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THE
PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
AND
A BUDDHIST PILGRIMAGE
BY
JAMES BISSETT PRATT, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1928
All rights reserved
BL
013 321 917
14-51
Pq
COPYRIGHT, 1928,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped.
Published October, 1928.
Printed in the United States of America by
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK
200779
ΤΟ
MY BELOVED FELLOW PILGRIM
THROUGH THE WORLD AND DOWN THE YEARS
MY COMFORT AND SUPPORT
IN ALL THE HARDSHIPS AND PERILS OF THE ROAD
AND MY GUIDE TO ALL THE SACRED PLACES
05-2-41 hw
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PREFACE
it
THERE are so many books on Buddhism already that I
shall not apologize for writing another. But the reader, if
there be such an one, who cares enough for Buddhism to
embark upon so large a volume as this may be interested in
knowing how I happened to undertake the years of investi-
gation that made it possible. The answer is quickly told:
I wanted to get a synthetic view of Buddhism, to grasp
as a whole, and also to discover the actual conditions of the
religion as it is believed and lived to-day. To do these things
the reading of many books was helpful, but most important
of all were the two pilgrimages that my Fellow Pilgrim and
I made, in two Sabbaticals, to Buddhist lands. And now that
I have gained some of the understanding I sought, it seems
only right I should hand it on to others who may be as inter-
ested as I was.
I hope, in other words, that my book will give the reader
two things which he may not find in more learned volumes.
First I want him to get, with me, a sense for Buddhism as a
whole, for the organic unity of its life and growth, for the
organic identity of the Buddhism of contemporary Japan
with that which originated nearly twenty-five hundred years.
ago in India. I want him to share with me the tremendous
impression of the advance of this religion from land to land,
gathering further enrichment in every stage of its progress,
growing like an immense snowball as it goes, yet assimilating
its increments as an organism its food, moving irresistibly
onward till it reaches "the sea that ends not till the world's
end." I hope that at least faintly this way of conceiving
Buddhism may be suggested to the reader by the title I have
chosen. For this great Traveler is also an exile and a pilgrim
-perhaps the figure of a missionary would have been more
appropriate-driven from his native land and carrying the
blessings of insight and love to the long and colorful suc-
vii
viii
PREFACE
cession of peoples and countries that fringe the Indian Ocean,
the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Siam, the China Sea, and the
Western Pacific. For pictorial simplicity I have written as
if the "Buddhist Pilgrimage" which my Fellow Pilgrim and
I pursued had followed in the exact footsteps of the Great
Pilgrim. As a fact, our pilgrimage had to be spread over two
Sabbaticals with an interval of nine years between them.
But at one time or another, and in one order or another, all
the lands whose religion is described in this volume have been
studied by us with greater or less care and detail; so that
what I have ventured to say about them is at any rate based
in large part upon personal observation.
And that brings me to the second thing I hope the reader
will be able to find in these pages: namely, a fairly intimate
understanding of Buddhism as it is actually lived to-day. If
this is to be done some knowledge of its origin and its history
is essential; hence the historical chapters of this volume. But
the history of Buddhism one can find much more learnedly
presented elsewhere. The thing I have sought chiefly to do
is to make Buddhism plausible. It would be possible with
sufficient study to write a learned book on Buddhism which
should recite the various facts with scholarly exactness yet
leave the reader at the end wondering how intelligent and
spiritual men and women of our day could really be Bud-
dhists. I have sought to avoid this effect and have tried in
addition to enable the reader, when he has turned the last
page, to understand a little how it feels to be a Buddhist.
To give the feeling of an alien religion it is necessary to do
more than expound its concepts and describe its history.
One must catch its emotional undertone, enter sympatheti-
cally into its sentiments, feel one's way into its symbols, its
cult, its art, and then seek to impart these things not merely
by scientific exposition but in all sorts of indirect ways.
There is one notable omission which will at once strike
the reader of this book. I have said nothing whatever of
the Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, and Mongolia. This has not
been due to lack of space but to deliberate intention. The
form of religion which prevails in these lands is so mixed
with non-Buddhist elements that I hesitate to call it Bud-
dhism at all. At any rate, if I was to give a unified notion
PREFACE
ix
of Buddhism, it seemed to me necessary to confine myself to
the Hinayana and the Mahayana.
It will be a privilege before closing this preface to mention
a few of the many friends and acquaintances in Buddhist
lands who by their assistance and their information helped
to make my book possible. First of all in order of time
would naturally come those kindly Indians, Ceylonese, and
Burmans who gave me so much assistance in my first visit to
the Far East; but as several of these were named in "India
and Its Faiths" I shall omit them here. But of the many who
helped me on my more recent visit I must surely mention
the following: Mr. Nai Leck of Bangkok; Rev. J. D. Olsen
of Saigon; Rev. F. R. Millican of Ningpo; Mr. Ouyang and
Dr. Reichelt of Nanking; Bishop Roots, formerly of Han-
kow; Bishop Gilman, Professor Francis Wei, and the monk
Tai Hsü of Wuchang; Rev. Mr. Warren of Changsha;
Rev. C. F. Howe of Ichang; Rev. W. S. Dudley of Chung-
king; Mr. Mei and Mr. Yü of Tsinan Fu; Rev. and Mrs.
A. W. Hummell, formerly of Fen Chow (Shansi); Mr. T. C.
Yen, Dr. Hu Shih, Mr. Kwai, Mr. Teng, Mr. Carrington
Goodrich, Mr. R. F. Johnston, and Baron Stael Holstein of
Peking; Dr. Deming of Seoul; Rev. Mr. Blair of Taikyu
(Korea); Dr. Anesaki, Dr. Kato, Dr. Mochitzuki, Rev. D.
Shimaji, and Dr. Armstrong of Tokyo; Prof. D. T. Suzuki,
Rev. E. S. Cobb and Rev. J. A. Welbourn of Kyoto; Prof.
Akizuki of Koyosan; and Mr. Y. Suzuki of Kobi.
S
To all these and to many more I owe much. But no one
who reads this book through will need to be told that my
chief indebtedness is to the eyes and memory, the quick
apprehension, the sympathetic understanding, and the un-
failing encouragement of my Fellow Pilgrim.
CHAPTER
PREFACE
I THE FOUNDER
CONTENTS
II THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER ON THEIR
NEGATIVE SIDE.
III THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC
IV
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
V MAN AND HIS DESTINY
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
XII THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA
XIII THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
XIV THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
XV
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
XVI BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
XVII
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
XVIII THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
XIX THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA
XX
XXI KOREAN BUDDHISM
XXII JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
XXIII THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
XXIV THE BUDDHIST CYCLE IN JAPAN
XXV
XXVI
XXVII THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
CEYLON AND BURMA .
THE EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
CAMBODIA
•
•
•
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
•
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
·
•
•
·
·
•
•
•
PAGE
vii
1
17
36
56
71
92
116
144
165
188
211
234
259
272
293
305
325
352
379
393
417
436
456
495
503
519
538
xi
xii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
PROPAGANDA, EDUCATION, AND PHILANTHROPY
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN-THE EARLIER SECTS.
ZEN
PHILOSOPHICAL POSITIONS OF THE NICHIREN AND AMIDA
SECTS
XXXII A REVIEW OF THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM
XXXIII THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
XXXIV
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
INDEX
PAGE
567
596
623
646
672
702
723
751
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
THE
PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDER
I HOPE I shall not forget the impression that we both
received as we drove in a tika-gari through the early hours
of that January morning from Gaya to Buddh Gaya. Pos-
sibly in my own case the strength of the impression could be
attributed in part to other causes, for I had been a student
of Buddhism-in a desultory way-many years. But I am
sure it was not wholly the sentiment I brought with me
that produced the intimate sense of great calm that clothed
the landscape. For my Fellow Pilgrim, whose knowledge of
the "Blessed One" and of his teaching was but slight, felt the
same compelling charm of the quiet hills and of the listening
country, as if the footfalls of him who was to be the Light
of Asia had only then died away.
Nor was the goal of our journey unworthy of the ex-
pectant preparation. An ancient garden surrounds the place,
cared for with reverence but not too minutely, where Nature
and Art are not at war, where ancient statues are half con-
cealed by climbing vines and fresh spring flowers, and where
picturesque decay gives the last touch of reverence and sug-
gestiveness to never-ceasing piety and love. In the center
stands the great pagoda, product of combined Buddhist and
Hindu adoration for a lofty soul, marking the spot where,
according to a well authenticated tradition, Gotama spent
that night of illumination when he became the Buddha.
Close to it grows a vigorous specimen of the ficus religiosa,
said to be descended from the "Bodhi Tree," under whose
I
2
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sheltering branches he sat during those hours so fateful for
all Eastern Asia.
-
Nearly twenty-five centuries ago, that famous night.
And we who, peering back through the ages, long to know
what manner of man it was who sat under the tree find our
sight dimmed by the distance and interrupted by the loving
mythology that has sprung up, like tropical vegetation, be-
tween ourselves and him. The oldest books that tell of his
life and teaching were not put completely into writing till
about the year 30 B.C.¹ Doubtless they go back in the oral
memory of the Buddhist community very much farther than
this; and some of the materials from which they were formed
may have been derived from the immediate disciples of the
Founder, some may have come from his very lips. But how
much of the canon goes back to his time, and how trust-
worthy in detail it is, we shall never know with certainty.
All we can do is to use what critical methods our Pali scholars
can devise in selecting the most credible of the texts, and then
exert what judgment we possess in forming our own tenta-
tive opinions.
Based upon such uncertain and disputed foundations,
modern opinions of the Founder and of what he taught natu-
rally differ. Was he a rationalistic moralist? A Yogin? A
supernaturalist who thought himself a god? Or did he, per-
haps, never really live at all; is he merely a sun myth? Pretty
certainly, I think, we may say he was not the latter.2 But in
each of the three other answers just noted there may well be
an element of truth. Fortunately in making up our own
opinions we are not dependent entirely upon the expositions
of the disagreeing doctors. A few Pali scholars, to whom our
gratitude can never be fully expressed, have worked out the
most trustworthy texts of much of the sacred literature of
Buddhism, and have translated into either English or German
the four principal Nikayas-the oldest records of his dia-
-
1 Some put the date at 80 B.C.
"This hypothesis has been put forward more than once. The most recent preser.ta-
tion of it with which I am acquainted is that given by H. Kern, in Vol. I of his
Histoire du Bouddhism dans l'Inde (Paris, Leroux, 1901). This is not the place to
discuss the question, and I can only say that Kern's arguments leave me quite cold.
The question is briefly discussed in the Introduction and on pp. 216-26 of Dr. E. J.
Thomas' Life of Buddha (London, Trübner, 1927).
THE FOUNDER
3
logues—and the more important parts of the fifth.³ Whoso
would form for himself an opinion as to the character and
the teachings of the Founder of Buddhism may, therefore, if
he be willing to consecrate the time to it, go with the Pali
The Canon of Pali Buddhism, known as the Tripitaka, consists of three grand
subdivisions, each known as a Pitaka or basket. The first of these is the Vinaya
Pitaka, or the rules of the monastic Order; the second is the Sutta Pitaka, or teachings
of the Buddha; the third is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which is later than most of the
others are and is devoted to the metaphysical and psychological refinements of the later
scholastic systematizers. The five Nikayas, of course, make up the second of these
divisions, the Sutta Pitaka. These five, though containing much identical material, are
of varying degrees of value. By far the most important of them are the Digha and
the Majjhima. Although marred like the others with much repetition, they both con-
tain a large number of dialogues of rather striking insight and beauty. Though much.
alike, their emphasis is not quite the same. The Digha is emphatically the rationalistic
Nikaya. Its interest is almost exclusively upon questions of the moral life, earnestness,
and self-control. The Majjhima is also more interested in these things than in anything
else, but it puts greater stress than does the Digha upon Yoga methods, the gods and
their heavens, and the Buddha's supernatural knowledge. The Samyutta Nikaya is pretty
evidently later than the Digha and Majjhima. It bears the marks of scholastic organi-
zation without the freshness of the earlier dialogues. In content it is characterized by
two rather diverse tendencies: a great delight in stories about the gods, and an extreme
rationalistic, positivistic, ethical tendency, often more pronounced than that of the Digha.
It emphasizes the causal chain of the Twelve Nidanas, the ubiquity of sorrow, and hence
the importance of the Four Noble Truths. The Anguttara Nikaya is inferior to the
three others except for a few passages. It is characterized chiefly by form rather than
by content. The teachings of the other Nikayas are here rearranged in numerical groups,
the numbers of virtues, of vices, of obstacles, of methods, etc., etc., are set out with
scholastic detail. This, of course, points conclusively to its later date. There are a few
passages of the Anguttara, however, which are of real value and which contain material
not found in the other Nikayas.
When one refers to the Nikayas, it is usually these four books that are intended.
There is, however, a fifth Nikaya, called Khuddaka, made up of a strange variety of
material. It is, in fact, a collective name for some fifteen independent books of varying
value and varying date. In their present form they are thought to be later than the
first four Nikayas, but some of them, notably the Sutta Nipata, the Udana, the Jatakas,
and the Dhammapada, contain ancient material, some of it drawn from the older
Nikayas and put in new form. The most important of these books that make up the
fifth Nikaya are the four just named, the Iti-vuttaka, the Thera Gatha and the Theri
Gatha (or Psalms of the Brethren and Psalms of the Sisters), and the Khuddaka-patha.
All of these, as well as the first four Nikayas, have been translated into either English
or German. As I have no Pali my knowledge of these books is based on these transla-
tions. To save needless repetition I shall, as a rule, in referring to the sources, give
only the names of the books, and shall here once for all indicate the translators to
whom I am indebted, together with the titles of their translations and their publishers.
The reader may, therefore, refer back to this list, if he cares to do so, when reference
to the Pali books is given.
Digha Nikaya, trans. by T. W. Rhys Davids, under the title Dialogues of the
Buddha, three vols. (Oxford Univ. Press, 1899, 1910, 1921).
Majjhima Nikaya, trans. by Karl Neumann under the title Die Reden Gotamo
Buddhos, three vols. (München, Piper, 1922). About half of the Majjhima has also been
translated into English by Lord Chalmers and entitled, Further Dialogues of the Buddha
(Vol. I, Oxford Univ. Press, 1926).
The Samyutta Nikaya, trans. into German by Wilhelm Geiger, but not yet com-
pleted. Vol. II has been published by Schloss (München) in 1925. The content of
what is to be Vol. I is appearing at present (1927) in the Zeitschrift für Buddhismus.
The Samyutta has also been translated into English by Mrs. Rhys Davids and F. L.
4
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
doctors to the sources themselves and drink from waters as
near the original spring as is now possible for anyone.
Even so, of course, the opinions of different readers will
vary. The best one can do is to start one's study with as few
prejudices as possible, to read with both critical and sympa-
thetic eyes, and to report one's impressions as honestly as one
may. With these principles in mind I, who, alas, am no Pali
scholar, have gone through all the Nikayas in English or
German, as well as the Vinaya, and shall try to set down in
this and the following chapters what seems to me the most
probable truth concerning the character and the teachings
of the Buddha.
4
I may say at once that the general impression I bring
away from this reading is of a very great personality—a per-
sonality whom to know, even at this distance and in this un-
satisfactory manner, is a benediction. In spite of the weari-
some repetitions of the Nikayas it is a precious experience
to spend a little time each day reading the accounts they give
of his discourses, and enjoying the passing glimpses they fur-
nish into his daily life.
So as I enter here from day to day
The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away
While the eternal ages watch and wait.
Before going further I should say a few words about the
commonest of the many names used by Buddhists to desig-
Woodward, under the title Kindred Sayings, three vols. (Oxford Univ. Press, 1917, 1922,
1925).
The first part of the Anguttara Nikaya was translated by E. R. J. Gooneratne
(Galle, Ceylon, 1913), and continued by A. D. Jayasundere (Adyar, Vasanta Press,
1925). A third volume is promised.
The Jatakamala has been translated, under the title The Jataka, by Cowell and others
in six volumes (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1895-1907). A Sanskrit version of the first
thirty-four stories has been translated by J. S. Speyer (Oxford Univ. Press, 1895).
The Dhammapada, trans. by Max Müller, and the Sutta Nipata, trans. by V. Faus-
boll, are published in one volume in the S. B. E. series (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1881).
The Thera Gatha and the Theri Gatha have been translated by Mrs. Rhys Davids
under the titles Psalms of the Brethren and Psalms of the Sisters (London, Frowde, 1909,
1913).
The Iti-vuttaka, trans. by J. H. Moore (New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1908).
Udana, trans. into German by Seidenstücker, 1920.
Khuddaka-patha, trans. by Childers, Jour. Royal Asiatic Soc., 1870.
I should add to this list of translations from the Sutta Pitaka, the translation by
Rhys Davids and Oldenberg of the Vinaya Texts, in the Sacred Books of the East.
"I mean all the four principal Nikayas, as well as the eight books of the Fifth
Nikaya that are available in English or German.
THE FOUNDER
S
nate the Founder of their religion. The term Buddha is, of
course, not a proper name but a title, as is the word Christ.
As Christ means the Anointed One, so Buddha means the
Enlightened One, or the One Fully Awake. According to
Buddhist theory there has been a long line of Buddhas. The
family name of the one we know was Gotama (in Sanskrit
Gautama), and his personal name Siddhatha (Sanskrit Sid-
dhartha). He came from the Clan of the Sakyas, and hence
came to be known in later years as Sakyamuni, or the Sage
of the Sakyas-the name most commonly given him in the
Far East. His disciples, both those who knew him and those
who have been his followers through all the years, frequently
speak of him as the Blessed One. Perhaps the commonest
title found in the Pali books is Tathagata, which has no exact
English equivalent but which means approximately the Per-
fectly Enlightened One.
-
Possibly I should add here, for the benefit of those readers,
if such there be, who are not familiar with the story of the
Buddha, a few dates and a few biographical facts. Gotama
was born at Kapilavastu in northern India, on the borders of
Nepal, about the year 560 B.C.,5 the son of a wealthy and
powerful prince. He received the usual education of an
Indian noble, married, and had a son (Rahula, by name).
Oppressed by the unsatisfying nature of worldly pleasures
and by all that is changeful, he renounced the world at the
age of twenty-nine and left his home in search of truth and
deliverance. He became a mendicant and studied with two
distinguished teachers, but finding that their teachings did
not solve the problem of human sorrow, he left them and
tried the ancient Indian method of asceticism in its ex-
tremest forms. This proving even more futile than the
teachings of his former masters he gave it up also, and ap-
parently through the double process of hard thinking and
semi-mystical practices of mind control, he gained the insight
he had sought. This "enlightenment" seems to have been
sudden, and took place during one night, as he sat under the
Bodhi Tree at Buddh Gaya. Immediately thereafter he began
"turning the wheel of the Dhamma" (or Law)-i.e., he
C
To be exact, it was most likely in 563 B.C. See the discussion of the point in
Geiger's Introduction to his translation of the Mahavamsa (London, Frowde, 1912).
6
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
1
preached his first sermon-in a deer park (now Sarnath) in
the suburbs of Benares. This was at the age of thirty-five.
The remainder of his eighty years he spent in spreading his
doctrine, and founding and administering an order of monks
which was to carry his teaching eventually over all the East.
He died about the year 480 B.C. surrounded by his devoted
followers, between the twin Sala trees at Kusinara.
8
But to return to the character of this man of many names
and many deeds. As I read the Nikayas, perhaps the most
striking thing about him is his almost unique combination of
a cool scientific head with the devoted sympathy of a warm
and loving heart. The way in which he kept that perfect
balance during the forty-five years of teaching and in the
varied situations recorded in the Buddhist books is indeed
very extraordinary. His pity for every sort of suffering
sentient life and his devotion to its needs seem to have been
boundless. Yet apparently he never lost his head, and never
was misled or blinded by sentiment.
I think the Rhys Davids and Oldenberg and Neumann
are in part right in picturing the Buddha as a rationalistic
moralist; but Keith and Franke and La Vallée Poussin are
also right in pointing out that there were other sides to his
character and teaching. He made repeated use, as we shall
see, of methods of meditation borrowed from the Yogins of
his time and taught them to his disciples; and he took for
granted (often in somewhat amused fashion, to be sure)
the gods of Indian tradition. He considered them of less
account than a good Buddhist, and felt himself to be im-
measurably superior to them all; but we have no reason
to suppose that he denied their existence, since in fact he
repeatedly referred to them as beings taken for granted
with whom in previous births he had been well acquainted.8
7
Presumably 483 B.C.
7
In a passage in Chap. IV of the Anguttara Nikaya, which may be late, the Buddha
is depicted as asserting that he is neither a god nor a man. His surprised questioner
asks what, then, he can be. To which he responds that before his enlightenment he
had been both, many times, but now he is an Enlightened One, a Buddha. Jayasundere's
trans. of Part II, p. 54.
8
In § 22 of the Iti-vuttaka (which belongs to the fifth Nikaya) the Buddha is rep-
resented as saying that he himself once occupied the position of the great Brahmā, and
that he had been Sakka, ruler of the gods, thirty-six times. It was and is the Indian
conception (or an Indian conception) that different individuals occupy the position of
Brahma and of each of the gods. The name of a god thus is really a title, the name
of an office, rather than the appellation of an individual.
THE FOUNDER
7
For all that, both the gods and the heavens and hells which
he described and the Yoga methods which he practiced
and taught are all kept in unquestionable and explicit
subordination to the supreme question of the wise way to
live.
1
The great mass of the dialogues left us are concerned with
moral and humanistic matters. The Buddha was primarily
a moral teacher. It was on the questions of right living that
he placed supreme emphasis, and upon the psychological
analyses and the spiritual training which he considered help-
ful or necessary for attaining the ideals of human life. And
yet the impression one gets from the dialogues is very differ-
ent from that given by the Confucian Analects. Confucius,
in spite of his great reverence for the cult of his national
religion, was essentially a sage. The Buddha, in spite of his
ridicule for cult and his refusal to discuss the ultimate prob-
lems of philosophy, was a saint, or even a mystic and a
prophet. Confucius was a humanist; the Buddha was the
founder of a religion." This feeling that one inevitably gets
on reading the dialogues is doubtless due in part to the re-
peated references they make, as already noted, to gods,
places of reward and punishment, transmigration and the
exact justice of the Cosmos, the practice of mystic methods
of meditation and the rest. Yet this is but part of the ex-
planation. More important still in producing the impression
one gets of the Buddha is the evident veneration felt for him
by nearly everyone who meets him, and the sense that the
reader comes to share with his followers that here we see
something very like Omniscience incarnate before us. The
Buddha does not, indeed, claim omniscience for himself.10
Yet it is plain that his disciples, clerical and lay, seem to have
attributed it to him; and he himself plainly felt that he was
in possession of knowledge far deeper than that of any other
man or god. Like other great men of the first order, such
as Christ and Confucius, he was conscious of his own
superiority. Though devoid of the littleness of conceit and
of the hardness of pride, and though never despising others,
'Cf. the excellent comparison of the two men in Irving Babbitt's Democracy and
Leadership.
10 Cf. Majjhima Nikaya LXXI,
8
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
he had immense self-confidence.11 The humility of a Saint
Francis belonged to him no more than it did to Jesus.
Indeed such humility would hardly have been compat-
ible, in either Jesus or Gotama, with the deep-seated sense
of a supreme mission that each of them seems to have enter-
tained. Immediately after his enlightenment, so we are sev-
eral times assured in the Nikayas (and one can well believe
the source of this oft-repeated story was the Founder him-
self), the Exalted One looked out in thought and imagina-
tion over the world and "saw souls whose eyes were scarcely
dimmed by dust and souls whose eyes were sorely dimmed
by dust, souls sharp of sense and souls blunted of sense, souls
of good and souls of evil disposition, souls docile and souls
indocile, some of them living with a perception of the danger
of other worlds and of wrong doing." 12 It had been one of
the temptations of Mara, the Evil One, so the accounts re-
peatedly tell us, to suggest to the Tathagata that his newly
discovered truth was too deep for this world to understand
and that he should therefore withdraw into Parinirvana and
leave it unrevealed. But in answer to this temptation came
the thought of needy beings, seen now clearly with the
Buddha eye, and out of pity for them he put behind him
the thought of his own ease and the glory of Parinirvana, and
for forty-five years, till his head was white and his steps
infirm, he toiled up and down the dusty roads of India to
save from sorrow all who had ears to hear. So strongly did
the call of pity for the world rush into his heart, as he sat
there under the Bo Tree, with such almost external imperi-
ousness did it come to him, that he seems to have felt it was
suggested by the great god Brahma. Whether or not we
take the story as literally as did his disciples who edited the
Nikayas, the power of his pity and of his determination to
save the world can hardly be doubted. This consciousness
of an almost cosmic mission is one of the things most certain
11 His self-confidence was not such as to make him slow in taking suggestions from
others or in acting on their advice when it seemed good. The institution of the fort-
nightly confession among the monks, the fortnightly preaching, and the custom of re-
maining in the monastery during the rainy season, according to the Vinaya, were all
decreed by the Buddha as a result of suggestions from his disciples.
12
I have taken this version of the oft-repeated phrase from Mrs. Rhys Davids' trans-
lation of the Samyutta I, 174. I might quite as well have chosen her husband's version
in the Digha, II, 32, or Neumann's rendering of the Majjhima, I, 396.
THE FOUNDER
9
about the Buddha, for it dominated his whole life, and has
become crystallized in one of those formulas, found in several
of the Nikayas, which are presumably among the very oldest
phrases of Buddhist literature, and which may well go back
in something like their present form to the Founder himself.
Repeatedly he is described, or describes himself, as one "born
into the world for the good of the many, for the happiness
of the many, for the advantage, the good, the happiness of
gods and men, out of compassion for the world.” 1з
To the carrying out of this mission the Buddha devoted
all his days after the achievement of enlightenment. His
time was divided betwen feeding the lamp of his own spirit-
ual life by solitary meditation--just as Jesus spent long hours
in lonely prayer and active preaching to large audiences of
his monks, instructing the more advanced in the subtle points
of inner development, directing the affairs of the Order,
rebuking breaches of discipline, confirming the faithful in
their virtue, receiving deputations, carrying on discussions
with learned opponents, comforting the sorrowful, visiting
kings and peasants, Brahmins and outcasts, rich and poor.
He was a friend of publicans and sinners, and many a public
harlot, finding herself understood and pitied, gave up her evil
ways to take her refuge in the "Blessed One." Such a life
demanded a variety of moral qualities and social gifts, and
among others a combination of democratic sentiments with
an aristocratic savoir faire which is seldom met with. In
reading the dialogues one can never forget that Gotama had
the birth and up-bringing of an aristocrat. He converses
not only with Brahmins and pundits but with princes and
ministers and kings on easy and equal terms. He is a good
diner-out, with a fund of anecdote and apparently a real
sense of humor, 14 and is a welcome guest at every house. A
distinguished Brahmin is pictured as describing him thus:
The venerable Gotama is well born on both sides, of pure descent
is handsome, pleasant to look upon, inspiring trust, gifted with great
19 Cf. Digha Nikaya XIX 5; Iti-vuttaka, § 84.
14 Cf. the story of "Darky" in Majjhima Nikaya XXI, and his oft-quoted fable of
the blind men giving their diverse accounts of the elephant (Udana VI 4). Possibly
here should be classed also his remarks to Cunda the Smith concerning the food at his
banquet (Seidenstücker's Udana, p. 95).
10
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
beauty of complexion, fair in color, fine in presence, stately to behold,15
virtuous with the virtue of the Arahats, gifted with goodness and virtue
and with a pleasant voice and polite address, with no passion of lust
left in him nor any fickleness of mind. He bids all men welcome, is
congenial, conciliatory, not supercilious, accessible to all, not backward in
conversation.16
But what appealed most to the India of his time, and has
appealed most to India through the ages, is expressed by the
Brahmin in these words:
The monk Gotama has gone forth into the religious life, giving up
the great clan of his relatives, giving up much money and gold, treasure
both buried and above ground. Truly while he was still a young man,
without a gray hair on his head, in the beauty of his early manhood he
went forth from the household life into the homeless state.¹
17
Such a life as his demanded not only pleasant manners,
sympathy, and kindness, but firmness and courage. When
the occasion required it,18 he could be calmly severe with
those who worked evil for the Order. Physical pain he bore
not only with equanimity but with no diminution of his
inner joy.19 Courage also was needed, and was found; as,
for example, in the Buddha's calm attitude during Deva-
datta's various attempts to assassinate him,20 in facing
threats of murder,21 and in the conversion of the famous
bandit in the Kingdom of Kosala, whom all the countryside
feared, and whom the Buddha visited, alone and unarmed,
-
16 He seems to have been extremely handsome. The impression he made upon all
sorts of people at first sight, and the charm of his personality which was never-failing
through years of intimacy are among the notable things that strike one's mind in read-
ing the canonical books. The Psalms of the Brethren contain several instances of this.
For example the learned Brahmin Vakkali: "When he had grown wise and had learnt
the three Vedas, and was proficient in Brahmin accomplishments, he saw the Master.
Never sated by looking at the perfection of the Master's visible body, he went about
with him. And when in his house he thought, 'I shall not here get a chance of seeing
him constantly'; so he entered the Order and spent all his time doing nothing else but
contemplating the Exalted One." So strong was this fascination that the Buddha, for
the man's own spiritual good, had to rebuke him and finally to send him away (Psalms
of the Brethren No. 205).
16
17
Digha IV. Cf. also Mahavagga of the Vinaya V. 13, 4.
Digha IV.
18 Cf. Majjhima XXI, XXII, XXXVIII, LXVII. Also his dealings with schism in
the Order, Vinaya Mahavaga X; with discipline, Kullavagga I.
10 Mrs. Rhys Davids' trans. of the Samyutta I, 138-39.
20 Kullavagga of the Vinaya VII. 3.
21
Cf. Fausböll's Sutta Nipata, pp. 30, 45, and Mrs. Rhys Davids' Samyutta, pp.
275-76.
THE FOUNDER
11
in his lair, changing him from a scourge of the kingdom to a
peaceful member of the Order.22 Neither pain, danger, nor
insults marred his spiritual peace. When he was reviled he
reviled not again.23 Nor was he lacking in tender thought-
fulness for those who needed his comfort and support. The
twenty-second chapter of the Samyutta describes how Tissa,
one of his disciples, became bewildered and discouraged in his
efforts at following the Way, how the Buddha heard of it
and sent for him and by a parable presenting a Buddhist
Pilgrim's Progress he instilled in him the hope and courage
so much needed. "Be of good cheer, Tissa," he added. "Be
of good cheer, Tissa. I to counsel you, I to uphold you, I to
teach you. ›› 24 The Master's tender words to Ananda, the
beloved disciple, just before his own death,25 are often cited
in popular lives of the Buddha. Less tender but more
thoughtful was the message which he sent at about the same
time to Cunda the smith, at whose house he had eaten the
food which was the immediate cause of his death. In the
midst of his suffering he thought of the possibility that poor
Cunda might be blamed for having been, unintentionally,
responsible for the Tathagata's passing away; so he laid a last
command upon Ananda to tell the smith that of all the meals
of his life two stood out in his memory as especially fruitful
and full of blessing. One was that in the strength of which
he had attained insight under the Bo Tree; the other was that
given him by Cunda, through which he was entering into the
complete liberation of Nibbana.26
Like many other men of spiritual discernment he had a
power of reading character which to his followers seemed
22
Majjhima LXXXVI.
29
A Brahmin in the neighborhood of Rajagaha "sought the presence of the Tathagata
and there reviled and abused the Tathagata in rude and harsh speeches. When he had
spoken thus the Tathagata said:
"When thou receivest visits from friends and colleagues, dost thou make ready for
them food?'
་་ ་
"Yet, Master Gotama, sometimes I do.'
et €
'But if they do not accept thy hospitality, whose do those things become?'
"If they do not accept them, those things are for us.'
"Even so, Brahmin. That wherewith thou revilest us who revile not, wherewith
thou scoldest us who scold not, abusest us who abuse not, that we accept not at thy
hands. 'Tis for thee only, Brahmin, 'tis only for thee!' (Mrs. Rhys Davids' trans.
of the Samyutta I. 202.)
>>
24 Woodward's Samyutta III. 90-92.
25
Digha XVI. 14.
20 Udana VIII. S.
12
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
nothing short of miraculous. Many a time, according to the
Psalms of the Brethren (which presents at least the impres-
sion of him entertained by the Early Church), he saw in
some new seeker or even distant aspirant or needy soul "the
conditions of Arahantship (sainthood) shining within his
heart like a lamp in a jar," 27-as in the story of Sunita, a
poor outcast, a scavenger of withered flowers in the city
streets, not making enough even by this despised labor to still
his hunger.
Now in the first watch of the night the Exalted One, attaining that
mood of great pity so largely practiced by the Buddhas, surveyed the
world. And he marked the conditions of Arahantship in the heart of
Sunita, shining like a lamp within a jar. And when the night paled
into dawn he rose and dressed, and with bowl and robe, followed by his
train of monks, he walked to the city for 'alms, and sought the street
where Sunita was cleaning. Now Sunita was collecting scraps, rubbish,
and so on, into heaps, and filling therewith the baskets he carried on a
yoke. And when he saw the Master and his train approaching, his heart
was filled with joy and awe. Finding no place to hide in on the road,
he placed his yoke in the bend of the wall, and stood as if stuck to the
wall, saluting with clasped hands. Then the Master, when he had come
near, spoke to him in a voice divinely sweet, saying, "Sunita, what to
you is this wretched mode of living? Can you endure to leave the
world?" And Sunita, experiencing the rapture of one who has been
sprinkled with ambrosia, said, "O Exalted One, if such as I may in this
life become a monk of yours, why should I not? May the Exalted One
suffer me to come forth!"
So the Blessed One, knowing the conditions of sainthood in
the heart of the flower scavenger, made him at once a mem-
ber of the Order.28
As I have already indicated, the Buddha's moral quali-
ties, as he is depicted in the Nikayas (and I should add in
the Vinaya also), were balanced with equally striking intel-
lectual gifts. He had a way of seeing to the heart of a ques-
tion, brushing aside incidentals, and arguing matters out on
purely rational grounds. He never appeals to authority, but
desires to stand only as the representative of reason. If in
reading the Dialogues one can abstract from the wearisome
Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 220, 227, 242.
28 Ibid., Mrs. Rhys Davids' trans., pp. 271-72. For other cases of rapid character
reading that seemed to the beholders almost magical see Psalms Nos. 205, 218, 220,
227.
THE FOUNDER
13
repetitions (doubtless introduced in part because of the de-
mands of oral reproduction), one feels oneself in the presence
of an extremely alert and agile intellect. Always ready for
his intellectual opponents and willing to discuss with them
at any time any point of his doctrines, he is represented as
invariably and overwhelmingly successful. Not only is he
a clear expounder, but he has also a good deal of the Socratic
ability of putting questions, and, like Socrates, can lead on
his unsuspecting critic to admissions which undermine the
whole position.20
An oft-repeated formula, that probably goes back to
very early Buddhist days, sums up several of the qualities I
have here sought to present, and gives a succinct account of
the attitude toward the Buddha maintained by his successors,
and probably by his contemporaries.
The Blessed One is an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding in
wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed
as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, a
Blessed one, a Buddha. He by himself thoroughly knows and sees, as it
were, face to face this universe-including the worlds above of the gods,
the Brahmas, and the Maras, and the world below with its recluses and
Brahmins, its princes and peoples—and having known it he makes his
knowledge known to others. The truth, lovely in its origin, lovely in
its progress, lovely in its consummation, doth he proclaim both in the
spirit and in the letter; the higher life doth he make known, in all its
fullness and in all its purity.30
Yet neither this nor any other description of the Tatha-
gata, the Perfectly Enlightened One, ever fully satisfied his
disciples. After words had done their uttermost there was
ever, as they viewed him, a residue of mystery in the nature
of their Master, ever unplumbed depths which their language
could not express nor their thought fathom. So much was
he as they saw and knew, revered and loved; but more was
there than they could ever hope to exhaust. "Deep is the
Tathagata, unmeasurable, difficult to understand, even like
the ocean." 31
20
* E.g., Majjhima LVI.
30
Digha IV. The same formula recurs frequently in various parts of the Digha
and also in the other Nikayas, as well as in the Vinaya Mahavagga VI. 34, 13; 35, 1.
Majjhima LXXII. This formula is found in several other passages and, I expect,
is very ancient.
31
14
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The Tathagata has suffered, from the western reader's
point of view, in being too well reported. Like every wise
teacher, he knew the necessity of repetition if his disciples.
were to grasp thoroughly and remember and hand down the
main points of his doctrine. He taught for forty-five years,
and nearly every year saw an influx of hundreds of novitiates
into the Order. These had to be taught the simpler elements,
while the more advanced disciples needed deeper instruction,
and the rank and file who had been several years with him
needed constantly to hear afresh the essentials of the doctrine
in fresh words. The call for both repetition year after year,
and also for variety of expression, was much greater than is
demanded of a college professor, who for forty years gives
courses in some large subject. The Buddha's situation and
the demands upon him were thus very different from those
of Jesus who taught only two years and had only twelve
regular disciples, all of whom were, so to speak, in the same
class. Thus it was natural that various presentations of a
given subject, differing but slightly in expression, should have
been treasured up by various disciples and added, after the
Master's death, to the precious spiritual possessions of the
Order. The Buddhist Suttas would probably be pleasanter
reading had the Buddha taught only a few years and trained
only one small group of pupils.
But a more unfortunate effect has flowed from the many
repetitions of the Nikayas than tedium for the reader. The
repetitions being in part fortuitous, it is impossible to de-
termine with certainty the relative emphasis that the Buddha
intended to be placed upon his various teachings. Most of
the disagreement among western interpreters of his doctrine
has arisen from this fact.
Some light can be thrown on the proper reading of his
sayings if we keep in mind the intellectual situation of the
times in which he lived. He was highly educated in the
learning and philosophy of his day, and this must mean that
he was thoroughly versed in the Vedas, possibly in the
thought of the Upanishads, and certainly in the many new
metaphysical theories which were springing up on all sides
in that intellectually stimulating and fertile century. The
Samkhya philosophy and probably its off-shoot, the Yoga,
THE FOUNDER
15
had been developed in their more ancient forms, and there
is good reason to suppose that one or both of Gotama's most
famous teachers, during the years just prior to his enlighten-
ment, were at least well versed in the doctrines and methods
of these schools.32 In addition to these philosophies, and to
the ancient and orthodox Vedic doctrine and cult, there was
a wild growth of new schools of thought-the Buddha men-
tions some sixty-two philosophical views, each with its ardent
expounders and followers. Prominent among these were
the Jainas, whose founder was an older contemporary of
Gotama. Some of these schools were materialistic, insisting
that man is merely a combination of physical elements, with
no soul, no rebirth, no reward or punishment. Other
schools that did not go so far as this and still acknowledged
a soul, maintained that deeds have no fruits, that all man's
fate is determined for him, regardless of his acts, and that
the will is never free. Still others denied all possibility of
knowledge.33 A large number of schools agreed on the value
and importance of asceticism and practiced various extreme
and fantastic forms of self-torture.
All of these views the Buddha had to meet and against
all of them he protested. It is hardly correct to picture him
as an Indian Martin Luther; but if not a "Protestant" he
was at least a protestor against the various forms of conserva-
tive superstition and radical nonsense with which his times
were seething. Against all of of these he armed himself with
the sword of the intellect. Nothing, he insisted, should be
taken on authority. "Do not accept what you hear by re-
port, do not accept tradition, do not accept a statement
because it is found in our books, nor because it is in accord
with your belief, nor because it is the saying of your
teacher." 34 The test of every doctrine is to be found in one's
own experience and in reason. Nor is the traditional cult
of India any more worthy of respect than belief on authority.
Cf. Oldenberg, Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfange des Buddhismus
(Göttingen, Vandenhoeck, 1915), 317ff.
33 Numerous references to these views are to be found in both the Digha and the
Majjhima. A helpful account of them is given by Keith in his Buddhist Philosophy in
India and Ceylon (Oxford, 1923), Chap. VII.
31 Anguttara III. 65. I have slightly abbreviated the passage from Gooneratne's
translation. The admonition is repeated several times in the Anguttara and also in the
Majjhima.
16
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Repeatedly the Tathagata ridicules the ancient meticulous
observances of Brahmanic ritual and prayer to the helpless
gods.35 Asceticism comes in for even severer rebuke in many
striking passages.36 But the sharpest words are reserved for
the folly of self-indulgence. In contrast to both these latter
the Buddha calls his doctrine the Middle Way 37—the Golden
Mean as we should say-between indulgence and self-torture.
Moreover the will is free, effort is worth while, man makes
his own fate, deeds have consequences, knowledge is possible,
the body is not the real self, and its death is not the end.
So much for the Buddha's point of view. A detailed
study of his ethical and philosophical teachings must be re-
served for the following chapters.
35 Cf. Majjhima VII; Digha XIII.
30
E.g., Digha VIII, XXV; Majjhima XL, XLV; Anguttara III. 92, 151, IV. 198.
87
* Cf. the Mahavagga of the Vinaya I; and Majjhima CXXXIX,
CHAPTER II
THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER ON THEIR
NEGATIVE SIDE
THE central theme of the Buddha's teachings is the moral
life. Morality, however, is itself a large theme. Is there any
central principle in Gotama's moral teachings from which
all the others may be deduced, or around which, at any rate,
they should all be grouped? I expect almost every reader
whose knowledge of Buddhism is derived from books about
Buddhism will respond at once: There is such a central prin-
ciple, and that is the pessimistic view of this world, the uni-
versality of sorrow, the derivation of sorrow from desire, and
the consequent exhortations to root out desire in every form
-in short, the Four Noble Truths. For my own part, this
was certainly the view of Buddhism I held, as a matter of
course, for many years-in fact, until my first visit to South-
ern Buddhist lands. On talking with Buddhist monks and
laymen in Burma and Ceylon I was surprised to find that
the Four Noble Truths and the conception of desire as always
evil and the source of all our woe, though of course familiar,
occupied no such central position in modern Buddhism as
they hold in Western books about Buddhism. It was only
after my return from this first visit to Buddhist lands that
I turned seriously to the ancient sources. Here once more,
particularly in the Majjhima Nikaya, I had somewhat the
same experience as in talking with my Burmese and Ceylon-
ese acquaintances. The Four Noble Truths do indeed hold
a prominent position in the Nikayas, and it would not be
difficult even to show by chapter and verse that they form
the one basal doctrine of the system. But one could prove
the same thing, again by chapter and verse, of several other
1
G
¹E.g., "He preached what is the principal doctrine of the Buddhas, namely suffering,
the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, the path," Vinaya, Mahavagga I. 6,
II. 4.
"It is just sorrow and the ceasing of sorrow that I proclaim," Samyutta XXII.
86. See also Udana V. 3.
17
18
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Buddhist principles. And if one takes the teachings of the
Buddha as a whole and in the large, noting the actual em-
phasis of the Nikayas, it becomes very difficult to give the
Four Noble Truths the all-dominating position that our
Western convention assigns them. The Buddha indeed rec-
ognizes sorrow in the world, but he also recognizes joy. And
there is certainly no such emphasis in his teaching upon
pessimism as we in the West commonly suppose. The expla-
nation of our interpretation is, I believe, in part due to the
historical accident that interest in Buddhism was introduced
into Europe largely through the influence of Schopenhauer,
who naturally emphasized those concepts in the Eastern re-
ligion most in accord with his own philosophy.³ Another
reason for the emphasis upon sorrow and desire is perhaps to
be found in the fact that the first of the canonical books to
be translated (in 1855, by Fausböll) was the Dhammapada.
This beautiful anthology of Buddhist sayings, selected and
arranged some time after the Master's death, gives much
more decided emphasis to sorrow and desire and fleeing from
the world than do the Nikayas as a whole. Not only was it
the first book of the Buddhist canon that we of the West
possessed. It is to this day probably the most commonly
read. I expect, too, that Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia,
with its poetic picture of the pathos of this world, has had
its share of influence in forming the common view.*
2
(AAS)
Cf., for example, the notable Seventy-seventh Dialogue of the Majjhima, which
discusses the question in what respects the Tathagata is superior to other teachers. His
superiority, we are told, consists in the following points: his virtue, his truthfulness,
his wisdom, his teaching of the way to avoid sorrow, his emphasis upon constant self-
control, effort of the will, insight, the "Eight Deliverances," the raptures, supernatural
knowledge, conquest of illusion. In this list the Four Noble Truths play a part but a
very subordinate part, and the concept of desire as the cause of all evil is not men-
tioned. In the "Book of the Great Decease" (Digha, No. 16) an account is given of
the Buddha's last address to his disciples. At the close of it he is presented as giving
a list of his most important teachings. The list is as follows: "The four earnest medita-
tions, the fourfold great struggle against evil (to prevent and put away evil, to pro-
duce and increase goodness), the four roads to saintship, the five moral powers, the five
organs of spiritual sense, the seven kinds of wisdom and the Aryan Eight-fold Path."
It is noticeable that in this list only the last of the Four Noble Truths is mentioned.
Nothing is said of the universality of sorrow nor of desire as its cause.
3
* The influence of Schopenhauer upon several German Buddhist scholars is particu-
larly notable: e.g., Dahlke, whose Buddhist Essays was published in the seventies (Eng.
trans., Hodder and Stoughton, 1875), and Grimm, whose Doctrine of the Buddha ap-
peared in 1926.
4
* Further confirmation of the view that the West has exaggerated the importance of
the Four Noble Truths is to be found in the fact that in Asoka's elaborate expositions
of Buddhist morality (as found in his inscriptions) they are not mentioned.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER 19
I would not be understood as denying to the Four Noble
Truths, especially to the evil of desire, a very important place
in the Buddha's teaching, as found in the Nikayas. I am
merely urging that we are hardly justified in setting them
down as constituting the one central principle of Buddhism
from which all else flows. Almost or quite equal emphasis is
given in the Nikayas to ignorance, to energy of will, to the
law of causation, to Yoga training, to the psychological
analysis of man. The Buddha's moral teaching, as I view
it, is thus more inclusive, more human, more persuasive, than
is commonly thought, and consequently less striking and less.
original.
If we are to find a fundamental principle in the Buddha's
ethical system, we must discover something more directly
related to all his moral teachings than are the Four Noble
Truths, and something also more truly basal than they.
This principle is not difficult to discover. If we examine
his directions for the moral life, his praise of the virtues and
his denunciations of vice, we shall find that in every case in
which he justifies his position (and to do so is a common prac-
tice with him) his argument is by appeal to reason and to
recognized human values. There are good things in life and
bad things; this is taken for granted. And moral conduct
is based upon wise discrimination of values, separating true
goods from spurious ones, and consists in an earnest cultiva-
tion of those tendencies and acts which produce or preserve
the true values of life, and destroy life's evils. This principle
cuts deeper than the Four Noble Truths. They may be justi-
fied by it and are derivable from it; but the reverse would
be impossible.
C
This rationalistic view of morality at once determines
the Buddha's position toward mere conventions or approved
tradition, and thus sets his ethic at variance with that of
Confucius. It also makes impossible any such conception of
sin as the Hebrew or Christian. Sin is not for the Buddhist,
as it is for the Jew and the Christian, "a transgression of or
want of conformity to the Law of God." For the Buddha
there is no God in the Jewish or Christian sense; and even if
there were, the dominant position of the inner or subjective
view in his thought would have prevented his attributing
20
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
any ethical importance to the objective transgression of a
God's decree. The Buddha would have accepted-in a sense
he almost anticipated-Kant's doctrine of the Autonomy
of the Will. Kant's formalism, however, would have made
no appeal to the Buddha; the actual and foreseeable conse-
quences of acts were to him of primary importance. Sin in
his opinion is essentially irrational conduct, conduct that
tends to destroy more values than it creates, either for the
actor or for other sentient beings whom it affects. An act is
characterized by its probable consequences. A good act is
one that may be counted on to produce good results, in this
life or the next, to the actor or to others. His system may be
classed as a form of altruistic hedonism in which the higher
spiritual pleasures are rated much more important than those
of the body. Pleasure of the senses, according to the Buddha,
is seldom really desirable, in the long run; those who seek
and find it discover that it does not permanently satisfy.
Nor is desire as a psychological state truly desirable. Peace,
freedom, equanimity-these are the things that are worth
while, both for the actor and for all. It is in the inner life,
insists the Buddha, that the true goods and ills are to be
found. His rationalistic ethics must be interpreted in the
light of his constant emphasis upon inwardness.
5
(G
An ethical point of view based upon rationality and
value will naturally have both a negative and a positive as-
pect. The negative side of such a doctrine would, of course,
deal with negative values and point out whence they came
and how they may be avoided. This in effect is what the
Buddha presents in his famous doctrine of the Four Noble
Truths.
The first and most famous formulation of the Four Noble
Truths is that found in the Tathagata's first sermon, deliv-
ered in the Deer Park near Benares (now Sarnath) to the five
ascetics who had been his companions, had become his scorn-
ful critics, and were now destined to be his first disciples. As
given in Rhys Davids and Oldenberg's translation of the
Vinaya it runs thus:
* Illustrations of the Buddha's insistence that all moral matters are questions of value
will be found in the following passages: Rhys Davids' trans. of the Digha III. 175-76;
Neumann's Ger. trans. of the Majjhima II. 622-23, 625, III. Nos. 114, 129, 135;
Vinaya Mahavagga I. 22, 5.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER 21
This, O Bhikkhus," is the Noble Truth of Suffering: Birth is suffering;
decay is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering. Presence of
objects we hate, is suffering; separation from objects we love, is suffer-
ing; not to obtain what we desire, is suffering. Briefly, the fivefold
clinging to existence is suffering.
This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering:
Thirst, that leads to re-birth, accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding
its delight here and there. [This thirst is threefold] namely, thirst for
pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity.
This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering:
[it ceases with] the complete cessation of this thirst,—a cessation which
consists in the absence of every passion,-with the abandoning of this
thirst, with the doing away with it, with the deliverance from it, with
the destruction of desire.
This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truth of the Path which leads to
the cessation of suffering: that holy eightfold Path, that is to say, Right
Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Means
of Livelihood, Right Endeavor, Right Mindfulness, Right Meditation."
8
It will add to our understanding of the Buddha's position
if we read this careful presentation of the Four Noble Truths
carefully and consider it to have been intended as we find it.
If we read merely what is said and add nothing of our own
we shall get from the First Noble Truth a list of sorrowful
things which all will acknowledge to be such and which we
should, doubtless, all like to get rid of. Certainly the Buddha
does not here assert that everything is sorrow, nor can any
such conclusion be deduced from these words. The pessi-
mistic picture of the world commonly associated in the
West & with the First Noble Truth is not to be derived from
this presentation of the matter. And the presentation here
given is typical not only of the Vinaya but of all the careful
expositions of the First Noble Truth found in the Digha,
Majjhima, and Anguttara Nikayas. In many passages, more-
over, in which the Four Noble Truths are presented, espe-
cially in the Anguttara," the First Truth reads: "This is sor-
row." In Digha XXII. 17 the First Truth is expressed thus:
"Herein a brother at the thought "This is ill!' is aware of it
as it really is." This way of putting the matter rather plainly
shows that the intention is to emphasize discrimination be-
0
Monks or hermits who get their food by begging.
7 Sacred Books of the East, Am. Ed., IV. 95-96.
8
Cf., for example, Dahlke's and Grimm's treatment of the subject.
0
See Eng. trans. I. 145, 189, 265, II. 229, 238.
wh
22
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
tween good and bad. It is ability to recognize evil things
and things that under the surface are full of sorrow and of
sorrowful consequences that is particularly stressed. Atten-
tion should be drawn also to the fact that in several expo-
sitions of the Four Noble Truths illusion is substituted for
sorrow, 10 and in at least one case body is substituted.'
11
-
We are indeed told 12 that all the parts of the body and of
the mind are transient and that all things are without perma-
nent being. Is this assertion surprising or peculiar to Bud-
dhism? Have not our Western philosophy and science and
religion usually taught as much? And is there anything in
this assertion from which it follows that this is a thoroughly
evil world? As we shall see in another connection, the
Buddha recognizes many of the solid (though of course
transient) values of life as real values. There are transitory
forms of happiness which he expressly approves and recom-
mends. In fact the whole sting of transiency is to be found
in the very fact that these passing things are good. That is
why it is sad to lose them.
It will, I think, be difficult to find in the Vinaya, the
Digha, Majjhima, or Anguttara any solid justification for
the view that this is wholly a bad world. It is a sad world,
of course, for the beautiful is certainly fleeting, and we
should, therefore, not set our hearts upon it, but lay up our
treasure where moth and rust do not corrupt. Buddhism
realizes the sadness and uncertainty of this world quite as
much as Christianity; probably it is even more emphatic in
pointing out these characteristics. But if we confine our-
selves to the four great scriptures named above we cannot
justly class it with such a philosophy as Schopenhauer's or
describe it as thoroughly pessimistic.13 The Nikayas have
little that could be called Weltschmerz, little of that gentle
C
A
G
10 See Neumann's Majjhima II. 458, III. 26, 160, 338.
11 Mrs. Rhys Davids' Samyutta III. 133.
1.2
E.g., Neumann's Majjhima I. 530; Gooneratne's Anguttara, p. 300.
13
When we turn to the Samyutta Nikaya we find a somewhat different situation.
The other Nikayas point out that all worldly things are transitory; the Samyutta goes
on and asserts, "Whatever is transient is full of sorrow." (Cf. Geiger's version II. 78,
173; and Mrs. Rhys Davids' version II. 165, III. 21, 39, 43, 59, 80). One passage in
the Samyutta adds that consciousness is suffering. (III. 23. See also p. 19.) The tone
of the Samyutta is on this matter (and we shall see it is on other matters also) very
like that of the later canonical books, the Psalms of the Brethren and the Sisters, the
Dhammapoda and the Sutta Nipata.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
23
melancholy one finds in Japanese Buddhist poetry. They are
hardly more melancholy than the Gospels.
I hasten to add that it is of course true that the Indian
belief in transmigration, which the Buddha accepted and
taught, adds greatly to the impression which the sorrowful
side of life presents.14 Behind each of us stretches an infinity
of lives, each of which repeats the sad old round of birth, old
age, death; birth, old age, death, till the thought grows un-
bearable and one longs for release from the sorrowful, weary
wheel.
Less are the waters of the oceans four
Than all the waste of waters shed in tears
By heart of man who mourneth touched by Ill.15
The Truth of Sorrow is certainly not the supremely im-
portant thing in Buddhism that it is sometimes pictured.
But it is as certainly one of the important things; and a com-
prehension of the Buddha's position and of his ideal is not
possible without grasping it. One must realize the real sad-
ness of this world if one is to be filled with zeal for the end-
ing of it.
14 Cf. Geiger's version of the Samyutta, pp. 234-51.
15
From Mrs. Rhys Davids' version of the Psalms of the Sisters, pp. 71, 173.
also Samyutta XV. 3, XXII. 99.
Ch
To end sorrow one must know its cause. That the causal
law is universal is one of the things most stressed by the
Buddha and one which his disciples, at any rate, considered
original with him. The Buddha gave years to the search of
this cause. He is depicted as having found it on the night
under the Bo Tree, but this was of course merely the consum-
mation of long pondering. This persistent attempt to de-
stroy sorrow for the world by discovering its cause is a
marked illustration of what, in the preceding chapter, I
called his rationalistic, objective, scientific attitude. The
First Noble Truth in a sense sets his problem, provides him
with the symptoms of the disease. He now goes at his task
like a physician. He throws myth and cult and faith to the
winds and asks himself: Sorrow being present, what is always
present with it, what is absent when sorrow is absent? The
cause of sorrow is plainly not any lack of things, and sorrow
-
Cf.
24
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
can never be rooted up by the production of pleasure. To
do that is but to heap fresh fuel on the fire. We must go
deeper for the cause. And so he comes to his solution which
is expressed in the Second Noble Truth, which, it will be
recalled, reads thus: "This is the Noble Truth of the Cause
of Suffering: Thirst that leads to rebirth, accompanied by
pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there. This
thirst is three-fold, namely, thirst for pleasure, thirst for
existence, thirst for prosperity."
The word that Rhys Davids here translates thirst is more
commonly rendered desire, though thirst or craving prob-
ably gives the truer connotation. We are sad because we
long for things and are therefore the slaves of things. And
desire is essentially insatiable. The natural man, like Car-
lyle's bootblack, would still be miserable if you gave him half
the planet; even if he had the whole planet, in fact, he would,
like Alexander, sigh for more worlds to conquer. It is desire
that leads us to give pledges to Fortune, and so to put our-
selves at Fortune's mercy. No assured happiness is possible
until we have freed ourselves from such serfdom to Chance.
G
WOOD
It is possible but not easy to overemphasize the impor-
tance in Buddhist thought of the Second Noble Truth.
Perhaps no other single thing, with the one exception of the
evil of illusion or ignorance, is so stressed in the Nikayas.
It is, I have said, possible to exaggerate it; for in a consider-
able number of passages other causes of sorrow are cited.
Hatred is sometimes set down as the cause, and more often
self-centeredness. Most commonly of all, illusion or igno-
rance is given as even more fundamental than desire, for
desire comes from it.16 This is particularly noticeable in
the famous causal chain, or "Twelve Nidanas," which figures
so prominently in the Buddha's teaching. In this account of
the origin and development of human ill, desire is merely one
of the links (the eighth) in the chain, while the first link,
or better perhaps the hook from which it all hangs, is igno-
rance. In this sense ignorance is more fundamental than
desire, and it receives correspondingly larger emphasis
Cf. Neumann's Majjhima III. 622-24; Geiger's Samyutta, pp. 35, 60, 87, 90, 101,
114, 116-17; Mrs. Rhys Davids' Samyutta II. 175, III. 17, 114; Gooneratne's Anguttara
I. 223; Seidenstücker's Udana, p. 34; Psalms of the Brethren, No. 250.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
25
throughout the Nikayas. Yet if one ask what is meant by
ignorance, the answer must be that it is, in part, ignorance
of the Four Noble Truths, of which the central one is doubt-
less the Truth that sorrow is the result of desire.
That sorrow springs from desire was a real discovery and
a piece of genuine insight. How far it was original with
the Buddha I cannot say. That it was not entirely so is plain
from the references to desire in the Upanishads.17 Yet it
was probably the Buddha who first realized the universality
of its application and who first expressed it in explicit form.
It is an insight that goes very deep into the general theory
of value, and I expect few thinkers would deny its profound
truth. To strike at desire is to strike at the very root of
sorrow. No wonder that this truth colored a large part of
the teachings of primitive Buddhism.
The amplification and application of this insight fill
many of the discourses of the Buddha. Desire is "empty,
false, and vain." 18 It is unsatisfying, full of pain, and essen-
tially insatiable.19 It is like flaming straw which a man
holds before him and which burns him up.'
20 One who
yields to it is like a thirsty man who drinks from a beautiful
cup a sparkling liquor which in reality is deadly poison.21
Desire is the cause of envy and selfishness,22 of contention,
lamentation, arrogance, and slander; 23 it stands in the way
of knowledge, insight, and true wakefulness.24 It is the
strongest of fetters.25 Only by its total destruction can
spiritual freedom be won.2
26
Does this mean that all desire is evil? A positive answer
is sometimes given to this question: rarely by Buddhist
monks, not uncommonly by Western writers on Buddhism.
It would not be difficult to produce some evidence from the
Nikayas for this interpretation. Yet I am entirely convinced
that such a conclusion would be mistaken. If we take the
Founder's teaching and life as a whole we shall find a balance
of evidence for a less extreme position. I think it is obvious
that the meaning which the Buddha himself put into his
17 Cf. the Brihadaranyaka IV. 4, 6, 7.
18 Neumann's Majjhima III. 84.
19 Ibid., I. 207, II. S14ff.
20 Ibid., II. 54.
21 Geiger's Samyutta II. 152-53.
22
Rhys Davids' Digha II. 310-11.
23 Fausböll's Sutta Nipatta, pp. 164-65.
21
Neumann’s Majjhima I. 563.
26
Dhammapada XXIV.
20
Rhys Davids' Digha II. 316.
26
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
words and the sense in which he wished them to be taken
should be interpreted in the light of his own conduct. When
a man pursues one steady and consistent course, without
deviation, during a period of forty-five busy years, that
course and that aim are surely most relevant commentaries
upon the meaning of his words. It is perfectly plain that
the Buddha desired a number of things-perhaps not in such
a way that his inner peace would have been destroyed had he
failed in their achievement,27 yet in some very real sense.
He was filled with pity for suffering humanity and for even
the beasts and insects; he dedicated his life to the dissemina-
tion of a truth which should free all who accepted it from
endless woe; he labored unceasingly for the upbuilding and
enlargement of the Order, for the education of its members,
and also for the instruction of laymen and of all that came
his way. To say that he labored so persistently for these ends
yet never desired their realization could hardly mean any-
thing else than that one wished to establish some new and
limited definition of the word desire.
As a fact, moreover, if we are to accept the statements of
the Nikayas, the Buddha repeatedly taught his disciples that
there are two kinds of desire, good and bad, and that good
desires were to be inculcated and cultivated. The attain-
ment of the "raptures" 28 is often referred to as something
which one may and should wish for, as is also the acquisition
of supernormal powers and knowledge.29 More worldly
things also are sometimes mentioned as at least not improper
objects of desire, such as a favorable rebirth,30 the good will
of one's fellows and the necessities of the monastic life.81
Occasionally the disciples are encouraged to wish that those
who help them may acquire merit.32 The objects of desire
more commonly mentioned with approval are, naturally,
spiritual gifts,33 the overcoming of lust, ill will and igno-
rance,34 insight into the truth,35 the various virtues, 36 the
S
27
We have at least one instance in which the Buddha's peace seems to have been
temporarily disturbed; this was brought about by dissension in the Order. See Vinaya,
Mahavagga X. 4.
28
E.g., Neumann's Majjhima I. 70, $74-75, 671.
20
E.g., Ibid., pp. 71-75.
30 E.g., Ibid., pp. 244-45.
31
E.g., Ibid., p. 68.
32 E.g., Ibia., p. 69.
33 E.g., Ibid., II. 624.
34 E.g., Ibid., I. 71.
35
36 E.g., Ibid., II. 27.
30 E.g., Iti-vuttaka § 22.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
27
destruction of evil desires,37 and (most common of all) com-
plete liberation or Nibbana.38 I recall but one passage in
which it is said that one must give up even "the desire for
the holy life"; 39 and shortly after this the Buddha is made
to assert, "With the aid of craving does one eliminate
craving." 40
The same rational and by no means ascetic or merely neg-
ative position on the part of the Buddha comes out plainly
from a study of various passages in the Nikayas which deal
with happiness. Repeatedly is the explicit statement made
that there are good as well as evil forms of happiness. In
one passage the Buddha recounts his own experience, how
after trying in vain the extremes of the ascetic method he
recalled the joy of rapture which he had once known. Ques-
tioning whether joy of this or any sort were not a danger
to be feared, he answered himself, "No, I will not fear this
joy!" 41 From that time on the Buddha seems, like Socrates,
to have considered himself the happiest of men.12 The joy
of rapture and the other spiritual delights of the enlightened
are good things which one should seek. They are far re-
moved from evil desire.43 Joy in heavenly things 44 is a unity
**
of the spirit, an inner blameless peace like the calm of the
sea.45 It is indeed so inward and so deep that no change in
the environment can destroy it; 46 yet the monk may well
take delight in the solemn and purifying beauties of nature,
and especially in the dark silence of a solitary forest. The
Psalms of the Early Buddhists, notably those of the Brethren,
are full of poetical expressions of keen delight in these wood-
land solitudes,47 and to the Tathagata is attributed this same
joy of the nature-lover.
"Tis the high hour of noon; the birds rest silently.
Boometh the mighty forest; enchanting that sound to me.18
E.g., Neumann III. 85. Cf. also Psalms of the Brethren, No. 262.
*E.g., Samyutta I. 1, 3; I. 6, 9.
30
Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 58.
Ibid., p. 189.
42
Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 118.
40
43 Neumann II. 813; Digha XXVI. 28.
44
41 Neumann's Majjhima, II. 569.
** Neumann, II. 346-47.
45
Ibid., I. 204: "die innere Meeresstille." See also pp. 623, 656, 700-01.
40 Cf. Sutta Nipata I. 2. Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 51-54, 192.
C
47 Mrs. Rhys Davids' Psalms of the Brethren, pp. xxxvii-xxxix, and Nos. 18, 19, 119,
167, 186-7, 246-47, 249-50, 252, 267, 363-64, 379, 386. See also Dhammapada VII.
48 Mrs. Rhys Davids' Samyutta I. 11.
28
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The principle on which the good and the evil forms of
happiness are to be distinguished is explicitly stated. It is
the principle of utilitarianism.
Happiness [said the Buddha], I declare to be twofold, according ast
it is to be followed after or avoided. And the distinction I have affirmed
in happiness is drawn on these grounds: When in following after happi-
ness I have perceived that bad qualities developed and good qualities were
diminished, then that kind of happiness is to be avoided. And when
following after happiness I have perceived that bad qualities were dimin-
ished and good qualities developed, then such happiness is to be followed.¹
+
49
It is plain, then, that there are both bad pleasures and
good, both evil desires and good desires. A careful reading
of many of the passages in which the evil of desire is most
emphasized seems to indicate that it was chiefly (though not
exclusively) those of a sensuous nature that the Buddha dis-
approved.50 This, however, is not always the case; and in
fact it would not be difficult to cite passages in which the
Buddha denounces as evil a desire for some of the things
mentioned in the preceding paragraph as truly desirable. To
live a good life in order thereby to go to heaven is, he tells us,
really impossible; 51 for the desire for heavenly delights
vitiates the efforts at virtue. Possibly some of the seemingly
contradictory statements in the Nikayas are due to an actual
uncertainty in the Buddha's thought, or to failure on the part
of his reporters to grasp and hand on his true meaning; but
much of the apparent contradiction can be explained in other
and quite natural ways. We must distinguish, for one thing,
between the life of the layman and the life of the monk.
Normal human pleasures will not defeat your purposes if all
you want is happiness and a good rebirth. If, however, you
are aiming (as a monk should) at Nirvana, the matter may
be different. Furthermore, the Buddha seems to have dis-
tinguished between desires not chiefly by their content or
objects, but by the form and nature of the desires themselves
as psychical states. This is quite characteristic of him and
falls in with the whole trend of Buddhism to emphasize in-
49
Digha XXI. 3. See also XXIX. 23, 24. A much more elaborate but less philo-
sophical dichotomy of happiness is given in Anguttara II. 7.
GO
Cf. Rhys Davids' Digha II. 340-44; Neumann's Majjhima I. 240, 406, 516, III.
69. Geiger's Samyutta II. 151.
“Neumann’s Majjhima I. 244-45.
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
29
wardness. That this is the basis of his distinction, a fact plain
enough from a careful reading of the English and German
translations of the Nikayas, comes out more strikingly, ac-
cording to Mrs. Rhys Davids, in the Pali original. In some
of our translations, she tells us, "the word desire is made to
do duty for no less than seventeen Pali words.” 52 In its
choice of terms the Pali canon distinguishes between desire
in its merely psychological sense and the kind of desire that
deserves moral disapproval. If moral value is intended special
words or special qualifications are used.53
54
But while it is true that the Buddha did not condemn all
desire as such, and whatever his principal distinction between
good desires and bad may have been, certain it is that he
placed on the evil side of the line many desires which most
other ethical teachers have considered either entirely proper
or even praiseworthy. In a typical passage of the Digha 5*
we are told craving takes its rise from material things that are
pleasant and dear to us, and not only from sensations and
feelings related to them but from intentions concerned with
sensuous objects and deliberations about them. Craving, or
the evil kind of desire, is not justified or transformed by the
goodness of the object longed for. Attachments to any
ephemeral object of affection lays one open to the slings
and arrows of outrageous Fortune and therefore, seemingly,
should be avoided. In the Eighty-seventh Dialogue of the
Majjhima, a discussion is described concerning the Tathaga-
ta's assertion that attachment to parents, wife and children
brings sorrow. Some of his hearers insist that instead of
sorrow these human ties bring joy. The Buddha does not
deny that they bring joy, but shows by many examples of
the loss of dear ones the conditions of dependence upon
chance and of constant liability to overwhelming grief which
is the lot of everyone who has not broken the ties of per-
sonal affection. He does not say such affections are wicked;
he states the fact that they are pledges to Fortune, and that
he who breaks the ties and exchanges family life for that of
52 "On the Will in Buddhism," J. R. A. S., 1898, p. 54.
59 "Want or wish becomes craving or thirst; for desire we get lust, lusts of the flesh,
sensual delight, etc." Op. cit., p. 49.
64. XXII. 19.
30
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the monk has an assured peace which the "householder" can
never possess.
A similar situation is reported in the Udana VIII. 8. A
woman who has just lost a very dear grandchild comes to the
Buddha for comfort. He asks her would she like to have
as many children and grandchildren as there are people in
the city of Savatthi. On her reply in the affirmative, he
points out that if it were so, she would probably lose several
every day, so all her life would be filled with grief. "Those
who have a hundred dear ones have a hundred woes; those
who have ninety dear ones have ninety woes . . . those who
have one dear one have one woe; those who hold nothing dear
have no woe.” 55
In the Samyutta (which, it will be recalled, is probably
later than the Digha and the Majjhima) the sorrow that
arises from all worldly attachments comes more often to the
fore and is made more central to the moral life. "The well-
taught disciple asks himself: 'Is there, I wonder, aught in
all the world which I can cling to without sin?' Then he
knows for certain: 'No! There is naught in all the world
that I can cling to without sin.' " 56 An interesting instance
of the struggle that must have been felt in the heart of many
an ancient disciple between this rather austere doctrine and
the natural outpourings of human affection in the finest of
personal relations is given in the twenty-first chapter of the
Samyutta, in which the greatest of the Buddha's disciples,
Sariputta, is faced with it.
(
The venerable Sariputta said this: "As I was meditating in seclusion
there arose this consideration: Is there now anything in the whole world
wherein a change would give rise in me to grief, lamenting, despair?
And methought, No, there is no such thing." Then the venerable Ananda
said to the venerable Sariputta: "But the Master-would not the loss of
him give rise in you to grief, lamenting, despair?" "Not even the loss
of him, Friend Ananda. Nevertheless, I should feel thus: O may not
the mighty one, O may not the Master so gifted, so wonderful, be taken
from us!"
65 Similar instances of the Buddha's rationalistic type of comfort to the bereaved
will be found in the Psalms of the Sisters, Nos. 33, 47, 50, 63.
LO XXII. 80. See also I. 2, 9, XXII. 3. A similar view is presented in the Psalms
of the Sisters, Nos. 28, 68.
57
I have used Mrs. Rhys Davids' translation. Cf. also the laments of Ananda and
Moggallana over the death of Sariputta, Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 260, 263. Note
من
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER 31
What has been said of the danger of attachments should
not be taken to mean that friendship is taboo. The Buddha
was on terms of warm friendship with many of his disciples
and with some of his lay followers. A good friend is com-
mended as a great treasure.58 Leading members of the Order
lived together on terms of mutual regard and service.59
When the venerable Udayi reproved the venerable Ananda
(the "beloved disciple") for expressing delight at the glory
of his Master, the Tathagata defended Ananda, saying that
his gladness of heart would redound greatly to his heavenly
reward. It seems to have been the general opinion, how-
ever, that Ananda's tardiness in attaining Arahantship (or
complete liberation) was largely due to the personal and
emotional nature of his attachment to his Master. And while
friendship of a calm and mutually helpful sort was com-
mended, it is plain that the ideal monk must be on his guard
lest he make his inner peace dependent on his friend.
60
In the later parts of the canon-notably in the Sutta
Nipata,61 the Dhammapada,62 and the Theragatha, or Psalms
of the Early Buddhists, fear of human attachments and the
exhortation to break all the ties is carried much further than
in the Nikayas, both in extreme form of statement and in
the emphasis of repetition-from which I think we are justi-
fied in supposing that the Founder himself laid less stress
upon it than did his followers who developed his thought.
None the less he himself plainly spoke in some such wise at
times, and there is no gainsaying the fact that the fear of all
human ties was a logical consequence of the Second Noble
Truth.
The similarity between the Buddha's attitude toward de-
sire and that of the Stoics has often been pointed out; and
the distinction he draws betwen good and evil desires seems
related to their distinction of those things that are in our
also the contrast in the attitude of the different monks when the death of the Buddha
was announced. Those "not yet free from their passions stretched out their arms and
wept: some rocked to and fro in anguish; but those free from passion bore their grief
collected and composed." Cullavagga XI. 1.
68 Digha XXXI. 21, 5.
09
Cf. Majjhima XXXI. Vinaya Mahavagga X. 4.
00 Anguttara III. 80, 5.
01
Cf. Fausböll's version, pp. 3, 6ff, 77, 90, 154-55, 165.
02
Cf. Müller's version, p. 57: "Let no man love anything; loss of the beloved is evil.
Those who love nothing and hate nothing have no fetters."
32
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
power and those that are not in our power.63 With Saint
Paul the Buddha at times urges his disciples to covet earnestly
the best gifts: and these it will be noted are chiefly or entirely
conditions of the inner life the achievement and preserva-
tion of which lies entirely with us, and which, as Spinoza
would say, beget in us a "love toward that which is immu-
table and eternal and which we really have within our
power.64
(
The Buddha's ethic might, then, well be called Stoic, but
the principle underlying and justifying his Stoicism, to which
he makes appeal when argument is needed, is his fundamental
utilitarianism or (altruistic) hedonism. On the general
principle involved the Buddha would find a large amount of
agreement, in the West as well as in the East. It is not good
to desire things that in the long run will bring more pain than
pleasure to all concerned, nor is it good to desire at all if the
very psychological state of desiring will bring a balance of
disappointment, sorrow, and defeat. Not here is the line to
be drawn between the Buddhist point of view and, let us say,
the Christian, or the Western in general. The difference
between the two points of view lies in their contrasted
evaluations of good and evil things, which in its turn seems
based upon a rather fundamental difference in temperament.
Like Epicurus and his followers, the Buddha is suspicious of
the more violent pleasures. The calm, impersonal satisfac-
tions of intelligence and virtue, since they are the "purest"
63 Cf. Epictetus, Encheiridion, Chap. V.
01 The whole passage from Spinoza is worth quoting, so Buddhistic is it in tone:
"One should note that griefs and misfortunes have their chief source in an excessive
love of that which is subject to many variations, and of which we can never have con-
trol. No one is solicitous or anxious about anything unless he love it; nor do injustices,
suspicions, enmities, etc., arise, except from the love of things of which no one can
really have control. Thus we easily conceive what power clear and distinct knowledge,
and especially that third kind of knowledge, the foundation of which is the knowledge
of God and nothing else, has over the emotions; if it does not, in so far as they are
passions, absolutely remove them, at all events it brings it about that they constitute
the least part of the mind. Furthermore, it begets love toward that which is immutable
and eternal, and which we really have within our power; a love which, consequently, is
not stained with any of the defects inherent in common love, but can always become
greater and greater and take possession of the greatest part of the mind, and affect it
everywhere" (Ethics, V, 20). Cf. also the following from the Imitation of Christ:
"If thou seek this or that, and wouldst be in such or such a place, the better to enjoy
thine own profit and pleasure, thou shalt never be at quiet or free from anxiety: for in
every instance something will be found wanting. Man's welfare, then, lieth not in
obtaining or multiplying any external thing, but rather in despising it and utterly
rooting it out from the heart" (Chap. XXVII).
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
33
(i.e., the least mingled with pain) are the best. So great are
the dangers of strong desire which result from intense plea-
sure that the wise man, according to both the Buddha and
Epicurus, will often express his goal in negative terms-"the
freedom of the body from pain and of the soul from con-
fusion." 65 To all pleasures and pains of a sensuous sort and
of a personal sort, the good Buddhist should feel complete
indifference. For the Buddhist the choice of what seems to
us negative values is often a choice of a positive good.
"Whatsoever may be the delights of sense in this world or
even in heaven, these are not worth the sixteenth part of the
delight that lies in the disappearance of thirst."66 Nor is
Buddhism any more afraid of bodily pain than the West, and
it is surely even less afraid of bodily discomfort than we. But
turmoil of mind, inner disturbance, disappointment, the
weariness of weakness and of old age, the grief that comes
from the loss of dear ones and the defeat of ambition: these
to it seem very dreadful indeed, so dreadful, in fact, as far
to outweigh the joy that comes from health, successful effort,
and human love. Buddhism at times seems to us almost
pathologically afraid of sorrow. It is perhaps no more pessi-
mistic than is Christianity; but sorrow seems to the Buddhist
a more dreadful thing than it does to the Christian or to
Westerners in general. The typical Westerner is willing to
take the risk that the desired object will bring more joy than
its loss will bring pain, or he is sanguine enough to hope that
in his own time the desired object may not be lost. From
such a risk Buddhism shrinks back. Better be on the safe
side, it counsels; better give no pledges to Fortune; better
take no chance of the loss of inner peace, even if your se-
curity be purchased by the sacrifice of all the uncertain and
ephemeral joys. Buddhism seems femininely sensitive to
sorrow, while the West seems relatively masculine, thick-
skinned, imprudent, and willing to take a chance. Buddhism
takes the attitude of wise and somewhat timid old age: the
West (except when really old) takes that of inexperienced
and possibly rash youth. A philosophical friend of mine well
past middle life recently made the remark: "I am making no
new friends now; I do not dare to." The attitude thus ex-
65 Epicurus, as expounded by Diogenes Laertius.
06 Udana II. 2.
W
34
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
pressed is not uncommon with many of us Westerners as we
grow older. It is typically Buddhist in its fear of possible
sorrow.
-
The Second Noble Truth is the central element in the
negative side of Buddhism, and I have therefore dwelt upon
it at length. The Third Noble Truth need not detain us
long. It is the "Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering"
-the truth that by killing out evil desire we may become
free from sorrow. This in a sense merely makes more ex-
plicit the Second Truth; yet it is not merely that. For it
involves the fundamental confidence and insistence of the
Founder that not only are we slaves to sorrow when slaves to
desire, but that something may be done about it. We may
break our bonds and end our slavery when we will, for our
acts are neither determined for us by Fate nor devoid of real
consequences, but free and efficacious. The Fourth Truth,
which consists of the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the
cessation of suffering is, in effect, a course of habit training
and character training through which the peace of perfect
freedom may be obtained, and with which we shall deal
later on.
The Four Noble Truths are concerned chiefly with the
cessation and avoidance of suffering, and thus represent, as I
have pointed out, the negative side of the Buddha's utili-
tarianism. Because of the exceptionally intense fear of sor-
row which characterizes Buddhism, and because of its ex-
treme prudence and unwillingness to take risks, the negative
side of the moral life inevitably receives greater stress than
it does in more virile systems, such as Zoroastrianism and
Christianity. A large part of the moral exhortations of the
Nikayas are taken up with warnings not to kill, not to steal,
not to desire, not to be unkind, not to make trouble, etc. It
would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the Buddha
confined his teaching to negations or failed to see that posi-
tive good must be cultivated if positive evil were really to be
avoided. He was too wise a psychologist to be ignorant that
human nature as well as inorganic nature "abhors a vacuum.
If the seeker after release merely realizes that the desires
bring no satisfaction, he cannot free himself from them; but
when he adds to this knowledge the realization of a Better
MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE FOUNDER
35
outside of the desires, then he is their slave no longer."
67 In
the Seventh Dialogue of the Majjhima a long list of vices is
given, covering many pages, and in each case the method of
overcoming the vice, which is through the cultivation of the
corresponding virtue. The moral rule not to kill must, the
Tathagata insists, be interpreted to mean not merely absten-
tion from taking life but also positive sympathy, good will,
and love for everything that breathes; 68 and the same prin-
ciple is to be applied to the other seemingly negative com-
mands. One of the Buddha's lay followers once reported to
him the teaching of a non-Buddhist ascetic, to the effect that
the highest ideal consisted in the absence of evil deeds, evil
words, evil thoughts, and evil life. The Buddha's comment
upon this is significant. If, said he, this were true, then every
sucking child would have attained the ideal of life. Much
more than this negative condition of mere innocence is need-
ful. The first requisite of the virtuous life is knowledge of
good and evil; and after that the exchange of evil deeds,
words, thoughts, and life, for good ones. This is to be
brought about only by a long and determined effort of the
will. In the Anguttara Nikaya the Buddha is quoted as
distinguishing between a good man and a very good man by
saying that one who abstains from killing, stealing, unchas-
tity, lying, and drunkenness may be called good; but only
he deserves to be called very good who abstains from these
evil things himself and also instigates others to do the like.70
The Buddhist ethic, then, is not merely negative. And
while its emphasis is more decidedly upon the negative aspects
of morality than is that of Christianity, it is a misrepresenta-
tion to depict it (as Western books not infrequently do) as
primarily and chiefly negative. Its positive and constructive
teachings are really more fundamental than are its negations
and prohibitions. To these more interesting themes we shall
turn in the following chapter.
