness of everything earthly. It 
 exhorted its devotees to extend love and 
 charity to man and beast. It marked 
 selfishness, lust and passion as the chief 
 | enemies of human happiness. It pointed 
 ; out the superiority oi the inward life over 
 
24 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 outward existence. It taught its adhereuts 
 to look away from earthly sensual objects 
 to regions invisible and inspired them — at 
 least to a certain extent — with hopes of im- 
 mortality. 
 
 On the other hand Buddhism is disfigured 
 by some most important radical defects 
 which will in the estimation of an impartial 
 critic far outweigh all the above mentioned 
 points of advantage, and which in fact 
 neutralize most of its beneficial elements. 
 Whether we look upon Buddhism as a sys- 
 tem of religion, morality or philosophy, we 
 observe everywhere fundamental errors 
 directly antagonistic to a healthy develop- 
 ment of either the intellectual or moral 
 faculties of mankind. But instead of re- 
 peating here all the detailed fallacies with 
 which the Buddhist dogma is saturated and 
 which I pointed out en passant in the pre- 
 ceding two lectures, it will suffice to give 
 prominence to the most striking features, 
 which mar the otherwise undeniable beauty 
 of this grand system of natural religion. 
 Buddhism is intellectually defective. It 
 arose from a feeling of spiritual bankruptcy 
 and never after recovered its mental equi- 
 librium. It is therefore essentially a reli- 
 gion of sullen despair, based on the total 
 obliteration of a healthy faith in the actual 
 constitution of things, penetrated by a 
 spirit of morose abandon, mental ana moral, 
 and resulting in a barren sophistic nihilism 
 which fails to recognize in nature, in history, 
 in human affairs the will of God, and never 
 thought of interpreting that will by the 
 dictates of human conscience. Buddhism 
 is a system of religion without hope and 
 without God, a system of morality without 
 a consci nee, a system of philosophy wear- 
 ing either the mask of mysticism or nihilis- 
 tic cynicism. Again, Buddhism is further 
 intellectually weak, because of its prodi- 
 gious fondness for the miraculous, because 
 it comes into collision with the results of 
 experimental investigation and especially 
 also because it gives such undue preference 
 to the transcendental and the future, that 
 it is utterly incapabla of comprehending or 
 appreciating the claims of reality and the 
 demands of the present. Morally also 
 Buddhism is found sadly wanting. Though 
 professing to destroy iSelf, its system of 
 morality is pervaded by a spirit of calculat- 
 ing selfishness, its social virtues are essen- 
 tially negative and strikingly unfruitful in 
 good works. 
 
 Am 1 overstating my case and shooting 
 beyond the mark 1 Is it that I prove too 
 much and thus expose myself to the charge 
 of having proved too little ? Should not 
 common sense tell me, that a religion so 
 defective, so unnatural, so worthless, could 
 
 I not possibly have attained such wide-spread 
 acceptation, could not have become the 
 avowed creed of several hundred millions 
 of reasoning creatures 2 
 
 Certainly if 1 had asserted that Buddhism 
 remained anywhere or for any length of 
 time a mere system of doctrine and con- 
 sistently developed itself in practical life 
 as it was developed by thinking minds in 
 the solitude of the cloister or in the study 
 of the philosopher, 1 would have to demur 
 to these charges. But the fact is, I have 
 constantly kept in mind that Buddhism is 
 one tiling as a dogmatic theoretic system 
 and another thing as a liviug practical reli- 
 gion, that Buddhism developed itself in one 
 form under the crucible of logical thought 
 and was moulded into another shape under 
 the sober practical influences of daily life, 
 in the struggle for existence. Whilst the 
 Buddhist philosopher or moralist in his 
 study, in his pulpit, in his writings correct- 
 ly unfolded Buddhism as a system of cold 
 atheism and barren nihilism, the common 
 people in all Buddhistic countries instinc- 
 tively drifted into a form of worship essen- 
 tially polytheistic and rose in some instances 
 even to avowed Monotheism. Whilst the 
 Buddhist philosophic canon (Abidharma) 
 describes blirvana, the highest good of 
 mankind, as a state of utter annihilation, 
 the religious instincts of the people substi- 
 tuted for it hopes of more tangible positive 
 beatitude. Whilst Buddhism as a system 
 of doctrine leaves no room for the idea of 
 atonement, the practical religious conscience 
 asserted its divine rights and engrafted 
 upon the ceremonial of the church a service 
 of prayer and sacrifice especially intended 
 to expiate the guilty conscience and to 
 remove the consequences of sin and the 
 sting of death and hell. 
 
 These are but instances, sufficient how- 
 ever to show that Goethe’s famous saying 
 
 “ Ein guter Mensch in seinem dunkeln Drange 
 
 1st sich des rechten Weges wokl bewusst,” 
 
 so true and yet so simple, that it refuses to 
 be translated, is as true in Asia as anywhere 
 else. We must allow therefore, that unna- 
 tural and monstrous as Buddhism appears 
 when viewed merely as a dogmatic system, 
 many of its abnormities have been toned 
 down, amended or rectified in the arena of 
 practical life, under the influence of the 
 religious conscience and common sense. It 
 would be unjust then if I were to stop with 
 the exposition of Buddhism on the basis of 
 its canonical literature. It will be but fair 
 to the reputation of Buddhism and neces- 
 sary to the completion of this sketch of its 
 religion, if I proceed to consider Buddhism 
 as a practical religion, drawing my informa- 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 2-5 
 
 tion from actual observation of modern 
 Buddhistic worship as well as from the 
 popular literature which circulates among 
 the middle and lower classes of Buddhistic 
 countries. But to avoid useless repetitions 
 I shall confine myself to those forms of 
 religious belief and practice among modern 
 Buddhists which deviate from the theoreti- 
 cal system of their own church. 
 
 It is a remnant of the ancient tree-wor- 
 ship, that almost every religious sect of 
 Asia has a sacred tree of its own. The 
 Brahmans revered the Ficus Indica, for 
 which Buddhism originally substituted the 
 Ficus Religiosa. But in course of time 
 the Buddhists either reverted to the former 
 tree or confounded the two. They were 
 probably led to do so by the intuitive ap- 
 prehension that Buddhism, as it grew and 
 spread abroad, singularly followed the 
 mode of growth which is a distinctive mark 
 of the sacred tree of the Brahmans, the 
 Ficus Indica. It is a peculiarity of the 
 latter that it extends itself by letting its 
 branches droop and take root, planting 
 nurseries of its own and so multiplying 
 itself by that means, that a single tree forms 
 a curiously arched grove. This is precisely 
 the way in which Buddhism propagated 
 itself. It germinated in India, but sent 
 out branches South and North, each taking 
 root, and each perpetuating itself by further 
 off-shoots, whilst the parent stock was 
 gradually withering and finally decayed. 
 Buddhism left but few traces behind in 
 India, but it still lives in Ceylon and in 
 the off-shoots of the Singhalese church in 
 Burmah, Siam and Pegu. When Buddhism 
 became almost totally extinct in India, the 
 whole force of its vitality seemed to throw 
 itself northwards and it spread with renewed 
 vigour and widening shade over Cashmere, 
 and Nepaul to China and Tibet. Chinese 
 Buddhism threw forth new branches, north- 
 wards into Corea and Japan, and south- 
 wards over Cochin-China, Cambodia and 
 Lagos, whilst Tibetan Buddhism pushed its 
 branches into Mongolia, Manchuria and 
 the greater part of Central Asia. Now in 
 each of these countries Buddhism establish- 
 ed separate churches, each having its own 
 locally diversified life, its own saplings, its 
 own fruits, and yet all these many branches 
 with their endless ramifications form one 
 grove, one compact whole, pervaded by the 
 same sap, connected with each other and 
 with the old withered parent stock in India 
 by a net of intertwining roots. It is quite 
 beyond the limits of this lecture to go into 
 all these national peculiarities and local 
 varieties of Buddhism interesting as they 
 are to the student of comparative anthro- 
 pology. I must confine myself to the more 
 
 prominent general characteristics. And 
 here we observe one grand distinction 
 standing out in bold relief, a distinction 
 which is now generally recognized by Bud- 
 dhist scholars when they speak of Southern 
 and Northern Buddhism. 
 
 Southern Buddhism, or the church of 
 Ceylon with her offspring, being locally in 
 close proximity to the parent stock and by 
 natural circumstances in a comparatively 
 isolated position, retained the strongest 
 resemblance to the original Buddhism of 
 India, and seemed sympathetically as it 
 were to suffer under every blow struck at 
 its parent stock. At first indeed Singhalese 
 Buddhism displayed a vigorous healthy 
 life : it spread to Burmah and Siam, and 
 sent forth fresh shoots towards Sumatra, 
 Java and Borneo. But the latter were 
 nipped in the bud by the inroad of Moham- 
 medanism which almost completely iso- 
 lated the mother church in Ceylon and 
 paralyzed her efforts. When Buddhism in 
 India also received its death-blow the 
 Singhalese church was still more affected 
 by it. Its vigour and growth remained 
 stunted ever after. The consequence was 
 that the Buddhist dogma was left in Ceylon, 
 Burmah and Siam in statu quo up to the 
 present day. There was too little life re- 
 maining for independent dogmatic and 
 ecclesiastical development. There was little 
 temptation from without to engraft foreign 
 ideas and superstitions upon the traditional 
 stock of doctrines and institutions. Shi- 
 vaism and Shamanism, which saturated and 
 leavened the Buddhist churches of the 
 North to a veiy considerable extent, never 
 influenced the minds of Southern Bud- 
 dhists. They clung to the old traditions, 
 retained the ancient dogma, preserved their 
 primitive monastic and ecclesiastical forms 
 in languid torpor, but with tolerable fide- 
 lity. Still even here, Buddhism in getting 
 popularized could not avoid altogether the 
 modifying influences of the religious and 
 moral instincts of the common .people. 
 What I said in the preceding lecture about 
 Buddhism in general, substantially coincides 
 with the theoretical teaching of modern 
 Buddhists in Ceylon. But the common 
 people there have instinctively toned down 
 many of the unnatural products of Bud- 
 dhistic scholasticism. Cold, lifeless, abstract 
 Atheism was too repulsive to the warm 
 religious instincts and affections of tho 
 people who instinctively substituted for it 
 idolatrous deification of humanity. They 
 worship the seven ancient Buddhas, and 
 Shakyamuni Gautama in particular, they 
 accord divine honours to his principal dis- 
 ciples or Bodliisattvas, they prostrate them- 
 selves before the images of these worthies, 
 