69
07 Neumann’s Majjhima I. 208.
08 Ibid., I. 668.
00 Ibid., II. 432-36.
70 Jayasundere's version, II. 279-80.
++
S
CHAPTER III
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC
THE two cardinal virtues of Buddhism are wisdom and
love. The moral life begins with knowledge and ends in
wisdom. The Buddha came to save the world, and his
method for the accomplishment of this end is the destruction
of ignorance and the dissemination of knowledge as to the
true values of life and the wise way to live. The Buddha,
indeed, cannot save us: we must do that for ourselves. But
the way to save ourselves is, in large part, through the attain-
ment and application of his knowledge or insight. Insight,
to be sure, is not the whole of the Buddhist method of salva-
tion, but it is the alpha and omega of it. The central part of
the method is training and love, but the first step is knowl-
edge of true values and of the causes of evil, while the last
stage is a deep and almost mystical apprehension of the high-
est potentialities of the mind. Ignorance, as I have pointed
out in another connection, is held up as the source of evil
perhaps even more commonly than desire. A passage in the
Anguttara says, "Lust [or desire] is slightly sinful and its
removal is slow; hatred is highly sinful and its removal is
rapid; ignorance is highly sinful and its removal is slow." 1
Ignorance is the first of the twelve "Nidanas" or links in the
Causal Chain, which end in old age, sickness, and death. It
is the source not only of sorrow here and now, but of the
perpetual repetition of birth which keeps us endlessly upon
the weary round of passionate and painful life. In fact,
passion itself is but a form of ignorance 2-a doctrine which
recalls forcibly the position of Spinoza in Part IV of the
Ethics.
It is particularly ignorance of the true nature of self, or
rather the delusion that one's self is to be identified with one's
1 Gooneratne, I. 223.
2
See Sutta Nipata, Mahavagga 12, vss. 4, 5.
36
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 37
body, one's consciousness, or one's phenomenal personality
in general that works most of our woe.3 The Buddha's
treatment of the self in its theoretical aspect will concern us
in a later connection; here it is necessary simply to point out
that ignorance about the self leads to self-centeredness, and
self-centeredness has as much to do in causing sorrow as has
even desire; it seems at times, in fact, to be almost a synonym
for desire. A very large part of human unhappiness is pro-
duced by our constant and unnecessary preoccupation with
the thought of ourselves. The animals who are not yet self-
conscious know nothing of this artificial woe, and the saints
who have transcended separate self-consciousness know noth-
ing of it. The great bulk of our woe, thinks the Buddha,
most of us bring upon ourselves quite needlessly by viewing
everything from its bearing upon our little selves.
ee "Tis
self whereby we suffer." Once rid of this self-centered habit,
we should taste the new joy of spiritual freedom.
ર
The importance of insight into the true nature of the self,
of human weal and woe and their causes, immediate and re-
mote, calls for a large amount of detailed advice concerning
the conduct of life, often in the form of moral directions,
maxims, exhortations, some of them enunciating large and
general principles, some going into the minutie of daily
living. Moral discussions of this sort fill a large part of the
dialogues of the Buddha as reported to us in the Nikayas.
It was on these subjects that he most frequently talked to
laymen and beginners in the Path. "To them he discoursed
in due order," says the Digha, depicting a typical conversa-
tion of the Tathagata; "that is to say, he gave them illus-
trative talk on generosity, on right conduct, on heaven, on
the danger, the vanity and the defilement of lusts, on the
advantages of renunciation." The detail of these moral
exhortations would fill a volume. From the mass of them
certain special virtues and special sins or sources of danger
and evil stand out with particular and repeated emphasis.
Self-control, of course, looms very large-a peculiarly Bud-
dhist virtue, which, in a sense, is the precondition of nearly
-
Diese von Gluten erfüllte, gänzlich in den Berührungen befangene Welt erklärt die
Krankheit für das Ich (Seidenstücker's Udana, p. 33).
Rhys Davids' version, I. 34. See also Vinaya Mahavagga V. 1, 9, VI. 26, 8, VI.
36, 5.
38
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
" 5
all the rest. "If one man conquer in battle a thousand times
a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the
greatest of conquerors. Humility is often praised; the
ideal Buddhist must be "poor in spirit," and pride is one of
the most dangerous of stumbling blocks. Both these virtues
-self-control and humility-are of course notably matters
of the inner life, which thus receives the characteristic stress
of Buddhism. In a lively discussion with a distinguished
Jaina sophist the Buddha is presented as upholding the thesis
that evil thoughts are much worse than evil deeds or evil
words; and in quite Socratic manner he forces his opponent
into admitting the truth of the doctrine. Out of the heart
are the issues of life. But from this inner source rise many
of the splendid virtues of action. There are few qualities
more highly praised by the Buddha than generosity-a pecu-
liarly Buddhist virtue which has characterized the followers
of the Blessed One in every land to which his teaching has
been carried. And generosity does not mean merely giving.
It is, as usual, intended in the inner even more than in the
outer sense. It means the generosity of spirit that under-
stands and forgives. "These two are wicked: he who does
not see and admit the wrong he has committed, and he who
does not forgive when the wrong has been confessed and
forgiveness is implored." Closely related to generosity are
the qualities of mercy, sympathy, fellow-feeling, which lie
so deep in Buddhism that even in the most degenerate Bud-
dhist monasteries of today the scent of this choice rose still
hangs around the broken vase. From generosity and good
will flow naturally good manners: and it is in keeping with
the Founder's heart and head and aristocratic birth that
he should have regarded good manners and the kind of po-
liteness that comes from the good breeding of a noble nature
as a part of morality."
6
Greatest among the vices, dangers, and sources of evil
stand lust, ill will, and ignorance, and the slavery that comes
from too much care for the objects of sense. Indolence, lazi-
ness, and lack of energy in the spiritual struggle also come in
Dhammapada VIII. See also XXIII.
Gooneratne's Anguttara I. 79.
7 Jayasundere's Anguttara II. SS. Cf. also the Patimokkha rules of the Vinaya.
6
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 39
8
for repeated denunciation. The Buddha was careful that
the silent meditation which he taught the strenuous mental
activity of the true "Aryan" or man of noble nature-should
not be confused with the mere dolce far niente which doubt-
less in the case of many a "holy man" goes under some more
pious name. That self-excused laziness was a temptation
even to the greatest members of the Order in their novitiate
days is seen by a story concerning Moggallana the Great-
counted by the Master the second in importance of all his
followers. "After Moggallana had been ordained a week,
torpor and sleepiness assailed him, so that the Master aroused
him with the words: 'Moggallana, idleness is not the same as
Aryan silence.' ” 9
In addition to the Buddha's careful teaching about special
virtues and vices such as those mentioned in the preceding
paragraph, one finds in the Nikayas-notably in the later
ones-elaborate analyses and systematizations of ethical and
psychological matters. How much of this came from the
Founder and how much from his scholastic followers who
faced the difficult task of handing on his teaching through
the centuries without the aid of written records, is a question
no one can answer. A good deal of it, at any rate, probably
originated with the scholastic transmitters. Thus we have
the Five Bonds of the Senses, the Five Factors of Grasping,
the Five Hindrances (desire, malice, torpor, worry, doubt),
the Four Intoxicants (sensuality, becoming, delusion, igno-
rance), the Four Attachments (to sensual pleasure, contin-
ued existence, erroneous views, illusion), and the intermina-
ble and wearisome numerical lists of virtues and vices in the
Anguttara Nikaya and in the last two dialogues of the
Digha.10 But whatever the source of these scholastic analy-
ses, there can be little doubt that the Five Precepts came from
the Founder. These are as follows: Not to kill, not to steal,
not to be unchaste, not to lie, not to drink intoxicants.¹¹
These, as we have seen, were intended by the Tathagata to
be taken in a liberal and positive manner; the first includes
8
Cf. Psalms of the Brethren No. 225.
D
Psalms of the Brethren No. 263.
10
See also Udana V. 5 (7, 8).
11
The first four of these precepts are shared by both Hindu and Jaina monks. For
the fifth Hinduism substitutes a vow of liberality, and Jainism one against covetousness.
40
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sympathy and good will to all, the second generosity, the
fourth precludes slander, back-biting, idle talk, and trouble-
making. Against lying the Buddha is at times particularly
bitter. The liar and the man who speaks ill of the good and
tries to soil a good name is in danger of hell fire.12 "He who
does not shrink from conscious lying is in a condition to do
every evil thing. Therefore, Rahula, resolve: Not once even
in jest will I speak a lie." 13 Thus did the Buddha counsel
his own son.
The central position of the moral values in the Buddha's
view of life, the magnitude and number of the dangers that
constantly threaten one's peace, and the detail of psychologi-
cal analysis set forth in the teaching as an almost indispensa-
ble tool for the achievement and retention of virtue necessi-
tate a constant watchfulness and self-consciousness in him
who is really in earnest in his aim to reach the goal. The
teaching of the Tathagata, and the training which he out-
lines, point out the way; but the way must be trod by one's
own strength. In the last analysis the victory must be won
by sheer force of will. I know not whether Pali Buddhism
has a word which corresponds exactly with our word will,
but the thing is there, described as the fundamental necessity
of moral victory in no uncertain terms. "Those who follow
the Way might well follow the example of an ox that
marches through the deep mire carrying a heavy load. He is
tired, but his steady gaze, looking forward, will never relax
until he come out of the mire, and it is only then he takes a
respite. O monks, remember that passions and sins are more
than the filthy mire, and that you can escape misery only
by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way." 14 Like the
ox one must take no respite, no "moral holiday." Even the
slightest evil tendency may be but the entering of the wedge,
which, unless stopped at once, may end by cleaving and de-
stroying the entire character. "Let no one think lightly of
evil, saying 'It will not come nigh me.' Even by the falling
12 Sutta Nipata, Mahavagga 10.
J
S
E® Majjhima LXI.
14
From the Sutra of the Forty-two Chapters. This in its present form is a late
anthology-one of the first Buddhist books carried by missionary monks into China.
The spirit of it, however, is thoroughly Buddhist. It has been translated into English
by Prof. D. T. Suzuki in the vol. entitled Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot (Chicago,
Open Court, 1906).
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 41
of water drops a water pot is filled. The fool becomes full
of evil even if he gather it little by little." 15
Until complete victory is won, the moral life, to be suc-
cessful, must be a constant struggle. One must be ever on
one's guard, ever fighting off the temptations of evil, night
and day.16 Constant effort,¹ eternal vigilance, is the price
of liberty. Diligence is pointed out as the one quality by
which the monk may acquire and retain well-being both in
this life and in that which is to come.18 In preparation for
the battle with evil one should put on the whole armor of
righteousness.19 The true monk repeatedly "arouses his will"
that new evil shall not arise within him, that so much as has
arisen shall be driven out, that the good already within him
shall grow, and that new forms of goodness shall come into
being.20 Even the most unfavorable of circumstances must
not be allowed to diminish one's persistence or the strength
of one's resolve.21 A sick old man once came to the Buddha
for comfort and advice, complaining of his many physical
ills. The Buddha made no attempt at working a miraculous
cure and held out no deceiving hopes for bodily health.
"True it is," he said, "that your body is weak and encum-
bered. For one carrying this body about to claim but a
moment's health would be sheer foolishness; Wherefore thus
should you train yourself: "Though my body is sick my mind
shall not be sick.' Thus must you train yourself.
>> 22
دو
G
Neither longing for the past nor hoping for the future
will aid one: 23 nothing will aid but determined and unre-
mitting effort in the living present. Every expedient and
every method should be tried till the victory is won, the last
resource being the sheer heft of the will.
When evil and unworthy thoughts arise in the mind, images of lust,
hatred, and infatuation, the monk must win from these thoughts other
Dhammapada IX. 121.
10 Majjhima CLI; Dhammapada II, XXII, XXIII.
17
Samyutta I. 2, 6.
18 Samyutta III. 2, 7.
10
Majjhima LXXXV.
This armor consists of five pieces: confidence, strength,
honesty, courage, wisdom.
20 Neumann's Majjhima II. 410-11, III. 550; Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 19, 124-25,
319-20; Geiger's Samyutta, p. 207.
Majjhima CXXII.
22 Woodward's Samyutta III. 2.
23
Majjhima CXXXI.
42
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and worthy images. When he thus induces other and worthy images in
his mind, the unworthy thoughts, the images of lust, hatred, and in-
fatuation cease; and because he has overcome them his inner heart is
made firm, tranquil, unified, and strong. If in spite of these efforts
unworthy thoughts still arise, with images of lust, hatred, and infatua-
tion, the monk should go over in his mind the misery that comes from
such thoughts and images. . . He should pay no attention to these evil
thoughts and images. If in spite of these efforts evil thoughts and
images still rise in his mind, he should let them go to pieces, one by one.
If this method does not succeed, then with teeth pressed against
each other, with his tongue pressed against his gums, he should by the
exertion of his will overthrow, press down, destroy these evil thoughts.24
. . You may attain the goal of a stainless life if you are strenuous in
your continuous and indefatigable efforts with the firm resolve: "We will
not discontinue our strenuous effort without gaining that spiritual per-
fection which can be secured by manly vigor, manly ability, manly exer-
tion, so long as our skin, nerves and bones remain, even if our flesh and
blood were to dry up.25
This constant watchfulness against every form of temp-
tation or evil, this unremitting preoccupation with one's
spiritual progress, results in a certain self-consciousness,
which robs Buddhist morality of some of the charm it might
otherwise possess. The monk who has not yet attained per-
fect self-mastery'must keep a perpetual watch on each object
of each of the senses and see to it, with clear and explicit
awareness, that it rouses no desire in his mind.26 Rahula, the
Buddha's son, is urged by his father to watch himself con-
stantly as in a mirror: to reflect before each deed, while per-
forming it, and after it is done whether it was spiritually
helpful or harmful to himself and to others; to go through
the same process with each word and each thought. "Thus
by thinking over and over will we purify our deeds, words,
and thoughts. A form of exhortation given more than
once to the monks is the following:
>> 27
How does a brother become self-possessed? He acts in full presence
of mind whatever he may do, in going out or coming in, in looking
forward or in looking around, in bending his arm or stretching it forth,
•
*Neumann’s Majjhima I. 288-92.
Gooneratne's Anguttara I. 70.
For ex-
Cf. also the Samyutta XII. 22, XXI. 3.
amples of the way in which some even of the women followers carried out the strenu-
ous efforts commended, see Psalms of the Sisters, Nos. 40, 45.
Neumann's Majjhima I. 632.
Majjhima LXI.
20
28
27
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 43
in wearing his robes or in carrying his bowl, in eating or drinking, in
masticating or smelling, in obeying the calls of nature, in walking or
standing or sitting, in sleeping or waking, in talking or being silent.28
It can hardly be supposed that the Buddha seriously
meant such preoccupation with one's own moral character to
be carried on through all the waking hours of the day. Much
of what he said on the subject must be taken as directions for
the training of the character by frequent but not continuous
meditations, or as exhortations that the thought of watch-
fulness should be kept ever in the background of one's mind.
Since for him morality was equivalent to rationality, he
would have agreed with Professor Fite that to be moral is to
be self-conscious-to know what one is about. It must
be remembered, too, that those who, like the Buddha and
his more spiritual and proficient followers, had attained
complete enlightenment are no longer troubled by the con-
stant temptations that assail the rest of us and so, having
perfected this training, need it no longer.29 It may be true
that we who are not Arahants, if we are to win to the
heights of the Buddhist ideal, need to be constantly on the
watch and clearly aware of the moral and immoral nature
of all that we do, and just how much we may gain or lose
thereby. Yet most of us, I think, after reading the long
exhortations in the Nikayas upon "mindfulness" in all its
sophisticated details, turn with a certain wistfulness toward
those spontaneous yet beautiful souls who act with no strug-
gle and with little reflection, who "do by knowledge what
the stones do by structure," as Emerson puts it, and "whose
acts are all regal, graceful, and pleasant as roses.
However we may think about this, it is the Buddha's
opinion that for beings such as most of us, the moral ideal is
attainable only through long processes of self-conscious
and Puritanical self-training. So difficult is the task that it
is hardly to be expected anyone can achieve it, in this world
at any rate, without going at it professionally, that is, by
joining the Sangha, the monastic order. It is to these pro-
fessionals, who are devoting their entire lives to moral train-
28 Digha XVI. 13. See also Digha XXII; Majjhima X.
20
For the monk who has fully overcome illusion there is no backsliding, Majjhima
LXXVI.
44
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
ing, that the great bulk of the discourses in the Nikayas is
addressed. This is important to remember, for it explains
the monastic flavor of much of Buddhist moral teaching.
The ideal monk is described repeatedly and in great detail.
Such an one realizes the dangers and temptations in the life
of the householder and wearies of it, renounces the world,
cuts his hair and beard, clothes himself in the orange-colored
robes, and goes forth from the household life into the home-
less state. He becomes a recluse, uprightness is his delight, he
trains himself in the precepts, in self-control, and in all the
minutiae of the minor moralities, he becomes an adept in
meditation, enters into the mystic absorptions of contempla-
tion, and at length attains to complete insight, is born again,
becomes a new creature. 30 Of course this goal is not at-
tained by all in this life, but the good monk who has not
achieved it in its perfection is ever seeking it with unfailing
alertness. He is never lazy. All his time beyond the mini-
mum needed for sleeping, begging his food, and eating his
one daily meal, he devotes to meditation (a large part of the
night as well as of the day is spent at this), to getting and
giving instruction, and to pious conversation. To outward
appearance he is a rather sober fellow and his life seems pos-
sibly somewhat drab. He must not dance nor listen to music.
He may laugh a little, but only with moderation, and not so
heartily as to show his teeth.31 Loud talk and discussion of
worldly themes are for him unseemly; he should choose be-
tween edifying conversation and holy silence.32
He may
enjoy a little simple food if he be without greed or longing
and be watchful of danger; though it is doubtless better to
be quite indifferent to all tastes, whether good or bad.33 In
spite of his rather dull and unexciting life, when the occasion
calls for it, he can command any amount of manliness and
fortitude. Brother Adhimutta, attacked by highwaymen
and about to be slaughtered as an offering to their cruel deity,
"stood undaunted and without blenching." The robber-
chief was so astonished that he gave him his liberty, and asked
for the explanation for courage greater than he and his fol-
GAME
80
See Digha II, XIII; Majjhima XXVII, XXXVIII, CXII, CXXV; Anguttara XX. 198.
311 Anguttara III. 103.
32 Udana III. 8.
33 Samyutta XX. 9.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 45
lowers had ever before witnessed. The monk had no diffi-
culty in replying. His courage was the direct and necessary
outgrowth of the Buddha's teaching. "There is no fear for
him who hath no wants." 34
The ideal monk is not only self-possessed and courageous.
He seeks constantly for greater enlightenment from those
wiser than himself, and he does what he can to instruct those
less advanced in the Way than he is, whether they be fellow
monks or laymen.35 He seeks to promote harmony in the
Order; 36 nor does he limit his good will to it, but often sends
out thoughts of love in all directions 37 and does what he can
for others in active fashion when the opportunity offers.
Once a year during the Buddha's lifetime a large number of
monks were sent out on missionary expeditions, and some of
the more advanced members of the Order were put in charge
of separate monasteries or even large regions. A part of the
work of the monks on these expeditions and in these separate
divisions consisted in spreading the doctrine.
Self-discipline and the perfection of their own character,
however, was the first aim of all. The Buddha held the view,
almost universal in India, that one's first duty is self-develop-
ment; 38 that this is the condition of one's being able to do
anything of importance for anyone else; and that in the
measure in which one does become spiritually perfect one's
influence will spread to others without great effort on one's
own part.39 The ideal monk seeks first the perfection of
his own inner life, insight, self-control, spiritual freedom;
he is at last master of himself, "has his heart in his own
power and is not in the power of his heart." 40 It may be
that this Buddhist ideal overstresses the individualistic side of
morality and says too little of the social side. But at any
rate there is something attractive in the spiritual indepen-
dence of the Buddhist ascetic who breaks all the ties and
"wanders alone like a rhinoceros."
34
See the noble "psalm" of this brother in Mrs. Rhys Davids' trans., pp. 292-94.
35 Neumann’s Majjhima I. 517.
30 Ibid., I. 621-22.
37 Ibid., I. 656, and many other passages.
Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 128.
30
Cf. Ramakrishna's view, as presented in the little book of his sayings, The Gospel
of Ramakrishna (N. Y., Vedanta Society, 1907).
40 Neumann’s Majjhima I. 503.
88
46
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Without covetousness, without deceit, without craving, without de-
traction, having got rid of passion and folly, being free from desire in
all the world, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
Having left son and wife, father and mother, wealth and corn and
relatives, the different objects of desire, let one wander alone like a
rhinoceros.
Wishing for the destruction of desire, being careful, no fool, learned,
strenuous, considerate, restrained, energetic, let one wander alone like a
rhinoceros.
Like a lion not trembling at noises, like the wind not caught
in a net, like the lotus not stained by water, let one wander alone like a
rhinoceros.41
The Buddha seems to have felt that his mission consisted
primarily in founding an order of men and women who
should devote their time exclusively to the spiritual culture
of themselves and their fellows, in an environment where
real spiritual perfection might be achieved. The life of the
layman or householder was too full of temptations and of
purely worldly activities to admit of the achievement of this
goal; hence he and his monks sought to win as many as they
could out of this dangerous condition and bring them into
the Order. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that
the Buddha had no place in his scheme of life for the world of
the layman. Like St. Francis, he not only founded an Order
of Monks and an Order of Nuns, but also worked among
laymen and urged his monks to do the same, gave careful
directions and earnest exhortations for the best conduct of
the household life, laid down certain rules for those laymen
who would be his followers-in short, instituted what might
well be called a Tertiary Order. The lay follower, like the
monk, takes the "three refuges," namely, in the Buddha, in
the Dhamma or doctrine, and in the Sangha or Order. This
does not mean, as it does with the monk, that he joins the
monastic order, but that he takes it as a part of his Trinity
of Guides.
In his exhortations to laymen the Buddha urges the usual
virtues and warns against the common temptations and vices
that conventional morality at its best in all civilized lands
and in all the historical religions has so repeatedly dealt with.
One might almost imagine, at times, it was not Gotama
41 Fausböll's Sutta Nipata, pp. 6-11. Cf. also Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 137, 138.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 47
43
speaking but Confucius or Solomon or Ptah Hotep.42 Par-
ticularly is the duty of filial piety emphasized. The
Buddha also points out duties to teachers, to wives and hus-
bands, to friends, to one's servants, and to recluses. The
Five Precepts, cited on a previous page-not to take life,
steal, be unchaste, lie, drink intoxicants-are intended for
the layman quite as much as for the monk.44 The lay fol-
lower, moreover, or, as he might be called, the member of the
Third Order, should cultivate firm faith, and learn what he
can of sound doctrine. Faith, virtue, liberality and wisdom
should be his characteristics, and he should get rid of greed,
avarice, ill will, sloth, distraction, worry, lust, and doubt.45
He cannot, to be sure, hope to become in this life fully en-
lightened 46-only the professional, as I have called the monk,
can do that; but he may become a "never returner"-i.e., be
reborn in one of the heavens and there gain at length supreme
enlightenment.*7 The Buddha has great respect and admira-
tion for a really good layman.
dat
There are three sweet odors that travel with the wind and not against
it [but there is only one sweet odor that travels both with the wind and
against it, and that is] the fame or sweet odor of a man or woman living
in a village or town who has taken the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha
as his guides, who refrains from killing, stealing, adultery, lying, and
strong drink, who is religious and virtuous, who lives the life of the
householder with thoughts devoid of avarice, and is liberal in giving.
The odor of flowers travels not against the wind, nor that of sandal,
nor the fragrant powder of frankincense or jasmine; but the sweet odor
of good men travels with the wind and against it.¹8
The innocent values of the layman's life, so far as they
do not rouse undue longing and lead into temptation, are
recognized by the Buddha as good in their way, though of
course some of them may be hindrances to the monk. Occa-
sionally (though rarely) they are even held out to the lay-
43
42
Cf. Digha XXXI; Anguttara VIII. 1; Sutta Nipata I. 7, II. 4 and 14.
E.g., Digha XXXI; Anguttara II. 4, III. 31 and 45, VII. 3; Samyutta VII. 2, 9.
41
The third of these is, of course, interpreted less extremely for the married layman
than for the monk.
45
Anguttara VII. 1.
46 Neumann's Majjhima II. 305-06; but see Keith, p. 131.
47
Ibid., p. 320.
48 Anguttara III. 79.
48
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
man as rewards for virtue-much after the manner of the
Book of Proverbs.
There are five advantages to the moral man through his success in
virtuous conduct. In the first place he acquires through industry great
wealth. Secondly, good reports of him spread abroad. Thirdly, whatever
assembly he attends, whether of nobles, Brahmins, householders, or mem-
bers of a religious order, he enters confident and undisturbed. Fourthly,
he dies with lucid and assured mind. Fifthly, he is reborn to a happy
destiny in a bright world.49
The layman, it is recognized, naturally desires wealth hon-
estly won, a good name for himself, his family, and friends,
long life, and a blessed rebirth.
These are the four things which in the world are welcome and pleasant
but hard to gain. For the attainment of them there are also four con-
ditions. These are the blessings of faith, of virtuous conduct, of liber-
ality, and of wisdom.50
I trust that what I have said concerning the Buddha's
praises of the virtues and his detailed advice for the cultiva-
tion of the moral life, his repeated emphasis on the need of
49 Rhys Davids' Digha III. 226. See also Seidenstücker's Udana, p. 100; Vinaya
Mahavagga VI. 28, 5.
50
Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 87-88. Cf. also Woodward's Samyutta III. 10. The
Khuddaka Patha (one of the books belonging to the Fifth Nikaya) has a passage on
the sources of happiness and the nature of true blessedness which I here transcribe
from Childers' translation.
"To serve wise men and not to serve fools, to give honour to whom honour is due,
this is the greatest blessing.
"To dwell in a pleasant land, to have done good deeds in a former existence, to
have a soul filled with right desires, this is the greatest blessing.
"Much knowledge and much science, the discipline of a well trained mind, and a
word well spoken, this is the greatest blessing.
"To succour father and mother, to cherish wife and child, to follow a peaceful
calling, this is the greatest blessing.
"To give alms, to live religiously, to give help to relatives, to do blameless deeds,
this is the greatest blessing.
"To cease and abstain from sin, to eschew strong drink, to be diligent in good
deeds, this is the greatest blessing.
"Reverence and lowliness, contentment and gratitude, to receive religious teaching
at due seasons, this is the greatest blessing.
"To be long-suffering and meek, to associate with the monks of the Buddha, to hold
religious discourse at due seasons, this is the greatest blessing.
"Temperance and chastity, discernment of the four great truths, the prospect of
Nirvana, this is the greatest blessing.
"The soul of one unshaken by the changes of this life, a soul inaccessible to sorrow,
passionless, secure, this is the greatest blessing.
"They that do these things are invincible on every side, on every side they walk in
safety, yea, theirs is the greatest blessing."
(J. R. A. S., IV, 313-14.)
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC_49
strenuous willing and the cultivation of the moral will, the
ideals he held out for the monk and for the layman have made
it abundantly plain that his moral teaching is not merely
negative. The center of the more positive part of his teach-
ing is to be found in his emphasis upon love. Outside of
Christianity, at any rate, there is no other religion which has
put so much stress upon love as has Buddhism. Universal
pity, sympathy for all suffering beings, good will to every
form of sentient life, these things characterized the Tatha-
gata as they have few others of the sons of men; and he
succeeded in a most surprising degree in handing on his point
of view to his followers. The Jataka Stories, which reflect
the feelings of the Buddhist .community concerning their
Master in the centuries immediately following his death, pick
out as his most memorable characteristic his unselfish love,
clothing it in many forms of beautiful and at times (from
our point of view) even fantastic devotion. Nor is it with-
out significance that the frescoes and carvings with which
early Buddhist piety decked the topes and cave temples of
the faith drew their subjects most largely from these tales
of the Founder's unselfishness. The form these Jatakas took
was often exaggerated but the spirit behind them was the
very spirit of the Founder. The true monk, he taught, must
"cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger, that knows
no ill will.' "As a mother at the risk of her life watches
over her own child, her only child, so also let everyone culti-
vate a boundless (loving) mind toward all beings. And let
him cultivate good will toward all the world, a boundless
(loving) mind above and below and across, unobstructed,
without hatred, without enmity. This way of living is the
best in the world." 52
>> 51
در
S
K
He who would follow in the footsteps and obey the in-
junctions of the Tathagata should spend many hours culti-
vating good will for all beings. Such an one "lets his mind
pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of love, and
so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus
the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere,
does he continue to pervade with heart of love, far-reaching,
51
Digha VIII. 16. Cf. Psalms of the Brethren, No. 244.
52 Fausböll's Sutta Nipata, p. 25.
50
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
grown great, and beyond measure." 53 This meditation was
a common practice of the Founder and in many passages in
the Nikayas he enjoins it upon his more promising disciples.
Possibly some of us practical-minded Westerners may be
tempted to say that the time thus spent in meditation should
have been devoted to helping the poor, or in some more
efficient and outward fashion. Your Buddhist-and, in fact,
any typical Oriental-will reply that without this spiritual
preparation no activity of an external sort for the welfare of
others can be really efficient. It is the inner life that counts,
he will assure us, and unless the proper state of mind be
cultivated all our mere money gifts and mere physical ac-
tivity will bring but slight blessing. It is manifestly impos-
sible to be actually giving manual help to the needy at every
moment; and to keep up the central fire of good will much
more time must be spent in cultivating the spirit of love than
the West sometimes realizes. Hence, perhaps (the Buddhist
may suggest), the somewhat slight spiritual harvest from the
sowing of our elaborate and expensive, but mechanical and
impersonal, charities. In this matter I am sure the Christ,
who was also an Oriental, would side with the Buddha. The
East believes that to give with the hand brings little blessing
unless we give with the heart as well.
-
This cultivation of inner good will is twice blest: it
blesses him who gives as well as him who takes. The "libera-
tion of the will through love" is one of the most helpful
means of attaining spiritual freedom.54
All the means that can be used as bases for doing right are not worth
the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through love. That
takes all those up into itself, outshining them in radiance and glory.
Just as whatsoever stars there be, their radiance avails not the sixteenth
part of the radiance of the moon; that takes all those up into itself,
outshining them in radiance and glory. . . . Just as in the night when
the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines out in radiance and glory,
just so all the other means that can be used as helps towards doing right
avail not the sixteenth part of the emancipation of the heart through
love.55
Rhys Davids' Digha I. 317-18. See also III. 44-45; Neumann's Majjhima I. 656,
687, II. 785, 818; Gooneratne and Jayasundere's Anguttara I. 207-08, II. 163, 237.
Samyutta XX. 3 and 4.
64
66 Iti-vuttaka § 27. I have used the translation of this passage given by Rhys Davids
in his article on Buddhism in the Encyclopædia Britannica, as the wording seems better
than that of Moore.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 51
For aims more immediate than ultimate emancipation the
practice of loving thought is also helpful. The Venerable
Vangissa, finding himself tempted by the sight of beautiful
women, discovers that he can drive out of his heart thoughts
of lust by concentrating his mind on thoughts of the nobler
love-the "loyal" love for all.56 The Tathagata instructs
Ananda that when divisions and jealousies have broken out
within the Order, or are on the verge of breaking out, the
true monk should serve his fellows with loving deeds, with
loving words, with loving heart, and pleading with them
should offer to take upon himself their guilt and share with
them his blessing.57
It goes without saying, I expect, that the love which the
Buddha urged upon his followers is of the universal and rela-
tively impersonal sort. His expressions in praise of love
should be read in connection with passages of another type,
such as this verse from the Dhammapada: "Let no man love
anything: loss of the beloved is evil. Those who love noth-
ing and hate nothing have no fetters." 58 The Buddha dis-
tinguishes clearly three attitudes of the mind which, in spite
of their obvious difference, get themselves expressed in Eng-
lish by the one word love. The first of these is sexual lust.
The second is tender personal affection for an individual of
a sort so strong and uncontrollable that it tends to occupy
one's thoughts and make one's peace dependent on the loved
one's presence, or at least on his life and welfare. The third
meaning of love is earnest and even tender good will for all,
of a universal and impersonal sort. As is indicated in the
words good will, this attitude belongs quite as much to the
voluntary and conative as to the emotional side of human
nature. Now of these three kinds of love the Buddha sternly
condemns the first, he regards the second as an unnecessary
and avoidable opening to the attacks of sorrow, and he ap-
proves thoroughly only the third, the impersonal love which
seeks the welfare of all.
The distinction between the second and third of these
kinds of love is in essence the distinction that Professor
Palmer draws between love and justice.
50
Samyutta VIII. 1.
87
* Majjhima CIV.
68
8 XVI. 211.
52
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Love is ever selective. It chooses one and leaves another. It is exer-
cised only toward definite persons, a little group, preferably two. The
smaller the number the warmer the love.
Justice seeks to benefit all but all alike. It knows no persons, or
rather it knows everyone as a person and insures each his share in the
common good. All the altruism of love is here but without love's arbi-
trary selective and limited interest. Justice is therefore thorough-
going love, its mutuality guarded, rationalized, stripped of personal bias,
and brought near us through the avenues of our special work.59
I am not sure that the Buddhist doctrine of love is (ex-
cept for its fear of sorrow) very different from the Chris-
tian. Christian discussions of love as a rule are, to be sure,
not so explicit in their distinction between personal tender
emotion and universal good will as is the Buddha's treatment
of the matter; yet when one examines a really typical expo-
sition of love from some authoritative source, the distinction
seems implicit, and the love commended is usually of the type
the Buddha also would have praised. Take for example the
oft-quoted thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. The
Greek ȧyáπŋ, translated in the King James version charity
and in the Revised love, seems to mean something midway
between the two; a universal and impersonal yet tender good
will. This surely is not far from the meaning the Buddha
put into the word our translators render love (or friend-
ship), in those cases where he praised it and urged its culti-
vation upon his followers. Nor is there any evidence, as I
interpret the Gospels, to show that Jesus advocated the more
personal type of emotion.60
D.
The impersonal love and good will which the Buddha
urged upon his followers by no means ended in subjective
contemplation. It was carried out in the world of action and
guided almost the entire life of the Founder himself, and
much of the conduct of his more faithful disciples. Mutual
love within the Order and within the little groups of friendly
monks got itself expressed in mutual helpfulness and the giv-
ing up by each of his own will for the sake of the others. 61
Charity and generosity as the fruits of good will are repeat-
edly urged. Protection should be given to those who are
150
Altruism, Its Nature and Varieties (N. Y., Scribner's, 1919), pp. 115, 123-24.
00 Cf., for example, Matthew XII. 46-50. The love advocated by à Kempis in the
Imitation is, of course, notably impersonal.
01
1 Cf. Majjhima XXXI and CIII.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 53
afraid.62 The Brethren must care for each other and wait
upon each other and minister to each other's needs: "Who-
soever waits upon the sick waits upon me." 63 But most
important of all one should carry the good tidings of the
Buddha's truth to all who can be reached and who have ears
to hear. The formula of reproof repeatedly used by the
Tathagata in case a monk had performed some unworthy act
consisted in pointing out that such conduct "will not do for
converting the unconverted." 64 The conversion of as many
as possible to the truth was one of the chief functions of the
Buddhist Brotherhood. The world was filled with souls.
"whose eyes were scarcely dimmed by dust and souls whose
eyes were sorely dimmed by dust, souls sharp of sense and
souls blunted of sense, souls of good and souls of evil disposi-
tion, souls docile and souls indocile"-all of whom were in
danger of suffering endless and needless woe, in this life and
many others, on the "sorrowful weary wheel" of rebirth,
unless they gained the insight and followed the Path which
the Buddha could teach them. Hence soon after the found-
ing of the Order the Buddha sent out his monks in little
groups, and every succeeding year he sent them out, on mis-
sionary journeys with this commission:
W
Fare ye forth, brethren, on the mission that is for the good of the
many, for the happiness of the many, to take compassion on the world,
to work profit and good and happiness to gods and men. Go not singly:
go in pairs. Teach ye the Truth, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress,
lovely in its consummation. Both in the spirit and in the letter proclaim
ye the higher life in all its fullness, in all its purity. Beings there are
whose eyes are hardly dimmed with dust perishing because they hear
not the Truth.65
How well the spirit of this command was carried out, even
in the details of daily helpfulness toward lay followers, is
seen in the accounts left us of the early years of the Order;
and how widely the missionary campaign spread we shall see
in later chapters.
62 Iti-vuttaka, § 30.
03
Mahavagga of the Vinaya VIII. 26, 3.
04
The formula occurs many times in the Vinaya, e.g., Mahavagga III. 14, 3.
65
I have quoted Rhys Davids' version (Digha XIV. 22) of this oft-repeated passage,
though it occurs in many other places. It is repeated in the Buddha's last talk with
his monks (Digha XVI). It occurs also in the Mahavagga of the Vinaya I. 12, 1.
4
54
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The good will which the Buddha taught was not to be
confined to those who returned it. When reviled one must
not revile again.66 If one's efforts for the welfare of others
resulted in angry rebuffs, the follower of the Buddha must
not respond in anger.
Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love.
This is an old rule.07. If some one curses you, you must repress all
resentment, and make the firm determination, "My mind shall not be
disturbed, no angry word shall escape my lips, I will remain kind and
friendly, with loving thoughts and no secret spite." If then you are
attacked with fists, with stones, with sticks, with swords, you must still
repress all resentment and preserve a loving mind with no secret spite.
Your good will should be as inexhaustible as the waters of
the Ganges. 68
How well some, at any rate, of the Buddha's disciples
learned the lesson he had to give and caught his own spirit
of universal love is shown in the account of the mission of
the Venerable Purna. He wished to preach the Doctrine
among the Western Suner, a wild and dangerous folk. To
test him the Buddha said,
"But, Purna, these are violent, cruel, and furious men. When they
get angry and curse you what will you think?" "I will think (answered
Purna) that they certainly are kind and good men, they who address
me in insulting words, they who are angry and curse me, but who do
not beat me with their hands nor with stones." "But," said the Buddha,
"if they do beat you with their hands and stones, what will you think?”
"I will think that they are kind and good men, since they do not attack
me with clubs and swords." "And if they do attack you with clubs.
and swords?" "I will think they are kind and good since they do not
kill me." "And if they do kill you?" "I will then certainly think that
they are kind and good, since they deliver me with so little pain from
this vile body." "Very well, very well, Purna," replied the Buddha;
"with such perfect patience you are allowed to fix your abode in the
country of these violent men. Go, Purna, yourself delivered, deliver
others; yourself arrived at the other shore, bring others there; yourself
having attained Nirvana, conduct others to it." 69
66 Cf. Psalms of the Brethren, No. 221.
07 Dhammapada I. 5. See also Vinaya Mahavagga X. 2.
08 Majjhima XXI. Cf. also CIII. A boyish member of the Order was given by
the Master an exercise of meditation on fraternal love. As a consequence of this he
attained insight and bade the other monks "make no difference between those who were
to them friendly, indifferent, or hostile. For all alike their love should be one and the
same in its nature and should include all realms, all beings, and all ages" (Psalms of
the Brethren, No. 33).
'Majjhima CXLV. I have used chiefly the French trans. of La Vallée Poussin.
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE BUDDHIST ETHIC 55.
Such, then, in outline is the moral teaching of the
Buddha. Such is the ideal that he held up. Such is the na-
ture of his salvation. But to attain this ideal, to participate
in this salvation is no child's play; the Noble Eightfold Path
is no royal road. To follow it to the end and attain the prize
requires persistence and long training. What this training is,
and whither it leads, we shall in part see in the next chapter.
CHAPTER IV
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
THE true Way of Life, the Dhamma-so the Buddha
tells us is in many respects like the great ocean. One of
these points of similarity is the following: "Just as the great
ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt, just so has this doc-
trine and discipline only one flavor, the flavor of deliver-
ance.” 1
The deliverance of the individual from evil, the
achievement of spiritual freedom, this is the Buddha's single
aim. The comprehension of theory, the acceptance of creed
may be necessary for the achievement of the practical aim of
deliverance, but only as a means to this has it value. The
Buddha spent his life teaching the truth not for the sake of
the theoretical and intellectual enlightenment of his hearers,
but that they through it might be saved. And salvation is
never a matter of intellectual adhesion to a creed. It is a new
manner of life. Hence the importance of long and steady
training and self-discipline if the lessons of the Teacher are
to be of real value; for they can become of real value only
in the measure in which they are assimilated to the very
life of the individual, only as they work themselves down
into the mind and dominate all its parts, volitional and
emotional as well as intellectual, subconscious as well as
conscious.
The achievement of this end is a long process and not to
be accomplished in a day or a year; for many hardly in a
lifetime. For some it may, in fact, take many lives to achieve
complete deliverance, but for the Indian with his faith in
numberless rebirths this does not greatly matter, for he has
all the time that is needed for the moral task. One must have
patience and pursue the shining goal through stage after stage
of persistent character training. "Just as the great ocean
¹Cullavagga of the Vinaya IX. 1, 4; Udana V. 6.
56
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
57
gets gradually deeper, slope following on slope, hollow suc-
ceeding hollow, and the fall is not precipitately abrupt, just
so in this doctrine and discipline is the training a gradual one,
work following on work and step succeeding step, with no
sudden attainment of complete insight." 2 "One cannot at-
tain insight at the beginning. One achieves it gradually by
earnest effort, by fighting, by pushing one's way forward
step by step. Hence the importance of training in the
moral life of the Buddhist, and the repeated and minute in-
struction recorded in the Nikayas concerning the details of
this training.
"3
I shall not attempt to give anything like a complete ac-
count of the various methods of self-culture inculcated by
the Buddha. All or nearly all of them may be included-
explicitly or by implication-within the Noble Eightfold
Path. Of this I must say something. The Noble Eightfold
Path, it will be recalled, constitutes the Fourth Noble Truth.
When read over hastily it appears a somewhat heterogeneous
collection of ideals; but in reality it has a very real unity, the
unity of a single aim. This aim is the transformation of
character, and the Path as a whole is really a course in sys-
tematic habit formation. To follow the Path means con-
stant concentration of mind. It means unremitting sup-
pression of impulse, of self-assertion, of craving. It means
forming the habit of turning away from the delights of the
flesh and accustoming oneself to the thought that the usual
objects of ambition and the world's values are really worth-
less. It means a constant guard on one's acts, on one's words,
on one's thoughts and emotions; in short, the psychical mak-
ing over of the whole man. The Buddha was probably the
greatest psychologist of his age; at any rate, he had a keen
insight into human nature; and knowing what he did, he
realized that the transformation of character at which he
aimed could not be achieved by any mere change of creed
however revolutionary, by any emotional experience how-
ever intense, by any single act of will however strenuous
and determined.
* Cullavagga IX. 1, 4; Udana V. 1.
3
Majjhima LXX.
XXII. 101.
W
-
Cf. also CXXV, CLI; Anguttara I. 3-8, 16, 17; Samyutta
58
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The eight steps of the Noble Eightfold Path, let me re-
mind the reader, are these:
Right views
Right aspiration
Right speech
Right behavior
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
Both religion and morality are more than mere creed or
belief, yet every religion and every form of morality involve
a belief, and true religion and true morality involve knowl-
edge. Right views are by no means the whole of the ideal
life, but they are an essential part, and from the point of
view of the teacher they constitute the first part, for it is
only with them that the teacher can begin the training of the
pupil. In the previous chapters we have seen the evil effects
of ignorance. The right view, or knowledge, is thus the
cornerstone of right life and character. With most learners
knowledge begins as faith. "By faith," writes Mr. Narasu,
"is meant the conviction that truth can be found.
While reason rejoices in the truths it has already found,
faith gives confidence and helps it to further conquests.
Confidence in the Tathagata is mentioned, in a famous dis-
course between the Buddha and a prince, as the first of five
qualities needed for spiritual victory. For exceptional per-
sons, to be sure, this initial confidence in a teacher is not
necessary; but for the ordinary man saving knowledge begins
as faith in an inspiring personality. Of course it must not
end here. Faith must become knowledge; one must see for
oneself, and one's own experience, reason, and insight must
take the place of trust in the authority of another. And
6
4
Cf. Anguttara I. 17, II. 22.
ō
The Essence of Buddhism (Madras, Varadachari, 1907), p. 38.
5 در
Majjhima LXXXV. In Dialogue No. 70 the Buddha raises the question: How
does one gradually attain illumination? and answers it thus: "An arouser of faith
appears in the world. One associates oneself with him. One gives ear to his teaching.
One remembers it and ponders over it. The teaching gives one insight. One delights
in it and adopts it. One acts upon it and thus realizes in lively fashion the highest
truth."
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
59
this saving insight, of course, means insight in the truth
which the Buddha taught-however insight be gained.
7
The five steps in the Noble Path following right views
are fairly obvious in their meaning and call for little com-
ment. The second step means, on the negative side, right
aspiration toward renunciation of the false values, desires and
ambitions of the world; on the positive, right aspiration for
benevolence, kindness, and universal love. Right speech
means abstaining from slander, lying, abuse, and idle talk.
Right behavior means the observance of the Five Precepts,
and of the moral life in general, as described in the previous
chapters; for morality, as a matter of course, is the most
important thing of all in character formation. In a sense,
of course, the whole Noble Path is just morality, and the
means of its attainment. Right livelihood means, negatively,
abstaining from any of the callings which are forbidden be-
cause of the harm they do to sentient life, and for him who
is in earnest with the search for deliverance it means, on the
positive side, joining the Order and participating in the
monastic discipline. Right effort means the inhibition of
incipient evil mind states, the eradication of those that have
arisen, stimulation of good mind states and the perfecting
of them; in other words, the control of the passions, avoid-
ance of evil thoughts, emotions, and volitions, and concen-
tration on good ones.
8
The seventh stage of the Path, right mindfulness, needs
more comment than its predecessors, as several of the specific
methods of mental training which the Buddha inculcated
upon his professional followers naturally fall under this head-
ing. As it is largely the senses that rouse man's evil desires,
the Buddha gave special attention to them and by training
his followers how to use them, sought to keep these servants
of the mind in their proper place. The principle involved in
this training of the senses is exactly right mindfulness. It is
the attempt to behold every object of sense "as it really is,"
to destroy the hypnotic power which many sensuous things
have upon us because of their appeal to irrational passion.
G
در
"Not to kill, steal, be impure, lic, or drink intoxicants.
8
Notably the occupations of the caravan-trader, slave-dealer, butcher, publican, and
poison-seller.
60
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The same principle of objective, coolly scientific apprehen-
sion is applied also to the higher activities of the mind; each
is to be regarded "as it really is." When a monk is affected
by a feeling of pleasure he is to recognize the fact and objec-
tify the state as he would a stone or a mathematical truth.
It is no part of him, as we shall see—one of the most funda-
mental teachings of Buddhism-and therefore must be taken
merely intellectually, not emotionally.
So too does he control his consciousness when affected by a painful
feeling or by a neutral feeling. So does he, as to the feelings, continue
to consider feeling both internally and externally. He keeps on con-
sidering how the feelings are something that comes to be and something
that passes away.
Thereby mindfulness becomes established far
enough for the purposes of knowledge and of self-collectedness. And he
abides independent, grasping after nothing in the world."
•
In a previous chapter I pointed out that the Buddha's
aim is intense and constant self-consciousness. One must
be wide awake, steadily aware of what one is about. One
should set aside an hour or so every now and then-possibly
every day-for more intense training in this practice of
wakefulness. Going alone into the solitude and silence of
the forest, one should repeat to oneself exactly what is hap-
pening in one's mind and body, and attend carefully and
self-consciously to all that one is doing. 10 The Buddha of
course did not mean that one should do this all the time:
it was an exercise. As an exercise he and his followers found
it helpful in producing singleness of mind and power of self-
mastery. This very method is used today by some of the
most successful psychiatrists in restoring normal mental bal-
ance to their patients.
11
Digha XXII. 11. See also Majjhima X, LXII.
Minute directions for this are given in several of the Dialogues, e.g., those
mentioned in the preceding note.
Notably by Dr. Roger Vittoz. The method will be understood from the follow-
ing extracts from his book, The Treatment of Neurasthenia (London, Longmans,
1921): "Let us first take a simple movement, for example, bending the arm, which
we will ask the patient to do. To be well under control the movement must be
sufficiently conscious, concentrated and voluntary, that is to say, the patient must know
what he is doing, he must exert enough strength to do it and he must keep his mind
on the movement until accomplished. . Tell the patient to take four or five steps,
and while doing so, to have the definite sensation (in his brain) that he is putting
his right and left foot forward alternately. Then ask him to realize clearly the
movement of his leg and then of his whole body, teaching him at the same time to
know whether the movement is sufficiently supple and easy. He will soon see that he
•
•
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 61
These exercises for producing right mindfulness lead
without break into the eighth step of the Path, right con-
centration. It seems to have been the custom of the Buddha
to provide each of his followers, at least in the early stage
of his monastic life, with a type of meditation adapted to his
peculiar needs. Several of these meditations aim at obvious
moral results. Notable among them are the meditations on
the body and on death. One should seat oneself at the foot
of a great tree in the forest, or go into a charnel field where
dead bodies and skeletons are lying, and contemplate the
body "as it really is," both in life and in death.12 The pur-
pose of this contemplation is twofold. For the beginner who
is still in love with the flesh and a prey to sensuality this pic-
turing of the body "as it really is" 13 produces disgust and
the destruction of desire. It was greatly valued by those
who were earnestly seeking to follow the Way and free
themselves from the flesh, and resulted in much spiritual
profit.14 For those more advanced, who had already over-
come the more passionate appeals of the flesh, the meditation
on the body was still of value in breaking the false though
instinctive notion that one's body is a part of one's self. Full
enlightenment is impossible until the native tendency of the
mind to accept this fallacy has been overcome to such an
extent that we shall be able to contemplate our own death
or the death of our friends with perfect equanimity. To
this coldly rational position we can attain only as we are able
to objectify the body and view it, not as a part of self, but
"as it really is"-an object like every other object, in many
Q
•
G
•
will be very much less tired if he controls his walking from time to time. . The
patient should take some object in his hand and determine mentally the exact sensa-
tion of its form, weight, temperature, consistency, etc. . . . As we have already said,
the person lacking control often looks without seeing; in order to correct this the
brain must be taught to pay attention to everything that strikes the eye, and to see all
things clearly and distinctly. As an exercise pass some object, say an engraving,
quickly before the patient's eyes, and then ask him to describe what he has seen.
By this continual attention he can acquire a habit which will be very useful to him.
If all he does is really well done he will feel calmer, better balanced and more master
of himself. When his brain is always concentrated on something definite, it will
become less and less troubled. He will regain confidence in himself and his mind
will always be under control" (pp. 45-47, 49).
12 Directions for this meditation are frequently repeated and in detail: e.g., Digha
XXII; Majjhima X, CXIX; Samyutta XXII. 95; Sutta Nipata I. 11.
18 ce
"Impure, ill-smelling, filled with various kinds of stench, and trickling here and
there" (Sutta Nipata I. 11, 13).
14 Cf. Psalms of the Sisters, Nos. 19, 26, 27, 41, 52, 66, 71.
62
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ways a rather repulsive one, and destined to speedy decay.15
In this unterrified determination to face the facts as they are,
resolutely to see and stare out of face the worst that Nature
and Fate can produce, Buddhist and Christian monasticism
are at one.16
Meditation on disgusting and fearful things is a part but
only a part of the moral discipline. A large portion of the
themes on which the Buddha taught his followers to meditate
were of a more positive and a more joyful nature. One of
the best ways of overcoming vices and temptations, so the
Tathagata taught his monks, is to concentrate one's mind on
the virtues, to picture vividly the desired ideal.17 Specially
great emphasis was given by the Buddha to the exercise of
loving thought for all creatures. Love, to be sure, cannot be
forced, but it may be fed, and loving contemplation of the
needy, vividly imaged, has great power over the human
mind. The Buddha understood his followers. There is much
in common, as to both moral aim and psychological method,
between the Buddha's systematic meditations and the Spirit-
ual Exercises of Ignatius.18
For the adept, the eighth stage of the Noble Path leads
up to a series of mental concentrations which were greatly
prized by the more advanced members of the Order, and
which, though the Buddha by no means considered them
essential to the achievement of complete insight,19 were in
his opinion frequently helpful means for attaining it. These
are the eight Jhanas or absorptions.20 Whether we accept
or not La Vallée Poussin's view that Buddhism as a whole
grew out of Yoga,21 there can be no doubt that these psychi-
15 Cf. Ernst L. Hoffmann, "Die Bedeutung des Körpers in der Meditation," Zeit-
schrift für Buddhismus, VII (1926), 67-74.
10 Cf. the skeleton-filled crypts of the Cappuccini. The practice, psychologically
considered, is not unlike that sometimes utilized by psychiatrists in having their
patients face in meditation various unpleasant subjects, thus getting those disturbing
complexes out of the subconscious region of the mind.
17 Cf. Majjhima XIX, XX.
18
Cf. Van Dyke, Ignatius Loyola (New York, Scribner's, 1926), Chap. XVIII.
10 Cf. Majjhima LXIV, CXIII; Samyutta XII. 69.
20
I use the word absorption rather than the common translation rapture or ecstasy,
because, as Grimm so well says, "Such conceptions [as rapture] mean states wherein
man abandons himself without restraint to the feelings that well up in him, so that
clarity of understanding is obscured and the freedom of the will circumscribed" (The
Doctrine of the Buddha, Leipzig, Drugulin, 1926, p. 457, note).
21 See his little book Nirvana (Paris, Beauchesne, 1925).
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
63
cal and semi-hypnotic methods of Buddhism came from Yoga
as a part of that large Indian heritage which Gotama took
over into his Dhamma. The reader of the Nikayas who has
formed his conception of Buddhism antecedently from a
perusal of the rationalizing accounts given by many Western
(and some recent Eastern) books will be surprised to note
how large a part of many of the Dialogues is devoted to de-
tailed accounts of these Yoga-like exercises, including even
methods of breath control 22 and resulting supernormal
powers.23 The aim of these psychic practices as utilized by
the Buddha seems to have been chiefly concentration of mind
and immediate apprehension of the nothingness of this pass-
ing and deceitful world. For the moment the adept was
caught up into a new sphere of being,24 and he returned to
the light of common day with a sense of the Umwerthung
aller Werthe.25
These mystic experiences of the early Buddhists, though
derived from the ancient Yoga practices that go back at
least as far as the Rig Veda, do not seem to have ended in un-
conscious trance or to have aimed at a somnolent condition.
Sir Charles Eliot is in the main justified when he writes:
It is clear that the Buddha did not contemplate any mental condition
in which the mind ceases to be active or master of itself. When at the
beginning the monk sits down to meditate, it is "with intelligence alert
24 Cf. Majjhima X, LXII, LXXXIII, CXVIII.
23 Cf. Digha II, XI, XXV, XXVIII, XXXIV; Majjhima LXXIII, LXXVI, LXXVII,
LXXIX, LXXXV, CVIII; Anguttara I. 14, III. 100; Samyutta XVI. 9.
These powers
are not a part of salvation (Samyutta XII. 70). There are three mystic wonders;
but of these the wonder of education is by far the best and greatest (Digha XI,
Anguttara III. 6, 60). In Digha XI the Buddha even says he loathes and abhors all
the wonders except that of education. This rationalistic view is not found in the
Majjhima passages.
24 In a sense these meditations are creative. Says Hoffmann, "Die Meditation ist
der schöpferische Akt einer Neueinstellung, einer Welterneuerung, ja mehr noch: einer
Weltschöpfung, nämlich der Schöpfung einer inneren, wirklicheren Welt" (op. cit.,
p. 69).
25
"I shall not go into the detail of the eight absorptions-a vast subject of consider-
able interest psychologically but not necessary for the purposes of this book. The
reader who cares to study it for himself will find descriptions of the various Jhanas in
the following passages: Rhys Davids' Digha I. 248-51, III. 75-76, 97-111, 123-24,
203, 216, 256; Neumann’s Majjhima I. 376-79, 408-09, 426-27, 487-91, II. 121-22,
240-41, 418-20, 455-56, 569-70, III. 24-27, 97-98, 109, 114-16, 140-42, 159-60,
252-55, 288-89, 337, 516f., 551; Gooneratne's Anguttara I. 41, 73-74, 103-04, 187-88,
207; Jayasundere's Anguttara II. 62-63, 160-62, 236. For two rather opposed Western
interpretations of the Jhanas (both of them useful) see Keith's Buddhist Philosophy
Chap. VI, § 2, and Grimm's The Doctrine of the Buddha, IV, 4. B. Jasink has two
chapters on the subject in his Die Mystik des Buddhismus (Leipzig, Altmann, 1922).
64
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and intent"; in the last stage he has the sense of freedom, of duty done,
of knowledge immediate and unbounded, which sees the whole world
spread below like a clear pool in which every fish and pebble is visible.*
26
From the ecstasies of the Christian mystic the Buddhist
absorptions are also to be distinguished. Both, to be sure,
are mystical or semi-mystical experiences, but the Buddhist
Jhanas seem to be rather more intellectual and less emotional
in content than the Christian ecstasy. In fact, according to
Buddhist theory, all emotional quality disappears in the
Fourth Absorption and only pure cognition is left. The
word "absorption," I should say in passing, must not be
taken as implying the absorption of the soul in some Over-
soul or Absolute, but merely the complete absorption of the
individual in thought, which becomes less discursive and more
intuitional as one advances. This intuition of the higher
Jhanas, although all emotion is explicitly denied them, is far
from being merely intellectual in the ordinary sense of the
word. It is a kind of immediate insight, a revelation of being
which cannot be put into words and which only those who
have experienced it can comprehend. And while these Yoga-
like experiences are not essential to salvation and final illu-
mination, the illumination, when it comes and by whatever
path, has always, like the Jhanas, a touch of the mystical. It
does not consist in a merely intellectual acceptance of the
truths of Buddhism, nor can it be attained by any process
of simple learning by rote or even of accurate ratiocination.
The Buddha's own experience we may consider typical,
in this matter, since he plainly considered it so himself. In
the Eighty-fifth Dialogue of the Majjhima he tells us that his
first feeling for the way of deliverance came to him while
still a youth, before leaving his home, when, seated in the cool
shadow of an apple tree and deep in thought, he suddenly
experienced the first of the absorptions. It seems to have
been to him a faint foretaste of deliverance and he said to
himself: This is the way to enlightenment.27 The memory
Guds
20 Hinduism and Buddhism (London, Arnold, 1921), I. 222.
27
Dahlke deals with this passage, and with the Buddha's treatment of the Jhanas
in general, in such a way as to imply that the Buddha's attitude toward conceptual
knowledge was much the same as Bergson's. Although he does not refer to Bergson
by name he seems to interpret the Buddhist absorptions as a case of Bergsonian intuition.
See Chapters III and IV of his Buddhism and Its Place in the Mental Life of Mankind
(London, Macmillan, 1927), esp. p. 62.
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
65
of this experience remained with him all his life, and at a
critical moment in his career redirected his search. Soon
after this slightly mystical experience further meditation
upon the sorrow of the world and the wearisome repetition
of birth, old age, and death, together with growing disgust
for the vanities of a worldly life, sent him out upon the great
renunciation. He studied with two teachers who trained
him in the first four of the absorptions. This, however, gave
no complete solution of the problem of human woe and its
cure; so he tried extreme asceticism. The physical torture
he vainly inflicted upon himself very likely contributed
nothing to his final illumination save a knowledge of its use-
lessness; but his long and dreadful hours of meditation in the
terrible loneliness of the charnel field through the black hours
of the night may well have left an influence upon his mind
that played its part in the final solution. Much serious and
purely rational thought was mingled with all this training
during the six years of his search and contributed, possibly,
more than anything else to the outcome. But the outcome
was not merely the attainment of a scientific theory. It was
that, but it was also a definite and new form of experience;
a revelation of what life might be. It is necessary to under-
stand this or we shall fail utterly in comprehending the
power that Buddhism had over the souls of men in the tri-
umphant centuries of its early progress. Something hap-
pened under the Bodhi Tree, and something has happened in
every Buddhist's attainment of enlightenment, which cannot
be set down wholly in terms of the intellect. In Western and
Christian parlance it was a kind of conversion experience. In
Gotama's case all the influences I have mentioned in his early
career were factors in the final result; and much the same
thing is noticeable in all the cases of illumination among his
followers, which are told us in any detail. There seems to
have been regularly a process of what Western books on the
psychology of religion call subconscious ripening." When
the conscious and subconscious factors are ready, the longed-
28
28
See, e.g., Starbuck, Psychology of Religion (N. Y., Scribner's, 1903), Chap.
VIII; James, Varieties of Religious Experience (London, Longmans, 1903), Lectures
IX, X; Pratt, The Religious Consciousness (New York, Macmillan, 1920), Chap. VIII.
For examples of the ripening process in Buddhisra see Anguttara III. 100; Psalms of
the Sisters, Nos. 53, 54, et passim.
66
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
for illumination comes. Sometimes, doubtless, it is a gradual
process, but in many cases like that of the Buddha during
the epoch-making night under the Bodhi Tree, it manifests
itself in the form of a perfectly definite and datable experi-
ence comparable in the specificness of its recognizable char-
acter with the receiving of the Holy Ghost in the early Chris-
tian Church.29 At times the experience comes with great
suddenness, reminding one of the cases of sudden conversion
presented in James' Varieties, and of the attainment of
satori by members of the Zen sect in medieval and modern
Chinese and Japanese Buddhism.30
When this state of insight has been reached, the searcher
"becomes conscious that birth is at an end, that the higher
life has been fulfilled, that all that should be done has been
done, and that after this present life there will be no more
becoming." 31
Thus he becomes an Arahant, a perfectly en-
lightened one, and enters at once, while still in this life, into
Nibbana-or as we Westerners usually call it (using the
Sanskrit rather than the Pali term), Nirvana. Primarily
Nirvana means extinction: that is, extinction of the evil ele-
ments of the human mind, notably of lust, ill will, and ig-
norance. It is the extinction of the process of becoming, the
end of the acquisition of new Karma, or merit and demerit
which have to be worked out in future lives. Life, to be sure,
continues for a little while even after the attainment of il-
lumination, because the Karma of former lives is still not
fully exhausted, just as the potter's wheel continues to re-
volve a few moments after the vase is finished, and the fire
continues to burn after the last of the fuel has been heaped
upon it. So, for a while, the saint or Arahant lives on in the
enjoyment of Nirvana even in this world.
A
This state of the soul, freed from desire, from temptation,
from ignorance, anger, and fear, with the unfailing con-
sciousness that the great task has been accomplished and that
one is no longer a slave to things nor to Fate nor to
one's own little self, is not the way to salvation: it is salvation.
This is very notable in the accounts of illumination among the early Brothers
and Sisters, c.g., Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 43, 44.
30
Cf. Psalms of the Brethren, Nos. 1, 115, 119, 129, 147, 239, 240, 260. Psalms
of the Sisters, Nos. 17, 21, 28, 29, 47, 64. See also the Mahavamsa V, XIV, XVI.
21
The oft-repeated formula of triumph.
(20
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
67
For the Buddhist, salvation does not mean going to heaven
when you die. The Founder taught, to be sure, that good but
unenlightened Buddhists do go to heaven when they die; but
going to heaven is only a relative and passing good. The only
good that is absolute and permanent is the state of the soul
achieved by the Arahant.
Frequent reference to this permanent consciousness of de-
liverance, this supreme goal, is made in the Nikayas, but little
positive description. For more positive accounts we must
look to some of the later books, notably to the Psalms of the
Early Buddhists. Many of these hymns are shouts of ex-
ultation at having achieved the goal. In reading them one
seems to be listening to what evangelical Christians used to
call an "experience meeting." One rather surprising thing
in these expressions of delight at the achievement of Nirvana
(surprising at least to the Western reader) is that almost no
reference is made to any future state, to any continuance of
Nirvana after the death of the body. As Mrs. Rhys Davids
has put it, the Theri or Buddhist Santa 32
4
ANGE
is never led to look forward to bliss in terms of time, positive or negative.
If Death be conquered, it is not through winning, in Arahantship, of
eternal living, but because, when Death comes, his eternally recurring
visitation ceases. It may be that in harping in highest exultation how
they had won to and touched the Path Ambrosial, Nibbana, they im-
plied some state inconceivable to thought, inexpressible by language.
Nevertheless, their verses do not seem to betray anything that can be
construed as a consciousness that hidden glories, more wonderful than
the brief span of "cool" and calm they now know as Arahants, are await-
ing them.33
Mrs. Rhys Davids has sought to analyze the descriptions of
Nirvana given by these ancient Sisters, and finds the following
qualities often enumerated. On the negative side, extinction
of evil, freedom, the end of discomfort and of becoming, the
end of craving, rest. Of positive qualities she finds the fol-
lowing: mental illumination, happiness and calm content,
self-mastery.84 An analysis of the Psalms of the Brethren
SM We have no English word for Theri (such as saintess), and I cannot bring myself
to write female saint.
88
38 Psalms of the Sisters, p. xxxi. The same is true of the Brethren. See Psalms of
the Brethren, pp. xlvi, xlviii.
84
"Op. cit., p. xxxvii.
68
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
would not differ very greatly in the qualities of Nirvana dis-
covered, except perhaps for the fact that the monks seem
more introspective than the nuns, and less occupied with ex-
ternal matters,35 and also that they stress more than the nuns
the delights of solitude.
W
To give a less elaborate analysis of the mind state of the
Arahant, as it finds expression not only in the Psalms but in
the whole canon, I should say that the four qualities which
stand out most prominently seem to be peace, freedom, joy
and insight. The first of these is the most commonly and
the most specifically emphasized. Nirvana in this life means
primarily the attainment of the great peace. It means deliv-
erance from the fear of death and every other fear, a large
equanimity, a carelessness of all happenings, an inner calm,
often compared to the stillness of the sea. Peace is closely
connected with spiritual freedom; in a sense it comes from it.
But the sense of spiritual freedom belongs, perhaps, some-
what more to the active and energetic side of one's nature.
The Arahant knows himself to be a spiritual athlete, he is
conscious of his powers of self-mastery, he delights in the
thought that he is free from temptation, free from craving,
free from praise and blame, free from Fate: that he is inde-
pendent and can when he likes "wander alone like a rhi-
noceros." Joy, of course, is linked with both peace and free-
dom, and possibly it should not be mentioned as a third qual-
ity, for it is obviously dependent on the others. Yet some of
the exultant cries of the emancipated Buddhists say more of
joy, and some speak more of peace or freedom. The joy, so
far as I can judge from the Psalms, is frequently a contrast
effect, and consists largely in comparing the Arahant's pres-
ent state of freedom and peace with the self-made ills he
suffered in the past or that the unenlightened are now suf-
fering.36
36 There are, I should say, fewer expressions of pure
theph
35
Psalms of the Brethren, pp. xxxi, xxxii.
36
Cf. the story of Bhaddiya who had abdicated a throne in order to join the Order.
"Now at that time the venerable Bhaddiya, who had retired into the forest to the foot
of a tree, into solitude, gave utterance over and over again to this ecstatic exclamation:
'O happiness! O happiness!' And a number of Bhikkhus went up to the place where
the Blessed One was, and bowed down before him, and took their seats on one side.
And so seated, they [told the Blessed One of this and] added, 'For a certainty, Lord,
the venerable Bhaddiya is not contented as he lives the life of purity; but rather it
is when calling to mind the happiness of his former sovereignty that he gives vent to
THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
69
and intense joy among these Buddhist saints than one would
find in an anthology drawn from an equal number of Chris-
tian saints. Buddhist joy is inevitably of a rather restrained
and "unemotional" sort; violent joy is hardly compatible
with "indifference." Yet a mild serenity certainly does shine
through many of these Buddhist testimonies of the spiritual
life, and no one can read Buddhist literature without feeling
that the Buddhist saint is no long-faced killer of delight, but
outwardly gracious and inwardly filled with his own kind of
calm and quiet joy. A fourth quality of the state of saint-
hood on its inner side is, I have suggested, of a more intellec-
tual nature. It consist in a satisfying grasp of the truth, a
clear insight into the really important matters. We cannot
too often remind ourselves that this is one of the things which,
to human nature as actually constituted, is worth while on
its own account. "All men by nature desire knowledge,"
said Aristotle, and to see the truth eye to eye is one of the
supreme satisfactions of life. The Buddhist insight in its
highest form, moreover, is, as we have seen, not merely in-
tellectual apprehension; it is an insight and an intuition
with something of the mystical about it—a kind of imme-
diate experience of reality. It would seem to be not unre-
lated to what Spinoza called the intellectual love of God.
37
Perhaps the quality of Nirvana most often praised in
Buddhist books and hailed by the Arahant with greatest de-
light consists in its marking the end of becoming. This
world of Samsara, of recurring happenings, of endless re-
birth, this overwhelming vista of endless, monotonous, repe-
this saying.' So the Blessed One summoned brother Bhaddiya and asked him what
he meant by his exclamation. To this Bhaddiya replied, 'Formerly, Lord, when I was
a king, I had a guard completely provided both within and without my private apart-
ments, both within and without the town, and within the (borders of my) country.
Yet though, Lord, I was thus guarded and protected, I was fearful, anxious, distrustful,
and alarmed. But now, Lord, even when in the forest, at the foot of a tree, in
solitude, I am without fear or anxiety, trustful and not alarmed; I dwell at ease,
subdued, secure, with mind as peaceful as an antelope's. It was when calling this
fact to mind, Lord, that I gave utterance over and over again to that cry, "O happiness!
O happiness!"' (See Cullavagga VII. 1 and also Psalms of the Brethren, No. 254).
Mer
"Aufheben des Werdens ist das Nirvana" (Geiger's Samyutta II. 163). "Aus dem
Wissen erfolgt die Erlösung.” "Und was erfolgt aus der Erlösung?" "Aus der
Erlösung erfolgt die Erlöschung (Nirvana)." "Und was erfolgt aus der Erlöschung?”
"Überschritten_hast du das Fragen, man kann den Begriff der Frage nicht fassen.
Denn um in die Erlöschung zu münden wird das Asketenleben geführt, in die Erlö-
schung geht es ein, in der Erlöschung geht es auf" (Neumann's Majjhima I. 702).
70
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
titious years which lead nowhere, this to the Buddhist is the
greatest pain of all. Hence the joy in the thought that with
the achievement of insight one is emancipated forever from
this slavery.
Looking for the maker of this tabernacle [the recurrent body] I
shall have to run through a course of many births so long as I do not
find it; and painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of this
tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle
again. All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind
approaching Nirvana has attained to the extinction of all desires. 38
In the Psalms of the Brethren no thought is commoner than
this. One of the expressions of it is repeated again and again
by successive Arahants. It may have originated with An-
anda, the beloved disciple: at any rate, tradition has it that he
said it over "as he lay a-dying his last death." It reads thus:
The Master hath my fealty and love,
And all the Buddha's ordinance is done.
Low have I laid the heavy load I bore,
Cause of rebirth is found in me no more.
Dhammapada XI. 153-54.
Mrs. Rhys Davids' version of the Psalms of the Brethren, p. 358. See also
pp. 268, 306, 325, 330, 349.
39
CHAPTER V
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
THE matters discussed toward the close of the last chap-
ter may well have raised in the reader's mind the question:
What becomes of the saint after death? Is Nirvana for this
life only? The questions are natural and the second permits
of a perfectly definite answer. The word Nirvana, or the
extinction of evil, is not confined in its use to the condition
of the saint in this life. The Buddhist canon recognizes a
double application of the word: in reference to what is this
side of death and to what is beyond.¹ In cases where the
distinction needs to be made specific the word Parinibbana
(Sanskrit Parinirvana) is used for the complete "extinction'
of all becoming that the Arahant enters into on the death of
the body.
""
The reader, however, will doubtless remain unsatisfied by
the mere recognition of this distinction. What, he will de-
mand, is Parinirvana? What is the condition of the Arahant
after he has died his last death? The question is almost in-
evitable, and was, in fact, asked of the Buddha by some of
his disciples. More specifically, the question was phrased:
Does the Arahant exist after death? The Buddha refused
to answer this question, further than to insist that it was so
badly put that any yes or no reply to it must necessarily be
wrong. It would be equally false to assert that the saint
exists after death or that he does not. To our Western minds,
with our black and white distinctions and our exact dichot-
omies, this reply will at first seem absurd. To understand
the significance of it and piece together the implications of
the Buddha's indirect assertions and his silences we had best
make a long detour and consider first the Buddhist concep-
tion of the nature of man and of some other things that may
throw light upon this almost baffling problem.
1 Cf. Iti-vuttaka § 44.
71
72
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
I shall not attempt to go into the details of Buddhist psy-
chology further than to outline the conception of human
nature and the empirical self involved in it. The human
personality as an object for psychological study is analyzed
in the Nikayas into five Khandas or aggregates.2 The first
of these is the body, the remaining four constitute what we
should call the mind. The second of the Khandas is feeling;
the third sense-perception; the fourth is known as the Sam-
kharas or mental processes that produce latent tendencies;
the fifth is cognition.3 From another point of view the em-
pirical self is sometimes, analyzed into the five senses, with
their physical organs and resulting sensations, plus the mind
which is referred to as a sixth sense and which, like the com-
mon sense of Aristotle's psychology, unifies the products
and the workings of the five. Cognition awakens when one
of the sense organs makes contact with its object, and with
cognition all four of the mental Khandas arise-for indeed
they constitute consciousness and are really inseparable from
each other except in theoretical analysis. Neither of these psy-
chological expositions of the empirical self is above reproach;
and both probably suffer from the common Buddhist ten-
dency to depict psychology in terms of morals (for the
moral aim of self-conquest and the destruction of craving is
often quite obvious), a weakness by no means peculiar to
Buddhism.5
4
WE
B
Two other concepts of Buddhism must be mentioned even
in this hasty sketch (which omits so much) of human per-
sonality. These are Tanha and Karma. Tanha means crav-
ing, and particularly craving for life, or (to use Schopen-
hauer's term) the will to live. Karma, which originally
means work, is used most commonly for the individual's
2
These are sometimes referred to collectively as Namarupa, a term borrowed from
Hinduism which means literally "name and form," but really denotes mind and body.
3 The Khandas are referred to many times in the Nikayas, a typical passage being
Digha XXII. 14. Later scholastic analysis elaborated the concept. For contemporary
Western presentations of the subject see Mrs. Rhys Davids' Buddhist Psychology (London,
Bell, 1914), Chaps. II-VI; Grimm's Doctrine of the Buddha, I. 2; and Keith's Buddhist
Philosophy, Chap. IV. Mrs. Rhys Davids and Herr Grimm in their attempts to pre-
sent the matter sympathetically perhaps read into Buddhist psychology more than they
should; while Dr. Keith scems bent on showing that Buddhist psychology is very
stupid.
A defect pointed out by both Keith and Mrs. Rhys Davids.
5
McDougall has shown how repeatedly European psychology has been vitiated by
the same moral purpose. See The Group Mind (Putnam, 1920), Introd.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
73
store of merit and demerit laid up in the past, and which
one carries with one till it is worked out in reward and pun-
ishment, or till an end is put to all becoming by enlighten-
ment. It is Tanha, craving, that keeps one on the weary
wheel of rebirth and brings one back after the death of the
body to birth in a new one. That one's Karma was the cause
of rebirth was a Brahmin and Jaina concept; hence the ideal
of worklessness as a means of salvation, referred to so re-
peatedly in the Bhagaved Gita, and the attempt of the Jainas
to extinguish acquired Karma through ascetic practices and
avoid the acquisition of new Karma. Against these concep-
tions the Buddha set up his new psychological theory (if so
we may style it) that rebirth was due not to Karma but to
craving; and that by rooting out evil desire and the will to
live one could escape from rebirth, regardless of the Karma
one had brought with one to this life. This, of course, was
a much more hopeful and moral doctrine, and one for which
a certain amount of empirical evidence based on analogy
could be produced. The influence of Karma, according to
the Buddha's teaching, was to be found not in the fact of
rebirth but in the kind of rebirth."
When a man dies, the first of his Khandas, the body, ob-
viously is dispersed and goes no farther. Like all other things
it is impermanent and in a few years at most after death it
completely dissolves. In one sense (as the Buddha several
times insists) the mind of man is even less permanent than
the body. The four mental Khandas change every moment.
They form together a constantly changing "stream of con-
sciousness," to use James' term, and possess no more sub-
stantiality or unity than does the succession of "present mo-
ments" which constitute the self in James' psychology.8 Yet
each momentary wave or ripple in the stream gives birth to
the next.
Thus there is between any two sections of the
stream a causal connection; and there is also as a rule a certain
amount of similarity between them. They form a relatively
continuous, though constantly changing, bundle. Now when
"This contrast between the Buddhist and the Jaina points of view is brought out
clearly by Thomas in his recent Life of Buddha, pp. 204-06.
Cf. Digha IX. 21f. and Samyutta XII. 61.
8
See the Principles of Psychology (New York, Holt, 1896), Vol. I, Chaps. IX, X.
"
74
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
a man transmigrates (to use a common phrase which should
be made much more exact than it is) from one body to an-
other, the old body does not go with him, but there is a sense
in which it may be said that his consciousness or cognition
(the fifth Khanda) does. That is, there is the same sort of
connection, through continuous causation and similarity, be-
tween the first pulse of consciousness in the new life and the
last one of the old life that obtained between two given pulses
of consciousness in any one lifetime. And as the four mental
Khandas are inseparable, there is a sense in which one may
say that the whole bundle of them transmigrates. It has been
kept together and continued in existence by the power of
craving, which is one of its elements. Thus the same kind
of unsubstantial pseudo-identity is retained between births
that existed within the successive epochs of a given life. To
use an illustration from the Milindapanha, personality passes
over from life to life in much the same way as a flame passes
from candle to candle. And of course one's accumulated
Karma goes with one's personality.
9
The doctrines of transmigration and Karma were by no
means original with the Buddha. He simply accepted them,
as he did many other conceptions, from the common Indian
heritage of his age. Not, indeed, that they were universally
accepted. There were several sects that denied both, par-
ticularly the latter, and against these schools of thought the
Buddha protested. The thought of retribution involved in
the Karma doctrine was especially important in his eyes. It
was fundamental to his system, and was bound up both with
his moral postulate that what we sow we shall reap, and
with his doctrine of universal causation.10 Possibly I over-
state his position in using the word universal; for though he
seems to have believed that the law of cause holds in every
realm, he consistently refused to make statements about
purely theoretical or external matters. In this respect his
emphasis upon cause is different from that of the modern
scientist. He confined himself to the field of human nature,
and here he found the causal law supreme. He was con-
C
The Questions of King Milinda, Rhys Davids' trans., S. B. E., XXXV. 64.
10 Cf., for example, Digha XIV, Majjhima XXXVIII, LXXIX, CXV, Samyutta
XII. 20-29.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
75
vinced that everything within a human stream of conscious-
ness except its will-acts had its cause, and he seems to have
held that this cause was to be found (in whole or in part)
in some event that occurred earlier in the stream. One of
the teachings which he considered most important was his
analysis of this causal chain by which the evils of old age and
death might be followed back to their original source. For
lack of space I shall say nothing more of this famous chain.
of the "Twelve Nidanas," 11 further than to remind the
reader that they begin with ignorance, and may therefore be
destroyed by insight, and that they emphasize and illus-
trate the way in which we make our own fate not only for
the rest of this life but for our initial position and our in-
itial character in the next. Not for all the details and deeds.
of our next life, however. The Buddha, with all his belief
in causation, never doubts that man's will is free. The free
act of the enlightened will is able to put an end to the con-
sequences of past action. If, however, one does not take ad-
vantage of this great human opportunity, he will be reborn,
and will be reborn in just the set of circumstances and just
the kind of world that he deserves.12 The great law of
Karma is eternally just. The moral laws are more funda-
mental, at any rate, in that part of the Cosmos that has to do
with human fate than are the laws of physics and chemistry.
Of course the Buddha did not put it, and did not think it, in
these terms; but after all this is what his teaching necessarily
11 The Causal Chain runs as follows:
From ignorance come the dispositions which lead to rebirth (Samkharas).
From the dispositions comes consciousness or cognition.
From consciousness come name and form (i.e., the personality).