26 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 bring them offerings, address them in pray- 
 er, revere their relics with superstitious 
 awe. But they do all this without making 
 any logical distinction between the image 
 and the heroe represented by it, without 
 realising to themselves when they worship 
 in the temples whether it is the mere act of 
 worshipping that will avert calamity or pro- 
 cure happiness for them, or whether the 
 invisible Buddha or BSdhisattva actually 
 has the power to influence their fortunes. 
 The educated Buddhist will always deny 
 being guilty of idolatry. He merely re- 
 members those ancieut spiritual heroes by 
 means of statuary representations, he mere- 
 ly vows in the presence of those idols to 
 follow their example and practise morality 
 aud holiness. But the common people 
 incapable of drawing such fine distinctions 
 mechanically worship those heroes of their 
 church, hoping thereby to derive temporal 
 and eternal advantages. Theirs is there- 
 fore not an atheistic religion but a worship 
 of the genius, a deification of humanity. 
 And this is what Buddhism amounts to 
 everywhere in the minds of the common 
 people. 
 
 As the consciousness of God, this divine 
 legacy inherited by every human soul, 
 recoiled from the godless atheism of the 
 metaphysician, thus also the sound common 
 sense of the untutored multitude asserted 
 itself in opposition to the refined teachings 
 of the schools regarding the future state 
 (Nirvana). The literature of Southern 
 Buddhism renounces the very idea of indi- 
 viduality, denies the existence of a separate 
 ego, a self, and consistently therefore sees 
 the highest boon of mankind in total anni- 
 hilation of all forms of existence. N in ana 
 is to this over-wise school-philosophy 
 neither a state of consciousness nor uncon- 
 sciousness, nor is it a state that is neither 
 conscious nor unconscious : it is simply a 
 non-entity, and the being who enters this 
 state must become non-existent. This is 
 what the Buddhist priest teaches to the 
 present day ; this is the food he offers to 
 human souls hungering and thirsting for a 
 future of happiness and bliss. Surely it is 
 giving a stone to children crying for bread. 
 And though it be the philosopher’s stone, 
 it is not to be wondered at if the common 
 people turn away from it unsatisfied. The 
 fact is, this annihilation theory has no- 
 where in any Buddhistic country met with 
 popular acceptation. Though Southern 
 Buddhists did not proceed to substitute 
 any definite conceptions of a real paradise 
 of personal conscious immortality for this 
 abstract metaphysical nihilism, they com- 
 forted themselves with the idea, that — 
 whatever Nirvana might actually be — there 
 
 would be there no more of the horrors of 
 transmigration, no more of the misery of 
 life and death, no more of the torments of 
 hell. Thus the common people accustomed 
 themselves to think and speak of Nirvana 
 negatively. They understand it to be final 
 cessation of the weary round of birth and 
 death, a state absolutely exempt from all 
 sorrows and troubles. 
 
 With the exception of these two points, 
 Atheism and Nihilism, the practical religion 
 of Southern Buddhists has adopted the 
 whole range of Buddhist dogmas as exhi- 
 bited in the preceding lecture. If we are 
 to apply the historical distinction of Hin&- 
 yana and Mah&yana we might therefore 
 consider Singhalese Buddhists to be fol- 
 lowers of the Hinayana system. When a 
 learned Chinese Buddhist (Hiuentsang) who 
 visited Ceylon in 640-45 A.D. classed the 
 Buddhists of Ceylon among the adherents 
 of the Mahayana school, he had most pro- 
 bably before his mind those very points, 
 the negation of Atheism and Nihilism, in 
 which the practical religion of Southern 
 Buddhists following the natural bent of the 
 religious instincts and common sense assi- 
 milated itself, though unintentionally and 
 independently, with their Northern con- 
 temporaries, among whom the Mahayana 
 school was then flourishing. There are in- 
 deed a few other points of resemblance, in- 
 stances of expansion given to original 
 Buddhism by Buddhists of the North, types 
 of which might be noticed in the popular 
 Buddhism of Ceylon. If, for example, the 
 common people of Ceylon— perhaps more or 
 less unconsciously — bring their offerings to 
 Buddhas and saints as if it were an atoning 
 sacrifice, this might be looked upon as an 
 expansion of the original Buddhism of In- 
 dia which indeed leaves no room for any 
 atonement whatsoever, and as the germ 
 from which the more elaborated ritual of 
 propitiation and atonement now common 
 among Northern Buddhists sprang. Minute 
 investigation would also discover among 
 modern Singhalese Buddhists sliglittraces of 
 the Mysticism of the North. These are, how- 
 ever, but minor points o^ resemblance, ori- 
 ginating most likely not in auy historical 
 connection with the Mahayana school of 
 the North, but in the constitution and na- 
 tural bent of the religious mind which is 
 the same all the world over. The leading, 
 ruling ideas in the practical religion of 
 Singhalese Buddhism are not those of the 
 Mahayana school. Taking all in all, there- 
 fore, I believe I am justified in saying that 
 the Buddhism of Ceylon, even considered 
 as a practical religion, has preserved more of 
 the characteristics of primitive Buddhism 
 than any other branch of the same church, 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD 
 
 27 
 
 aud is on the whole a tolerably faithful ex- 
 ponent of that phase in the development 
 of the Buddhist religion which is known 
 under the name of the Hin&yana system. 
 
 The same might be said with some limi- 
 tation of the Buddhist churches of Burmah 
 and Siam, which are closely allied to the 
 mother church of Ceylon and essentially 
 belong to the same Hinayana system, 
 though they have used still more liberty in 
 popularizing the traditional creed than the 
 Singhalese ever ventured to do. Burmese 
 and Siamese Buddhists were besides more 
 than Singhalese Buddhists under the influ- 
 ence of Brahmanism and went even so far 
 as to amalgamate with the Buddhist reli- 
 gion notions derived from the primitive 
 tree anil serpent worship which was a form 
 of religion not only prior to Buddhism but 
 indigenous in Burmah and Siam. The con- 
 sequence is, that practical Buddhist wor- 
 ship there is marked by the prevalence of 
 Brahmanic mythology. As in Ceylon, so 
 here also the scholastic system of nihilistic 
 atheism has been converted into a popular 
 form of polytheism, a worship of Buddhas 
 and Bodhisattvas, N&gas and demons. 
 There are moreover in Burmah and Siam 
 many traces of the peculiar teachings and 
 rites of the Mahayana and even of the 
 Tantra school, so that the popular Bud- 
 dhism of these two countries may be con- 
 sidered to be the connecting link between 
 the Buddhism of the South (Ceylon) and 
 the Buddhists of the North (China, Tibet, 
 «fec.). 
 
 The religious systems of Northern Bud- 
 dhism as carried out in practical life by the 
 Buddhists of Cashmere, Nepaul, and all 
 countries North and North-East of the 
 Himalaya, will strike any observer at first 
 sight as a most heterogeneous mixture of 
 foreign, especially Indian, and native ele- 
 ments, embodying the mythological deities 
 of almost any religion that ever existed in 
 Eastern Asia. Let us in imagination visit a 
 Buddhist temple connected with a monas- 
 tery, say the largest that is to be found in 
 any of the above named regions, but 
 which is only a magnified specimen of what 
 you may find en miniature or in detached 
 portions in every city within the sphere of 
 Northern Buddhism. Let us also suppose 
 that we have for our guide an intelligent 
 and well-read Buddhist priest, a rara avis 
 indeed, but still, let us charitably hope, to 
 be found somewhere, one that is able to 
 explain the mythological origin and mean- 
 ing of all the objects of worship. Start with 
 him on your expedition, and he will point out 
 to you a large tree marking from afar, as 
 you approach, the locality of the sacred edi- 
 fice, the roofs of which are likewise remark- 
 
 able from a distance by their peculiar shape 
 and the dragon figures which surmount 
 them; When your eye catches the splendid 
 tree in front of the building, your guide 
 will tell you that this tree is a specimen of 
 the sacred Bodhitree (Ficus religiosa), that 
 an embassy expressly sent for this purpose 
 to Buddha-g&ya in India brought a shoot 
 from the veritable tree under which Sb&- 
 kyamuni sat when he attained to Buddha- 
 ship. You may remark that the tree before 
 you is by no means a Ficus religiosa, but a 
 Ficus indica, or it may happen that it is 
 neither of the two, but a palm-tree (most 
 probably then the Borassus fiabelliformis) ; 
 but the priest will tell you nevertheless 
 with a bland smile that it is a Ficus reli- 
 giosa, and that only ignorant and wantonly 
 sceptical persons can have any doubt on 
 the subject. Is there not a plate erected 
 at the foot of the tree, stating that this tree 
 grew out of a shoot brought directly from 
 the holy land, cut off the very Bodhi tree 
 at Gaya ? As you turn towards the princi- 
 pal entrance of the building, you remark, 
 a yard or two in advance of the flight of 
 steps leading up to it, figures of crouching 
 lions carved in stone and resting on pedes- 
 tals, placed on either side. You will be 
 told that these are emblems of ShAkyamuni 
 whose cognomen Shakyasimha (lit. ShA- 
 kya, the lion) indicates that he is by 
 his moral excellence the king of men, as 
 the lion by his strength is the king of the 
 beasts. Perhaps your guide will even 
 quote a passage from his sacred scriptures 
 “ as a lion’s howl makes all animals trem- 
 ble, subdues elephants, arrests birds in 
 their flight and fish in the water, thus Bud- 
 dha’s utterances upset all other religions, 
 subdue all devils, conquer all heretics and 
 arrest all the misery of life.” If it is a 
 sunny day you will find gathered on the 
 entrance steps a motley assembly : priests 
 and beggars, lying lazily in the sun, or 
 engaged in ontological pursuits, mending 
 their clothes, cobbling their shoes, cleaning 
 their opium pipes, smoking, gambling and 
 so forth, and your appearance will be the 
 signal for a general clamour for an alms 
 offering in the shape of a foreign cent, or 
 they will offer their services as guides. Butif 
 it should happen to be a feast day the steps 
 and the whole open space in front, with the 
 courtyards inside, will be crowded to excess 
 by a busy multitude, men, women and 
 children, who have come to worship or to 
 consult the oracle, hawkers of fruit and 
 other edibles, booths with fancy articles of 
 all kinds, stalls opened by druggists, wan- 
 dering doctors, fortune tellers, tents for 
 the purpose of gambling, in short a com- 
 plete fair which pushes its lumber and its 
 
28 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 clamour close to the very altars of the 
 divinities worshipped inside the central 
 temple. As you enter the front-door, 
 a martial figure with defying mien, 
 armed to the teeth and sword in hand, 
 confronts you. It is the image of Veda, 
 the patron and protector of monaste- 
 ries. Inside the door there are to 
 the right and left niches for the spirits 
 of the door-way who are supposed to 
 keep out all evil influences, and for the 
 N aga (dragon) spirits who are looked upon 
 as the tutelary deities of the ground on 
 which the sacred buildings are erected. 
 Having passed the first courtyard you are 
 led through a second gateway, when your 
 eye i3 arrested by four gigantic images, two 
 being placed on either side of the gateway, 
 guarding as it were with flaming eyes the 
 entrance to the sanctuary beyond. Your 
 guide will inform you that they are the 
 demon-kings of. the four regions (Tchatur 
 Maharadjas) who guard the world against 
 the attack of evil spirits (A suras), that each 
 of them is posted on a different side of the 
 central mountain (Mem) engaged in guard- 
 ing and defending with the assistance of 
 large armies under their command the 
 corresponding quarter of the heavens. You 
 will find incense lighted at the feet of these 
 giants, and the images themselves almost 
 covered with slips of paper containing 
 either a record of vows to be performed in 
 case of prayer answered by these heroes, or 
 a record of thanks for favours already 
 bestowed. For you will be told or may 
 witness it perhaps with your own eyes, that 
 these demon-kings are daily worshipped by 
 the common people, who ascribe to them 
 the power of healing all those diseases 
 and of preventing or averting all those 
 calamities which are supposed to be 
 the work of evil spirits. After cross- 
 ing a second courtyard you reach the prin- 
 cipal temple by ascending a small flight of 
 steps. On entering this building you see 
 before you five little altars placed in a row 
 with a small image on each, and if it is the 
 hour of prayer you may find a number of 
 priests in full canonicals resembling so many 
 Roman Catholic priests, chanting their mo- 
 notonous litanies and responses to the 
 sound of bell and a sort of wooden drum. 
 The images before whom the priests every 
 now and then prostrate themselves repre- 
 sent, as it may happen, either the five 
 Celestial Buddhas (Vairochana, Akchobhya, 
 Amitabha, Ratna Sambhava and Arnogha- 
 siddha) or their spiritual sons the so-called 
 five celestial Bodhisattvas (Samantabhadra, 
 Vadjiapani, Ratnapani, Padmapani i.e., 
 Avalokiteshvara or Kwanyin and Vishva- 
 ,pani). Your guide will explain to you that 
 
 every historic Buddha may be viewed as pos- 
 sessing a triple form of existence, living or 
 having lived among men on earth (Manuchi 
 Buddha), existing metaphysically in Nir- 
 vana (Dhyani Buddha), and finally as a re- 
 flex of himself in a spiritual son generated 
 in the world of forms for the purpose of 
 propagating the religion established by him 
 during his earthly career. He will further 
 tell you by way of example that the famous 
 founder of the present Buddhist Church 
 was as Manuchi Buddha known under the 
 name Shakyamuni, as Dhyani Buddha 
 however he is called Amitabha, whilst his 
 reflex in the world of forms or so to speak 
 his spiritual son is Padmapani (Avalokite- 
 shvara). The five images therefore, before 
 which you see the priests kneeling and 
 prostrating themselves, all the while chant- 
 ing their prayers, are the celestial types or 
 the spiritual sons of those five ancient 
 Buddhas who according to the general doc- 
 trine of Buddhism have already appeared 
 in this present period (Kalpa). 
 
 Step nearer. You need not fear to give 
 offence or to disturb the devotion of men, 
 who, whilst mechanically continuing their 
 monotonous litany and chanting their re- 
 sponse, will stretch out a hand to examine 
 the texture of your clothes, to receive an 
 alms, or offer to light your cigar or criticise 
 in whispers the shape and size of your nose. 
 Glance over the shoulder of one of those 
 priests and examine his “ manual of daily 
 prayer.” It is neatly printed in large-sized 
 full-bodied native type and in the native 
 character, but totally unintelligible to him, 
 for it is Sanskrit, pure grammatical San- 
 skrit, systematically transliterated syllable 
 by syllable. Listen to him, as he chants 
 rythmically indeed but in drowsy monoto- 
 nous voice : sarva tathagata schamam sama- 
 vasantu buddhya buddhya siddhya siddhya 
 bodhaya bodhaya vibodhaya vibodhaya 
 mocbaya vimochaya vimochaya sodhaya 
 sodhaya visodhaya visodhaya samantam mo- 
 chaya samanta, <fec., <fec. Poor fellow, he 
 has not the slightest idea of the meaning of 
 these words, though he may have been 
 chanting these Sanskrit prayers day after 
 day for ever so many years. But he has a 
 notion that these strange sounds have some 
 magic effect beneficial for himself and for 
 the salvation of his soul. There is however 
 good sense in the words of his prayer which 
 reads when translated as follows : may all 
 the Tatbagatas (i.e. Buddhas) take up their 
 abode in me ! ever teach, ever instruct, ever 
 deliver with all knowledge ! with all know- 
 ledge deliver, deliver, completely deliver ! 
 purify, purify, purify, completely purify ! 
 deliver, oh deliver all living creatures ! 
 &c., &c. 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 20 
 
 Pass on from these poor deluded souls 
 that grope in the darkness for the light of 
 a Saviour whom they know not. On the 
 walls to the right and left you see ranged 
 the life-sized statues of eighteen priests, 
 Lohans or Arhans or Lamas, your guide 
 calls them. They also receive homage and 
 worship by the priests who look upon them 
 as the first apostles of Northern Buddhism. 
 But what do we see there in the background, 
 partly screened by a large altar covered 
 with censers and vases and plates of offer- 
 ing? Three colossal images, perhaps over 
 thirty feet high, placed in sitting posture, 
 carefully executed and richly gilt, their 
 countenances bearing an expression of 
 placid tranquillity. Do not rashly jump 
 at the conclusion that this must be a repre- 
 sentation of the famous trinity of Northern 
 Buddhists. Perhaps it is so, perhaps not. 
 Appeal to your guide. If you are in a 
 temple dedicated to the worship of Amita- 
 bha Buddha, the triad of gigantic figures is 
 Amitabha in the centre, Avalokiteshvara 
 (his spiritual son) at his left, and Maliasta- 
 maprapta, a famous disciple of Buddha, at 
 his right hand. Otherwise you may have 
 before your eyes what are popularly — 
 though not quite correctly— called the Bud- 
 dhas of the past, present and future, that 
 is to say, Shakyamuni the historic founder 
 of ancient Buddhism, Avalokiteshvara 
 (Kwanyin) the head of the present Buddhist 
 hierarchy, who is however strictly speaking 
 not a Buddha but a BGdhisattva, and Mai- 
 treya the Buddha that is to appear in the 
 future and is looked upon as the coming 
 Messiah of Buddhism. But suppose you 
 have really before you the representation 
 of the trinity, you will at once recognize 
 the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha by the 
 curled hair and the curious bump on the 
 top of his head. The second statue is con- 
 spicuous by four arms, two of which are 
 folded in prayer whilst the third holds a 
 rosary and the fourth a book : for this is 
 the second person in the trinity, called 
 Dharrna (i.e. the law or religion). The 
 third constituent of the trinity called Sam- 
 gha (i.e. the church or clergy) is represent- 
 ed by a statue with two arms of which the 
 one rests on the knee whilst the other holds 
 a lotos-flower. Well, you exclaim astonish- 
 ed, when your guide tells you that “these 
 three are one,” where has this dogma of a 
 . trinity come from ? There is no trace of it 
 in ancient or so to speak classic Buddhism. 
 Southern Buddhists even to the present day 
 know nothing of it. Where has it come 
 from ? Is it the Brahminical Trimurti of 
 Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, or is it perhaps 
 an imitation of the Christian trinity of God 
 the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 Neither of the two. The Brahminical 
 Trimurti is in all probability of later growth 
 than this Buddhistic Triratna. Besides 
 there are no points of similarity in the 
 offices ascribed to the individual consti- 
 tuents of the Buddhistic Triratna and the 
 Brahminical Trimurti or the Christian tri- 
 nity. The origin of this Buddhistic trinity 
 is to be explained iu this way. 
 