From name and form come the five senses and the mind.
From the five senses and the mind comes contact.
means.
It is a common Western misunderstanding to suppose that
Buddhism taught and teaches transmigration in contrast to
From contact comes feeling.
From feeling comes craving.
From craving comes grasping, or attachment to existence.
From grasping comes becoming.
From becoming becomes birth.
From birth come old age, sickness, death.
KAN
The Causal Chain is frequently repeated, especially in the Samyutta. The most
striking presentation of it is in the Digha XIV, XV.
12
Cf. Majjhima XLI, LVII, LX.
76
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the Christian and Mohammedan doctrine of heaven and hell.
As a fact Buddhism, both primitive and present, makes al-
most as much use of heaven and hell as do Islam and Chris-
tianity. The doctrine of transmigration, in fact, includes
them; for it teaches that most bad men are reborn in hell
and most good men in heaven. After a period of punish-
ment in hell the bad individual may be born on this earth in
animal form and eventually once more as a man. A good
man who has been rewarded by a long life in heaven will also
be reborn as a man unless, in his heavenly life, he has attained
to deliverance. Some men may be reborn in human form at
once after their death. An interval in heaven or hell, how-
ever, seems to be the rule.13 The Buddha accepted the In-
dian universe of his day ready-made. As a teacher he was not
interested in non-human matters, and the constitution and
geography of the material universe did not seem to him worth
discussing. Presumably he believed in the common view.
Whatever may have been the Buddha's personal opinion,
the Buddhism of the Nikayas at any rate believes that there
are innumerable worlds, each constructed on the same gen-
eral plan. In each of them, in ours certainly, there are three
great divisions. The lowest of these (the one in which we
live) is called the Kamaloka, or the realm of desire. In this
there are six subdivisions—the "six regions" or "six paths'
frequently referred to in Buddhist literature. One of these
six regions consists in eight or more hells, the second is the
realm of animals, the third the realm of ghosts, the fourth
the abode of the Asuras or demons, the fifth the realm of
men, and finally, as sixth, the abodes of the lower gods. The
second great division of our world is Rupaloka (the world of
material form), with sixteen divisions or "Brahmalokas” in
which dwell the gods who are free from desire. The third
and highest division is Arupaloka, the formless world, in
which dwell those lofty souls who are superior in spiritual
attainment to the highest of the gods. But he who through
self-conquest and insight has attained to the "incomparable
security of Nibbana" is superior to the greatest of these.
•
د.
13 For the fate of good but unenlightened and of the bad see Digha XVI, XXVII;
Majjhima XII, XIX, XLI, LXXI, LXXXVI, XCVII, CXX, CXXIX, CXXX; Angut-
tara III. 35, VI. 5; Samyutta I. 5, 9, XIX. 1.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
77
The highest of the gods holds his lofty position but for a
time and must at last die and be reborn, unless he attains to
supreme enlightenment. A mortal who acquires sufficient
merit may hope to be born not only in one of the heavens
but even as one of the gods.14 Thus the good Buddhist may
look forward to a future life with confidence and great hope.
The Buddhists who die in the Nikayas face their fate with a
certain brave and delightful buoyancy. "What matters it
how far we go?" they seem to say.
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France.¹
15
This confidence in a blessed hereafter for the good is very
notable in the Nikayas, and constituted later on one of the
chief attractions of Buddhism when as a missionary religion
it invaded foreign lands. One of four alluring lots is secure
to him who diligently follows the path.
Four kinds of fruit [says the Buddha] are to be expected [from such
a life]. Firstly, the case of a brother who by complete destruction of
the three fetters [false belief in the substantiality of the phenomenal self,
doubt, and belief in ceremonial] becomes a stream-winner, saved from
disaster hereafter, certain to attain enlightenment. Secondly, the case
of a brother who by destruction of the three fetters has so diminished
lust, ill will, and ignorance, that he has become a once-returner, and
returning but once to this world will make an end of ill. Thirdly, the
case of a brother who by the complete destruction of the five last fetters
[those mentioned above plus attachment to sensuous things and antip-
athy] will be reborn in another world [presumably one of the Brahma-
lokas], thence never to return, there to pass away. Fourthly, the case
of a brother who, by destruction of the mental intoxicants,¹6 has come
to know and realize for himself, even in this life, emancipation of intel-
lect and emancipation of insight and therein abides.17
For such an one there is no rebirth anywhere.
What becomes of him? This is the problem with which
14
The gods of the Vedic and Brahmanic times had in the sixth century B.C. come
to be regarded as offices rather than as individuals, and these divine positions were
held in turn by individuals who had acquired sufficient quantities of good Karma.
The Iti-vuttaka represents the Buddha as saying that he himself had once been Brahma
(the highest of the gods in Rupaloka) and had been Sakka, ruler of the lower gods,
thirty-six times (§ 22).
15 As the whiting said to the snail.
10
17
Sensuality, becoming, delusion, ignorance.
Digha XXIX. 25. See also XVI. 7, XXVIII. 13.
78
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the present chapter began, but we must still ask one more
preliminary question before facing this. We have learned, in
outline, what was the Buddha's theory of the empirical self—
the personality or the bundle of the five Khandas. Is there,
in addition to this, a noumenal, ultimate, or transcendental
self? Plainly this question will be of the utmost importance
to us in making up our minds how we should answer the
earlier question concerning the fate of the Arahant after
death. For the Arahant has succeeded in destroying craving
and has put an end, thereby, to all rebirth for the Khandas or
empirical self. Hence if there be no ultimate or noumenal
self, no self that is more than appearance behind all appear-
ances, there will be nothing to survive, and our question con-
cerning the fate of the Arahant will be answered.
The scholastic systematizers of the centuries following the
death of the Founder developed a doctrine, in conscious op-
position to the growing Vedanta, that there is no Atta or
ultimate self. This view came to be known as the Anatta
doctrine, or doctrine of no-self.18 It seems to be the accepted
view in the Katha-vatthu and The Questions of King Milinda,
and it has been handed on as the orthodox view in both the
Hinayana and Mahayana forms of Buddhism-though there
was much early opposition to it. Most Western writers on
Buddhism 19 have adopted this view of the self and empha-
sized it in their expositions of the teachings of the Buddha.
The serious though amateur student of Buddhism, however,
would be ill-advised to limit his study to books about the
Buddha's teachings, and should go direct to the Nikayas for
those teachings themselves. If, now, we search the pages of
these ancient books we shall find the Buddha repeatedly dis-
cussing the question of the self. The great majority of the
passages in which he deals with this subject read essentially
as follows:
"Is the body perishable or permanent?"
"Perishable, O Gotama."
"Is that which is perishable full of pain or of joy?"
18 From what students of Greek would call a-privitive, and Atta, the word for
self, the Pali equivalent of the Sanskrit Atman.
19
Notably Oldenberg in Germany, Rhys Davids in England, and Stcherbatsky in
Russia.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
79
"Full of pain."
"That which is perishable, painful, changeable-can one assert, "This
belongs to me, this am I, this is my Self"?"
"Certainly not, O Gotama.”
The same questions are then asked, and with the same con-
clusions, concerning feeling, sense perception, the mental
processes, and cognition-in short, concerning all the five
Khandas; and the conclusion is that the self is none of these
things.20 And the argument repeatedly used, as in the pas-
sage quoted, to prove that these phenomenal characters are
not the true self is precisely because they are impermanent
and painful. Consciousness, in particular, the Buddha points
out, must not be identified with the self; because conscious-
ness is even more impermanent than the body and is always
passing away.21
G
(
This represents the most typical treatment given by the
Tathagata to the question of the self. There are other dis-
cussions of the matter and they lead almost without excep-
tion to the same sort of conclusion. Thus the parts of the
body and the activities of the mind are taken up in turn: the
eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, self-consciousness, per-
ceiving, etc. Each is shown to be incapable of identification
with the self for the same two reasons as those noted above:
namely, because each of these organs and activities is perish-
able and painful.22 Similarly none of the many perishable
forms to be found in the world, past, present, or to come,
can be really ours or can be our true selves;23 nothing com-
posed of any of the five elements is the true self or can really
belong to us;24 the universe is not our true self."
25
The view of the self thus presented, if it does not answer
all our questions, is at any rate self-consistent and luminous.
So far as I have been able to discover there are only two pas-
20 The passage quoted is from the thirty-fifth Dialogue of the Majjhima, but
exactly the same argument and conclusion are to be found in the first, forty-fourth,
one hundred and ninth, and one hundred and thirty-first Dialogues of the Majjhima;
Digha XV; Anguttara XIX. 1, XX. 6; Samyutta XII. 70, XXII. 1, 33, 46, 59, 83;
Mahavagga I. 6.
21
Digha IX. 21f.; Samyutta XII. 61.
22 Majjhima CXLVII, CXLVIII.
23 Anguttara XX. 6.
24 Majjhima CXL, Anguttara XVIII. 6.
25
Majjhima XXII. Does the Buddha here refer to the Upanishadic view?
80
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sages in the Nikayas that present a view inconsistent with
this, and both of these are in the Samyutta which, as we have
seen, was a later compilation than either the Digha or the
Majjhima, and was obviously put together under the influ-
ence of the rising scholasticism to which reference has been
made.26 If we leave these out of account and base our opin-
ion of the Founder's self-doctrine on the passages I have
cited, certain conclusions seem to me perfectly obvious and
altogether different from the conclusions found in most
Western books on Buddhism. If a man says to me, This
material which I see on the ground cannot be snow because
it is neither white nor cold, I should hardly conclude that he
was trying to assert that there is no such thing anywhere as
snow. Similarly, to start with the argument that the body
and the conscious states cannot be the self since they are
ephemeral and painful, and to draw from it the conclusion
that there is no self at all, seems to indicate an extraordinary
method of deduction. I submit that the obvious conclusions
from the Buddha's argument are the following: First, the
real self is not the phenomenal personality. It is neither the
body nor the content of consciousness, nor the functions of
the mind, nor the peculiarities of the character. Second, it
is not an animistic double, nor identical with the "soul" of
several other religions. Third, there is a real self which is
none of these things. One cannot say, however, that the self
exists; for existence is a term that means having a position in
Samsara, the stream of becoming.27 This is, perhaps, only
another way of denying the identity of self with the stream
of consciousness or with any of its parts, and is directly re-
28
20 These passages are in V. 10, XII. 12. The first of them puts into the mouth
of the nun Vajira a view of the self identical with that of the great scholastic
Nagasena, as expressed in The Questions of King Milinda. Oldenberg thinks this con-
clusive evidence that the Nagasena denial of any kind of self was a continuation of
the original doctrine. Sce his Buddha (Stuttgart, 1906), pp. 302-03. In the other
passage the Buddha is represented as refusing to answer the question Who takes nour-
ishment? Who is born? Who dies? etc., on the ground that the questions are not
rightly put. They imply, that is, a self, no matter how answered; hence any answer
would be false. As I have indicated, the apparent view of these two passages is so
out of keeping with the many expressions of the Buddha upon the self, particularly in
the Majjhima, that they seem to me the expressions of the age of scholasticism rather
than of the Founder.
127
It is thus that I interpret Digha XV. 31 which argues against the view that the
self has the property of sentience, since according to that view if sentience had ceased
one could not say, I myself am.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
81
lated to my next conclusion from the Buddha's way of
presenting the matter: namely, Fourth, the self is enduring,
not subject to change, and as such, when by itself, not
painful.
That the Buddha believed in some sort of ultimate and
noumenal self is made more plain by a consideration of his
teaching as a whole. His Dialogues are filled with references
to his own previous existences and those of his followers and
with predictions as to their future lives. The entire point of
many of these references of his lies in the thought that the
same man who lived in the past in another body lives now
in this, or will live in still a different one. Particularly bit-
ing is this consideration from the point of view of responsi-
bility and reward and punishment.28 These things lose all
their significance if there be no more identity in a series of
lives than the identity found in successive bundles of Khan-
das-the identity discoverable in a flame passed from candle
to candle. The moral earnestness of the Buddha and his in-
sistence on responsibility would seem to demand some kind
of real, identical, and abiding self.29
(
The real significance of the Anatta doctrine as found in
the Nikayas would therefore seem to be the assertion that of
the many visible, namable, experiencable things in this world
of becoming not one is the self. The self is real, the Buddha
seems to teach, but its nature is not such as many personal-
ists both in and out of India consider it. It is not a part of
S
28 I am glad to note that several scholars who know a great deal more about the
subject than I do hold much the same view as that expressed above. Thus I gather
that neither La Vallée Poussin nor Keith would seriously disagree with me, while Radha-
krishnan, Grimm, Schrader, and Professor W. E. Clark have said much the same thing.
See Radhakrishnan in Mind, XXXV, 168, and his Indian Philosophy (Macmillan),
I. 386f.; Grimm's Doctrine of the Buddha, I. 4; Schrader, On the Problem of Nirvana
(Jour. of the Pali Text Society, 1904-05); and Clark's article "Buddhism" in the
Dictionary of Religion and Ethics (N. Y., Macmillan, 1921), p. 60. Oldenberg in his
Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge der Buddhismus (Göttingen, 1915) still clung
to his original insistence that the Buddha denied a real self. But he comes perilously
near the opposite view, and the general view he adopts in Chap. III would be more
consistent if he had explicitly recognized the implication of a real self in the Buddha's
teaching. Much the same might be said of the lip-service (I can hardly call it more
serious than that) which Sir Charles Eliot does to the traditional Anatta doctrine.
See Vol. I, Chap. X of his Hinduism and Buddhism.
29
>>
Stcherbatsky himself recognizes the force of this consideration and admits that
the position of a philosopher trying at once to deny the self and to insist on moral
responsibility "was not an easy one.' (The Conception of Nirvana, Leningrad, 1927),
p. 3.
82
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the pantheistic Brahma; it is not a "soul" of the animistic
sort; it is not consciousness nor character nor a substance that
performs the various mental functions. Of the many things
that exist that is, that change and become in this ephem-
eral world of Samsara-the self is not one; in other words,
the self does not exist. Hume was right in saying you could
never find it. The Buddhist soul would seem to be like the
Upanishadic in this, that it is always subject and never ob-
ject.
Most of these things I have said about the self are nega-
tive. What positive views did the Buddha hold concerning
the self, further than those involved in the matters discussed?
The Nikayas do not tell us; for the good reason that the
Buddha never told his followers. Some 30 think the Buddha
made no further statements concerning the nature of self
because he had no further opinions; others 31 believe that the
Buddha knew very well what he thought as to the positive
nature of selfhood but refrained from telling because fur-
ther discussion of the matter would be purely theoretical
and not helpful toward the one great aim of spiritual de-
liverance.32 Still others think that the nature of self is a
matter which is essentially incapable of being expressed in
words, and that the way to know it is the way the Buddha
taught—namely, by reaching the intuitive insight of the Ara-
hant. Certain it is that whenever the Buddha discusses the
self-and this is rather frequently-it is with a distinct moral
purpose. The common notion which would find in the
body or in some conscious state the true self, or would iden-
tify the self with some imaginary animistic double or homun-
culus dwelling inside the body, is (in the Buddha's opinion)
the source of endless sin and endless woe.33 In this sense
Cha
"Tis self whereby we suffer
and (as we have seen) the destruction of this particular form
of ignorance the Buddha considers perhaps the most impor-
tant step in the new life. Self-centeredness is the source of
30 E.g., Prof. Jacobi.
201
E.g., Schrader and Radhakrishnan.
32
He often refers to the uselessness of such purely theoretical discussion concerning
E.g., Majjhima II, CXL.
the self.
33
Cf. Chap. II of this book. See especially Majjhima XXII, Anguttara XX. 9.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
83
most sin and sorrow and of most divisions among men. The
clear recognition that nothing in the whole world of becom-
ing and existence is our true self-that all such things as
wealth, body, mental processes, and feelings belong to us and
are to be identified with us no more than so much dried wood
which a peasant burns up 43—this is almost the alpha and
omega of the spiritual life. If only we could fully realize
this truth, we should be freed from all personal fear and
anger and grief, and should come to love each other as our-
selves.
The bearing of all this on the question of Parinirvana is
plain enough. If one holds, with so many Western writers,
that there is no self but the phenomenal and ephemeral per-
sonality-the five Khandas-it is plain that when these are
destroyed at the last death of the Arahant nothing will be
left, and that therefore Parinirvana will mean simply non-
being in the absolute sense of that word. It will not mean
annihilation for there is nothing real to annihilate, but it will
mean that absolutely nothing is left of the saint and that the
death of his body is the end of all. If, on the other hand,
there be a real self, a self to be sharply distinguished from the
phenomenal personality, a self that has never been really a
part of Samsara and one which is essentially permanent, then
the whole conception of Parinirvana appears in a
light.35
A
G
But it will not do to argue too far on this matter in purely
a priori fashion. Let us consult the Buddha himself. Un-
fortunately the Buddha has disappointingly little to say.
The question whether the saint exists after death is one of
the things which he regarded as purely theoretical and there-
84
4 Cf. Majjhima XXII, Samyutta XXII. 33.
35 The proper interpretation of Nirvana has long been a matter of disagreement
and discussion among Buddhist scholars, East and West. The most recent contribution
to the subject consists in a controversy between La Vallée Poussin and Stcherbatsky,
each of whom has written a book upon the theme. The French scholar, who considers
Buddhism an outgrowth of Yoga, insists that by Nirvana the Buddha meant "la beati-
tude par excellence" (Nirvana, pp. 60-61). The Russian, whose book (The Conception
of Buddhist Nirvana), published in Leningrad in 1927, is intended expressly as a reply
to La Vallée Poussin's, upholds the common view that Nirvana is absolute nothingness.
(See also his review of La Vallée Poussin's Nirvana in the Bulletin of the School of
Oriental Studies, Vol. IV, Part II, pp. 357-60.) Stcherbatsky's treatment of the ques-
tion is to me much less persuasive than his opponent's because of his almost complete
dependence upon relatively late and Abhiddharma writings, notably Vasubhandhu's
Adhiddharmakoca.
84
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
fore not a suitable subject for discussion,3" and when asked
the question point blank he either avoids the issue or flatly re-
fuses to answer. This much he will say, that Parinirvana is
not a continuation of this life. It is the antithesis of Sam-
sara. It is not what the Christian commonly means by "per-
sonal immortality." The saint at death is freed not only
from sorrow but from change,37 and that means that he is
freed from perception, feeling, and cognition; for conscious-
ness as we know it is dependent on perfectly definite physi-
ological and psychological conditions and is unthinkable
apart from change and causal relations.38 The departed
saint ceases to be a part of this phenomenal world; neither
gods nor men behold him more.39 He has passed away with
that utter passing away which leaves nothing whatever to
remain behind." 40
The Buddha realizes that this assertion will bring deep dis-
appointment to those who still cling to the notion of an ani-
mistic soul, or to any of the other doctrines of a particular
soul-substance held by the various schools of personalists.
Such disappointment, however, is due to the false notion of
selfhood with which they start. Presupposing that the self
is what they erroneously imagine, they take his doctrine to
mean the destruction of the self.41 The truth is they have
put their question wrongly. Those who hold to the per-
sonal immortality of a conscious soul-substance and those
who assert that the saint after death has ceased to be are
equally mistaken.42 Of the venerable Vakkali, an Arahant
30
* Cf. Majjhima LXIII, LXXII; also Samyutta XVI. 12; Sutta Nipata II. 12.
37
With this dislike of the Buddha for change and Samsara, compare the following
from Baron von Hügel: "I still think that a downright observation on the part of those
Buddhists as to the sickening character of all mere change, with their longing for
Nirvana, for the complete cessation of all consciousness such as theirs, thus penetrated
with a sense of mere change and hence of pure desolation, I think that this is quite
magnificent as a prolegomenon to all religion. I take it to my mind quite simply as
one of the most striking effects of the Real Presence of God also in those men's minds.
It is because they have the dim, inarticulate sense of what the Abiding means that
the mere slush of change is so sickening-a change not of growth, not of full establish-
ment in Faith and Light, but a sheer racket: something fairly like what the evening
newspapers of our most enlightened times tend to produce in the minds of their
unhappy devotees" (from a letter of Baron von Hügel, of Nov. 29, 1922, taken from
a little volume, privately printed, entitled Some Letters of Baron von Hügel, 1925).
38 Majjhima XXXVIII; Udana IX.
30 Digha I. 73-74.
40 Digha XVI. 8.
41
Cf. Majjhima XXII.
Digha XV. 32.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
85
who has just died, the Buddha says, "He has no consciousness
anywhere and is utterly well." 43
>> 45
We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the fact
that the Buddhists use the words consciousness and being or
existence in ways different from ours. In Nirvana the saint
gets beyond the realm of being and beyond definite and
changing consciousness; but he does both these things, we
are told, in the seventh and eighth absorptions. He experi-
ences non-being, both in this life and in the next; and he who
experiences non-being surely must be.44 Consciousness ceases.
in Nirvana; but also in this life "for him who both inwardly
and outwardly does not delight in sensation, for him who
thus wanders thoughtful, consciousness ceases. In Nir-
vana the saint does not exist; but as Sariputta reminds the
doubting brother Yamaka, it would be false to say that the
true self of the Arahant exists even in this life.46 In Nir-
vana the saint becomes extinct; but in later Sutras
we find
the expression "utterly extinct" used of Buddhas who are, in
the same breath, described as still very real and certainly by
no means dead. In other words, Buddhist thought insists
that the concepts existence and non-existence do not exhaust
the possibilities; there is a tertium quid. An interesting il-
lustration of this is to be found in the cases of two skull-
tappers, related in the Psalms of the Brethren. A skull-tap-
per was a man who made his living by the skull-spell: the
skull of some dead man would be given him and "when he
had muttered the spell and tapped with his nail on the skull,
he would declare, "This person is born in such a sphere.'
Now the skull-tapper Migasira once came to the Buddha and
offered to display his art. So
47
45
40
264.
the Exalted One had the skull of a monk brought who had attained
Parinibbana, and said, "Tell the destiny of him to whom this skull be-
longed." Migasira muttered and tapped, but saw neither the beginning
nor the end.
Then the Master said: "Art not able, Wanderer?" He
replied, "I must first make sure," and turning the skull round never so
much-for how could he know the goings of an Arahant?—stood
ashamed, perspiring, dumb.48
43
Samyutta XXII. 87.
41
Cf. Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum."
Sutta Nipata V. 14.
Samyutta XXII. 85, 86.
P
درو
47 E.g., the Saddharma Pundarika.
48
Psalms of the Brethren, No. 151. A similar story is told of one Vangissa in No.
86
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The Arahant belonged neither to the realm of existence nor
to that of non-existence. He was completely beyond all
Migasira's categories.
An even more illuminating story is the conversation be-
tween Vaccha, a wandering ascetic of some non-Buddhist
sect, with the Tathagata. Vaccha insisted on an answer to
the question, "Where is an Arahant reborn after death?"
The Buddha replied,
"The word reborn does not apply to him."
"Then he is not reborn."
"The term not-reborn does not apply to him."
"To each and all of my questions, Gotama, you have replied in the
negative. I am at a loss and bewildered."
"You ought to be at a loss and bewildered, Vaccha. For this Dhamma
is profound, recondite, hard to comprehend, rare, excellent, beyond dia-
lectic, subtle, only to be understood by the wise. To you it is difficult-
who hold other views and belong to another faith. So I in turn will
question you for such answer as you see fit to give. What think you,
Vaccha, if there were a fire blazing in front of you, would you know it?”
"Yes, Gotama.'
"
-
"If you were asked what made that fire blaze, could you give an
answer?"
"I should answer that what made it blaze was the fuel consisting
of bracken and sticks."
"If the fire went out, would you know it had gone out?"
"Yes."
"If now you were asked in what direction the fire had gone, whether
to east, west, north, or south, could you give an answer?"
"The question is not rightly put, Gotama. Since the fire was kept
alight by bracken and sticks and since it had consumed its supply of fuel
and had received no fresh supplies, it is said to have gone out for lack
of fuel to sustain it."
"Just in the same way, Vaccha, all things material-feelings, per-
ceptions, forces, consciousness-everything by which the Arahant might
be denoted, has passed away for him. Profound, measureless, unfathom-
able, is the Arahant even as the mighty ocean; reborn does not apply to
him nor not-reborn, nor any combination of such terms.
> 49
To understand this simile of the fire (which in slightly
different words is used again in the Sutta Nipata 50 and the
Udana) 51 we must forget our modern and Western ideas of
that element and take in its place the Indian view. Accord-
40 Majjhima LXXII. I have here used Chalmers' trans. I. 343-44.
50 V. 7.
a1 IX.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
87
ing to Schrader "the common Indian view is, since the oldest
time, that an expiring flame does not really go out but re-
turns into the primitive, pure, invisible state of fire it had
before its appearance as visible fire." 52 The fire figure thus
seems to suggest a conception at least remotely related to the
thought of the Upanishads that at the death of the enlight-
ened, the self returns to Brahma, its divine and impersonal
source. We must not, of course, press the fire simile too far,
or forget that the pantheistic side of the Upanishadic tradi-
tion the Buddha definitely rejected. But certainly the fire
figure seems plainly to show that the Arahant at death does
not cease to be. And we may, perhaps, go a little farther in
the direction of the Upanishads than this-at any rate if
we take the Udana as representing the Buddha's thoughts;
for it quotes him as saying:
Just as all rivers lose themselves in the great ocean and all the waters
of the air pour into it, yet the great ocean thereby knows neither in-
crease nor diminution; so when many Arahants become extinguished in
the pure realm of Nirvana, the Nirvana realm knows neither increase
nor diminution.53 There water, earth, fire, air are not.
There no
candle gives light, no sun beams, no moon shines, no darkness is. And
when the enlightened has attained in stillness to insight, then is he free
from form and formlessness, from pleasure and from pain.54
If we may for a moment consider the matter quite apart
from the direct expression of the Nikayas, let us ask our-
selves: What must naturally and logically be conceived as the
goal to which the life of the Arahant points, the completion
of its nature? We must remember that the universe of the
Buddha is one in which the causal law holds sway, flowers
grow into fruit, seeds develop according to their kind, and na-
tures fulfil themselves. On the one hand, the life of the Ara-
hant is increasingly one of independence from particular
events, of growing freedom from cares, passions, processes. It
has less and less to do with the detail of life, with things that
happen to the body, and in fact with things that happen at
all; more and more its inwardness increases and unflickering
-
62 "On the Problem of Nirvana," Jour. of the Pali Text Society, 1904-05, p. 167.
Keith takes exactly the same view (Buddhist Philosophy, pp. 65-66). Eliot very nearly
agrees (Hinduism and Buddhism, I. 232, note.)
53 Udana V. S.
54 Udana I. 10.
88
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
peaces takes the place of the change that characterizes other
lives. But it is just these changes in consciousness, these events
that have locus in time and space, that characterize existence
in the technical meaning given that term by many contempo-
rary philosophers. Of course so long as the spirit remains or-
ganic to a body this tendency away from the particular, the
temporal, the changing, must be constantly thwarted. But
now do away with this bodily connection and allow the
tendency of the enlightened nature to be carried on without
let or hindrance, as we may suppose, on Buddhist principles,
to be actually the case at the last death of the Arahant. We
cannot describe the state to which this would lead, but we
can see the direction.
On the other hand we must remember another aspect
of the saintly life. Deliverance and enlightenment do not
result in a reduction but in an enhancement of being. In
the Buddha as his disciples knew him there was immeasur-
ably more of reality (a most inadequate and clumsy expres-
sion, but I know of none better) than in any other mortal.
And if we may trust the implications of their testimony, each
of them, as they advanced on the Buddhist path toward de-
liverance, felt an increase of inner, spiritual being. Their
development was not a process of shriveling but of expan-
sion and realization. They became more and more real as
they grew in grace. Of course while connected with a ma-
terial body full of imperious demands and humiliating limi-
tations, this growth had bounds beyond which it could not
pass. But now suppose this connection with the body severed
once for all and no new bodily tie substituted. Let all bonds
be broken and suffer the spirit to develop indefinitely in the
course it has begun toward increase of being. Again we
cannot describe, we cannot imagine the resulting state, but
we know the direction.
Now put this thought with the one in the previous para-
graph-the increase of being with the freedom from particu-
lars that make up existence-and note the point at which the
two converging lines meet. Can this be better described than
in the words of the Buddha—a state that is "neither existence
nor non-existence"? "There is, O monks, an unborn, non-
existent, not-made, not-compounded. Were there not, there
Apa
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
89
55 در
would be no deliverance from the born, the existent, the
made, the compounded."
It may be these considerations and these passages from the
canon will throw a little light on the nature of the ultimate
Nirvana as the Tathagata conceived it. We should, of
course, like to know much more than this. We should like
to ask him many questions. Is Parinirvana a state of un-
changing and desireless joy? Is it so different from everything
we call consciousness that no terms of ours apply to it? Is
it absorption in some Absolute? . . . The Buddha refuses to
C
answer.
out,
Why is he silent? As Professor Radhakrishnan has pointed
56 there are three possible ways of accounting for his
silence. One is that he held a purely naturalistic view of
things, considering the self to be nought, and Nirvana to be
complete nothingness, but refrained from telling what he
thought for fear of hurting sensitive feelings. This view of
the Buddha's position is so plainly out of harmony with most
of the things he said that it needs no discussion here. The
second hypothesis is that the Buddha was himself agnostic
on all the ultimate problems; that he refused to answer the
questions asked him because he did not know the answer him-
self. This is a perfectly possible hypothesis. It is the hypoth-
esis of Professor Keith; and in the absence of more definite
statements in the Nikayas it will probably always remain one
of the possibilities. Personally I do not accept it. With Pro-
fessor Radhakrishnan and (I gather) with Sir Charles Eliot,
I prefer the third interpretation of the Buddha's silence. I
prefer it chiefly because it is the interpretation of the Buddha
himself. In a famous passage of the Majjhima 57 one of the
Buddha's disciples asks the Buddha a number of these ulti-
mate questions and insists on an answer. The Buddha not
only refuses to give a reply but tells his disciple explicitly
why he does so. The reason is a moral one: namely, because
these matters "profit not, have not to do with the fundamen-
tals of religion, tend not to absence of passion, quiescence,
supreme wisdom, and Nirvana." The Buddha knew the
55 Iti-vuttaka § 43; Udana VIII. 3.
"Indian Philosophy, Some Problems," in Mind, XXXV.
57 LXIII. See also LXXII; Digha VI, IX, XXIX; Anguttara VIII. 7.
90
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
danger-especially among a people such as the Indians-of
the attention's being turned away from the great problem
of right living into various purely speculative channels. He
was determined that if he could help it his teaching and way
of life, his Dhamma, should not become a matter of creed
or of hair-splitting, and he would give no opening to the
danger he feared by answering questions on these matters or
permitting discussion of them in the Order. As the sea's
taste is only salt, so the one taste of his Dhamma is deliver-
ance. That he had no opinion on these matters himself seems
unlikely when we remember that he was an Indian thinker,
and when we recall the agility of his mind in the
many discus-
sions of other matters that are recorded. It was plainly the
opinion of his followers that he knew the answers to these
questions. He himself asserts in more than one passage that
he knows much more than he has ever revealed.
Another reason for the Buddha's refusal to deal with cos-
mic problems not directly connected with human life may
very likely have been the impossibility of putting the ulti-
mate truth in words. Human language was forged for hu-
man needs and there may well be cosmic themes that can
hardly be communicated by so rough and purely practical a
tool. Most of the great religions have known this, and hence
have tried to express the ineffable in poetry and symbol. The
Buddha might have done the same, but he did not. Appar-
ently he feared that the symbols, should he use them, would
come in time to be taken as literal expressions, and thus once
more creed and myth would take the place of earnest living.
The Buddha did not tell his ultimate philosophy of the uni-
verse. Can we guess it? At once the monistic absolutism of
the Upanishads suggests itself as a position he may have
adopted. But on the whole question of the influence of the
Upanishads upon his thought we have too little definite in-
formation to justify our forming any opinion.58 Nor can we
with security on a priori grounds argue that if he viewed the
68 Prof. Radhakrishnan is convinced the influence was great. La Vallée Poussin, on
the other hand, thinks it was nil. (See his Nirvana, pp. 52, 56-57.) "Not in close
contact with Upanishadic thought," says Thomas (op. cit., p. 199). Oldenberg thinks
the Buddha adopted his antithesis of the Changing and the Changeless from the
Upanishads. Both he and Neumann think many passages in the Buddhist canon show
direct Upanishadic influence. Eliot and several others insist that on some points the
Buddha was directly antithetical to the Upanishads.
MAN AND HIS DESTINY
91
self and Nirvana in the way suggested in this chapter he must
therefore have believed in an Absolute Reality.
One thing about his universe we do know: namely, that it
was fundamentally moral. The law of Karma, of strict
retribution, is the most fundamental law in it; and all other
laws, chemical or physical, are bound to conform. From the
Western point of view concerning nature, we must say that
the Buddha's universe is supernaturally just.
May we from this argue further and conclude that the
universe must therefore be conscious, or must be guided by
a supreme and moral intelligence? We may so argue; but
the Buddha does not. On all these matters he is silent.
Doubtless he has his reasons.
Others abide our questions. Thou art free.
We ask and ask; Thou smilest and art still.
Deep is the Tathagata, measureless, unfathomable, like the great ocean.
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
No new religion is ever entirely new. Were it so it would
make no appeal and get no following. Buddhism appears to
have possessed as many original elements as any of the great
religions; in fact, I am inclined to think, rather more than
any other. Yet necessarily a large part of what the Buddha
believed and taught he derived from the common inheritance
of Indian thought which he shared with his generation. To
this he added the results of his own pondering over the prob-
lems of human life and death, the new ways of viewing
things, the new analyses and conclusions to which his thought
and his personal experiences led him. Finally he faced human-
ity and its problems with an attitude of loving devotion,
which, while it contributed nothing of a conceptual nature,
gave the religion which he founded a character that early dis-
tinguished it from all other faiths and sects of central or
eastern Asia. It will be useful to keep in mind these three
sources of early Buddhism."
The first of the three, the traditional Indian element, in-
cluding such things as belief in transmigration, the general
geography of the universe with its heavens, hells, and gods,
was of course brought into the religion not only by the
Buddha but by all its early converts. This factor of Buddhism
was, as Alessandro Costa has pointed out, "the spontane-
ous product of the popular mind, fixed in certain general
lines by the powerful personality of Gotama; but one which
retained the elasticity which characterizes the things thought
out and felt by many.'
›› 2
3 For further comment on this triple aspect of Buddhism see India and Its Faiths
(Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, 1915), pp. 410-16.
Il Budda e la Sua Dottrina (2d ed., Torino, Bocca, 1921), pp. 54-55. Mrs. Rhys
Davids suggests that the early disciples, especially the five ascetics who were the first
converts, may have contributed some of the ideas which are commonly attributed to the
Founder, see "The Unknown Co-founders of Buddhism," J.R.A.S., April, 1927.
92
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
93
This traditional element seldom finds itself in conflect with
the intellectual element of the Buddha's teaching; for they
deal, as a rule, with such different themes that there is little
room for conflict. The same cannot be said of the relation
between the second and the third factors. That part of the
Buddha's intellectual teachings which has to do with the
evils of desire and the importance of cultivating indifference
can only with difficulty be kept from conflicting with what
might be called the heart element of Buddhism, the love and
sympathy which the Founder felt and taught for all needy
sentient life. It is, to be sure, only craving and desire for
harmful things that the Buddha disapproves, but, as we have
seen, many of the natural affections of the heart weaken
the defenses of one's peace; wives and children are pledges
to Fortune. The logic of the situation, if pressed to its ex-
treme, might drive one even farther than this. Pity for the
suffering may be a source of sorrow; and to fix one's heart on
the success of a cause may lead to great distress if the cause
fail. This almost irrepressible conflict between heart and
head was noticeable within Buddhism from very early times.
The first Jataka story tells us that Gotama as a Bodhisattva
(one destined to be a Buddha and on the way to Buddha-
hood) in a previous birth, on seeing a starving tiger, "though
composed in mind was shaken with compassion by the suffer-
ings of his fellow-creature as Mount Meru is by an earth-
quake. It is a wonder," the writer comments, "how the
compassionate, be their constancy ever so evident in the
greatest sufferings of their own, are touched by the grief,
however small, of another.”³ This is not history but it
points to a situation which must have arisen not once but
many times. To be "composed in mind" yet at the same mo-
ment to be "shaken with compassion" is a difficult perform-
ance. A more historical example of this conflict is to be
found in Mahavagga X. 4, which shows how the dissensions
among his monks the temporary defeat of one of his life
purposes-for a short time troubled the Tathagata and pre-
vented him from living at ease.
So far as I am aware this inner conflict is never faced by
Buddhist books as a matter of theory; and the result is that
* Speyer's trans., p. 4.
G
94
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
each Buddhist is left to fight it out for himself. To the heart-
less and self-centered, the logical inference from the Second
Noble Truth-desire is the cause of sorrow, therefore desire
nothing and love no one-has resulted in a certain hard self-
ishness. The solution which the Buddha and his greater dis-
ciples acted upon, though so far as I know they did not ex-
press it, seems to have been that of living their lives on two
levels. One may be distressed and disappointed, and one's ef-
forts may be frustrated; yet if one takes a larger view he need
not allow these things to determine the whole tone of the
inner life. Pleasure is not compatible with sorrow, but joy
and the Great Peace may be. When the ideal Buddhist suf-
fers with the pain of the wounded animal or feels the woe of
the whole sentient world, he is with Saint Paul "as one sor-
rowful, yet always rejoicing.
4
When the Buddha died he left his disciples the Dhamma
to be his representative. According to the Samyutta he had
already in life said, "He who seeth the Dhamma, seeth me;
he who seeth me, seeth the Dhamma." This Teaching and
Way of Life, combined with one's own reason, was to be the
individual's guide. The Buddha departed into Nirvana,
which, whatever else may be said of it, is out of all conscious
and active relation with the affairs of this world.
دو
'XXII. 87.
Sutta Nipata V. 17. Cf. also Samyutta XI. 3; Majjhima LXXXV.
5
G
Yet the Brethren who were left behind could not break
the spell or forget the charm of their radiant Master. Even
before he died the thought of him, though far distant, formed
one of the strongest psychological helps in the spiritual
struggle. Aged and infirm Pingiya sings the praises of Go-
tama, and Bavari asks how he can stay away from one so
luminous and dear. Pingiya replies: "I do not stay away
from him even for a moment, from Gotama of great wisdom
who taught me the Dhamma. I see him in my mind and
with my eye, vigilant night and day; worshiping I spend the
night. Therefore I do not stay away from him. As I am
worn out and feeble my body does not go there, but in my
thoughts I always go there, for my mind is joined to him."5
Those who had revered and loved the Master in this way
could not at the death of his body drop out of their lives all
W
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
95
that he personally had meant to them. And this personal at-
tachment that they felt was passed on by a kind of inevitable
spiritual contagion to those who came by their words to be-
lieve on him. Though long since in Parinirvana, he was still
the first of the Three Refuges named in the formula of “join-
ing the Church" as we should say:
I take my refuge in the Buddha,
I take my refuge in the Dhamma,
I take my refuge in the Sangha.
The characteristic stanza already quoted in another connec-
tion from the Psalms of so many of the Brethren, shows how
this feeling of personal loyalty as a part of the religion was
handed on through the generations:
و
The Master hath my fealty and love
And all the Buddha's ordinance is done.
Low have I laid the heavy load I bore;
Cause of rebirth is found in me no more.
6
7
In church theory the Buddhist truth is accepted because
revealed by the Buddha. Faith, which means trust in the
Buddha and right belief (the first step of the Noble Path)
is of great importance. Meditation is for the purpose of
making faith more vivid by means of deeper experiences, not
for the sake of discovering new truths. But, as we have
seen, the Buddha himself constantly made appeal to reason.
His discourses were more like those of Socrates than like
those of Mohammed. He insists that his disciples shall really
understand and not simply take his word. Each man must
work out his own salvation with diligence. "Therefore be
ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge unto yourselves.
Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast the Truth
as a lamp. Look not for refuge to anyone besides your-
selves."
8
The authority of the Buddha in his church is midway be-
tween that of Christ in Christianity and that of a great scien-
tist or scholar in the intellectual world. The Buddha knew;
Cf. Digha XVI. 9.
77 Cf. La Vallée Poussin, Bouddhisme (Paris, 1909), pp. 129-78.
-
8
Cf. Majjhima XXXVIII.
From the Buddha's last address to his disciples, Digha XVI. 26.
96
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
hence by listening to his word we shall learn the truth. If
we could have got at the truth in some other way it
would have done as well. And since the Buddha's teaching
is true, one way to get at his real meaning is by the use of
our reason. Thus great liberty of discussion and very diver-
gent views have almost always been possible within Bud-
dhism. So far as authority is exercised within the church it is
for the sake of unity. Heresy becomes a sin only when it
leads to schism.
That primitive Buddhism and the Buddhism of the early
centuries deserves to be called a religion rather than a moral
philosophical society has often been questioned. It believes,
to be sure, in many "gods," but these are merely heavenly
rajahs and not at all equivalent to God in the Christian sense.
It has then no "personal God," nor does it teach a pantheis-
tic God nor an idealistic Absolute. For my own part I think
it should be called a religion because it decidedly takes an “at-
titude toward the Determiner of Destiny" 10-in this case
the moral universe and Karma. Yet it must be confessed it
lacks two things which are almost invariably found in re-
ligion: namely, a cosmic philosophy expressed in more or less
symbolic fashion, and a cult. The Buddha feared the effect
of both of these things; he had seen the evil effects of a per-
version or exaggeration of both, and he determined to have
his followers make the experiment of getting on without
either.¹¹ In one sense the experiment worked; so long as the
Founder lived and for a few years after his death, the Bud-
dhist community followed his injunctions with a fair degree
of strictness and success. In another sense the experiment
failed; for very soon after his death a simple form of cult was
introduced, and as the years went by a few cosmic symbols
crept into the thought of his followers. In this latter respect,
however, the Southern form of Buddhism has kept fairly
close to the Buddha's injunctions: the cosmic questions are
still in theory taboo and not even in symbolic form are they
answered. There is a certain negative gain in this, since much
nonsense and superstition is thereby avoided. On the other
11
10 The definition of religion suggested in my book on The Religious Consciousness.
As to cult see Digha XIII; Majjhima VII; concerning cosmic beliefs see preced-
ing chapter.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
97
hand, the Buddhism of the masses in the lands of Southern
Buddhism is incrusted with much animistic mythology that
has crept in from lower and non-Buddhist forms of belief;
and the pure Buddhism of the more learned has a certain
hard-headedness, this-worldliness, and lack of mystical lure
and cosmic largeness which certainly are not marks of
strength or inspiration. The cosmic vistas which the other
great religions give their followers through the symbolic ex-
pression of metaphysical ideas are possessions of great value,
and Southern Buddhism is the poorer for their lack.
It was more difficult for human nature to resist the de-
mand for some kind of cult than for philosophy; and, as I
have indicated, not long after the death of the Founder cer-
tain simple forms of it began to creep in. Both the Udana
and the Mahavagga (of the Vinaya) repeat a story that a
certain young monk named Sona was directed by the Buddha
to intone before the assembly of the monks "all the verses in
the Atthakavaggikani" 12 (which is thought to be Book IV
of the Sutta Nipata). This would indicate that, if not actu-
ally during the life of the Buddha, at any rate shortly after
his death, the repetition of portions of the Dhamma was be-
coming a sort of ritual. We can easily see how this would be.
The Master's words were not at first recorded in writing but
were treasured in the memory of those who had heard them
from his lips or (later on) from the lips of those who had
learned them at second or third hand. It was desirable that
as many members of the Order as possible should participate
in this communal memory-both for the sake of the Order
as a whole and for the individual advantage that each mem-
ber would thereby gain. To make more sure of this a large
number of passages from his teachings would be recited in
unison at frequent meetings of each of the chapters. This
solemn chanting of sacred words inevitably became a liturgy,
which was regarded as having value in itself.
Another form of cult began, very naturally, immediately
upon the death of the Founder. His body was ceremoni-
ously burned, and his ashes and bones were distributed as
precious possessions among the faithful. Over each of these
sacred relics a cairn was piled, which later on was replaced
12
Udana VI; Mahavagga V. 13, 9.
98
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
by a massive structure of masonry called stupa or dagoba.
The Digha justifies this practice (which in India was prob-
ably common enough) by putting into the mouth of the
Buddha himself directions for the doing of what was actually
done, together with a rationalization for the practice: "At
the four cross roads a cairn should be erected to the Tatha-
gata. And whosoever shall there place garlands or perfumes
or paint, or make salutation there, or become in its presence
calm in heart-that shall long be to them for a profit and a
joy." 13
Ma
A
Reverence to the relics of the Buddha-including, prob-
ably, not only his bones and ashes but some of the articles
most associated with him in life, notably his begging bowl-
was probably the first step in the direction of worship, if
indeed we may speak of "worship" in early Buddhism at all.
The reverence for the relics was practiced originally in order
"to become calm in heart." It had desirable subjective ef-
fects which were empirically verifiable. It is chiefly in this
subjective sense that we are justified in speaking of worship
among the intelligent early Buddhists. That "subjective wor-
ship" " 14 should have begun thus early in Buddhism and that
it should have had the sanction of the Nikayas is interesting
and significant, for, as we shall see, it tends to characterize
the religion throughout its history.
W
There was also, however, a belief that the reverential at-
titude toward sacred relics was in itself a good act and that
as such it (like all other good acts) must result in good
Karma. Not only reverence for relics produced this per-
fectly objective result, in the opinion of early Buddhism; the
same result might be attained by pious pilgrimage to the
four places at which the four great events of the Tathagata's
life occurred: his birth at Kapilavatthu, his enlightenment
under the Bodhi Tree (at Buddh Gaya), his first sermon or
"turning of the wheel of the Dhamma" at the deer park at
Sarnath near Benares, and his Parinirvana at Kusinara. 15
13 Digha XVI. 11. It is of course perfectly possible that the Buddha himself may
have given these directions, but it seems more probable that the passage was composed
after his death to justify the practice.
14 By this I mean worship the purpose of which is the subjective effect it produces
on the worshiper. See The Religious Consciousness, Chap. XIV.
15
A prophecy of the veneration of these places is put into the mouth of the Buddha
in Digha XVI, and the practice is thereby stamped with his approval.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
99
Pilgrimage to these sacred places must be set down as one of
the earliest forms of Buddhist cult. Out of them, accord-
ing to Foucher's hypothesis, came the first religious symbols
of Buddhist art-the tree, the wheel, the stupa, found so
frequently in bas-relief upon early Buddhist monuments.16
Figures of the Buddha were for a long time avoided; in fact
they were introduced into Buddhist art only through the in-
fluence of Greek artists in the northwest, during the reign
of Kanishka, in the first or second century of our era.¹7
-
17
The type of Buddha image thus created has been carried
over all the East. Slight variations have been introduced
here and there but in fundamental characters the image of
the Buddha is everywhere the same.18 The product of In-
dian tradition and symbolism and of Greek art, it is worthy
of its double ancestry, and to one who understands it today
with its two thousand years of history it is rich with signifi-
cance and beauty. Foucher has pointed out that it is com-
posite in other ways than origin. The body is robed as a
monk but the head, instead of being shaven as every monk's
must be, retains an elaborate arangement of long and beau-
tiful hair. The model chosen for the head by the Hellenic
or Hellenized sculptors was not the Indian monk but the
Greek god. The Buddha image thus presents us with a be-
ing half human, half divine-the monk and the god, who is
neither god nor man but a wholly unique being.
Once introduced into Buddhist monasteries, the Buddha
image inevitably became the center of the simple ritual that
was developing, and the room in which the monks assembled
to chant together pasages from the Dhamma became a
shrine or temple. The influence of this development on the
attitude of the less learned toward the Buddha must have
10 Foucher believes that pilgrims to each of the four places brought home with them
an appropriate memento. Thus the tree was used to indicate Buddha Gaya, the wheel
Sarnath, and the stupa Kusinara, see Beginnings of Buddhist Art (Paris, Guethner, 1917),
Chap. I.
17 Ibid., Chap. IV.
18
Thus Stein says that in the frescoes of the Tun-Huang caves "the Chinese artists
to have given free expression to their love for ornate landscape backgrounds,
graceful curves and bold movement. But no local taste had presumed to transform the
dignified serenity of the features, the simple yet impressive gestures, the graceful rich-
ness of folds with which classical art, as transplanted to the Indus, had endowed the
bodily presence of the Tathagata and his many epiphanies," Ruins of Desert Cathay
(London, Macmillan, 1912), II. 25.
1
100
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
been very considerable; and we can see how naturally the
later worship of the Buddha before his image developed from
these simple and rather Puritanical beginnings.
Hand in hand with this development of the cult there
went a corresponding transformation in the conception of
the Founder. During his later years he seems to have been
regarded by his faithful disciples as the source of all author-
ity and as possessing unfathomable and all-inclusive knowl-
edge, yet subject still to the limitations of a human body.
So he was remembered by those who had known him in the
flesh. But when the last of these had followed him into Pari-
nirvana, his form took on larger and more supernatural pro-
portions. No longer joined to a body, he came to have a
place in a cosmic scheme which it is hard to suppose he him-
self would have accepted. At great intervals, so the theory
ran, when the World's need called for it, a Buddha regularly
appeared and taught the eternal Dhamma. Gotama Buddha
was thus only the latest of several omniscient teachers. The
eternal Dhamma, too, which all the Buddhas taught, took on
a new and awful glamour. And the Order or Sangha which
the Buddha founded-not just this collection of fallible men
and women, but the ideal Sangha, the institution, eternal too,
or at least refounded by each recurring Buddha-this also de-
manded and received the reverence of worship.
of worship. Thus
"Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha," the three refuges, became the
"Three Jewels" or the "Triple Gem" and were hymned as the
supreme object of adoration.19
Buddha and Dhamma have been treated at length in these
pages. Something further must now be said of the last men-
ber of the three jewels, the Sangha. As we have seen, the
Buddha at the very beginning of his career formed a society
of followers who took him as their master, lived a monastic
life, and sought to follow the Dhamma. The idea of a group
of men who had renounced the household life and chosen a
teacher was not original with Gotama. For many centuries
it had been the custom in India for men who were in earnest
with their personal salvation or who desired to attain super-
natural powers, to leave the household life and live as home-
less wanderers. Many of these "Paribrajakas" lived as lonely
19 See the hymn in the Khuddaka Patha VI.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
101
hermits, many grouped themselves around some leader whose
teachings they sought to learn. The Buddhist Sangha was
one of these groups of earnest seekers. It differed from the
others in its rapid growth but chiefly in the nature of the
Dhamma which its teacher imparted, and the consequent aim
which it sought. Here indeed was an original contribution
to the monastic and religious life of India, a contribution
which came not so much from the Buddha's head as from his
heart. His devotion to the service of all needy creatures he
was able, to a considerable extent, to infuse among his fol-
lowers, and the Sangha recognized the spreading of the truth
among those who knew it not, as one of its chief ideals. This
was something relatively new in India. It is to the Sangha
and its missionary ideal more than to anything else that
Buddhism owes its long life, its wide spread, the comparative
purity of its doctrines, and the continuity of its tradition
and its teaching. It has been one of the most influential in-
stitutions in history.
The Order of Nuns was initiated by the Buddha with
much misgiving and (if we are to accept the account in the
canon) only at the urgent request of Ananda, the cousin and
personal attendant of the Founder. Once started, however,
it seems for years to have been a thriving institution, and it is
quite probable that the story of the Tathagata's reluctance
to admit nuns to the Sangha and his prediction that as a
consequence of his doing so the religion would come to a
temporary end in five hundred years, originated at some time
subsequent to Asoka, when the Women's Order was in a
state of serious decline. During the Buddha's lifetime and
for long after, the nuns received systematic instruction from
the more learned monks, who seem to have taken turns in
preaching at the convents. The elderly nuns also instructed
the novices and made many converts among lay women.20
In fact, as Mrs. Rhys Davids puts it, "the Order, refuge
though it proved, was primarily an organization for the
propaganda of the Dhamma, and its members were all more
or less, wholly or at times, saviours and good shepherds of
stray sheep.
21
20 Cf. Psalms of the Sisters, Nos. 48, 49, 50.
21 Introduction to the Psalms of the Sisters, p. xxxv.
102
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The Sangha is an interesting example of collective life or-
ganized for the sake of individual religion. In guiding its
development during its early years the Buddha showed con-
stantly that elasticity of mind, that ability ever to distin-
guish the end from the means, which characterized him in
every field of thought. He never lost from sight the one
great aim—or double aim—of the Order: the stimulation of
the spiritual life in its individual members and the mission-
ary effort to spread the truth throughout all the world. But
in the prosecution of this aim he tried all sorts of expedients,
never allowed himself to be bound by tradition or precedent,
accepted and acted upon all manner of suggestions, used dif-
ferent methods with different individuals, and in general
adapted the means to the end and treated every new situation
on its merits. So long as he lived he was the source of author-
ity, and after he died his method was followed by the Sangha
itself, so that it developed in much the same empirical fash-
ion as the British Constitution. As Mr. Dutt has pointed out,
most of the rules of the Vinaya, as we have it today, though
attributed to the Buddha, are probably of later origin and
were made, as the occasions for them arose, by the Sangha.22
This process continued for many years.
For these many rules, whatever their origin, there is here
no space. Mention should perhaps be made in passing of the
custom called Uposatha, a gathering of all the monks of each
chapter at new moon and full moon.23 Its original aim was
that each chapter of monks might recite together the many
rules of the Order, the list of which was known as the Pati-
mokkha, and that opportunity for public confession might
thus be given to any brother who had broken some of the
rules. This recitation of the Patimokkha later "became a
mere ceremonial observance, serving the same purpose among
the Buddhist Bhikkus as the Holy Communion amongst the
Christians, being nothing but the formal embodiment of the
corporate life of a cenobitical society." 24 The rules thus
read over by the group seem to have varied at different times.
There are ten rules, however, which stand out with special
22
<<
Early Buddhist Monachism (London, Trübner, 1924).
Reference is made to this custom in so early a passage as Majjhima LXXVII.
Dutt, op. cit., p. 100. I am not sure that Mr. Dutt fully understands the pur-
pose of the Christian sacrament.
23
2.1
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
103
prominence and have been recognized from the Buddha's
time to our own, namely, the "Five Precepts" already alluded
to more than once,25 which all Buddhists, lay as well as cleric,
must observe, and five additional precepts for the monks as
follows: (6) not to eat at forbidden times, (7) not to dance,
sing, or attend theatrical or other spectacles, (8) to abstain
from the use of garlands, scents, and ornaments, (9) to ab-
stain from the use of high or broad beds, (10) never to re-
ceive money.
26
The Buddha's two chief disciples during his lifetime were
Sariputta and Moggallana. Both of these died before their
Master, and at the time of his death the most important mem-
bers of the Sangha seem to have been Kassapa, Ananda, An-
uruddha, and Upali. The tradition preserved in the Culla-
vagga and the Mahavamsa describes how, under the leadership
of Kassapa,27 five hundred leading Arahants assembled dur-
ing the following rainy season at Rajagaha in order to dis-
cover how far they agreed as to the teachings of their
departed Master on the various points of doctrine and
discipline. This meeting is known in Buddhist history as the
First Council.28 Its existence has been called in question, but
the thing itself is so very likely that it seems more reason-
able to accept the fact, if not the details, of the Rajagaha
Council.
-
A hundred years later, according to tradition, a large
group
of monks living in or near the city of Vesali became
so dissatisfied with the stringency of the rules that they de-
cided to disregard or reinterpret-some of them.29 The
attention of the stricter monks being called to this fact, a
meeting of representatives of the Order was held at Vesali.
Here the question of the rules was decided in favor of the
conservative party; so little to the satisfaction of the minor-
25
Not to kill, steal, lie, be unchaste, or drink intoxicants.
20 Found in several passages, c.g., Mahavagga I. 56.
127 The northern tradition speaks of Kassapa as the First Patriarch or head of the
Order after the death of the Tathagata, and makes Ananda his (almost immediate)
successor. The Southern tradition recognizes Kassapa as the presiding officer of the
First Council, but makes Upali the first patriarch.
*28
It is described in the Cullavagga XI and Mahavamsa III. Upali is said to have
recited the Vinaya and Ananda the Sutta. A later account adds that Kassapa recited
the Abhidhamma.
Notably the rule which forbade the acceptance of money.
104
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ity, however, that they seceded from the Order (though by
no means from Buddhism) and formed a new order or school
of their own. This Vesali meeting is known in Buddhist his-
tory as the Second Council.30 It is notable as marking the
end of complete union in the Order and the beginning of the
many schismatic schools or sects or denominations into which
later Buddhism was divided.
This Second Council (whose existence, like that of the
First is seriously questioned by several Western students), if
it convened as tradition says a century after the Founder's
death, must be dated about 380 B.C We have little knowl-
edge of the history of Buddhism during the next century.
But in 270 B.C. there came to the throne of the Indian Empire
a man who was to do more for Buddhism than anyone before
or after him, saving only the Founder. This man was Asoka.
I referred to his domain as the "Indian empire" because his
grandfather, Chandragupta, King of Magadha, had con-
quered all of northern India, his father Bindusara (Chan-
dragupta's son) had added much of southern India, and he
himself, during the early years of his reign, rounded out his
realm by the conquest of Kalinga, on the southeastern coast,
thus uniting under his sway all of India from Kabul and the
Himalayas to an east-and-west line a little north of Madras.
According to his own confession, the sufferings which he had
produced by his bloody conquest of Kalinga caused him "re-
morse, profound sorrow, and regret"; and it was possibly in
part as a result of these feelings that he became, shortly after,
a Buddhist; and two years later actually joined the Order and
became (while still emperor) a monk.
This in effect made him head of the church as well as head
of the state. But Buddhism did not thereby become the
state church, at least not in the ordinary sense of the word.
For the emperor was a man of great liberality toward all sin-
cere faith, and the teachings of the Buddha only encour-
aged this tolerant attitude. All religions were state religions,
in that they all received aid from the emperor. Buddhism,
however, being in his opinion the truest and best of all, natu-
rally received the greatest aid. It is interesting to note what
30
Our knowledge of it is based on Cullavagga XII, Mahavamsa IV, and the
Dipavamsa.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
105
Buddhism meant in the third century B.C.—at least what it
meant to the emperor. We are enabled to see this because
he has told us in letters engraved on enduring stone, in a
series of remarkable inscriptions set up by him in all the
corners of his immense empire. Buddhism meant to him
chiefly one thing: morality. Many of his inscriptions are
moral sermons, based on the Dhamma and set up for the
sake of spreading the Dhamma. In some of the inscriptions
he shows how he himself has practiced it: for example, by
digging wells, planting trees, providing remedies (hospitals
also may be intended) for both men and animals, and looking
out for the comfort of travelers. In another very Buddhist
way he also followed the Dhamma and obeyed the injunc-
tions of the Founder: he sent out missionaries to spread the
knowledge of the true religion both in his own dominions,
in Ceylon, and to the Greek Kingdoms of Asia, Europe, and
Egypt. According to the Mahavamsa he also sent mission-
aries to Pegu in Burma, but as this is not supported by the
inscriptions it is not generally accepted. What was the result
of his missions to Africa, Europe, and Asia outside of his
own realm, is quite unknown; but Ceylon, to which he sent
his son (or younger brother?), Mahinda, was rapidly con-
verted; and his efforts to spread Buddhism in his own broad
empire were so successful that, as Vincent Smith has ex-
pressed it, "he succeeded in transforming the local doctrine
of a local Indian sect into one of the great religions of the
world." 31
The missionary zeal which Asoka inherited from the
great Founder has characterized Buddhism throughout its
history and marked it off from all the other religions of
southern and eastern Asia. Hinduism, to be sure, had a cer-
tain limited spread outside of India, but this extension was
not of the missionary sort. As Sir Charles Eliot has put it:
-
Wherever we find records of Hinduism outside of India the presence
of Hindu conquerors or colonists is recorded. Hinduism accompanied
Hindus and sometimes spread round their settlements, but it never
attempted to convert distant and alien lands. But the Buddhists had
21 The Early History of India, 4th ed. (Oxford, 1924), p. 197. An epitome of the
inscriptions referring to the Dhamma will be found in Rhys Davids' Buddhist India
(N. Y., Putnam, 1903), pp. 294-97.
106
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
from the beginning the true evangelistic temper: they preached to all
the world and in singleness of purpose; they had no political support
from India.82
And as to the native religions of China the contrast is per-
haps even greater. To quote again from Eliot:
Whereas Indian missionaries preached Buddhism in China, the idea of
making Confucianism known in India seems never to have entered the
head of any Chinese.93
According to the Ceylonese tradition Asoka not only did
his best to spread Buddhism over all the world; he also sought
to purify the Buddhist Order at home by calling a Third
Council, held at his capital, Pataliputra. The historicity of
this Council, like that of the others, has been seriously ques-
tioned by Western scholars: all the more so because it is not
mentioned in any of Asoka's inscriptions, and rests on the
authority of the two Ceylonese chronicles and Buddha-
ghosa.34 Vincent Smith,35 Eliot,30 and Havell 37 accept the
Council as probably historical. According to the tradition,
the occasion for calling the Council was the fact that many
heretical or utterly irreligious persons, for the sake of enjoy-
ing the advantageous lot held by Buddhist monks under
Asoka, had joined the Order, and by their loose lives and
impure faith were bringing the Sangha into disrepute. The
Council, presided over by the very venerable Tissa Moggali-
putta, is said to have purified the Order by driving out these
unworthy members, established the true doctrine, and fixed
the canon. That it fixed the Pali canon as we have it today
is certainly not the case, but it may well have recognized
definitively the canonicity of the older books.
Tissa, the presiding officer, is said to have written the
Katha-vatthu, as a kind of compendium of the theoretical.
conclusions established by the Council and a refutation of
11 Hinduism and Buddhism, III. 5.
อง Ibid., p. 3.
84
Mahavamsa V. Buddhaghosa's account will be found in Aung and Mrs. Rhys
Davids' translation of the Katha-vatthu (Points of Controversy, London, Milford, 1915),
pp. 1-7. There is no translation of the older Ceylonese chronicle, the Dipavamsa.
35
Op. cit., p. 169.
Op. cit., I. 271.
The History of Aryan Rule in India (London, Harrap, 1918), p. 96.
36
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
107
the false positions held by the heretical sects. At this time-
and for a thousand years thereafter-some eighteen sects
were recognized, to which, from time to time, still others
were added. The points of disagreement were seldom of a
philosophical sort and even then were not often fundamental.
On matters of theory the sects of Buddhism kept pretty
closely together, or where they diverged it was most often
on what seem to us hair-splitting distinctions. Much subtle
thinking and discussion went on during Asoka's reign and
during the centuries that followed it, and this resulted in the
writings known as the Abhidhamma, the third part of the
canon, in which the scholastic mind had full sway. The ten-
dency of most of the schools was toward the refinements of
analysis, and the majority of the schools (though by no means
all) developed the Anatta doctrine not only into an absolute
denial of a real self but into a "radical pluralism" which
analyzed all things into elements known as "dharmas."
The conception of dharma [according to Stcherbatsky] is the central
point of the Buddhist doctrine. In the light of this conception Bud-
dhism discloses itself as a metaphysical theory developed out of one
fundamental principle, viz., the idea that existence is an interplay of a
plurality of subtle, ultimate, not further analyzable elements of Matter,
Mind, and Force. These elements are technically called dharmas, a
meaning which this word has in this system alone. Buddhism, accord-
ingly, can be characterized as a system of Radical Pluralism: the ele-
ments alone are realities, every combination of them is a mere name
covering a plurality of separate elements. The moral teaching of a path
toward Final Deliverance is not something additional or extraneous to
this ontological doctrine, it is most intimately connected with it, and,
in fact, identical with it."
38
While the conceptual side of the religion was undergoing
this development, the cultus and the more popular forms of
belief did not remain unchanged. The reliefs on the stone
railings of the Bharut and Sanchi topes, though they have
no representation of the Buddha, present us with a rich
variety of demigods and demigoddesses, fairies and genii,
borrowed largely from Hinduism, or rather the common pos-
session of all Indians. These great topes were erected by
pious Buddhists during the second century B.C. and show how
33
The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word Dharma
(London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1923).
108
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
2
■
large a part mythology played in the religion of the Bud-
dhist masses at that period. In the commentary to the
Psalms of the Sisters, which, though written in the fifth
century A.D., consists almost entirely of much more ancient
stories, reference is several times made to forms of worship
which surely would have won the disapproval of the Founder
--such as making a golden tee or umbrella as an offering to
the shrine where some of his relics were buried, or offering
flowers to a former Buddha and gaining merit thereby.39
For by this time the many Buddhas who had preceded
Gotama had begun to occupy a large place in the thought of
the faithful and to enjoy a growing cult.
But to return to the outer history of Buddhism at the
point where we dropped it. The great Asoka died about
230 B.C. and his dynasty was overthrown about 182 by the
commander-in-chief of the army, Pushyamitra by name, an
ardent partisan of the Brahmanic religion and an equally
ardent foe of Buddhism. Under the dynasty which he
founded Buddhism was at a disadvantage. It is possible that
the tales of persecution recorded by late Buddhist writers
were unfounded, but it is plain that a religion so largely
monastic as Buddhism was at that time must have suffered
considerably when a hostile ruler took the place of an ardent
devotee.40
It was fortunate for Buddhism that only a few years after
the overthrow of Asoka's dynasty a new defender of the
faith appeared in the northwest. This was the Greek King
Menander, whose difficult name the Indians approximated as
nearly as they could by calling him Milinda. Several of the
Greek rulers of Bactria (by this time largely colonized by
Greeks) had, before Milinda's time, invaded northwestern
India; and if we may trust Hindu tradition he pushed his
conquests to the gates of Pataliputra, the ancient capital of
Magadha, and was stopped only by Pushyamitra.41 Milinda
is of interest to us not because of his conquests but because
of his devotion to Buddhism, and also because of the famous
30
See Mrs. Rhys Davids' version of the Psalms, pp. 22-27.
40 See Kern's discussion of the subject in his Histoire du Bouddhisme dans l'Inde,
II. 380-83.
41
See Vincent Smith's Oxford History of India, p. 118; and "The Indian Empire"
section of the Imperial Indian Gazetteer (Oxford, 1909), II. 287.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
109
and illuminating conversations he carried on with one of
the ablest of Buddhist scholars and thinkers, the great
Nagasena.42 During his reign Buddhism spread rapidly in
the northwestern regions, Kashmir, Kabul, Bactria-where,
in fact, it already had gained a considerable foothold in
Asoka's time. In the Deccan (i.e., southern India) also
Buddhism had some success from, roughly, the year 200 B.C.
onward, as is shown by the Buddhist monuments and Chaitya
halls at Karli, Nasik, Ajanta, and elsewhere.43 In fact, right
on till the end of the first century of our era Buddhism seems
to have been the popular religion with the upper classes in
most parts of central and southern India,** in spite of the
overthrow of Asoka's dynasty. The influence of Pushyami-
tra's Hindu dynasty in Magadha, however, steadily told
against Buddhism in that region and in the first centuries of
our era the center of the religion seems to have been shifted
to the extreme northwest. The Græco-Bactrian kingdom
of western India was indeed overthrown soon after the death
of Milinda, but its place was taken by a new foreign invader,
which like its predecessor was easily won over to the young
missionary religion of the Blessed One. These invaders were
the Kushans, a sub-division of the Yueh-Chi nomads. The
greatest of their kings was Kanishka, whose exact date is still
a puzzle, but whose reign seems to have fallen somewhere in
the first or second century A.D.
45
Whatever his date, King Kanishka was a liberal patron of
Buddhism, whether from religious or political motives is not
plain. Though not sharing the great Asoka's undivided
42
Reported in the Milindapanha, trans. by Rhys Davids (The Questions of King
Milinda) in S.B.E., XXV, XXXVI.
See Fergusson's History of Indian and Eastern Architecture (London, Murray,
1876), Book I, Chap. V, Kern Histoire du Buddhisme dans l'Inde, 388-89. A de-
scription of the present condition of some of these cave temples will be found in Dey's
My Pilgrimages to Ajanta and Bagh (London, Butterworth, 1925).
44 This is indicated by the numerous Buddhist monuments and inscriptions of this
period as compared with the Brahmanic monuments of the same centuries. Cf. Eliot,
op. cit., II. 69.
45 Vincent Smith dates Kanishka's accession at approximately 120 A.D. (Oxford
History of India, p. 130; Early History of India, 4th ed., pp. 271-74). Eliot says,
"At present the majority of scholars place his accession at about 78 A.D.," and he seems
inclined to accept this date. Stael Holstein puts it later than Vincent Smith, while
some put it as early as 58 B.C. See Eliot's Hinduism and Buddhism, IL. 64. His dor
minion included Kabul, Kashmir, Gandhara, and a large part of western India, and
toward the close of his reign he seems to have conquered Khotan, Yarkand, and Kash-
gar, taking them from China.
110
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
loyalty to Buddhism, he was exceedingly genercus toward
the official representatives of the faith, and he followed
Asoka's example by holding a Council, the Fourth General
Council if we accept Asoka's and its two predecessors as
historical. By this time the new kind of Buddhism known as
Mahayana, or "Greater Vehicle" was gradually forming, and
the contrast between it and the more conservative Hinayana,
or "Lesser Vehicle" was beginning to be felt. Kanishka's
Council was called to straighten out, if possible, some of the
difficulties thus produced and some of the disputes between
the eighteen older sects, and to settle certain questions about
the canon. The Sarvastivadins, a Hinayanist sect, seem to
have dominated the Council; but it is recognized by the
Mahayanists of Tibet and China, and quite disregarded by
the Hinayanists of Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodia."
47
The technical questions to which this Council of Kanish-
ka's gives rise are many and difficult, but fortunately we need
not enter upon them. It is sufficient for our purposes to note
that the Council was a fairly successful attempt to harmon-
ize various schools of Buddhist thought and practice, and
that apparently both Hinayanists and Mahayanists were rep-
resented in it.
The two schools continued to develop side by side in
many parts of the land for several centuries. Particularly
in the mountainous regions of the northwest were they suc-
cessful in making new converts. When about 400 A.D. the
Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien made his way through the Gobi
desert and across the Palmirs to northwestern India, he very
early came upon regions that honored the Dharma. The
first of these he met with, which he calls the country of
Shen-shen, supported some four thousand Buddhist monks
"all of the Little Vehicle," and much the same situation he
found in the next stage of his journey. In Khotan, where
"all without exception honor the Dharma," the monks (who
"number even several myriads") principally belonged to the
40 Many of Kanishka's coins have been found, and though the Buddha is honored
on some of them, many of the others bear the images of Greck, Persian and Indian
deities. See Vincent Smith, Oxford History of India, pp. 131-32.
47
The principal source of our knowledge of Kanishka's Council is Hiuen-Tsiang-
in Beal's trans. (Buddhist Records of the Western World, London, Trübner), I. 151-56.
For further discussion of the questions involved see Kern, Histoire du Bouddhisme dans
l'Inde, II. 391-97, and Eliot, op. cit., II. 78-82.
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
111
Great Vehicle.48 Further south, in Udyana, he found five
hundred monasteries, all belonging to the Little Vehicle
without exception.19 And so his account continues, through-
out his description of the various Buddhist communities in
India proper, though in some places he finds monks belong-
ing to both systems dwelling promiscuously together.50 On
the whole the picture of Indian Buddhism which one gets
from Fa-Hien shows the Hinayana still enjoying a larger
following than the Mahayana but the Mahayana rapidly
overtaking the older form of the faith.51 In the sacred re-
gion where Buddhism was born, from Sravasti, through
Kapilavastu (= Kapilavatthu) to Kusinara, along the base
of the mountains in the north of Oudh and of western
Bengal, there were many deserted Viharas. Especially round
Kapilavastu the country was a great desert where few people
were met with on the roads "for fear of lions and white ele-
phants." But except for this region Buddhism on the
whole was in a most flourishing condition in all the parts of
India that Fa-Hien visited. The Guptas, to be sure, who
ruled most of northern and central India from 320 to 480,
were Hindus, and during their dominance there was a de-
cided revival of Hinduism,53 but the kings of this dynasty,
especially the earlier ones, were tolerant, and Buddhism seems
to have reached the height of its popularity during their rule.
Like most things Indian it suffered somewhat from the in-
vasion of the Huns, who dominated many parts of the north-
west from 480 to 530; but the immediate effect of their
depredations does not seem to have been very striking. At
any rate, the Chinese pilgrim Sung-Yun, who traveled
through this region in 518-21, gives us a picture in which
Buddhism is quite as thriving as it was in Fa-Hien's time.54
›› 52
48
See Chaps. II and III of his Fo-Kwo-Ki. In Legge's trans. (Fa-Hien's Record of
Buddhist Kingdoms, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1886), pp. 12-16; Beal's trans. in the
Introd. to his Buddhist Records of the Western World, pp. xxiii-xxv.
49
Legge, Chap. VII.
50
60 Idem, Chap. XVII. Cf. also Chap. XXXVI.
61
Cf. also Kern, op. cit., II. 439.
12 Chap. XXII.
53
See Havell's History of Aryan Rule in India, Chaps. X, XI.
54
See his account of his travels, trans. by Beal in the Introd. to his Buddhist
Records of the Western World, pp. lxxxv-cviii. Apparently the anti-Buddhist pro-
pensities of the invading Huns had little influence on the mass of the population. The
ceremonious Chinaman seems to have been more struck with the bad manners of the
112
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The next picture we get of Indian Buddhism, however,
namely, that given us by the great pilgrim Hiuen-Tsiang
(629-45) shows us plainly that the religion had reached its
acme either during Fa-Hien's time or shortly after, and was
rather rapidly starting down the decline. In Magadha, to
be sure, it was still prosperous 55-possibly even more pros-
perous than during Fa-Hien's visit. This is probably to be
accounted for in part by the natural strength of the religion
on its native soil and also by the encouragement given it by
the Emperor Harsha (606-47), who became a Hinayana
Buddhist during his reign and was converted to the Mahayana
by Hiuen-Tsiang himself.56 But a comparison of the ac-
counts of outlying regions given by Fa-Hien and Hiuen-
Tsiang shows unmistakable and rather striking signs of rapid
decay.5 57 The northwest, once the stronghold of Buddhism,
Huns and especially of their king than with their paganism. "Their rules of politeness
are very defective," he tells us; and on one occasion he undertook to read a lecture on
the subject to the King himself.
55
Asoka's capital, Pataliputtra, however, had sadly decayed, and Hiuen-Tsiang
found only two or three monasteries where there had been several hundred. See The
Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by his disciple Hwui-li, trans. by Beal (London, Kegan Paul,
Trübner, 1911), p. 101.
50
Hiuen-Tsiang not only converted King Harsha (who is always referred to in the
Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by his title Siladitya-raja); at a grand mela held by the King, the
Chinese scholar displayed a series of theses in support of the Mahayana which he was
willing to defend against all comers. As no one dared to debate with him or dispute his
position, he converted large numbers of learned Hinayanists. See the Life, pp. 175-81.
67
Notably in Gandhara, Takshasila, and Kashmir. Cf., e.g., the following passages
descriptive of Udyana (the region north of Peshawar on the Swat river): (1) "The
religion of Buddha is very flourishing. In all they have five hundred Sangharamas
[monasteries]. They belong to the Little Vehicle without exception" (Fa-Hien, Chap.
VIII). (2) "The King of the country religiously observes a vegetable diet; on great
fast days he pays adoration to the Buddha both morning and evening. . . In the
evening the sound of the convent bells may be heard on every side, filling the world.
The earth is covered with flowers of different hues which succeed each other winter and
summer, and are gathered by the clergy and laity alike as offerings for the Buddha”
(Sung-Yun, Beal's trans., p. xciv.) (3) "They practise the art of using charms.
They greatly reverence the Dhamma of the Buddha and are believers in the Great
Vehicle. On both sides of the river there are some 1400 old sangharamas. They are
now generally waste and desolate: formerly there were some 18,000 monks in them, but
gradually they have become less, till now there are very few. They study the Great
Vehicle; they practise the duty of quiet meditation and have pleasure in reciting texts
relating to this subject, but have no great understanding as to them" (Hiuen-Tsiang III.
120 of Beal's trans.). Concerning Gandhara Fa-Hien says merely, "The people of this
country mostly study the Little Vehicle" (Chap. X). One hundred and twenty years
later Sung-Yun found it in possession of the conquering Huns whose King "did not
believe in the Law of the Buddha but loved to worship demons. The people of the
country had a great respect for the Law of the Buddha and loved to read the sacred
books when suddenly this king came into power who was strongly opposed to anything
of the sort" (Beal's trans., op. cit., p. c.). About one hundred and fifteen years still
later Hiuen-Tsiang says of this region and its people: "The disposition of the people is
timid and soft. Most of them belong to heretical schools; a few believe in the true
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
113
was rapidly forgetting the Tathagata. All over the north
Hinduism was coming back into its own, and the rather
precarious foothold which Buddhism had been able to gain
in the south was being lost to Jainism. It is interesting to
note that the two great divisions of Buddhism seem to have
suffered about equally in the general decline. In fact, if we
may trust Hiuen-Tsiang's rather incidental figures, there
were still many more Hinayanist monks than Mahayanist.58
It should be said in this connection, however, that judging
from the pictures given us by the Chinese pilgrims, the Hina-
yana of these centuries in India was less pure than of old,
and was being largely colored by Mahayana practices, if not
by Mahayana philosophy,59 and furthermore that the Maha-
yana had probably greater strength with the laity than had
the Hinayana, and this strength of course is not shown in
Hiuen-Tsiang's figures.
C
The last of the Chinese pilgrims who have left us descrip-
tions of Indian Buddhism is I-tsing, who was in India and
Sumatra from 671 to 695. In the interval between Hiuen-
Tsiang's visit and his own, things seem to have gone from
bad to worse. The pilgrim himself is conscious of the fact
and bemoans the decaying state of the religion that he loves."⁰
At the close of his narrative the curtain falls on India, or at
least a veil falls between our eyes and it, through which we
can see only the general tendencies, with now and then some
Dharma. There are about 1000 monasteries which are deserted and in ruins. They are
filled with wild shrubs and solitary to the last degree. The stupas are mostly decayed.
The heretical temples to the number of about one hundred are occupied pell-mell by
heretics" (p. 98).
58
Eliot has tabulated Hiuen-Tsiang's figures as to Buddhist monks in India, with
the following results: Hinayanist, 96,000; Mahayanist, 32,000; students of both systems
or residents of monasteries where both were permitted, $4,500. On this Eliot signifi-
cantly comments: "Some writers speak as if after one era Mahayanism was predominant
in India and the Hinayana banished to its extreme confines such as Ceylon and Kash-
mir. Yet about 640 this zealous Mahayanist states that half the monks of India were
definitely Hinayanist, while less than a fifth had equally definite Mahayanist convic-
tions," op. cit., II. 101.
159
In the Mathura region, for example, where in Fa-Hien's time there were many
monks and nuns of both the Hinayana and the Mahayana, "the Bhikshunis principally
honor the tower of Ananda; the Sramaneras mostly offer to Rahula; the masters of the
Abhidharma offer to Abhidharma; the masters of the Vinaya offer to the Vinaya.
Men attached to the Mahayana offer to the Prajnaparamita, Manjusri, and Avalokites-
vara.' Fa-Hien, Chap. XVI. For a summary of the conditions of Indian Buddhism
in Hiuen-Tsiang's time see Watters, On Yuan Chwang (London, J.R.A.S., 1904), I.
161-68.
00
""
See his Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay
Archipelago, trans. by J. Takakusa (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1896).
114
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
61
striking fact. Harsha, the Buddhist emperor, had died a
quarter of a century before I-tsing's visit, and for many
centuries thereafter India was in a process of political dis-
ruption, during which Buddhism continued steadily to de-
cline. In its home land, Magadha, to be sure, much was done
for it by a new and loyal Buddhist dynasty, the Palas, which
ruled from 730 for four or five centuries, and the inscriptions
indicate a revival in the religion from the eighth to the tenth
century. But outside of Magadha the decay of Buddhism
proceeded with notable rapidity. Most of the Indian rulers.
were Hindu, and Hinduism seems gradually to have absorbed
Buddhism. In the Deccan, Buddhism had nearly ceased to
exist by the year 1000.62 It was approximately in this year
1000 that the last attack upon Buddhism began, which was
to give it its coup de grâce. This was the invasion of India
by the Moslems. The first serious incursion in the northwest
was begun in the year 1001 by the zealous and able soldier
Mahmud of Ghazni, and he kept up his work of conquest
and plunder for a quarter of a century. What Buddhist
monasteries were left in the northwest were probably de-
stroyed by his hosts of iconoclasts, who felt themselves com-
missioned by Allah to enforce the first and second of the
Mosaic Commandments. In all the western region conquered
by Mahmud, however, there seems to have been but little
living Buddhism to destroy. It was during his reign that
the distinguished Moslem scholar, Alberuni, visited the
Punjab and made a careful study of Indian philosophy and
science. He was a man of great intellectual curiosity and
liberality of thought, and has left us a book descriptive of
India and its peoples. He has much to say of Vaishnavism,
which he found very strong in the regions he visited, but he
hardly so much as mentions Buddhism.63
Mahmud's example was followed by other Mohammedan
warriors from the northwest; and in the year 1193 Magadha,
the last stronghold of Buddhism, fell before their swords.