 It was natural that Shakyamuni Gautama 
 Buddha, the great founder of Buddhism, 
 should become an object of worship after 
 his death. It was likewise natural, that 
 when he was gone who had before been to 
 his disciples the only criterion and judge 
 of the truth, the followers of Buddhism 
 should, in the absence of any standard work 
 written by Shakyamuni himself and in the 
 absence of any fixed creed, feel the want of 
 some comprehensive formula, some simple 
 articles of faith, which might be to them 
 what the Confessio Apostolica afterwards 
 was to the early Christians. In looking for 
 such a short but comprehensive condensa- 
 tion of the faith established by Shakya- 
 muni, they naturally remembered first 
 those of his sayings, which he had enun- 
 ciated shortly before his death with the 
 expressed intention of giving his disciples 
 some guidance for the future. “Amanda,” 
 said he, “ when I am gone, you must not 
 think that there is no Buddha ; the dis- 
 courses I have delivered and the precepts 
 I have enjoined must be my successors or 
 representatives and be to you as Buddha.” 
 Well, there they had Buddha’s discourses 
 and precepts (i.e. Dharrna) placed in the 
 same rank with Buddha himself whom they 
 already worshipped. Again, among those 
 “ seven imperishable precepts ” which Sha- 
 kyamuni gave to his disciples shortly before 
 his death, the first in order is “to keep 
 assemblies or convocations (Samgha) regu- 
 larly from time to time.” What can be 
 more natural now, than that the first 
 preachers of Buddhism after the removal of 
 their great master used those three consti- 
 tuents Buddha, Dharrna and Samgha as a 
 standing theme for all their sermons, as the 
 test of faith for those who wished to enter 
 the Buddhist church ? At any rate it is an 
 undisputed fact, that immediately after the 
 death of Shakyamuni the formula “I take 
 my refuge in Buddha, Dharrna and Sam- 
 gha” was practically in use as the formula 
 Jidei for lay-members of the Buddhist 
 church, and likewise that this very formula 
 was commonly called the formula of “ the 
 three refuges ” (Trisharana). 
 
 This then was apparently the starting 
 point and the first stage in the process of 
 development through which this Buddhist 
 doctrine of a trinity passed. Had it stop- 
 
80 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 ped here — and Southern Buddhism never 
 weut farther — we could not speak of a tri- 
 nity, but simply of a triple dogma, of a 
 triad of articles of faith, of which the 
 first inculcated the divine character of the 
 founder of Buddhism as a person, whilst the 
 second referred to the abstract unity of the 
 Buddhist dogma, and the third to the col- 
 lective unity of the clergy. All three were 
 considered as worthy of reverence and 
 divine worship, but they were not viewed 
 as three persons nor as three persons in 
 one, they formed no trinity. 
 
 In the course of time however this doc- 
 trine underwent some modification and 
 received further development in the hands 
 of Northern Buddhists and especially 
 through the influence of the Mahayana 
 school. In this second period of the history 
 of the Buddhist Triratna, the Brahmiuical 
 Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, may 
 have influenced the speculative minds of 
 Buddhist teachers. But even without as- 
 suming this to be the case, one may easily 
 understand, how Buddhists of a specula- 
 tive turn of mind might, without much im- 
 pulse from without, by the mere impetus 
 of speculative reasoning come to unite those 
 three constituents or heads of doctrine and 
 consider them as a threefold manifestation 
 of one historical person (Shakyamuni). 
 They would then look upon Buddha as 
 the personified intelligence, view his doc- 
 trine i.e Dharma as the incarnate Logos 
 and call Samgha (the Buddhist church or 
 communion of saiuts) the collective unison 
 of both. This at any rate is the form in 
 which the idea of a Triratna was cast by the 
 dogmatists of this period. 
 
 With the rise of the Tantra school ideas 
 borrowed from Shivaism and mixed with 
 Brahminical theories began to be freely 
 transplanted upon the fruitful soil of North- 
 ern Buddhism. Shivaism, which ascribes 
 to Shiva a threefold body, and Brahminism 
 with its corresponding Trimurti of Brahma, 
 Vishnu and Shiva gave now a fresh impetus 
 to the development of the Buddhistic trini- 
 tarian idea. In Nepaul a threefold form of 
 existence was ascribed to every Buddha, and 
 the distinction, to which I alluded above, 
 was made of a terrestrial Buddha (Manuchi 
 Buddha), of a celestial Buddha (Dhyani 
 Buddha) and of a reflex of the latter (Dhya- 
 ni Bodhisattva.) In China and Tibet a 
 similar distinction was made with regard to 
 the nature of every Buddha. Intelligence 
 (B6dhi) being the fundamental characteris- 
 tic of a Buddha, Northern Buddhists now 
 distinguished (1) essence, (2) reflex, (3) prac- 
 tical application of his intelligence. Shak- 
 yamuni was therefore considered to be per- 
 sonified intelligence, i.e. Buddha ; his law 
 
 or the religion established by him, his 
 reflex, as it were, left behind when the man 
 entered Nirvana, was called Dharma ; 
 whilst the practical issue of both was said 
 to be the church or rather the priesthood, 
 which alone forms the church, and desig- 
 nated Samgha. Now each of these three 
 manifestations of one historical person re- 
 ceived further the attributes of personality, 
 and therefore to each a separate name was 
 given. Buddha as a person retained of 
 course his name Shakyamuni ; Dharma 
 personified was called Vairotchana ; and 
 Samgha received the cognomen Lochana. 
 But these three persons were asserted to be 
 essentially and substantially one. Still the 
 atheistic element in Buddhist speculation 
 was too strong and a reaction took place. 
 Dharma was now placed in the first rank — 
 to do away with the preponderance of the 
 personal element, — and explained as the 
 unconditioned underived entity, combining 
 in itself the spiritual and material princi- 
 ples of the universe. From Dharma, it 
 was taught, proceeded Buddha by emana- 
 tion as the creative energy, and produced 
 in conjunction with Dharma the third con- 
 stituent of the trinity, viz. Samgha, which 
 was viewed as the comprehensive sum cf 
 all actual life or existence. Having thus 
 destroyed the personal character of the first 
 person (Dharma) in this trinity, Dharma 
 was further identified with Eradjna, the 
 highest virtue according to the Buddhist 
 system of morality and the principal means 
 for attaining to Nirvana, implying espe- 
 cially a voluntary secession from the versa- 
 tile phenomenal world into that of abstrac- 
 tion. Naturally then Dharma was viewed 
 as an abstract first principle, Buddha be- 
 came a mere phenomenon and Samgha an 
 idea and nothing more. 
 
 This is the form under which the so- 
 called Buddhist trinity is now-a-days pro- 
 mulgated among Northern Buddhists from 
 Nepaul to Corea, even in popular literature. 
 And this is, therefore, the meaning of the 
 three colossal images, the sight of which has 
 led us away into this lengthy digression. 
 But, be it understood, this is the esoteric 
 view of the Triratna. The common people 
 know little or nothing of such specula- 
 tions. They see before them three separate 
 deities, they speak of and worship not a 
 triune god but a triad of idols which they 
 regard as three different divinities, totally 
 ignoring their unity and unaware that the 
 three “precious ones” they worship are 
 after all but logical abstractions, a purely 
 philosophical fiction. 
 
 But to return to realities, suppose you 
 visit some of the smaller buildings, you 
 will probably see in one of them a fine 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 31 
 
 marble pagoda reaching to the very rafters 
 of the roof. It is built in strict Indian 
 style, tastefully decorated, and forms the 
 receptacle of some sacred relic. There may 
 be in it perhaps a hair of Buddha, or a 
 tooth, or a particle of his robe, or some 
 relic of one of his disciples. There also 
 prayers are offered and sacrificial offerings 
 of flowers, candles and incense presented 
 by the people, who true to the fetichistic 
 habits of their forefathers ascribe miracu- 
 lous healing powers to such relics. You 
 pass on to another row of buildings con- 
 taining several shrines. Conspicuous among 
 them is the shrine of Amitabha Buddha. 
 A large crowd of people, chiefly men, are 
 going through the usual forms of worship 
 there, testifying to the great popularity of 
 this deity. You notice on the breast of the 
 idol a strange cross (the Svastika). It is 
 exactly the same diagram which you may 
 have seen engraved on ancient church-bells 
 in England and which learned antiquarians 
 unanimously declare to be the hammer of 
 Thor (the Scandinavian god of thunder). 
 Perhaps also you remember to have heard 
 that among the German peasantry and 
 in Iceland this same figure is used as a magi- 
 cal charm to dispel thunder. Well, you 
 turn to your guide. What is the meaning 
 of this emblem 1 He informs you that it is 
 the mystic shibboleth of the believers in 
 the Western Paradise “ an accumulation of 
 lucky signs possessing ten thousand effica- 
 cies .” But what about the Western Pa- 
 radise ? 
 
 The dogma of this paradise in the West, 
 the Nirvana of the common people, was (the 
 tradition asserts) transmitted by Shariput- 
 tra, one of the greatest disciples of Shak- 
 yamuni. It is said that Buddha first told 
 him of the existence of a land of extreme 
 happiness (Sukhavati), of a perfect paradise 
 in the Far West, and gave in answer to 
 Shariputtra’s questions the following par- 
 ticulars, which to the present day are 
 generally believed in as gospel truth by 
 Northern Buddhists. In that paradise in 
 the West, it is said, with its millions of 
 Buddhas distributed over the country 
 according to the eight points of the 
 compass, there is one there discoursing 
 on religion. His name is Amitabha. He 
 is so called because he is substantially 
 light, boundless light, illuminating every 7 
 part of his dominions. He is also of 
 boundless age, immortal, and all his 
 people are likewise enjoying immortality. 
 Now this paradise of the West, situated 
 beyond the confines of our visible world, 
 •contains four precious things or wonders. 
 In the first instance it is a kingdom of 
 extreme happiness, there is there fulness of 
 
 life, and no pain nor sorrow mixed with it, 
 no need of being born again, no Nirvana 
 even. In the second instance there is there 
 a seven-fold row of railings or balustrades, 
 thirdly a seven-fold row of silken nets and 
 lastly a seven-fold row of trees hedging in 
 the whole country. In the midst of it there 
 are seven precious ponds, the water of 
 which possesses all the eight qualities which 
 the best water can have, viz., it is still, it is 
 pure and cold, it is sweet and agreeable, it 
 is light and soft, it is fresh and rich, it 
 tranquillizes, it removes hunger and thirst 
 and finally it nourishes all roots. The 
 bottom of these ponds is covered with gold 
 sand, and round about there are pavements 
 constructed of precious stones and metals, 
 and many two-storied pavilions built of 
 richly-coloured transparent jewels. On the 
 surface of the water there are beautiful 
 lotos-flowers floating, each as large as a 
 carriage wheel, displaying the most dazzling 
 colours, and dispersing the most fragrant 
 aroma. There are also beautiful birds 
 there which make delicious, enchanting 
 music, and at every breath of wind the 
 very trees on which those birds are resting 
 join in the chorus, shaking their leaves in 
 trembling accords of sweetest harmony. 
 Those silken nets also which environ the 
 whole paradise chime in. This music is 
 like Liecler ohne Worte ; its melodies speak 
 to the heart ; but they discourse on 
 Buddha, Dharma and Samgha, and wake 
 an echo in every breast, so that all the 
 immortals that live in this happy land 
 instinctively join in hymns of praise, de- 
 voutly invoking Buddha, Dharma and 
 Samgha. But it is all the doing of the 
 miraculous power of Amitabha, who trans- 
 forms himself into those birds, and pro- 
 duces those unearthly strains of heavenly 
 music. 
 
 In this way the story goes on transplant- 
 ing to this paradise in the West everything 
 that an Asiatic considers beautiful and 
 charming. But it is remarkable what a 
 pure moral atmosphere all the descriptions 
 of this “ pure land,” as it is called, are 
 breathing, for it is mentioned as one of 
 the chief characteristics of this paradise, 
 that no sin enters therein, no evil thought, 
 no wickedness. All the inhabitants of it 
 are pure and holy men. I say men, because 
 there is no difference of sex there, but 
 every woman, when born into the Western 
 land, is at once transformed into a man. 
 Another remarkable point in this dogma is, 
 that the way by which one may obtain en- 
 trance into this paradise is exceedingly easy. 
 For it is by no means absolutely necessary 
 to renounce the world and to submit to 
 ascetic austerities, celibacy and monastic 
 
82 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 rules, or to go through all the stages of 
 abstract meditation and contemplation. 
 VV hat is absolutely required is merely an 
 assiduous and devout worship of Amitabha. 
 
 * ‘ The very name of this Buddha, says a 
 sacred test, if pronounced by a devout 
 heart 1000 times or 5000 times, will effec- 
 tually dispel all harassing thoughts, all 
 fightings within and fears without. A 
 continued sincere worship of Amitabha will 
 release men from the restless unceasing 
 eddies of transmigration and bring them to 
 the enjoyment of eternal peace and rest 
 in the pure land of the western heaven. 
 And if once there, there will be no danger 
 of being reborn again into the world of 
 trouble and misery, or of having again to 
 suffer the pangs of dying.” 
 
 It is needless to remark, that this whole 
 dogma, beautiful as it is in its conception, 
 and a true response to the natural yearning 
 of the human heart for an eternal Sabbath 
 in heaven, is a flat contradiction to all the 
 leading doctrines of Buddhism, granting as 
 it does such au easy egress out of the San- 
 sara and substituting immortality for the 
 utter annihilation of the Nirvana theory. 
 But this leads us to the question, from 
 what source did Northern Buddhists derive 
 this strange medley ? For it is another 
 remarkable feature about this doctrine that 
 the very name of Amitabha and his para- 
 dise are perfectly unknown to the Bud- 
 dhists of Ceylon, Burmah and Siam. 
 
 Strange to say, the dogma of Amitabha 
 made its first appearance in the literature 
 of Northern Buddhism as early as 147 A.D., 
 when a book under the name of Amitabha- 
 sutra was brought from the head-quarters 
 of the Tochari Tartars (Cashmere) to China 
 by a Cashmerian priest called Chi-lu-kia- 
 ch’an. The next appearance of Amitabha 
 is in a list of 1000 Buddhas got up by the 
 Mahayana school. But it was not earlier 
 than the fifth century that the worship of 
 Amitabha and the dogma of a paradise in 
 the West began to spread largely. The 
 great Chinese traveller Fahien travelled 
 (AD. 400) all over India, but though he 
 alludes to having noticed the worship of 
 Avalokiteshvara and Mandjushri, who are 
 closely associated with the worship of Ami- 
 tabha, he never mentions the latter, and 
 does not appear to have met in his travels 
 with any trace of a worship addressed to 
 Amitabha. His countryman Hiuentsaug, 
 who (A.D. 629-45) passed through Central 
 Asia and India, and published his observa- 
 tions in a very extensive and accurate form, 
 is likewise silent on the subject. Taking 
 these circumstances together with the total 
 absence of the dogma of Amitabha, for 
 which the Buddhist canon of Ceylon, 
 
 Burmah and Siam is conspicuous, it seems 
 evident, that India was not the birthplace 
 of the worship of Amitabha. 
 
 And now we may go a step farther. There 
 is another circumstance which makes it 
 probable that the dogma in question origi- 
 nated in Cashmere. It reached China in 
 connection with that distinction of Dhyani 
 Buddhas and Dhyani Bodhisattvas and in 
 connection with that before-mentioned list 
 of 1000 Buddhas, both doctrines being a 
 product of the Mahayana school which was 
 first got up in Cashmere and Nepaul. Con- 
 sidering then that Amitabha was originally 
 conceived as impersonal, as the ideal repre- 
 sentation of “ boundless light,” — a signifi- 
 cantly Gnostic idea, — remembering also that 
 his name is mentioned in a list of 1000 
 Buddhas which naturally reminds us of the 
 1000 Zarathustras of the Persians, and 
 taking finally into account that the whole 
 doctrine of Amitabha and his paradise in 
 the “West” is not only unknown to 
 Southern Buddhists but diametrically op- 
 posed to the first principles of Buddhism, 
 it seems most natural to seek the origin of 
 this dogma in Gnostic or Persian ideas 
 influencing the Buddhism of Cashmere and 
 Nepaul. 
 
 Close to the shrine of Amitabha you will 
 find that of Avalokiteshvara. As the 
 former is especially worshipped by men 
 whose spiritual watchword is “ Westward- 
 Ho,” thus women throng round the altar of 
 the latter in search of a guide to the pro- 
 mised Eldorado in the West. Examine the 
 idol before you. It has the appearance of a 
 female, with three faces joined to one head 
 and a large number of arms, each grasping 
 some symbol of doctrine or some weapon of 
 defence. May be, your guide informs you 
 with the utmost gravity, that this idol has 
 not been made by human hands but fell 
 directly down from the clouds. There 
 might be some sense in this statement if he 
 referred to the dogma connected with the 
 divinity which this idol represents. For, 
 like the doctrine of Amitabha, it does not 
 seem to have come from the workshops of 
 either Vedic or Brahamanic mythology, nor 
 does Southern Buddhism know of its origin. 
 And yet this Avalokiteshvara — whose name 
 is evidently Sanskrit — seems to have been 
 largely worshipped in Northern and Central 
 India a few centuries after the beginning 
 of our era, and is at the present day the 
 most popular deity of Northern Buddhists. 
 Various names, titles and offices are given 
 to this god — or goddess, for she is most 
 commonly now represented as a woman. 
 In China she is called Kwanyin (a literal 
 translation of her Sanskrit name), in Japan 
 she is known as Kwannon (a corruption of 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 83 
 
 Kwanyin), whilst the Tibetans call her 
 Cenresi and the Mongols Ergetu Khomsin. 
 But all these names and all the legends 
 connected with this deity express one and 
 the same circle of ideas : that this divinity 
 is the god or goddess “ that has a thousand 
 arms and a thousand eyes and a merciful 
 heart,” that she listens with compassion to 
 the prayers of all who are in any distress 
 of body or mind, especially however extend- 
 ing a saving hand to those who are in dan- 
 ger on the sea ; that she is now the invisi- 
 ble head and ruler of the present Buddhist 
 church, appearing now and then in the 
 form of man or woman to interfere on be- 
 half of the faithful, to establish the doc- 
 trine of the paradise in the West, to save 
 souls from hell, to assist in the propagation 
 of Buddhism and so forth. Many are the 
 legends connected with this popular apostle 
 of mercy. Avalokiteshvara is first heard 
 of as having resided at Potala, a port at the 
 mouth of the Indus, the reputed home of 
 Shakyamuni’s ancestors. Another Potala, 
 likewise the scene of manifestations of Ava- 
 lokiteshvara’s miraculous saving powers, is 
 placed by the legend in “ the South of In- 
 dia, East of the Malaya mountains in Ma- 
 lakuta,” in other words somewhere on the 
 coast of Malabar. When Simhala, an In- 
 dian Buddhist, was shipwrecked on the 
 coast of Ceylon and ensnared by savage 
 Sirens (Rakchasis) Avalokiteshvara appear- 
 ed in the shape of a horse and carried him 
 across the sea to India whence be returned 
 with an army, slew the Sirens and founded 
 the kingdom of Ceylon, thenceforth the 
 headquarters of Southern Buddhism. In 
 China, Avalokiteshvara appeared as a wo- 
 man, born under the name Kwanyin, as 
 the third daughter of a (fabulous) king 
 called Shubhavyuha(lit. Chwang-yen-wang), 
 who — as the tradition, which identifies him 
 with Chwang-wang of the Chow dynasty, 
 boldly asserts, — lived about 696 B.C. Her 
 father was an unbeliever and finding him- 
 self unable to overrule her objections against 
 marriage he allowed her to go into a con- 
 vent, but by his orders she was there made 
 to perform the most degrading offices for 
 the other nuns. Celestial spirits (Richis) 
 however came invisibly to do all the menial 
 work for her. When her father found it 
 out, he got so enraged that he set fire to 
 the convent. But a rain fell and extin- 
 guished the fire and it appeared that no 
 harm had been done to any of the 500 in- 
 mates. Thereupon the king ordered his 
 daughter, Kwanyin, to be arrested and 
 brought into court, but he secretly told her 
 mother to coax the girl into submission. 
 Kwanyin however remained stedfast : she 
 would rather die than be married. The 
 