After this Buddhism lingered on in various isolated commu-
61
See Neumann's notes in II. 830-31 of his Die Reden Gotamo Buddhos, based upon
Bühler's investigation.
62 According to Eliot there are no traces of the existence of Buddhism in the Deccan
after 1150, op. cit., II. 108.
03
Alberuni's India, trans. by E. C. Sachau (London, Trübner, 1910).
THE STORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM
115
nities, especially in Bengal and Orissa. In fact there are still
remnants or traces of it in the degenerate worship of a few
villages here and there. But the fall of Magadha was really
the death-knell of Indian Buddhism; and today there is
hardly a vihara or temple worthy of the name Buddhist in
all the land of the Tathagata. 64
But long before the fall of Magadha Buddhism had been
carried to all the neighboring countries and to peoples far
away by devoted followers of the Blessed One, who had
caught something of his missionary spirit and had not for-
gotten the great command that he gave his disciples:
.
Fare ye forth, brethren, for the good of the many, for the welfare.
of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain,
for the welfare of gods and men. Preach the doctrine which is glorious
in the beginning, glorious in the middle, glorious in the end, in the spirit
and in the letter. Proclaim a life of holiness, consummate and pure.
Thus Buddhism became an exile from the land of its
birth, and began that long pilgrimage which we are to trace
in the remaining pages of this volume.
64 I should add that Ceylonese and Burmese Buddhists have recently built a temple.
in Calcutta and are constructing a vihara at Sarnath.
CHAPTER VII
CEYLON AND BURMA
1
ASOKA's son,¹ the Prince Mahinda, made a happy choice
when he determined upon Ceylon as the scene of his mis-
sionary labors. A fairer island it is hard to find. Surrounded
by the blue expanse of the Indian Ocean, covered and
crowded with luxurious tropical vegetation, its central
mountains descending in graceful ridges to the foothills and
the sea, this emerald in a setting of lapis lazuli shines with
almost uniquely radiant beauty. Jungle of magnificent
strength and fierceness covers much of the central section,
paddy fields stretch up from the coast, spice-trees, rubber
and tea and the giant bamboo cover many of the hills, and
the white waves wash the shore. Coconut palms, betel
palms, Palmyra palms, royal palms, and many another kind
whose names have long escaped my poor memory, wave their
feathery branches in the spice-laden air, and among them
grow the cinnamon, the nut-meg, the breadfruit tree, with
the coffee plant and the pepper vine, the bright red hibiscus,
the crimson cassia, and the wild acacia whose flower loves
every hue from palest lavender to the deepest pink.
At the time of the Emperor Asoka most of Ceylon had
been united under the sway of a dynasty which traced its
origin to India and whose capital, Anuradhapura, was al-
ready a city of some magnificence. Thither the young
monk-prince made his way. There are today two routes to
Ceylon, one by sea, the other across "Adam's Bridge”—the
line of islets which, except for one break of twenty-two
miles, connects the main island with southern India. But
if we are to believe the Mahavamsa, the Buddhist missionaries
made use of neither of these routes but came, in quite modern
fashion, through the air. They alighted, so tradition says,
on a hill near the capital named Mahintale. Now King
¹ According to the Mahavamsa; Hiuen-Tsiang calls him Asoka's younger brother.
116
CEYLON AND BURMA
117
Tissa 2 had started that day on a royal hunt at the foot of the
hill. An elk-stag (which was really the deva of the moun-
tain) led him up the hillside and into the presence of the
prince-missionary. Mahinda told the king that he and his
monks were disciples of the King of Truth, that out of com-
passion for the Ceylonese they had come from India, and
when he had tested the king's intelligence with a few bits of
Indian logic, he preached to him and to his courtiers the
message of the Blessed One. The king and his company took
the Three Refuges, and on the following day Mahinda and
his monks were conducted with great ceremony to the capi-
tal. Here they instructed the king and his court still farther
in the Dhamma and in a short time converted most of the
city and a considerable part of the kingdom. His Majesty
built for the monks a large monastery known as the Mahavi-
hara³ to the south of the city, and there many of the new
converts who had taken Orders received their training, and
there they handed down the orthodox tradition for many
centuries. Soon after this vihara was completed, the great
Asoka sent as a priceless gift to the new Buddhist land a
scion of the sacred Bodhi tree which was still living in his
day and which was honored and even "worshiped" (i.e.,
reverenced) by the emperor and his court. Asoka had a
branch of it cut off and sent it, according to a tradition
which there is little reason to doubt, in the care of his daugh-
ter Samghamitta, who had taken the vows, and who not only
conducted the sacred branch to Anuradhapura but there
joined in the missionary labors of her brother Mahinda and
instituted in Ceylon the order of Buddhist nuns. The sacred
branch was planted in the grounds of the Mahavihara and,
from the frequent mention of it in Ceylonese history, it
seems to have lived to our day and to be the very tree still
venerated by the monks of the ancient monastery and by all
Buddhist Ceylon. Many relics were also brought from India
and for these King Tissa built suitable shrines. For the collar
bone of the Buddha the king built the great Thuparama
Thupa or Dagoba, which still stands guarding its precious.
His full name was Devanampiyatissa, but since the Mahavamsa itself takes liberties
with his name we may do as much.
'Great Monastery.
118
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
relic, probably the oldest dagoba in Ceylon, perhaps the oldest
in all the world. So the king filled his capital with stately
dagobas for the remembrance of the Blessed One and with
wide-spreading viharas for the increasing numbers of the
Order. But Prince Mahinda loved best to live in his cell on
Mahintale, and there in his sixtieth year he passed into Nir-
vana, and there a thupa was built over his ashes.
The thupa still stands on Mahintale hill, where a few
monks dwell and guard it, surrounded by a wild tangle of
trees and vines through which a broad stairway of a thousand
steps conducts the pilgrim to the sacred shrine, from the
ruins of the ancient capital. From the summit of the hill a
broad expanse of forest greets the eye, broken only by the
immense dagobas of the city which, after being for a thou-
sand years the capital of the island, and adorned with Bud-
dhist monuments in massiveness second only to the pyramids
of Egypt, was at last deserted by men and swiftly overrun
by the hungry jungle, until its ruins were rescued, during
the last century, by the ax of the excavator.
Buddhism seems to have spread rapidly during King
Tissa's reign and for some time thereafter, and has been the
national religion of the Ceylonese ever since. It has had its
battles to fight, at first against the animism which preceded
it, and later against the Hinduism of the invading Tamils
who came from southern India and ultimately occupied
much of the northern portions of the island. But Hinduism,
while it slightly infected Ceylonese Buddhism with some of
its external forms, made but few converts and the Ceylon-
ese as a people, though often politically subject to Hindus
and Europeans, have been throughout their history very
faithful to the religion which their great Saint Mahinda
brought them in the third century before Christ.
The form of Buddhism which was brought them and
which they have scrupulously maintained is the Buddhism
of the Nikayas which we studied in the first five chapters of
this volume. The various heretical sects condemned by the
Second and Third Councils seem to have secured but little
following in the island. Not that the Ceylonese Church has
always been of one mind on all points. The Mahavihara,
which the writers of the Mahavamsa consider the bearer of
CLI
CEYLON AND BURMA
119
the orthodox tradition, had rivals, especially in the Abhaya-
giri vihara, built and embellished by one of the kings shortly
before the beginning of the Christian era. But the differ-
ences between these two great centers of Buddhism appear to
have been very slight indeed. There are a few traces of
Mahayana influence in Ceylon, such as images of one of the
Mahayana Bodhisattvas, and references in the Mahavamsa
indicate that at certain periods other forms of Buddhism
hardly consistent with the pure Hinayana of the Theras (the
ancient saints) had some following. But these influences
were largely superficial and they came to a final end with the
synod of 1165, held under the auspices of one of the most
powerful of the kings; and since then the Pali Canon has been
the one authority in the island.
5
This does not mean, however, that the Buddhism of Cey-
lon has always, or even usually, been of the sort that would
have won the complete approval of the Tathagata. The
Buddhism of Magadha under the great Asoka would hardly
have done that; for in the third century B.C. much relic
worship and other forms of cult had crept in which the
Founder would surely have viewed with sorrow. Asoka him-
self, if we may trust the Mahavamsa, in his adoration of the
Bodhi tree, went to the extent of abdicating his throne in its
favor. It was this form of Buddhism with its cult, its be-
liefs about the supernatural power of relics, its recognition
of many Hindu deities as well as with its admirable moral
teachings, that came to Ceylon; and the Ceylonese certainly
did not reduce the relative importance of its external aspects.
King Tissa, following Asoka's example, "worshiped the
Bodhi tree by bestowing upon it the great kingship." His
example of importing relics and worshiping them was fol-
lowed by his more pious successors, and in the early part of
the fifth century of our era the most famous relic of all, the
left canine tooth of the Tathagata, was procured from south-
ern India and came to be, as Eliot calls it, the "talisman of
the king and nation." Fa-Hien, the Chinese traveler who
visited Ceylon a few years after its arrival, describes an an-
6
• Coomaraswamy in J.R.A.S., 1909, pp. 283-97.
5
Mahavamsa, Chap. XVIII.
Mahavamsa, Chap. XIX.
"Op. cit., III. 26.
120
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
:
nual religious procession in honor of the tooth, from its home
chapel to one of the great viharas in the city. The route
was lined with "representations of the five hundred bodily
forms which the Bodhisattva [Gotama before his enlighten-
ment] had assumed in previous births." As the tooth pro-
ceeds on its way, "religious offerings are made to it," and
when it reaches the vihara "the clergy and laity all assemble
in vast crowds and burn incense and light lamps and perform
every kind of religious ceremony both night and day without
ceasing. " 8 The tooth has continued to hold a place of great
reverence in the eyes of Ceylonese Buddhists to this day al-
though the Portuguese claim to have destroyed it in 1560
(and probably did so) and although it was twice presented
a few months later to the King of Burma." Plainly at least
two "fake" teeth were produced at that time, but whether
both impostures were performed by the two rival Buddhist
kings, or one by a Buddhist and one by a Portuguese Chris-
tian will probably be an eternal mystery.
It must not be supposed, however, that Ceylonese Bud-
dhism was at any time mere externalism. The strict moral
rules of the Founder seem to have been pretty faithfully fol- ·
lowed, at any rate by the monks, and the work of preaching
to the laymen was not forgotten. In Fa-Hien's day a public
preaching service was held three or four times a month in
the capital; and the virtues of pity and generosity were im-
pressed upon the people through the memorable stories of
the Jataka, which have always been very popular in Ceylon.
The writer of the Mahavamsa, to be sure, seems interested
in recalling only the shining deeds of external munificence
of the monarchs, yet at times we can see that the spirit of
the Founder still shone on in the hearts of his followers; and
in the midst of the recital of the founding of thupas and the
bestowal of rank upon the Bo Tree and the Dhamma, we
find modest mention of food given to the poor, remedies to
the sick, and the earnest preaching of the truth to all classes.10
It was shortly after Fa-Hien's visit to Ceylon that the
Tamils of southern India began their series of invasions which
Beal's trans. in his Introd. of Buddhist Records of the Western World, Ixxv-lxxvi.
For an account of the tooth see Tennent's Ceylon (London, Longmans, 1860),
II. 197-202.
10 Cf. Mahavamsa, Chap. XXXII.
CEYLON AND BURMA
121
finally resulted in driving the native dynasty, and to a con-
siderable extent Buddhism, out of the northern part of the
island. In the eighth century the capital was moved from
Anuradhapura to Pollannaruwa. A short interlude to the
steady decay of the old kingdom was the reign (during the
eleventh century) of Vijaya Bahu, an ardent Buddhist who
not only defended his people from the invaders but purified
the Order, and discovering that the apostolic succession, as
we should call it, had been broken, sent to Burma to validate
the monastic ordination. His successor was even more force-
ful than he, and at his command a synod was called which
put an end to heresy and schism. But after his death the
Tamils regained their ascendancy. The Portuguese arrived
in 1505 and conquered all the coasts of the island, the native
dynasty retaining only the highlands with Kandy as capital.
The Dutch succeeded the Portuguese but never conquered
Kandy. During the eighteenth century the Order very
nearly died out for a second time. The king sent to Siam for
a new validation, and ten Siamese monks were despatched
from Ayuthia (the Siamese capital) and founded what is
now known as the Siamese school. A second and more demo-
cratic school of monks was initiated at the beginning of the
nineteenth century (known as the Amarapura school) and
this got its ordination from Burma. It was just before this
that the British ousted the Dutch, and finally in 1815 they
put an end to the native kingdom and brought all the island
under their sway.
11
But the national religion survived the monarchy, and
though Tamil Hindus are to be found in every part of the
island, all the southern section, where the native Ceylonese
are in the majority, is still predominantly and intensely Bud-
dhist.1
12
Wherever one goes in this really Ceylonese region
one finds tiny pansalas or monasteries, dagobas, sacred pipal
11
In writing this account of the history of Ceylonese Buddhism I have depended
chiefly on the Mahavamsa, Tennent, and Eliot.
19 The census of Ceylon for 1921 gives the following analysis of the population:
Buddhists
Hindus
Christians
Moslems
Total
·
•
•
2,769,000
982,000
443,000
302,000
4,496,000
122
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
trees, and the lemon-colored robe of the bonze. Beautiful
Kandy, with its great temple where the sacred tooth is still
kept, with many a spacious monastery in its environs, Matale
with its ancient vihara in the cleft of a rock where the great
scholar Buddhaghosa is said to have translated the Singhalese
commentaries into Pali, Adam's Peak, the highest mountain
on the island, crowned with a Buddhist shrine, city temples
and remote hermitages, all testify to the hold the ancient re-
ligion still possesses. And so Buddhism follows the traveler
as he journeys to the very tip of the island, along the coast
south of Colombo where for seventy-five miles an almost
unbroken palm forest meets the sea, to the town of Galle,
with its sleepy old Dutch fort, its little harbor, dreaming
of long-vanished sailing ships, its spacious viharas, hidden in
the gloom of palm groves, till at last one can go no further
and where even Asoka's missionaries had to stop, because
there is nothing beyond but the deep blue waters of the
Indian Ocean, stretching away to the endless distance,
and luring one's thoughts, like the half-suggested hints
of the Dhamma, into unmapped spaces and regions unex-
plored.
Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end.
But the ships that, sailing from Colombo, round the
southern point of the island and turn into the northeast,
plow through the shining waves of the Bay of Bengal and
reach at last another land to which the missionaries of an-
cient Buddhism made their way not long after Mahinda and
his monks alighted on Ceylon. How and when these first
missionaries reached Burma will probably never be known
with certainty. The Mahavamsa says that Asoka sent mis-
sionaries to "Suvannabhumi," 13 which has usually been taken
to mean Burma. A Burmese tradition supports this view.
In the opinion of most Western scholars today the Maha-
vamsa is mistaken, or else Suvannabhumi does not mean
Burma. There is much dispute not only as to the date of the
arrival of Buddhism in Burma but also on the question
whether the Hinayana or the Mahayana was the first to ar-
Chap. XII.
13
1
CEYLON AND BURMA
123
C
rive.14 According to Mr. G. E. Harvey, whose History of
Burma contains the latest, and to me the most persuasive,
contribution on the subject, Indians had been drifting into
Burma for centuries before Asoka's time, both by sea to
Thaton and the coast region of the south, and over the moun-
tains of Assam to the north. They settled among both the
Telaings of the coastal region and the Burmese of the central
Irrawaddy, and brought with them their civilization which
was rapidly taken over by these less cultured peoples. Their
religion of course was among the cultural elements which
were thus disseminated. This at first meant Hinduism (in)
the broad sense), but after Asoka's conquest of Kalinga (on
the eastern coast of India) and its partial conversion to Bud-
dhism, Buddhist elements began to mix with the Hinduism
thus introduced and before long dominated it. Thus the
introduction of Buddhism was at first gradual and its ex-
tension was slow until the fifth century A.D., when the rise of
the great Hinayana center at Conjeveram (near modern
Madras) led to a more rapid propaganda. But the Maha-
yana also drifted in, partly by sea and partly through Assam.
Burma was inhabited in these centuries by four 15
lated but distinct peoples: the Burmese in the center, the
Shans to the north, the Telaings along the southern coast,
and the Arakanese on the west coast. Racially the Burmese
and Shans and possibly the Telaings are Mongolian,16 but
culturally they are much more Indian than Chinese. The
first unification of Burma as a whole (except for Arakan)
was brought about by the conquests of the Burmese king,
Anawrahta (1044-77) who made his capital at Pagan, which
is on the Irrawaddy about four hundred miles from the
coast. The religion of the capital was at this time in the
hands of Buddhist priests known as Aris, who seem to have
belonged to a degenerate
a degenerate (and probably Tantric and
Tibetan) form of the Mahayana.17 The king, learning that
re-
14 Geiger in a note on Chap. XII of the Mahavamsa says, "It is a fact that Buddhism
reached Burma from China in the Mahayana form and not before the fourth century
A.D." Temple in his article "Burma" in H.E.R.E. says the same, and so does Taw Sein
Ko (quoted in Harvey's History of Burma, p. 337). Eliot is much more sympathetic
with the view that the first missionaries were sent by Asoka (op. cit., III. 50-51).
16 Five if we include the Pyus, whose capital was near modern Prome, but who
early disappeared as a separate people and were absorbed by the others.
10 Harvey, History of Burma (London, Longmans, 1925), p. 6.
17 Ibid., pp. 17, 313.
124
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
there was a purer form of Buddhism (and one with slighter
ambitions for political meddling) at the Telaing city of
Thaton on the coast, made war on the Telaings, captured
their capital, and brought to Pagan many of the Thaton
(Hinayana) clergy and their Pali scriptures. Thus the
Hinayana superseded the Mahayana at Pagan and ultimately
throughout Burma.
Pagan remained the capital of the country for over two
centuries (1044-1287) and all its kings were zealous Bud-
dhists. Too zealous, in fact, for the wealth of the land was
spent in the lavish foundation of hundreds of pagodas, at
the capital and elsewhere. It was an era of temple building,
comparable to that which was going on at the very same time
in Europe, and in it both king and people enthusiastically
joined. Pagan in particular became one of the great religious
centers of the world, and one which for its architectural
splendor had few rivals. It has long since been deserted, but
the ruins of its nine thousand temples extend for eight miles
along the Irrawaddy and for two miles back from it, and
present to the traveler a bewildering sky line of upward-
pointing pinnacles and immense cathedral-like structures.
>> 18
The fall of Pagan may have been hastened by the waste
of wealth on these costly religious foundations. Harvey
writes, "for two centuries Pagan had witnessed the spectacle
of a whole population filled with a passion for covering the
earth's surface with pagodas, and now she was perishing to
the drone of prayer.
But two hundred and forty years
is a long period for a Burma dynasty, and one may question
whether without the enthusiasm for religion which built the
pagodas Pagan would have been able to hold her own for
more than half that time. The coup de grâce was given her
by an army of Kubla Khan's soldiers, who having conquered
all of China made a foray over the border from Yunan and
took the Burmese capital. For centuries after the fall of
Pagan Burma was much of the time divided among warring
kingdoms, the Shan peoples usually having the better of it
against both Burmese and Telaings. All of these peoples,
however, were Hinayana Buddhists, and so were the able
Burmese Kings of the Toungoo dynasty who reunited Burma
18
8 Ibid., p. 63.
CEYLON AND BURMA
125
(once more with the exception of Arakan) in the sixteenth
century, and the equally able kings of the Alaungpaya
dynasty who ruled from 1752 to the end of Burmese inde-
pendence. In 1852 Great Britain annexed lower Burma, and
upper Burma in 1886. As the religious history of the coun-
try knew but few changes during these centuries, I shall not
trouble the reader with the bloody campaigns which these
kings carried on, both throughout Burma and against their
neighbors, Arakan and Siam, the six terrible sieges of Siam's
capital, Ayuthia, and its final destruction at the hands of the
Burmese, the murders and torturings of individuals, the
turning of the richest lands of Burma into a wilderness and
the partial extirpation of the Telaing people, which make
Burmese history such painful reading and form such a com-
mentary on the effects of absolute power. One must add
also that they form a commentary on the influence of Bud-
dhism, for these cruel kings were ardent Buddhists. To be
just, however, we must also remember that the Christian
kings of Europe throughout the major portion of the Chris-
tian era frequently showed but slight influence of the New
Testament. The monks seem to have disapproved of the
bloody acts of their pious sovereigns and did not directly
share their guilt. In speaking of the cruelty of the kings
to shipwrecked mariners, Harvey writes:
But here as in so much else the harshness of the rulers was mitigated
by the humanity of the monks: if the distressed mariner wandered into
a monastery he was safe, for the monks would bind up his wounds, feed
him, clothe him, and send him as if in sanctuary with letters of com-
mendation from monastery to monastery till he reached Syriam [where
the French had a factory], there to await the chance of some passing
ship.19
There is no evidence that the Burmese as a people were cruel.
The cruelty of their kings was the result of arbitrary power.
None the less, it is significant that but seldom was any pro-
test made or any public opinion aroused against the mon-
arch's actions on the score of humanity. Buddhism from its
beginning has been interested in the salvation of the indi-
vidual, not in the reform of society; and it is characteristi-
cally significant that the Burmese monks should themselves
19
10 P. 206.
126
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
have refrained from unkindness, should have helped the un-
fortunate who came their way, but should have done nothing
to attack the root of the evil or to rouse a sentiment among
the people at large against such abuses of arbitrary power.
Shall we lay this lack to the score of Buddhism, or is it pri-
marily and chiefly oriental? If the Burmese had been Chris-
tian instead of Buddhist in those days, would they have acted
differently? The Christian nations of the West have usually
shown more feeling for society, more energy in politics, and
more initiative in reform than the Buddhist nations of the
East. Is it because they are Christian or because they are
Western? I wish I knew!
The actual nature and conditions of Hinayana or South-
ern Buddhism as practiced today is of much more interest
to me personally than its history, and I imagine that most
readers will feel as I do. In spite of that, however, I shall
treat of present conditions in Ceylon and Burma briefly
because on this matter I have already published about all I
have to say,20 and because I mean to say a good deal about
the less-known Hinayana lands, Siam and Cambodia, and
fear to wear out my readers' patience with repetition. In
general, Buddhism may properly be described as in a fairly
flourishing condition in both Ceylon and Burma, and more
particularly in the latter. One gets the impression that it
fills a much larger place in the life of the Burmese layman
than in that of the Ceylonese. The monasteries of Ceylon
are frequently in very remote regions, appropriate for the
solitary meditation of the three or four monks who dwell in
them, but difficult of access from the town or village;
whereas in Burma they are much more likely to be found
near the centers of population, and are in fact located there
purposely so that the laymen may come thither for their
devotions and the little boys for their studies. Hence it is
common to find the Buddhist shrines in Burma frequented
much of the time by lay worshipers, while in Ceylon it is
usually only on poya or preaching days (two or four times
a month) that one comes upon laymen in the temples. In
Ceylon, in fact, the temples are closed much of the time and
the image is often hidden, while the shrine of the Burmese
20 In Chaps. XVI-XIX of India and Its Faiths.
CEYLON AND BURMA
127
pagoda is open all the day and the image is invariably visible.
In Burma, moreover, Buddhism has no real rival; eighty-five
per cent of the entire population are Buddhist, and the non-
Buddhist elements are chiefly concentrated in Rangoon and
on the extreme frontiers. In Ceylon, on the other hand, only
sixty-one per cent of the inhabitants are Buddhist.
G
The form of Buddhism found is about equally pure in the
two countries, for while Burma has its nats, Ceylon has its
devatas. These devatas Buddhism took over from the devas
of Hinduism. In theory there are said to be thirty thousand
of them, but the only ones of much importance are Sakara
(the Vedic Indra), Brahma, Vishnu, Ishvara, Siva, and the
deva of the Bo Tree. Images of these-particularly of the
first three-are frequently found in the viharas, guarding it
from evil spirits and attending on Sakyamuni. For it should
be said at once that though their aid is frequently sought in
prayer, they retain always their subordinate position very
modestly and are no more rivals to the Buddha than the saints
of Roman Catholicism are to Christ and the Madonna. Cor-
responding to these are the nats of Burma. The nats come
not from Hinduism 21 but from the native animism of the
land.22 They were the gods of Burma before the Buddha
arrived. But as soon as he came they learned their place as
merely subordinate spirits, and they have kept their place.
very well ever since. The number of nats is uncertain, but
there are a great many of them, thirty-seven of whom are
of special importance. Like the devatas they hear and an-
swer prayer. The good ones keep away evil spirits (for there
are bad nats as well as good) and they are represented in
(and on) all the larger monasteries.23
The Buddhism of the two countries differs more in eccle-
siastical architecture than in creed or custom. The ancient
dagobas or thupas of Ceylon are more massive than any
Burmese masonry of equal age. But when we come to mod-
ern times or relatively recent centuries, the advantage is all
The thirty-seven chief nats, however, are supposed to have some connection with
the thirty-three gods of Hinduism.
22
Some are evidently nature spirits and some are ghosts.
23 There is an excellent chapter on the thirty-seven nats, with delightful illustrations
in color, in J. G. Scott's discussion of "Indo-Chinese Mythology," Vol. XII of the
Mythology of All Races (Boston, Jones, 1918).
128
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
on the Burmese side. A Ceylonese monastery is a pleasant
place but has nothing memorable to show from an architec-
tural point of view. A white dagoba built, presumably, over
a relic, a semi-sphere of solid masonry, surmounted by a
"tee" and usually white-washed, is the central and most
sacred of the structures within the compound. Then there
are one or two low dormitories, open at the sides-hardly
more than a roof supported on columns-and a low tower,
reminding one a little of a Lombard campanile. There will
be also a small shrine, usually closed, with a Buddha image.
A pipal tree, usually of handsome dimensions, completes the
equipment of the monastery. The roofs are straight, and
most of the architecture is simple, obvious, and in many re-
spects quite western in appearance, so that one carries away
from it no distinct or striking impression. A Burmese vihara
or pagoda, on the other hand, one can never forget. At the
very entrance, or near it, one is greeted by a pair of those
monstrous mythological beasts known as lions in lands where
lions have never been seen, and which remind one that India
now lies behind and that one has entered that series of coun-
tries so well called Indo-China. Many of the temples or
monasteries of Burma (the two functions of shrine and dor-
mitory are usually performed by one large building) give the
appearance from the exterior of having many stories, though
as a fact they have but one, and this affords the architect
opportunity for an elaborate arrangement of roofs and ga-
bles in which he delights. Frequently there is a five-story or
seven-story tower. The ends of the gables turn upward and
end in finials, frequently crowned with gilt tees and from
them are suspended little metal bells-the "tinkly temple
bells" of Kipling-which in every little breeze sing joyously
the praises of the Blessed One. Most monasteries are of teak-
wood, though a few are built of brick, and like nearly all
dwellings in Indo-China, they are usually elevated several
feet above the ground, on stilts, with a vacant place beneath,
and approached by an ornate flight of steps or (in the case
of the simpler kyoungs of the jungle) by a step-ladder. On
the interior there is one large room with a lofty ceiling, which
serves as meeting-place, dining room, temple, and usually as
dormitory also, though in the larger kyoungs there may be
CEYLON AND BURMA
129
separate sleeping rooms. The eastern end of the great hall
is reserved for the Buddha and his altar, surrounded with
offerings of flowers, flags, and candles. The Buddha almost
invariably sits there alone: or if there be other images they
also are images of the one Buddha, Gotama. The Buddhists
believe there have been other Buddhas and that there will be
at least one more (Maitreya), but these are seldom repre-
sented. Neither does one find the Buddha accompanied, as in
Siam, with some of his chief disciples-except, of course, in
those cases where his death or entrance into Parinirvana is
presented. Most frequently he is seated, though sometimes
he stands or reclines.
Both interior and exterior of the monastic building are
decorated in high color, with much red and mosaic; large
surfaces are covered with minute mirrors which give the
effect of shining silver; and there is a surprising and extrava-
gant expenditure of gold-leaf. There is also much carving
-especially of friendly nats-and perhaps frescoes, especially
of the curiosities of hell.24
Beside the monastery there is frequently a small pagoda
in the temple compound, or an immense Buddha image in the
open air.25 Sometimes one comes upon a small and simple.
shrine, in addition to the one in the central monastic hall,
with its solitary Buddha image and altar always decked with
flowers. Most memorable of all these ecclesiastical structures
are the great pagodas, such as those at Prome and Pegu. In
particular the great Shway Dagon pagoda at Rangoon must
remain in the mind of every one who visits it as one of the
two or three most memorable structures in the world.
Higher than Saint Paul's Cathedral, its four long stairways
bright with flowers and pretty Burmese youths and maids,
its bewildering platform halfway up that runs around
the gilded dome which is surrounded on both sides with
shrines of every shape and size and color and form of deco-
ration, a platform like a street or rather a kind of religious
"Midway Plaisance," crowded with orange-robed monks
and brilliantly clad, happy, yet reverent, worshipers-well,
The reader will find interesting descriptions of the Burmese monastery in J. G.
Scott's The Burman (London, Macmillan, 1882), Vol. I, Chap. XIII.
25
In Pegu there is a reclining Buddha one hundred and eighty-one feet long.
130
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
there is no use trying to describe it. Let the reader go to
Rangoon for himself; otherwise he will never know what
can be done with teak and lacquer and color and gold and
bells and carved nats and mysterious Buddhas and joy and
reverence.
To build a pagoda is one of the chief means, in Burma,
of acquiring merit. Hence many a rich man builds one at
his sole expense and "owns" it. Poorer men, or those less
devout, may club together to build one, or take up a collec-
tion throughout the village, or even board trains and pass the
hat among the passengers. Unfortunately no great amount
of merit accrues from repairing an old pagoda unless it be
one of special sanctity. The result is that Burma is covered
with pagodas new and old and in all stages of decay. This
gives the stranger the mistaken impression that the present
generation is quite inferior in religious zeal to its predecessors.
Fortunately for the artistic impression of the land a dilapi-
dated pagoda is often more beautiful than a new one. As
Eliot puts it, "A pogoda understands the art of growing
old."
In Ceylon there are three orders of monks-or three
divisions or schools of the Order-the Siamese, Amarapura,
and Ramanya. The first of these, as its name implies, got
its ordination from Siam, the second and third got theirs
from Burma. The Siamese Order will accept members from
only the highest caste 26 (for caste exists in Ceylon as well
as in India), while the two other Orders admit any of the
three upper castes. The Ramanya is the smallest of the three
schools and the most strict, insisting on absolute poverty and
refusing to admit Hindu deities. The Burmese monks are of
two schools,27 the Mahagandi, or easy-going, and the Sula-
gandi, or Puritanical. Both go back to Ceylon for their
ordination, thus tracing their succession through Mahinda.
The heads or abbots of the three schools in Ceylon are on an
equal footing, with no primate, while in Burma a superior
for the whole Order is elected by the monks. In both coun-
(
20 A schism is threatened at present within the Siamese Order on the question of
ecclesiastical government, one section being unrepresented in the governing body and
threatening to secede.
27 There is a small anti-clerical sect of Burmese Buddhists who refuse to recognize
the Sangha at all.
CEYLON AND BURMA
131
tries the higher offices of the Order are elective.28 There are
a few Buddhist nuns in Burma; but in Ceylon they have
quite disappeared.
The monks of the two lands differ not much more than
do their costumes. In Ceylon their robes are yellow, in
Burma orange. In both countries they live a life of sim-
plicity and leisure. In Burma they go the rounds of the
village every morning with their alms bowls, even in those
monasteries where food is provided by some rich layman.
In this case the rice brought back from the begging expedi-
tion is given to the poor. In many parts of Ceylon this
ancient custom of begging one's food has fallen into abey-
ance. In both countries the number of monks in a single
monastery is usually small, though in Burma, particularly in
Mandalay, a large number of Kyoungs may be united in one
compound and under the control of one abbot. The larger
monasteries in both countries, and some of the smaller ones
in Ceylon, are endowed, and receive revenues from lands
which they own. In both countries before British times
many of the monasteries or "pagodas" owned slaves. The
life of the monks in the two countries does not greatly differ,
though one sees much less of them in Ceylon than in Burma,
and their influence is, I suspect, correspondingly smaller than
is that of the Burmese clergy. In both countries the chief
attraction of the Order seems to be the desire to assure one's
own salvation and perhaps the life of security and leisure
which it offers. There is little of the ardent wish to help the
world. The reform movement in both lands is primarily a
layman's movement. Nor can it be said that any considerable
proportion of the monks use their leisure in the pursuit of
Buddhist learning. There are learned monks in both lands,
but the great majority are decidedly ignorant. In both
countries some of the monks read from the Dhamma at
public meetings of the laity on full and new moon, in some
cases at two other times in the month as well. In both
countries they also meet twice a month and recite the Pati-
mokkha or list of rules, as in ancient times. Twice a day,
An interesting account of the election and induction of the new abbot of the
Siamese sect in Ceylon-the official announcement to the government, the elaborate
procession through Kandy, the speeches, etc.-will be found in The Maha Bodhi (of
Calcutta) for June, 1925, p. 329f.
132
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
at dawn and at bedtime, they assemble before the Buddha
and chant some verses in his praise from the Dhamma. In
Burma also they have the task of educating the small boys
of the near-by village. If they like, they may study or medi-
tate. The life is not strenuous. Still the influence of the
monks is said to be considerable-in Burma much more so
than in Ceylon.29 And in both countries they have the re-
spect and the affection of the people at large.
The worship that one sees at the shrines in Burma,
whether by monks or by laymen, impresses one-at least it
impressed my Fellow Pilgrim and me-as a very real, rever-
ential, and religious act. It is purely individual worship. No
priest is there to mediate between the worshiper and the
object of his thought, there is no congregational singing or
responsive reading, and (fortunate Buddhists!) no "long
prayer." A family may come in together, or two or three
friends, their happy voices hushed in reverence as they take
off their straw sandals and enter the little shrine. Each bears
in his hand a flower or a candle. Before the altar, where
sits the Buddha on his lotus, they bow, touching the floor
with their heads; then seated before him, hands pressed to-
gether in the attitude of prayer and holding thus the flower
or candle, they recite, half aloud or silently, some Pali verses
they have learned from the monk or it may be some petition
of their own. Then they may sit a few moments in silence,
gazing at the Buddha. The prayer and meditation finished,
they place the candle or flower on the altar before the Blessed
One, and go back to their work or their play, and, I expect,
with a calmness of spirit they did not feel before.
In Ceylon this sort of thing is not so common as in
20 According to both Nisbet and Fielding Hall the influence of the monks in Burma
is a very fine thing. Hall's enthusiasm over them is pretty well known, and the reader
who wishes a pleasing picture of the Burmese monkhood would do well to read Chap-
ters X and XI of his The Soul of a People (London, Macmillan, 1911). Nisbet is
almost as enthusiastic. He writes: "The strong hold which the Pongy (a monk who
has belonged to the Order for ten years or more) undoubtedly possesses over his co-
religionists in Burma arises mainly from the two facts that his life is, save only in most
exceptional cases, one of purity, and that for century after century the monastery has,
until comparatively recently, been the only seminary in which the arts of reading,
writing, and elementary arithmetic have been taught. Residence in a monastery is no
life of mere mock modesty cloaking debauchery and sensuality. It is, even allowing
for the relaxation that now exists from the primitive austerities, still a life of self-
denial and continence," Burma Under British Rule (Westminster, Constable, 1901),
p. 147.
CEYLON AND BURMA
133
Burma, for there the shrines are usually closed except on
poya days (the four religious days of each lunar month);
on those days the shrines are often crowded. But in
principle the form of worship is the same in both lands.
Both Ceylonese and Burmese, moreover, have home shrines,
with a small image of the Buddha and perhaps a picture or
two of some event in his life; and before these shrines daily
offerings and daily prayers are made.
There is, of course, much that is external in the worship
of the Buddhist masses.30 The most ignorant may perhaps
view the Buddha image as a veritable idol and I have been
told that some of them pray not only to the image but to the
pagoda. They also "worship" the sacred pipal trees found in
nearly every monastic inclosure in both lands; only we must
remember that "worship" for the Buddhist, and for the
Oriental in general, has a different meaning from that which
it suggests in our ears. To the Buddhist it means chiefly
"pay reverence to"; they would say that we "worship" the
flag; and all but the most ignorant know that in "worship-
ing" the pipal tree they are merely holding it in affectionate
regard for having sheltered the Blessed One on that famous
night of his illumination. The Pali prayers universally re-
cited before the Buddha are in one sense a matter of form,
and sometimes, no doubt, the meaning is unknown to the
worshiper who pronounces them. This at one time would
have seemed to me a gross case of superstition and external-
ism. I have since learned that such externalism very often
hides from the onlooker a genuine spiritual experience. I
remember hearing the voice of a woman in a lonely shrine in
Mandalay, shrill and clear and impassioned, with the heart's
longing in every syllable, appealing to the Lord Buddha, re-
peating her prayer over and over, intensely, wildly, filling all
the courtyard of the deserted vihara. The prayer was in
Pali and very likely she understood not a word of what she
said. Not a word perhaps; but she understood the prayer.
The seemingly meaningless words, sacred to her since child-
hood's days, she took and filled with a meaning of her own.
N
-
30 And for that matter of many of the clergy. To most Westerners the veneration
of the Tooth seems particularly superstitious. It is, of course, about on a par with the
various sacred objects that Greek and Roman Catholicism still venerates in and around
Jerusalem. Western admirers of Buddhism can only regret that so many intelligent
Buddhists still make so much of it, and of relics in general.
134
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
That meaning, perhaps, like the meaning of music, could not
have been put into words. But the prayer had a very real
meaning for her; it had a meaning even for me; and I am
sure if the Lord Buddha was for the moment roused from the
mysterious realm of Nirvana-as well he might have been-
that he, too, heard and understood that woman's prayer.
Of course many of the laymen make petitions of their
own to the Buddha. This, however, is not logically consist-
ent with the orthodox theory of the Buddha's present con-
dition-for he is in Nirvana beyond all touch of change and
Samsara. Many of the laymen know this, yet in religious and
non-theoretical moments pray to him just the same. If they
are careful to retain their consistency, yet wish to make
petitional prayers, they will place their requests (as even the
monks do) not before the Buddha but before the nats or the
devatas. This, however, a monk in Galle told me, has noth-
ing to do with religion. It is a matter of business-one con-
tracts with the devata for his assistance, agreeing that when
the requested aid is actually given, one will make an offering
to the Buddha and transfer the merit thus acquired to the
devata. It is, said he, no more religion than is dealing with
the government. Religion has to do with the Teacher.
Some Buddhists pray, that is repeat sacred verses, because,
as they believe, the Buddha has commanded that his followers
should do so; and if they do so with a pure heart they will
receive a blessing in return. In strict theory, however, the
intelligent Buddhist prays because of the good subjective
effects which the act of prayer produces in his own mind
and character. This is, of course, a perfect example of
what I referred to in a previous chapter 31 as "subjective
worship." A monk in Rangoon said to me, "Prayer and
offering are not received by the Buddha in the sense that they
have any effect upon him, nor in the sense of being means
of procuring anything from him. Their value is subjective
purely. A prayer for peace or purity is likely to bring about
its own fulfillment, especially if accompanied by the thought
of the Buddha as our ideal. The Buddha, indeed, is for prac-
tical purposes quite dead, but he is the ideal of what human-
31 Page 98. For a detailed discussion of the matter see The Religious Consciousness,
Chap. XIV.
CEYLON AND BURMA
135
ity might be and of what each of us ought to be. Thus
prayer for the enlightened Buddhist is not supplication but
mental discipline."
It is said that when, in 1877, Bishop Titcomb, the first
British bishop of Burma, went out to take up his duties in
that land, he visited a Buddhist temple soon after his arrival
and seeing a monk at his devotions asked him, with typically
British abruptness, "To whom are you praying and for
what?" To which the monk replied with equal promptness,
"I am praying to nobody and for nothing.
>>32
But there is a third theory of prayer, which, since it is
something of a compromise between the subjective and ob-
jective views, is perhaps the commonest of all. This uni-
verse is governed primarily by the moral law of justice or
Karma. Merit can never fail to produce good results. Now
though the Buddha cannot-or at any rate does not-hear
and answer prayer, it is still true that the repetition of the
Buddha's words with reverence and a pure heart are infalli-
ble means of acquiring merit and cannot lose their reward.
The thing works automatically. Thus your father is ill.
You do not make a petitional prayer to the Buddha for his
recovery. But you chant sacred Pali verses, or get the holy
monks to do so for you, with the mental intention that the
merit thus acquired shall be applied to your father's account.
It will not infallibly restore his health any more than in
Christian theory a prayer to God would do so. But it will
infallibly tend to do so; and even if his (or your) evil Karma
be so great that he dies just the same, your prayer cannot be
of no effect, for it will have counterbalanced some of the
evil Karma which he or you have acquired.
I need not here go into the various questions of Buddhist
belief which have been already dealt with as they appear in
the Nikayas and which we must again consider in connection
with Siamese and Cambodian Buddhism. Suffice it to say
that both Ceylonese and Burmese Buddhists in theory accept
the Anatta doctrine in the scholastic sense, as denying all
reality to a self.38 One would expect as a consequence of
$2
Reported by Nisbet, op. cit., p. 89.
33 Cf. two articles in the Buddhist Annual of Ceylon on this subject; one by Ariya
Dhamma in the number for 1922, pp. 55-57, the other by C. A. Pereira, in the 1923
number, p. 34ff.
136
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
this that they would identify Nirvana with complete death.
Many of the more learned monks do this. Such a view car-
ries with it, of course, the conclusion that the Buddha is quite
dead; as several monks expressed the thought in their some-
what broken English, "Buddha finish." Not all will agree
with this conclusion, however. One learned Abbot told me
that Nirvana was like a distant house of which we can see
only the outside. What it is like within we cannot even
guess; yet we know that it is real. One very well informed
layman told me that Nirvana is "eternal comfort," sheer
and inexpressible but very conscious bliss.
All are agreed, however, that it is something which no
one even approximates in this life; for there are no more
Arahants. Not only was I unable to learn of any one who
had even heard of the attainment of complete enlightenment
within modern times; it is held as a definite theory that there
are no more Arahants and that there will be none till the
coming of Maitreya, the next Buddha-he who is now await-
ing in the Tusita heaven to descend to earth and restore the
Dhamma. This, however, will not happen till Buddhism has
so degenerated that the Teachings of the Buddhas have been
all forgotten. Some of the monks with whom I talked, par-
ticularly in Burma, felt that we were already witnessing the
decline which the Buddha had prophesied and which is to
precede Maitreya's descent to this earth.
Of the Four Noble Truths I heard, as I have already said,
less in all the Hinayana countries than I had been led to ex-
pect. I heard more of them in Ceylon and Burma than in
Siam and Cambodia. The influence of the First Truth is
seen occasionally in a certain melancholy among the happy
Burmese. This comes out notably in Fielding Hall's books,
and I have found traces of it in both clergy and laity. Most
of the monks especially with whom I talked assured me that
life was dreary and the nothingness of Nirvana far prefer-
able-though one of them added, rather naïvely, that it was
difficult for him to remember this fact at meal time. The
evil of desire and the necessity of cutting all the ties is of
course one of the beliefs that lead men to join the Sangha.
The logical and egoistic deduction from this Second Noble
Truth is sometimes clearly faced and accepted. During a
S
CEYLON AND BURMA
137
visit we were making at a vihara near Kandy, while I was
examining the Buddha image, my Fellow Pilgrim asked the
leading monk some questions about the monastic life and its
service to others. He said in reply: "I have mother and
father and sisters but leave them all to themselves and think
of myself only and my salvation. I have to think of my own
salvation only and not somebody else's. You have mother
and father and sisters? Leave all to themselves and think
only of yourself, pay no attention to them. If you get rid
of lust, anger, and ignorance you will have happy life. To
love your husband or your father very dangerous. If you
live pure life without attachments you will be young and
good-looking when you will attain eighty or hundred years.
If I live good life I will be young and well with no infir-
mities when I get old."
-
Since I have brought in this representative of the more
selfish side of Buddhism, I ought to say a few words about
one who stood for its more generous aspect, even at the risk
of repeating what one or two of my readers may possibly
have read in India and Its Faiths. This man was a upasaka-
a layman who on poya days keeps three of the five additional
Precepts of the monk, and who every day seeks to keep the
first five Precepts in generous fashion. Thus the first Pre-
cept, not to kill, he takes in the positive sense of earnestly
wishing well to every one, of never thinking of any one with-
out good will, and of lending what aid he can to all who
need him. The second Precept means to him not merely ab-
staining from theft, but giving to the needy. It means
making offerings at the vihara daily to the Buddha and his
monks. Rather unexpectedly it also means non-resistance-
if struck the upasaka must not strike back nor retaliate in
any way. So at least my upasaka informed me. And the
other Precepts are interpreted in an equally large way. It is
usually women rather than men that take on them these
upasaka vows, but some men do so, and we were certainly
fortunate in finding one of them.
It was in fact he who found us. Overhearing a question
of mine, in a crowded temple, he offered his services and for
three days in succession gave up the major part of his time
in assisting us to see the Kandy and Matale monasteries, act-
138
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ing as guide, interpreter, and instructor in Buddhism. He
was a teacher, I learned, and his few days of vacation he was
spending "as upasaka." For the love of the Buddha as well
as the Buddha's peace shone through his face and echoed in
his words. Though he made no effort at proselytism, it was
evident he longed to bring us both to take our refuge in the
Blessed One, so that we too might at the last go with him to
Nirvana. Nirvana occupied much of his thought and of his
conversation; and to him it meant emphatically a conscious.
state of endless joy. Much as he longed for it, however, he
once said, quite incidentally, "Of course if I could bring my
brother to Nirvana by going to hell myself, I should want to
do so."
He tried to give me his most precious possession, a
small sheet of brass on which was etched a seated Buddha.
This was a talisman over which two thousand Pali verses had
been said by the monks; and he carried it always with him
and was convinced it kept him safe. When, before saying
good-by, I urged him to let me give him something for the
three days' service he had rendered me, he said there was just
one thing he would accept: he wished I would write and give
to him a note of introduction to strangers in Kandy notify-
ing them that he would like the opportunity of showing them
about the town and its environs without any remuneration.
When the train was about to carry us away from him he put
his hands together in the attitude of prayer and said quite
simply, "May Lord Buddha keep you! May devata keep
you!" Before we sailed a telegram came from him reading,
"May self and lady travel healthily"; and after our return
to America we had several letters from him, one of which
said: "I will not forget you, gentleman and lady, and that
affection will I hope not efface until the last moment, and I
pray Sakyamuni 34 and meditate to take the same affection
till I, we, attain Nirvana, with my soul. I hope according
to Buddha's teachings that we might meet at the same place
and attain Nirvana-the everlasting comfort." It is this
man's religion more than anything else that most often comes
to my mind when I think of
Ceylon's isle,
Where every prospect pleases
And only man is vile.
34
A common name for the Buddha.
CEYLON AND BURMA
139
We must not leave Ceylon and Burma without a word
or two concerning religious education and the attempts that
are being made at reform and propaganda. The influence
of subjection to foreign governments long ago broke down
the ancient Ceylonese custom of sending all the boys of the
community to the viharas for their education. The result
of this has been disastrous to the religious training of the
young. In the eighties and nineties a movement was begun
by the Theosophical Society, under the guidance of Colonel
Olcott, to found Buddhist schools, and later on the Maha
Bodhi Society took up the work. There are now over 560
of these schools 35 in the southern part of the island, in which
boys and girls are given a fair general education and are
taught some of the principles of Buddhism-with, of course,
more or less of the usual nonsense thrown in which theoso-
phists in the East so often mix with the good things they
teach. These schools, of course, are private and the poor who
cannot afford to pay tuition send their children to govern-
ment schools, where they get no religion at all, or to mis-
sionary schools where they learn to substitute Christianity for
Buddhism. Some poor families send their boys to the monks
occasionally for a little religious instruction outside of school
hours. Besides the Buddhist schools (which are naturally
for the lower grades) there are five Buddhist institutions
called colleges 36 in which Buddhism and Pali are taught, and
at least one college for the education of monks; and land
has just been purchased in Kandy, through the generosity of
an American Buddhist lady (Mrs. Mary F. Foster of Hono-
lulu) for an "International Buddhist Seminary," to train
youths for the clergy.37 A movement to open Buddhist
Sunday schools, I should add, has also been initiated, and
(according to the Buddhist Annual for 1925 and 1926) is
steadily spreading.
-
In Burma the ancient custom of using the monasteries as
schools has never been abandoned; and though some of the
25 There are about 1500 Christian schools. I take both these figures from The
Young East for March, 1927.
Ananda College, Mahinda College, Maha Bodhi College, the Buddhist Girls' College
of Colombo, and the Dharmaraja College which "has formulated an ambitious building
scheme and has already purchased an excellent site," Buddhist Annual of Ceylon for
1923.
27 The Maha Bodhi (of Calcutta) for Feb. 1925.
140
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
more progressive families and those who wish their sons to
study English and science make use of the government
schools, a large part of the population still gets its education
from the monks. Here they learn reading, writing, and
arithmetic, the fundamentals of Buddhism, and good man-
ners. By the fundamentals of Buddhism I mean at least
the Three Refuges and the Ten Precepts. These are con-
tained in the first and second chapters of the Khuddaka
Patha, which is the common textbook, and which contains,
besides, a list of the thirty-two parts of the body,38 the
sources of happiness (or the Buddhist Beatitudes) to be
found on page 48 of this volume, and a few other funda-
mental Buddhist teachings. Many of the boys learn these
(at least in Pala), as well as the Refuges and Precepts. The
words are said to be remembered better than the meaning,
but this may be slander. At any rate, all the Burmese know
the Five Precepts, the girls as well as the boys, the old folks
as well as the young. Girls, of course, cannot go to the
monastic boarding schools, but they get a little religious in-
struction from the monks at the pagodas. To counteract
the alluring influence of the government and mission schools.
an effort is being made by the Association for the Propaga-
tion of Buddhism to found schools which shall teach Eng-
lish and the practical branches as well as the government
schools do, and also teach the Buddhist religion. The move-
ment has been slightly successful. The higher education also
has received some attention, and a bright boy can now find
a place to study Buddhist philosophy and the Pali scriptures
without first becoming a monk. Moreover, whether they
have studied at government schools or with the monks, al-
most all Burmese boys go to the monastery at the age of
fifteen to spend at least a week, and many stay during the
four months of the rainy season. They wear the yellow robe
of the novice and in theory take the first steps toward enter-
ing the Sangha.
The adult Buddhist gets his religious instruction (if he
gets any) by going to the viharas twice a month (a few go
four times a month) where the monks read the Dhamma and
www
38 This list is used by monks and pious laymen as a basis for meditation, to draw
them from the world of sense.
CEYLON AND BURMA
141
expound it during a large part of the night. They also read
the Jataka stories in their homes and go occasionally to a re-
ligious drama which performs much the same office of in-
struction as did the medieval miracle plays. Sometimes a
zealous monk announces a special sermon. The preaching
consists in reading from the scriptures and exhorting to the
Buddhist virtues, with little philosophy and little reference to
the Four Noble Truths or to the more abstruse principles of
Buddhism.
A new but not very active movement toward religious
revival has been under way since the late nineties, in both
Ceylon and Burma. The two most important institutions in
this revival are the Young Men's Buddhist Association (the
Y.M.B.A.) founded in Ceylon in 1898, and the Maha Bodhi
Society founded there in 1891. The aim of the former is,
of course, to do for young Buddhists what the Y.M.C.A. does
for Christians. The objects of the latter are of a more mis-
sionary nature. The primary purpose was to rescue the site
of the Buddha's enlightenment at Buddh Gaya from non-
Buddhist hands; to establish a Buddhist college in India; to
revive Buddhism in India; to disseminate Buddhist literature
and a knowledge of Buddhism all over the world; and to
help in the cause of Buddhist religious education in Ceylon.
It has established several educational institutions in the island,
has a press in Colombo where it publishes a religious journal
in the vernacular, holds an All-Ceylon examination for stu-
dents in the Buddhist Sunday schools, with prizes for the
best students, and in Calcutta it publishes a monthly in Eng-
lish, The Maha Bodhi. A branch of the Society has been
started in Germany and another in England.39
-
C
20 Another society which has at least an elaborate program is the Burma Buddhist
Mission. It lists some thirty-seven aims, one of the most important of which is religious
education. To this end it has devised a rather original method. It offers the degrees
of B.D. (Bachelor of Dharma) and D.D. (Doctor of Dharma) to those who will pass
examinations set by the Mission. Its International Field Secretary writes me thus:
"There is an Esoteric Department of the Mission to get deserving individuals initiated
into the Occult practice of Yogacharya Buddhism corresponding to the self-concentration
at the Maggaphalanayana. The Evangelistic Department of the Mission is doing very
successful work. The President-Founder of the Mission, a veteran Buddhist preacher of
nearly seventeen years' standing, a great scholar of Sanskrit, and an untiring spiritual
researcher for the last thirty years, is addressing thousands of people as often as he can.
The Evangelistic activities of Sreemati Jeevamba Devi, the first Lady-Member of the
Mission, are simply wonderful. Many of her disciples have made large strides on the
path of Yogacharya Buddhism. Everyone of them have seen the self-light. Fellows
142
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
(
There are several other societies for the revival and propa-
gation of Buddhism in both Ceylon and Burma.40 The Cey-
lonese societies unite every December in an annual "Congress
of Buddhist Associations in Ceylon." (The eighth meeting
took place in December, 1926.) Several Buddhist periodicals
are published in both countries devoted to the interests of re-
form and propaganda.¹¹
It must be said that considering the number of these so-
cieties not as much has been accomplished as might be
wished. With all the talk of the great need of sending mis-
sionaries to India and with the many societies which have
been formed for the spread of Buddhism all over the world,
not one missionary so far as I have been able to discover has
been sent.42 With a few great and outstanding exceptions,
such as the late evangelist and writer, Ledi Sadaw 43 and
Mr. Dharmapala, founder and head of the Maha Bodhi So-
ciety, most Burmese and Ceylonese Buddhists seem to ex-
pend their missionary zeal in founding societies, starting
periodicals, and holding meetings. A Ceylonese Buddhist
writing recently of the foundation of a new religious periodi-
cal in Colombo by some enthusiastic young Buddhists adds
the comment: "One only hopes that their enthusiasm is not
J
J
of the Mission who are increasing in number day by day, are doing a little bit of
evangelistic work in their own way. There is the Dept. of Education of the Mission,
which promotes the study of comparative religion by holding examinations for degrees
in Dharma. There is the Department of Publicity carrying out the publicity work of
the Mission in a vigilant manner. Much propagation work is done by this department.
The enrolment of Fellows of the Mission, Trustees of the Mission Fund, Members of
the Mission, sermons to masses and groups of individuals, prayer-meetings (rather
Bodha-meetings), the establishment of Bodhasalas, the opening of branches of the
Mission, the advancement of the knowledge of Dharma, the Dept. of Conversions, and
the pushing up of Publicity work in various ways, etc., etc., are the means by which
the ends of the Mission are being achieved from day to day."
40 E.g., in Ceylon the International Buddhist Brotherhood, the Banddharakshake
Sabha, the Dharmadutha Sabha, the Servants of Buddha, the Kulangana Samitiya (an
association of Buddhist women for the purpose of looking to the religious education of
Buddhist girls) and (very remarkable) a Young Bikkhus Association, which it is hoped
may do something to wake up the clergy. In Burma there is, or was, an Association
for the Propagation of Buddhism, a Mandalay Society for Promoting Buddhism, a Ran-
goon College Association, the Burma Buddhist Mission, an Asian Buddhist Mission, and
I know not how many others.
41 The most important of these periodicals in Ceylon are the Sinhala Baudhaya and
the Buddhist Annual (of Colombo)-perhaps the best known in Burma are the Ledi
Religious Instructor and the Pivot of Buddhism (both published in Rangoon).
42
Ceylonese and Burmese monks, making pilgrimage to Buddh Gaya or Sarnath,
sometimes preach on their way through the country. But I know of no permanent and
regular missionaries, such as Japanese Buddhism sends out.
43
* He died June 27, 1923.
CEYLON AND BURMA
143
of the variety that usually soon pegs out." 44 The presiding
officer of the Congress of Buddhist Associations in Ceylon
recently remarked in his presidential address, "The Congress
of Buddhist Associations has become a social gathering of
Buddhist workers, the opportunity being made use of for
passing several resolutions expressing many pious hopes." 45
Every one who has the cause of religion and of moral liv-
ing and human kindness and good will at heart should wish
well to the Buddhist reformers in their efforts at deepening
the religious life of their countries. The Buddhism of Ceylon
and Burma is, indeed, not all that one could desire, and is
far from what the Founder would have desired. But taken
in the large and as a whole, the blessing it has brought to
these fair lands is quite immeasurable. So at least my Fellow
Pilgrim and I felt as we sailed away from Ceylon with its
mountains and its palm groves and its quiet viharas hidden
deep in the forest. So we felt as we sailed down Burma's
great river, the Irrawaddy, for a thousand miles between
flowering forests and banks crowned with golden pagodas,
from Bahmo to the sea.
44 Young East for May, 1926, p. 399.
45 Maha Bodhi for March, 1924, p. 122.
CHAPTER VIII
THE EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM
THE Gulf of Siam forms an appropriate and beautiful
gateway between the lands of Southern Buddhism. Adjacent
to the seas that border Burma and Ceylon, and washing the
coasts of both the other Hinayana countries, it seems to have
absorbed something of the calm, something of the spirit of
the great Indian Teacher; and I wonder if there be not, in
some hidden page of Buddhist literature unknown to me, a
story of his laying his command of peace upon this sea, so
that its waves and winds have ever since obeyed him. At
any rate, the typhoons, which visit the adjacent China seas
in every month of the year with deadly effect, have seldom
been known to venture into the Gulf of Siam, and the great
mass of Indo-China, interposing its miles and its mountains,
has completely cut off from these waters the north-eastern
monsoon, which for so large a portion of the year blows a
steady gale on the coasts of Annam. One day of golden
light and of blue sky and water follows another, as the mer-
chant or the tourist-or the coolie or the pilgrim-sails over
its mirror-like waters, without a wave for miles and miles.
"except the jiggle from the screw."
The sunsets on the Gulf of Siam are justly famous. I
remember one—which I think I shall hardly forget-of tur-
quoise sea stretching north and south to the illimitable hori-
zon, while directly to the west, between ship and sun there
was a bank of cloud that seemed surely not more than three
or four miles away. It was like an island, there, so close by
that I could have sworn one could row out in no time in a
little boat and land upon its gravelly shore. Only it was no
ordinary isle, this; rather one of the Islands of the Blest, lying
there in the Western Paradise, all effulgent with lavenders
and golds, until the sun, setting beyond it, shot some of its
last rays through the island's solid base and poured rose leaves.
144
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 145
and then red blood over all its coasts. And when scarlet and
purple, gold and blue, had faded, through all the scale of
opalescent hues to dull grays, there came suddenly a sign
of tremendous conflagration at the opposite pole, just be-
yond the eastern horizon, as if all Cambodia were in a blaze.
It grew redder and brighter; and then we saw the ancient
moon, lopped off into a fantastic oblate, rise dripping from
the sea.
There is nothing sudden or dramatic about one's first
sight of Siam. Long before land is seen one is prepared for
it by the change in the sea's color, from blue to the tawny
brown of the muddy Menam. Small floating islands of
greenery sail past the ship, following an invisible current, and
the narrow green line of the land comes into view so gradu-
ally that one hardly distinguishes it at first from the familiar
sharp horizon of the sea. Then one sees it clearly, the green
line of the low-lying coast and the low-growing forest.
Small sailing ships are seen in increasing numbers, many
modern-looking Siamese boats, and a few ancient junks from
southern China, much more picturesque with their strange.
broad and rounded sails, patched with incredible care, and
as one nears the shore, small sampans, propelled by nearly
naked oarsmen, the big one standing in the stern, silhouetted
against sea and sky, looking like the king of the Cannibal
Islands. The Gulf of Siam now rapidly narrows, the pilot
is taken aboard, and we are in the broad mouth of the
Menam, which winds through flat country some forty miles
between Bangkok and the sea. The thicket comes down to
the water's edge-a forest of palms and bamboos, and creep-
ers, eagerly bathing their feet in the brimming river. Now
and then one passes the mouth of a canal or a salt creek
flowing into the stream and giving one a momentary and
tantalizing vista into the heart of the tropical jungle. The
river narrows, and one gets a more intimate view of its banks.
Natives rush down on the approach of the ship to haul in
their large fish nets, naked children play in sampans and on
the shore, Siamese huts of the ancient and national model
stand on stilts, with canals on three sides of them and the
river on the fourth, being thus surrounded by water on all
possible sides but one. A palm tree peeps out at us over the
-
146
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
roof of the house, a bamboo thicket stretches beyond it, and
a grove of banana trees lines the water's edge. Farther on
the sharp point of a pagoda attracts the eye, and standing
near it the typical double roof of the Siamese wat, where the
monks in their bright yellow robes chant to the Buddha every
night and morning. Then more palms, more houses, more
Siamese half asleep in their sampans or basking in the warm
shade of their open porches.
The Siamese like to bask. They are an intelligent race
who know what they want, and who have not as yet been
persuaded by either Europeans or Chinese that they want
something quite different. "Better is a dinner of herbs where
love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith," says King
Solomon; and the Siamese agree with him. Better a coco-
nut and a few bananas and a long nap than all the "com-
forts" of "civilization" with no leisure to enjoy them. We
are doing our best to convert them from their heathen point
of view and to bring them to a realizing sense of a thousand
artificial needs, but as yet with relatively slight success. A
fair amount of work in his own paddy field the Siamese is
willing to do; but he does not care to hire out as a laborer in
other people's vineyards nor on other people's railroads, nor
to bother his brains with shopkeeping and commercial enter-
prises; and since no end of Chinese coolies and Chinese
merchants can be imported to do all these difficult and
uninteresting things, he is very content to let them come.
Unnecessarily hard work is well enough for those who like it;
for his own part, he prefers to be, in the country a small but
independent proprietor, or in the city either an official or one
of the nobility. He and the king are of one mind about the
desirability of officials. The nation of Siam is very carefully
run. There are officials to do everything you can think of,
and supervisors to see that they have done it, and secretaries
to make a note that it was done. The best job of all is,
naturally, that of being a prince; and Siam-the only abso-
lute monarchy left in these uninteresting days save Abyssinia
-has no dearth of princes. The Kings of Siam have not
been negligent in their duty in this respect. One of the late
sovereigns increased the number of princes and princesses of
the blood by upward of a hundred. He is remembered with
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 147
affectionate gratitude. I think he is called the Father of his
country.
But I do not wish to ridicule these likable and very
sensible people. Which of us would not be a prince of the
blood if he only could? And Siam is notable for many things
besides its princes. In the words of a recent American
Consul-General at Bangkok:
Siam is the one officially Buddhist state, the one remaining absolute
monarchy, the one nation with an inconvertible paper currency with
more than its nominal gold value, the one nation whose national debt is
less than five dollars per capita, one of the few nations without strikes,
lockouts, unemployment, or Bolshevism and with a large excess of
exports over imports, a paying state-owned and state-operated railway
system, and a gilt-edged credit in the world's money market. Here is a
country with all the charm of the Orient, undisturbed as yet by com-
mercialism or tourist catching: its capital a fascinating city where you
cannot find a professional guide or a souvenir shop; a city of wide shaded
boulevards and picturesque canals: of red, blue, and gold temple roofs:
of swarming native quarters and delightful shops and streets eight feet
wide where one may buy all the myriad things that delight the oriental
eye and palate and tickle the occidental fancy.1
In all probability Buddhism did not come to Bangkok by
the route I have been describing. And if I am to say any-
thing of the way it reached Siam and of its history after it
got there, it will be necessary for us first of all to get before
our minds as clear a picture as we can of the principal peo-
ples of Indo-China. This peninsula, as the reader may
know, is divided by Nature into four or five rather sharply
distinguishable regions. To the west lies Burma, centering
round the valley of the Irrawaddy. Next to it is the valley
of the Menam, now belonging to Siam. Parallel to the
Menam and still farther east runs the great Mekong, along
whose shores dwell the Laos or Laotians in the north, the
Cambodians in the middle, and the Chams in the south. The
Mekong, like the Irrawaddy and the Menam, follows in gen-
eral a southerly course, flowing through the whole length of
the peninsula, and is cut off from the eastern coast by
a long range of mountains. Between these mountains
and the China Sea, and reaching all the way from the
1 James Porter Davis, in the China Weekly Review.
148
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
mouth of the Mekong to the borders of China dwell the
Annamese.2
That is the present situation. In the first centuries of
our era the Cambodians or Khmers and the Chams occupied
or dominated nearly all the territory now comprised in Siam,
Cambodia, Cochin-China, and Annam: just as the Telaings
(whose capitals were at Thaton and Pegu) occupied and con-
trolled all of southern Burma. The Cambodians and Telaings
are thought to have been closely related, and probably had
drifted down the river valleys from the northern mountains.
The Chams seem to have been of Malay origin. At any rate,
these three peoples, in the early centuries of our era, received
and adopted the culture and religions of India. Indian mer-
chants and Indian colonists traded and settled on all these
shores, bringing with them Hinduism and Buddhism, which
were quickly absorbed by all three of these intelligent
peoples.
We have seen how the Burmese seized the Telaing capital
in 1057 and from that time on steadily gained in power over
the civilized southerners. Much the same thing happened
in the central and eastern parts of the great peninsula. The
unification of the Chinese Empire under the Han and T'ang
dynasties had gradually driven out of Yunan and other
southern and western provinces of China a people known as
the Thai. These people filtered into the mountainous region
in the northern part of Indo-China, now known as Laos, and
thence spread westward and southward. Those who went
west into Burma (and those who remained in Yunan) came
to be known as the Shans, and it was these who dominated
Burma during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies. Those who remained in the mountain districts of the
north and along the upper reaches of the Mekong are known
today as the Laos or Laotians. Finally the third branch of
the Thai who drifted down the Mekong and thence over into
the valley of the Menam came to be known as the Siamese.
The Siamese are thus a Mongolian people, related to the
Chinese, and when they came into Indo-China the culture
they possessed was presumably derived from China. As yet
2
For the facts in this and the following paragraphs I am largely indebted to René
Grousset, Histoire de l'Asie (Paris, Crès, 1921), Vol. I, Chap. III.
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 149
they had experienced no direct Indian influence. Yet it is
thought they brought a certain kind of Buddhism with them.
This Buddhism must have been derived from China; hence
must have been either of the Mahayana or of the Tibetan
type.
When the Siamese arrived in the region of the Mekong
and the upper Menam, the empire of the Khmers or Cam-
bodians was at its height. It had driven the Chams from
most of the Mekong valley, and the incoming Siamese were
for some centuries subject to them. They were subject to
them not only in political but in cultural fashion, for the
Khmers were highly civilized. The Khmer religion at this
time was Brahmanism and Mahayana Buddhism, and the
Siamese must have been considerably influenced by both of
these through imitation of the dominant race. In the early
twelve hundreds, however, the Siamese won their indepen-
dence and in a hundred years more had occupied nearly all
of the Menam valley. During most of these prosperous years
the seat of the most powerful branch of the Siamese was at
Sukhothai, on the middle course of the Menam, and this is
frequently spoken of as the first capital of Siam. About
1350 the city of Ayuthia was built or rebuilt—and it
gradually supplanted Sukhothai in importance and in the
next century became the capital.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Burma was in
a condition of chronic civil war and its power was in eclipse.
Hence the Siamese were able to push their influence and
sometimes their control as far as Pegu. Even before this
they must have come into close contact with the (Hinaya-
nist) Telaings of southern Burma. It is probably in this
manner that they first became acquainted with Hinayana
Buddhism,³ which from that time on gradually spread among
the Siamese and at length completely supplanted both the
Mahayana and Brahmanism. According to A. W. Graham:
In the ruined temples and timeworn relics with which the whole
country is strewn, the ancient coexistence of Brahmanism with Bud-
dhism, and also the gradual supplanting of the former by the latter can
without much difficulty be traced. Upon the sites of the oldest cities,
bronze statues of various Brahman gods are continually found mingled
8
* Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, III. 80.
150
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
with images of the Buddha. In the less ancient ruins such relics of
Brahmanism are almost entirely absent, whilst Buddhist remains are ex-
ceedingly numerous. Finally in the modern cities, with the exception of
one small section where Brahmanism still holds its own as a distinct
religion and in one temple in Bangkok which is the headquarters of the
court Brahmans, representations of the Brahman gods are rarely seen, or,
if present, are relegated to quite subordinate positions as attendants on,
or adorers of, the Buddha.+
4
5
That not only Brahmanism but Mahayana Buddhism
rapidly declined before the Hinayana and that the latter was
soon looked upon as the national religion seems to be indi-
cated by the fact that about 1360 the king sent to Ceylon
for an abbot or Sangharaja. This prelate brought with him,
of course, the validation of the ordination for future Siamese
monks, who thus, like the Burmese monks, were thereafter
able to trace back their apostolic succession through the
Mahavihara of Anuradhapura to Prince Mahinda. Not long
after this a branch of the Bodhi Tree and various sacred relics
were imported from Ceylon and India.
During this period of prosperity, in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, the power of Siam extended not only to
the west but still more to the east. Its former mistress, Cam-
bodia, was humbled and seriously weakened; Angkor, the
Cambodian capital, was captured and pillaged four times"
by Siamese armies, and at length abandoned with all the re-
gion of the middle Mekong. The fame of Siam as a great
Buddhist power was spread abroad, and as we have seen, the
king of Ceylon in 1750 sent for Siamese monks to reintroduce
valid ordination into the island.
If we may judge by its jungle-covered ruins, Ayuthia
must have been a large, magnificent, and intensely Buddhist
city. It had four centuries of brilliant life, and was filled
by its devout kings and devout population with immense re-
ligious edifices and great Buddhas, now overgrown and hid-
den by the almost irresistible forest. It underwent six differ-
ent sieges by the Burmese, in three of which it defied their
utmost power. In 1564 and again in 1569 it was taken, but
M
0
Jade
Siam (London, Moring, 1912), p. 488.
Eliot, III. 83. Eliot points out that though the King whose inscription related the
importation of the Ceylonese prelate was plainly Hinayanist, his religion retained a few
Brahman and Mahayana elements.
In 1357, 1394, 1420, and 1460.
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 151
7
in neither case was it seriously damaged. In 1767 it was
again captured by the Burmese (all of them good Buddhists,
one must recall) and completely destroyed. The Siamese
people, however, soon recovered their spirits and most of
their power.
8
A new dynasty, the present one, came to
the throne in 1782, which has ruled ever since, characterized
equally by its genuine patriotism and its zealous yet liberal
devotion to the Buddhist religion, in the new capital of the
land.
Thus we are brought back again, after a considerable
detour, to Bangkok and Buddhism. Even to the passing
tourist with no special interest in religion, the one outstand-
ing thing about Bangkok is its magnificent wats or temples.
The Siamese wat is hard to describe. It is, roughly speaking,
a religious enclosure-one can hardly word it more exactly-
surrounded by a wall and containing a large number of
buildings, small and great, and several other things besides.
Its principal axis runs east and west, with the entrance on
the east.
There is no regular plan, such as is found in
Chinese temples, but all sorts of things are clustered together
in delightful irregularity, as the exigencies of space, the
munificence of donors, or the chances of history have dic-
tated. Thus it comes that no two wats are alike, and the visi-
tor never knows exactly what to expect, but may usually
count on finding something unexpected. The simplest form
of wat, such as one comes upon in the rural districts, contains
one hall for worship and at least one, usually several, pagodas.
Almost all wats contain at least two worship halls and a con-
siderable number of pagodas. In the larger wats the build-
ings and pagodas are multiplied into a bewildering maze,
through which the pilgrim wanders in a daze of wonder,
and from which plan and system and even the points of the
compass at first seem to have been banished. The central
hall of worship, which is never lacking in even the smallest
wat, is known as the bot. It is usually very much of a build-
ing and much more like a Christian church than anything
you will find in the Burmese or Ceylonese vihara. Here the
morning and evening services are held, here the laity come.
C
7
For the six sieges see Harvey's History of Burma, pp. 159, 167, 169, 181, 241, 251f.
8
The eighth monarch of this dynasty is now (1928) on the throne.
152
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
on preaching days to listen to the reading of the scriptures,
and here (in most wats) the consecration of young monks
takes place. If there are two or more halls in the wat, the
bot is distinguished externally from the others by being sur-
rounded, at the four corners and on the four sides, by eight
stones carved into the shape of a conventionalized cobra's
head, reminiscent of the ancient myth of the cobra protect-
ing the Founder and really significant of the early connec-
tion of Buddhist worship with the Naga cult.
9
The roof of the bot is a very unique construction, one
roof apparently having been superimposed upon another, and
sometimes a third upon the second, the angularity of the
gables being accentuated by long and narrow horns which
extend out from the corners skyward. The coloring of the
roofs moreover is characteristic. Instead of the brilliant
tones of Burmese temples we find here all manner of sub-
dued tints-olives, maroons, tans, and various browns. The
gable ends, on the other hand, and sometimes much of the
walls are brilliant with colored tiles and gold mosaic. The in-
terior of the wat is frequently very ornate. The lofty ceil-
ing is usually supported by eight or more square columns,
which, in common with the walls, are decorated with scenes
from the life of the Buddha. Near the middle of the hall
is a kind of throne for the preacher, its back toward the al-
tar, and facing a double row of mats which cover all the floor
between it and the central doorway. Upon these the lay
congregation sit at preaching services. More mats cover the
floor between the preacher's throne and the altar, and on
these the monks sit (or kneel) at the daily and weekly of-
fices. Beyond them, at the farther end of the hall, is the al-
tar, and rising high above it, the glorious throne of the
Buddha, who is thus seated in a position from which he can
survey all his worshipers. Around him, on the lower steps of
the throne, are sometimes other Buddha images, standing or
sitting, all of them images of one and the same historical Go-
tama, and not, as in China and Japan, images of other
-
According to the Udana (Chap. II), directly after attaining insight Gotama sat
for seven days and nights, with crossed legs, rejoicing in the new-found blessedness.
A great storm, with rain and cold wind, raged all through these days, but the Naga
King, in order to protect the Tathagata, wound his coils about him seven times and
held his hood over the Buddha's head.
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 153
Buddhas. There may also be images of two monks, usually
worshiping toward the central figure. These represent
Moggallana and Sariputta-known in Siam as Mokhala and
Saribut-the two most proficient of the Buddha's disciples
during his lifetime, and whose names are missing in the list
of patriarchs presumably only because they both preceded
the Founder into Parinirvana.
The altar, a long table in front of the throne, is piled with
offerings of various sorts. Candles in elaborate candlesticks,
flowers in most ornate vases, incense and incense burners,
gold or gilded images, French clocks, are among the common-
est of these votives. The fondness of the oriental for occi-
dental clocks is one of the things which the pilgrim from the
west first notices, especially in Siamese and Chinese temples.
Being so precious in the eyes of the eastern Buddhists, it is
but natural that they should be offered to the Buddha. One
finds them on the large public altar, one finds them in the se-
cluded holy of holies. Sometimes they are wound up and
going, occasionally they are on time, as a rule they have long
since stopped. It does not greatly matter. Presumably the
Buddha knows the time without their help. Moreover in
Nirvana-and in the true Reality, as the Northern Buddhists
would say there is no time; so perhaps the clock with hands
stationary is a more appropriate offering for a Buddhist
temple than one kept always wound and always correct to
the second.
(0)
Besides the bot there is usually a second large hall in the
wat compound, much like the bot in structure and contents,
but not used for preaching and consecrations and not marked
off by the eight cobra-like stones. This is called the wihan-
the familiar word vihara in its Siamese form. It usually con-
tains some special image of the Buddha, or a considerable
collection of images. Besides these buildings there may be a
special preaching hall and a number of small image houses or
covered corridors, with long lines of seated Buddhas, ranged
along the walls facing outward into the court. The pagodas
are of any size, from those a few feet high to hill-like struc-
tures such as that in the wat Chang, looking down upon the
adjacent river from the height of 250 feet, or the even higher
wat Sa Ket, crowning an artificial hill in the center of the
154
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
city. The pagodas are of two types, the commoner called
Phra-Chedi, in the shape of a bell and terminating in a sharp
point, almost identical in form with those in Burma: the
other type borrowed, not from Burma, but from Angkor in
Cambodia-Phra-Prang it is called-thicker, less pointed, less
Siamese in appearance and ending always with a finial of
three crescents set one above another on an upright point and
borrowed, I suppose, from the worship of Siva. Less Siamese
in appearance, I have called them, for Siamese architecture
and sculpture is characterized by its love of exaggerated
elongations and sharp points. The favorite Siamese type of
pagoda ends in a long needle-like pinnacle: the gable ends of
the bots are extended into long and narrow gilded horns: and
the head of the Buddha is regularly crowned by a pointed
flame, which takes the place of the halo in Indian, Chinese,
and Japanese religious art.
This may be as good a place as any to say a few words
about the Siamese form of Buddhist images. There are only
two, instead of three, common attitudes for the Buddha in
Siam, the seated and the standing. Except for a few very
large and very special images in some of the temples, the Nir-
vana of the Buddha is seldom met with. There is one in the
wat Po in Bangkok, one hundred and sixty feet long, which
therefore ranks well for size with the great Buddhas of Pegu,
Rangoon, Nara, and Kamakura. But the regular cult images
of the temples and the images for votive offerings and for do-
mestic shrines are all either of the sitting or the standing
variety. Between Burmese and Siamese Buddhas there is little
difference. The latter have not quite as long ears as have
their Burmese cousins, the lobes not touching the shoulders
as they so often do in Burma; nor are the fingers regularly
of the same length; they vary as do the ordinary human fin-
gers. The hair, as I have said, usually ends in a sharply
pointed flame; or if in a knot as in Burma, the knot is usually
pointed instead of round. The waists of both Burmese and
Siamese Buddhas are much narrower than those of Chinese
Buddhas, though not so pinched as those found in Nepalese
images. The general effect of the Siamese Buddha when
reasonably well done is excellent-at least to one who has any
feeling for Buddhas at all. It invariably possesses dignity and
W
GUD
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 155
frequently impressiveness and the sense of calm for which it
supremely stands.
In some respects, one of the most impressive Buddhas I
have ever seen is in the ruin of an ancient wat at Ayuthia-
though no doubt it owes much of its memorable quality to
its setting. The destruction of the ancient capital was very
thorough, and what ruins were left were so quickly and com-
pletely reclaimed by the jungle that only a few walls and a
few pagoda pinnacles still lift their tops over the luxuriance
of tropical growth, which, with almost conscious and savage
delight, has wound its hundred mighty arms around the little
area of which, for a brief period, it was once deprived. The
place reminds one somewhat of Anuradhapura; but there
has been but slight attempt at any reclamation of the ruins.
The most impressive portion of the ancient city centers at
one of the large wats. To reach it you must drive or walk
through a mile or more of forest to the end of the road, then
leaving your gari, follow a footpath for perhaps fifteen min-
utes that crosses a clearing and plunges into the thicket.
Over the mass of greenery you get a glimpse of a pagoda top,
then of another, at last of a line of them, and at one point
you can count thirteen of these white slender pinnacles still
towering above the trees. The vast brick base of some an-
cient building you pass, and beyond it a turn of the path leads
you into a small clearing, from which you view a high brick
wall with an enormous breach from base to summit.