 king then sent for the executioner and or- 
 dered him to cut off her head. But as 
 often as the sword touched her neck, the 
 blade split into a thousand pieces, without 
 injuring her. The king now ordered her to 
 be stifled with a red cloth. It was done, 
 but a white tiger suddenly appeared and 
 carried her body off to a dark forest. There 
 her soul, being in a state of torpor, perceiv- 
 ed a youth who waved a banner in his hands 
 and ordered her to follow him into the pre- 
 sence of Yama (the ruler of Hades). She fol- 
 lowed him, but whilst passing through the 
 various chambers of torture in hell she kept 
 her hands folded, continually invoking 
 Amitabha Buddha. Thereupon a rain of 
 flowers fell from heaven, the earth produced 
 golden lotos-flowers, and all the instru- 
 ments of torture used in hell were smashed. 
 When she appeared before Yama, the latter, 
 seeing that hell changed under her footsteps 
 into paradise, exclaimed in righteous in- 
 dignation : how can the world be made 
 better if we are to have no hell ? So he 
 ordered Kwanyin to be sent back to the 
 dark forest whence she came. There she 
 suddenly found herself awoke as if from a 
 dream. “I was in heaven,” she exclaimed, 
 “ and yet here I find myself again on earth ! 
 Whither shall I go to dwell ? ” Whilst say- 
 ing so she found herself confronted by a 
 Buddhistic hermit, who invited her with 
 many bland speeches to share his hermitage 
 with him. Indignantly she refused this 
 offer, reminding the hermit of Buddha’s 
 injunction that nuns and monks should 
 live apart. But he replied, “1 am Buddha 
 himself and only come to test your virtue.” 
 He forthwith called a Naga (dragon) spirit, 
 who produced a large lotos-flower, invited 
 her to sit on it, and thus conveyed her to 
 the island of Potala on the China Coast 
 (now called Pootoo). There Kwanyin 
 lived for nine years, saving many mariners 
 from imminent peril and shipwreck, and 
 healing the diseases of innumerable beings. 
 Hearing that her father was dangerously 
 ill, she cut all the flesh off her own arms, 
 and made it into a medicine which restored 
 him to health. To show his gratitude he 
 ordered a statue of Kwanyin to be erected 
 “with arms and eyes complete,” but as the 
 word “complete” has in Chinese the same 
 sound (ts'ien) as the word for “thousand ” 
 (ts‘ien), the two terms differing only in 
 tone, the sculptor misunderstood the King’s 
 order. Thus it happened that a statue 
 with “a thousand eyes and a thousand 
 arms ” perpetuated her memory. The 
 island of P’ootoo, where Kwanyin resided 
 till her death, was in after times relieved 
 from all taxes, handed over to the priest- 
 hood, and as the worship of Kwanyin 
 
34 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 spread over the whole of China and the 
 neighbouring countries, this island con- 
 tinued to be and still is the object of 
 veneration to which pious pilgrims resort 
 from the farthest regions. 
 
 In Tibet also this deity manifested her 
 glory. Avalokiteshvara (as a male deity) 
 is believed to be the ancestor of the Tibetan 
 people. It is said that in ancient times he 
 transformed himself into a monkey (Bra- 
 srinpo) and cohabiting with a demon who 
 for that purpose assumed the form of a 
 female monkey (Brasrinmo or Khagroma) 
 he became the father of three sons and 
 three daughters. His children then peo- 
 pled the previously uninhabited country of 
 Tibet, and thus it has come to pass that the 
 Tibetans, like true Darwinians, glory in 
 their supposed descent from a monkey. 
 Avalokiteshvara afterwards exerted himself 
 in various ways to spread the doctrines of 
 Buddhism in Tibet, and it soon became an 
 established custom there to accord supreme 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction to 
 those only who were considered to be 
 incarnations of Avalokiteshvara. Like the 
 Chinese, the Tibetans also have their 
 Potala, a mountain in Lhassa, on the top 
 of which towers the residence of ths Dalai 
 Lama in whom and whose successors Ava- 
 lokiteshvara is supposed to be constantly 
 incarnate. Japan also has its “thousand- 
 handed Kwannon,” and the same is the 
 case with all the other countries within the 
 pale of Northern Buddhism, the legends 
 there differing only through a slight local 
 colouring from those current in China and 
 elsewhere. One example will suffice. A 
 Japanese tradition relates, that during the 
 civil wars of the middle ages a political 
 refugee called Morihisa hid himself in the 
 temple of the thousand-handed Kwannon 
 at Kiyomidzu in Kioto, and implored this 
 deity with ceaseless prayers for a thousand 
 days. His enemies however discovered his 
 retreat and dragged him out to the sea- 
 shore for execution. But the executioner 
 found all his efforts foiled by the God 
 Kwannon, for at every stroke he essayed, 
 the sword blade split into a thousand pieces 
 without injuring Morihisa. His enemy, 
 who had previously slain all the other 
 members of Morihisa’s clan, received also 
 a warning through his own wife, to whom 
 Kwannon had appeared in a dream inter- 
 ceding on behalf of Morihisa. The latter 
 was therefore set at liberty and being the 
 acknowledged protege of Kwannon he rose 
 to the highest power in the state. 
 
 It is impossible to say where and by whom 
 this dogma of Avalokiteshvara was got up. 
 Judging from internal evidences it would 
 appear that it was first developed by the 
 
 Mahayana school. This school gave Ava- 
 lokiteshvara even a place in the trinity, 
 uniting him (her) as the personification of 
 love and charity with another fictitious 
 Bodhisattva called Mandjushri, the apotheo- 
 sis of transcendental wisdom, and with 
 Vadjrapani, the Indra of the Vedas, now 
 looked upon as the god of thunder and the 
 personification of power. Forming one of 
 the constituents of the trinity Avalokitesh- 
 vara received the title ishvara (Lord), and 
 for the same reason it is that he (she) is 
 often represented with three faces or with 
 eleven faces arranged in three divisions. 
 Afterwards the Tantra school applied its 
 idea of Celestial Buddhas and Bodhisattvas 
 upon this dogma and Avalokiteshvara was 
 then declared to be the spiritual reflex or 
 son of Amitabha Buddha. Shivaism also 
 had its influence upon the formation of the 
 dogma in question, and Avalokiteshvara is 
 consequently often represented with three 
 eyes, with a crown of skulls on her head or 
 a necklace of skulls or a rosary made of 
 finger bones. Shivaism especially promot- 
 ed Avalokiteshvara’s being viewed as a fe- 
 male deity endowed with great powers of 
 sorcery and as the authoress of a most po- 
 pular magic formula “ om mani padme 
 hum ” which is used by all Northern Bud- 
 dhists as a favourite formula of exorcism or 
 inscribed on amulets, on houses, walls, 
 pillars, books, pill-boxes and so forth, being 
 supposed to be the most effective charm 
 against calamities and noxious influences of 
 all kinds. 
 
 1 have gone into all these legendary ac- 
 counts current among the people with re- 
 ference to this particular deity because they 
 form a fair specimen of the popular hagio- 
 logy of Northern Buddhists. Similar 
 stories are told about many other minor 
 deities, whose effigies you will find profuse- 
 ly scattered over the many courts and cha- 
 pels connected with any large temple. 
 Most of them bear names which connect 
 their origin and history with Brahmanic or 
 even Vddic mythology. Many however of 
 these dii minores are purely deifications 
 of ancient native worthies. Famous priests, 
 physicians of great renown, women of 
 extraordinary devotion, munificence and 
 piety, have been honoured with a place in 
 the popular pantheon, and are as devoutly 
 worshipped in their native countries as any 
 of the ancient Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. 
 