Through this, as you look inward, you see upon a lofty throne
of ancient brickwork, which was once his lotus seat, adorned
now not with porcelain tiles and gilt mosaic but with the
fresh greenery of the forest, a colossal Buddha. In contrast
to the destruction of all about him, the image is in perfect.
repair. City wall, temple wall, buildings, and the other
images all fell before the pillaging Burmese. The protecting
devatas with their terrifying faces and enormous arms failed
to frighten or deter them. But the great Buddha was un-
touched. In the front wall of the temple there is a breach as
large as that at the side, and through this the Buddha gazes
out into the jungle. One cannot help wondering what he
sees out there, and what he thinks. That calm face so plainly
indicates contemplation and peace. And he has seen so many
C
156
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
things these four hundred years that he has sat there: groups
of worshipers, following each other as the generations passed;
the bristling bands of the Burmese as they destroyed all about
him on that tragic day; and since then the quiet desolation of
the jungle, the works of man destroyed by man, their ruins
going over into the kindly keeping of Nature and disinte-
grating with slow certainty before her greater force. .
"Is there anything put together which shall not dissolve?
You know what I have told you; sooner or later we must
part with all we hold most dear. This body of ours con-
tains within itself the power which renews its strength for
a time; but also the causes which lead to its destruction.
But you too shall be free from this delusion, this world of
sense, this law of change."
What the Ayuthia wats were like in the days of their
pride we can imagine by walking through the great wats of
Bangkok to-day. Perhaps the most interesting and certainly
the largest is the wat Po-a wilderness of buildings large and
small, of Phra-Chedis and Phra-Prangs, of outer and inner
walls with gateways protected by guardian spirits-at one
notable gate the place of the conventional devatas having
been taken by gigantic stone Europeans with silk hats. Then
there are pipal trees, as in Burma and Ceylon, shrines to the
spirits with offerings before them, small bell towers, the
schoolrooms, open at the side, for the boys who study at the
wat, and just outside the outer wall several long lines of small
one-room houses, built of cement, the dormitories of the
many monks. The newest of the great wats, the Benchama-
bopit, is simple in plan, with only one large building besides
the school buildings; but it is perhaps the handsomest of all,
constructed as it is entirely of white marble, with decora-
tions of gold mosaic on all the eaves and roofs. The great
wat Chang across the river is the highest and in some ways
most striking, a mass of Chinese porcelain two hundred and
fifty feet high, its walls literally covered with plates and
saucers, and pieces of broken cups, set there at a time when
Chinese porcelain was still beautiful. Most startling of all
the wats in the extreme and bizarre shapes of its structures
and the brilliant gilding and coloring of its pagodas, is the
wat Phra-Keo, adjoining the palace. A wat that I liked as
A
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 157
much as any, though unmentioned in the guide books, is the
wat Rajabopit. Its central structure is a great pagoda, con-
taining some ancient stone Buddhas, clustered in unconscious
impressiveness. Around the pagoda is another building, fol-
lowing its circular shape, with four great gabled gateways
which are really halls. The walls of all the buildings are
covered with porcelain tiles from the apex to the base, and
the doors are inlaid with mother-of-pearl, carved and incised
with minute and loving care. Then there are schoolrooms
open at three sides, dormitories for monks, and, what I liked
best of all, a garden marked off from the rest by a wall,
though within the same general enclosure-a garden of palms
and pagodas. It has flowering trees of many sorts, cannas
and crotons, lace-like bamboos, the Bougainville, tombs of
ancient abbots, great bronze vessels holding miniature lotus
ponds, and a strange little building with three towers of the
Cambodian type, three stairways whose balustrades are
threatening snakes or Naga images with uplifted heads, and
above the stairways high reliefs of un-Buddhist-looking
gentlemen of martial air and triple crown, and still more un-
Buddhist-looking ladies with bare and ample breasts. Other
pagodas there are, of various shapes and sizes, some in fresh
repair, some of gray old stone, stained and blotched and
covered with lichen, and all mingled together with tropical
trees like an immense and variegated bouquet before the
altar of the Blessed One.
:
The excellent repair of most Siamese wats forms a pleas-
ant contrast to the many decaying pagodas of Burma and the
many uncared-for and even filthy Buddhist temples in large
parts of China. The good condition of the wats in Siam
is due in part to the fact that the repairing of an ancient
temple is almost as meritorious as the building of a new one.
As compared with the Chinese, moreover, the Siamese are
exceedingly devout Buddhists, and, like the Burmese, are
lavish in their gifts to the sanctuary. But the government
also must be given considerable credit for the excellent ap-
pearance of at least the larger temples. For in Siam Bud-
dhism is emphatically the state religion. The present king is
an enthusiastic Buddhist. So was his brother who preceded
him (he died in 1925). During the first years of his reign,
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
especially, he seemed to be emulating Asoka and Kanishka.
It is, in fact, due largely to him that the wats are kept in the
excellent repair one finds today. Before his advent to the
throne the wats of Siam were in much the same condition as
those in Burma-a few important ones kept up, the rest al-
lowed to fall into decay. From his exhortations and his ex-
ample the Siamese learned to repair temples as well as to build
them. The king, moreover, was-and is-exceedingly gen-
erous toward many of the monasteries. A large portion of
the monks receive from him their robes, in an annual cere-
mony of some magnificence. Several of the state ceremonies,
moreover, have religious elements and require the cooperation
of the Buddhist church. Finally the king appoints the patri-
arch; state confirmation is required for the election of the
various abbots; and if a new monastery is to be formed the
consent of the government must first be obtained.
The monastic orders are, however, in most respects self-
governed. On the death of an abbot, the monks of the chap-
ter elect his successor, and only formal confirmation from
the state is required. While the great majority of the monks
belong to one order, there are two other orders each of which
has a considerable following. One of the three, known as
the Ramanya, was brought many years ago from Pegu. The
two native orders are sprung from one stock, which divided
during the reign of the fourth king of the present dynasty.
This sovereign (Mongkut by name) was abbot of the wat
Bavaranies (where the present prince patriarch now pre-
sides). He felt that the monastic life was in need of reform
and founded the Dhammayut or Reformed Order to which
the great majority of Siamese monks today belong. Not
all the monks, however, followed the king out of the old un-
reformed order and it has been continued down to this day
under the name Maha Nikaya. The differences between
these three orders are not doctrinal but disciplinary.
The monks of Siam have, on the whole, a good reputation.
They hold the respect and even the affection of the Buddhist
laity. Even the Christian missionaries, many of whom I
fear would like to think rather ill of their clerical rivals,
while dwelling at length on their ignorance, their laziness,
and their lack of religious devotion, will tell you that as a
G
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 159
body they lead a pure and somewhat ascetic life, are pretty
faithful in the observance of their vows, and are undoubtedly
a real influence for moral good in the community. I got
the impression that they are about on a par with the monks
of Burma, a little less learned and a little more devoted than
the monks of Ceylon. Certainly their life is not a strenuous
one and it gives ample opportunity for laziness-an oppor-
tunity which in many cases is gratefully embraced. Many of
the monks are ignorant of the nice points of their own re-
ligion: and in the country districts some of them cannot even
read or write. In Bangkok, on the other hand, the average
level of intelligence and education among the monks is fairly
high. The abbot of the wat Po (a very authoritative digni-
tary) told me that while not more than one monk out of a
hundred knew any Sanskrit, perhaps ninety-nine out of a
hundred knew some Pali. By this he undoubtedly meant that
ninety-nine out of one hundred knew by heart the Pali verses
which form part of the prescribed chants. Still, many of the
monks have really studied Pali, and while the great majority
can read the sacred Books only in translation, they have at
least an elementary knowledge of the principles of Buddhist
thought. A persistent effort is being made, moreover, in
most of the city wats to increase this knowledge. A certain
amount of information is required before admission to the
order. After this admission, the young monk is encouraged
to continue his studies and take examinations of higher and
higher grade in successive years. There are, altogether, nine
of these grades of learning, and while only a few reach the
ninth, many go beyond the first. In fact a considerable
stimulus has been given to even the most unscholarly and un-
ambitious monk in the rough path of learning by the recent
law requiring military service of all young laymen. The
first effect of this law was to give a great new impetus to the
religious life. Young men piled into the priesthood in such
numbers that the church threatened to swamp the laity and
destroy the army. Something had to be done about it: so an
additional law was passed making it impossible for a monk
to escape military service unless he had passed the first of the
nine examinations to which I referred above-that is one
additional examination beside that required to admit him to
160
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the order. This examination is no simple thing, but a really
formidable barrier for the ignorant and lazy. It consists, in
fact, of four written examinations, taken on four successive
days. On the first day the student writes a composition
outlining the doctrines of Buddhism. On the three follow-
ing days he is given examination papers with specific ques-
tions which must be answered in writing-dealing on the sec-
ond day with the rules of proper living, on the third with
the life of the Buddha, and on the last day with the Sangha
and its monastic discipline, the Vinaya.
The examination for all Bangkok novitiates is given in
the wat Moha-Tetu-which is regarded as the center of
Buddhist learning in the capital. I visited it on the second
day of the annual examination just after the applicants had
finished their papers. The court of the wat was overflow-
ing with yellow-robed young hopefuls-or doubtfuls-who
were discussing with each other the various questions that
had been asked, much as American students do after an im-
portant examination, and swarming up the two broad stair-
cases that lead to the examination hall, where older monks
sat at tables, pencil in hand, betel box at side, and often cigar
in mouth, reading and marking the papers. Here are some of
the questions that were asked: What are the chief points
concerning conduct which must be inculcated upon noviti-
ates? Can humility beautify people? Can passion do so?
What is the duty of the monk in relation to food? to touch-
ing, tasting, and smelling? to the commandments? What
should be the monk's state of mind on receiving (a) the yel-
low robe, (b) food, (c) shelter, (d) medicine? The answer
to this last question, by the way, is that he should not think
of beautifying himself or enjoying himself, but should con-
sider only the necessity of these objects. I happen to know
because I was shown not only the examination paper but the
long list of answers, made out in duplicate by the chief exam-
iner for the use of the subordinate examiners who were to
mark the papers. The examination was planned and carried
out, the reader will observe, with quite Western efficiency.
This system of thorough examination, throwing out of the
church and into the army all those who do not pass, can
hardly fail in a very few years to raise materially the
-
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 161
standard of intelligence and scholarship of the Siamese monk-
hood.
The total number of monks in Siam, in February, 1924,
was 114,349; to which should be added some 60,141 nov-
ices.10
All but 110 of the monks are native Siamese; 54
being Annamese, 38 Chinese, and 18 Burmese. All of the
larger wats are in Bangkok, the largest of all (the Maha-
dhatu) having 250 resident monks.
The life of the monk is regulated with care, and follows,
as it does in Burma and Cambodia, pretty closely upon the
ideal set up in the ancient Vinaya. The monks rise at about
five, pray (that is, repeat the proper verses) individually,
and then go their daily rounds, bowl in hand, to receive from
the lay community their daily food.11 This is, of course, en-
tirely vegetarian, and consists chiefly of rice and fruit. About
six in the morning the streets of the upper part of Bangkok
are yellow with monks, over forty being sometimes found at
once on one block. After returning from their begging ex-
pedition and depositing their food in one place they assemble
in some shrine of the wat or in their private oratory about
nine for a service of chanting. At the conclusion of this
service they read, meditate, 12 or rest till their one daily meal,
which comes at eleven. As it is necessary for them to eat
enough to last them till the next morning, this meal is usually
one of considerable size, and it is not surprising that after
(
angh
10 These figures were supplied by the Ecclesiastical Department of the Siamese
Government, and came to me through the kindness of my friend and former colleague,
Dr. F. B. Sayre, Foreign Advisor to the king in 1923-24.
11 In Northern Siam the monks do not beg their meals. The food is brought to the
monasteries by the women of the lay households. Siamese monks when on their
begging rounds do not sound a gong as the Burmese monks do.
Several kinds of meditation are followed. Kammathan is analytic meditation.
"He who exercises it fixes his mind on any one element and reflects on it in all its
conditions and changes, until, so far as that element is concerned, he sees that it is only
unstable, grievous, and illusory. To aid this kind of meditation there are formulas.
A list of elements is repeated, and the ordinary exercise of Kammathan is probably a
mere mumbling of these formulas. One of these is the list of the thirty-two elements
of the body." Phawana is a second form of meditation. It means concentration of
thought, either upon charity, pity, joy, sorrow, or indifference. To practice the first
of these five forms of Phawana "it is necessary, as a preliminary, to abstain from doing
evil and then, seeking a solitary place, to reflect on Charity or universal love, repeating
a number of texts appropriate to the occasion and calculated to remove from the heart
every feeling opposed to universal charity." A third form of meditation is Chian
(Sanskrit Dhyana), a series of states of abstraction or trance, the attainment of which
is the highest accomplishment of a Buddhist saint. By them one secures rebirth in the
heavens of form and formlessness." I take these descriptions from Alabaster, The
Wheel of the Law (London, Trübner, 1871).
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
it most monks feel the need of a nap. After the nap they
do as they like till the afternoon or evening chanting service,
which comes in some wats at four, in some at eight. By nine
P.M. their day is ended and they go to bed.
The life of the monk is therefore far from strenuous. He
has plenty of leisure which he may use for study, medi-
tation, or plain loafing, as he likes. Some of them, I should
hasten to add, teach religion in the wat schools. For all
Siamese children have to go to one of the schools provided
by the government, and in these schools religion is a required
course and is taught by a monk. "Religion" here of course
means Buddhism, and it is the moral side of Buddhism, the
Five Precepts, their interpretation and application, etc., that
is stressed. I should add that most young men, when they
reach their twentieth year, live in the monasteries for at least
a short time, as do the young men of Burma and Cambodia.
Besides teaching the boys, a few of the monks read or ex-
pound the Dhamma to the laity on preaching days. Natu-
rally it is only the learned and energetic ones who do this, and
there is wide play within the calling for any taste. The ab-
bots in particular have an opportunity for luxurious and
scholarly ease which to many a Siamese must be very inviting.
I remember having an opportunity one morning to get a
glimpse into an abbot's study (if so I may call it) in one of
the wats, while he had his back turned, and to observe both
his room and him. It was, in fact, much more than a glimpse,
for he was absorbed in his reading and I could note down
everything in the room. Against the wall stood a bookcase
with fifty-two volumes (I counted them) handsomely
bound in European style, most of them being in Siamese. The
lower shelves of the case were filled with personal photo-
graphs. More photographs, most of them framed, hung on
the walls-pictures of Buddhist processions, groups of monks,
famous Buddhist buildings, etc. On the two sides of the
bookcase hung very large clocks, both of them going and
both of them on time. Why two clocks were needed within
five feet of each other would not be plain to most Americans,
but the question would seem absurd to most Siamese. There
were two tables in the room and a dozen chairs, most of them
easy chairs. In one of these—a very easy chair indeed-sat
-
J
EXTERNAL ASPECTS OF SIAMESE BUDDHISM 163
the abbot, reading his pamphlet, his feet resting on a large
table in front of him. In addition to his feet the table con-
tained two teapots, six teacups, two fruit dishes, a large and
handsomely bound volume, a betel box, two bowls, and four
spittoons. Other abbots that I visited, however, were far less
luxurious in their surroundings. The elderly abbot of the
great wat Po I found sitting on the floor with his back against
a pillar, evidently meditating on the transiency of life or on
the sermon he had to preach the following day at the crema-
tion of the princess of Sri Ratana Kosindra. His room was
spacious but contained neither bookcases, photographs, nor
spittoons. At any rate all I remember in it was a rather beau-
tiful shrine at one end with some meditative Buddhas, and the
old man in his yellow robe, leaning against a pillar and strug-
gling between a desire to be courteous and a natural feeling
of annoyance at the intrusion of an American interviewer
when his thoughts should be on higher themes. The recep-
tion room of the prince patriarch, the King's uncle, whom I
called upon the following day, was even simpler in its fur-
nishings, as well as smaller, and the elderly patriarch, while
possessing the gracious manners of a prince, had also all the
appearance of the true Buddhist ascetic.
For though the monk's life is far from strenuous and gives
ample opportunity for laziness, there is an ascetic element in
it, and the heads of the order make earnest efforts to keep up
the nobler moral tone of the monkhood. A little pamphlet
which is widely distributed and read among both monks and
laity is devoted to ten rules of life for the ideal monk-rules,
it must be noted, which must not be confused with the Ten
Vows or Precepts imposed on entering the order; but in part
repetitions, in part additional recommendations. They are,
in very brief summary, the following:
(1) The monk must wear only the yellow robe.
G
my
(2) He must get each day only enough food for that
day's use and save nothing over. He must eat what is given
him and not pick and choose.
(3) He must give to the needy, keep the Precepts, and
say his prayers.
(4) He must not scold.
(5) He must pay courteous attention to whatever is
164
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
said to him, whether he acts on the suggestions given or
not.
(6) He must remind himself that all living things are
mortal and that nothing is permanent.
(7) He must remind himself that there is punishment
and reward, in hell and heaven, after death.
(8) He must be attentive in whatever he does and try
constantly to do better.
(9) If he is really in earnest in the desire to become holy,
he must go for meditation to a lonely place, such as the for-
est, the jungle, or a quiet part of the wat.
(10) He must study to become learned, so that he need
not be ashamed when questions are asked him.
But these moral precepts have led us quite beyond the
external aspects of Siamese Buddhism to which this chapter
was to have been devoted. The inner aspect of the religion,
with its beliefs and practices, will be considered in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER IX
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
THE latter part of the previous chapter made it evident
that the study of the Dharma and some knowledge of
Buddhist theory are considered necessary for the ideal monk.
In matters of theory it must be said that Siamese Buddhism,
like that of Burma and Ceylon, has kept fairly close to the
teachings of the Master. There are, of course, wide differ-
ences here, as in other Buddhist lands, between the beliefs of
the more learned monks and those of the ignorant monks
and laymen, but the leaders, at least, know more or less of
their Pali books, and while doubtless they neglect much of
ancient Buddhist theory, what theory they have is fairly
pure.
The monks whom I consulted with one voice insisted that
there is only one Buddha. I do not understand them by this
to deny the earlier Buddhas. But their interest in the ques-
tion is pragmatic, as a good Buddhist's should be; and their
meaning I think is that for this period of history and for
the purposes of our worship and our guidance there is only
one Buddha. I brought to the attention of several of the
monks the fact that the Chinese and Japanese believed in a
number of Buddhas and worshiped them. They were usually
surprised and clung to their monistic position unmoved.
The belief in Maitreya (in Siam called Allenya Metai),
the coming Buddha, is in a sense a kind of poly-Buddhism,
and it seems to be a living part of the faith for many of the
laity. At his arrival the world is to enter into a happy period,
and many a layman's prayer is the wish, "Oh, that I might
live to see Allenya Metai!" Some of the less learned monks
share this position. Not so, I was assured by the prince pa-
triarch, does the ideal monk. The princely head of the
church showed that he felt very strongly on this point. I
judge he regarded such a belief as the entering wedge of poly-
165
166
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Buddhism, from which he is resolved to keep the Siamese
church pure. Maitreya, he said (or as he called him, Phra Sri
An) is a Boddhisattva, but he is not really coming as a
Buddha. There is no coming Buddha.
Sakyamuni, therefore, as the one and supreme Buddha
has nothing to fear from Maitreya. Neither need he fear
anything from Amida, his great rival or supplanter in
all Northern lands. Few of the monks and hardly any
of the laity had even heard the name Amida. The one
monk I found who knew anything about him assured me
he was not a Buddha at all, but one of the disciples of the
Buddha.
This does not mean that the Buddha has no rivals in Siam.
The worship, offerings, and prayers of the Siamese he has to
share with the many local spirits who correspond to the nats
of Burma. Even in the wats, yes even in the wats of Bang-
kok, one finds little shrines to these little godlets-doll houses
they look like-with a few incense sticks and streamers in
front of them. But if they do this in the center of Buddhist
learning and purity what shall be expected in the more re-
mote parts of the land? In northern Siam, among the Laos,
and in and about Chieng Mai (the second center of Siamese
Buddhism), the worship-or at least the buying off-of
these animistic spirits forms a large part of the religious, or
superstitious, life of the people. As the cult of these ancient
fays, tree spirits, local genii, is much the same as it is in many
other parts of the world I need say nothing of it here. It is
to them that many, perhaps most, of the actual petitions are
made. But they are not regarded as in any sense comparable
to the Buddha. Upon his absolute supremacy all Siam is
agreed.
On the present state of the Buddha there is no such unan-
imity. The average devout layman believes as a matter of
course that the Buddha is a kind of God in heaven, who
dwells in eternal bliss, who is conscious and sees our offerings
and hears our prayers. The less educated among the monks
share the same view. The more learned monks, on the other
hand-the abbots and the monks who have passed the higher
examinations-know perfectly well that the Buddha is in
Nibban and neither sees, hears, nor knows anything. One
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
167
monk expressed it to me by saying that the Buddha is now
like smoke that has been dissipated and has disappeared. So
he has disappeared and dissolved. In translating his expres-
sions my interpreter used the exact phrase so often used by
the English-speaking monks of Burma and Ceylon: "Buddha
finish."
The Buddha, in short, for the orthodox Hinayana,
whether in Siam, Burma, Ceylon, or Cambodia, belongs now
to the world of the ideal rather than to that of the actual.
On this point Buddhism is a kind of Asiatic Platonism. To
make use of a distinction common in the philosophical lan-
guage of our day, the Buddha is subsistent but not existent.
He is real-eternally real. So is the perfect circle and the
idea of the Good. But by no means all that is real is actual.
It is not all to be found within the realms of time and space.
The eternal Buddha is in no place. He inhabits the spaceless
and timeless worlds. He belongs not with you and me and
other finite things that change and pass, but with the eternal
Ideas of the Platonic realm. For all that, he is none the less
real; rather the more real is he. Nor is he out of all relation
to the actual and existent, any more than is the perfect circle,
which all our imperfect existent circles seek to—and in some
measure do-exemplify. Just because he has passed out of
the realm of the actual into that of the ideal with no taint of
the existential upon him, is he a supremely fit object for our
worship and our aspiration. So, at any rate, thinks the or-
thodox Hinayanist.
With the nature and present condition of the Buddha is
inevitably bound up the nature of prayer and worship. One
would expect those who think of the Buddha as a kind of
god in heaven to think of prayer, and to practice it, in much
the same way as the average Christian. To some extent this
is the case. Yet it is surprising to note how relatively rare is
this obvious point of view and how seldom it is consistently
acted upon. Some of the more ignorant laymen pray to the
Buddha in this-shall I say somewhat naïve?-fashion, but
their number is surprisingly small. Even the laymen in the
country districts rarely make petitions for specific things to
the Buddha. They bring offerings to the Buddha in the tem-
ples and pray, not to gain particular goods, but that by these
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
means their stock of merit may be increased. In case of
illness they pray, as a rule, not to the Buddha but to the
spirits. This is of course in part due to the fact that illness,
in the country districts of Siam, is always caused by the
spirits; in every case there is some hungry spirit that has not
been sufficiently fed. In indirect fashion, however, even in
the case of illness one may pray to the Buddha. The power
of the hungry spirit over the sick man has been made pos-
sible because of lack of merit in the latter; hence offerings
and praises to the Buddha, by increasing one's stock of merit,
may aid in one's recovery. Merit is also at times transferable;
and, as in Burma, the merit you acquire through the chanting
of Pali verses may be applied toward the recovery of your
father.
Another form of prayer more nearly approaching direct
petition is the strong expression of a wish. Thus, as I said in
another connection, a common prayer of the layman is, "Oh,
may I live to see Allenya Metai!" Even this, however, it
must be noted, avoids at least the form of direct request.
Some laymen, to be sure, make petitions to the Buddha in
quite Christian and Moslem fashion; but the great majority
seem to have a feeling against doing so.
The less educated monks seem to be in a rather uncertain
position on the question of prayer. One young monk in
the wat Benchamabopit told me (quite glibly and confi-
dently) that the Buddha is conscious and knows, but that one
does not pray to him. One says prayers in his memory but
does not make petitions for specific things. If one wants
something one must act rightly and not seek help from an-
other. On being pressed, however, as to whether one could
not pray to the Buddha in case one's father were ill, he said
that one could, and that the Buddha might answer the prayer
and heal the sick man. We were sitting in the young monk's
room shortly after the morning devotions, in the hour com-
monly given to study or conversation. One or two other
very young men in yellow robes-friends and neighbors of
my interlocutor-had come in to listen to and take part in
the discussion and had draped themselves around the room in
various graceful and youthful attitudes. I was disagreeable
enough to point out that the two answers given me were not
Sa
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM 169
consistent and could not both be true: in typically impolite
Western fashion I insisted that one either could pray to the
Buddha or could not. The boy was silent for a while, and so
were his friends. Then he said that the question was a very
hard one and that he hadn't yet passed his examination, so
didn't know the right answer; but that he would take me to
a learned one who could answer it. Thereupon, after con-
siderable bowing, we all started out together, the young
monk leading the way and the rest of us following, down the
stairs, along the little line of white cement two-room dormi-
tories, and up another stair, to a room much like the one we
had left, where we were greeted by a somewhat older monk
with all the grave courtesy of the East. When we had dis-
posed ourselves around the room I detailed to the Learned
One our discussion up to the point where it had broken off
and at which we had found ourselves in need of his wisdom.
He responded quite readily that the younger monk had been
right in what he said at first and wrong in his second answer.
One ought not to make any petitions at all. Prayer, he con-
tinued, has three purposes: (1) to honor the Buddha; (2) to
honor the Dharma by repeating and memorizing it; (3) to
honor the Sangha, the present followers of the Buddha, and
the work they are now doing in obedience to him. Petitional
prayer is useless. We cannot influence health or anything
else by that sort of prayer. When the time comes for one's
father to die he will die. That time must be determined by
his merit, and prayer will have nothing to do with it what-
ever. I asked him whether prayer might not increase merit.
and this be transferred, so as to benefit the health of a sick
father (as in Burma). He answered with assurance that it
could not work in this way. Merit, he said, was sometimes
transferable, as in building a wat or giving alms, but not al-
ways so, and certainly not in the way I had suggested.
C
The prince patriarch gave me an explanation of the ac-
tual practice not altogether confirmatory of the views ex-
pressed by the Learned One. The prayer of the monks, he
said, consists in the chanting of verses from the Suttas, by
means of which merit is acquired. If a family of the laity,
for example, is in trouble they send for the monks, and the
monks go and chant verses at the house. This may result in
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
acquiring merit for the family, which may, in turn, put an
end to their trouble by putting an end to its cause (demerit).
If there is a drought word is often sent out to all the wats to
have the monks pray for rain. This praying for rain consists
in chanting some passage from the Suttas which has to do
with rain-any such passage will do. The chanting of such
a passage may acquire merit and this may bring rain. Very
much depends, however-and this the patriarch emphasized
-upon the mental state of the monks while doing the chant-
ing. Merely the mechanical repetition of the sacred words
would be useless. The sacred words, coming as they do from
the Buddha, have great power, but this only when united
with the proper intention on the part of the chanter. If
this intention is present, the words will produce merit of a
general sort and this may result in various specific benefits.
But such chanting, the patriarch insisted, is not petition to
the Buddha. The Buddha does not hear prayers. He is un-
conscious. He is in Nibban.
The question of Nirvana or Nibban is, like the question
of prayer, linked up with the question of the present con-
dition of the Buddha. The more naïve of the laity who think
of the Buddha as a conscious God in eternal bliss, of course
regard Nibban, which is his present state, as a condition of
consciousness and joy. Some of the most learned monks on
the other hand take the sternly logical view of the situation;
as, for example, the abbot of the great wat Po, who told me
that Nibban is a state of complete unconsciousness, and the
Learned One, to whom I referred a few pages back, who de-
scribed the Buddha as really quite dead and added that Nib-
ban for us, should we attain it, would mean complete extinc-
tion. Most of the monks, with whom I talked, sought to
take a mediating view between these two extremes. Even
the patriarch who insisted that the Buddha does not hear
and does not know would not assert that Nibban means ex-
tinction or is by any means equivalent to death. Nibban,
he said, is unknowable. It can be described only by nega-
tives. There is in Nibban neither heat nor cold, neither the
soft nor the hard, no color, no sound, no material body. It
is, he added, somewhat to my surprise, a state of indescribable
joy. Joy, he said, is commonly thought to come from sen-
J
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
171
sations and from the possession and use of material things.
This is a great mistake. True joy is possible only when all
sensations and all material things and with them the body,
have been abandoned. Then we find our true selves. That
is Nibban.
A somewhat similar view was expressed by the group of
monks with whom I was conversing in the examination hall,
to whom I referred in the previous chapter. They had been
marking examination papers, and when I got one of them
into conversation several others gathered around us and
joined in. Our talk had followed a sinuous course and ended
up, finally and appropriately, with Nirvana. Nibban, they
told me, was a condition that cuts off everything. It cuts
off love, sorrow, pleasure, old age, death. Does it cut off life?
I asked. To this the monks answered No. We are still alive
in Nibban. This answer, of course, sounded a bit odd, and
apparently they were not quite sure of it after all; so they
led me to the chief examiner, who sat in a kind of open of-
fice or platform in the middle of the big room. He was a
very different type from most of the monks I had met-a
man of perhaps thirty-five or forty, on whose face thought
had left its marks; very self-confident, very intelligent and
mentally alert, an adept at the intellectual game, quick and
laconic and sure in his responses. On being asked a ques-
tion he would remain silent a few moments, then, after a
little thinking and a little knitting of the brows, he would
give his answer with a quick decisiveness of thought and
speech that reminded you of the working of a steel trap. In
spite of the obvious keenness of his intellect, however, I felt
that he was, without knowing it, something of a slave to his
formulas; though he certainly knew how to manipulate his
formulas with great skill. He was, in short, the able and
typical scholastic.
We gave him some account of our discussion and asked
him for light on the nature of Nibban. In response he made
the seemingly paradoxical statement that in Nibban there is
no consciousness, yet there is ineffable happiness. I pointed
out that this was difficult to grasp, for happiness is a form of
consciousness, hence happiness without consciousness seemed
a contradiction in terms. He thought a moment with bent
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
brows, and then, making use of a formula of Buddhist psy-
chology, replied that happiness is not a form of conscious-
ness, it is, instead, an element like cold and hot. Cold and hot
do not know anything, they are not themselves conscious nor
are they forms of consciousness. They simply exist. His
thought here was much like that of the Neo-realists who
would agree with him that the world is constituted of ele-
ments-"neutral entities" to use their term-which are in
themselves neither physical nor psychical. Cold and hot,
they would assert, are not conscious-not conscious them-
selves nor in need of being made the objects or content of
consciousness. Professor Holt would go so far as to main-
tain that such things as beauty, the sadness of a "pathetic"
scene, the joyfulness of a brilliant day, have nothing subjec-
tive in them, and are in no more need of consciousness than
are stones or atoms.¹ It was apparently a position related to
this that the monk was supporting. Hot and cold are not
forms of consciousness but elements, and the same is true
of happiness. Happiness, he said, is an element and stays by
itself and cannot be mixed. So Nibban is unconscious but it
is happiness. In answer to a further question he added that
it is that part of what we call ourselves which does not
desire-it is that which reaches Nibban and is happy. The
Buddha is in Nibban. He is not conscious. He cannot see
our acts nor hear our prayers. But he is not dead. Between
being dead and being in Nibban there is a great difference.
When a man is dead the element of desire still remains.
Hence death brings birth again. But in Nibban there is no
desire and hence from it there is no rebirth. He described
Nibban further by enumerating a great number of things
which it is not, his words recalling vividly the negations by
which Dionysius the Areopagite and other mystics of the
Neo-Platonic school have sought to describe the mystic vision
of the invisible. I asked whether there is in Nibban anything
other than these negations, anything positive. He said there
may be something which we have not yet seen nor conceived:
such, for example, as America is to him. He has not seen
America, cannot think it, knows only that it exists. It has its
1
The Concept of Consciousness (New York, Macmillan, 1914), Chap. VI. Pro-
fessor Whitehead's views are also somewhat comparable to the monk's.
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
173
own qualities, all of them positive; but he can describe it
only in negatives.
For all laymen and for most monks the nature of Nibban
is a purely academic question. Of much greater practical
interest are heaven and hell. If you ask almost any monk or
any layman what happens to a man after death, he will tell
you that it depends on the man's deeds: that the good go to
heaven and the bad go to hell. If you ask him how long one
stays in these places he will very often tell you that one stays
in heaven till one's merit is used up and then one is reborn in
hell, and vice versa. Never once without my having first
asked a leading question did any Siamese proffer any informa-
tion about rebirth in human and animal bodies. If you ask
them whether one may be born as an animal or reborn as a
man they will usually say, "Oh, yes," but plainly rebirth is a
purely theoretical possibility for them. They had not
thought of it. Even on the theory of the matter they feel
rather muddled. And this is true not only of the ignorant.
Some even of the educated monks I have found very uncer-
tain as to the relative desirability of these various forms of
future state; apparently you have to pass a good many of the
nine examinations before you know much about the next life.
The learned abbot of wat Po was very clear on this-as he
was on all the things I asked about. There are five possible.
conditions after death, he said, and they stand in the follow-
ing order of desirability: (1) Nibban, (2) Heaven, (3) Re-
birth as man, (4) Rebirth as an animal, (5) Hell. Of these
only Nibban is eternal. All the monks, of course, and most
of the laymen know that rebirth is one of the possibilities;
but it is quite noticeable that rebirth plays a very slight part
in their thoughts, whereas heaven and hell are very vivid to
them. Some of the missionaries, in fact, complain of this,
criticizing the heathen for their unorthodox and non-
Buddhistic views, and feeling, apparently, that these Bud-
dhists have stolen some of their thunder or their brimstone.
The truth is, of course, that we of the West have been
brought up to give transmigration a more important place
in Buddhism than it has ever held and to neglect almost en-
tirely its teachings about hell and heaven. As a fact, from
very early times Buddhism has dwelt at length upon the re-
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
wards of heaven and the punishments of hell and has often
made much more vivid use of them as sanctions of the moral
life than of the pains and pleasures of rebirth. Hell is a very
Buddhistic conception-as any one familiar with the frescoes
on the walls of Buddhist temples ancient and modern, South-
ern or Northern, will realize. Still it must be acknowledged
that the almost exclusive emphasis upon heaven and hell, and
the desuetude and neglect into which transmigration seems
to have fallen, are relatively recent developments.
If you ask the average monk what it is that is reborn or
that goes to heaven or hell, he will probably fail to under-
stand your question. If he does understand it at all he will
probably say it is just you yourself that is thus rewarded or
punished and will fail to realize that he is treading on very
difficult and very famous ground. Those who have passed the
nine examinations, however, will probably know well the
doctrine. I confess I had little success in finding any one who
realized there was a problem of the self at all. But the prince
patriarch knew all about it and expounded the true scholastic
position. The doctrine, he said, teaches that there is no real
substantial self. The seeming self is only a temporary
knowing, and a wrong knowing at that. And it is just this
wrong knowing-this "knowing the wrong fact"-that is
reborn; this and nothing else.
It is a little surprising that a doctrine so fundamental to
Buddhist Scholasticism as the non-existence of the self should
not be more widely understood in Siam than it is. Still more
surprising is the unimportant position in Siamese Buddhism
held by the Four Noble Truths. At least I should have been
greatly surprised had I not previously found much the same
situation in Burma and Ceylon. The monk in wat Ben-
chamabopit whom I referred to some pages back as the
Learned One had, apparently, never heard of the Four Noble
Truths. At any rate he could not tell me what they were.
This was not true of all the monks whom I asked, but few if
any seemed to have got hold of the real significance of the
Four Truths, the fundamental position of desire in the Bud-
dha's view of suffering, or the logical consequences that fol-
low inevitably from that view. I could not find a single
monk who of his own motion defended the orthodox position
C
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
175
that since desire and love are the sources of sorrow one should
"cut all the ties" and give up even personal love for one's
friends and family. One of them told me that monks ought
to get rid of personal love but still insisted the laity should
cherish it. A rather significant discussion of this subject was
one I had with the group of monks in the examination hall;
significant because it revealed what seems to me an inherent
self-contradiction within Buddhism. One of the monks had
rehearsed to me, quite correctly, the Four Noble Truths,
and I had brought him back by further questions to the fact
that desire is the cause of sorrow and that it is the aim of
Buddhism to avoid sorrow. Does this desire, I asked, include
love for other people and desire for their welfare? Yes, he
replied: love-love quite as much as hate-is one of the causes
of sorrow. Then, said I, we ought not to love each other or
desire each other's welfare? Oh, yes, he said, Buddhism
teaches us to love each other and to desire the welfare of all.
When I pointed out the fact that he had contradicted him-
self he recognized it, but that that what he meant was this:
We ought to get rid of love quite as much as hate, but we
cannot fully do so till we reach Nibban. It is really wrong
to love other people and we should seek to avoid both love
and hate. One of the other monks, standing by, was quite
dissatisfied by this admission and tried to save the situation by
making a distinction. There are two kinds of love, he said,
sex love and love for people's welfare, the desire to do them
good and help them. Sex love is bad, love for people's wel-
fare is good. But, I asked, does this second kind of love bring
sorrow-when, for example, those one loves are ill or die, or
when the good we desire for them cannot be attained. He
admitted that this kind of love also may and often does bring
sorrow; only, he said, this is unavoidable. I pointed out that
its unavoidability, if true, is quite irrelevant. So he followed
his predecessor in admitting that we really ought to get rid
of both kinds of love. At this point a third monk could
stand it no longer and protested that this could not be. It
was surely our duty to love our parents and to desire good
things. Unfortunately the discussion here got shunted off
2
As we have seen in Chapter III, something like this, though more discriminating,
seems to have been the Buddha's position.
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
onto the nature of Nibban, and we adjourned to discuss the
latter question with the chief examiner in the manner already
described.
In the sixth chapter of this book I pointed out what
seemed to me the essential incompatibility between the
Buddhist doctrine that desire is the root of all evil, and
the fundamental Buddhist emotion of pity and the senti-
ment of love for all sentient creatures. If it be true, as the
position given the Four Noble Truths by the Founder would
indicate, that one great end of religion is to enable men to
avoid sorrow, and that this can be done only by rooting out
all the desires that lay one open to the slings and arrows of
outrageous Fortune, then it is hard to see how religion can
consistently teach men earnestly to desire the welfare of
others. If the religious ideal is the cultivation of indifference
to all that can happen, the cutting of all the ties, the ending
of all personal loves which may bring anxiety, break one's
peace, and act as perpetual pledges to Fortune, then the reli-
gious ideal cannot consistently include the cultivation of a
love for others of such a living sort that the death or the mis-
fortune of those loved will bring sorrow or inner disturbance
to the mind of the lover. Yet Buddhism has always sought to
do both these seemingly incompatible things at once. Most
Buddhists, I suspect, have tried-and successfully-to blind
themselves to the inner contradiction involved in such a dual
ideal, and practically have solved the difficulty by making a
compromise which has done scant justice to both sides. The
more coldly logical and the constitutionally selfish have
stressed the evils of desire and love, and have lived their own
lives in monastic establishments with pleasant neighborli-
ness but no strong attachments and with small attempts at
social cooperation. They have in short "wandered alone like
a rhinoceros." Many of the more learned monks of Ceylon
and Burma would seem to have chosen this side of the Bud-
dhist ideal. But the modern tendency all over the Hinayana
world, and especially I should say in Siam, is to emphasize the
sympathetic, cooperative side of the Master's teachings, or
rather to follow less his teachings than his example, to choose
as the decisive ideal the life his heart prompted rather than
the life his intellect devised. If I am right in this, it is a step
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
177
in the development of Buddhism which is of the profoundest
importance. Buddhism, like Christianity, has always been a
religion of growth; one that has felt and responded quickly
to the varying needs of the different countries to which it has
been carried and the different ages to which it has ministered.
It is not strange, therefore, that it feels today the strong
tendency to social cooperation which so characterizes the
century in which we live. It is more difficult today than it
has ever been before to wander alone like a rhinoceros.3
But if the quiet shelving of the Four Noble Truths marks
a great step in the socialization of Buddhism and enables its
deeply altruistic impulses to have a new and unprecedented
freedom, it must be recognized that something of real value
is in danger of disappearing with them. There is, perhaps, no
great gain without some slight loss; at any rate I fear there
may be some loss in this case. For while the ideal based
upon the Four Noble Truths and the avoidance of sorrow
logically led to a kind of spiritual selfishness, there was a great
insight involved especially in the Second Truth, which it is
a pity to lose out of Buddhism. That desires are weak points
in our defenses, that every man should have a central tower
into which he may retreat and from which he may defy the
whole world, that the value of life should not be wholly de-
pendent on anything that can happen, that peace and spir-
itual independence can be gained only in the measure in
which we despise all external chances these are great truths,
and the application of them has produced in all the centuries
a characteristically Buddhist or Stoic type of character which
has a certain real nobility. There is something rather fine,
after all, about the rhinoceros who has it in him to wander
alone in the jungle-"not frightened by noises," "not caught
in a net," "not stained by water." For my own part, there-
fore, I should regret to find the Four Noble Truths and the
fundamental position of desire altogether neglected by mod-
ern Buddhism. They have given Buddhist morality a certain
The difficulty in question is not in principle confined to Buddhism; it presents
itself to every religion and every individual that would cultivate both spiritual freedom
and social sympathy. In Buddhism the difficulty comes more sharply to the attention
than elsewhere merely because of the Buddhist extreme dislike of inner disturbance.
In Chapter VI I suggested that Gotama's own practical solution of the matter was
much like that of St. Paul.
178
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
characteristic note, which, when not allowed the dominant
position, has had a real value. I may be wrong, but I fear
that this great aspect of the Buddha's teaching is being wa-
tered down by many of his followers rather too much, and
that there is a tendency in Buddhist morality to become quite
commonplace, just a collection of Precepts with no central
principle to justify them.
This, however, at most is only a tendency, and we must
not forget the other and more important tendency already
pointed out, namely that toward universal love, which is
becoming increasingly central and dominating within Bud-
dhism a tendency for which there is the more hope now
that the selfish impulse of dodging personal sorrow at all costs
is receiving the less emphasis. A much greater evil and dan-
ger for Buddhist morality lies in its emphasis upon the ac-
quisition of merit-an emphasis which, after all, involves the
same spiritual selfishness as sorrow-dodging, only in a more
subtle form. The next hundred years, I should be willing to
predict, will witness a struggle between these two ideals
within Buddhism-the ideal of sympathy and human help-
fulness, on the one hand, and on the other that of the acqui-
sition of a stock of merit for one's own personal benefit in
this life and the next. We shall not live to see the outcome
of this struggle; but it seems to me that the whole concep-
tion of merit is bound to wane, and that of human coopera-
tion and helpfulness must gain steadily upon its rival. The
great tendency toward racial adjustment and integration and
the steady waning of most supernatural conceptions will both
fight in this direction. We shall in short-this is my belief-
witness the steady approximation of the Buddhist and the
Christian moralities.
J
A
The central part of the content of Buddhist morality as
taught and practiced today consists of the Five Precepts,
with the various interpretations and applications given them
by preachers, teachers, and individual consciences. In addi-
tion to the Five Precepts, the monks have the five further,
monastic precepts, or vows, handed down from antiquity,
and also the numerous rules of the Sangha, many of which
are on the border line between morals and manners. The
laity as well as the monks know the Five Precepts pretty gen-
PARA
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
179
erally, being well grounded in them in the wat schools dur-
ing boyhood. The more earnest laymen, moreover, seek to
carry out some of the five additional precepts meant espe-
cially for the monks, and are urged to do so by the preachers.
The ten rules of life for the ideal monk quoted at the close
of the preceding chapter were taken from a pamphlet dis-
tributed among the laity, and are held up to them as counsels
of perfection. The excellent influence of these various moral
teachings upon the lay community is, I think, admitted by
all.
The religious observances of each zealous Buddhist family
begin early in the morning and end only at night. They are,
indeed, not nearly so meticulous and detailed as those of the
Hindu, but they are sufficient to keep one at least in mind of
one's religion most of the time. The day must be opened
with prayer. Then, while it is still very early, food must be
prepared against the visit of the monk. One must keep one's
eye peeled, for the monk will not knock at the door, but
merely stand outside with averted head and wait. Some
member of the family must then go out and empty the dish
of rice or other offering into his capacious bowl. Once a day
an offering must be made, with suitable verses or prayers, at
the domestic shrine. And in the evening there is another
"hour of prayer." Besides this regular daily round of religi-
ous observance, the more zealous Buddhist goes once a week
to the service of prayer and of reading the Dhamma in the
wat, at which time he both listens to the reading or preach-
ing, and to the chanting of the monks and himself makes of-
ferings at the altar and recites various sacred prayers or verses
before the Buddha. The use of the Buddha image in the wats
and in the home must not be taken for idolatry, at least in the
usual deprecatory sense of the word. Except with the very
ignorant it would be a great misunderstanding to suppose
that the Buddhists, whether lay or clerical, worship the im-
ages. That some do so is probably the case; but among lay-
men of average intelligence this, I think, is rare.
As one
layman expressed it to me, the image of the Buddha is used
by his worshipers only to remind them of the Buddha and
make their thought and memory more vivid.
worship the image; one worships the Buddha.
One does not
And the edu-
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
cated, be it remembered, know that the Buddha is no longer
an existent being. In worshiping him, therefore, they are
worshiping an ideal. With the more intelligent, worship thus
becomes aspiration; with the more sophisticated it is con-
scious self-culture.
The domestic shrine is a part of every Buddhist home. In
its simple form it consists of an image of the Buddha such
as one can buy for a few ticals in the bazar with perhaps a
colored print of some episode in the Buddha's life, procured
from a center of Buddhist propaganda in Colombo. One
rather elaborate domestic shrine which I saw in the house of
a very simple layman consisted of two altars, the chief one,
on the left, containing some twenty-one images of the
Buddha and a reliquary, while the altar on the right held five
Buddhas and nineteen figures of other, subordinate, beings-
servants of the Buddha, my host called them, and teachers of
Buddhism. One of these was of considerable interest to me
an antique bronze, well executed which had been handed
down in the family for several generations. It was a four-
handed figure, holding symbolic objects-a noose, a trident,
etc., which showed it to be Siva-a fact quite unknown to its
owner and worshiper. Here, apparently, was an unrecog-
nized remnant of an ancient Siamese Siva cult. My host
called the image Norai (= Tathagata) and regarded it as the
image of some ancient teacher of Buddhism and helper of
the Buddha. As such he worships it-and all the rest of the
images-every day; bowing before them and at times making
offerings of food; I should add that this man's Buddhism
was of the very naïve sort which pictures the Buddha as a
god in heaven, hearing and answering prayer.
Preaching services, as I have stated, are held in the wats
four times a month. As services of this sort seem to me of
considerable importance in the life and influence of a religion,
I shall describe at some length one which I attended in the
wat Benchamabopit, which I have reason to believe is very
typical. About a third of the way from the altar to the door
was the preacher's throne. In front of it, when I entered,
were about twenty monks seated on mats on the floor, while
behind the throne or pulpit sat the audience, also on mats.
Immediately behind the pulpit was a rack with the candles
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
181
offered by the audience as they entered, also two large vases.
with lotus buds, and several fruit dishes containing offerings
of pan and betel. The service had not begun when I arrived,
and the congregation-about forty-five in number-were
having a pleasant social time, chatting, chewing betel, drink-
ing tea, one or two of the men smoking, and some of them
quietly praying. Men and women were present (I confess it
was hard to tell which was which) as well as a few children.
Each newcomer took off his shoes on entering, got down on
hands and knees and crawled to his mat, bundle in hand (for
all come pretty well armed), and on reaching his place pro-
ceeded to unpack and arrange his possessions. First the
candles had to be handed up through the audience to the man
nearest the candle rack, and by him lighted and put in place.
Then the betel box, spittoon, and perhaps teapot and teacup
must be conveniently located near the mat. These things
being attended to, the newcomer would put his hands to-
gether, extend them toward the Buddha, and make a little
silent prayer. The service began with chanting by the
monks, during which most of the audience was silent and
attentive-except for one old woman who was telling the
old man next her about an accident that had happened to her
arm. The old man listened and chewed but said nothing.
Another old man quietly and reverently smoked throughout
the chanting. The chanting was in unison on a single low
note and the monks kept the note admirably. It was varied
with responses between the leader and the body of the monks
but always in a low and rather fine monotone. No gong
or other instrument was used. The chanting was inter-
spersed with bowing, and at a certain recognized phrase the
audience also bowed deeply, touching their heads to the
floor, and then followed the chanting with greater attention
and reverence than before. Even the woman stopped talk-
ing and the old man stopped smoking, and all the members of
the audience put their hands together in the attitude of
prayer and followed the chanting of the monks with silent
but moving lips. Plainly they knew the verses by heart and
were very serious and reverent in reciting them. This sacred
chant continued some ten or fifteen minutes, and then one of
the monks came forward and seated himself, cross-legged in
S
.
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the preacher's throne, facing the audience but, at first, hold-
ing before his face a small screen or fan, while he led in a
new responsive chant. At the close of the responses the
preacher put aside his screen and took up a manuscript case,
drawing out of it a long palm-leaf manuscript from which,
after intoning a few sentences, he proceeded to read. He
read in a monotone, but slowly and distinctly, and, so far as
I could see, with no interpretations thrown in. The people
were extremely attentive, nearly all holding their hands in the
praying position, some with arms and heads touching the
floor. The reading lasted some twenty minutes. The
preacher then left the pulpit, the monks chanted two or three
sentences, everybody bowed with heads touching the floor,
the monks arose and filed out, and the audience drank tea.
Betel boxes were rearranged, new choice bits prepared for
chewing, and conversation began once more, in subdued
tones. A man came from the front part of the temple with
a pile of Siamese pamphlets and distributed them to the peo-
ple. The pamphlet was devoted to various moral injunc-
tions. Nearly every one took a copy and a great many dipped
into it at once, some reading with evident interest. A few
collected their betel boxes, tea baskets, and spittoons and
went out one by one, depositing two satangs in the collection
box at the door as they passed. Most of them stayed, talked,
read, and chewed betel. An old gentleman lighted up his
cigarette. As the majority seemed to have camped out for
the rest of the morning I deposited my two satangs in the
box, and left them to their betel and their talk.
Nearly two hours later the same morning I passed the
preaching hall of the wat Saket and found an audience of
sixty people, seated on mats, listening, as the other audience
had done, to a monk reading from a palm-leaf manuscript.
They were just as attentive as the first had been, with hands
together in the position of prayer, and in silent, reverent at-
titude. The monk continued his reading, in slow, clear
tones, for almost twenty minutes after I arrived. He then
uncurled his legs and got down from the throne, and an-
other monk took his place, opened a new manuscript, and be-
gan a new reading. I stayed till lunch time and then left
alone. How long the audience had been listening to the
1
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
183
Law before my arrival and how long it continued to do so
after my departure, I do not know.
The manuscripts from which the monks read to the people
are prepared with a line of the Pali Sutta followed by a line
of translation in Siamese. The monk reads straight along,
slowly and distinctly, but with no pause or change of tone
on passing from one language to the other. The audience,
however, are accustomed to this type of reading and follow
the Siamese translation without difficulty, in spite of its in-
terruption by the Pali lines. By this method, moreover,
many of them in time come to understand a certain amount
of Pali.
C
The interest of the more earnest of the common people in
the intellectual side of their religion was brought home to me
when my young Siamese friend and interpreter (a former
Buddhist, now a Christian) took me to the rooms of the "Sala
Sandana Tham," or "Society for the Discussion of Bud-
dhism." The Society is run by two laymen, the leader being
an employee of an electrical plant. They have two moder-
ate-sized rooms-really an ordinary shop with a front room
and a back one. The front room has a pulpit. Its walls
are adorned with lithographs from Colombo, depicting
scenes from the life of the Buddha. Before one of these
pictures are some incense sticks, candles and flowers. The
back room contains only a large platform on which the
women sit during the teaching service. The men stand out
in the street. The audience varies from fifteen to thirty, the
majority being men. The audience is small because the aim
of the society is serious. It gives not exhortation but teach-
ing. Two meetings are held every week, each meeting last-
ing four hours or more-one on Saturday evenings, the other
on Sunday afternoons. They open with a short reading from
a Pali Sutta by a monk, seated in the pulpit. After the Sutta
has been read the monk translates it into old and scholarly
Siamese and then expounds it. The rest of the time is
occupied by the lay leader who stands and teaches in the
popular Siamese of today. His teaching is chiefly con-
cerned with "moral matters and the duties of life and the use
of Buddha to the world." I quote here the words of the lay
leader as translated to me by my young friend.
<d
-
184
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
And what, I asked, is the use of Buddha to the world?
"The use of Buddha to the world," he answered, "is to
make people cease to be selfish and jealous. Also Buddha
teaches us that death is not the end but that man is immortal,
that only the body dies but the soul lives on. We shall have
everlasting life in Nibban. We shall have eternal happiness
there. It is a happiness that cannot be lost. But Buddha
said, If you are to be happy in Nibban you must obey the
Teaching and do good. The man who really puts his heart
into his prayer will get a blessing from it. The Buddha hears
and knows our prayers, and is doing his best to help us."
So I was given a little Buddhist sermon: a sermon by a lay-
man who was apparently ignorant of the nice points of his
religion; a sermon which differed considerably, I suspect,
from the long one the learned abbot of wat Po was preaching
that very afternoon before king and court, at the cremation
of the royal princess; and yet a sermon of much earnestness
and with much of the real Buddhist spirit of today. And
different as it may have been in many respects from such a
sermon as the abbot or the patriarch would have preached,
it emphasized one point that they too would have empha-
sized: namely that Buddhism today teaches unselfish living.
To several of the monks with whom I conversed I repeated
the accusation so commonly made against Buddhism, that it
is essentially selfish. They all denied the allegation.
Buddhism, they insisted, teaches that we ought to love one
another and be mutually helpful. I think, myself, that in
their zeal to defend their religion they left out of considera-
tion certain important principles, namely the doctrines of
the destruction of sorrow and of the acquisition of merit.
But as I have pointed out, one of these is already on the wane
and the other is probably destined to decay; while the leaders
of the religion, both lay and clerical, by their very faith that
Buddhism is unselfish, will probably have much to do in mak-
ing it so.
The influence of Buddhism on the Siamese people is gen-
erally admitted to be, from the moral point of view, excel-
lent. That is the chief reason, many missionaries will tell
you, why Christian missions have made such slow and slight
progress, especially in those parts of Siam, like Bangkok,
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
185
where Buddhism is at its best and at its strongest. The
Buddhists are so satisfied with their own religion that it is
difficult to make them see they need another. So the mis-
sionaries tell me. Buddhism is, moreover, probably the great-
est force for democracy in Siam. The poorest peasant may
become a monk, and once a monk he is spiritually on a level
with the King. For the happiness of its adherents Buddhism
also does much-as the words of the electrician and lay
preacher quoted two pages back will indicate. Not so much,
certainly, as Christianity will do, yet something. It teaches
its followers that this is an ideal world, that the forces which
ultimately control it are moral forces, that what a man sows
he inevitably shall reap, and that death is not the end.
In my interview with the patriarch I asked him to tell me
what comfort Buddhism had for the dying man. The Chris-
tian, I pointed out, faces death with the assurance that his
sins are forgiven and that God will take care of his soul. Has
Buddhism, I asked, any analogous consolation to offer. The
patriarch's answer was in essence as follows: "The doctrine
teaches that the body must be destroyed. This the dying
Buddhist has long known and hence he is prepared for death.
He has learned that he must not think about the body but
let it go according to the laws of nature. The people around
the dying man will tell him to think of the good deeds he has
done such things as building temples, and helping the
poor. If he have no good deeds of his own of which he may
think, then he may fix his thought on the Buddha and his
work."
4
Cold comfort many a Christian will call this. Yet it is
not so cold for the Buddhist as it would be for one brought
up in the Christian creed. For the Christian the sting of
death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law. But the
Christian conception of sin, as an offense against a personal
Deity who will be our Judge, is entirely foreign to the Bud-
dhist. He feels no need of pardon-in fact the notion of
pardon for sin would seem to him almost as incongruous as
pardon for having cut off one's own hand. Sin, for Bud-
dhism, is an offense against one's self, hence pardon is some-
URGEN
Almost this identical thing is said by Fielding Hall, in The Soul of a People,
p. 285.
186
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
thing the Buddhist can hardly conceive of, much less desire.
There is, moreover, for him, no personal Judge, no living
God, into whose hands he is about to fall. There is, instead,
an eternal Law that whatever he has sowed that he must
surely reap. Brought up with such conceptions as these, his
best comfort, facing death is to be found in the philosophical,
even stoical, point of view, reinforced with what hope he can
muster by fixing his attention on his own good deeds and on
the merit which he has through them acquired. The com-
fort may be cold but it is real. Moreover, the Buddhist
would doubtless insist, it is all the comfort which either
reason or morality can justify. It would be cheating the
dying with false hopes, it would be misleading the living with
the promise of an easy way of avoiding the consequences of
sin, it would be watering down the great conception of an
implacably just Cosmos, to teach that at the last moment
one may evade the fate one has built for oneself by calling
for help upon some one else. The Siamese Buddhists consider
Buddhism the supremely moral religion because of its em-
phasis on the law of causes, because of its teaching that each
man must work out his own salvation with diligence.
How does Buddhism compare with Christianity? I put
this question to the two most able Buddhists I met in Siam-
the prince patriarch and the monk I have called the chief
examiner. The patriarch responded that Christianity teaches
the necessity of prayer and the necessity of help from God.
If God does not help, the Christian feels helpless. Buddhism,
on the other hand, instead of telling its followers to seek help
from God, teaches them to study the word of the Buddha
and do it, thus helping themselves in accordance with and
by the guidance of his precepts. This response was deeply
characteristic of Buddhism. But the reply of the chief ex-
aminer was no less so. On hearing my question he was silent
a moment, with brows knit, and then he responded in that
quick decisive way of his, that if he should undertake to
answer me he would be forced to dwell upon the superiority
of his own religion, and this would involve him in self-
satisfaction, pride, and sin; he must therefore refuse abso-
lutely to give any answer to my question.
I do not think either of these monks knew a great deal
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SIAM
187
about Christianity. I do not think it would be difficult to
show that in many real ways, such as the production of
happiness and of morality, Christianity is superior to Bud-
dhism. Yet I must confess-as I think this chapter will have
indicated that I bore away from Siam a great respect for
the religion of that sunny land. Its marble wats, its golden
shrines, and much more the simple, steady faith of the laity,
the training given them by the monks in the fundamentals
of morality, the impress, still so deep, of the Founder's limit-
less devotion-these rather than the undoubted defects of
his teaching, fill one's thoughts as one embarks once more
upon the tawny Menam and sails slowly downstream, past
the jungle vistas, past the native huts, past the last little wat
on the bank of the widening river, out into the gulf, until
Siam has become again merely a thin green line between sky
and sea, and the ship turns into its steady course towards
Cambodia.
CHAPTER X
CAMBODIA
JUST how Buddhism came to Cambodia and when it came
are questions to which we shall probably never have the
answer. In fact, it is impossible to say how the Cambodians
themselves came and whence and when. It is pretty cer-
tain, however, that at any rate by the year 400 A.D. and
probably before that date, their reigning house and their
nobility and priesthood were Hindus. Indian influence was
felt along all the southern coasts of "Farther India" and
even in Java and Borneo at a very early period. It was prob-
ably brought at first by traders and then by colonists. Pre-
sumably it reached Cambodia in this fashion at first; but
there is good reason to suppose that some sort of conquest
was also involved, and that a migrating group of Indians
(probably Kshatriyas with some Brahmins) actually seized
the throne of the country and founded a dynasty that ruled
over the Khmers or Cambodians for many a century. They
brought with them their Indian culture, the Dravidian archi-
tectural skill and fondness for immense structures, and also
their religions. These religions were Brahmanism and
Mahayana Buddhism, as is shown by the early inscriptions.
The first inscriptions are in Sanskrit, and begin shortly
after 600 A.D. The kings were primarily worshipers of Siva
but Mahayana Buddhism was also in high favor with them
and with the higher classes; and in fact, as Eliot suggests,
"the idea that the two systems were incompatible obviously
never occurred to the writers of the inscriptions, and Bud-
dhism was not regarded as more distinct from Sivaism and
Vishnuism than these were from one another." ¹
From about the year 800 till the middle of the fourteenth
century Cambodia was the greatest power of Indo-China.
Much of the time it was at war with the Chams, to the south
¹Op. cit., III, 120.
188
CAMBODIA
189
and east, but, though the fortunes of war varied, the Khmers
usually had the best of it, and finally aided the new invaders
of the peninsula, the Annamese, who came down from the
north along the eastern coast, in putting an end to Champa
as an independent kingdom. It was during these great cen-
turies that the Cambodian kings and nobility erected those
immense palaces, fortresses, and temples in and around
Angkor which have only within our time been in part
brought back to light from the savage jungle which took
possession of them at the final overthrow of the Khmer
power. These temples were mostly Hindu and were sacred
especially to Siva, so they do not concern us here. We should
note in passing, however, that some of the lesser temples and
monuments were Mahayanist. For while the kings right
through this period seem to have been faithful to their Hindu
religion-largely through the influence, we may surmise, of
the hereditary Brahmin priesthood of the court-many of
the nobility seem to have favored the Mahayana.
A greater change was, however, in progress than that
from Hinduism to a Brahmanical form of Mahayanism. The
Siamese, as we have seen, had made themselves independent
of Cambodia in the thirteenth century and in the next cen-
tury humbled their former rulers in several wars, even cap-
turing Angkor a number of times. We must suppose that
while the Siamese borrowed from the more cultured Khmers
a good deal of their Indian civilization, the common people
of Cambodia began to borrow from the Siamese the Hina-
yana form of Buddhism, which they themselves were at the
same time borrowing from southern Burma. At any rate,
when the Chinese traveler Chou Ta-kuan visited Cambodia
in 1296 he found that the Hinayana had already largely sup-
planted the Mahayana.2 Incidentally he makes one remark
which goes far to explain the subsequent course of Cam-
bodian religious history: to the effect, namely, that all the
children who went to school at all got their instruction from
the Buddhist monks.
As might have been expected, during the course of the
following century Hinayana Buddhism not only supplanted
It is also significant that from about 1300 on the Buddhist inscriptions are no
longer in Sanskrit (the language of the Mahayana) but in Pali.
190
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the Mahayana but, except at court, supplanted Hinduism as
well. The chief reason for this change was very likely the
fact just quoted, namely, that all the laymen who got any
education at all got it from the monks and in so doing were
largely won over to the Hinayana. Doubtless there were
other causes. Leclère connects the religious revolution with
a change of dynasty that came about in 1320.3 More impor-
tant still, the Hinayana appealed to the people and became
the democratic creed of the cities.
dod
Brahmanism was exclusive and tyrannical. It made no appeal to the
masses but a severe levy of forced labor must have been necessary to
erect and maintain the numerous great shrines which, though in ruins,
are still the glory of Camboja. When Siamese Buddhism invaded
Camboja it had a double advantage. It was the creed of an aggressive
and successful neighbor, but while thus armed with the weapons of this
world, it also appealed to the poor and oppressed. If it enjoyed the favor
of princes, it had no desire to defend the rights of a privileged caste;
it offered salvation and education to the average townsman and
villager.*
•
After the fourth capture of their capital by the Siamese
(in 1460) the Cambodians abandoned it to their enemies and
to the jungle. Much of their territory they lost to Siam and
some to the invading Annamese. Champa had already been
destroyed by these invaders, and its Buddhism wiped out.
The Indian part of Indo-China ends at the border of Annam
and Cochin-China. To this rising Annamese power the king
of Cambodia for many years paid tribute, at the same time
recognizing the suzerainty of Siam. The French interven-
tion in 1862, while it made Cambodia a part of the French
empire, at least put it on an equal footing with the other
states of eastern Indo-China. It has its own king still, who,
like the kings of Annam, Tonkin, and Laos, is subject to
France and is guided in his acts by a French agent."
But in spite of the many humiliations of the last five cen-
turies, Cambodia is still itself-very unspoiled, very Bud-
dhist, very Cambodian. The French have treated its people
Le Buddhisme au Cambodge (Paris, Leroux, 1899).
Eliot, III, 128.
"In this sketch of Cambodian history I have depended chiefly upon Grousset,
Leclère, and Eliot.
CAMBODIA
191
with sympathy and appreciation, and have returned to it
the site of its former glory, so long in the hands of the
Siamese, the Angkor region with its magnificent ruins, its
swamps and its jungle. From the Grand Lac, near which
the ruins are situated, the mighty stream of the Tonlé Sap
flows southward and at Pnom Penh unites its waters with
those of the Mekong, which from this point to the sea is one
of the most majestic rivers of Asia. Except for a slightly
elevated watershed along the coast to the west, covered with
marshy forests, most of the land is as flat as a billiard table,
with an occasional hill or some far-away symmetrical peak,
gazing at one from the dim distance. The charm of the land
lies not in its geographic features (except, perhaps, for its
magnificent river) but in the primitive simplicity of its
villages, its little winding streams, hardly wider than the
launch which carries you, the roads (wonderful roads of
French construction) busy with the life of the country
people and yellow with monks and little boys, the modest
monasteries, hidden away by the bank of a stream or near
the village, spreading among all these simple, happy country
folk the gentle calmness of the Buddha, as they have done
ever since the Hinayana came to them from Siam.
The Buddhism of Cambodia, being thus an offshoot of
the church we studied in the preceding chapter, it will need
but a relatively brief treatment here. It might almost be
sufficient simply to indicate the differences between the re-
ligions of the two lands and for the rest merely refer the
reader back to what has been said of Siam. I shall hardly
treat it as cavalierly as that; but it may be well to begin what
I have to say of Cambodia with a brief indication of the prin-
cipal ways in which Cambodian Buddhism differs from
Siamese. First of all I might mention the general feeling one
gets on landing in Cambodia, that (except for one particular
which will be mentioned later) one is farther away from
India and closer to China. "Indo-China" is a most appro-
priate term for this great peninsula of southeastern Asia;
and in all parts of it one feels the ever-present influence of
one or the other or both of its two mighty neighbors, the two
great sources of almost everything of importance in all the
Far East. Thus, to mention only external things, the archi-
192
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
G
tecture slowly but noticeably changes its shape as one ad-
vances from Burma toward China. There are, of course,
sharp lines of cleavage, as one passes some racial and linguis-
tic border, but there has always been some preparation for
the change, and it is this gradual transition I have specially
in mind—a faintly noticeable transition such as that one ex-
periences on traveling out of the tropics into the temperate
zone. The costumes of the people rather notably mark the
waning of one influence and the waxing of the other. Burma
is almost as blazing with color as India itself. Siam is still
brilliant, but its colors are not so varied nor so flaming as the
Indian and Burmese. The Siamese panung or sarang (the
garment wound around the legs and serving as trousers for
both sexes) is often gay enough, in tints that astonish the
stranger; yet one misses the brilliant beauty of the many-
colored sari. In Cambodia, the color has somehow faded
from most of the costumes; and among the Annamese,
though a long purple coat may occasionally be seen, the pre-
vailing tone is decidedly subdued. So one insensibly passes
from the rainbow of India to the solemn blacks, whites, and
blues of China.
Cambodia is midway in this passage. It is also midway
in other and less pleasant things. The betel chewing becomes
gradually less common, the hawking gets louder, the spitting
more reckless. The same gradual transition is noticeable in
matters of religion. When the lover of Hinayana Buddhism
first enters a Cambodian wat his immediate reaction is one
of pleasure in finding so much that he had come to prize in
Burma and Siam, but his second will probably be a slight
sense of protest against what he may call (if he be a Hina-
yana purist) the taint of China. On the lower step of the
golden throne, below the Buddha he may find a fat Milei-Fo,
the Chinese representative of Maitreya, the coming Buddha,
a contented and friendly grin upon his face, and his arms
scarcely reaching around his immense paunch. On the altar
there will be endless artificial flowers, and strung along by
its side several bunches of paper money. So China and its
Mahayana begins, very guardedly and gently, to steal in.
An equally important contrast to Siamese Buddhism is
to be found in what might be called the taint of India. It
CAMBODIA
193
will be recalled that in both Burma and Ceylon various Vedic
and post-Vedic devas and devatas held subordinate rôles in
Buddhist temples. In Siam one sees very little of this
Indian influence, but in Cambodia it reappears. The admix-
ture of Hinduism in Cambodian Buddhism will be easily
understood after what has been said in the earlier and his-
torical part of this chapter. Hinduism has not crept into
Cambodian Buddhism. It has always been in it. The first
form of Buddhism that came to Cambodia, it will be recalled,
was the Mahayana; and the Mahayana had in it a large ele-
ment of Hinduism. If one will look into the opening
passages of what is perhaps the most fundamental of the
Mahayana books-the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra-he will
find Indra, Brahma, and a goodly company of devas, Nagas
and Garudas. Long ago, to be sure, Hinayana Buddhism
supplanted the Mahayana in Cambodia; but it could not
throw off all the inheritance which the Mahayana left it—
though plainly some effort was made to do so, as is shown by
the iconoclasm of some of the mediaeval monks toward the
images of Siva in various small shrines in the neighborhood of
Angkor, and also by the Cambodian legend of the victory
of the Buddha over Siva and Vishnu. But Hinduism and
Buddhism in Cambodia had been on friendly terms too many
years, and the commingling of ideas and images had gone too
far for the purists to be able to make Cambodian Buddhism
as free from Hindu elements as is that of Siam, Burma, or
Ceylon. The buildings at Angkor, moreover, with their
marvelous decorations, had inevitable effect upon the archi-
tectural and sculptural themes of the whole country, and
their influence could hardly be escaped even in Buddhist
wats and pagodas. Hence the Nagas with their cobra heads
and gigantic tails, the Garudas, with their full-breasted
spouses, and the four-faced Sivas have found their places in
most Buddhist architecture. And not only in Buddhist
architecture. Inside the shrine one will occasionally find
Siva, Vishnu, Kali, or the elephant-headed Ganesh. I am
told also that Nandi and Siva's lingam sometimes appear.
These Hindu deities occupy positions subordinate to the
Buddha, but they are there; and they get their share of the
worship, at least from the more ignorant of the laity. Even
194
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
6
on the belief of the bonzes Hinduism has had some influence.
Some of them will tell you that at the beginning of each
kalpa the race is recreated by the act of Prom, that is,
Brahma; while Siva, Vishnu, and Indra keep their place in
popular mythology. The Cambodians worship these Hindu
gods no longer and make no new images of them; but they
cannot forget that it was Siva and his colleagues who built
Angkor Wat.
It would be a mistake, however, to emphasize the Hindu
element in Cambodian Buddhism and Cambodian temples.
At its greatest it is always a subordinate element and in most
of the wats or temples it hardly appears at all, except in some
incident of the decoration. The usual Cambodian wat is, in
fact, except for its greater simplicity, almost identical in
form with the wat of Siam. It has the same characteristic
double roof, the same horns extending out from the gables,
and the same general plan. It is usually smaller than its
Siamese sister, its coloring has shared the common fate of
most coloring as one gets farther away from India—it is
faded and tired looking—and in the arrangement of build-
ings simplicity has been substituted for complexity. The
wats of Pnom Penh, for example, have no such bewildering
wilderness of bots, wihans, Phra-Chedis, Phra-Prangs, and I
know not what else, as half a dozen of the Bangkok wats
present; while the country wats have in most cases nothing
but the one hall of worship, without a single pagoda or other
extra structure. There are, of course, always the dormitories
for the monks, very simple wooden structures as a rule,
propped up on stilts like most houses in Cambodia, and with
thatched, undecorated roofs, in a little group next to the
temple enclosure. The royal wat (the Phra-Keo) is, of
course, somewhat of an exception. Its buildings are not
numerous-there are within the temple enclosure, beside the
central hall, only two pagodas (both mausolea), two small
bell towers, and an artificial mound capped with a shrine
covering a "footprint" of the Buddha; but in elaborateness
and costliness of decoration and of contents it rivals anything
in Bangkok except the royal wat, and in some respects it out-
shines even that. Its white walls are adorned with gold-
J. Moura, Le Royaume de Cambodge (Paris, Leroux, 1883), I, 156.
Kaj
CAMBODIA
195
crowned windows, it has a triple roof and a pointed central
tower. But it is the interior that is especially famous. All
that the kings of Cambodia could do to make this outdo
its Siamese prototype and rival has been done, and if
one is impressed by gold and diamonds one may prepare
for thrills. A solid silver floor one hundred and twenty feet
long by thirty feet wide, an emerald Buddha, a standing
Buddha six feet high of solid gold, several other gold Buddhas
wearing large diamonds on their brows and chests-these and
other wonders the visitor will see, and if he is as impression-
able as I suppose one should be he will come out feeling as
the Queen of Sheba did when King Solomon had shown her
all his treasures: "She had no spirit in her." The exterior
may perhaps affect him in the same wonderful way, too; it
evidently did the editor of the Japanese guidebook. "As
visitors stand between these edifices," he tells us, "and look
upwards, they will observe that the sky is pierced by the
pointed roofs of all these buildings and that the variegated
colours of their tiles present a strange harmony of beauty
against the azure sky. They will feel that they are in a
dream land."
poto
For my own part, while I must confess to a weakness for
pointed roofs that pierce the sky, I am unfortunately thick-
skinned when it comes to emerald Buddhas and diamond-
studded collars, and feel much more impressed by a poor
bronze image which people are actually worshiping. Much
more typical of Cambodian Buddhism as a living religion
than is the palace temple, and therefore to me much more
interesting, is a smaller wat near the palace, with neither
golden Buddhas nor sky-piercing roofs. It consists of an en-
closure surrounded by an iron fence, containing a central hall
of worship, a pagoda behind it within which is a shrine with
several Buddha images, and, along the sides of the central
hall, about twenty small and solid pagodas, which (like most
pagodas in Cambodia) mark the graves of departed worthies.
These Cambodian pagodas are not so slender and pointed as
the Phra-Chedis of Siam, yet they are not like the Phra-
Prangs-a form which Siam borrowed from the towers of
Angkor and which are seldom seen in the enclosures of Cam-
bodian wats. The central hall of worship (it would be called
A
196
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the bot in Siam) has the usual double roof, but this is not
accentuated, and the colors of its tiles are of a rather dis-
couraged tint. The interior is a single room, with a high
ceiling supported by columns, and walls covered with fres-
coes. It was the noon hour when I entered, and half a dozen
monks, who had just finished their one daily meal, were lying
or sitting on the floor, and more strolled in later on. They
were loafing, smoking, chatting, napping. Some had
brought with them an armful of palm-leaf manuscript, but
none were reading. They were all very courteous and kindly
(as I have invariably found Buddhist monks to be) and
made no objection to my going anywhere I liked, in their
sight or out of it, blindly trusting that I would not pocket
any of the little votive Buddhas that sat in tempting atti-
tudes upon the altar. In my wanderings I opened the door
of the pagoda at the rear of the hall of worship, and found
three Buddha images-the largest one a "sleeping Buddha"-
and a monk at full length on the floor imitating the Master's
example. I shut the door quickly and quietly, so as not to
disturb the slumbers of either Master or faithful follower,
and returned to the hall to examine the altar and the Buddha
throne. The altar consisted of two low tables with elaborate
candles that had never been lighted, artificial flowers, and the
usual incense. At other wats I have often noticed oil lamps
as a favorite offering-modern-looking, cheap lamps, seldom
if ever lighted, but in a sense taking the place of the ubiqui-
tous clocks of Siam. Paper money and paper banners are also
common offerings. Near the altar-in this wat and in most
-is the pulpit, an elaborate chair on which the preacher or
reader sits, his legs curled up under him, on preaching days.
At the back of the altar is the Buddha throne, with a large
and ugly Buddha seated upon it, while below him are several
standing Buddhas and one Chinese Milei-Fo, with hands
clasped as usual around his precious belly.
The Buddhas of Cambodia are much like the Siamese,
yet with enough difference to make them usually distinguish-
able. As in Siam the seated and standing ones are by far the
commonest. Most of them have a pointed flame issuing from
their heads, but the flame is less pointed, its base broader and
its upper angle more obtuse than in Siam. Frequently the
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197
:
Cambodian Buddha wears a kind of band or cap over his
forehead, from which the flamelike point issues. His ears
are of about the same length as those of his Siamese broth-
ers, but his four fingers are frequently all of the same
length, as in Burma. The larger Cambodian Buddhas are
usually rather ugly, with sensual, almost African lips, and
broad noses.
The Cambodians also paint the eyes of their
large Buddhas so as to give them a more realistic and
human appearance, with a result that is not always
pleasing.
A partial exception to what I have said is to be found in
the great Buddha at Oudong. Oudong was an ancient capi-
tal of Cambodia, now deserted and overgrown and lost in
the jungle, save for what was the central part of it—three
small hills that rise abruptly from the marshy plain, the only
break for miles in the flat paddy and swamp lands that flank
both sides of the upper Mekong and the Tonlé Sap. On two
of the hillocks of this little triplet are lofty pagodas mark-
ing royal tombs, while on the central one is a large wat, and
near it a little monastery. The monks, noting your arrival,
send up a boy to the top of the hill who opens the door of the
great hall. On entering it you are halted almost immediately
by an arresting sight. The lofty roof is supported by two
rows of enormous round whitish columns, perhaps seven feet
in diameter, and at the farther end of the nave, between the
columns, you see a gigantic and triumphant golden Buddha,
seated on a lofty throne, his knees hidden behind the further
columns and his crown touching the very top of the high
roof. The building must have been built around him. He is
unique among the Buddhas of my acquaintance. His face
and posture give little suggestion of Nirvana, nor yet is his
face sensual. Rather, as I have indicated, it is triumphant,
triumphant and strong. Perhaps without sufficient reason,
on viewing it I found myself thinking of the last scene in
the Passion Play at Brixleg in the Tyrol, which I have twice
witnessed a tableau of the risen and triumphant Christ
sitting in judgment on the world. That Christ had little of
pity but was the embodiment of victory and infinite reserve
power. So of the Buddha of Oudong. It expresses little of
the Buddhist sympathy, little of the other-worldly calm
198
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which the Burmese Buddha so well symbolizes. A kind of
calm, indeed, it does express, but a calm that comes from
conscious power. There is peace in the eyes, while in the
mouth there is triumph; and before that gigantic figure,
seated between those exaggerated columns, you feel oppressed
by your own littleness.
I do not think that the Cambodian bonzes are much af-
fected by the expression of their Buddhas, one way or an-
other. Very likely it was purely imagination on my part,
but in Burma and Ceylon I had the feeling that the Great
Peace on the face of many of the finer images did have its
influence upon the yellow-robed worshipers who spent so
much of their time before that striking symbol. In Cam-
bodia I had no such feeling. They impressed me as being on
the whole less learned, less intelligent, and less spiritual than
the monks of the other Hinayana lands. A certain amount
of knowledge of their religion they must, indeed, possess;
for they are admitted to the full rank of monks only on
passing an examination-usually at about the age of twenty-
two. They are numerous enough, certainly-some forty
thousand, I was told, out of a total population of two million.
As to the nature of their influence there are various opinions.
Some of the Frenchmen will tell you their influence is excel-
lent; others that it is a great bar to progress. I heard no
accusation against them on the ground of immorality, but
much on the ground of laziness and ignorance. They have,
at any rate, the profound respect and reverence of the
people."
The monk rises at dawn, dresses, repeats his prayers, tidies
up his cell, and at seven starts out with the others on his
rounds with his begging bowl suspended from his left shoul-
der. On returning he kneels before some older monk and
G
"I must here transcribe Leclère's opinion of the Cambodian clergy: "Ce que le
Buddha a voulu qu'ils fussent, ils le sont encore: des cadavres vivants, non pour l'action
entre les mains de leurs chefs comme nos jesuites, mais pour l'exemple qu'ils doivent au
peuple et leur propre salut. Ils n'aspirent ni au gouvernement des hommes, ni au
gouvernement des consciences; ils se bornent à prêcher l'exemple et à enseigner la doc-
trine sans l'imposer. Et ils n'ont aucun pouvoir politique, aucun pouvoir temporel.
S'ils ne sont jamais consultés, en matière civile, ils sont resté un clergé respectable et
respecté, parce qu'il ne s'est jamais compromis; leur doctrine est admise par tout le
monde, indiscutée, parce qu'ils sont demeurés étrangers à toutes les revolutions qui ont
tout ruiné autour d'eux, parce qu'ils sont restés des hommes de foi religieuse, et rien
d'autre chose" (op. cit., p. 396).
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199
confesses any fault he may have committed since waking.
All the monks then go to the main hall (or Sala) and eat
some of their breakfast. They also repeat prayers at this
time and throw some grains of rice to the birds before eating.
They eat in silence and without choosing their food. The
rest of the morning up to 11:30 they spend at various tasks,
teaching the lay students, doing some of the necessary work
for the monastery or praying and meditating. Their meth-
ods of meditation do not differ materially from those of their
Siamese brethren: so I need say nothing of them here. At
11:30 they eat again—their last meal of the day—following
it by a "rather long grace." After this they disperse, most of
them for a nap. In the afternoon they may continue the oc-
cupations of the morning or go out and visit their relatives or
other laymen, provided they do not go alone. The monk is
always chaperoned. They are also always grave and digni-
fied, or at least are taught to be so. But though dignified
their gravity is not oppressive; they are welcome visitors and
they mix with the villagers quite freely. The country roads,
the city streets, and the banks of all the little rivers gleam
with the yellows and browns of their robes. They do not
confine themselves to any one shade, as do their fellows in
Burma and Ceylon and to a considerable extent in Siam, but
wear any shade of brown or yellow that suits their fancy,
frequently wearing both colors at once. Everywhere they
are received with deference; sometimes, I am told, with fear.
They have apparently much to do in forming the public
opinion of the land.
Their contribution toward the life of the community
consists chiefly in education and prayer. Nearly all the boys
are sent for at least a brief period to the monastic schools,
where they study reading, writing, arithmetic, religion,
morals, and manners. The monks also read the Dhamma to
the people and expound it four times a month. They con-
duct funeral services and they represent the community be-
fore the throne of the Buddha. It may seem odd to mention
this as one of their contributions to the society in which they
live, yet there can be no doubt that most of the laity would
8
The Patimokkha is recited regularly as in Ceylon. There is no public confession;
however, guilty monks simply abstaining from attendance (Eliot, III, 131).
200
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
regard the proper performance of the proper acts of wor-
ship, at regular times and on special occasions, as among the
chief functions and duties of the bonzes. Nor would a
good Christian of the medieval centuries have seen anything
peculiar in such a view. Today, in fact, one of the regular
duties of the priest in the Roman Catholic church is to say
the daily office, which he does not for the benefit of his own
soul but that God may be duly worshiped. An arrangement
is made, moreover, by which different sections of the Roman
church universal shall devote certain hours to consecutive
worship in cooperation with each other in such fashion that
prayer and praise shall be constantly ascending from some
quarter or other to the throne on high. It is a little difficult
for us Protestants to get this purely objective view of the
value of prayer, as something intrinsically worth while, yet
it is a very simple view and it has been a very common one in
many religions. Most of us have become so sophisticated
on the question of prayer that we do not realize we are so-
phisticated at all. The situation in Buddhism is, to be sure,
a little different from what one finds in Catholic Christian-
ity; for in the latter the conception lying back of the custom
is probably that God is somehow gratified by this stream of
unending devotion that rises night and day from earth to
heaven. Buddhists of the Southern school, believing as they
do (when orthodox) that the Buddha is quite beyond hear-
ing any mortal praises, do not think their chantings please
him. Nevertheless, it is a good thing to give thanks unto
the Lord and to sing praises unto the name of the Most
High. It is a good thing in itself, it is worth while for its
own sake, it is one of the things one ought to do, and as such
it cannot fail to have its good results. Hence morning and
night a little company of faithful bonzes gather together in
every monastery of the land and repeat the sacred verses
that have become hallowed through two thousand years of
pious repetition.
These services are not as a rule public, nor are the laity
expected or desired to attend. They are not held (in the
larger monasteries at any rate) in the central hall of worship
but in a more private and secluded oratory close to or within
the dormitories of the monks. In one of these I remember
CAMBODIA
201
finding not only a shrine with many Buddhas but a life-size
statue of a learned monk (they called him "Professor") who
had recently died. In a smaller monastery I was present at
the regular six o'clock evening service. The oratory was
undecorated and in a state of considerable confusion, as a
room inhabited and cared for only by bachelors is likely to
be. Yellow robes were strewn about the floor, in the middle
of things a large pile of palm-leaf manuscript, and there was
the usual chorus of spittoons. On the altar, beside the prin-
cipal image, were ten smaller Buddhas and eight lamps.
Three of the lamps were lighted, the others, mostly with
broken chimneys, apparently functioned merely as offerings.
On the floor in front of the altar were kneeling two old
monks and two novices, boys of perhaps sixteen. By no
means all the members of a monastery participate in every
service, but there are always enough faithful ones to see that
the proper worship is offered every morning and every night.
The chant was in a monotone, various verses, which all knew
by heart, being repeated several times over. At intervals
the chant would cease and all would bow their heads to the
floor. The oldest of the monks, who led the chanting, would
at times intone a few sentences alone, and then the others
would join in once more. When they caught sight of me,
an uninvited intruder upon their worship, one of the monks
brought me a chair. Then the chanting continued, their
thoughts being apparently on higher things than strange
Americans.
The theology, if so I may call it-rather I should say the
theory-of Cambodian Buddhists is almost or quite identical
with that of the Siamese, and I shall therefore be brief about
it. Spite of a little harmless incense to Siva or Ganesh or
perhaps to a dead "Professor," Sakyamuni has no serious rival.
I specially inquired as to how many Buddhas there were.
The word Buddha, I was told, is popularly used at times to
mean any sort of supernatural being, but as an object of re-
ligious veneration Preasac-mannac-cudom (the Cambodian
name for Sakyamuni) stands alone. As I was being con-
ducted about the palace at Pnom Penh by an intelligent and
ardent young Buddhist, I pointed out to him the four faces
on the central pinnacle-obviously copied from the Siva
202
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
faces of the Angkor wat towers-and asked him whose faces
these were. "Bouddha à quatre faces," was his reply. In one
of the palace shrines I found an elephant-headed Ganesh and
asked who it might be. "Bouddha à l'elephant," he answered.
Another Hindu deity turned up in the next shrine, this one
with eight arms. In response to my question, I was in-
formed that this was "Bouddha à huit bras." How many
Buddhas are there? I asked. "Beaucoup," he said. But when
I asked if he prayed to them all, he told me very decidedly
that he did not: that he prayed to only one, namely to “Prea
Soumantakodam,' " whose name he carefully wrote out in
my note-book. This, he said, is "le Bouddha Cambodgien,
and all Cambodians pray to him and to no one else. And the
"Bouddha à quatre faces" I discovered on further question-
ing has another name. He is "Bouddha-Siva."
Not many monks, I think, would have made even the
beginning of the confusion between the Buddha and his an-
cient rivals which this young man did. I asked explicitly
from one of them how many Buddhas there were and was
told there was but one. I told him that in China and Japan
there were several. He was mildly interested, but responded
that in Cambodia at any rate there was but one.10
The present condition of this one Buddha I took pains,
as usual, to inquire about. The laity, as elsewhere, consider
him as in conscious bliss, and quite able to hear and answer
their prayers. The clergy as usual are divided. I called on
one of the principal abbots of the capital to get his opinion
on this point. His house-the largest of the houses in the
dormitory section of the monastery, and standing like the rest
on stilts-was a two-story building, with one large room tak-
ing up the entire lower floor. A flight of steps led up from
this to the sleeping apartments above. A monk went up to
announce my call and I had time to look around before the
right reverend old gentleman came down. The ceiling of
the room was in process of redecoration and things were in
considerable confusion, the tables and the floor being covered
with a litter of teapots and spittoons. Few books-I think
0
Evidently another spelling for Preasac-mannac-cudom.
This belief in but one Buddha does not preclude a lively faith in the coming
Buddha Maitreya, whom they call Prea-Mittay, and whose advent is to begin a period
of universal happiness. See Moura, op. cit., p. 152.
10
I
CAMBODIA
203
•
none-were in sight. Undoubtedly the abbot had the usual
supply of palm-leaf manuscripts or books, but kept them in
his bed chamber. He came downstairs smoking an immense
cigar, his brown robe flung loosely over his shoulders, dis-
closing much of his very fat paunch, which gave him a strik-
ing likeness to Milei-Fo. As he descended, the two laymen in
the room fell upon their faces, and he ordered chairs and
cigarettes for the guests in a tone that, I think, has seldom
been heard in Europe since the days of the late czar. He
asked me so many questions about Ceylon, in which he was
evidently much interested, that it was with difficulty I
brought around the conversation to the Buddha and his pres-
ent condition. The Buddha, he finally told me, is dead, and
has been dead a long time. He no longer hears or knows
anything. When one prays to him he does not hear it or
know it. When I asked why, then, one prays to the Buddha,
he failed to see any incongruity. For him, in fact, there was
none. If one's father is ill, he said, one goes to the monks
and they say prayers to the Buddha and this may help the
sick father. I asked him to give me an example of the prayer
the monks might make if asked to pray for a sick man, and
he kindly prayed aloud for me. The prayer was in Pali.
Such prayers, of course, are not petitions but sacred verses
that have indeed little to do with the particular situation or
desire but which have a value in themselves so that their
repetition produces merit; and merit is useful in many ways.
Not that petitional prayer is unknown. The unintelligent
laymen frequently make direct requests to the Buddha, and
Eliot says he has heard in Cambodia prayers for peace and
against war ¹¹-apparently from monks. Still this is not
orthodox. The learned monks "recall the Buddha's deeds,
teach his doctrine, revive his memory; they do not call upon
him for help because they know that he cannot help them,
that he cannot respond, since he is no longer an active
personality.'
›› 12
As this quotation shows, and as I have previously pointed
out, the theory of prayer follows, of course, directly from
the theory of the present condition of the Buddha; and the
theory of Nirvana is no less directly related to it. When
12 Leclère, p. 330.
11 III, 130.
-
204
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Moura was preparing his great work on Le Royaume du
Cambodge, over forty years ago, he made a point of asking
a number of the clergy as to the nature of Nirvana. As
might have been expected, he got varying answers. The head
of the ecclesiastical order told him that Nippean was eternal
salvation in a celestial body, with unending calm joy. On the
other hand, the Prea Soccon, which Moura interprets as
"viccar general," and who in this case was recognized as the
most learned Buddhist in the kingdom, insisted that Nippean
was complete annihilation. As to the common people, Moura
says three-fourths of them have never heard of Nippean,
and those who have consider it a place of delight.
The conception of Nirvana held by the learned monks
with whom M. Leclère discussed the matter was in most
respects the orthodox view contained in the Nikayas. Nir-
vana is neither existence nor non-existence, neither pain nor
pleasure. It is the end of individuality and of change; yet
one could not identify it with annihilation or absolute
nothing.13 But a quite new aspect of the concept is re-
vealed in some pages of M. Leclère's valuable volume, which
seems to indicate that the ancient Brahmanism and Maha-
yanism of six hundred years ago has more influence on the
thought of Cambodian Buddhism than one would otherwise
suppose. This is connected with the belief in Preas Prohm.
Preas Prohm is the god Brahma of Hinduism, but he seems
also to be mixed up with the impersonal Brahma of the
Upanishads and suggests the idealistic Absolute of the Maha-
yana. As a kind of god he recreates the world of men at
the beginning of each new kalpa; 14 some of the monks who
talked with M. Leclère said that Preas Prohm is eternal, un-
created, and out of time. All things exist eternally in Him.
In their transitory forms they are for our eyes only, not for
his. He is changeless peace. It is a common saying among
the people (for they know that He exists but little else
about him) "Preas Prohm awakes for the Buddha." This
is explained by the learned as follows: by his "sleep" is meant
the period in which his nature expresses itself in the ordinary
course of events; by his awakening at the appearance of a
Buddha is meant the expression of his nature in an extraor-
W
14
"Ibid., Book VIII, Chap. 4.
Moura, op. cit., p. 156.
ܝ
WOND
-
CAMBODIA
205
dinary way, i.e., in a personality of great sanctity who has
attained not only to holiness but to a comprehension of Preas
Prohm. It is not rare to find a highly educated monk, such
as the head of a monastery, who will say "Nippean (Nir-
vana) and Preas Prohm are one and the same thing." 15
Preas Prohm has no cult and plays but a small rôle in
the thoughts of any but the most learned and philosophical.
Nippean, too, is not a matter of much practical importance.
Heaven and hell, on the other hand, are much more lively,
definite, and interesting conceptions for both laity and
clergy. Heaven is a kind of terrestrial paradise situated on
Tray-trong (Mt. Meru of Indian mythology). It has three
gradations, in an ascending scale: namely, that of the laity,
the bonzes, and the ascetics. These heavens play a much
more prominent place in the minds of Cambodian Buddhists
than either Nirvana or rebirth. Hell is no less real, and is a
constant peril to the unwary. The young Buddhist layman
who took me through one of the wats I noticed carefully tak-
ing off his shoes before entering the building. As this had
never been required of me in Siam I had gone in with my
shoes on; but noticing his action I asked if I should remove
mine. My guide responded that it was not necessary but that
it was advisable; for if I did not do so I should go straight
down to hell, and the soles of my feet would be cut off. The
words were accompanied with such earnest and vivid gestures
that I hastened to shake off the offending shoes. I have seen
too many pictures of the Buddhist hell to take any unneces-
sary chances with it.
C
Most laymen and most monks, too, believe not only in the
Buddha but in the Neaca-ta,16 the spirits of the land which
correspond to the nats of Burma, though with none of their
picturesqueness. They are simply the ancient animistic
godlets who were in Cambodia long before the Buddha came
and with whom the Buddha and his disciples have never
seriously quarreled. In front of many of the wats there are
little shrines to the Neaca-ta, frequently three, distantly sug-
gesting bird-houses or dog-kennels, and containing no images,
but usually supplied with a few incense sticks. It is espe-
cially to the Neaca-ta that the Cambodians pray when sick,
10 Moura, p. 172.
15 Leclère, op. cit., Book I, Chap. I.
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
just as the Laos in Siam do to their tree-spirits. This is
largely an homage of fear: it can hardly be called worship.
It bears much the same relation to the Cambodian's worship
of the Buddha that usury bears to the loyal devotion one
owes and gives to one's king.
For the Buddha is worshiped with loyal devotion in both
temple and home.
and home. Offerings of flowers and incense are
brought by the laity to his public temples, and each Cam-
bodian home has its domestic shrine in which there is a little
image or picture of the Buddha. The worship given in the
public temple varies considerably, the women going often,
the men perhaps only once a year. In the domestic shrine
worship is paid every day. Four times a month, as in Siam,
there is a public service of prayer in the wat, followed by
preaching. The monk reads to the people from the Dhamma
in Cambodian and expounds its meaning. The subject mat-
ter of this preaching, the abbot told me, consists chiefly of
moral injunctions.
Almost every boy, as we have seen, spends some time in
one of the wats, wearing the yellow robe, and learning man-
ners and morals from the bonzes. How much technical Bud-
dhism the boys learn varies, I presume, considerably with the
monastery and the individual. The two very intelligent
young men who acted as interpreters for me-loyal and en-
thusiastic Buddhists-had both spent over a year wearing the
yellow robe, and both knew the content of the Five Precepts;
but neither knew them as the "Five Precepts," nor did they
recognize what I meant when I asked what the Five Precepts
or Vows were. In Siam this could hardly have happened. As
to the proportion of the male population who in boyhood
study with the bonzes and take the yellow robe for at least a
short time, I have no statistics. Both Leclère and Eliot say
that all or nearly all do so. In driving through the country
or walking through the towns you get the impression that
every boy from thirteen to sixteen is in yellow. Yet I am told
that the practice is not universal, even in loyal Buddhist fam-
ilies, and that the proportion of those who take the robe is not
so great as it used to be. This is due to the establishment of
modern schools by the French authorities. The great educa-
tional superiority of these over the schools of the bonzes is
O
pat
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207
evident to many parents, and this is slightly reducing the
number of boys that take the yellow robe."
17
That Buddhism has exerted and still exerts an elevating
and ennobling influence upon the people of Cambodia is
hardly to be denied. M. Leclère (writing in the nineties)
considers the Cambodian Buddhists much more religious than
the Christians of Europe. "Nowhere else and in no other
religion do I find a greater exaltation of sentiment so well
adapted to elevate men, induce kindly customs, and pleasant
social relations, and to make man a hero of mildness, charity,
and love." 18 Possibly M. Leclère exaggerates: I do not know.
But that the Cambodians appear, to a hurried yet greatly in-
terested pilgrim, a deeply and earnestly religious people, of
mild manners and pleasing courtesy and helpful human ways,
I can attest; and that their religion, which emphasizes just
these things, has had much to do with achieving this result
seems hard to deny.
Whatever one may think of the value of Buddhism in
Cambodia the intensity of its present influence is patent to
every eye. The Cambodians today are universally and en-
thusiastically Buddhist. As my friend the missionary repeat-
edly puts it, they are very "fanatical." They are so
fanatical that it is most difficult to convert them to Chris-
tianity. Their fanatical loyalty to Buddhism is the great
obstacle to missionary progress. From the Gulf of Siam to
the Annamese border, and following up the Mekong, surg-
ing past Angkor, the ruined monument of dead Hinduism,
17
More rapid change, I was told, might be expected after the death of the king,
a very old man. He has since died (on August 10, 1927). He was an ardent Buddhist,
and the whole weight of his influence had always been back of the bonzes; but the
heir apparent, my informants said, was a man of European education and western ideas
and he was expected to cooperate with the French Government in its attempt to mod-
ernize Cambodia.
18 He cites many instances of what he means. Thus: "I see every day around me
acts of charity and love for others, for all beings, acts which are not known to the
Christians. Here, for example, is a boatman who for charity and love's sake, in order
to acquire merit, takes gratuitously on his boat all those who present themselves. Here
is a devout man who feeds travellers without asking recompense and also lodges them
and waits upon them. Here is a poor man who for charity and love's sake has received
in his home and feeds one poorer than himself. Here is an old man who spends all he
has on the construction or repair of a pagoda, or of a hall for travellers. Here is a
dying person who asks his children that after his death his flesh be torn off his bones
and given as alms to the birds of the air. Here is an old woman who frees some
slaves out of charity; sometimes it is a man who frees them and puts them on some of
his fields; these now become the property of the slaves" (pp. 520-21).
•
•
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on over into Siam, the triumphant Hinayana holds its undi-
vided sway. From the coast to the capital, and from there
up and down the great sweep of the great river, or following
its little tributaries, the broad flat plain of Cambodia with
its marshes and its jungles and its paddy fields presents to
your sight ever-recurring reminders that you are in the land
of the Buddha. Modest little wats raise their roofs among
the trees in all sorts of unexpected places, and every village
and every country road and river bank is dotted with the
yellow robes of boys and bonzes.
As you travel southeastward, from Pnom Penh towards.
Saigon-whether by the Mekong or some of its tributaries,
or by automobile over the splendid roads of Cambodia-these
tokens of the Hinayana follow you. Then at a certain point
you begin to feel that something has happened. You miss
something. No, there are no more yellow robes in sight, and
it is some time since you have seen a wat. You think back
and note that they stopped rather suddenly. If you have
been watching the mile-stones you may recall that the last
sign of robes and wats was at about the stone which bore
the inscription "Saigon 65 kilomètres." A new kind of tem-
ple, moreover, has begun to appear-Chinese temples with
dragons on the roof. Burying grounds of the Chinese style
are also appearing for the first time. You have passed
the watershed, the boundary line between Hinayana and
Mahayana.
It is surprising how sharply this line is drawn. It follows
very closely the political line between Cambodia and Cochin-
China, the racial and linguistic line between the Khmers and
the Annamese. Starting from the Gulf of Siam near the
Point of Cambodia, it runs in a northeasterly and then
northerly direction some distance east of the Mekong, right
up to the borders of China, with the Annamese on the east
of it and the Khmers and Laos and Siamese on the west. On
reaching Yunan it goes onward in a northwesterly direction,
with Burmese and Shans west of it and Chinese to the east,
then turns west and southwest, separating the Burmese from
the Tibetans. Between the Burmese and Tibetans, however,
there is an indeterminate belt of some width, the inhabitants
of which are chiefly nat worshipers, though they call them-
C
CAMBODIA
209
selves Buddhists. Between Burma and Assam the line turns
southwestward and ends at the sea. This is the region of the
Hinayana, this plus the southern part of the island of Ceylon;
and within it Hinayana Buddhism reigns supreme. Outside
of it the Hinayana is almost unknown. Saigon is within a
few miles of the Cambodian border, but not a bonze nor a
wat is to be found in its streets.
As one looks back at the lands of the Hinayana-Ceylon,
Burma, Siam, Cambodia-they shine in one's memory with
a very grateful light. The artistic wats and pleasant viharas,
the pagodas and stupas, the pipal trees, the bonzes, and the
great Buddhas, with their suggestion of peace and their
message of pity, the unquestionably moral influence of the
religion and the earnest attempt to inculcate it in each rising
generation—all these memories together produce a really
considerable effect, when massed in one general impression
within the mind of any unprejudiced and sympathetic ob-
server. With this impression still fresh, on first arriving in
Saigon, one goes in search of a Buddhist temple. It is one's
first entry, let us suppose, into a Mahayana land, and one is
eager to see this northern form of Buddhism. It is not easy
to find a Buddhist temple in Saigon. There are a number of
Chinese temples, some of which have an image of the Buddha
occupying a subordinate position among the many gods be-
fore whom incense is burned. But anything like a temple
given up only to Buddhism I was unable to find within the
city. I found one, however, in the suburbs. It was a simple
building, guarded by an Annamese monk who was almost
indistinguishable in costume from other Annamese. He un-
locked the door and led us in. The central shrine had eleven
images. The three upper ones were all Buddhas, so the monk
said; though whether they lived before Sakyamuni or after
him he did not know-nor even whether they had ever lived
as men at all. Below them was an image of Sakyamuni and
on each side of him a Chinese god. Other subordinate deities
filled out the shrine. In a second shrine, farther back, was a
fourteen-handed image which was called a Buddha, and in
the extreme rear of the temple a third shrine with four
figures, the central one of which represented an Annamese
princess of antiquity. This shrine seemed to have attracted
210
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
more worship than any of the others, judging from the in-
cense sticks and sticks for fortune-telling placed in front of
it. The temple as a whole seemed little used, and what use it
had consisted evidently of fortune-telling and incense burn-
ing. With such an introduction to Northern Buddhism,
one's thoughts go back to the Hinayana.
Yet such a contrast is not really fair. For Northern
Buddhism is at its worst and weakest in Indo-China; and at
its best, the Mahayana is a complicated affair, and apprecia-
tion of it is an acquired taste. Let us not judge it, therefore,
by this first impression and this unfair contrast.
We can
understand it rightly and judge it fairly only after studying
its rise and its history. Such a study will take us back again
to India, and to the India of long ago. It will involve much
difficult philosophical analysis. We shall have to trace the
course of this new development of Buddhism not only in
ancient India but in medieval China, Korea, and Japan.
But only after such rather laborious research can we venture
to form any intelligent idea whatever of this very compli-
cated system. To this somewhat dull and difficult study we
shall now turn in the following chapter.
}
CHAPTER XI
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
So we come back again to ancient India. For we must
now seek the origin and trace something of the development
of a new form of Buddhist doctrine and Buddhist aspiration
and expression, which was destined to be carried in triumph
over the Himilayas and across the vast plains of China, and,
leaping the straits of Shiminoseki, to be stopped only by
the salt waves of the North Pacific. To ancient India, there-
fore, we return, and to very ancient India indeed. For if
we are to seek the origin of the Mahayana we cannot stop
short of the teachings and the life of the Founder himself.
Not that the Mahayana doctors are justified in holding that
the Tathagata gave two kinds of teaching, an exoteric Hina-
yana doctrine for simpler minds and an esoteric Mahayana
doctrine for the more profound. This is surely the invention
of a late school, without any historical justification. But
while the Southern school has doubtless clung much more
closely to the teachings of the Founder than has the North-
ern school, the seeds of many of the doctrines and practices
and ideals that were to prevail in the North are clearly to be
seen in the Pali texts themselves.
Ga
In this connection it will be helpful to revert to the sug-
gestion made in the sixth chapter of this book as to a possible
triple division within the teachings and practices of early
Buddhism. It will be recalled that we found it useful to
distinguish, first, beliefs and customs which, by the force of
social inertia, were carried over into Buddhism from the
common store of Indian life and thought, second, those origi-
nal (or partly original) teachings of the Buddha which were
of a strictly intellectual nature, and third, the influence of
his life and example, the influence of his heart rather than of
his head. Now each of these elements had its share in the
origin and development of the Mahayana, and no account
211
212
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of the Mahayana which leaves out these very early tendencies.
can give a true picture of the real lineage of the Northern
school. There were, of course, other sources for the Maha-
yana as well. Many of the most important things in Maha-
yana doctrine and practice were derived from Hindu influ-
ence, and some even from foreign influence.
These we
should note and emphasize; but that there were in primitive
Buddhism the seeds of many of the later growths of Maya-
yana thought and worship we must not forget. It will be
impossible to treat separately the lines of development that
grew out of these three distinguishable aspects of original
Buddhism, for the lines of influence from each are many, and
they intertwine in bewildering fashion. But it will be help-
ful for the reader to keep these sources in mind in at least
a general way.
In the Pali Suttas Gotama though obviously a man, with
many of the human limitations, is yet not quite a man either.
In knowledge, enlightenment, self-control, and moral mas-
tery he is always supernatural, and his supernatural power
in other realms is sometimes revealed. From the day of his
death, and apparently even during his life, unique veneration
was felt for him, and to "take refuge in the Buddha" was
one of the essentials of salvation. As we have seen in an
earlier chapter, it was not long before this veneration devel-
oped into something closely akin to worship.
The Pali texts, moreover, recognize that Gotama was not
the only Buddha. Only one Buddha, to be sure, may be ac-
tive at a time, but there had been several before Gotama, and
there will be at least one more in the future.¹ The Bharut
tope erected about 200 B.C. bears a relief of seven Bo Trees,
and seven thrones inscribed with the names of seven Buddhas,
Gotama being the last.2 These seven Buddhas are recognized
by very ancient Pali documents also. Before the close of
In the Maha Parinibbana Suttanta, of the Digha Nikaya, for example, reference is
made to the "Able Awakened Ones" of the past and of the future (an expression
synonymous with the word Buddhas), and the words are used in a way to indicate that
the conception of a long line of Buddhas was already common property and taken as
a matter of course. It should be noted, however, that in this passage there is no sug-
gestion that a Buddha or Able Awakened One is supernatural in any other sense than
that of knowledge and virtue. See Rhys Davids' translation of the Digha Nikaya,
Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 88-89.
2 See Foucher, The Beginnings of Buddhist Art, p. 72.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
213
the Pali canon the number of Buddhas is raised from seven
to twenty-five." The process of increasing the number of
Buddhas and at the same time of transforming the venera-
tion paid to them into something more and more like the
worship paid to Hindu deities was probably brought about
in large part through the influence of the great number of
rather ignorant converts from Hinduism. These men and
women doubtless meant to be good Buddhists at their con-
version, and always considered themselves such, but they
could not divest themselves of the unconscious influence of
the polytheistic point of view in which they had been
brought up, nor of the desire for personal worship and for
help from a personal deity. Hence in the first and second
centuries of the Christian era the Buddha assumed a more
supernatural character in the minds of his followers, and,
especially in northern India, an increasing number of
Buddhas came to be recognized. In the Larger Sukhavati
Vyuha, which must have been written at least as early as
Kanishka's time, Sakyamuni is pictured as giving a discourse
on the Vulture Peak in which he enumerates some eighty-one
Buddhas by name, all of whom lived in the remote past.5
The first of these eighty-one was Dipankara; but the Sad-
dharma Pundarika Sutra tells us of a Buddha antedating
Dipankara by incalculable ages. In a later section of the
Sukhavati Vyuha we are told of a sermon preached by the
eighty-first Buddha of this list recounting the excellencies of
the Buddha fields belonging to some eighty-one hundred
thousand niyutas of kotis of Buddhas." As a niyuta is
one million and a koti ten million, the number of Buddhas
here referred to exceeds the power of the English language
to express, but it can be represented by mathematics thus:
81,000,000,000,000,000,000. The Lalita-vistara and the
Saddharma Pundarika Sutra refer to Buddhas in equally
overwhelming numbers. Of course no Buddhist takes Bud-
dhist figures very seriously, and the passages just referred to
4
C
-
8
3 Cf. La Vallée Poussin, Bouddhisme, 264-65.
*It is said to have been translated into Chinese between 148 and 170 a.d. Cf
Nariman, Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism (2nd ed., Bombay, Indian Book Depot,
1923), p. 79.
5 Section 3. In Max Müller's trans., S. B. E., XLIX, Part II, p. 7.
"Op. cit., § 5. In Max Müller's trans., p. 10.
"It is not surprising that the sermon took "a full koti of years.”
214
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
are to be interpreted simply as meaning that the number of
Buddhas is as infinite as space and time. An infinity of
divine beings, moreover, ceases in a sense to be pluralistic.
Being necessarily impersonal they merge into each other in
the imagination as a kind of pleroma, an impersonal cloud of
divine rays, so to speak, expressing in their joint capacity the
divine nature of the universe. Two or three deities are
really much more dangerous for monism than eighty-one
hundred thousand niyutas of kotis.
-
8
Yet Mahayana Buddhism-at any rate in its popular form
-verges upon something akin to polytheism. For out of
the infinitude of Buddhas past, present, and to come, it sin-
gles out a few for special adoration, and some of these to
the popular mind have become something very like the
greater devas of Hinduism. Several different groups of
Buddhas have been popular at different times and in differ-
ent Mahayana lands. The largest of these lists counts
twenty-four Buddhas beginning with Dipankara 10 and
ending with Sakyamuni. Another list includes simply the
last seven of the twenty-four.11 A third, rather more popu-
lar than either of the two just mentioned, is composed of
the five Buddhas of the present kalpa.¹2
9
All of these are known as Manushi Buddhas-that is,
Buddhas who at one time historically combined the qualities
of Buddhahood and humanity. They have lived on earth as
human Buddhas. There are other Buddhas who have never
been human, or if so, never lived upon earth in human form
after their enlightenment.13 The five most important of
8
We must constantly keep in mind the fact that during the centuries when the
Mahayana was being formed, Buddhism was making its large numbers of converts from
Indians who had been brought up to worship the many Hindu devas.
Twenty-five, if we include Maitreya.
10 It was during the human appearance of Dipankara that Gotama (then known
as Megha) first prayed to become a Buddha. Dipankara granted the request and pre-
dicted his future Buddhahood.
11
See Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1914),
P. 9.
12
See Hardy, Manual of Buddhism (2nd ed., London, Williams and Norgate, 1880),
p. 98. These five Buddhas are important not only as the five Buddhas of the present
kalpa but also because they are the Manushi or historical Buddhas corresponding to the
Five Dhyani Buddhas, Cf. Getty, p. 9. Their names are Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni,
Kasyapa, Sakyamuni, Maitreya.
13
Amitabha, for example, is said to have gone through many human births while a
Bodhisattva; but he is not a Manushi Buddha but a Dhyani Buddha.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
215
these 14
are known as the Dhyani Buddhas, or Buddhas of
Contemplation. Each of these is associated with one of the
five Manushi Buddhas of the present kalpa referred to at the
close of the last paragraph, and each also has an especial
Dhyani Boddhisattva. Each of these five groups of three is
a kind of trinity: the three are conceived as, in some sense,
This con-
merely different forms of one identical being.15
ception of non-historical Dhyani Buddhas, and the system-
atic arrangement of the five trinities was late in making its
appearance, and has received its greatest development in
Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhism, a form of Buddhism with
which this volume will not deal. I mention the Dhyani
Buddhas here because the conception has had a certain influ-
ence in China and Japan, and a cursory acquaintance with it
is necessary for an understanding of the mythology of the
Mahayana.
The importance of the groups of Buddhas I have men-
tioned is but slight in the Buddhist world of today outside
Tibet and Nepal. There are, however, five Buddhas of very
considerable importance in modern Mahayana lands, and to
these we must give rather more attention. These five
are Sakyamuni, Amitabha, Vairocana, Bhaisajaguru, and
Maitreya.
Of Sakyamuni nothing need here be said. In all Bud-
dhist lands he is revered or worshiped as the latest of the
Buddhas, the light of the world for the present dispensation.
In gratitude and reverence toward him and in conscious rec-
ognition of the enlightenment and inspiration and spiritual
assistance that comes through him, Hinayana and Mahayana
are at one. With the name Amitabha we come upon some-
thing quite new. His name means Measureless Light, and
-
"I say the five most important of these to avoid the implication that all Buddhas
who are not Manushi Buddhas are Dhyani Buddhas. There is, apparently, an infinitude
of Buddhas in the infinite number of Buddha kshetras who are not Dhyani Buddhas
and who have never lived upon this earth. Kern speaks of Dhyani Buddhas as those not
required to pass through the stage of the Bodhisattva (Manual of Buddhism, Strassburg,
Trübner, 1896, p. 64). Bhattacharyya follows him in this (Indian Buddhist Icono-
graphy, Oxford Univ. Press, 1924, Chap. 1). To say this, however, is to forget that
Amitabha, the most popular of the Dhyani Buddhas, is generally regarded as having
gone through all the usual course of spiritual life, including even the human.
15 The five Trinities-or the three Pentads-may be indicated thus:
Dhyani Buddhas: Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi.
Manushi Buddhas: Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kasyapa, Sakyamuni, Maitreya.
Dhyani Bodhisattvas: Samantabhadra, Vajrapani, Ratnapani, Avalokitesvara, Visvapani.
216
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
16
his secondary name, Amitayus, means Measureless Life. Ac-
cording to the Larger Sukhavati Vyuha, he was a Bhikshu in
the days of the Buddha Lokesvararaja. His name at that
time was Dharmakara (the Japanese give it as Hozo). Being
filled with love for all suffering creatures, he sought out the
Buddha and kneeling before him made forty-six famous
vows. Each of these vows describes some quality of the
Buddha-kshetra or divine region which his merit, accumu-
lated through many kalpas, was destined to produce, or
names some class of persons aspiring to salvation, and ends
always with the solemn wish that if the quality described be
not granted to his region, or the class of persons named be not
admitted, then may he, Dharmakara, not obtain the highest
perfect knowledge, i.e., Buddhahood.
That vow was made many kalpas ago, and during the un-
imaginable years that followed, Dharmakara through many
lives, human and superhuman, acquired so great a mass of
merit that his wish became certain of eventual achievement:
which means that his longed-for Buddha-kshetra became a
reality and that he received assurance that hereafter whoso-
ever directs his thought toward the highest perfect knowl-
edge and meditates upon Him, shall be received into that
glorious country. Having obtained this assurance the former
Dharmakara consented to become at last a Buddha. But,
according to the Sukhavati Vyuha, this does not mean that
he has passed away into Nirvana. "Neither has that
Tathagata passed away nor has he not yet come, but that
Tathagata, the holy, having obtained the highest perfect
knowledge, dwells now, remains, supports himself, and
teaches the Law in the Western quarter, in the Buddha coun-
try, in the world which is called Sukhavati, and he is known
as Amitabha. He is surrounded by innumerable Bodhisattvas
and worshiped by endless Sravakas, and in possession of the
endless perfection of his Buddha country."
), 17
GARD
The three other Buddhas referred to above can be passed
over much more briefly. Vairocana is intimately associated
with the sun-both in Sanskrit Buddhism and in modern
10 The eightieth Buddha after Dipankara.-See the list in § 3 of the work cited,
S. B. E., XLIX, Part II, p. 7.
17 Op. cit., § 11.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
217
Japan. He is apparently a Buddhist adaptation of the sun-
worship, which was common in India from the earliest days,
and which during the formulation of Mahayana thought was
receiving reinforcements from the sun-worship of Persia.18
Bhaisajaguru is, as his name indicates, the "Healing
Teacher," the King of Medicine. He made twelve vows,
somewhat like those of Amitabha, for the benefit of his
followers. He is the Buddha of the Eastern quarter. In
the Buddhism of India he was never very important, but in
China as Yao-shih Fo, and in Japan as Yakushi; he assumes
a prominent position.
19
Maitreya, the last of our list of five popular Buddhas, in
one sense does not belong on any list of Buddhas at all, for
he is not yet a Buddha, but a Bodhisattva only. He is at
present dwelling in the Tusita heaven, and at the expiration
of a period whose length is variously reckoned, he is to de-
scend to this earth and be born as the next Buddha. By that
time the Dharma will have been nearly or quite forgotten,
but he will establish it once more, even as his innumerable
predecessors, the blessed Buddhas of old, have done.
Maitreya, I have said, is as yet a Bodhisattva. The con-
ception of the Bodhisattva goes back to the Hinayana, where
it is applied to Gotama during his previous births and
throughout the earlier years of his historical life up to the
time of the enlightenment. A Bodhisattva, then, is, origi-
nally, a future Buddha, on his way to enlightenment. Ety-
mologically the term means simply one whose being consists
of insight. But the Mahayana seized upon the conception
and made it over into a new ideal, which became, perhaps,
the central characteristic of the new form of the religion.
To understand this ideal it is necessary to go back to what I
have referred to as the heart element in the teaching and life
of the Founder. His own example, as I have so often pointed
out, was quite free from that implication of selfishness or
narrowness, which a natural interpretation of the Four Noble
Truths and their logical consequences might well suggest.
Whatever might be the natural deduction from his teaching
18
C
Eliot surmises that Amitabha also may have been of Zoroastrian origin. See
Hinduism and Buddhism, III, 219-21.
20 Getty, p. 23.
218
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
that each of us should avoid giving pledges to Fortune and
should seek the desireless and sorrow-free life, his own heart
was so full of love for every form of suffering creature that
he long postponed his own Parinirvana for their sake, and
fired the imaginations of many of his disciples with the long-
ing to be of service to others at any cost. It was this aspect
of the Buddha's teaching and example that the Mahayana
thinkers seized upon and it was on this that they based their
moral ideal. The typical Arhat (= Arahant), busy about
his own salvation, wandering alone as a rhinoceros, they felt
to be narrow and unworthy, and they erected in his stead the
ideal of the earnest seeker after the welfare of others, who
in unselfish devotion to his fellow creatures accumulates
great stores of merit and dedicates it not to his own salvation
but to that of all suffering beings. For in the faith of the
Mahayana, there are many such ardent saviors of others. All
the Buddhas had dedicated themselves, for ages before their
complete enlightenment, to this unselfish task: and as there
will be an endless line of Buddhas in the infinite future, as
there has been in the infinite past, so there must now be an
incalculable multitude of future Buddhas, i.e., Bodhisattvas,
who have dedicated themselves to the same endless task as
that for which Gotama went through so many births and
deaths. This faith involves not only a new ideal but a new
conception of the acquisition of merit and of salvation.
Merit is thought of by the Mahayana as being transferable.
Suffering and goodness are vicarious. The Bodhisattva is
able to present his merit to a needy world, and for its sake
he is willing to be himself a meritless sinner. In the words of
the New England theology, he is willing to be damned for
the glory of God.
This conception of vicarious suffering and the transfer-
ence of merit is hardly in harmony with what I have called
the intellectual aspect of the Founder's teaching and his
emphasis upon self-help. On the other hand, it is the natu-
ral, perhaps even the necessary, outcome of the heart element
of Buddhism, of the Founder's devotion and of the devotion
of all loving souls. If the great enlightenment was not
merely an intellectual achievement but a new experience of
sharing the common life, we may perhaps say with Professor
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
219
Suzuki that the possibility of sharing our merit with others
is the "logical outcome of enlightenment-consciousness.
What made Buddhism great as a universal religion [Suzuki adds] was
due to the discovery of this principle. . . . The law of Karma may be
true and should be made to work in our practical and intellectual plane
of life, but it is too rigid, too exclusive, too individualistic, and above
all, it goes against our religious yearnings. We want to suffer for others
and when this is not practicable we want to send out our thoughts and
sympathies to them. If we are at all spiritual beings capable of enlight-
enment, this thought communication or mystical interpenetration must
be possible.20
در
So deeply to heart has the Mahayana taken this ideal of
self-forgetting service that it would be difficult to find in
the whole round of the world's religious literature more
radical and sincere expressions of it. Repeatedly in reading
Mahayana devotional books is one reminded of George Eliot's
poem, "Oh May I join the Choir Invisible." Listen, for
example, to the following from Asanga: "If another does
harm to the Bodhisattva he endures with patience the worst
injuries, with the idea that it is a benefit he has received. To
think that the offender does one a service, this is to conduct
oneself in accord with the example of the Perfect Ones.'
Or this, from Santi-deva's Bodhi-Charyavatara, "The Path
of Light":
>> 21
20
I would fain become a soother of all sorrows of all creatures. May I
be a balm to the sick, a healer and servitor, until sickness come never
again; may I become an unfailing store for the poor, and serve them with
manifold things for their need. My own being and my pleasures, all my
righteousness in the past, present, and future, I surrender indifferently
that all creatures may win to their end. The Stillness lies in surrender
of all things and my spirit is fain for the Stillness. I yield myself to all
living things to deal with me as they list: they may smite or revile me
forever, bestrew me with dust, play with my body, laugh and wanton:
I have given them my body, why shall I care? Let them make me do
whatever works bring them pleasure; but may never mishap befall any
of them by reason of me. May all who slander me or do me hurt or jeer
at me gain a share in Enlightenment. I would be a protector of the
unprotected, a guide of wayfarers, a ship, a dyke, and a bridge for them
"Development of the Pure Land Doctrine in Buddhism," Eastern Buddhist, III,
'From Asanga's Mahayana Sutralamkara, trans. by Sylvain Levi (Paris, Champion,
1911), Chap. VIII.
311-12.
21
220
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
who seek the further Shore: a lamp for them who need a lamp, a bed
for them who need a bed, a slave for them who need a slave.
By constant use the idea of an "I" attaches itself to foreign drops
of seed and blood, although the thing exists not. Then why should I
not conceive my fellow's body as my own self? That my body is foreign
to me is not hard to see. I will cease to live as self and will take as myself
my fellow creatures. By constant use man comes to imagine that his
body, which has no self-being, is a "self"; why then should he not con-
ceive his self to lie in his fellows also? Then as thou wouldst guard thy-
self against suffering and sorrow, so exercise the spirit of helpfulness and
tenderness towards the world. Be thou jealous of thine own self when
thou seest that it is at ease and thy fellow in distress, that it is in high
estate and he is brought low, that it is at rest and he is at labour. Make
thine own self lose its pleasures and bear the sorrow of thy fellows. Cast
upon its head the guilt even of others' works. Darken its glory by telling
of the greater glory of others. Make it a carrier in thy fellow creatures'
service, like a mean slave. It is made of sin, and because it may have
some chance morsel of goodness from without, it is not therefore worthy
of praise. Let no man know its goodness. In short, let all the wrong
that thou hast done for the sake of thine own self to others fall upon
thine own self for the sake of thy fellow creatures.22
same.
It is not surprising that lovers of the world who found
their aspirations expressed in words like these should have
felt that the older ideal of the Arhat was decidedly inferior
to their own. It was for this reason that they referred to
the older method of salvation as the Lesser Vehicle, and called
the new devotion which inspired them the Greater Vehicle.
There is no doubt that they exaggerated the contrast between
the two ideals-and that some western writers have done the
The Arhat who really understood the teachings of
the Tathagata in their fulness, with its denial of a separate
individual self and with the illustration of his own limitless
devotion, was a Bodhisattva in spirit. One need only recall
Purna and his eagerness to go as a missionary to the Western
Suner. But Purnas are always rare, and there can be no
doubt that the tendency of the Hinayana was toward self-
centeredness, in spite of the Anatta doctrine, and that the
new emphasis of the Mahayana marked a real advance in the
widening and socializing of the actual interests of Buddhism.
It is seldom possible for a Buddhist thinker to believe in
the importance of a being or condition without proceeding
Gall
22
Barnett's trans. of Santi-deva's The Path of Light (N. Y., Dutton, 1909), pp. 45,
88-89. Somewhat condensed.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
221
to subject it to minute analysis and systematization. Even in
late Hinayana writings the concept of the Bodhisattva began
to be developed in scholastic fashion, and the procedure was
carried on in great detail by Mahayana writers. The Maha-
23 in
vastu, a late Hinayana work, gives a list of ten stages
the progress of the Bodhisattva, and the same number is re-
tained, with modifications in detail, by the Mahayana au-
thorities. According to the theory thus elaborated, the
disciple enters upon the course of the Bodhisattva by taking
the vow not to forsake his fellow creatures but to preach the
Dharma (Sanskrit form of Dhamma), comfort the afflicted,
and accumulate merit through many incarnations for the
use of others, and not to enter into Nirvana till all are res-
cued. He feels now that he is born into the family of the
Buddha, that he is "a seed of the Buddha,” “a son of the
Buddha." 24 During the following six stages he cultivates
the six Paramitas or characteristic virtues, namely, gen-
erosity, morality (both negative and positive), patience,
energy, meditation, wisdom or insight. At the eighth stage,
the doctrine teaches, he is certain of achieving the final goal:
a doctrine comparable to the Presbyterian belief in "the per-
severance of the saints." He now could, if he chose, enter
at once into Nirvana, but with the encouragement of the
Buddhas he denies himself and continues on his course, that
he may be the more helpful to the suffering and ignorant
world. On reaching the tenth stage he becomes almost equal
to the Buddhas. The Buddhas consecrate him and he ac-
quires various supernatural powers. He receives the excel-
lent Rain of the True Law, and having become himself a
Cloud of the Law, he sends upon needy creatures the good
rain which lays the dust of the passions and causes the growth
of the harvest of merits.25
It is not surprising that a being at once so powerful, so
merciful, and so active as the fully developed Bodhisattva
23 See La Vallée Poussin's article "Boddhisattva in H. E. R. E.
21
It was important for scholastic theory to determine upon the exact moment at
which the individual crossed the line, so to speak, and became a Bodhisattva. Vasu-
bandhu defines this as the moment at which he commences to perform the acts which
have for their retribution the thirty-two marks of Bodhisattvahood. See his "Abhi-
dharmakosa," trans. by La Vallée Poussin, III (Paris, Geutner, 1924), 220-21.
25
La Vallée Poussin, article "Bodhisattva," H. E. R. E., II. See also S. Schayer,
Mahayana Doctrines of Salvation (London, Probsthain, 1923), Part III.
222
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
should be besieged by the prayers of the needy and should
become an object of worship with many of the faithful. In
fact, to quote La Vallée Poussin, "Chandrakirti says in so
many words that, just as the new moon is celebrated and not
the full moon, so must the Bodhisattvas be worshiped and
not the Buddhas, even though the latter are of greater dig-
nity. The Buddhas have more majesty, the Bodhisattvas
more influence." 26
It will be gathered from what I have said that the term
Bodhisattva covers so large a number of volunteer saviors
as to be a bit indefinite. According to Mr. R. F. Johnston,
"At the present time the vows of a bodhisattva are taken
every year by scores of newly ordained monks who there-
after (at least in China) are respectfully addressed by their
disciples and novices as Ta-pusa (great Bodhisattva)." 27
Several historical scholars and saints are recognized as
Bodhisattvas. But the term usually connotes, in the ears of
the Mahayanist, a being far excelling, in wisdom and power,
anything that can properly be called human. The great
Bodhisattvas who are objects of worship may once have been
human, just as many of the Buddhas have been human; but
the days of their earthly pilgrimage are so many kotis of
kalpas ago that they are really quite as exalted above the
earth as are the devas of Hinduism. In the eyes of the devout
Buddhist they are, of course, immeasurably superior to the
devas.
These heavenly Bodhisattvas are, like the Buddhas, innu-
merable. Yet there are certain members of this heavenly
cloud of witnesses who have been singled out for special
reverence. As Eliot has shown, the development of these
personifications of Buddhist moral ideals into beings which
in other religions would have been called gods ran quite
parallel with a similar movement within Hinduism. Hindu
and Buddhist neighbors all over India were feeling the same
need and satisfying it in much the same way.
So far as we can judge, the figures of these Bodhisattvas took shape
just about the same time that the personalities of Vishnu and Siva were
acquiring consistency. The impulse in both cases is the same, namely, the
26 Article "Adibuddha," H. E. R. E., I.
27 Buddhist China (London, Murray, 1913), p. 76.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
223
desire to express in a form accessible to human prayer and sympathetic
to human emotion the forces which rule the universe. But in this work
of portraiture the Buddhists laid more emphasis on moral and spiritual
law than did the Brahmans; they isolated in personification qualities not
found isolated in nature.28
A group of eight of these prominent Bodhisattvas 29 has
been singled out by Buddhist art and thus made famous
beyond their fellows. And quite aside from all recognized
groups, there are five (in addition to Maitreya) who have
become in China and Japan especially popular. A word
should be said of each of these, in order to introduce to the
reader in their ancient form and under their Sanskrit names.
this circle of venerated beings with whom he will become
better acquainted if he ever goes to China and Japan or ever
reaches the chapters in this book which deal with those lands.
The most important of all the Bodhisattvas are Avalo-
kitesvara and Manjusri, personifications of the two great
Buddhist virtues mercy and wisdom. The origin of each is
shrouded in mystery. Some scholars think it probable that
Avalokitesvara had an actual human origin-some great
saint who lived near Potala, which was either near the mouth
of the Indus or in Southern India. No one would maintain
that this hypothesis could possibly be verified. The Bodhi-
sattva may equally well have been borrowed from some
popular figure of Indian mythology. Beal's guess that he
originated from some deity of Southern Arabia has little to
support it.30 The name means "he who looks down"-pre-
sumably in pity. He has compassion on every form of suffer-
ing, saves from every kind of ill, gives all sorts of good
things, notably children, and is closely associated with the
merciful Amitabha. He seems to have been popular in India
a little before the Christian era 31 and until the seventh cen-
28
20
CHA
Buddhism and Hinduism, II, 12.
These eight are the following: Avalokitesvara, Aksagarbha, Vajrapani, Kshiti-
garbha, Sarvanirvana-vishkambhin, Maitreya, Samantabhadra, Manjusri. See Getty,
pp. 42-99.
30 See his Chinese Buddhism (London, Society for Promoting Christian Literature,
1884), Chap. XI. Beal is typical of a school of writers on Buddhism who seem to
think it necessary to derive Buddhist divinities from some foreign source as if there
were not thirty-three million gods in India to choose from.
31 Getty, p. 54.
Sta
224
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
tury he was one of the most prominent figures in Indian
Mahayana Buddhism. His principal development, however,
has been in China and Japan, where we shall meet him again
under the names Kwan-Yin and Kwannon, and usually
metamorphosed into the opposite sex, as the "goddess of
mercy.'
در
Manjusri, as I have said, is the symbol and personification
of wisdom, knowledge, meditation.32 It is he to whom
Arhats and even Bodhisattvas appeal for information and in-
struction. He is thus unusually equipped, in part, presum-
ably because of his innate intellectual powers, in part because
of his long experience and perfect memory. He has been a
follower of the Buddhas and a listener to their expositions
for a longer time than many of the Buddhas themselves.
Many kotis of kalpas before the appearance of Dipankara,
the first Buddha on the list of twenty-five, Manjusri was
already learned in the Law.33 As the representative of the
intellectual side of Buddhism rather than of its emotional
aspect, he never holds the power over men's hearts possessed
by Avalokitesvara or Amitabha. He commands respect
rather than love. But so large is the intellectual element in
Buddhism that among the great Bodhisattvas he ranks easily
second. In China he is known as Wen-Shu, in Japan as
Monju.34
The three other Bodhisattvas who deserve mention in this
place can be passed over briefly, as their chief development is
in China and Japan. The name Kshitigarbha means "recep-
tacle of the earth," or "womb of the earth," and some schol-
ars think that he is a Mahayanist transformation of the
Vedic earth goddess Prithivi or of some other ancient god-
dess of the earth. He seems never to have been very popular
in India and his worship was relatively late. The stories told
in China of his former births probably originated either
toward the close of Indian Buddhism or perhaps in China
itself. He is much more popular in China today, as Ti-tsang,
than ever he was in the land of his origin; but it is especially
Asia.
32 Both Levi and Eliot think it probable Manjusri may have originated in Central
W
1
39 Cf. the Lotus, Chap. I.
34
For further details concerning Manjusri as well as concerning the manner of his
representation in art, see Bhattacharyya, Indian Buddhist Iconography, Chap. II.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
225
in Japan, under the name of Jizo, that he attains the climax
of his greatness.
Samantabhadra seems to have held a higher place in the
esteem of the Indian Mahayana than did Kshitigarbha. He
was the first of the Dhyani Bodhisattvas and represented uni-
versal kindness and the highest intelligence-combining thus
the characteristics of both Avalokitesvara and Manjusri. He
is commonly associated with Manjusri in art, their images
being frequently placed side by side, or on the two sides of
Amitabha. In China he is known as P'u-hien; in Japan as
Fu-gen.
Mahasthanaprapta, as his name declares, is "he who has
obtained great strength." He is sometimes spoken of as the
deification of Gotama's famous disciple Moggallana.35 He
was of no great importance in India, nor is he often met with
in China, but in Japan he is a common figure, as Daiseishi,
where he is grouped with Amida and Kwannon.
In connection with the Bodhisattvas should be mentioned
two other classes of advanced spiritual beings, all or nearly
all of whom are human or once were human. These are the
Arhats or Sravakas and the Pratyekabuddhas. A Pratyeka-
buddha is one who had been a learner and follower of some
Buddha in a previous incarnation, yet did not succeed during
the life of that Buddha in attaining arhatship, and who in a
later birth, while no Buddha exists in the flesh, succeeds by
solitary meditation in attaining complete enlightenment and
who thereupon enters Nirvana without attempting, as the
perfect Buddhas or Buddha saviors do, to pass on the enlight-
enment to others. The Pratyekabuddha is therefore con-
trasted with the Bodhisattva in much the same way as is the
ordinary Arhat: both are thought of as relatively self-
centered. The Pratyekabuddha is a lonely and solitary,
meditative figure who emphatically "wanders alone like a
rhinoceros." He differs from the Arhat, however, in that he
attains to enlightenment not through the direct teaching of
a Buddha but by the ripening of much accumulated merit
and by his own meditation which develops a seed planted long
long ago by some ancient Buddha.36
35 Getty, p. 100.
30
See La Vallée Poussin's article "Pratyckabuddha" in H. E. R. E., X.
226
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The word Sravaka is sometimes used as synonymous with
Arhat, but more often it has the additional connotation of
indicating a preacher of the truth. It is sometimes limited
in its application to what one might call the Fathers of the
Church-the early Arhats who gained enlightenment under
Sakyamuni and who carried on the spreading of the new
Gospel. Quite as often it is used to refer to the doctors of
the Hinayana; in fact, the word Hinayana is synonymous
and interchangeable with the vehicle of the Sravakas.
The word Arhat means, in general, the same thing in
Mahayana as in Hinayana. Not long after Kanishka's time
-possibly earlier certain traditional Arhats were singled
out for special honor. We have seen that in some Hinayana
lands images of Sariputta and Moggallana-the two most
prominent of Gotama's disciples up to the time of their death
—are often placed on the two sides of the Buddha image in
the temples. In China this honor is given to the two other
great Arhats, Kassapa and Ananda-the two favorite dis-
ciples at the time of the Master's death, and the first two
patriarchs-for it will be remembered that Sariputta and
Moggallana preceded the Tathagata into Parinirvana. An
early Mahayana tradition relates that Sakyamuni at his death
commissioned four great Sravakas to remain in the world as
guardians of the law till the coming of Maitreya.a
A more
popular tradition and one with wider consequences asserts
that this commission was given not to four but to sixteen
Sravakas and these are sometimes spoken of as the Arhats,
par excellence. The earliest literary reference to them is in
a Sanskrit Sutra of the fourth century 38 or earlier, which
speaks of them incidentally thus: "There are the Arhats
Pindola, Rahula, and similar men, sixteen in all, all great
Sravakas who lived scattered about in all the dvipas [re-
gions]." Another Sutra 39 tells us that "When the Buddha
was about to enter into Parinirvana he entrusted the Su-
37
$17 These four are Kasyapa (= Kassapa), Kundopadhaniya, Pindola, and Rahula.
Miss Getty identifies the Kasyapa of this tradition, not with the great Sravaka but
with the Buddha of the same name. Op. cit., p. 14. But see de Visser, Ostasiatische
Zeitschrift, IV.
38 The Mahayanavataraka Sastra, which was translated into Chinese during the Liang
dynasty (397-439 A.D.).
30 The Record of the Abiding of the Law, trans. into Chinese by Hiuen-Tsiang in
654.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
227
preme Law to the sixteen great Arhats and their followers,
ordering them to protect and maintain it and prevent its
being extinguished." Pindola and Rahula again are named
among this number. Pindola, I should explain, was one of
the personal disciples of the Buddha and had been
rebuked by him for a vain display of supernatural
These six-
powers. 40
Rahula was the Buddha's son.
teen Arhats "by means of their transcendental knowl-
edge lengthen their own lives. As long as the Supreme
Law shall remain in the world they shall always protect and
maintain it." When at length knowledge of the Law shall
be extinguished in this world, they shall assemble, shall col-
lect the relics of the Tathagata's ashes, and shall together
enter Parinirvana. And after that Maitreya shall come.
There is another and less famous group of Arhats that
should be mentioned in passing, namely the Five Hundred
Arhats. These are referred to by Hiuen-Tsiang, and in his
time were believed to inhabit the caves of the Buddhavana-
giri. Not much is known about them, but they seem to have
been suggested by and may have been identified with the
Five Hundred Arhats of the First Council. It seems probable
that they too were to await the extinction of the Law or
the coming of Maitreya. Both the Sixteen and the Five
Hundred Arhats loom rather large in China and have some
importance in Korea and Japan.
41
As the coming of Maitreya forms the climax of all these
Arhat traditions, something further should be said of it
here. We have already seen that the hope of Maitreya's com-
ing forms a living part of the Buddhist faith in Hinayana as
well as in Mahayana lands. The Mahayana, however, has
developed the thought in much greater detail than the Hina-
yana. Ernst Leumann 42 has analyzed five early accounts of
G
C
40 To show his magic power ("Iddhi") Pindola once rose high in air, circled round,
and seized a sandalwood bowl, which a rich layman had elevated on several long bamboo
poles. The layman was much impressed and presented the bowl to Pindola. When the
Buddha heard of it he rebuked Pindola for using the sacred power of Iddhi merely to
show off before laymen and "for the sake of a miserable wooden pot." See Kullavagga
of the Vinaya V. 8.
41 The account I have given of the four, sixteen, and five hundred Arhats is based
chiefly on M. W. de Visser's article, "The Arhats in China and Japan," Ostasiatischè
Zeitschrift, I-IV, 1920-23, and Watters, The Eighteen Lohans of Chinese Buddhist
Temples (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1899).
4.
Maitreya-samiti, des Zukunftsideal der Buddhisten (Strassburg, Trübner, 1919).
228
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the future reign of this Buddhist Messiah, all of which are in
substantial agreement, the description being put, as a proph-
ecy, into the mouth of Sakyamuni. When Maitreya arrives
prosperity shall fill the earth. There shall be large quantities
of fragrant rice and many lotus ponds. Seed time shall come
only once a year but harvest ten times. There shall be
abundance of rain but it will rain at night only. The earth
shall be full of good men, of blessed and believing men who
have put off their sins. The length of man's life shall be
eighty thousand years, and girls shall be given in marriage
at the age of five hundred. Many other details are given,
similar in effect. Soon after his coming, Maitreya shall go
with a great following to the mountain where the First
Patriarch, the great Sravaka Kassapa is now hidden, waiting
through the ages. The mountain shall remove itself
and all shall see the ancient saint, sitting within the deep
opening, wrapt in contemplation. He then shall fall
at the feet of Maitreya, and after some conversation shall
perform various miracles, and Maitreya shall preach a
typically Buddhist sermon, saying that the most impor-
tant things are not miracles but virtue, wisdom, and
mercy.
Kassapa's ability to prolong his contemplation, perfectly
oblivious to everything else, through the long ages till Mai-
treya comes, is one of the marks of his Buddhistic perfection.
The use of meditation and contemplation leading even to
trance was one of the things which Gotama borrowed from
the Hinduism of his day and recommended to his disciples
as a useful mode of cultivating the spiritual freedom which
he and they so highly prized. Both the Hinayana and the
Mahayana have continued these practices which are as an-
cient and as Indian as the Vedas. This effort to produce by
carefully devised methods certain desirable forms of psycho-
sis is typical of every form of Buddhism, with its constant
emphasis on the subjective state and the inner life. The
Hinayana monks, as we have seen, still have their methods
of contemplation; and the Mahayana monks have made even
more of the practice than have their southern brethren.
There is, thus, a continuous and unbroken tradition from the
munis of the Rig Veda, through Gotama and his Sravakas, to
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
229
the Dhyani sect of the Mahayana, Bodhidharma, the Ch’an of
China, and the Zen of Japan.
A distinctly allied phenomenon of Buddhism as a religion
is to be found in the development of the emotional side of the
religious consciousness within the Mahayana. This has its
roots, indeed, within the earliest days of the Buddhist church,
when emotional loyalty to the living Master, and later on to
his blessed memory, became the first condition of church
membership, as we might call it, and of salvation. For the
first of the Three Refuges is in the Buddha. As his mighty
figure gained in power over men's imaginations through the
mists of the receding years, and as reverence for him grew
into something like worship, the increasing importance of
this emotional loyalty within Buddhism found itself rein-
forced through the influence of the rise of the Bhakti sects 43
in Hinduism. For it was during the four centuries that im-
mediately surrounded the beginning of the Christian era, i.e.,
between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D., that the devotional and emo-
tional movement arose which sought salvation through the
grace of Siva and of Vishnu and through faith in and love
for these great Hindu devas; and it was in just these centuries.
that the Mahayana was forming. The thing was in the air.
Both popular Hinduism and popular Buddhism were longing
for a means of salvation less sternly intellectual than the
teachings of the Sravakas or the abstractions of the slowly-
forming Vedanta. It was perhaps the inevitable association
of Sakyamuni with the more intellectual side of Buddhism
that, in spite of the unfailing loyalty always felt for him,
made him a less suitable figure for this purely emotional type
of religion to center round than were the non-historical and
more easily molded figures of Amitabha and some of the
heavenly Bodhisattvas. It was, at any rate, to them, rather
than to the Founder, that this new evangelical type of
Buddhism ardently clung. Some of the Mahayana devotional
books are full of hymns and prayers of adoration and aspira-
tion which recall the Bhagavad Gita and the hymns of the
later Shaivite mystics. For example this, from the Bodhi-
caryavatara: "I have no health in me. I am poor. I have
43
Those sects, that is, which worshiped a personal deity with emotional loyalty and
trusted for salvation to faith and grace.
230
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
nothing in the world with which to express my adoration.
But in their great charity toward me may the Protectors
themselves accept my offering. I give myself to the Buddhas
with all my heart and all I have and also to their sons [the
Bodhisattvas]. Take possession of me, Sublime Beings. I
adore you and I vow to be your slave." 44
-
This new sense of devotion was associated (as it was in
the Hindu Bhakti sects) with a new belief as to the method
of salvation. Gotama had said, as the final summary of his
doctrine, "Work out your own salvation with diligence,
and the Hinayana Sravakas had taught that no outside as-
sistance save that of instruction could help one in the
struggle. But Amitabha and many of the merciful Bodhi-
sattvas of the Mahayana had been busy these endless kotis of
kalpas piling up merit which (by the new discovery of the
times) was transferable and therefore available by any poor
sinner who earnestly centered his thought upon these mas-
ters of mercy. The Larger Sukhavati Vyuha (written before
148 A.D.) holds out the hope of Amitabha's assistance in
gaining salvation, but in what was probably its original form
(as found in the extant Sanskrit text), it still demands for
salvation a considerable amount of the usual Buddhist re-
quisites. A change in the conception of one school of the
Mahayana is reflected in what appears to be a slightly later
recension 45 of this important scripture in which the famous
eighteenth vow of Amitabha is modified so as to bring in the
conception that nothing is needed for salvation but faith in
him. This conception of salvation by faith is made more
explicit by the (somewhat later) Smaller Sukhavati Vyuha
which says, in speaking of Amitabha's Paradise, "Beings are
not born in that Buddha country as a reward and result of
good works performed in this present life. No, all men and
women who hear and bear in mind for one, two, three, four,
five, six, or seven nights the name of Amitayus [Amitabha]
when they come to die, Amitayus will stand before them in
در
Quoted by La Vallée Poussin in Bouddhisme, Etudes et Matériaux, London, Luzac,
1898.
45 The Sanskrit original of this no longer exists. It was translated into Chinese in
252 A.D. and it is this version of the Sukhavati which forms the basis of the present
Pure Land sects of China and Japan. See J. W. Ingles, "The Vows of Amida," Journal
of the No. China Branch of the R. A. S., XLVIII, 1-11.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
231
the hour of death, they will depart this life with quiet minds,
and after death they will be born in Paradise." 48
This Paradise of Amitabha is described in glowing colors
and with an appeal to desires not indeed evil in themselves.
according to our western view, but of a sort which the or-
iginal Buddhism would have regarded as hindrances to spiri-
tual liberation. At first the Western Paradise, the "Pure
Land" of Amitabha, seems to have been regarded merely as
a stepping stone to Nirvana, a place in which Nirvana might
easily be attained. Later on, and in the more popular mind,
the thought of Nirvana was often lost from sight and the
Western Paradise of Amitabha took its place-just as the
personal presence of Vishnu-Krishna in the Gita takes the
place of the total absorption of the individual in the Brah-
man of the Upanishads. This new conception of the ulti-
mate destiny of the soul and of the new and evangelical
method by which it is to be attained, though it originated
in India, was never so popular there as it has since become in
China and Japan.
If one contrasts this new point of view concerning salva-
tion and heaven with the austere teachings of the Buddha
and of the Hinayana Sravakas, one sees that it is a component
part of the general tendency that invented the Bodhisattvas,
multiplied the Buddhas, and substituted worship and prayer
for lonely contemplation. The Hinayana was for monks
chiefly; the Mahayana is for everyone. As we shall see in the
next chapter, it has its abstruse philosophy for the thinker,
but it has something also for the simplest and even for the
most superstitious. It believes in milk for babes, and meat for
only strong men. It practices, sometimes unconsciously, some-
times very consciously and explicitly, an elaborate pedagogi-
cal method. Its thinkers were well aware of Hegel's distinc-
tion between religion and philosophy at least sixteen hundred
years before Hegel was born. The truths of philosophy need
not be studied in their abstruse form by the beginner; for
him the simpler and symbolic figures that speak to the imagi-
nation may well suffice. Hence the Mahayana made a popu-
lar appeal that the Hinayana found difficult. This greater
appeal to the world was largely brought about by a change
40
§ 10 Max Müller's trans. (slightly abbreviated), S. B. E., XLIX. 98-99.
232
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
in the world itself. The India of Kanishka's time was no
longer the India of Gotama. The ideal of the passive saint,
spurning the world and overcoming his passions in solitude,
no longer fascinated as it once had done the Indian imagina-
tion. The Church in vain affirmed its disdain of the world:
it lived with the world, reflected it, was inspired by it and
accommodated itself to it." 47 In the words of Coomaras-
wamy, "the development of the Mahayana is the overflowing
of Buddhism over the limits of the Order into the life of the
world." 48
Thus Buddhism became a religion for the layman quite
as much as for the monk. As the Bodhisattva took the place
in men's imaginations of the Arhat, so the householder took
the place of the hermit; so the old fear of the world, the flee-
ing from the world was replaced by the desire to live in the
world, while yet being not of the world. The ancient em-
phasis upon the inward life was not abandoned, but inward-
ness was given a new application. One of the ideals for
human life cherished by the Mahayana is still indeed the
holy monk; but the godly and efficient layman it admires
no less: as exemplified, for example, in the figure of Vimala-
kirti as described in a Sanskrit work that goes by his name.
This wealthy householder, it tells us, resided at Vaisali, but
S
49
only for the sake of the necessary means for saving creatures; abundantly
rich, ever careful of the poor, pure in self-discipline, obedient to all pre-
cepts, removing all anger by the practice of patience, removing all sloth
by the practice of diligence, removing all distractions of mind by intent.
meditation, removing all ignorance by fullness of wisdom; though he was
but a simple layman yet observing the pure monastic discipline; though
living at home, yet never desirous of anything; though possessing a wife
and children, always exercising pure virtues; though surrounded by his
family holding aloof from worldly pleasures; though using the jewelled
ornaments of the world, yet adorned with spiritual splendour; though
eating and drinking yet enjoying the flavour of the rapture of meditation;
though frequenting the gambling house, yet leading the gamblers into the
right path; though coming in contact with heresy, yet never letting his
"Sylvain Levi, in the introduction to his translation of Asanga's Mahayana Sutra-
lamkara, II, 17.
48
Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism (N. Y., Putnams, 1916), p. 228.
40
The Vimalakirti-nirdesa, called in English, "Vimalakirti's Discourse on Emancipa-
tion." The Sanskrit original is lost, but it was translated into Chinese sometime be-
tween 188 and 907 A.D. Professor Idumi, from whose English translation I quote,
points out that the original must have antedated Nagarjuna, since he refers to it.
THE RISE OF THE MAHAYANA
233
true faith be impaired; though having a profound knowledge of worldly
learning yet ever finding pleasure in the things of the spirit as taught by
the Buddha; though profiting by all professions, yet far above being ab-
sorbed by them; benefiting all beings, going wheresoever he pleases; ever
teaching the young and ignorant when entering the hall of learning;
manifesting to all the error of passion when in the house of debauchery;
persuading all to seek the higher things when at the shop of the wine-
dealer; preaching the Law when among wealthy people; teaching the
Kshatriyas patience; removing arrogance when among Brahmans; teach-
ing justice to the great ministers; teaching loyalty and filial piety to the
princes; teaching honesty to the ladies of the court; persuading the masses
to cherish virtue.5 50
The figure of Vimalakirti as thus presented has much in
common with that of the Founder; for though Gotama left
his family and renounced the world, his life was by no means
that of the ascetic or hermit. He mingled much among men,
visited all sorts of people in their homes, conversed on easy
terms with harlots, was in a sense a friend of publicans and
sinners. But too many a Hinayana writer drew from that
life only the example of retirement from the world, the cut-
ting of the ties. To the figure of Vimalikirti it is a far cry
from the ideal of the ancient anchorite who "wanders alone
like a rhinoceros."
60
50 Trans. by Professor Hokei Idumi in The Eastern Buddhist, III, 138-39.
CHAPTER XII
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA
IT will be recalled that Gotama had always carefully
avoided purely theoretical questions and had earnestly
warned his disciples against all metaphysical discussion that
did not bear directly on the moral life. It was hardly to be
expected, however, that so metaphysically minded a people
as the Indians could be permanently restrained by this an-
cient veto from following out their insatiable urge to specu-
lation. The surprising thing, in fact, is that the veto was
respected by so many of them, and that the Hinayana is still
so largely obedient to it. But early even within Hinayana
history attempts were made to reason out some of the prob-
lems which the Blessed One had not elucidated; and as
Buddhism made increasing numbers of converts from Brah-
min thinkers, it was inevitable that the almost universal In-
dian insistence upon metaphysical inquiry should more and
more make itself felt within the fold. That the conversion
of thinkers already saturated with Hindu metaphysics and
accustomed to theoretical speculation through half a life-
time of training must have had its effect upon Buddhism is
obvious enough. Nor are we left to merely a priori proba-
bility in this matter. The traditions that cluster round As-
vaghosha and Nargarjuna, round Asanga and Vasubandhu
may be in their particular application untrustworthy. But
it is not without significance that all of these men, the four
great founders of the Mahayana, should have been closely
associated by tradition with Brahmanism.¹
MAG
When men like these came over into the Buddhist fold
they found an intellectual freedom which converts to Chris-
tianity or Mohammedanism or Judaism have seldom enjoyed.
The Tripitaka (the Buddhist canon), to be sure, was deeply
Gam
1 Both Asvaghosha and Nargarjuna are said to have been converted to Buddhism
from Brahmanism; and the father of Asanga and Vasubandhu was a Brahmin.
234
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 235
reverenced, but there was no doctrine of its literal inspira-
tion or final authority. It was unthinkable that all the truth
the Omniscient One had to give was contained within these
relatively simple books. His revelation, it was felt, must be
understood to include not merely the literal teachings found
in these books but also all that reason could find implicated
by them. By the more daring of these new Buddhist thinkers,
the ancient teaching in its literal form was regarded as purely
provisional and preparatory. I need hardly add that this
new presentation of Buddhist thought associated itself with
the new ideal and with the new attitude toward the many
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas dealt with in the preceding chap-
ter, and that the three when combined grew into a kind of
Buddhism sufficiently distinct from the old to be recognized
by a separate name. Together they constituted the Maha-
yana. The more conservative and less speculative thinkers
remained within the narrower limits of the Hinayana.
Yet it must not be supposed that Mahayana thought came
out of the blue or descended suddenly from the Tusita
heaven, nor that it was imported wholly from Brahmanism.
That it was influenced by Brahman philosophy and also by
Hindu Bhakti there can be little doubt; but it had its roots
in the teachings of the Founder and developed naturally out
of the Hinayana. To understand how this came about it
will be necessary to dip into some of the developments of
Hinayana thought a tangled skein which I have tried to
spare the reader. There were many Hinayana schools. Most
of them were realistic in their philosophy and most of them
clung to the orthodox Anatta doctrine-the denial of a sub-
stantial self. Fortunately we need trouble ourselves with
only one of these schools-that of the Sautrantikas. These
thinkers accepted, as most other schools did, the ancient doc-
trine of impermanence, but analyzed it and made it specific.
The stream of consciousness, they maintained, was continu-
ous, but was composed of an endless number of momentary
pulses, or dharmas. These dharmas, or pulses of being, are
consecutive and never overlap: each drops out of existence
as its successor arises.2 Each is charged with the whole past
Each comes to an end spontaneously; its cessation is not caused by the act of its
See Vasubanhu's Abhidharmakosa, Chap. IV.
successor.
236
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and carries the influence of the past on into the future. The
reader will be reminded of Professor James' doctrine of the
self as a stream or succession of moments which follow each
other not in unbroken and seamless continuity but in cine-
matographic jumps, each of them being the heir of all its
predecessors and each of them a bridge between past and
future.3
The Sautrantika series of dharmas is infinite backwards
and will be infinite forwards unless ended by the destruction
of desire and the other Buddhist methods of salvation. The
ancient doctrine of causation was also retained, each dharma
being regarded as the cause of its successor. The kind of
causation here intended was, of course, the purely pheno-
menal sort, which in the West is associated with the name of
David Hume. A dharma does not act upon its successor,
for it no longer exists when its successor has come into being.
Causation holds between the successive dharmas in the Hu-
mean sense of invariable sequence. Not the action of a
given dharma but its being is causal for the next dharma.
That is the way the universe is made, and Buddhist pheno-
menalism does not ask why.
Since this series of momentary pulses or dharmas is con-
tinuous, the conception has some of the advantages of the re-
jected, non-Buddhist concept of a real self, yet it remains
loyal to the Anatta doctrine. The empirical facts of life are
capable of being expressed in terms of it. It also makes
transmigration without a self fairly intelligible, for the first
dharma of the new life is said to be caused by and to be con-
tinuous with the last dharma of the preceding life. Some
of the Sautrantika thinkers, moreover, applied their formula
not only to living and conscious beings but to the non-sen-
tient, material world. Material things they still regarded
realistically, as did nearly all Hinayana schools, but each ma-
terial thing was said to be merely a series of temporary ex-
istences. The jug which I now see is not the same jug that
I saw a moment ago, any more than I am the same as the one
who, a moment ago, saw it. Impermanence characterizes the
material world as thoroughly as it does the physical. But
3
See his Principles of Psychology, I, Chap. X.
Kh
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 237
continuity also characterizes both. The present jug came
from the preceding jug.
4
This Sautrantika view of the nature of being is of more
importance to us than most Hinayana doctrines because it
was at least one of the sources of a central part of Mahayana
thought. Nagarjuna who, with Asvaghosha is commonly
considered the founder of Mahayana philosophy and who
(tradition says) was won over from Brahmanism about 150
A.D., seems to have taken his starting point from the Sau-
trantika doctrine, or at least to have used it as a useful object
of criticism from which he might lead on to his own "Mad-
hyamika" philosophy. Like other Mahayana thinkers he
could not be satisfied with the phenomenalism, the positiv-
ism of the Hinayana. Such a succession of real dharmas as
the Sautrantikas maintained necessitated, in his opinion, some
real ground for them. Such a real ground for things would
be fatal to the Anatta doctrine, and would lead one on to the
conception of a real underlying self, comparable to the At-
man of the Vedanta. One might suppose that Nagarjuna
would therefore have concluded to the existence of a real
self. But the Anatta doctrine was too important to be sur-
rendered; so he took the opposite and incredibly daring
course of denying the reality of the dharmas altogether,
without putting anything in their place. The consequence
of this step, once fully understood, is enough to make a
Western reader gasp. It means that all things, whether con-
scious or material, are composed entirely of what is abso-
lutely unreal. The parts being unreal, the wholes which they
compose must be. Nothing is nothing is except the Void."
This Sunyata doctrine is the fundamental principle of the
Madhyamika philosophy.
G
C
Astonishing as is this position, it is by no means absolutely
unique. There are things in the philosophical teachings of
Zeno, Parmenides, Eucleides of Megara, of Plato and Plo-
tinus, and, in our own days, in Mr. Bradley's position, that
more or less closely resemble it. Nor did Nagarjuna and his
6
On Nagarjuna's date see Keith, op. cit., p. 228.
5
The Void was a conception already popular with earlier schools of Buddhism, but
with them it was chiefly an ethical term. See Carpenter, Buddhism and Christianity
(New York, Doran), p. 263.
"Cf. Inge's Plotinus (London, Longmans, 1918), pp. 107-12.
238
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
school base their view merely on the unquestioning accep-
tance of the Anatta doctrine and its consequences. In closely
reasoned works, rather strikingly like Part I of Bradley's
Appearances and Reality, Nagarjuna and his followers sub-
ject an impressive list of the concepts of common-sense and
philosophy to critical examination and conclude that they
are shot through with contradictions which make them un-
thinkable. Logic, moreover, for these thinkers is more
trustworthy than sight or touch. And they have the courage
of their convictions. They are sure the self-contradictory
cannot be real-appearances to the contrary notwithstand-
ing. In other words they would say, "If we are going to play
the game of philosophy at all, let us play it according to the
rules.'
7
در
8
Nagarjuna and his followers are willing to draw the con-
sequences. Not only are the objects of common belief dem-
onstrably unreal; the same bitter logic is carried out among
the most sacred of Buddhist concepts. In the Four Odes of
Nagarjuna, the writer sings of the Tathagata: "The per-
manent cannot transmigrate, nor can the impermanent:
Thou sayest that transmigration is but a dream." There is
nothing but the Void. "In this emptiness there is no form,
no perception, no name, no concepts, no knowledge. There
is no eye, ear, body, mind; no taste, touch, objects; no knowl-
edge, no ignorance, no destruction of ignorance, no decay, no
death, no Four Noble Truths, no obtaining of Nirvana." "
In the Vajrakkhedika or Diamond Cutter, perhaps the most
highly revered of all the Madhyamika scriptures, the Tatha-
gata is made to say: "As many beings as there are in the
world of beings must be delivered by me in the perfect world
of Nirvana. And yet when I have thus delivered innumer-
able beings, not one single being has been delivered by me.
And why? If a Bodhisattva had any idea or belief in a being
he could not be called a Bodhisattva.'
در
Gg.
'Cf. Nagarjuna's Madhyamika-sastra, trans. by Walleser under the title Die Mittlere
Lehre des Nagarjuna (Heidelberg, Winter, 1911); Santi-deva's Bodhicaryavatara, in
La Vallée Poussin's trans. (Paris, Blond, 1907), Chap. IX; Keith's summary of the
Madhyamika argument, op. cit., pp. 237-39; and Radhakrishnan's Indian Philosophy, I,
pp. 647-57.
B From La Vallée Poussin's French trans., Museon, XIV (N. S.) 1913.
0
The Smaller Prajna-Paramita-Sutra. In Max Müller's trans., S. B. E., XLIX, 153-54.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 239
Stars, darkness, a lamp, a phantom, dew, a bubble,
A dream, a flash of lightning and a cloud,
Thus should we look upon the world.¹0
10
It is difficult to determine just how literally the expres-
sions of the Madhyamika school should be interpreted. Pro-
fessor Suzuki argues that the term Sunyata or the void could
not have been meant to express absolute nothingness, and
that the Madhyamika system cannot rightly be termed a
form of nihilism. In support of his view he refers to the
use of terms concerning the highest truth which "convey
the sense of affirmation.”
What the Cunyata doctrine positively insists on [he tells us] is the
denial of sensationalism, and the annihilation of the imagination that
means a dualistic world conception. If this could be called a nihilism,
every intellectual attempt to reach a unitary view of the universe would
be nihilistic, for it declares the untenability of a separate existence of
matter and thought, me and not-me, etc.