 But suppose you retrace your steps 
 througli the various temples you have 
 visited, you will find it interesting to have 
 a look at the apartments occupied by the 
 priests. They have most of them their own 
 cells, but dine together in one large hall, 
 which, together with the kitchen and its 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 35 
 
 enormous rice-boilers, are worthy a visit. 
 The abbot has his private rooms apart from 
 the cells of the priests. You may find him 
 willing to receive you, but you will be 
 astonished if you enter his rooms expecting 
 to find there the same primitive simplicity 
 and economy which you noticed when pas- 
 sing through the apartments allotted to the 
 use of the priests and which reminded you 
 so strongly of the internal arrangements of 
 a Roman Catholic monastery. A modern 
 abbot takes it generally very easy. If his 
 monastery is not too far from any centre of 
 foreign commerce he will show you with 
 pride a collection of articles de luxe. He lias 
 watches and clocks of foreign manufacture, 
 photographs of more than questionable 
 decency, and he is generally not only a 
 confirmed opium smoker, but considers 
 himself a good judge of champagne, port 
 and sherry. His attendants are invariably 
 laymen, relatives of his own who may have 
 no intention whatever to take the vows. 
 But the same abbot may also have a print- 
 ing press with moveable types likewise of 
 foreign manufacture, and you may see it 
 turning out neat reprints of the most popu- 
 lar portions of the Buddhist scriptures or 
 little tracts and pamphlets of local reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 After a visit to the gardens which are 
 generally well kept and abound in curious 
 specimens of artificial training, after a pass- 
 ing glance at the place where the bodies of 
 deceased priests are burned and the tomb 
 which covers their ashes, you return through 
 the labyrinth of galleries and courts. In 
 one of the latter you may now notice a 
 series of little chambers, popularly called 
 chambers of horrors, containing statuary 
 representations of the various tortures sup- 
 posed to be employed in the various com- 
 partments of hell. For your guide will 
 tell you, with a sly hit at yourself, that all 
 those who do not believe in Buddhism or 
 violate its commandments will after death 
 be re-born in hell. He will inform you that 
 there are underneath our earth eight large 
 helis of extreme heat, eight more of extreme 
 cold, again eight hells of utter darkness, 
 and on the edge of each universe ten cold 
 hells, but as each of these hell3 has many 
 antechambers and smaller hells attached, 
 each being places of torture, there are in 
 reality altogether over a hundred thousand 
 of such chambers of horrors. A pleasant 
 prospect to heretics like yourself, — your 
 priest will add. Whilst Southern Bud- 
 dhists knew only eight principal hells of 
 extreme heat and minor hells on the extreme 
 border of each universe, Northern Buddhists 
 added the above-mentioned cold hells and 
 beside those a special hell for females, 
 
 called the placenta-tank, which is believed 
 to consist of an immense pool of blood, and 
 from this hell it is said no release is pos- 
 sible. Poor women, Buddhism does notseem 
 to appreciate the rights nor even the good- 
 ness of women. All the other hells, with 
 the exception of this female apartment, are 
 only purgatories, and release from them can 
 be procured through good works or through 
 the atoning masses performed by the priests 
 on behalf of the sufferers in hell. 
 
 On passing out through the gate your eye 
 may perhaps be arrested by a crowd of peo- 
 ple surrounding a number of pigs wallow- 
 ing in the richest food thrown before them.. 
 You will also notice in a conspicuous posi- 
 tion near these pigs a poor-box into which 
 the people drop their offerings of money. 
 What is it all about ? Look at the inscrip- 
 tion affixed to that box in large staring 
 letters “ save life !” The greatest Buddhist* 
 commandment is that which forbids the 
 taking of life. All life, human as well as 
 animal life, is absolutely sacred in the eyes 
 of the Buddhist devotee. The killing of 
 animals for the purpose of food is a heinous 
 offence. Still more so is the love of cruelty 
 which leads the strong to prey upon the 
 weak and enables the sportsman, the fox- 
 hunter, the deer-stalker, the pigeon-shooter 
 in heathen and Christian countries to derive 
 a horrible enjoyment from the piteous suf- 
 ferings of poor dumb animals. Those pigs 
 are therefore exhibited by the priests to 
 remind the people of this greatest of all 
 Buddhist commandments. And the people 
 drop their mites into the box by way of 
 atoning to some extent for their own short- 
 comings in that respect. For Northern 
 Buddhists are — with the exception of the 
 priests — by no means vegetarians, and even 
 priests may be seen privately enjoying the 
 good things of this world in the shape of 
 animal food. Still I should think you will 
 be inclined to bestow some praise on these 
 pious priests who charitably feed those 
 “ sacred pigs,” as European travellers have 
 styled them, for the mere respect of animal 
 life, who interpret the command “thou 
 shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ” in 
 a wider sense even than the Christian, and 
 see their neighbours not only in their fellow- 
 men but also in every single member of the 
 animal world, in every wild beast and even 
 in the despised pig that wallows in the 
 mud. And certainly a public protest 
 against cruel sports and useless destruction 
 of animal life is a good and needful thing, 
 for sports of a cruel character do tend to 
 blunt the feelings and develop that terri- 
 ble callousness of disposition which leads 
 to an utter disregard of the sanctity of 
 h nman life. But, on the other hand, it is 
 
3G 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD 
 
 ridiculous to compare this Buddhist com- 
 mandment “ thou shalt not take life ” with 
 the religion of Him who would not break 
 the bruised reed nor quench the smoking 
 flax, and to give the palm — as some Euro- 
 pean admirers of Buddhism have actually 
 done — to this Buddhist ideal of charity. 
 Just ask your guide whether the Buddhist 
 church, which so laudably extends its- cha- 
 rity even to the brute creation and assi- 
 duously feeds sacred pigs in its monasteries, 
 exerts herself to ameliorate the condition 
 of poor suffering humanity ? He will have 
 to acknowledge that no hospitals, no asy- 
 lums for the blind, the deformed, the desti- 
 tute, have ever been founded by a Buddhist 
 community. Alms, indeed, are encouraged, 
 but they are to be bestowed on the worthi- 
 est, on the priest, the cloister, the church, 
 and thus the current of charity is diverted 
 from the destitute or outcasts of society 
 whose very destitution is according to the 
 Buddhist scriptures a proof of their un- 
 worthiness, to be directed to the worthiest 
 on earth, to the community of priests, who 
 are bound to receive the gifts bestowed, in 
 order that the faithful may acquire merit, 
 though forbidden by the self-renouncing 
 principles of their creed to retain them for 
 their private advantage. Thus it was 
 brought about that the Buddhist priests 
 take to feeding sacred pigs. A Buddhist 
 Peabody, therefore, would be doing the 
 correct thing if he were to throw all his 
 humanitarian efforts with all his money — 
 before the swine. 
 
 It is almost needless to remark after the 
 above-given explanations that those “sa- 
 cred pigs” receive nowhere in any Bud- 
 dhistic country anything like worship either 
 by the people or by the priests. And yet 
 a member of the American Expedition to 
 China and Japan fell into this error and 
 published it abroad in the printed report 
 of that expedition. After describing what 
 he calls the sacred pigs in the sacred styes 
 in Canton, he exclaims in pitiful tone, “ It 
 was something of a curiosity though some- 
 what saddening in the reflections it occa- 
 sioned to behold the sanctified pork and 
 the reverence with which it is worshipped.” 
 I would not have mentioned this ridiculous 
 mistake had not a learned writer in the 
 Fortnightly Review (Feb., 1870, p. 215) 
 based on this misconception a whole system 
 of pig-worship and pages of lucubrations 
 about “the primitive mysterious boar” 
 who “ is worshipped in China and was 
 worshipped among the Celts,” and placed 
 that supposed pig-worship of China into 
 analogy with “the existing worship of 
 Vishnu in his avatar as a boar.” There is 
 no people in the world fonder of pork than 
 
 the Chinese are, but there is not a trace of 
 porcine-worship to be found among them 
 unless the “worship of the pig ” consists 
 in eating it. 
 
 Well, you have visited a fair specimen of 
 the popular pantheon of Northern Bud- 
 dhism. What is the result! You have 
 seen multitudes of men and women bowing 
 down before idols of clay, offering their 
 gifts, addressing them in words of prayer 
 and praise and thanksgiving, consulting 
 the oracle by throwing lots in their pre- 
 sence and receiving a slip of paper issued 
 in the name of the individual deity in the 
 ambiguous terms of Delphi ; you have no- 
 ticed the reverence, the trust, the fervour 
 with which— not the priests indeed — but 
 the common people appeal to these legions 
 of gods. Is this the boasted Atheism of 
 the Buddhist religion ? Surely many, even 
 of the common people, may be able to dis- 
 tinguish the idol from the divinity it repre- 
 sents, but it is undeniable that even they 
 have before their minds during the act of 
 worship the idea of a personal being of 
 great power, mighty to save, to bless, to 
 avert misfortune. From the legends con- 
 nected with the several deities worshipped 
 by the people it appears that they all were 
 originally human beings. Though they 
 now appear clothed in supernatural garb, 
 heavenly spirits, genii, demons, they all 
 are believed to have been human beings, 
 plain men or women, at some time or other. 
 And yet the very names Buduha, Bodhi- 
 sattva, Arhat, which once signified but mo- 
 ral fallible men more or less advanced in 
 the path to Nirvana, have in the parlance 
 of the multitude in Buddhistic communi- 
 ties assumed a far higher significance. 
 Buddha is to them simply the highest 
 God, the Deus optimus maximus. Bddhi- 
 sattvas (and Arhats) are demi-gods. The 
 former is God in estie, the latter are gods in 
 posse. Both, Buddhas and Bddhisattvas, 
 are worshipped and relied on as God by 
 Northern Buddhists. The difference lies 
 in this, that Buddhas are looked upon as 
 highest in rank, whilst Bddhisattvas are 
 considered to be nearest in sympathy. So 
 then, as there are many Buddhas and many 
 Bddhisattvas, the religion of Northern Bud- 
 dhists is practically systematic deification 
 of humanity displayed in a thoroughly 
 polytheistic form of worship. 
 