11
Professor Radhakrishnan takes much the same view,
The whole show of Nagarjuna's logic [he writes] is a screen for his
heart, which believed in an absolute reality. The outer scepticism was in
the interests of the inner truth. Nature is an appearance, yet there is the
eternal foundation, the infinite, from which everything springs and into
which everything retires. Only when talking about it we must drop all
categories relative to our empirical life. . . . To attain truth we must
cast aside the conditions which are incompatible with truth. . . . To the
Madhyamikas reason and language apply only to the finite world. To
transfer the finite categories to the infinite would be like attempting to
measure the heat of the sun by the ordinary thermometer."
10 Sections III, XXXII, from Max Müller's trans., S. B. E., XLIX. 113-14, 144.
See Suzuki's trans. of Asvaghosha's Awakening of Faith (Chicago, Open Court,
1900), p. 58 note.
nan.
12 Indian Philosophy, I, pp. 656, 663. Professor Dasgupta, in his History of Indian
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1922), does not commit himself on the question how Nagarjuna
should be interpreted. McGovern takes much the same view as Suzaki and Radhakrish-
The doctrine of the Void, he says, "has been frequently totally misunderstood in
the West and taken to mean the theory of the non-existence of the Universe, or purely
Nihilistic Idealism. In reality Cunya is simply an insistence that all things have no self-
essence; that they are compounds, unstable organisms even in their elemental stage.
There is nothing that cannot be broken up until we reach the great transcendent reality
which is so absolute that it is wrong to say that it is or that it is not. This underlying
reality-the principle of eternal relativity, non-infinity-permeates all phenomena,
allowing expansion, growth, and evolution which would otherwise be impossible" (Introd.
to Mahayana Buddhism, London, Trübner, 1922, pp. 21-22).
Dr. Schayer takes a somewhat different point of view from either of those outlined
above. For him the Cunyata doctrine is related to the Buddha's original dislike of
purely theoretical discussion and is to be interpreted neither as a denial of the phenomenal
•
240
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
As opposed to this view both Professor La Vallée Poussin
and Professor Keith insist that the expressions of the Mad-
hyamika mean exactly what they say and only by special
pleading can be interpreted in any other sense than that of
nihilism. And, indeed, it would be hard to contrive modes
of expression by which a nihilistic view could be more explic-
itly and exactly. and persistently stated than the way in which
the Madhyamika books actually put it. The writers of these
books would seem to be bent on making sure that no one
should misunderstand them and that no one should water
down their courageous assertions. If it be possible to say that
only Nothing is, they have said it.
It may, however, be questioned whether it be possible to
say that only Nothing is. For a negation loses all meaning
without something positive to negate. The reality of any
particular fact or event or being may be denied; but when
you deny reality to all being you have defeated your own
purpose and have said nothing. Tell me, for example, that
there is no life beyond the grave and you trouble me; add
that there is no life on this side the grave either and you
comfort me, for now I see that you have made no assertion at
all about the thing I mean by life, and its reality. If all
reality is "emptiness" then "emptiness" turns out to be just
a new name for reality.
It is hard to believe that so obvious a thing as this was not
seen by such astute hair-splitters as Nagarjuna and his school.
And if this is the case it would be an argument for some-
thing like Suzuki's and Radhakrishnan's interpretation.
However that may be, the "Void" of the Madhyamika
thinkers certainly had a very different emotional connota-
tion for them than for us. The Void was real, and it meant
rest from multiplicity, from change and impermanence,
from effort and longing. The world of duality and of many
things was unreal, the little dharmas of which this world
was thought to be composed were unreal, the relations be-
tween things and the separateness and contrasts between
world (in any absolute sense) nor as an affirmation of a more fundamental Real below
the surface, but rather as a persistent refraining from judgment. It "in no way in-
volves a direct denial of objective existence but merely asserts its unimportance and its
emptiness" (Mahayana Doctrines of Salvation, p. 41).
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 241
-
finite beings-all these were unreal. This denial of multiplic-
ity was seemingly the important thing for the Madhyamika
school, whatever they may have thought of the problem of an
ultimate nihilism.
Yet not even Nagarjuna and his most extreme followers
cared to deny that the world of multiplicity had a certain
relative reality, nor that assertions about it possessed a cer-
tain relative truth. They made use, in fact, of a doctrine con-
cerning truth which was popular with all Mahayana thinkers
and with the Vedantists as well. According to this ancient
Indian view there are different levels of truth and reality-
a view almost identical with that held in the West by the
Hegelians and Neo-Hegelians of our time. It is, in fact, not
different in essentials from that expounded in Greece five
hundred years before Christ by the philosopher Parmenides,
nor very distant from Plato's view as expressed by the famous
illustration of the cave, in the Republic. The Madhyamika
form of this doctrine maintains that there are three levels of
truth or reality. The first is Absolute Truth or the Void.
Next to this comes the level of relative truth-this pheno-
menal world and our practical assertions and beliefs about
it. Finally there is the world of dreams and illusions. A
famous illustration of the differences between the three is
that of the monk with poor eyesight (or perhaps suffering
from hallucination) who sees hairs in his begging bowl,
when, as a fact, there are no hairs there. A man with normal
vision persuades the monk that there are no hairs in his bowl.
The monk still continues to suffer from his poor eyesight, he
still sees hairs in his bowl, but he now realizes that these
visual images are illusory, and that as a fact there are no hairs
in the bowl. His condition is now no longer that of complete
hallucination but of what western psychologists would call
pseudo-hallucination. The two conditions of the monk may
be used to illustrate the two lower levels of truth and reality.
The progress made by him after having been persuaded of
the non-reality of the hairs which he still sees illustrates
the advance made by the common man when he learns the
truth of the Madhyamika philosophy, but before he has gone
far on the road of the Bodhisattva. The philosopher knows
the truth, but is still under the illusion of the senses. He is
G
242
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
under illusion but not in error. He sees the hairs but denies
their reality. But the man of normal vision does not see
any hairs in the bowl at all, he does not have to deny their
existence for it never occurs to him to think of them. For
him they are not even an illusion. This man with the normal
eye illustrates the Buddha.13 The true knowledge which the
Buddha has is thus of a kind of not-knowing. It is the ab-
sence of all idea about the self or the material world or
change or motion or phenomena or ignorance. All asser-
tions about these things would be assertions about illusions,
and as such would seem to imply their reality and hence from
the point of view of absolute truth, they would be false. If
the reader, with this illustration in mind, will go back and
re-read the passages quoted on page 238 from the Smaller
Prajna-Paramita Sutra and the Diamond Cutter, the para-
doxes there expressed will, I think, appear in a different light.
The Madhyamika school, therefore, by no means leaves the
world of phenomena and multiplicity out of account any
more than the wise physician leaves out of account the il-
lusory vision of his patient. After all,
G
Dreams are true while they last:
And do we not live in dreams?
}}
The phenomenal world is ultimately unreal, but it is of
enormous practical importance even for the Madhyamika.
"It must be practically treated as if it were real." 14 And
the Madhyamika school is as much concerned with individual
salvation and as devout in its attitude toward the Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas as any other.15
The Madhyamika has had an immense influence on Ma-
hayana thought. This influence, however, has been largely
indirect. Its extreme and complete teaching has seldom been
accepted outside of India. A school that has had a much
more direct influence on the Mahayana of today was that
of the Yogacaras or Vijnanavadins. This school originated
18 Cf. La Vallée Poussin, Buddhism, pp. 192-95.
1-1
Keith, Buddhist Philosophy, p. 241.
15
I need only remind the reader that Santa-devi, whose noble words on the aspira-
tion of the Bodhisattva were quoted in the last chapter, was an enthusiastic member
of the Madhyamika school.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 243
during the renaissance of Indian thought that took place in
the fifth century A.D. under the famous dynasty of the
Guptas. The founders of the school, according to tradition,
were two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu by name-sons
of a Brahmin father. Early in life they became Hinayana
Buddhists. Asanga was the first of the two to feel dissatisfied
with the Lesser Vehicle, and, we are told, used the super-
natural powers gained by his study of it to rise into the Tusita
heaven, where he had an interview with Maitreya. Maitreya
converted him to the Mahayana; and he converted his
brother Vasubandhu. In Asanga there seem to have united
several diverse influences. His home was Purushapuru, the
modern Peshawer, a place where, in the fifth century, many
forms of thought, Indian and foreign, confronted each
other. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, possibly Christianity, and
probably Manichaeism, and various Hellenistic views, all were
represented, and probably had some influence on the develop-
ing thought of the young philosopher. But the Indian and
distinctively Buddhist influences were far more influential
with him than the foreign ones. Among these Indian influ-
ences should especially be mentioned Yoga, the ancient
method for the cultivation of the psychical powers and
the ancient confidence in the declarations of the mystic in-
tuition, which loomed so large in Brahmanism and were given
so important a place by Gotama himself and in the Hinayana
school which followed him. The developing Vedanta phil-
osophy also must have had its influence upon Asanga and his
brother. But most directly of all they probably felt the logic
of Nagarjuna and his Madhyamika school.18
H
G
It is, in fact, from the Madhyamika that the Yogacara
philosophy starts. To a great extent Asanga and his brother
accept the doctrine of the Void. The phenomenal world of
duality and multiplicity is an illusion. But to assert the
reality of the Void seems necessarily to imply the conception
of something which is void. If there is emptiness there must
be something which is empty. 17 Hence the Yogacara school
10 In this description of the influences at work in the formation of Asanga's thought
I have followed Levi's introduction to his translation of Asanga's Mahayana Sutralam-
kara.
17 "For vacuity to be a justifiable position we must first have the existence of that
which is empty, and then the non-existence of that by the absence of which it is empty;
244
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
18
concludes that there is not only a Void but also some kind of
a "container." Moreover, if one asserts that the phenomenal
world is an illusion one cannot stop there. A mere illusion
is unthinkable. It cannot stand by itself. There must be
some consciousness (not necessarily a personal one) which is
under illusion, or the illusion could not be. Illusion implies
some form of consciousness. To reinforce these a priori con-
siderations, Asanga was not without empirical evidence. He
was not only a philosopher, but like most Buddhist philoso-
phers he was a psychologist as well, and his psycho-analysis
seemed to provide him with just the concept needed. Buddh-
ist psychology had long recognized six kinds of conscious-
ness or Vijnana, namely one connected with each of the
senses, and a more general form related to the Manas or mind
as each of the five others is related to its respective sense or-
gan. Now Asanga insisted that further refinement of
analysis was needed. To the six forms of Vijnana or aware-
ness already recognized he added a seventh and an eighth.
The seventh is that whose function it is to distinguish be-
tween the self and the not-self. But it is the eighth Vijnana
that chiefly concerns us, for it may be called almost the
cornerstone of the Yogacara philosophy and it was the door
to one of the most important subsequent developments of the
Mahayana. Asanga called it the Alaya-vijnana, which means
"repository consciousness," for it includes or is basal to all
the other forms of awareness. It is from it that the alterna-
tive name of the Yogacara school, the Vijnanavadin, is de-
rived. In Levi's opinion, Asanga concluded to this deeper
form of awareness because of his experience with Yoga.
His analysis "discovers under the incessant flux of pheno-
mena a new sensation, the sensation of the profound Alaya-
vijnana, the permanent reservoir whence emerge the acquired
effects while they wait the hour of their transformation into
causes. It is not a person, it is not an ego, it is the affirmation
of the being which is involved in all our judgments and all
-
but if neither exists, how can there be vacuity?" From the Sarvasiddhanta Sarasam-
graha, quoted by Radhakrishnan, op. cit., p. 628. See also Keith, p. 244.
18
For an exposition of this portion of Buddhist psychology see any of the following:
McGovern, Manual of Buddhist Philosophy, I (Cosmology) (London, Kegan Paul),
1923, pp. 89-96; Keith, Buddhist Philosophy, pp. 84-91; Mrs. Rhys-Davids, Buddhist
Psychology, pp. 52-56.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 245
our sensations." 19 It is distantly comparable to the Subcon-
scious of James and Myers.
It is this Alaya-vijnana, this most basal and impersonal
form of awareness, which careful psycho-analysis discovers
under or within all our variegated conscious states, it is this
that is presupposed by the Void and its illusions. This is the
container, this is the Real, and from it flow all the other
forms and all the content of our minds. Itself is devoid of
all distinctions and all characters and qualities. If we may
apply to it a term from Western philosophy, it seems to be
pure awareness. Thus the Yogacara school, taking the seem-
ing nihilism of the Madhyamika, turned it into an idealism.
The material world, the world of multiplicity, has thus
only relative and derived reality. It is the product of our
minds, which in turn are the product of the pure awareness
at the basis of our conscious lives. This alone is ultimately
real. The particular things and events of the so-called ob-
jective world are merely content of consciousness. They are
produced by our imagination.20 Ultimately therefore all
C
19 Levi's Introd. of his trans. of Asanga, p. 20.
20 Comme un Trompe-l'œil, ainsi s'explique l'Imagination de ce qui n'existe pas;
comme l'effet d'un Trompe-l'oeil s'explique Perreur de dualité.
"Comme un Trompe-l'œil, comme un Signe d'Erreur, morceau de bois, motte de
terre, etc., traité par des formules d'enchantement, telle est l'Imagination inexistante,
c'est-à-dire la Nature Imaginaire. Comme l'effet d'un Trompe-l'oeil, comme une figure
d'elephant, de cheval, d'or, etc., qui dans cette opération apparait comme si elle existait
de même, dans cette Imagination inexistante, l'Erreur de dualité apparait en tant que
Prenant et Prenable sous l'aspect de Nature Imaginaire. (Asanga, op. cit., Chap. XI,
§ 15.)
Cf. also the Madhyamakavatara of Chandrakirti, trans. by La Vallée Poussin in the
Museon, VIII (1907), esp. pp. 326-27. The arguments used by the Yogacara school in
Sankara's time in defense of their form of idealism are expounded and criticized at
length in his commentary on the Vedanta Sutras. Some of the Yogacara reasoning has
the familiar ring of Bishop Berkeley. For example the following: "We must neces-
sarily admit that the ideas have the same forms as their objects. But if we make this
admission, from which it follows that the form of the objects is determined by the
ideas, the hypothesis of the existence of external things becomes altogether gratuitous.
From the fact, moreover, of our always being conscious of the act of knowledge and
the object of knowledge simultaneously, it follows that the two are in reality identical.
When we are conscious of the one we are conscious of the other also; and that would
not happen if the two were essentially distinct, as in that case there would be nothing.
to prevent our being conscious of one apart from the other. For this reason also we
maintain that there are no outward things. Perception is to be considered as similar
to a dream and the like. The ideas present to our minds during a dream, a magical
illusion, a mirage and so on, appear in the twofold form of subject and object, although
there is all the while no external object; hence we conclude that the ideas of posts
and the like which occur in our waking state are likewise independent of external
objects; for they also are simply ideas. If we be asked how, in the absence of external
things, we account for the actual variety of ideas, we reply that that variety is to be
explained from the impressions left by previous ideas. In the beginningless Samsara
246
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the phenomenal world and all possible appearances have their
source in the Alaya-vijnana. In this sense it is sometimes
spoken of as the womb of the Tathagata. The universe po-
tentially lies within it, and actually issues from it.
When used in this generic sense the term Alaya-vijnana
plainly no longer stands merely for the basal form of the in-
dividual's consciousness. The concept doubtless had its
source as a term of individual psychology, but even in the
hands of Asanga the term tends to take on-and in some pas-
sages decidedly does take on-an over-individual significance.
If we may use the word soul without implying personal self-
hood, we may say that the Alaya-vijnana tends to become an
over-soul. Better still, perhaps, it may be compared to Brad-
ley's "Reality" which, though decidedly impersonal, is as cer-
tainly spiritual. Profesor Radhakrishnan writes of it thus:
Through meditation and other practices of self-examination, we realize
that our waking or superficial consciousness is a fragment of a wider
whole. Every individual has in him this vast whole of consciousness, the
great tank, of the contents of which the conscious self is not fully aware.
Our personal consciousness knows but a small fraction of the sum total
of our conscious states, the alayavijnana. There are indications that the
alayavijnana was sometimes used in the sense of the absolute self. It is
said to be without any origination, existence and extinction. It is the
permanent background of the endless variety of feelings and ideas, com-
mon to all minds. It alone exists; individual, intellectual products are
mere phenomena, phases of the alaya. It is the sole foundation of the
false belief in the existence of the world. All things in the universe are
in it. Particular phenomena are manifestations of the alaya according to
the number and nature of the conditions. . . . Alayavijnana is the abso-
lute totality, originality and creativity, unconditioned itself by time and
space, which are modes of existence of the concrete and empirical indi-
viduality. Things of nature are deposits from the great sea of thought.
They can all be taken back into its transparent unity and simplicity,
which is the mother sea of consciousness, out of which things arise and
into which they again return. It is the living base from which come the
members which again withdraw themselves. It is the highest or perfect
ideas and mental impressions succeed each other as causes and effects, just as the plant
springs from the seed and seeds are again produced from the plant, and there exists.
therefore a sufficient reason for the variety of ideas actually experienced. That the
variety of ideas is solely due to the impressions left on the mind by past ideas follows,
moreover, from the following affirmative and negative judgments: we both (the
Vedantins as well as the Bauddhas) admit that in dreams, etc., there presents itself a
variety of ideas which arise from mental impressions, without any external object; we
(the Bauddhas) do not admit that any variety of ideas can arise from external objects,
without mental impressions. Thus we are again led to conclude that no outward things.
exist" (S. B. E., XXXIV, pp. 419-20).
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 247
knowledge in which no thing is known, no difference is felt. It is always
the same, and therefore perfect. Alaya becomes the universal subject,
and not the empirical self.21
The tendency to make the Alaya-vijnana a cosmic rather
than an individual term, a metaphysical rather than a psycho-
logical concept, is carried still farther, and maintained more
consistently in the little book called The Awakening of Faith
in the Mahayana. This book is attributed to Asvaghosha, but
as it seems to presuppose both the Madhyamika and the earlier
phases of the Yogacara philosophy, it can hardly have been
written by him, if (as is generally held) he lived at least as
early as Nagarjuna.22 The term most frequently used by the
writer of this work to name the ultimate cosmic principle is
Bhutatathata, which seems to be almost synonymous with
Alaya-vijnana 23-yet not quite synonymous. The Alaya-
vijnana is rather the form in which the Absolute (as we may
perhaps call the Bhutatathata) expresses and "affirms" it-
self.24 The usual English rendering of Bhutatathata is "such-
ness." This, is seems to me, is a misleading term; for it
plainly indicates quality, and quality is one of the concepts
which a thorough-going mystical philosophy like the Yoga-
cara is most concerned to avoid. Western idealism often
divides reality into the two aspects of quality and actuality,
the "what" and the "that." Following this lead, one might
perhaps render Bhutatathata as thatness. Care must be
taken, however, to avoid including in this conception the
connotation of substance (in the Aristotelian sense), for the
Yogacara means to get beyond and back of substance as well
as quality. Professor Keith 25
suggests for Bhutatathata the
21
Op. cit., pp. 629, 631. Some of the contemporary interpreters of the Yogacara
philosophy in China and Japan maintain that Alaya-vijnana was never intended by the
founders of the school as a cosmic, but only as an individual and perhaps psychological
term. The expressions of Asanga will hardly bear this interpretation, and no writers
on the subject with whom I am acquainted-whether European, Japanese, or Indian,
agree with this individualistic version. There is, indeed, in the Yogacara use of the
word a certain amount of wobbling, but that a cosmic sense is often given to it is
hardly to be denied.
22
Cf. Keith, p. 228; Nariman, Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism, pp. 39-40.
23
Cf. p. 61 of Suzuki's trans. It will be noted that Suzuki suggests a slight differ-
ence between the two, hardly indicated by the text. See also p. 77 ("the alayavijnana
is practically identical with bhutatathata”).
24 Keith, p. 253.
25
In a personal letter to the writer. For further discussion of the meaning of
bhutatathata see Suzuki's Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (London, Luzac, 1907),
Chap. V.
248
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
rendering thusness. However we translate the term, the
Yogacara intends by it the indefinable background of all be-
ing, of which neither existence nor non-existence in the or-
dinary sense can be predicated. It should be added that
Mahayana philosophy more and more tends to make of this
indefinable and ultimate reality an idealistic Absolute.
T
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of
the change brought about in Buddhist thought by the modi-
fications in the Madhyamika philosophy we have been con-
sidering the introduction of the Alaya-vijnana, the gradual
transformation of it from an individual to a generic and in-
clusive term, and the acceptance of the frankly cosmic and
monistic Bhutatathata. It meant the transformation of
Buddhism from an individualistic and either pluralistic or ni-
hilistic philosophy into a monistic and spiritualistic view,
an absolute idealism in many ways strikingly similar to neo-
Hegelianism. Several influences must certainly have been
at work in this development, and it will be worth our while
to suggest what may have been the more important. First
of all there was, of course, the logical working out of the
situation as above described once the Madhyamika view was
accepted. As we have seen, Asanga's psychological analysis
and his possible mystical experiences probably also played
their part. Important also, in all likelihood, was the steady
influence of the Upanishads and their spiritualistic monism,
which has had such an incomparable hold over the Indian
mind and which during the time of the formation of the
Yogacara was steadily developing into the Vedanta of Bada-
rayana and Sankara. The parallel streams within Hinduism
and Buddhism must have given mutual encouragement and
stimulus to each other. There was one further influence,
moreover, of a logical nature, which, as it seems to me, must
have been of very great importance in working out the pe-
culiar form which Mahayana monism finally assumed and
which is, so far as I know, quite unique in the history of
thought. This was a natural dialectic from the concept of
the Buddha when the full significance of this concept was
thought out in the light of the presuppositions of idealism.
The Buddha, it will be remembered, had from the beginning
been characterized in the minds of his followers first of all
C
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 249
by his insight, and before the formation of the Mahayana he
had come to be regarded as the embodiment and personifica-
tion of omniscience. Very early in the development of
Mahayana thought, the idealistic interpretation of all reality
came to be accepted as an unquestionable certitude. The
fundamental thesis of idealism is, of course, the identification
of being with knowledge. Knowledge and its object are for
it indistinguishable and cannot be thought apart. Reality is
only so far as it is known or experienced; it and the knowl-
edge of it are one. Complete knowledge and the sum total
of reality must therefore coincide. But the Buddha is com-
plete knowledge. Knowledge, insight, is the very being, the
total nature of the Tathagata. Hence the conclusion which
to the western mind at first must come with something of a
shock, but which logically considered is inescapable, that the
Buddha in his true nature is the absolute and all-inclusive
Real; and that Reality in its ultimate nature is the Buddha.
This was exactly the step taken by the Mahayana philosophy.
Other religions have made their founders into gods and sons
of God; Buddhism makes its founder into the Ultimate and
Only Reality, which underlies, produces, and includes all
things.
C
It is plain that such an astounding identification will have
its effects not only upon the resulting picture of the world,
but on the concept of the Buddha. Of this matter we shall
speak in the next chapter. But first of all we must make
plain the general outlines of the cosmos in the new world
view. The Yogacara accepts the common Indian doctrine of
different levels of truth. In the last analysis reality is a pure
unity. Bhutatathata, the ultimate spiritual essence, is all in
all. From this point of view "all things appear under the
forms of individuation only on account of our confused
subjectivity. If we could overcome our confused subjec-
tivity the signs of individuation would disappear and there
would be no trace of a world of individual and isolated ob-
jects." Space itself "is nothing but a mode of particular-
ization and has no real existence of its own. . . . It exists
only in relation to our particularizing consciousness.” 27
Pure being, if so I may for the moment render Bhutatathata,
" 26
26 The Awakening, Suzuki's trans., p. 56. 27 Ibid., p. 107.
250
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is above all predicates. It can best be expressed as the mystics.
have always expressed it, by negatives: "Bhutatathata is
neither that which is existence nor that which is non-ex-
istence; it is neither that which is unity nor that which is
plurality, nor that which is at once unity and plurality, nor
that which is not at once unity and plurality.
» 28
Yet there is a sense in which the world of multiplicity is
real. It has its source in the Absolute essence. To the process
by which this is brought about the author of the Awakening
devotes considerable space and considerable care, though it
must be admitted that, when all is done and said, the matter
is far from clear. The Bhutatathata produces, or is, the
Alaya-vijnana, and through this the process of multiple pro-
duction is performed: through this and "ignorance," which
the author brings in without explanation, and without which
this world of the partially illusory many could obviously not
be explained. Bhutatathata and Alaya-vijnana are pure
spirit or pure awareness without multiplicity or character;
but they are infected with multiplicity through the action of
ignorance, a process which the author seeks to make plainer
by the simile of "perfuming." Just as our clothes when new
have no odor but are scented by the perfumes which we put
upon them, so the pure, undifferentiated mind is "perfumed"
by ignorance.29 From this perfuming there results the mind
of man, and from it the dream or vision of an external world
—a world of things which are nothing but the percepts of
the various observers.
Cha
The three domains [triloka] are nothing but the self-manifestation
of the mind [i.e., Alaya vijnana which is practically identical with.
suchness, Bhutatathata]. Separated from the mind, there would be no
such things as the six objects of sense. Why? Since all things, owing
the principle of their existence to the mind (alaya-vijnana) are produced
by subjectivity (smrti), all the modes of particularisation are the self-
20
Ph
28 Ibid., p. 59.
The use of this figure of course really explains nothing, and no conceptual or
satisfactory explanation of the derivation of the many from the one is ever given by the
Yogacara philosophy. In this respect, however, the Yogacara is surely no worse off
than Hegelianism or any other form of monism. As Professor Ward has expressed it,
"the way upward to this [the Absolute] by abstraction and idealisation is comparatively
easy-though such methods can. not pretend to knowledge; but the way back has in
fact only been possible by means of myths and metaphors, which are not even logically
consistent" (The Realm of Ends, Cambridge, 1911, p. 38).
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 251
particularization of the mind. The mind in itself being, however, free
from all attributes, is not differentiated. Therefore we come to the
conclusion that all things and conditions in the phenomenal world, hypos-
tasized and established only through ignorance (avidya) and subjectivity
(smrti) on the part of all beings, have no more reality than the images
in a mirror. They evolve simply from the ideality of a particularizing
mind. When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is pro-
duced; but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things.
disappears.30
The figure used in the antepenultimate sentence of the
section just quoted is a favorite illustration of the reality and
non-reality of the many. The things reflected in a mirror,
taken, that is, as reflections or images, are in one sense real,
in another sense not real. The only genuine reality involved
is the mirror. And the mirror as such is not affected by the
passing reflections upon it; just as the Bhutatathata is un-
changed and uninvolved in the changes of this world of
changing illusions which could not be but for it and which
exist only in it.31 Another common illustration of the rela-
tion between the Absolute and the phenomena that rise
and fall upon its surface is that found in the sea and its
waves.
The water can be said to be identical [in one sense] and not-identical
[in another sense] with the waves. The waves are stirred up by the
wind, but the water remains the same. When the wind ceases, the motion
of the waves subsides; but the water remains the same. Likewise, when
the mind of all creatures which in its own nature is pure and clean is
stirred up by the wind of ignorance, the waves of mentality make their
appearance. Neither the mind nor ignorance has any form and attribute
of its own. They condition each other. But the mind itself not being
the principle of disturbance, its movability will cease when ignorance is
gone, though its essence, wisdom, remains unmolested.
82
The different matters that we have been considering are
discussed in several books of the Yogacara school beside the
Awakening and the works of Asanga and Vasubhandhu.
One of the most helpful treaties I have found is the Suran-
gama Sutra, as translated from its Chinese version by Beal.33
Cf. also pp. 72, 96-97.
G
00 The Awakening, pp. 77-78.
31
1 Cf. p. 69, The Awakening.
S
Idem, pp. 67-68 and note. I have combined the older Chinese translation with
the later, as the older seems here the more consistent.
38
39 In his Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (London, Trübner, 1871).
The Chinese name for the Sutra is the Shan-leng-yan-King.
252
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
As is so often the case with Mahayana Sutras, a conversation
is depicted as taking place in the presence of a large number
of disciples and Bodhisattvas in the Jetavana Monastery,
and in reply to one of Ananda's questions the Tathagata has
been expounding the idealistic view of the world with which
we are now familiar.
Every phenomenon that presents itself to our knowledge [he insists] is
but the manifestation of Mind. This is the true substratum of them
all. . . . All the thousand connections of matter and the various modi-
fications of ideas, all these are but what the Heart originates. [The word
which Beal translates as heart evidently refers to the inner mind, the eter-
nal subject, which is one with the Absolute Mind.] Your mind and
body themselves are but things made manifest in the midst of this
mysteriously glorious and true essence called the perfect heart.34
G
Ananda, who throughout the Sutra is treated as the rep-
resentative of the Hinayana, seeking for the light of the
Mahayana, asks in his dear human way for further explana-
tion. The earnestness of his desire for the truth and the
honesty of his doubts, which are the doubts of most of his
Western readers, make him a decidedly lovable figure, and the
vividness of characterization with which he is presented, as
well as the logic of his questions and the subtlety of the
Buddha's answers, make this Sutra strongly reminiscent of
the Platonic Dialogues.
Following the deep, and loving words of the Buddha's argument with
tears coursing down his face and his fingers clasped in anxious expression,
Ananda spoke thus: "World-honored One, if my sight be the same as
the sight-nature of the Tathagata, everywhere diffused, how is it that
now, as I sit in this hall, I see but this alone? Is it possible that this
power [this Absolute Mind which is said to be identical with my mind]
can be changeable, sometimes great and sometimes small? Or can the
impediment of a wall confine that which is so vast in its nature? I am
unable to explain in what the just solution of this difficulty is to be
found. Would that your compassionate love would exercise itself in
explaining this matter on my account.”
[The Buddha replied] "The description of all worldly things as great
or small, within, without, square, round, etc., results from the shifting
nature of the phenomenal world and in no way can it be justly attributed
to the contraction or expansion of the seeing [or thinking] power."
The relation between the true mind and the various limited
perceptions he then compares to the relation between space
94 P. 313.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 253
and the shape of a hollow square vessel. The shape is square
but space is not square. Sight as such and thought as such is
no more limited by the walls of this room than space as such
is round or square. And "if you become able to understand
the real character of all objects, then you become the same
as the Tathagata, immovably fixed, enabled to embrace
within your mental grasp the infinite worlds." 35 We shall
never attain to true understanding if we persist in a realistic
interpretation of the material world and found upon so-
called material objects our conceptions of the real and the un-
real. For "sight and the associations of sight [i.e., all visual
and all sensuous phenomena] and all the attributes of [in-
dividual and limited] thought are but as an empty flower of
space-an aurora. In their real character they are unsub-
stantial." The illusion of a real material world is a defect of
true vision; it is, as it were, the effect of a cataract on the
spiritual eye. This world of multiplicity is indeed ultimately
attributable to, it flows from, the One Reality-here we find
the Mahayana philosophy asserting the same general thesis as
Spinoza. Like Spinoza again,³ the Mayayana does not pre-
tend to be able to follow out the details of the derivation. To
ascertain the precise point where the many appear and where
they disappear is not possible; for that we must look to the
Supreme Nature, and beyond that we can ascertain nothing.
But we know that the many are illusory, like the "flower-
shaped apparition" which a man would get "who with per-
fect sight, beheld the pure void of space, but fixed his eyes
on one particular spot, beyond which he did not look or move
his eyes, staring until his sight was fatigued." To use an-
other illustration, the "false and shadowy appearances around
us" are like the space in an empty jar.37
C
C
The question whence arises in our finite minds the illusion
of the many is never completely and satisfactorily answered.
The Mahayana struggles with it, as does the Vedanta, but
seldom, I fancy, do its attempts at explanation fully satisfy
the Western reader. The root ideas of the explanation seem
to be the distinction between different levels or degrees of
35
S5 P. 320. I have slightly modified Beal's wording to bring out the obvious meaning.
30 Cf. p. 331.
37 P. 333.
254
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
reality, and the thought that an illusion, being itself really a
negation of reality, consisting, that is, essentially of non-be-
ing, requires no explanation. Since it is, in the last analysis,
a non-being, a form of nothing, it is not necessary to attri-
bute to it a cause.
The mysterious effulgence of the Divine is identical with your own
originally perfect and intelligent nature. But you have used the word
illusion as if illusion were Something. What cause can you assign it? If
there is any real cause or ground for it, then it is, so far forth, not really
an illusion [for an illusion is exactly an unreal appearance that has no
ground]. It is an idea that has sprung up entirely from incoherent
thoughts; these thoughts have intertwined and intermingled; and increas-
ing deception from age to age, they have resulted in these successive eras
of false speculation.
This, then, in general, is the explanation of the world of
multiplicity; this expresses the way in which the many evolve
from the One through the intervention of ignorance. If it is
not wholly clear to the reader, let him blame neither himself
nor me. Who indeed has ever been able to answer the ques-
tion Cur deus homo? To the Tathagata of the Surangama
Sutra the matter is doubtless clear, as are all things; but I am
not sure that Ananda was fully satisfied. And if we turn
from Sutras in which the Tathagata himself is presented as
speaking to merely human treatises, we find a different situa-
tion. Thus the author of the Awakening does not claim to
have the matter clear nor fully to understand it himself. In
fact, he tells us that "the mind which starts from the perfum-
ing influence of ignorance which has no beginning cannot be
comprehended by common people nor even by Sravakas and
Pratyekabuddhas. It is partly comprehended by some Bodhi-
sattvas; but even those who have reached the highest stage
of Bodhisattvahood can not thoroughly comprehend it. The
only one who can have a clear and consummate knowledge
of it is the Tathagata." 88
38
So far as the weak intellect of common people like our-
selves will permit, we have sought to trace in outline what
might be called the downward road, comparable to the
closely similar process in the philosophy of Plotinus from the
One outward through the realms of Intellect and Soul to the
* Awakening, P. 78.
PRODU
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 255
things of the World of the Many. But as with Plotinus, so
with the Yogacara, there is an upward pathway, back from
the confusing multiplicity of relative illusion to our divine
Source, to "God who is our home." The world of the many,
coming as it does from the Absolute Essence, cannot be
wholly illusory and unreal. The true essence is the inner
nature even of it. In it, therefore, we have hold at least of
a thread of reality which properly followed will lead us back
out of relative illusion to the light. As Professor Radhakrish-
nan says concerning this aspect of Buddhist thoughts, "the
real and the phenomenal are not ultimately different. They
are two moments of the same thing, one reality with two as-
pects. The universe would be utterly unmeaning, absolutely
unreal, if it were not in some way the expression of the real.
The realm of birth and death is the manifestation of the im-
mortal. It is the appearance in time and space, the actualiza-
tion of the absolute." 39
This upward pathway back from the phenomenal to the
Real is the path of the Bodhisattva. One enters upon it by
cherishing unselfish love and by realizing more deeply the
relative falseness of multiplicity. One acts as if suffering
were real, though knowing that it is not, and thus one stead-
ily practices unselfish kindness. Nor are we alone in this
struggle. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits,
and helpeth our infirmities. Not only does ignorance "per-
fume" the Bhutatathata; the Bhutatathata also perfumes ig-
norance.
In consequence of this perfuming the mind involved in subjectivity is
caused to loathe the misery of birth and death and to seek after the bless-
ing of Nirvana. This longing and loathing on the part of the subjective
mind in turn perfumes suchness. On account of this perfuming influence
we are enabled to believe that we are in possession within ourselves of
suchness whose essential nature is pure and immaculate; and we also
recognize that all phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory
manifestations of the mind (alayavijnana) and have no reality of their
own. Since we thus rightly understand the truth, we can practise the
means of liberation, can perform those actions which are in accordance
[with the Dharma]. Neither do we particularise, nor cling to. By virtue
of this discipline and habituation during the lapse of innumerable
asamkbyeya kalpas, we have ignorance annihilated. As ignorance is thus
80 Indian Philosophy, I, p. 596.
256
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
annihilated, the mind [i.e., alaya-vijnana] is no more disturbed so as to be
subject to individuation. As the mind is no more disturbed, the particu-
larisation of the surrounding world is annihilated. When in this wise the
principle and the condition of defilement, their products, and the mental
disturbances are all annihilated, it is said that we attain to Nirvana and
that various spontaneous displays of activity are accomplished.41
It is important to note here once more the great change,
pointed out in the preceding chapter, which has come over
the Buddhist view since the Founder's last words were spoken,
"Work out your own salvation with diligence." The Ma-
hayana accepts this command and (except in the more ex-
treme forms of the Pure Land sect) urges the necessity of in-
dividual effort in the pursuit of the goal. But it no longer
stops here. With St. Paul it would reword the Buddha's
sentence so as to read: "Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you, both
to will and to do of his good pleasure." It is the divine
essence, the Buddha nature within us all, that unites itself
with our wills in the struggle against ignorance and desire.
Without this more than human aid, this reinforcement which
streams into our nature from the exhaustless source of spir-
itual life, our pigmy efforts against the forces of separation
and illusion would probably be fruitless. In the sincere
yearning of our hearts after the Ultimate Unity we have the
aid, for we are but voicing the longing, of unseen forces.
The turning away from multiplicity toward the One is
of course also a turning away from separateness toward a
union and a communion of all beings with one another. As
we enter into the one Buddha nature we find ourselves unit-
ing with other beings in a unity of the spirit which is both
moral and metaphysical. For the identification of self with
others, and the loving of others as ourselves, which as we saw
in the preceding chapter, is held up before us as the ethical
ideal of the Bodhisattva, is now seen to have its foundation in
the central principle of metaphysics. I should love my
neighbor as myself-not merely as much as myself but as
genuinely identical with myself, for the profound reason
that, properly understood, he is myself. The two great vir-
tues of Buddhism thus justify each other: knowledge justifies
40 Awakening, pp. 86-87.
G
Gu
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MAHAYANA 257
love, and love is prophetic of knowledge. The sadness and
despair of ultimate and hopeless separation between finite
beings natural to many of us occidentals, with our unques-
tioned belief in the substantial soul, the metaphysically iso-
lated individual, here finds unhoped-for glad tidings. Mat-
thew Arnold's well-known poem Isolation gives so much of
the feeling for this matter that I cannot forbear quoting
some lines from it here:
Yes; in the sea of life enisl'd
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.
*
*
*
Oh then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent:
*
*
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent.
Now round us spreads the watery plain-
Oh might our marges meet again!
Who ordered that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled?
Who renders vain their deep desire?
A God, a God their severance ruled:
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
To this Mahayana Buddhism replies, Not so. It was not a
God who ruled their severance; not a God but a kind of
cosmic Ignorance. And since it was the deed of Ignorance it
is not irremediable. The estranging sea need not forever
flow betwixt us. Surely once we were indeed parts of a
single continent; and by the unfailing development of un-
selfish love and of deep self-knowledge our marges may yet
meet again!
Writes Asanga: "The tenderness that the sons of the
Conquerors [i.e., the Bodhisattvas] feel for all creatures,
their love, their indefatigability-this is the marvel of all the
worlds. But no! It is no marvel at all, since other and self
are for them identical.” 41
Mahayana Sutralamkara, Levi's trans., p. 170.
258
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
And not only does the metaphysical justify the moral; ac-
cording to the Mahayana it endows it with a new power.
Rivers in so far as they have separate beds and separate waters and
perform their functions separately, have little water and profit only the
few creatures that come to drink of them. But once they lose themselves
in the ocean, they have thereafter but one bed, they are but one mass
of water; they commingle their functions; and they profit the multitude
of creatures who seek their waters perpetually. So long as the sages have
separate being, separate ideas, and separate functions, they have but
finite intelligence and profit only a small number of creatures: for they
have not penetrated into Buddhahood. But once entered into Buddhahood
they have but one being, but one infinite intelligence, but one united
function, and they render service to multitudes of creatures forever.¹
42
ท Idem., p. 92.
CHAPTER XIII
THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
WE must now turn back to the problem of the Buddha
which we glimpsed and then postponed in the preceding
chapter. The Hinayana had taught that the true nature of
the Buddha was his insight, his enlightenment, his Dharma.
According to the Mahaparanibbana Sutra, he himself said
at his death that the Dharma should take his place.¹ To
know the Dharma and all its implications is to know the
Buddha. With the change from the realism of the Hinay-
ana to the idealism of the Mahayana, this identification of
the Buddha with his infinite knowledge involved, as we have
seen, an unexpected dialectic. And the Mahayana did not
shrink back from it. Absolute knowledge cannot be other
than Absolute Reality; hence the Buddha nature cannot
fall short of the inclusive and ultimately Real. Enlighten-
ment, the Dharma, was the one true characteristic of the
Tathagata, much more truly representative of him than his
material body. As for the early Christians the church was
the body of Christ, so for these early Mahayanists the abso-
lute enlightenment, the sum total of the Real, was the true
body of the Buddha, or, as they called it, the Body of the
Law, the Dharmakaya. It is as the Dharmakaya that the
Buddha is the basal and absolute Being. Each school of the
Mahayana therefore uses the word Dharmakaya as synonym-
ous with its own Ultimate; the Madhyamika identifying it
with the Void (Çunyata), the Yogacara with the Alaya-
vijnana, the author of the Awakening with the Bhutatathata.
It is the inner nature of all that is. It is "undefiled, unchang-
ing, unique in its kind, diffused, transcendant, and to be
known by everyone in himself.' It is "that which consti-
tutes the Ultimate foundation of existence, the one great
›› 2
¹ Digha, Sutanta 16; Rhys Davids' trans., II, P. 171.
Keith, p. 268.
Ca

259
260
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
whole in which all forms of individuation are obliterated, in
a word, the Absolute." It is intuition and true knowledge.
It is the womb of the Tathagata, from which all things come.
It is to be found in every being that is real to the extent that
the being is real at all. The Buddha nature is in all things.*
This is what the Buddha is really and in himself. From
which it follows plainly that all the Buddhas, infinite though
they are in number, once fully understood, are one.5 Owing
to the fact, however, that among finite beings there are all
degrees of enlightenment and ignorance, the Buddha not
only is but appears. The finite beings to whom he appears
are divisible into two great classes, namely Bodhisattvas and
all those who stand below them in enlightenment, including
common people, Sravakas, and Pratyekabuddhas. This is a
rather subtle thought, that though the Buddha is one, the
nature of the Buddha for each soul will be unique and will
depend on the nature of the soul. So,
Life like a dome of many-colored glass
Stains the white radiance of eternity.
To each of the two classes named above the one Buddha
has his characteristic form of appearance or body. The form
he takes before the eyes of the blessed Bodhisattvas is known
as the Sambhogakaya, or Body of Bliss. As there are count-
less groups of Bodhisattvas, so there are countless Sambhoga-
kayas. The white ray of the Infinite One is broken into end-
less prismatic colors by the differentiating consciousness of
the blessed but as yet finite Bodhisattvas. The eyes of com-
mon people and even of Sravakas could not stand this sight.
Or rather, just because their minds are incapable of under-
standing and conceiving such high things, the vision of the
Absolute which they receive is much less glorious. The ap-
6
(
8
Suzuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 62.
4
For further discussion of the Dharmakaya see Suzuki's Outlines of Mahayana
Buddhism, Chap. IX.
5
Cf. Asanga IX. 62 (Levi's trans., p. 87): the Awakening, p. 103. Sometimes this
necessary conclusion is lost from sight and different Dharmakayas are spoken of. Ob-
viously this will not bear logical examination and those Mahayanists who hold it
merely fail to understand their own philosophy.
This vision of himself which the Tathagata grants to the eyes of his sons is
closely related, both in description and in fundamental conception, to the vision of
himself as Vishnu which Krishna, according to the Bhagavad Gita, vouchsafed to Arjun.
Bhagavad Gita, Chap. XI.
THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
261
pearance of the Tathagata to the unenlightened, the "third
body of the Buddha” is called his Nirmanakaya, or Body of
Transformation. This is what we should call the earthly or
historical appearance of the Buddha.
But:
Beings of this class [below the rank of Bodhisattvas] do not know
that the Body of Transformation is merely the shadow [or reflection]
of their own evolving consciousness. They imagine that it comes from
some external source, and so they give it a corporeal limitation.
Bodhisattvas are able to recognize the finer form of activity [of the
Dharmakaya]. Their insight is more penetrating than that of others.
As they firmly believe in the Bhutatathata they can have a partial insight
into it and understand that the Body of the Tathagata is not departing,
is not coming [i.e., that the Tathagata's work is eternal and constant],
that everything is but a reflected shadow of the mind. When they reach
the height of Bodhisattvahood their insight becomes perfect. As long
as they are possessed by the activity consciousness they perceive the Body
of Bliss. But when they are liberated from it, all traces of individuation
become obliterated. For all Tathagatas come from one and the same
Dharmakaya, have no distinction of thisness and thatness, have no cor-
poreal forms that are characterized by reciprocal limitation.7
The doctrine of the Body of Transformation has, obvi-
ously, a direct bearing on the conception of the historical
Buddha. The historical Buddha, like the visions which the
Bodhisattvas enjoy in the various Buddha fields, was only an
appearance, only a vision. This conclusion of the Mahayana
was by no means something entirely new. Quite early in
Hinayana history some of the more daring thinkers began
to feel that so great a being as the Tathagata could hardly
have descended into the womb of Maya and been born a
mere baby. Hence a docetic view arose at least as early as the
third century B.C., recalling strikingly the docetic doctrines
of certain early Christian heresies that were touched with
gnosticism. The Katha-vatthu mentions among the heresies
which it condemns one which held that men and gods of
Sakyamuni's time had known only a phantom Buddha and
that the real Sakyamuni had never ceased to reside in the
Tusita heaven,8 but had sent down a phantom form which
Awakening, pp. 100-03. I have omitted much and in one place slightly rearranged
the sequence.
8 XVIII, 1, 2. In Aung and Rhys Davids' trans., pp. 323-25. See also Oltramare,
Un Problem de l'Ontologie Bouddhique, Museon, 3d Series, I (1915), pp. 1-23, and
Anesaki's article on "Docetism," H. E. R. E.
262
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
taught the Dharma to Ananda. Early Mahayana sects main-
tained that Sakyamuni survives in a prolonged trance and in
fact that he has been in it since he entered Buddhahood; and
that after he gained enlightenment under the Bo Tree it was
only his body that continued to act and speak, he himself
not being in the body but in a heavenly state. Probably be-
fore the doctrine of the three bodies of the Buddha was de-
vised, many Buddhists believed that all the earthly life of the
Founder had been merely a magical substitute for the real
Buddha. It is obvious how easily this docetic view led into
the three-body doctrine and how naturally it adjusted itself
to the larger metaphysical conception.
The result of this combined tendency was to place the
historical Buddha in a position of relatively slight importance.
India has commonly cared little for historical fact, and the
Indian tendency here again made itself felt. He who knows
the eternal Buddha, what should he care for the details of a
particular occurrence-itself probably illusory-which took
place during certain years at Kapilavastu, Gaya, and Kusi-
nara? Thus as we pass from the Hinayana to the developed
Mahayana we find a complete change in the center of
gravity. The facts of the Founder's life, and even the de-
tails of his teaching came to have a steadily decreasing impor-
tance. Buddhism comes to be less a continuation of the
teachings of the Buddha and more a collection of teachings
about the Buddha-teachings which are no longer historical
but purely metaphysical in their nature. The Buddha whom
the Mahayana doctors adore is not the Sakyamuni of Kapila-
vastu, but the eternal Buddha. Paraphrasing the words of
St. Paul they might well have said, "Yea, though we had
known the Buddha in the flesh, now know we him no more.'
The reference to St. Paul suggests a parallelism between
the change that took place in Buddhism and a change that
took place in Christianity, which is too striking and, in its
way, instructive, to be passed by without notice. As the
Mahayana substituted for the Buddha of history the eternal
Buddha, so St. Paul and the writer of the Fourth Gospel
substituted for the Christ of history the eternal Christ. I
can make more plain the parallel movements in the two reli-
gions by quoting here a passage from Pfleiderer's Primitive
may
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THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
263
Christianity, which, though written with no thought of
Buddhism, shows clearly the same metaphysical tendency of
the human mind flinging out its declaration of independence
from all merely historical or empirical facts.
The object of the Pauline faith was not Christ after the flesh, not
the Jewish Messiah born of David's seed, not the Jew born of a woman
and subject to the Mosaic law; of him Paul says expressly, "If we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him no more.” And
accordingly, "If any man is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has
passed away; behold, it has become new." (2 Cor. v. 16f.) .. The
earthly life of Jesus was, according to Paul, only an episodic appearance
of the Heavenly Man in our fleshly body; as this body was derived from
David's seed the earthly Jesus belonged to the Jewish people and was also,
in so far, subjected to the Jewish law. But this existence in earthly flesh
was not the true and proper mode of being of the Son of God, but only
a form of outward manifestation foreign to His heavenly spiritual exist-
ence, which He again laid aside in death in order to become, at His
resurrection, a pure Spirit (free from earthliness) with a heavenly body
of glory appropriate to it. As pure Spirit He stripped off, along with
the limitations of His earthly existence in general, also the limitation
of nationality: the heavenly Christ, the Lord, who is the Spirit, is no
longer a Jew, but archetypal man, the first-born of all the sons of God
who are called to freedom. And as He has cast off, for Himself, the
limitations of earth, of nationality, of the Mosaic law, He works hence-
forth on those who are His as a liberating spirit who frees them from all
those fleshly fetters and unites them into one new spiritual body. This
liberating and renewing work of the Spirit of the Lord is not, however,
conceived by Paul merely in the moral sense, current among us, of a
continued influence of the moral character of Jesus, but in a mystical
sense resting upon popular animistic metaphysics, namely, that the indi-
vidual person of Jesus, now existing in heaven clothed with a body of
glory, is at the same time, as a substance or source of power, free from
the limitations of space ("omnipresent"), present in all his churches,
entering into believers, and as an ethico-religious power producing in
them supernatural effects, indeed, a completely new being (a "new
creation").⁹
•
As the eternal Christ is the theme of St. Paul's Epistles
and of the Fourth Gospel, so the eternal Buddha is the theme
of the great gospel of the Mahayana, the Saddharma Punda-
rika Sutra-the "Lotus of the Good Law." The Sutra be-
gins, as do so many Buddhist books, with a description of a
great gathering of venerable Arhats and other disciples in the
presence of Sakyamuni at the Vulture Peak. The Tathagata
9
Op. cit. (Eng. trans., London, 1906), I, 381-82.
264
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is at first presented in something like the Hinayana fashion;
he is one of a succession of Buddhas, one who had gone
through a long period of preparation as a Bodhisattva, and
who had attained enlightenment under the Bo Tree at Buddh
Gaya. During his discourse he has occasion to prophesy the
future complete enlightenment of several of his disciples
there present and their great reward. Many of his hearers
request from him a commission to spread the truth. In an-
swer he discloses before their eyes a great cloud of glorious
Bodhisattvas, ready to perform the task: and to the aston-
ishment of his hearers he tells them that these Bodhisattvas
have existed over countless eons as his disciples. At these
words his hearers cannot hide their perplexity, which one of
their number respectfully voices as follows: "How, O Lord,
has the Tathagata been able to perform all this since he left,
as a royal prince, Kapilavastu and arrived at supreme en-
lightenment not far from the town of Gaya, about forty
years ago? How has the Tathagata, within so short a time,
been able to rouse and bring to maturity for supreme, perfect
enlightenment this host of Bodhisattvas, a multitude so great.
that it would be impossible to count the whole of it even if
one were to continue counting for hundreds of thousands of
kotis of eons?" In short, "Is not this the carpenter's son?"
And the Buddha's reply to the question might almost be
phrased in the words of the Johanine Christ: "Before Abra-
ham was, I am." From all eternity the Buddha has been
leading needy beings to the light. Time does not pass for
him as for those within the illusion of change. "The Tatha-
gata sees the triple world not as ignorant, common people:
He sees things eternally present to him. The Tathagata who
so long ago was perfectly enlightened is unlimited in the
duration of his life: He is from everlasting." But for the
sake of those whose little minds can be touched only by a
limited presence of flesh and blood, and who can be made to
feel the need of speedy effort only by the seeming death of
their teacher, the Tathagata becomes from time to time in-
carnate, and "without being extinct, makes a show of extinc-
tion, on behalf of those who need to be educated."
I am the Father of the World, the Self-born, the Healer, the Pro-
tector of all creatures. Knowing them to be perverted, infatuated, igno-
THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
265
rant, I teach them final rest, myself not being at rest. Why do I
continually manifest myself? When men become unbelieving, ignorant,
fond of sensual pleasure, then I who know the course of the world de-
clare, I am the Tathagata: and I consider how I may incline them to
enlightenment, how I may make them partakers of the Buddha Law.10
In the preceding paragraph I used the word "incarnate"
in relation to the historical Buddha. This word does not
occur in Kern's translation of the Lotus, but it is impor-
tant to note that this is the thought embodied in this remark-
able Buddhist gospel. In the man Sakyamuni, born at Kapi-
lavastu, the eternal Buddha incarnated himself. The All-one
stooped to appear as the son of Maya. It was, indeed, but
an appearance; but that appearance was as true as any mere
appearance can be. So far as such a thing is at all possible or
thinkable, the Infinite Reason became flesh; it came down
from heaven and was made man. And this it did for us men
and for our salvation. But this it did not once only. In
this respect the Mahayana doctrine of the incarnation is
closer to that of the Bhagavad Gita than to the Christian.
Mankind is repeatedly in need of a new incarnation of the
Divine, and so through the infinite ages there has been and
shall be an infinite series of Buddhas who in their teachings
and their lives show forth the eternal truth. With the
Krishna of the Gita, the Buddha might say:
"Though birthless and unchanging of essence, yet in my
sway over the nature that is mine I come to birth by mine
own magic. For whensoever the Dharma fails and lawless-
ness arises, then do I bring myself to bodied birth. To guard
the righteous, to establish the Dharma, I come into birth
age after age.
,, 11
The monistic and idealistic conception of reality that we
have been studying has certain obvious bearings on the nature
of Nirvana. In the first place it must be said, the new school
of thought takes the word where the Hinayana left it, retain-
ing much of its old significance. Nirvana still means pri-
marily spiritual freedom: freedom from the fires of lust,
ill will, and dulness or ignorance. Of these three it is espe-
cially the fire of ignorance which the Mahayana would at-
10 Kern's trans., slightly reworded, S. B. E., XXI, 294-310.
11
IV. 6-8, Barnett's trans. (The Temple Classics, Dent).
Gra
266
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
tack, for this is fundamental; and it celebrates most joyfully
freedom from that form of ignorance which results in the
illusion of separateness. "As ignorance is thus annihilated,
the mind is no more disturbed so as to be subject to individua-
tion. As the mind is no more disturbed, the particulariza-
tion of the surrounding world is annihilated. When in this
wise the principle and condition of defilement, and their
products, with the mental disturbances that flow from them
are all annihilated, it is said that we attain Nirvana." 12
But Nirvana means more than this. It meant more than
this to the Hinayana. There it was a state beyond death—
Parinirvana-the reality of which the Blessed One had
averred, but the nature of which he had not disclosed. The
Yogacara thinkers, unwilling to continue the agnostic atti-
tude of the Southern Church, work out from their own
metaphysical presuppositions a new interpretation of Nir-
vana in its full sense. In the first place, Nirvana does not
mean nothingness. The writer of the Awakening is very
emphatic upon this,13 as is also the Lotus Sutra. At the
climax of the vision there depicted which the Tathagata
reveals to the eyes of myriads of Bodhisattvas, the stupa of
an ancient Buddha, Prabhutaratna, is opened. This Buddha,
we are told, has been "completely extinct," has been in Nir-
vana, for many kotis of kalpas; but when the stupa is opened
he is found there "as if absorbed in abstract meditation,'
and he greets Sakyamuni, and welcomes him to a place on
the throne beside him, summons and converses with a distant
Buddha and in other ways shows himself both conscious and
active.14 From this and several other passages 15 in the Lotus
it is plain that the word "extinct" by no means signifies un-
conscious or lifeless. The term seems to have been retained
from the earlier form of Buddhism and to have reference
only to the destruction of those characteristics which to the
Buddhist are undesirable. The Buddhas are no longer subject
to any form of illusion or self-centeredness. It is in this sense
that they may be said to have become extinct on entering
12 The Awakening (Suzuki), p. 87.
18 Cf. Suzuki's trans., pp. 107-08.
else, is, of course, nothingness.
Chaps. XI, XXIII.
15 Cf. pp. 61, 63 of Kern's trans.
-
-
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For the Madhyamika Nirvana, like everything
THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
267
Nirvana. Their two less real bodies, the Nirmanakaya and
the Sambhogakaya, disappear, though seemingly the second
of these may reappear at any time for the edification of the
faithful. The waning of these appearances has nothing to do
with the real being of the Buddhas and in no way reduces
their reality. They are still and ever what always they were,
identical with the one spiritual substance of the universe, the
Dharmakaya.
And what is true for them is true in potentia for every
sentient creature. Such a conception makes Nirvana both
more universal and more transcendant than it was for South-
ern Buddhism. In one sense, now are we all nearer our salva-
tion than the Hinayana could have believed; in another, the
prize is more lofty and more difficult-and immensely more
worth the having-than ever the Hinayana dreamed. To be
free from desire, to be extinct in the ordinary sense-com-
pare these sane and earthly hopes with the prospect of be-
coming Buddha. For nothing short of the attainment of
Buddhahood is what Nirvana now must mean. It is this new
revelation of what is in store for them that fills the ancient
disciples, as depicted in the Lotus, with inexpressible surprise
and joy. They had followed the teachings of the Hinayana
and had tried to satisfy themselves with its promises. Now
they have heard the Lord preach this new secret doctrine, and
"were struck with wonder, amazement, and rapture," and
kneeling before him they said:
Lord, we are aged, advanced in years, honoured as seniors in this
assemblage of monks. Worn out by old age we fancied that we had
attained Nirvana. We are making no efforts for supreme enlightenment.
We have conceived no longing after the Buddha-laws. By having
fled out of the triple world, O Lord, we imagined that we had attained
Nirvana: and we are decrepit from old age. And now, O Lord, we hear
from the Lord that disciples also may attain supreme perfect enlighten-
ment. We are astonished and amazed. We have acquired a magnificent
jewel, an incomparable jewel. We had not sought nor searched nor
expected so magnificent a jewel.18
G
And what was true for these ancient saints is true for all.
All shall in the end become Buddha: for all are potentially
Buddha now. Nirvana is thus not a place nor a state one
18 Chap. IV, Kern, pp. 98-99.
268
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
shall enter when one dies. From the temporal point of view,
to be sure, it is a state that may be progressively approxi-
mated. But sub specie aeternitatis it is a present condition of
all real beings just to the extent to which they are real. "All
things from the beginning are in their nature Nirvana
itself." 17 For Nirvana is the Dharmakaya. From the meta-
physical presuppositions of the Yogacara it could be nothing
else. It is the One Reality, the One Soul; not only the Dhar-
makaya of all the Buddhas but the deepest nature of each
one of us. To know it, to realize it, to discover it in our-
selves, to live in the light of it, this is the meaning of immor-
tality. The Lotus might have used almost the identical words
of the Fourth Gospel: "And this is life eternal, to know Thee,
the Only true God." To know God, to enter into the
Dharmakaya is the aim of all worship and of all life. For the
Mahayana Buddhist the only true worship is realization.
This conception forms, in a sense, the central theme not
only of the Lotus but of the Surangama Sutra from which I
quoted at some length in the preceding chapter. Starting
from the common-sense, realistic Hinayana point of view
suggested by Ananda's questions, the Tathagata led the
thought of his attentive listeners to deeper and deeper in-
sights, and finally to the conception of the Buddha nature
that is in all things. And so at last, all the great congrega-
tion, including not only the blessed Bodhisattvas but also
humble, human Ananda,
.
obtained enlightenment. This great assembly perceived that one's Heart
is coextensive with the universe, seeing clearly the empty character of
the world as plainly as that of a leaf or of any trifling thing in one's hand,
and realizing that all things in the universe are but the excellently bright
and primeval Heart of Bodhi, and that this heart is universally diffused
and comprehends all things within itself. And still reflecting, they beheld
their generated bodies as so many grains of dust in the wide expanse of
the universal void, now safe, now lost; or as a bubble of the sea, sprung
from nothing and born to be destroyed. But their perfect and inde-
pendent soul, they perceived as indestructible and ever the same, identical
with the Dharmakaya.18
And in confirming their faith and interpreting their vision
the Buddha said:
17 Awakening, Suzuki, p. 121.
18 P. 343.
THE ETERNAL BUDDHA
269
The mysterious effulgence (which though one appears as many and
lightens all beings) is indeed the secret essence of the Tathagata. It is
the universally diffused effulgence of the Divine Intelligence. This unity
is boundless, and being boundless yet is one. Though in small things yet it
is great: though in great things yet it is small. Pervading all things,
present in every minutest hair, it includes the infinite worlds in its
embrace. Enthroned in the minutest particle of dust, it turns the great
Wheel of the Law. One with the Divine knowledge, it manifests itself
as the effulgent Nature of the Divine Intelligence of the Tathagata.¹9
Before closing this chapter I wish to point out two char-
acteristics of the Mahayana which it will be helpful to bear
in mind throughout the chapters that are to come and which
will follow the story of the Mahayana in the lands to which
it journeyed as a pilgrim and a missionary. The first of these
points must have been noticed by the reader: the way,
namely, in which the compassion of the Mahayana ideal made
its way into the very structure of its philosophy. When the
Buddha speaks, in the fifteenth chapter of the Lotus con-
cerning his repeated incarnations for the salvation of men,
he is not presented as talking symbolism, but literal, philo-
sophical truth. For the Mahayanist, as for the Christian
philosopher, at the heart of being there is no mere abstract.
essence, but an outstreaming compassion.
The second characteristic of the Mahayana I would point
out is the inclusiveness of its absolutism. The truth which it
teaches is large enough to be compatible with an endless
variety of symbols. It is wedded to no literal rendering of
any form of presentation and the truth it presents is of such
a large and philosophic nature that it would be difficult to
conceive of any imaginable scientific or historical discovery
which would greatly affect it. If it should some day be
demonstrated that Gotama was merely a sun myth this would
be a most serious blow to the Hinayana, but the Mahayana
would hardly feel it. And as for Darwinian evolution, the
spontaneous generation of life, and other scientific hypotheses
which have filled the souls of Christian theologians, past and
present, with dismay and wrath-your doctor of the Maha-
yana will snap his fingers at them.
A world view so wide as this will be compatible not only
10 Pp. 352-53. Cf. the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
270
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
with many scientific hypotheses, but with many religious
symbols. The Tathagata makes use of the teachings of the
Hinayana for those who cannot yet behold the larger vision.
The "vehicle of the Sravakas" and the "vehicle of the
Pratyekabuddhas," once fully understood, lead into the one
great "vehicle of the Bodhisattvas," though the Sravakas and
the Pratyekabuddhas do not know it.20 The Tathagata by
his "skillfulness" uses many means to lead the ignorant into
the true path. Words and definitions and symbols all fall
short of an expression of the ineffable truth. "The reason
why the Tathagata nevertheless endeavors to instruct by
means of words and definitions is to be found in his good and
excellent skilfulness. He only provisionally makes use of
words and definitions to lead all beings, while his real object
is to make them abandon symbolism and enter directly into
the real Reality." 21
-
These two characteristics, compassion and inclusiveness,
equipped the Mahayana to an unusual degree as a missionary
religion. Its compassion supplied the incentive, and its in-
clusiveness made it extraordinarily adaptable to new condi-
tions. It is always ready to admit, even eager to suggest, that
the truths of other religions are merely different formulations
of its own truth, that the cult objects of other faiths are
merely symbolic expressions of its own deeper apprehension
of the Real.
By the year 1200, as we have already seen, the Mahayana
like the Hinayana had become wholly an exile from the land
of its birth. But exile for Buddhism did not mean death, but
a new blossoming and a new service. The Hinayana we have
watched in its wanderings over the sunny lands of the south.
A form of Buddhism which because of its mixed nature we
shall not trace in this work spread northward over the frozen
regions of Tibet and Mongolia, while a related branch of it
invaded the passes that lead into Nepal. Meanwhile the
Mahayana had started out on a still more distant mission.
We must now trace its fortunes in its long pilgrimage to the
far lands of the more remote north.
20 Cf. the Lotus, Chaps. II, III.
21 Suzuki's trans. of the Awakening, p. 112.
THE DYNASTIES OF CHINA
Hsia, 2205-1766 B.C.
Shan or Yin, 1766-1122 B.C.
Chow, 1122-255 B.C.
T'sin, 255-206 B.C.
Han, 206 B.C.-214 A.D.
The "Three Kingdoms," 214-265
The "Period of Darkness," 265-589
Sui, 589-618
T'ang, 618-907
The "Five Dynasties," 907-960
Sung, 960-1280
Kin or Mongols, 1280-1368
Ming, 1368-1644
Tsing or Manchu, 1644-1912
CHAPTER XIV
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
THE Hinayana lands and China seem upon the map to
lie in close proximity, with no great barrier between. As a
fact, this is far from being the case. The approach to China
from the south is not altogether easy today; from the west
it is difficult. In the early Buddhist centuries the land of
T'sin was cut off from the Indian and semi-Indian lands for
all but the most hardy and adventurous. Desert, mountain,
and sea had conspired together and presented an almost in-
surmountable barrier to human intercourse. Upon the west
and southwest rise the Pamirs and Himalayas, the loftiest
mountains in the world, towering to twice the height of the
Alps, with blinding snows and terrific chasms and rushing
torrents; while north of them stretches for many hundred
miles the Gobi desert, filled with sandstorms and thirst, track-
less save for the skeletons of those who tried and failed. This
route is still fraught with immense hardship and peril; but
for the merchant and missionary of the early days the south-
eastern route was perhaps even more frightful. For here rage
those hungriest and most treacherous of all the earth's waters,
the China Seas. The steady surge of its waves, the sunken
Paracel reefs, on whose hidden rocks many a junk and many
a goodly western ship has pounded to pieces, the typhoons,
whose sudden walls of water gleam like white devouring
teeth, and before whose unheralded approach the greatest
ships seek refuge if they can in some snug harbor on the coast
of Annam-these make this section of the ocean still a terror
to all but the largest steamships. What the voyage must
have been in an ancient Chinese junk it is hard to picture.
The waters west of French Indo-China are calm enough; but
when one has rounded the Point of Cambodia, the pounding
seas driven by the northeast monsoon, blowing for months
at a stretch, with the weight of the vast Pacific behind them,
the reefs of the coast, the rocky islets, the sudden and tre-
-
(
272
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
273
mendous storms, must have been to the ancient mariner, in
his small but unwieldy junk, a nightmare indeed. I-tsing
who traversed this stretch of the China Seas in the six hun-
dreds has left us a brief word picture of it: "Cutting through
the immense abyss, the great swells of water lie, like a moun-
tain on the sea. Joining sideways with a vast gulf-stream,
the massive waves like clouds, dash against the sky." 1
It was over this triple barrier of mountain, desert, and ›
sea, that the Buddhist missionaries forced their way to dis-
seminate the new faith, and that the Buddhist pilgrims from
China journeyed out on the long trail to the home land of
their religion, and then back again to bring with them a
purer faith than the most learned in their own country had
ever known.
In many ways China was an unpromising field for the
missionary religion. Both Northern and Southern Buddhism
are notable for their emphasis on the inner life, and the
Mahayana is highly speculative. The Chinese care little for
speculation or mysticism and are preeminently a practical
and outward-looking people. The scholastic organization.
of Buddhism, moreover, was an added impediment to its
progress; for its praise of the celibate life was out of harmony
with one of the most fundamental convictions of the Chinese,
their reverence for the family and their belief in the duty of
begetting sons. An organization such as the Buddhist Order
was, further, a cause of suspicion and antagonism on the part
of the Chinese government, which has always looked askance
at closely knit groups of individuals within the state. From
considerations such as these, a judge of human nature, ob-
serving the condition of China in the middle of the Han
dynasty, might well have predicted great difficulties for the
new religion.
Nor would his predictions have been lacking in justifica-
tion by the event. Looking back now to that distant point
in the past, with all the knowledge that the intervening
centuries have given us, we, too, can see that on the whole
Buddhism was not very well adapted to the Chinese people.
The unfavorable characteristics above recited have steadily
worked against its success in China and to them must be laid
¹I-tsing's Records of the Buddhist Religion, trans. by Takakusa, p. xxx.
*
274
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
in large part the present moribund condition of Buddhism
in many parts of that great land.
Yet it has had successes as well as difficulties, and these,
too, are to be explained by certain of its fundamental char-
acteristics. Most important of these is its elasticity and
adaptability. The wise monks who guided the development
of Buddhism during its first centuries in China were quick
to see the character and customs and the needs of the people,
and being bound by no rigid rules or dogmas they were able
to adapt their teachings and their services to the new condi-
tions. The monastic order, indeed, could not be given up,
but Buddhist monks learned how to make themselves useful
to the Chinese family. They adopted into their teaching the
Confucian ideal of filial piety, laying almost as much stress
upon this as upon the Five Precepts. The Chinese piety
toward departed parents, indeed, Buddhism was able to serve
in what seemed a much more efficient way than Confucian-
ism, namely, by its masses for the dead; and this did much to
enlist the family sentiment in favor of the new religion.
Buddhism appealed also to the natural human hope for life
beyond the grave. For while neither Confucianism nor
Taoism pretended to give any information concerning the
condition of the dead, the Indian religion proffered detailed
knowledge and a lively hope. It was probably this combina-
tion of hope for oneself and knowledge about the condition
of one's beloved dead, with the strict moral retribution in-
volved, that did more than any other one thing to bring
about the early spread of Buddhism in China. It filled a
long-felt need. In the eighth century Buddhist monks added
to the appeal of their religion by offering not only knowledge
of the future but means of directly affecting it, through the
proper recital of sacred verses. From this time on the bonzes
were indispensable at funerals and at the later ceremonies for
praying the dead out of purgatory. While this rather super-
stitious and late invention of the Order certainly did much
to strengthen the hold of Buddhism on the Chinese laity, it
is still true that the chief explanation of the firm position
that Buddhism won for itself in China as a whole is to be
found in the fact referred to above, that it brought new hope
for the other side of death and that it provided a way of
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
275
salvation by moral effort which appealed strongly to the
deeply moral nature of the Chinese people.
In other and lesser ways also Buddhism adapted itself to
the Chinese. It found that Taoism had already prepared the
soil for its own ideal of inwardness and passivity, in the doc-
trine of the Tao, as presented in the Tao-te Ching 2 and the
writings of Chwang-tse; and it made the most of this situa-
tion. Instead of attacking Taoism it almost adopted it.
Instead of ridiculing the Taoist deities (which would surely
not have been a difficult matter) it took some of them over
into the Buddhist cycle as attendants on the Buddhas, some
of them it even made into Bodhisattvas. I sometimes won-
der, indeed, that it did not adopt Confucius as a Bodhisattva;
but perhaps Confucius would have been too big a pill for
even a Buddhist monk; and the wise leaders may have seen
that such an act would have produced nothing but uncon-
trollable indignation on the part of the Confucians.
Whether Buddhism had made its appearance in China.
before the Han Emperor Ming-Ti, in 62 A.D., had his famous
dream of the golden man and sent his embassy to the West
to learn about him, is a question on which sinalogues dis-
agree,³ and about which, therefore, I have no opinion. The
• •
Note, for example, the Buddhist and Mahayanist tone of the following from the
Tao-Te Ching: "The Tao (that is, the Ultimate) is empty and so is the practice of it.
We must not be full of ourselves. When you have accomplished something and thereby
gained fame, then let your own self retire into the background, for this is the Tao
of Heaven. The reason why the perfect man holds in his embrace the Universe
itself and so is the model of all that lives under the sky, is that he is free from self-
display and therefore shines bright: free from a selfish existence and therefore is glorious;
free from struggling for the sake of himself and therefore performs meritorious works;
free from self-sympathy and therefore has superiority. As he does not indulge in
struggle with others, no one in the world struggles with him." Nor was Confucianism
by any means out of harmony with the moral side of Buddhism, as the following from
the Chung Yung (the Doctrine of the Mean) will indicate: "When there are no
stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, we call it the State of Equilibrium. When
these feelings have been stirred and all in their due measure and degree, we call it the
state of harmony" (Chap. I, 4). As the last part of the quotation will show, however,
there was a real difference between the Confucian and the Buddhist ideals.
"Parker sees no reason to believe that Buddhism was known in China before this
time, and discusses the matter at some length on pages 225-31 of his Studies in Chinese
Religion (London, Chapman and Hall, 1910). Giles, on the other hand, thinks the
evidence in favor of such early acquaintance is excellent. See Lecture VI of his Con-
fucianism and Its Rivals (London, Williams and Norgate, 1915). Cordier discusses
the introduction of Buddhism into China, with many citations, on pages 262-66 of his
Histoire Générale de la Chine (Paris, Geuthner, 1920). He rejects the story of the
emperor's dream as apocryphal. Reichelt accepts the story of the dream and also the
view that Buddhism was known in China in the first century before Christ (Truth and
Tradition in Chinese Buddhism, Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1927, pp. 9-12).
•
276
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
5
two monks whom the imperial ambassadors found in Central
Asia and brought back with them, unloaded at the capital
their Buddha image and their books from the back of the
horse which had carried them all those weary hundreds of
miles, and the Emperor built them a little monastery, named
(in typical Buddhist fashion) after the faithful beast,"
where the great work of translating Sanskrit Sutras into
Chinese was begun. One of the monks was an Indian and
probably both were. Other monks, some of them Indian,
some natives of Central Asia, followed during the next cen-
turies. They made, apparently, no great efforts at prose-
lyting, but spent their time laying the foundations of the
future Chinese church in a manner typical of both the great
scholarly peoples here involved, the Indians and the Chinese,
by continuing the work of translating books. By the time
of the downfall of the Han dynasty upward of three hundred
and fifty books had been translated. It was not till the
period known as the Age of Darkness (265-589) that
Buddhism made any noticeable advance among the Chinese
people. During this period Buddhism spread rapidly, and
according to Brinkley it "became, before the middle of the
fourth century, the chief religion of the nation." It seems
to have been especially among the small states, in part under
Tartar rule, into which China north of the Yangtse was
split, that Buddhism made best headway. It was one of these
northern rulers (Shih Chi-lung of the Later Chao) who,
just prior to 363 A.D., for the first time gave the Buddhist
missionaries permission to receive native Chinese into the
Order as monks. Hitherto the Chinese converts had been
laymen only. From now on they were to become monks as
well. This meant an important turning point in the history
of Chinese Buddhism-a turning point comparable to that
which the Christian church in China is just reaching. After
the permission of 363 the Chinese church was to be native,
independent, and largely self-guided. This did not mean
that it was left without assistance by the mother church in
India and Central Asia. Thus in 383 a great reinforcement
6
Lo-Yang.
5 The White Horse Monastery.
0
China, Its History, Arts, and Literature (Boston, Millet, 1902), X, 148.
4
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
277
came to Chinese Buddhism in the person of a learned Indian
teacher, Kumarajiva, who was captured by a Chinese general
in the siege of a city in Central Asia and brought to
Chang-an, where he performed a huge amount of work,
instructing some three thousand disciples and translating
fifty or more books.
7
One of the books translated by Kumarajiva was the
Smaller Sukhavati-vyuha. The Larger Sukhavati-vyuha had
been translated into Chinese sometime before the year 186.
These two books, with one other which was translated soon
after Kumarajiva's time, form the principal scripture of the
"Pure Land" form of Buddhism-that evangelical doctrine
which promises salvation in the Western Paradise by simple
faith in Amitabha, and which naturally made and has con-
tinued to make a great appeal to the simpler-minded Chinese.
About the time that Kumarajiva translated the Smaller
Sukhavati-vyuha, this form of thought and aspiration in
Buddhism was crystallized into something that might be
called a school or sect, by a Buddhist monk named Hui Yuan,
who had been converted from Taoism and who brought
something of the Taoist mystic feeling into his adopted
faith.8 The Pure Land or Lotus school of Buddhism is thus
the oldest of the present sects of Buddhism in China. Its
influence, I should add, was very much greater than the
number of its recognized members would indicate; for it
eventually permeated to a considerable degree all the other
sects. Had not Buddhism been presented in this form it is
unlikely that it ever would have been able to get the strong
hold upon the Chinese people which the centuries following
Hui Yuan's time were to see.
The Buddhist missionaries from India brought with them
many things besides their religion. Indian science was well
developed by the time Buddhism entered China and the
learned monks who brought the teachings of Sakyamuni
brought also a considerable amount of the science of their
native land. Chinese astronomy in particular was thus en-
riched by India. It seems probable, too, that the method of
7 The Amitayurdhyana Sutra, trans. about 424.
8
For an excellent study of Hui Yuan, the Taoist influence he brought with him,
and the Pure Land school in general, see Reichelt, Truth and Tradition in Chinese
Buddhism, Chap. V.
278
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
writing the numerals in accordance with the decimal system
was introduced into China from India by Buddhist mission-
aries. The monks also made the written language of China a
less rigid tool, for many Sanskrit names and many Sanskrit
terms for which there was no Chinese equivalent had to be
presented in some quasi-phonetic fashion. The ingenuity
of the Indians and the considerable acquaintance with pho-
netics that every student of Sanskrit must acquire, enabled
them to construct a system of expressing sounds in Chinese
characters which the Chinese probably never would have
invented but which they were glad to adopt.9
For many years, as I have indicated, after the fall of the
Hans, the chief successes of Buddhism were won north of
the Yangtse. South of the great river, in the region the
Tartars had not been able to reach, and where, consequently,
the ancient Chinese culture, with its pride and prejudice, its
learning and its suspicion of foreign ideas were strong, the
two native religions (if so we may call Confucianism and
Taoism) made unsystematic but repeated and at times vio-
lent attacks upon the teachings of the new faith. In spite
of this Buddhism steadily grew in strength on both sides of
the river, frequently counting the various rulers, and even
the "legitimate" emperor, among its converts. It was during
this period that the famous Buddhist travelers Fa-Hien and
Sung-Yun made their long and dangerous pilgrimages to
India to see their religion in act in its native country, to drink
in the truth at its source, and to bring back new books for
translation. More important still it was during this period
that the great Bodhidharma came from India and brought
with him the Dhyana or Contemplative school of Buddhism.
As this is by far the most widespread school of Chinese
Buddhism it will be well to pause here and learn something of
its nature and history. The western reader, acquainted with
a few books on the life and teachings of the Buddha, will
probably be convinced on his first acquaintance with the
Ch'an Buddhism of China and the Zen of Japan that this
strange form of meditative nonsense (as he may regard it)
has no relation whatever to the Buddhism of the Founder.
As a fact, the seeds of Zen Buddhism, like the seeds of all the
See Edkins, Chinese Buddhism (London, Kegan Paul), Chap. VI.
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
279
Mahayana, are to be traced back to Gotama. I wish here to
deal with Ch'an or Zen Buddhism very briefly, postponing a
more detailed treatment to a later time; but even here a few
words must be said of its relation to the original Buddhism.
Something happened under the Bo Tree. A new and
transforming insight came to Gotama. It is improbable
that the tremendous thing that happened in his mind was
merely the formulation of the Four Noble Truths and the
causal chain. These were doubtless partial expressions of the
new experience; but the experience itself was pretty plainly,
from the psychological point of view, not a process of
ratiocination, but rather belonged to the type of psychical
events which in the West we know as conversion. It was
partly intellectual, it was partly emotional, it was probably
in part volitional. It was a sudden vision of new significance.
To use a not uncommon expression which I confess I only
partly understand, yet which may give the reader the feel-
ing I am trying to convey, the thing that happened under
the Bo Tree was the attainment of a new "level of insight"
or a new "depth of life." The Buddha himself felt con-
vinced of this. His disciples and most of those who came into
contact with him seem to have felt this insight of his-felt it
as something which was the source of, yet transcended, all
his specific teaching. His repeated use of Yoga methods for
concentration and the instruction he gave his followers in
semi-mystical meditation also go to show that what he him-
self possessed and what he wished to hand on to them was
not merely a doctrine and a definable view of life, but an
experience of immediate insight. It is this experience of
immediate insight that the Dhyana or Ch'an or Zen form of
Buddhism seeks to attain, cultivate, and communicate. It
was this that Bodhidharma brought to China.10
G
In his authoritative little History of the Twelve Japanese
Buddhist Sects 11 the great Japanese scholar Bunyin Nanjio
writes concerning the Ch'an or Zen sect as follows:
The general character of the doctrine of this sect is briefly explained
by twelve Chinese words which mean "Special transmission independent
10 'See Professor Suzuki's interesting discussion of this matter in his Essays in Zen
Buddhism (London, Luzac, 1927), pp. 49-61, 107-24, 152-54.