 But in many instances these polytheistic 
 practices have been developed into a form 
 of religion very much akin to Monotheism. 
 Nepaul for instance has one supreme Bud- 
 dha, called Adi- Buddha. Several European 
 scholars (Hodgson, and after him Bunsen 
 and others) have taken hold of this fact 
 and triumphantly proclaimed abroad, that 
 
LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 37 
 
 Buddhism so far from being a system of 
 Atheism had led its devotees (in Nepaul at 
 least) to direct Monotheism. This assertion 
 however requires some modification. If 
 we examine the facts of the case, we find 
 that the term Adi-Buddlia means simply 
 “an ancient Buddha” and that the Ne- 
 paulese like all other Buddhists know not 
 less than seven ancient Buddhas. Still it 
 is true that Nepaulese Buddhists — like all 
 Northern Buddhists who are under the 
 influence of the Mahayana school — show a 
 decided preference for one of these ancient 
 worthies or rather for his celestial form 
 (Dhyani Buddha), and this celestial Buddha 
 is then styled Adi-Buddha par excellence. 
 Indeed they address him and worship him 
 very much as if he were a supreme god, 
 but theoretically speaking his personality 
 is lost in philosophical abstractions which 
 identify this Adi-Buddha with the highest 
 moral virtue (Pradjna), and convert him 
 into a mere hyperbole, a mere figure of 
 speech expressing the existence of a moral 
 law in the universe. Strictly speaking they 
 do not look upon him as personal creator 
 and sustainer of the universe. And yet it 
 is undeniable that there is at the bottom of 
 this Adi-Buddha theory a strong tendency 
 towards Monotheism, which though coun- 
 teracted by philosophical scholasticism 
 shows itself in the popularized form of this 
 dogma of one Adi-Buddha. The common 
 people of Nepaul reverence and pray to 
 this Buddha in decided preference to all 
 other Buddhas. They rely upon him for 
 protection and salvation, treating him to 
 all practical intents and purposes as if he 
 were the highest Hod, a personal being 
 of unlimited wisdom, goodness aud power, 
 the very creator and sustainer of the world. 
 What Adi-Buddha is to the JSepaulese the 
 same is the above-mentioned Amitabha 
 Buddha, with his spiritual progeny (Ava- 
 lokiteshvara), to the majority of Northern 
 Buddhists. When they come to reason on 
 the subject they indeed allow that he is 
 not the first cause of the existence of the 
 universe, that he is but the regent of the 
 far-famed paradise in the West, and yet 
 practically implore him, or his vice-gerent 
 Avalbkiteshvara, as if he were Almighty 
 God, creator aud ruler of the whole world, 
 omniscient, omnipresent. Though sceptic 
 philosophers may treat this dogma as a 
 mere allegory, the common people stoutly 
 maintain their belief in Amitabha as the 
 highest personal God, and in the objective 
 reality of his paradise. 
 
 We see therefore in this popular belief 
 in an Adi-Buddha or Amitabha the in- 
 stinctive groping of the religious conscience 
 after the unknown God, a faint glimmering 
 
 of the truth which revelation alone can 
 bring home to the human mind in full un- 
 dimmed clearness. The same is the case 
 with that popular legend of a paradise in 
 the western heaveus: it is a spark of divine 
 light, a particle of the truth which Chris- 
 tianity alone has unfolded in the revelation 
 of a heavenly Jerusalem, where there shall 
 be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, 
 for the former things have passed away. 
 
 There is another point in which the reli- 
 gious conscience of Northern Buddhists, un- 
 satisfied by ancient Buddhism, added to the 
 inherited traditional stock of ideas. An- 
 cient Buddhism knows of no sin-atoning 
 power ; it holds out to the troubled guilty 
 conscience no prospect of mercy, no chance 
 of obtaining forgiveness, no possibility of 
 justification, allowing not even so much as 
 extenuation of guiltunderany circumstances 
 whatever. A Buddha is not a Saviour. 
 The only thing he can do for others is to 
 show them the way of doing good and over- 
 coming evil, to point out the path to Nir- 
 vana by his example, and to encourage 
 others by means of teaching and exhorta- 
 tion and warning to follow his footsteps. 
 If any human being is to reach Nirvana it 
 must be done by independent action. Do 
 good and you will be saved, — this is the 
 long and short of the Buddhist religion. 
 The sinner must expiate his guilt by pun- 
 ishment and by redoubled exertions in good 
 works. There is indeed a ceremony of 
 confession of sins, — for the priest ; but it 
 only serves to set him right again in his 
 relation to the community of priests ; it 
 does not influence his prospects of future 
 happiness. Buddhism therefore is the 
 hardest of all laws, for it blesses indeed the 
 righteous, but it curses and condemns the 
 sinner without extending a helping hand, 
 without promising any pardon to any re- 
 penting contrite heart. There is a Nirvana 
 for the virtuous and innumerable hells for 
 the wicked and nothing more. Every in- 
 dividual has to work out his own salvation, 
 unaided, unpitied, uncared for, placed 
 between heaven and hell, trembling under 
 the unrelenting yoke of the moral law of 
 his religion — naturally a burden too heavy 
 to be borne. 
 
 We have already seen how the common 
 people endeavour to propitiate the gods of 
 their own making by sacrificial offerings, 
 supposing thereby to obtain in spite of their 
 own shortcomings the favour of these 
 deities. We have further seen how the 
 same power was attributed to prayer, to a 
 mere invocation of the names of certain 
 deities or the mere recital of short forms 
 of prayer believed to have been invented 
 by them. These mystic formulas, invariably 
 
38 
 
 LECTURE THE THIRD. 
 
 couched in Sanskrit, were popularly trusted 
 in, being supposed to possess magic sin- 
 atoning and saving powers. The very cir- 
 cumstance of their being constituted by the 
 unintelligible sounds of a foreign language 
 inspired the people with so much more 
 awe and confidence. Omne ignotum pro 
 mirabile est. Foremost among these magic 
 sounds ranks the triliteral monosyllable 
 om (or aum), the symbol of the trinity, the 
 I am that 1 am, the alpha and omega of 
 Northern Buddhism. 
 
 Of course this state of things could not 
 be endured by a clergy fond of wielding 
 uncontrolled power over the multitude. 
 The priests had foresight enough to under- 
 stand that the power of prayer, if freely 
 accessible to all, would diminish their 
 influence upon the people. It was an 
 encroachment upon their privileges. As 
 however the vox populi — in this case some- 
 thing like vox Dei — was too strong to resist 
 it with any hope of success, they adopted 
 the idea of atonement through prayer, but 
 took it into their own keeping, establishing 
 an elaborate ritual for the purpose of expi- 
 ating guilt, counteracting evil influences of 
 all sorts, alleviating the tortures of hell, 
 procuring release from hell and re-birth 
 into one of the heavens or into the Western 
 Paradise. To engraft this ritual upon the 
 orthodox tradition, to prove that it was in 
 perfect accordance with the principles of 
 ancient Buddhism, they produced a most 
 voluminous literature (Yogatchara Sutras 
 and Dharanis) on the subject, ingeniously 
 forging whole Sutras composed in ancient 
 style and making Shakyamuni himself 
 therein enunciate those ideas of an atone- 
 ment procurable through the intercession 
 of the priests. Thus they established a 
 ritual for the purpose under the pretended 
 authority of Shakyamuni. But the ritual 
 in question is so richly interlarded with 
 Sanskrit prayers, and the ceremonies pre- 
 scribed in it are so complicated and sur- 
 rounded with so much hocus-pocus, that it 
 not only imposed upon the common people 
 who were appalled by the assumed halo of 
 ancient authority and listened with super- 
 stitious fear and reverence to the mystic 
 jargon the very obscurity of which made 
 them consider it profound, but it made 
 the whole ceremonial a monopoly of the 
 priests. For they alone have the key to 
 the understanding of the whole, they alone 
 can tench its mechanical details. Quite a 
 number of magic paraphernalia, the hand- 
 ling of which remains a mystery to the 
 uninitiated, is necessary for the proper per- 
 formance of that ritual. There is the 
 
 so-called sceptre of lndra (Vadjra) used as 
 a magic wand for the purpose of mantic 
 conjurations and exorcism, there are magic 
 circles and mystic diagrams to be drawn, 
 holy water to be consecrated and sprinkled 
 about, rice and flowers to be scattered to 
 the rythmic recital of magic incantations 
 (in Sanskrit), whilst the officiating priest 
 goes through certain stages of ecstatic 
 meditation in order to identify himself with 
 the particular deity invoked in each case 
 and accompanies the prayers of the priests 
 by mysterious manipulations (Mudra). To 
 give an idea of the latter I will but quote a 
 passage or two from a commentary to one of 
 those rituals. “ The officiating priest has in 
 his heart, pronounces with his mouth and 
 imitates with his fingers the mystic (Sans- 
 krit) character hri, whereupon from his 
 heart, mouth and fingers proceed rays of 
 red-coloured light which destroy hell (s.c. 
 for the benefit of those individuals on be- 
 half of whom the ritual is gone through).” 
 Again we read in the same work, “ the 
 officiating priest, lifting up the middle-fin- 
 ger of each hand and pressing both hands 
 close together forms the sign hri where- 
 upon from the points of his middle fingers 
 a stream of mercy goes out which takes 
 away the sins and guilt of all evil-doers.” 
 It is needless to add that this ritual in- 
 tended especially for the benefit of the 
 souls of deceased persons and in that case 
 accompanied by the burning of many uten- 
 sils and articles of luxury, all made of pa- 
 per, i3 only performed in return for a cer- 
 tain sum of money paid to the priests, and 
 that the length and consequent efficacy of 
 the ceremonial gone through on behalf of 
 any individual depends upon the length of 
 the latter’s purse. 
 
 * * * 
 
 This then is the practical religion of 
 Northern Buddhism, or rather, I should 
 say, this is what classic Buddhism has 
 come to in the hands of the common peo- 
 ple. 
 
 I take leave of my subject, which, I make 
 bold to say, 1 have endeavoured to elucidate 
 honestly and impartially. I have striven to 
 do j ustice to everything that is good and true 
 in Buddhism, But in the interest of truth 
 I have to confess, and 1 trust the above- 
 given facts will bear me out in the assertion, 
 that Buddhism is after all neither better 
 nor worse than any other religion built up 
 by man : it is a science without inspiration, 
 a religion without God, a body without a 
 spirit, unable to regenerate, cheerless, cold, 
 dead and deplorably barren of results. 
 Can these dry bones live ? 
 
 FINIS. 
 

 
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