"Tokyo, 1886.
280
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of a common teaching and not established on any letter or word." Be-
sides all the doctrines of the Mahayana and Hinayana, whether hidden
or apparent, there is, therefore, one distinct line of transmission of a
sercret doctrine which is not subject to (i.e., not capable of) any utter-
ance at all. According to this doctrine one is directly to see the so-called
key to the thought of Buddha or the Buddha nature by his own thought,
being free from the multitude of different doctrines, the number of which
is said to reach 84,000. In short, it is truth made apparent to one's own
thought.12
To illustrate further the nature and the theory of trans-
mission of this "secret doctrine" (which, of course, is not
a doctrine at all but an ineffable and immediate personal
experience), Nanjio relates the following tradition:
When the Blessed One was at the assembly on Mount Guidhrakuta,
or Vulture's Peak, there came a heavenly king who offered him a flower
of a golden colour, and asked him to preach the Law. The Blessed One
only took the flower and held it in his hand, but said no word. No one
in the whole assembly (except Mahakasyapa) could understand what he
meant. The venerable Mahakasyapa alone smiled. Then the Blessed One
said to him: "I have the wonderful thought of Nirvana, the eye of the
Right Law, which I shall now give to you." This is called the doctrine
of thought transmitted by thought.13
According to the tradition of the Ch'an sect Kasyapa
thus became the patriarch of the Buddhist Order, after the
death of the Founder, and the patriarchate with its mystic
insight was handed on by him to Ananda, and on through a
long list of famous Buddhist Fathers, including Asvaghosha,
Nagarjuna, and Vasubandhu, to Bodhidharma, who, as the
twenty-eighth patriarch, came to China and there founded
the Chinese branch of the Dhyana school, which is known
as the Ch'an. Bodhidharma is said to have come from
Southern India, and this is probably the case. India, how-
ever, remembers nothing of him, and in no Indian list of
Buddhist patriarchs is he mentioned.14 For China and Japan,
however, he is a very great figure, and his landing in Canton
in 520 and his arrival at the emperor's court at Nanking was
one of the crucial events in the story of Chinese Buddhism.
The emperor of the day was a devout Buddhist and eagerly
asked his renowned visitor how much merit he might expect
1 Op. cit., p. 114.
13 Op. cit., pp. 114-15.
Eliot, op. cit., II, 95.
1.1
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
281
from the princely donations he had for many years been
making to the Buddhist Order. To this the blunt answer
was, "No merit at all." The sacred books which had been
translated with so much care, the patriarch said, were worth
nothing. No knowledge that is worth anything can be
gained by reading, nor is there any such thing as merit gained
by good works. The astonished emperor then asked which
of the holy doctrines of Buddhism was most important; to
which the enigmatical saint responded, "Where all is empti-
ness, nothing can be called holy." Finally, to make sure of
the authority from which such strange assertions came, the
emperor asked, "Who are you who thus reply to me?" The
philosopher saint responded, "I do not know." One is not
surprised in reading Nanjio's assertion that the emperor "was
not yet able to understand" Bodhidharma's teaching. "So
leaving the capital, Bodhidharma crossed the river Yan tse,
and on Mt. Su (in the Shao-Lin temple near Lo-yang) he
sat down cross-legged in meditation, with his face to a wall,
for nine years.
>> 15
In Bodhidharma's time Buddhism was growing rapidly.
It is said that in the year 530 there were thirteen thousand
temples in North China alone. The new mystic school
stimulated even more rapid development. At Bodhidharma's
death he conferred the patriarchal office on one of his disci-
ples, and thus the patriarchate was handed on, till (in 713)
the fifth successor (the sixth patriarch) had died. He ap-
pointed no successor, and there has been no patriarch since
his day. It was he who left the growing church, if so we
may call it, in the north, and carried the new form of Bud-
dhism into the south, and there built up a large group of
devoted followers. The Northern school eventually died out,
but the Southern school extended over all China. Its influ-
ence was particularly great during the later T'ang and the
Sung dynasties.16
(
Shortly after the death of Bodhidharma a Chinese monk
who had studied the various forms of Buddhism thus far
introduced into China and had for a time been a convert to
15
Nanjio, A Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, p. 116.
10 For the history of Zen or Ch'an Buddhism in China, see Suzuki's Essays in Zen
Buddhism, Essay IV.
282
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the Ch'an school, came to feel that Buddhism was larger than
any of its sects, and that there was no one exclusive road to
salvation. For by this time, as I should have said, there were
several schools of Buddhist thought in China, each claiming
to possess the truth. These various schools may be classified
in three principal types: (1) those who taught salvation was
to be gained by knowledge-such as the Madhyamika and
Yogacara and some of the Hinayana schools, all of which had
followers in China; (2) those that preached salvation by
grace and faith (the Pure Land or Lotus sect); and (3) the
Ch'an or meditative sect. The monk of whom I have been
speaking, Chih K'ai by name, conceived of a form of Bud-
dhism that should have room within itself for all these sects
and should do justice to the truth of all without doing in-
justice to the truth of any. The new school which he
founded 17 took its name from the monastery which he built
in the group of hills known as T'ien-t'ai, about one hundred
and eighty miles southeast of Hang-chow, in Chekiang
province.
18
The T'ien-tai school is thus, in a way, encyclopedic. Yet,
while it recognizes the teachings of all schools of Buddhism
as true, it differentiates between them, some being more com-
prehensive than others. In this Chih K'ai was aided by
Nagarjuna's distinction of the three levels of truth; and the
seemingly opposed teachings and methods of the different
schools he harmonized by an ingenious division of Sakya-
muni's ministry and teaching into five periods. In the first of
these, lasting only a few weeks, the Founder preached the
absolute truth in all its lofty perfection to a throng of
Bodhisattvas. For simple-minded mortals, however, this, he
knew, was much too difficult; hence during the second period
of his ministry he put his teaching in the simple words of the
Hinayana. "Milk for babes, meat for strong men" has always
been a Mahayana principle. In the third and fourth periods
he led his disciples farther on the way to real insight. Finally,
in the fifth period he taught them the doctrine of the Lotus
gospel (the Saddharma Pundarika) which is really inclusive
17 Chih K'ai is commonly spoken of as the founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism; but the
members of the sect itself speak of many founders, both Chinese, Indian, and heavenly.
See Nanjio, op. cit., Chap. VII.
18
See Edkins account in Chap. VIII of his Chinese Buddhism.
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
283
of all the rest.19 The Lotus gospel is thus the great scripture
of the T'ien-t'ai school. It will be seen, therefore, that while
this school seeks to be all-embracing, it, too, has its own
special form of Buddhist doctrine, which is considered truer
than the rest in the sense, at least, of being more inclusive.
The T'ien-t'ai, that is, has its own form of philosophy, a
philosophy which may be described as a spiritualization of
the Madhyamika. I shall deal with its thought more specifi-
cally in a later chapter.
Besides the sects I have mentioned there were at the be-
ginning of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618) a number of others
with which I shall not trouble the reader, since they had no
great effect on the subsequent development of Buddhism as
a religion, and in fact only one or two of them have lived on
into our times. During the T'ang dynasty, however, they
were vigorous. In fact, it was during the rule of this
dynasty and the first centuries that followed its overthrow
that Chinese Buddhism attained the acme of its influence.
Both Confucianism and Taoism, to be sure, opposed it and
sometimes, when they gained control of the emperor's con-
science or judgment, succeeded in having it persecuted. The
founder of the T'ang dynasty, a strict Confucianist, closed
all but the larger Buddhist monasteries and convents and
forced many monks and nuns to return to the world. A
second persecution of a similar sort took place about a cen-
tury later, and a third and particularly severe one in the
middle of the ninth century. This last was during the reign
of Wu-Tsung, a Taoist, who destroyed 4600 monasteries and
40,000 smaller buildings, confiscated the landed property
of the Order, melted down Buddha images, set free 150,000
temple servants, and compelled more than 260,000 monks
and nuns to return to the world.20 These periods of
persecu-
tion, however, were of fairly brief duration, and as a fervent
Buddhist emperor usually succeeded a persecutor, the damage
to the religion was in part made good. The persecutions,
•
C
10
For a lengthier treatment of these five periods and their teachings, see McGovern,
Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, pp. 124-27, Reischauer, Studies in Japanese Bud-
dhism (New York, Macmillan, 1917), pp. 172-73; and Reichelt, Truth and Tradition
in Chinese Buddhism, pp. 50-52.
20
De Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China (Amsterdam, Muller,
1903), p. 69.
284
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
moreover, probably did nothing to weaken the hold of Bud-
dhism upon the laity, which seems to have grown constantly
stronger during the three centuries of T'ang rule. It was
during this dynasty, in fact, that Buddhist monks came to
be regarded as indispensable at funerals-a new Buddhist
practice which, as we have seen, greatly increased its influ-
ence among the laity.21
The stream of sacred books from India continued, more-
over, to reinforce the learning of the educated Buddhists.
This work of importation seems to have been carried on dur-
ing T'ang times, chiefly not by Indian missionaries but by
devout Chinese Buddhists who longed to drink directly from
the original spring of their religion. Already Fa-Hien and
Sung-Yun had made their pilgrimages to the sacred land,
and now, under the reign of the second T'ang emperor,22
Hiuen-Tsiang made his famous journey, to be followed in
671 by the almost equally famous I-tsing. To appreciate
fully the earnest devotion of these early Chinese Buddhists
and the strength of their faith one must form some picture
of the perils and hardships that faced them on the terrible
journey through the Gobi desert and over the passes of the
Pamirs, or on frail junks through the China Sea, that most
treacherous of waters. Did space permit, it would be inter-
esting to recount some of the trials endured by these daunt-
less pilgrims in search of greater light and purer truth, but
I must content myself with quoting a few words of Fa-Hien
concerning the Gobi desert through which his track lay:
"In this desert are many evil demons and hot winds: when
encountered, then all travelers die without exception. There
are no flying birds above, no roaming beasts below, but every-
where gazing as far as the eye can reach in search of the on-
ward route, it would be impossible to know the way but for
dead men's decaying bones which show the direction." 28
Many of the pilgrims died on the journey, and those that won
through did so, as we learn from the accounts they have left
us, only by the confidence they derived from their faith in
23
71 Eliot says this was due largely to the influence of a Ceylonese monk who came to
China in 719. See II, 264-65.
22
T'ai T'sung, the great conqueror.
23 Beal's trans. in the Introd. to his Buddhist Records of the Western World,
P. xxiv.
1
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
285
the Buddha and Kwan-Yin, to whom they prayed with fer-
vor in all times of peril.24
Hiuen-Tsiang brought home with him a library of sacred
Sanskrit works 25 which he spent the rest of his life (some
nineteen years) in translating. I-tsing brought almost as
many and (like his predecessor) spent his remaining years in
translating them. The influence of these translations on the
development of Chinese Buddhism was very considerable.
Hiuen-Tsiang in fact was the founder of a Buddhist sect, or
rather it was he who introduced it into China from India.
This was the Dharma-lakshana sect, which continued the
teachings of Asanga and Vasubandhu. In China it is known
as the Fa-Hsiang. On the whole, Hiuen-Tsiang was per-
haps the most important Buddhist of all the great and hon-
ored Buddhist scholars of this scholarly land.
26
Cont
"Cf. especially the description of Hiuen-Tsiang's passage through the Gobi desert
during which he prays in all emergencies and with much fervor to Kwan-Yin. At one
time he lost his way in the midst of the desert and at the same moment upset his
water bottle, losing thus all its contents; but resolutely went on, invoking the merciful
Bodhisattva as his only hope. "At this time in the four directions the view was
boundless; there were no traces either of man or horse, and in the night the demons
and goblins raised fire-lights as many as the stars; in the daytime the driving wind
blew the sand before it. But notwithstanding all this his heart was unaffected by fear;
but he suffered from want of water, and was so parched with thirst that he could no
longer go forward. Thus for four nights and five days not a drop of water had he to
wet his throat or mouth; his stomach was racked with a burning heat, and he was
well-nigh thoroughly exhausted. And now not being able to advance he lay down to
rest on the sands, invoking Kwan-Yin without intermission, although worn with
sufferings. And as he addressed the Bodhisattva he said: 'Hiuen-Tsiang in adventuring
this journey does not seek for riches or worldly profit, he desires not to acquire fame,
but only for the sake of the highest religious truth does his heart long to find the
true Law. I know that the Bodhisattva lovingly regards all living creatures to deliver
them from misery. Will not my misery, bitter as it is, come to the Bodhisattva's
knowledge!' Thus he spoke with earnest heart and without cessation till the middle
of the fifth night when suddenly a cool wind fanned his body, cold and refreshing
as a bath of ice water. His eyes forthwith recovered their power of sight, and his body
being thus refreshed he fell asleep for a little while."
In this sleep he had a dream-a great being [presumably Kwan-Yin] appearing
before him. Rousing himself from slumber, he mounted his horse and soon came to
an oasis, where his horse had plenty of green grass and where he found a pool of
sweet water. The account given in his biography continues as follows: "Now we may
conclude that this water and grass were not natural supplies, but were undoubtedly
produced through the loving pity of the Bodhisattva" (The Life of Hinen-Tsiang,
by his disciple Hwui-li, trans. by Beal, London, Kegan Paul, 1911, pp. 22-24). A few
days later he was presented with a new kind of peril. The king of the country, a
devout Buddhist, received him with every honor, and prized him so highly that he
refused to allow him to go on. Hiuen-tsiang succeeded in getting away only by
starting a hunger-strike and vowing that he would take no food till the king per-
mitted him to depart. After he had gone for three days and nights without food or
drink the king relented, op. cit., pp. 24-29.
25
20
Altogether some 657 volumes, carried on twenty horses, op. cit., p. 214.
In Japan known as the Hosso.
286
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Another school of Buddhism introduced into China dur-
ing the T'ang dynasty was the Chen-yen, or True Word sect
-better known in the West by its Japanese name, Shingon.
It worships especially the Buddha Vairocana, who stands for
both the Dharma and the Sun. This, the last of the Chinese
sects, was brought from India about 720 by an Indian named
Vajrabodhi, who is reckoned the first of the Chinese pa-
triarchs of this school.27 His successor (also an Indian)
Amogha Vajra by name, is said to have done more than any
one else toward the introduction of masses for the dead into
Chinese Buddhism. According to Dr. Reichelt, he borrowed
from the ritual of the Nestorian missionaries whom he found
at the capital much of the material that he used in his
masses. It was during the life of the fourth patriarch of
this school (Hui Kuo) 20 in 804 that the famous Japanese
monk, Kobo Daishi, came to China in search of Buddhist
truth and studied the Shingon teaching. Returning to Japan
soon after, he founded the Japanese Shingon sect. In this
connection it will be well to mention the fact that at practi-
cally the same time an equally famous Japanese monk,
Dengyo Daishi, came to China to study at Mt. T'ien-t'ai, and
returning founded the Japanese Tendai sect. During the
T'ang dynasty, therefore, China was a great religious mart,
both receiving from India new inspiration and handing on
the best it had acquired to Japan.
28
29
30
Buddhism was not the only religion of foreign origin that
had some success in China during the T'ang dynasty. It
was during Tang rule that Nestorian Christianity entered
China, and at about the same time came also Zoroastrianism
and Manichaeism. The two T'ang capitals, Chang-an 3º and
Lo-yang 31 were very cosmopolitan cities, centers of great
intellectual life. Here representatives of the two native re-
ligions and the four foreign ones were defending and ex-
pounding their positions and exchanging ideas. Of all these
religions probably Buddhism was the most active, for Con-
.
27 Nanjio, op. cit., Chap. VIII.
28 Op. cit., pp. 89-90.
20 Eliot, III. 317.
patriarch.
According to Nanjio, Kobo Daishi studied with the third
80 Modern Sian-fu.
31 Modern Honan-fu, though the name is now being changed back to Lo-yang.
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
287
fucianism is almost necessarily conservative and on the de-
fensive. This was the time, moreover, when the greatest
member of one of the Buddhist sects was at the height of his
intellectual power and influence, namely, San-tao, leader of
the Pure Land sect, known best to history by the name he
bears in Japan, Zendo.32 He was, in a sense, the second
founder of his sect, and his influence upon Buddhism in both
China and Japan has been immense. The fact that he was
living in Chang-an at the same time as the Nestorian fathers
is sometimes cited as an argument for the view that the
evangelical form of Buddhism of the Pure Land sects in
China and Japan is derived from Christianity. But as Pro-
fessor Moore has pointed out,33 there are two facts which
sufficiently dispose of this argument: first, the evangelical
Buddhist view rose long before the Nestorians came to China
and is indeed clearly to be traced back to India, and secondly,
the Nestorian form of Christianity was not evangelical at
all.
But the T'ien-t'ai sect had as great an influence during
the T'ang dynasty as the Pure Land and apparently a greater
influence among the more educated. For the Tien-t'ai of-
fered both intellectual explanation and mystic intuition, and
the intellectual aristocracy of the capitals seem to have found
in it the thing that satisfied their souls. Upon the rising
school of Chinese painting, also, Buddhism, and especially
T'ien-t'ai Buddhism, had a growing influence. The older,
more obvious, less idealistic forms of Buddhism had had their
great effect upon Chinese sculpture, in the portrayal of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; but the more inward, more spirit-
ual, more philosophical teaching of the T'ien-t'ai school
needed larger expression. The whole of external nature
"It is said that "he had studied all the various teachings of all the sects and was
troubled thereby and confused. One day he went into the library of the monastery,
and after praying for guidance, he reached out his hand and took up the Amitayur-
dhyana-sutra, which tells of Amida and his mercies. When he read this he was
comforted and took heart again. This led to further study of this teaching, and for
some time he retired to a solitary place. Afterwards he studied with the patriarch
Doshaku and emerged from his tutelage as a teacher of the salvation doctrine. It was
he who pushed the doctrine to its fullest, and unlike others recognized Amida only of
all the Buddhas" ("Honen Shonin and the Jodo Ideal," by Beatrice Suzuki, in the
Eastern Buddhist, I. 319).
83
History of Religions (New York, Scribner, 1914), I. 136-37. Dr. Reichelt, on
the other hand, still insists on a considerable amount of Nestorian influence, op. cit.,
131-132.
288
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
could now be interpreted as the outer garment and the sym-
bol of the Buddha-life within. Sculpture, with its inescap-
able limitations, could not present this in visual form. Only
painting could do that. It was thus from T'ien-t'ai Bud-
dhism that Chinese painting received its first great inspira-
tion.34 It was this school that taught the Chinese artists, in
the words of Fenellosa, "to image forth the truth in forms
of glowing vision, to see the very presences of Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas clad with dazzling light, to project angelic
groups upon the background of contemplation and to behold
the inner circulation of native affinities and sympathies work-
ing in intertwisted lives of physical and moral law.'
>> 35
This Buddhist inspiration for Chinese painting was con-
tinued and carried further in the later part of the T'ang
dynasty and to almost the end of the Sung dynasty by the
influence of the Ch'an sect. According to Fenellosa and
Arthur Waley, it was the Ch'an declaration of independence
from books and specific dogmas and its firm conviction that
the Buddha-nature could, by inner search, be found in one's
own heart, the Buddha-nature which was in all external
things as well-it was these suggestions that led the greatest
painters of the T'ang and Sung into those mystical and
masterly interpretations of life and landscape that mark the
acme of Chinese art and have given to Chinese (and Japa-
nese) painting that peculiar inwardness which marks it off
from all the art of the West. As Keyserling puts it:
Our plastic arts have never expressed what our music and poetry
have been able to convey. It is the function of both to give a body to
feelings: poetry is a match for articulated feelings, music alone for the
inarticulated, the most vital, the profoundest of all. Why is it that these
subjectivities cannot be rendered objective in a picture? Because the
greatest possible concentration of reason does not lead to the Holy of
Holies of the soul. As we have always been rationalists as painters, we
have never been able to give direct expression to the "soul" in painting
no matter how marvellously we succeeded in doing so in music.
That is just what the East succeeded in doing, thanks to which they have
produced works by the side of which we have nothing to offer. From
the point of view of reason, no work of the East is a match for the art
of Greece, but they cannot be judged from the point of view of reason.
84
See Fenellosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art (New York, Stokes), I. 121-22.
85 Loc. cit.
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
289
They spring from the same depth of life that only poetry and music do
in our case.
36
The Chinese painters under the influence of Ch'an Bud-
dhism make no attempt at photographic reproduction, but
seek first to absorb the spirit or essence of the landscape or
the man or animal they mean to present, and then paint, so
to speak, from within outward. If they would present a
waterfall they sit in meditation near it for hours, without
perhaps making a single sketch; then return home with the
feeling of the scene in their hearts, and express the feeling
with their brush. In principle this is related to our contem-
porary "futurism," though in taste, spiritual comprehen-
sion, and resulting beauty the two schools are sufficiently far
apart. The difference is perhaps largely explained by the
fact that Chinese painting under Ch'an influence had the
inspiration of a profound religious feeling. As Waley has
expressed it:
The Buddha-nature is immanent not in man only but in everything
that exists, animate or inanimate. Stone, river, and tree are alike parts
of the great hidden Unity. Thus Man, through his Buddha-nature or
universalized consciousness, possesses an intimate means of contact with
Nature. The songs of the birds, the noise of the waterfalls, the rolling
of thunder, the whispering of wind in the pine trees-all these are utter-
ances of the Absolute.37
Another art, if so we may call it, that the Buddhism of
the T'ang dynasty has to its credit is the printing of books
by the use of wooden blocks-"block printing" it is called.
This method of reduplication may have been first invented
for the manufacture of charms and very likely by the Tao-
ists; but it was developed into the making of books by Bud-
dhists and in Buddhist monasteries, and it was the Buddhist
religion that provided the needed impetus. For upward
38
39 The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, Eng. trans. (New York, Harcourt, 1925),
I, 280-81.
37
Zen Buddhism and Its Relation to Art (London, Luzac, 1922), p. 24. See also
Chap. X (in Vol. II) of Fenellosa's Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art.
38
See Carter, The Invention of Printing in China (New York, Columbia Univ.,
1925), Chaps. IV, VI. According to Carter, the first books were probably printed
in the reign of Ming Huang (712-756). The oldest printed book now in existence is
the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868, and found in 1900 by Dr. Stein at Tun-Huang.
290
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of two centuries after the invention of block printing it was
apparently only Buddhist monks that made any extensive use
of it for the publication of books. Very early in the Sung
dynasty, about 972, the Chinese version of the Buddhist
canon, consisting of some 1521 works, was printed, "in more
than 5000 volumes, and covering 130,000 pages-one of the
most monumental works that history records.
39
Among the arts to which Ch'an Buddhism contributed
should perhaps also be mentioned the art of making and
drinking tea; for in China and Japan it is hardly less. Here,
as in printing, Taoism had been before Buddhism, but the
two schools, especially in their feeling for symbolism, were
never far apart and the two influences blended. And when
in connection with China or Japan one speaks of tea (I had
almost written Tea) one must not think of a western "tea,"
but rather of something more like the unveiling of a statue
or the performance of a religious rite. According to
Okakura-Kakuzo, "among the Buddhists, the South-
ern Ch'an sect, which incorporated so much of Taoist doc-
trines, formulated an elaborate ritual of tea. The monks
gathered before the image of Bodhidharma and drank
tea out of a single bowl with the profound formality of a
holy sacrament. It was this Ch'an ritual which finally devel-
oped into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth cen-
tury.
>> 40
در
Buddhism was at the height of its influence during the
T'ang and Sung dynasties. In Fenellosa's opinion it was the
champion of individualism and progress, while Confucian-
ism was the champion of conformity and conservatism. The
struggle of these two religions for supremacy and control of
the educational system, was crucial for China. Toward the
close of the Sung dynasty Confucianism gained the decided
predominance which it has never since lost, except during the
rule of the Mongol invaders who followed the Sungs. Even
in its defeat, however, Buddhism was not without its great
influence on its rival. If it did not contribute directly to the
Neo-Confucianism of the "Sung philosophers," it was the in-
direct cause and stimulus for this new birth of native Chinese
19 Carter, pp. 62-63.
40 The Book of the Tea (New York, Duffield, 1923), p. 38.
THE STORY OF CHINESE BUDDHISM
291
thought; 41
and the last of the great original Confucian
thinkers, Wan Yang Ming, who lived under the Ming
dynasty, plainly was indebted to the mysticism and idealism
of Buddhist philosophy not only indirectly but in very im-
mediate fashion.
The Mongol emperors were very open-minded on reli-
gious matters, and most of them seem to have been especially
favorable to Buddhism.42 Yet the revolt which finally drove
them from China was largely fostered by the White Lotus
Society-a lay Buddhist organization-and much of the
strength of the patriotic cause was due to the belief in the
immanent advent of Maitreya. The revolt was in fact led by
a former Buddhist monk.43
It was this ex-Buddhist monk who became the founder
of the Ming dynasty. On the whole, both he and his suc-
cessors were more steady and consistent in their ecclesiastical
policy than were the T'ang emperors; and while often per-
sonally sympathetic with Buddhism and even favorable to
its scholarly development, they were pretty generally sus-
picious of the monastic order and prevented its spread and
often diminished its power. Much the same thing may be
said of the policy of the Manchus, though for political rea-
sons they sought to win the favor of the Tibetan and Mon-
golian Lamaists. Their attitude toward Chinese Buddhism
as such was distinctly unfavorable. In one respect, there-
fore, the foundation of the Republic has proved advantage-
ous to Buddhism: complete religious freedom has been won.
But quite aside from the attitude of the government, the
hold that Buddhism had upon the Chinese people seems
steadily to have waned during both the Ming and Manchu
dynasties and under the Republic. Inwardly, moreover, in
both intellectual interest and mystical feeling, it has been
pretty steadily losing. But this question of the present con-
dition of Buddhism is one that we must postpone to later
chapters.
Before going on, however, to this more important matter,
S
G
G
ww
41
Cf. W. J. Clennell, The Historical Development of Religion in China (London,
Unwin, 1917), Chaps. V, VI; also Suzuki, Zen Buddhism, pp. 95-101.
142
It is said that under Kublai Khan there were 42,000 Buddhist temples in China
and 250,000 monks (Reichelt, op. cit., p. 19).
See De Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecutions in China, I. 164-69.
292
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and as a preparation for the chapters that are to follow, I
ought to provide the reader with a little further information
concerning the supernatural personages of the Buddhist cycle
to whom the Chinese look in their moments of worship and
supplication-the dramatis personae, as I might call them,
of Chinese Buddhism. To this not very exciting subject we
must, therefore, devote the next chapter.
CHAPTER XV
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ALL or nearly all of the beings who belong to the cycle
of Chinese Buddhism were dealt with in the chapter on the
Rise of the Mahayana, but they ought now to be introduced
under their Chinese names, with a little further explanation
and description. I shall make my account as brief and
business-like as I can. The word for Buddha in Chinese is
Fo¹ (pronounced in Pekinese as rhyming with saw). Of
the many kotis of Fos, or Buddhas, China cares for only five
or six. The most important of these is Shih-chia-muni Fo,2
(usually shortened to Shih-chia Fo), that is to say, Sakya-
muni. The name Shih-chia-muni Fo (originally Shih-chia-
muni Fu-t'o), in fact, represents an attempt on the part of
the Chinese to say Sakyamuni Buddha. Almost equal to him
in popularity, and rather more popular than he with the ad-
herents of the Pure Land sect, is O-mi-to, the Amitabha of
Sanskrit Buddhism. Most Chinese Buddhists know a little
about the life of Shih-chia Fo, and some will tell you that
O-mi-to also was once a man, though very much longer ago
than Shih-chia Fo. Associated with these two is a third
Buddha, Yao-shih Fo, the Buddha of healing, whose Sanskrit
name was Bhaisajaguru. He once made twelve famous
vows to cure all bodily ills and is thought of as the Great
Physician. He is also sometimes spoken of as the Buddha of
the past; while Shih-chia Fo is the Buddha of the present
dispensation, and O-mi-to is to be the Buddha of the future.
I have never understood how this conception is related to the
anticipation of Maitreya as the future Buddha, but presum-
1 The word Fo (or Fu) is represented by a combination of the two characters for
"man" and "not." "The deep meaning is, evidently, to have gone beyond the sphere of
human life with its limitations and entered into the Absolute" (Reichelt, op. cit.,
p. 34).
2
He is also sometimes known as Ju-lai (pronounced Ru-lai) and sometmes as Kiao-
ta-mo, which of course stands for Gautama.
293
294
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ably the two ideas have quite different origins and different
references.
The two other Fos whom one hears of in China are
Vairocana, whom the Chinese call P'i-lo Fo or P'i-lo-che-na,
and Loshana (Chinese Lu-she-na). P'i-lo Fo is seldom repre-
sented in images and in fact outside of the T'ien-t'ai and
Chen-yen (or Shingon) sects, he plays a very small part in
Chinese Buddhism. He is closely connected with the sun.
Loshana is even more rarely in evidence than Vairocana.
Possibly to this list of Buddhas should be added Milei, for
though in reality a Bodhisattva, he is regularly referred to as
a Fo. He is a popular and friendly figure and much in
evidence.
Chinese images of the Buddha seemed to me, on the whole,
inferior in artistic merit and religious quality to those of
most other lands. Certainly they are much less impressive
and less beautiful than those of Burma, Siam, and Japan.
Especially is this true of the newer temple images. Ancient
bronze Buddhas, cast in northern China during the first cen-
turies after the introduction of Buddhism into the land, have
frequently a decidedly Indian tone. The thoroughly Chinese
Buddha image of the later centuries is as a rule rather too fat.
This, I suppose, is a reflection of the general Chinese love of
corpulency. Still there is a certain impressiveness in many
a temple Buddha, a real feeling of dignity and calm, though
seldom much sense of mystery.
W
3
Occasionally one finds a standing Buddha, and occasion-
ally a reclining Buddha-representing Shih-chia Fo's Nirvana
or death; but the great majority of Buddhas are seated.
They have the usual marks: the protuberance on the skull,
the round mark over the bridge of the nose, and (usually)
the long lobe of the ear. They are seated with interlocked
feet on lotuses, and their hands and fingers are placed in the
well-recognized mudras or positions, which, to the observer
versed in iconography, indicate the acts or functions of the
Buddha which the artist wishes here to emphasize. Thus
Shih-chia Fo is usually presented with his right arm stretch-
ing downward, his palm inward, and his fingers touching the
3
Notably a very large image of this sort-"The Sleeping Buddha," it is commonly
called at Wo-fo Ssu, in the western hills near Peking.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
295
earth—the attitude of illumination, in which he is calling
upon the earth to witness his resistance to Mara and his
achievement of enlightenment. Sometimes the hands are
raised to the level of the breast, the thumb and first finger
of the right hand touching the first finger of the left. This
represents the "turning the wheel of the Law," the preaching
of the Dharma. There are of course other mudras, but I
shall not trouble the reader with them.* O-mi-to is generally
represented in the Dhyana mudra, or attitude of meditation,
with hands on lap, palms upward, the right above the left.
Yao-shih Fo may have several positions, but usually he has
in one hand a small jar, to indicate his function as the medi-
cal Buddha. P'i-lo Fo is the only Buddha in China who wears
a crown. And as for Mi-lei Fo, there is seldom any difficulty
in identifying him, as he sits in the entrance gate of the
temple, his fat paunch and his jolly look suggesting St. Nick
in the poem that all American children know, his legs ar-
ranged in some comfortable manner-for he is far too fat to
sit as a Buddha should with his legs in a bow knot-and on
his face a smile than can never come off. The attribution
of this strange form to the "Future Buddha" is said to be
due to the fact that about nine hundred years ago there lived
in the province of Chekiang a monk whose corpulence was
comparable to that of St. Thomas Aquinas, and whose devo-
tion to Maitreya was such that he was thought, especially
after his death, to have been an incarnation of that Bodhi-
sattva. There is, I am told, no authority in any Buddhist
writing for identifying the rather grotesque figures or
"Laughing Buddhas" at the entrance to Buddhist temples
with the Future Buddha. But popular thought, both lay and
cleric, will have it that these beloved and delightfully fat
images represent their dear Milei-Fo. It may be that when
Milei comes we shall all be fat! 5
Three fairly common mudras are those of "argument," of "charity," and of
"blessing." In the first the arms are bent and the fingers extended upward with palms
outward, and one of the fingers touching the thumb. In the "charity" mudra the
arm is extended downward, with fingers open and palm out. In the "blessing" mudra
the hand is held up, with fingers extended upward and palm out. Sometimes while the
right hand is thus extended the left is in the "charity" mudra.
"There are some authentic images of Milei in China, corresponding in form to the
Maitreya images of other countries. These are not notably corpulent, but usually of
immense height.
F
296
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The Indian word Bodhisattva is far too difficult for the
Chinese tongue. The nearest they can get to it is P'usa.
There are four great P'usas in China; namely, Kwan-Yin (the
Indian Avelokitesvara), Ti-tsang (the Indian Kshitigarbha),
Wen-Shu (the Indian Manjusri), and P'u-hien (the Indian
Samantabhadra). In theory one should add Milei, who is not
yet actually a Fo, but only a P'usa; yet as a fact the word Fo
has become almost a part of his name in popular speech. To
make my enumeration more complete I should also mention
Ta-shih-chih, the Indian Mahasthanaprapta, who appears oc-
casionally in a triad with O-mi-to and Kwan-Yin. He is,
however, of inferior importance and popularity compared
with the four great P'usas named at the beginning of this
paragraph.
6
Kwan-Yin is, as I have said, the Chinese form of Avelo-
kitesvara, the great Bodhisattva of mercy. In becoming a
Chinese P'usa, however, the Bodhisattva underwent a number
of changes, the most notable of which, perhaps, was the
transformation of his sex. Though sometimes presented as
a male, Kwan-Yin is usually represented and almost inva-
riably thought of as distinctly a woman. She is known uni-
versally as the Goddess of Mercy. It was doubtless the long-
ing of the human heart for something motherly in the divine
that was the ultimate cause of this transformation-the same
psychological tendency that developed the cult of the Ma-
donna in Roman Christianity, and that prompted the Uni-
tarian Theodore Parker to pray to "Our Father and Our
Mother God." Kwan-Yin is the loving mother of all the
needy. She watches over those in danger and listens to the
prayers of all who suffer or are frightened." She gives chil-
dren to the childless, and probably is the recipient of more
earnest prayers than all the rest of the Buddhist cycle com-
bined. The Chinese have adopted her to a unique degree.
They will have it that she once lived in China, as a Chinese
ww
6
Just when this transformation took place is quite uncertain. Edkins thinks that
the worship of Kwan-Yin was introduced into China before the Christian era, but
that it was not common to represent Kwan-Yin as a woman until the 12th century,
(op. cit., p. 382). Johnston has shown that the transformation of sex must have oc-
curred very much earlier than this, and Poussin thinks it took place in India.
Johnston's discussion of the question in Buddhist China, pp. 270-75.
See
7
See, for example, Fa-Hien's prayers to her when nearly shipwrecked on his way back
to China, Fo-Kwo-Ki XL.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
297
princess, with the name Miao-Chen. This was, says the
legend, about 2587 B.C., though more sober Chinese history
brings her date down to 696 B.C., "which date," says Miss
Getty, "is probably more nearly correct." Her father, the
king, wished her to marry but she refused and escaped to the
White Sparrow Convent, where the nuns put her in the
kitchen. The King, enraged at her departure, sent his troops
to burn the convent, but Kwan-Yin prayed, and in answer
to her prayer a heavy rain extinguished the flames. Her
father, however, had her brought back to the palace, and
gave her the choice between marriage and death. The little
saint replied, as St. Teresa probably would have done, that
she preferred death. She was tortured, but refused to change
her choice, and at length strangled," and a local god in the
form of a tiger seized her body and disappeared with it into
the forest. She herself descended into hell, whereupon hell
became a paradise, with gardens of lilies-so lovely a place
as to be entirely useless in the judicial system of the universe.
In fact, Yen-lo, the king of hell, had to beg her to depart.
On her return from hell the Buddha appeared to her and
gave her a shining pearl, and advised her to retire to the island
of P'uto, off the coast of Chekiang.10 Some say she was car-
ried thither by a god, some that she floated there on a water
lily, while a third account, popular on the island itself, insists
that she was born (or born again) on a rocky islet just off
from Puto, connected with it by a short bridge. If the
pilgrim to P'uto doubts this story he may himself walk over
the bridge and see the little island and its tiny temple and
image. At any rate, the island of P'uto has been her peculiar
home for hundreds of years, and numberless are the pilgrims
who travel there, season after season, in picturesque junks
with brown sails and high poop, and a fish's eye painted on
the prow.
The little lady Kwan-Yin is one of the loveliest forms of
Buddhist mythology. She has not a trait one could wish
absent or altered. In the heart of the Chinese Buddhist she
holds the place which the Madonna holds in that of the pious
8
8
The Gods of Northern Buddhism, p. 69.
Another account says beheaded.
10 For more details see Wieger, Moral Tenets and Customs in China (Ho-Kien-fu,
Catholic Mission Press, 1913); or Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism, pp. 73-74.
298
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Catholic. The Catholic conception has the advantage of
being based upon a real person who was the mother of the
Founder; and it is interesting to ask oneself whether the in-
fluence of Kwan-Yin might not have been even greater than
it is had it been based upon the historical woman Maya, the
mother of Sakyamuni. To the Western mind this seems
probable. Yet one must remember how little Buddhism
cares for history and how it prizes virginity.
11
Kwan-Yin is represented in more ways than any book
on Buddhist iconography recites. She is made all things to
all men that by all means she may appeal to and satisfy the
human heart. Sometimes she stands, sometimes she is seated
on a lotus. Frequently she holds in her arms a child, sym-
bolic of her power as the giver of children.12 Often she has
the pearl which the Buddha gave her; or she holds in her
hand a rosary or a lotus flower with a gracefully bending
stem, or a willow branch, or a vase, as in the act of appear-
ing before her supplicating worshipers and pouring upon
them the continual dew of her grace. Usually she wears a
crown (as do most P'usas), and in this crown is set an image
of O-mi-to, to whose Paradise she brings her faithful ones,
though refusing herself to enter therein so long as any sen-
tient being is excluded. Sometimes, like the devas of India
from whence she takes part of her heredity, she wears forms
which to us Westerners seem bizarre or monstrous, but which
to the Oriental with his feeling for symbolism are charged
with meaning. Thus she may wear a crown of eight or more
small heads, or she may have a large number of hands, typify-
ing her all-seeing and all-helping powers. Frequently she
rides upon a cloud or on a wave of the sea.
Ch
Ti-tsang like Kwan-Yin is the protector of the needy,
and like Kwan-Yin again was once a human being whose
story is known (i.e., known to Buddhists). He was, in fact,
four human beings whose stories are known. That is to say,
there are stories about four of his human incarnations con-
"The position held by Maya, the mother of Sakyamuni, in Buddhism is interest-
ingly discussed by Johnston, in Buddhist China, pp. 277-80.
12
Yet
In this form she sometimes suggests the Madonna and Child of Christian art.
the idea intended is, of course, quite different, as in fact may be seen by the way in
which the child is held-not nestling in her arms, but as in the act of presentation to
the supplicating and barren woman.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
299
tained in a Sanskrit work whose name means the "Sutra of
the Original Vow of the Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha." It was
translated into Chinese about the year 700. In each of his
incarnations Ti-tsang made a vow that he would not become
a Buddha until a certain number of suffering souls had been
saved. The most famous of these incarnations was a girl
named "Bright-eye." After the death of her mother Bright-
eye learned from an Arhat that she was suffering in hell for
having eaten during life an immense number of fish and tur-
tles. So Bright-eye worshiped the Buddha of that kalpa and
gave up attachment to all earthly things, and the Buddha re-
vealed to her that her mother should presently be reborn in
her house. Soon after one of the female servants in Bright-
eye's house gave birth to a child, and this child spoke and said
that she was Bright-eye's mother and had been rescued from
hell by her prayers. So Bright-eye made a vow that if her
mother might be saved from the Three Evil Paths (or evil
forms of existence, to wit, those of animals, hungry ghosts,
and inmates of hell), she (Bright-eye) would save all beings
in all the hells in all the worlds and in all the Three Evil Paths,
and that she would not accept Buddhahood till she had
caused all these wretched creatures to attain it. In time
Bright-eye died, but in the age of Sakyamuni she had attained
to the rank of a great Bodhisattva and was known as
Kshitigarbha. To Kshitigarbha, i.e., Ti-tsang, the Buddha
intrusted the fate of all beings, especially of those in hell.
These are to be saved by his divine power; and in fulfilment
of this purpose Ti-tsang continually manifests himself among
men in diverse forms and breaks the bars of hell and causes
the sufferers there to be reborn in heaven.13
GR
In Chinese Buddhism when unmixed with Taoism Ti-
tsang's relations with hell seem to consist chiefly in his fre-
quent incursions into that unpleasant region on errands of
mercy and the consequent business transactions between him
and Yen-lo and the nine other infernal Kings. Taoist writ-
ers, however, and writers half Taoist and half Buddhist have
made Ti-tsang at times the chief king of hell.14 This view
See the admirable articles by M. W. De Visser on "The Bodhisattva Ti-tsang
(Jizo) in China and Japan," Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, II, July-Sept., 1913.
14 See De Visser, op. cit., pp. 266-79.
300
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
has been adopted by some western writers but is uncanonical
and quite misrepresents the real nature and function of the
gentle and merciful P'usa.15
The rescue of the sufferers from hell, through the inter-
vention of Ti-tsang, and their rebirth in heaven is a com-
mentary on the contrast between the Hinayana and the
Mahayana. Ti-tsang is a very lovable figure and we all
naturally delight in his mercy; but what would Sakyamuni
have said of this easy road to heaven, this simple way of
evading the consequences of one's evil deeds? It is the old
contest once more between divine justice and divine mercy,
which we find breaking out in Christianity in quite similar
form-the loving Jesus saving sinners from the just punish-
ment of a just Jehovah. The masculine Hinayana stressed
justice; the more feminine Mahayana loves better the quality
of mercy, and attributes it as the distinguishing character to
two of its greatest Bodhisattvas.
For Ti-tsang in China ranks next to Kwan-Yin in popu-
larity. This is owing to his mercy, to his rescue of souls
from hell, and his consequent power to aid the dear dead who
are now beyond the immediate care of the living, and also to
the fact that he stands not only for mercy but for that
peculiarly Chinese virtue which Buddhism adopted from
Confucianism, filial piety. The story of Bright-eye suffi-
ciently reveals this-as does also the story of one of the three
other incarnations of Ti-tsang which I have not recited. It
is no wonder that the Chinese love him.
He is usually represented standing, though sometimes he
sits, especially upon his mount-the animal sacred to him.
Occasionally he is pictured with the ten kings of hell who
stand in his presence. He seldom wears a crown but usually
has the shaved head of a monk and a round face with a
benevolent expression. He regularly carries a staff with
which he breaks open the gates of hell, and the jewel of
purity by which he lights up its darkness. It is not surprising
that all sorts of people, especially the simpler and more de-
vout, appeal to him and crowd in throngs to Chiu-hua, his
mountain sanctuary. For most of the pilgrims
16
See Mr. Johnston's delightful chapter on Ti-tsang in his Buddhist China.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
301
he is no phantom, no mere abstraction, but a powerful deity who can
and will be a guide and protector of suffering humanity, especially in the
dark ways of death. Yet some of the pilgrims know that it is not in
images of clay or bronze that they can hope to find the real Ti-tsang
and they, while performing all the outward rites that are expected of
them, will look for Ti-tsang, not in garnished temple or in curtained
shrine, but rather in the secret places of their own hearts.¹º
Wen-Shu is perhaps not quite so prominent in Chinese,
Buddhism as Manjusri was in the Mahayana of India. Yet
he is of great importance, and an object of worship in most
of the large temples, and to his special shrine in Wu-tai-shan
(in Shansi) thousands of pilgrims make their way every
year. His worship goes back perhaps further in Chinese
history than that of any other Bodhisattva. Unlike Kwan-
Yin and Ti-tsang, he is seldom thought of as having had any
earthly or human existence. He had no mortal parentage
but sprang from a lotus flower which was miraculously pro-
duced by a ray of light proceeding from the head of the
Buddha-much as Athena sprang from the head of Zeus.
He is emphatically the P'usa of learning and logic. The most
characteristic images of him present him holding in one hand
a palm-leaf book, in the other the sword of logic. He wears
the usual five-leafed crown of the P'usas.
P'u-hien (Samantabhadra) is the P'usa of happiness and
of universal kindness. He is often associated in a triad with
O-mi-to and Wen-shu. The great mountain Omei-shan, in
Szechuan, is his special shrine.
Each of the four great P'usas has his "mount," his ele-
ment, his spiritual function, and his holy mountain or pil-
grimage center. The pilgrimage centers I have already men-
tioned, Kwan-Yin's being the island of P'uto, Ti-tsang's
Chiu-hua (in Anhwei province), Wen-shu's Wu-tai-shan,
and P'u-hien's Omei-shan. Kwan-Yin presides over the ele-
ment water, is characterized especially by mercy, and rides
on an animal which is usually called a lion, but which, if one
may judge by the presentation given in most temples, looks
more like a natural son of the Chinese dragon. Ti-tsang's
element is earth; like Kwan-Yin he is characterized by
mercy; and he is represented in sculpture as riding another
16
Johnston, op. cit., p. 206.
4
302
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
}
rather unrecognizable beast which is sometimes called a tiger
but which to Western eyes looks most like a white bulldog.
Wen-shu's element is air or ether, his characteristic wisdom,
and his mount a lion. P'u-hien's element is fire, his charac-
teristic happiness or kindness, and his mount an elephant. I
put these details thus baldly for purposes of reference, and
for the use of readers who may wish, in visiting a Chinese
temple, to be able to identify the images of the P'usas. The
elephant will help him and perhaps the white dog; but un
less he has had experience of Chinese lions he may fail to
recognize either Kwan-Yin's mount or Wen-Shu's; or at
least he may be as much astonished at the appearance of a
Chinese lion as Sung-Yun was, in India, at seeing a real one.
In Pure Land theory Ta-shih-chih stands second only to
Kwan-Yin, though as a fact he is much less popular than the
P'usas just described. His chief attribute is power, and he is
known as the Strongest One.
17
Besides the Fos and P'usas there are a few mythical beings
of lower rank who should be mentioned if the reader is to be
thoroughly prepared to understand the things he will see in
a Buddhist temple. The four Kings—the Kings of the Four
Quarters which both Mahayana and Hinayana recognized
and revered in India-reappear in China under names which I
shall spare all those readers of this book who skip footnotes.
Their function is to defend the Dharma, and to reward those
rulers who do so. The general of their common army is
Wei-to, sometimes identified with the Indian deva Indra.
His full name is given as Hu-fa-wei-to, which means, "the
deva who protects Buddhism." 18 He is sometimes spoken of
as a Bodhisattva. Equally important with these five war-like
and rather non-Buddhist figures are the eighteen Lohans.
These are the sixteen Arahants to whom, according to a late
Sanskrit Mahayana text, Sakyamuni confided the preserva-
tion of the Dharma till the coming of Maitreya. The Chi-
nese adopted them and made more of them than ever the
Indian Buddhists did, and (probably during the T'ang
dynasty) added two more to the number. Just who the
extra two are is a matter of uncertainty and disagreement;
17 Their Chinese names are To-wen, Chi-Kwo, Tseng-chang, and Kwang-mu.
18 Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 240.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
303
but the Chinese are certain there are eighteen.19 The group
of five hundred Arahants who lived in caverns in India dur-
ing Hiuen-Tsiang's time are also still revered today in China
and known as the five hundred Lohans-the word Lohan rep-
resenting the way in which Arahant sounds in Chinese ears.
Our list of the members of the Buddhist cycle in China might
be supplemented by a few more names, such as Yen-lo, the
ruler of hell, and his attendant judges, Kuan-ti, the Chinese
god of war; the dragon king; Yo Wang, the Pusa of medi-
cine, Brahma and Indra from India, and even Confucius
himself. These with a few other mythical beings, some of
them borrowed from the pantheons of Taoism or of Chinese
popular religion, make up the twenty-four tutelary deities,
occasionally represented as a group in Chinese temples. For
convenient reference I append to this chapter a list of the
principal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas with their Sanskrit,
Chinese, Korean, and Japanese names.
These various superhuman beings are taken with varying
degrees of seriousness by different classes of Buddhists. To
some they are all as real as living men and women; to some
they are just possibilities who should not be taken too seri-
ously, yet it is well to be on the safe side, and after all a
little incense doesn't cost much. To the more intelligent
none of the lesser beings alluded to in this chapter-none,
that is, save the Buddhas and the great Bodhisattvas-are of
much importance; and even the greater beings are sometimes
regarded as of value chiefly or solely as symbols. To nearly
all Chinese Buddhists, however, except the most skeptical,
Sakyamuni and O-mi-to and Kwan-Yin are very real be-
ings and very genuine helpers.
W
This chapter, as I have indicated, is intended only as an
introduction-a kind of necessary, dry-as-dust preliminary
textbook-to the thing I want to present and which, I take
it, the reader is most desirous of understanding: namely, the
religion of the Chinese Buddhist in act, as it exists today. To
this, our real subject, we may now turn. And we shall seek
10
See Watters, The 18 Lobans of Chinese Buddhist Temples, and De Visser, "The
Arahats in China and Japan," Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, Apr.-Sept., 1920-21, and Apr.
1922-March, 1923. The names of all eighteen are given by Reichelt, op. cit., p. 191.
As Lohans rather than Boddhisattvas they are looked down upon by good Mahaya-
nists; hence the queer and often villainous features given them.
304
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
our first acquaintance with it by making a visit to a Chinese
temple.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XV
Principal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of China, Korea, and Japan
Sanskrit Name Chinese Name
Shih-chia Fo
O-mi-to
Yao-shih Fo
P'i-lo Fo
Sakyamuni
Amitabha
Bhais'ajagura
Vairocana
Avelokitesvara
Kshitigarbha
Manjusri
Samantabhadra
Maitreya
Kwan-Yin
Ti-tsang
Wen-shu
P'u-hien
Mi-lei
BUDDHAS
MahasthanapraptaTa-shih-chih
Korean Name
Sukka Yurai
Amida
Yaksa Yurai
BODHISATTVAS
Koan-eum
Ti-tjang
Moun-sou
Po-hien
Miryek
Tai-sei-chi
Japanese Name
Shakamuni or Shaka
Amida
Yaku-shi
Dai-nichi
Kwannon
Jizo
Monju
Fugen
Miroku
Sei-shi, or Dai-sei-shi
:
CHAPTER XVI
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
ON passing out of the narrow hutung through the red
gateway of the Ssu you find yourself in a spacious court-
yard, planted with fine old cedars. At the farther end is
a small entrance temple, where Milei-Fo and his four friends,
the Kings of the Four Quarters, stand guarding the more
hallowed precincts that lie behind from the profanation of
the evil, and welcoming the honest worshiper with friendly
smile. The Milei of Fa Yuan Ssu is one of the few in all
China to which I find myself really warming up. He sits
there, with a good-natured grin, while a dozen babies clam-
ber over his broad shoulders and capacious paunch, dis-
playing by their unchecked boldness the never-failing good
nature and kind heart of the Laughing Buddha. Behind his
shrine opens a large court, ending with a broad flight of
marble steps which lead up to the main temple; beyond
which, in turn, is a maze of shrines, dormitories and court-
yards, so that the Ssu (or monastic enclosure) appears a
little village in itself.
Most of the larger Buddhist temples in central and north-
western China follow the general plan found in the Fa Yuan
Ssu. Nearly all of them face the south. This is not a uni-
versal rule, for I have myself found at least four exceptions,¹
and no doubt there are a good many more. But probably
nine temples out of ten are oriented in the regular way. All
temples that consist of more than one building-i.e., all but
the very smallest-contain enclosures or courts surrounded
in part by single walls, in part by some of the subordinate
temple structures. Most temples are built of brick, covered
over with plaster. In Peking the walls are regularly painted
¹Namely, the Shan San Ssu in Ichang, the city temple in Chungking, the Kwan-Yin
Miao above Chungking, and the temple opposite the Thunder Peak Pagoda on the west
lake near Hangchow.
305
306
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
red. The lines of the roofs are usually very pleasing. Scarcely
a straight line is to be found. The eaves are very broad and
they sway upward toward the corners in a graceful curve.
In the north this curve is slight, but in central and southern
China it is pronounced, and it ends in what might almost be
called horns. In front of the temple entrance, or immedi-
ately back of it, is usually to be found a low wall, just longer
than the entrance is wide. This is the "spirit screen." Its
purpose is to keep evil spirits from getting into the sacred
enclosure. Most palaces and public buildings and many
private residences are provided with "spirit screens," and the
builders of Buddhist temples simply borrowed it from an-
cient Chinese custom. The belief involved in it-Chinese
rather than Buddhist-is that evil spirits can go only in
straight lines and never think of turning a corner, hence will
bump into the spirit screen but will not have the sense to
go around it. The conception seems to be much like that
expressed in Goethe's Faust: "Der Teufel immer ist ein
Thor."
The portal of the temple is usually a shrine-a building
of fair size containing images of some of the subordinate
members of the Buddhist cycle. Sometimes one enters the
temple precinct through a single gateway; but in this case
a portal shrine, as it may be called, immediately faces one,
and forms the true entrance to the sacred enclosure. In
some of the larger temples of the lower Yangtse Valley this
first shrine contains images of two frightful beings known as
Hung and Hao-ancient Chinese generals who perform the
function which in Hinayana lands and in Japan falls to
Brahma and Indra, of scaring away evil spirits. Just beyond
the little shrine of the two generals one comes upon the larger
temple of Milei-Fo and the four Kings. More commonly
the generals do not appear at all and the portal shrine itself
is occupied by Milei, whose unfailing smile and jolly appear-
ance welcome and reassure the pilgrim. Reassuring he needs,
for even if there has been no Hung and Hao to pass, there
are the four very frightful Kings just in front of Milei-
two on a side—the Kings of the Four Quarters. The one
brandishing the mighty sword is the guardian of the East.
The less frightful giant next him playing upon the viol is the
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
307
guardian of the South. He who holds the flag rules over
the North, while the most terrible of all, with the long snake
in his mighty hands, controls the West. Just beyond them,
as I have said, and in the center of the room, sits the friendly
Milei, while behind him and with back turned upon the
genial future-Buddha, stands the knightly figure of Wei-to,
the gallant guardian of the Law. One comes to be decidedly
fond of Wei-to. He seems to represent militant righteous-
ness, ever erect in soldierly posture, clad in full armor, his
right hand resting on the hilt of his great sword, which slants
downward with point on the ground.
Ho
-
Wei-to regularly stands with his back to Milei, gazing
out into the large court just behind the portal shrine. In this
court there are sometimes a drum tower and a bell tower,
one on each side. Almost invariably
Almost invariably a bronze or iron in-
cense burner stands in the center of the court. Sometimes
also, and especially if the court be large, one may find here
a small pagoda; or the path leading through it may pass be-
tween two small pools, with lotus leaves and sacred fish.
There are likely to be also two large protecting stone lions in
this court, and a stone tablet with a long inscription borne
upright on the back of an immense stone tortoise. In any
case, at the farther side of the court rises the invariably
charming façade of the main temple, with its curving lines
and lofty roof. The roof is nearly always covered with
green tiles; it is often double; and is usually decorated with
dragons or dolphins, and (in the North) with a procession
of figurines marching out toward the ends of the projecting
horns of the four corners.
The interior of the temple is rather dim. Seldom are
there any windows. The doors, however, are very high and
are usually kept open, and a fair amount of light is thus
thrown upon the central Buddhas. On entering one fre-
quently finds a row of round mats for kneeling and a gong,
made of a large piece of wood hollowed out and frequently
carved to imitate the head of a fish. Beyond the mats is a
long table for offerings, which contains an incense burner,
two candlesticks, and two flower vases, sometimes of pewter
or of brass or porcelain, and invariably displaying excellent
workmanship. Besides these there is commonly a kind of box
308
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
full of the ashes of incense, and holding several incense sticks
-burning or burned out-stuck upward in the ashes, as well
as offerings of fruits, flowers, candles, western clocks, vege-
tables, and other votives of various sorts. Just beyond the
altar rises the throne of the Buddhas. There are usually
three of these,2 each more than life size, each gilded, and
each sitting cross-legged upon a lotus. The central figure
is almost invariably Shih-chia Fo. At his right (the be-
holder's left) is O-mi-to; while at Shih-chia Fo's left is Yao-
shih Fo. In addition to these three principal figures, this
central group may contain, immediately at the sides of
Shih-chia Fo, his two disciples Kassapa and Ananda—or, as
the Chinese call them Yasu and Anan. These, it will be re-
membered, were the two most prominent disciples at the
time of Gotama's death, and it was they who became (in the
order named) the first and second patriarchs. Kassapa or
Yasu is always depicted as an aged man, with many deep
wrinkles, while Ananda has the unwrinkled face of relative
youth.
Along the side walls of the main temple are seated the
Eighteen Lohans, nine on a side. In the fashioning of these
figures the Chinese artists, loosed from the restraints which
convention places upon them in modeling the Fos and P'usas,
have given free rein to their love of the grotesque and to
their ability at caricature. Each of the eighteen is a study in
the portrayal of exaggerated individuality, and there is no
Western caricaturist but could gain from them astounding
revelations as to what may be done with the form of the
2
In some temples there is but one Buddha in the central shrine. When this occurs
the Buddha is usually Shih-chia Fo (though sometimes O-mi-to). He is seldom abso-
lutely alone, but is accompanied by Yasu and Anan, or by the great P'usas P'u-hien on
his elephant and Wen-Shu on his lion. In temples specially devoted to Kwan-Yin-
and there are a number of them, notably in Chekiang and on the island of P'uto-no
Buddha is to be found in the central shrine at all, and his place is taken by the beloved
goddess of mercy. In many parts of China-in fact almost everywhere except the
northeast-the central images, whether of the Buddhas or of Kwan-Yin, are sometimes
so completely swathed in khotans or yellow capes as to be almost invisible; or at times
they are largely hidden within rather dark recesses, or, especially in the west, fenced
off from the observer by glass. As a rule, however, they are in the open, so to speak,
and quite accessible to their worshipers, who place incense sticks or candles on the
altar, bow or kow-tow or kneel in prayer on the mats before them, or seek to learn.
their fate or to get medical prescriptions by means of bamboo sticks or other fortune-
telling devices. To aid them in this undertaking there is sometimes a kind of office
at the side of the entrance of the main temple, where the monk in charge dispenses
prophetic papers or medical prescriptions for a consideration.
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
309
human head, with the shape and size of the human nose,
and with the effect of braided eyebrows reaching to the
ground.
3
Against the rear wall of the temple there are frequently
two side shrines, symmetrically placed. These are usually
sacred to two of the four great P'usas, especially to Wen-
Shu, Ti-tsang, or P'u-hien. In the P'i-lo Ssu in Nanking
there is a side shrine to P'i-lo (Vairocana). Kwan-Yin is
not so often celebrated in these side shrines because she has
a place all her own in every Buddhist temple built upon the
regular plan. The throne on which the Buddhas sit in the
center of the hall has a high background or screen-wall.
The farther side of this wall, facing the back door of the
temple, is a very honored place and is regularly sacred to
the Goddess of Mercy. Sometimes there is a statue of her,
mounted upon her mythical beast, with her back to the wall
and facing the rear door. More often the entire wall or
screen is decorated with a mythical scene, made of colored
glazed tiles in high relief, all in honor of Kwan-Yin. In
some of the larger temples, especially along the lower
Yangtse, this Kwan-Yin screen is a thing of great beauty
and much interest. The lady of mercy, of course, occupies
the central position. Her feet rest upon the head of a mon-
ster which is just visible above the waves of the green sea.
At her sides are usually divine helpers, and above her Wei-to
and other defenders of the Faith. Far up toward the top of
the screen is Sakyamuni, depicted as an emaciated ascetic
A
'For specially fine examples of them one should visit the Si Yon Ssu at Soochow, or
the Pi Yon Ssu in the western hills near Peking; but wherever you meet these eighteen
extraordinary Arahats they never fail to be interesting. Occasionally pictures, done in
what we should call the poster style, are substituted for images. In two temples, but
only two, have I found the original number of Lohans, sixteen, instead of the usual
eighteen of Chinese tradition. Sometimes one sees the Five Hundred Lohans in tiny
figurines, arranged on shelves high up on the walls over the heads of their more dis-
tinguished colleagues.
Besides the Lohans one finds in some temples twenty-four additional figures, ranged
along the side or rear walls, and usually divided into two groups of twelve each.
These are the tutelary deities to which reference was made in Chapter XV. Some
of them are not Buddhist at all but are borrowed from Taoism and Chinese belief in
general. They are regarded as friendly to the Buddhas and helpful in keeping off evil
and bringing additional blessings. There is nothing narrow about your Chinese Buddhist
and he will not begrudge worship to any being of any religion who may by any chance
help him. A little incense will do no harm and there is always the possibility it may do
some good. There is no reason why in his intercourse with the supernatural world he
should confine himself to the rifle; he will use the rifle and the machine gun as well.
310
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
(before the enlightenment, I suppose), with a deer and a
monkey offering him food. At the sides of the screen, ar-
ranged on three levels, are the Eighteen Lohans, standing
upon rocks above the waves-nine on a side and six on each
level. Then there are innumerable other beings of various
sorts, crowned figures, a heavenly girl scattering flowers,
sometimes mortals below, and all doing honor to the beloved
Goddess of Mercy.
Other deities besides those mentioned sometimes get ad-
mittance to the Buddhist temple. Notable among these are
Yo Wang, the medicine king, various generals or emperors
and heroes, the god of fire, etc. Most of these have been
borrowed, like the twenty-four tutelary deities, from Tao-
ism or from some popular Chinese cult.
The interior arrangement of the central hall which I
have described is not purely fortuitous nor dictated by con-
venience. It has a symbolical meaning. Just as the Hindu
temple is an earthly representation of the heavenly palace
of the deity worshiped, the Buddhist temple is a reminder
to the worshiper of the teaching function of the Buddha as
the source of all truth. The arrangement of the figures is
therefore planned in order to suggest the scene so commonly
and lovingly described in many a Mahayana sutra, in which
the Tathagata expounds, before a multitude of gods,
Arahats, and Bodhisattvas, the sweetness of the Law.
One leaves the main hall of the temple by the rear door,
just behind the Kwan-Yin screen, and thus reenters the
court or enclosure. Beyond this there are usually a number
of buildings, but there is no uniform arrangement among
them nor is there any list of these additional buildings which
is invariably followed. A dormitory, of course, there must
be, and a refectory. The dormitory is usually a large square
room with khans (low shelves or platforms which serve as
beds) about the walls and a small shrine in the center. This
room usually functions also as a meditation hall, though a
special room for this purpose may be provided. The re-
fectory is a large room with a shrine in the center, facing
the entrance, and usually sacred to one of the P'usas, or with
an image of the round-bellied Milei (a most appropriate
patron saint for a refectory). The tables are arranged in
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
311
rows facing each other. It goes without saying that near
the refectory there will be a kitchen.
-
Of buildings having a more strictly religious purpose
there are frequently several. In the large and rich temples
there is sometimes a capacious hall for the Five Hundred
Lohans. These are usually represented in life-size figures,
and like the Eighteen Lohans, show very considerable in-
genuity on the part of the artists. No two of them are
alike, and each is a distinct individual—and usually an ex-
tremely queer one. Almost invariably the monkish care-
takers who show you through will inform you that one of
the five hundred is Marco Polo, though frequently they will
be unable to tell which he is. Sometimes, when he is found,
he is distinguished by a cap or by a dark beard, and in one
case I remember, by a very militant appearance, in contrast
to the more proper-looking Buddhist saints around him.
Not infrequently your guide tells you that one of the five
hundred is Jesus Christ; though I have never had a guide
that succeeded in identifying him. Special halls are some-
times devoted to special beings. Kwan-Yin sometimes has
a little building to herself. Frequently there is a separate
hall for the ten judges of hell, with whom Ti-tsang is occa-
sionally associated. The influence of Taoism frequently is
seen in the consecration of a separate shrine to one of the
long-bearded gentlemen of the Taoist cycle, or to some
ancient Chinese hero. In addition to the buildings already
mentioned there is sometimes a lecture hall, and sometimes
a convocation hall, with a high platform and seats for the
three highest monks. There may be also a separate build-
ing for the reception of neophytes into the Order. Such a
hall contains a high central platform with chairs for the
abbot and twelve assistant monks, and a table before which
the neophyte kneels. In every monastery there are also
reception rooms, and guest rooms, the abbot's special apart-
ments, and sometimes an inner private chapel for the use
of the three highest priests and for special services of mass
for the souls of the distinguished or wealthy dead. Some-
where in the court there is likely to be a pool for fish-
usually carp of enormous size and forward manners. A
common method of acquiring merit among the pious laity
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is to buy live fish at the market and liberate them in one of
these sacred pools. In some monasteries in the south there
are also enclosures for cattle, pigs, ducks, and other sorts
of domestic animals, which have been saved from the
butcher and here spend the rest of their lives in peace and
quietness. According to De Groot, some monasteries in
Fukien province are so consistently Buddhist that they look
out for the souls of their animal guests and for their morals
as well as for their bodies. In order to save them from the
sin of murder they keep the large voracious fish in a pool
of their own, separate from the smaller fish; and they pre-
vent the animals from breaking the precept against un-
chastity by decorously confining the males and the females
in different enclosures. The larger monasteries are also
provided with infirmaries for their own sick members,
where monks from other monasteries are also at times ac-
commodated and cared for. Not infrequently a large
monastery will have its own printing press, where various
sutras are printed for distribution and sale. Many monas-
teries have libraries or storerooms for books, one of the
monks being appointed librarian. Then there are gardens
and little courts, and sometimes, toward the rear of the
temple enclosure, a suite of rooms for the solitary confine-
ment of monks who in the pursuit of greater holiness or
learning have taken a vow to shut themselves up for a
period of years. These rooms are not cells, after the fashion
of our Western monasteries, but as a rule very pleasant
apartments with plenty of light and comfort; the aim of
such confinement being not asceticism but the opportunity
which solitude gives for study or for meditation. The
Buddhist monk who shuts himself off from his fellows in a
solitary room, does so as a rule not for the sake of penance
but in order that he may loaf and invite his soul.
Most Chinese temples are very interesting places and
many of them possess considerable beauty. They are not, as
a rule, very clean places. On the lower Yangtse and in
Peking they are usually clean enough, but in the rest of
China the Buddhas have no reason to complain of being
disturbed by the duster or the broom. The custom of wear-
ing one's shoes anywhere and everywhere in the temple is
-
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
313
responsible for much of the dust and mud, and for this and
other reasons Chinese temples as compared either with those
of Hinayana lands or with Japanese temples, are emphati-
cally dirty. Except in the lower Yangtse, again, and
Peking, Buddhist temples in China are likely to be in rather
bad repair. Occasionally fresh carving and gilding and
painting and patching is done, but outside of the regions
specified above, dilapidation as well as dirt is pretty com-
monly associated with the shrines of the Buddha. One must
make up one's mind to these things and not let them spoil
the real beauty and the great interest which certainly exist
in most Buddhist temples for him who has eyes to see.
Occasionally at the extreme rear of a temple court, less
frequently in some other part of the sacred enclosure, is a
pagoda. Notable examples of this are to be found at Soo-
chow, Ningpo, Wuchang, Kiu Kiang, Canton, and in two
or three temples in or near Peking. Much more commonly,
however, pagodas are quite separate and independent con-
structions, although a small temple or shrine is sometimes
added as an appendage to the pagoda-as, for example, at
the great twin pagodas of Taiyuan-fu in Shansi. The pa-
goda itself is usually a shrine, having a Buddha and an in-
cense burner at the entrance, and often additional images
in each story.
The pagoda of China is a distinctive type of building,
quite different in form and structure from the pagodas of
India, Burma, and Japan. It is a striking and really beauti-
ful type of edifice, and one of the most characteristic things
in the Chinese landscape. Though I have seen several score
of them and though most of them are pretty much alike, I
am always ready to go far out of my way to add to my
collection. There are a very few round and a very few
square pagodas, but nearly all of them are octagonal. They
are, moreover, always divided into stories-externally at
least. Nearly all are hollow and most of them may be
ascended by a winding stair, though in our day the stairway
is often no longer to be found, and a few pagodas never
had any insides at all, being just solid towers with external
divisions suggesting stories which do not exist. So far as
I know the number of stories in a Chinese pagoda is always
314
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
odd. I do not know the reason for this-further than the
fact that, like Rorie O'Moore, the ancient Buddhist believed
there was luck in odd numbers. There are small pagodas of
three and five stories, but in pagodas of any considerable
height-say one hundred feet or more-the commonest
number of stories is seven. After that nine, thirteen, and
eleven follow in popularity in the order named. There are
none with more than thirteen stories. The highest pagoda
in China is three hundred and sixty feet, and there is a con-
siderable number over two hundred. It is estimated that in
China proper, taken as a whole, there are upward of two
thousand pagodas of at least one hundred and twenty feet
in height.*
The pagoda, like so many other things, probably came
from India. It was brought with Buddhism, but as I have
said, in China it developed into something distinctively
Chinese, something quite different from the Indian pagoda
or dagoba from which it sprang. The first Chinese pagodas
are thought to have been built in the third century of our
era, and for many centuries the sole purpose for which they
were built was religious." Usually they were repositories for
relics, sometimes for images. In any case, they were exclu-
sively Buddhist, neither Confucianism nor Taoism having
anything to do with their erection. Under the Sui and T'ang
dynasties there seems to have been a wave of pagoda building,
distinctly comparable to the wave of cathedral building four
hundred years later in Europe. It was an age of great Bud-
dhist enthusiasm, in spite (or was it in part because?) of the
occasional persecutions by the state; and many Buddhist
temples as well as pagodas were founded at this time. The
movement continued under the Sung Dynasty but was
stopped under the Mongols. In fact, during the Mongol
dynasty many ancient pagodas were destroyed. When the
Ming dynasty restored China to the Chinese there was a
great new outburst of religious enthusiasm which resulted
-
*For some of the facts used in this and the following paragraph I am indebted to
an article by Samuel Couling in Vol. XLVI of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
(1915), North China Branch.
"In 652 Hiuen-Tsiang built a pagoda at Lo-yang for the safekeeping of the precious
books and images he had brought from India. "The total height of this structure
was 180 feet. It was built after the model of the Indian stupas, and had five stages,
surmounted by a cupola" (Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, Beal's trans., p. 216).
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
315
in the building of many new pagodas and many new tem-
ples; and the movement continued into the early Manchu
period. The larger part of the pagodas and temples seen
today in China apparently date from late Ming and early
Manchu times. Pagodas are still occasionally constructed.
There is a large one just below Chungking that was com-
pleted only in 1885; and even more recent ones could be
found. But the motive for the erection of most of these
recent pagodas is not Buddhist and not religious at all, but
scientific or superstitious, as you may choose. It is, namely,
for the sake of Feng Sui-to ward off evil influences of "wind
and water." As Feng Sui instruments the new pagodas are
more Taoist than Buddhist; for it is chiefly the Taoist priests.
who specialize in this difficult and important-not to say
lucrative science. There still are, however, a few pagodas
constructed for religious purposes; witness the seemingly
recent ones crowning the hills that dominate the T'ung-t'ing
lake, and erected as votives in fulfilment of a vow or in
thanksgiving for rescue from shipwreck.
But to return once more to the temple proper. The de-
scription I have sought to give of its general arrangement is
subject to many variations and these increase in number and
importance as one goes away from the lower Yangtse valley
or from Peking. The reader who is interested in the details
of Chinese temple planning and architecture will find some
account of these variations in the appendix to this chapter.
Possibly I ought to end the chapter with this: but I cannot
resist the temptation to say a word or two about some of the
temples I loved best.
One of these is a mountain monastery up in Szechuan,
near Chungking, and named the Lao Chuin Tung. Your
way to it—and a narrow way it is, though not a straight one,
since in all Szechuan except in the vicinity of Cheng-tu
there is hardly so much of a vehicle as a wheelbarrow, and
the "roads" are consequently the merest footpaths-your
way to the monastery leads between flooded rice fields, each
a lake during most of the year, past long stretches of graves
on the hillsides, populous with green mounds and occasional
cypresses, past wayside shrines sheltered by ancient camphor
trees, till the path grows steeper and you climb into a pine
316
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
wood, and at last pass under a stone p'ai-lou and beyond it
ascend a long stairway of green-gray stones that leads you to
the lower gateway of the temple. Crossing the threshold you
find yourself in a small, out-door courtyard and facing you
another stairway-the envy or inspiration it must be of
every architect who sees it-rounding out into the courtyard,
each step of it a complete half-circle, leading upward toward
a wall overhung with banana trees and lace-like bamboo, and
so you reach the upper and central court. The temple itself
is more Taoist than Buddhist, but if one were to consider only
those temples in which pure Buddhism is found there would
be little to say of the shrines of western China. The plan
of the Lao Chuin Tung is most irregular. The entrance hall
stands at the left of the court and in it Taoist deities of
frightful mien greet the visitor in place of Milei's hospitable
grin. In northern and eastern China one often gets rather
tired of Milei, with his "smile that won't come off"; but in
the west, where fiend-scaring Taoist images take his place,
one rather misses the familiar friendly face and jovial belly.
Fortunately Wei-to is still here to make one feel a bit at home.
In the principal hall, which Wei-to faces, Lao Chuin-an-
other Taoist deity, but a very venerable one with a long beard
-reigns supreme but not alone, for a small Kwan-Yin and
a small Shi-chia Fo sit beside him and share the worship of
the pilgrims. This arrangement of entrance hall, court, and
main hall is the only familiar thing in the entire plan of the
temple. The rest of the establishment-and it is very large
-is a collection of gardens and shrines, adapted to the steep
hillside on which it is built. The gardens, in fact, of these
Szechuan monasteries are their most distinctive feature.
The Fos and Pusas are sometimes neglected but the shrubs
and trees and flowers never. Most of the gardens are little
ones, and many of them are tucked away in unexpected
places. But the most memorable single feature of Lao Chuin
Tung is a small cliff at the back of one of the tiny gardens,
the face of which has been covered with bas-reliefs of Kwan-
Yin and her worshipers-a collection of carvings as interest-
ing as anything of the sort one will find in China. For here
the Goddess of Mercy is seen sending her blessing upon and
receiving her worship from every sort of people, and the
A
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
317
ancient artist who carved this rock made use of his oppor-
tunity to depict a great deal of the life of the upper Yangtse
valley. But though human life forms a large part of the
rock-sculpture, above all the human scenes hovers ever the
sweet Goddess of Mercy, to whom the eye of the observer is
constantly directed-Kwan-Yin in many forms, pouring
down the heavenly dew to an adoring worshiper, receiving
prayers from devoted monks and hermits, saving a man from
an immense snake, steering a boat over rough waves, rescuing
a monk who has fallen over a precipice-her great hand
rising from the rock below to receive him-but most com-
monly, and it is repeated again and again, pouring down the
dew of her heavenly grace upon those who raise their eyes
to her. From the level of this cliff and garden one climbs to
upper levels and a maze of unexpected corners of natural
and artificial beauty, for the whole hillside has been made
into a succession of shrines and caves and stairways and gar-
dens, rest-houses, tea-houses, and surprises, all of them charm-
ingly dilapidated, all of them covered with semi-tropical
verdure, all of them placed, seemingly, haphazard, yet with
a kind of symphonic unity that affects you, once you grasp
it, almost as great music does.
Lao Chuin Tung is unique, and so are the great cave
temples of Ta-tung Fu in the northwest of Chihli province,
on the border of inner Mongolia, with their brilliant robin-
egg blue tiles, their rock carving and their immense Buddhas.
One who has seen them can never forget them. But as I
look back on my China pilgrimage-now "shoved behind me
long ago and far away"—the image that most readily returns
is that of some of the temples of the Western Hills, near
Peking; Wo-fo Ssu, with its famous "Sleeping Buddha";
Pi Yon Ssu and its palatial stairways, pagodas and carvings;
Chieh T'ai Ssu on his hilltop, and the great sweep of its view
toward the distant Peking plain; and the magic, the fairy
loveliness of T'an Che Ssu. We spent the better part of a
week in this great monastery, visiting by day its temples and
shrines, talking with its monks, attending its religious ser-
vices, and tramping over the hills that surround it, by night
sleeping in one of its courts or wandering through its spa-
cious ways, bathed in moonlight, the like of which, as I be-
mag
318
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lieve, has never been elsewhere on land or sea. In a Buddhist
temple such as this, one seems transported to another world.
The spaciousness of the place with its innumerable buildings
ranged in charming disorder up and down a hillside, its
gleaming roofs of green and yellow tiles and swaying con-
tours, looking over each other's shoulders from the varied
levels of the slope, the stone-paved courts with their great
trees and little flowers and alluring vistas, the palatial stair-
ways with their elaborately carved marble railings, the little
shrines at unexpected intervals and the solemn temples in
whose darkened recesses sit the Buddhas on their lotus thrones
-when I think of this and the brilliant blue sky overhead,
and the golden light of an October sun, or of the silvery full
moon that gave the atmosphere of the place a sense almost of
unreality-or of a deeper Real-I feel that only great verse
could describe it, something, perhaps, like Keats's lines about
magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
In such a setting the chanting of the Buddha's praises by
the monks seems something eternally appropriate. Long
before dawn it begins and this early service is followed by
others at occasional intervals through the day, the last coming
at the end of the evening. About nine o'clock-soon after
moonrise-one of the smaller gongs is heard from a little
shrine opening on the principal court. This is answered by
the deep notes of the great gong near the entrance. Then a
wooden gong from another place joins the chorus and the
silvery treble of a little bell from a new direction. The gray
figure of a monk now appears, crossing the lower court in
the moonlight and climbing the broad marble staircase be-
fore the temple; others silently follow, coming from different
parts of the great monastery, one by one, swimming through
the luminous darkness. One of them opens the temple doors,
lights the candles on the altar and the incense sticks. The
other monks steal in after him through the moonbeams and
the shadows. They bow and prostrate themselves before the
Buddha and the chanting begins.
I like to think that it continues: that at every dawn and
every evening the things of the spirit are not forgotten; that
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
319
there are many places, even in practical China, where the
smoke of incense and the praises of the Blessed One are still
streaming upward, through sunrise and cloud shadow and
moonlight, as they do at T'an Che Ssu.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVI
Variations in Temple Arrangement in the South and West
THE temples in both the south and the west of China
deviate considerably from the fairly regular plan of arrange-
ment followed in the temples of the lower Yangtse valley and
in Peking. The principal temple in Swatow, for example, has
four shrines or halls, opening out of the court, three of them
quite on a line with each other and all facing you as you
enter the enclosure. Three of the four have little to do with
Buddhism proper, being sanctuaries of gods borrowed from
Taoism or from the Chinese popular religion. Only the
central sanctuary is fully Buddhist. You enter it through
a kind of gatehouse, with no Milei and no kings and no
Wei-to. The two guardian gods, or generals, to be sure are
present in a sense, but are only painted upon the doors lead-
ing into the main part of the temple. The principal shrine
is rather small-though it was very busy the morning I
visited it. It contained a table for incense and offerings, and
beyond this in front was the main altar, piled high with a
litter of vegetables, candles, fruit, and more incense. Behind
the altar was a space shut off from the public part of the
temple and to be entered only through gates which were
kept closed. I do not know the purpose of these gates, for
they keep no one out who wants to go in. Here, as almost
invariably in Chinese temples, any one may go anywhere
(except in the personal apartments of the higher monks)
without objection or surprise or notice on the part of any
one else. There is no holy of holies in a Chinese temple.
Knowing this, I opened one of the gates and went into the
inner space behind the altar to identify, if I could, the image
on the lotus throne. It appeared to be Milei, but it was in
so dark a nook, and so hidden by curtains that I could not
320
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be at all sure. The monk burning incense before it could
only tell me that it was a P'usa and apparently neither
knew nor cared which P'usa it might be. His job was to
burn incense before it and he was doing his duty. Behind
the P'usa's throne and the screen that formed the back
to it was a dark passage, with more or less sacred trash
lying about, and somewhere in the dimness, by the rear
wall, a kind of shelf or altar with a few small brass and
porcelain Buddhas in advanced stages of dust. But dust
in a Chinese temple must not be interpreted as neglect. It
often comes from an excess of incense and candle smoke and
vegetable votives, and the dusty or muddy shoes of many
worshipers. As a fact, this temple was full of devout wor-
shipers, in addition to three priests actively doing their duty
with the incense.
In Canton as well as Swatow considerable liberty has been
taken with the temple arrangement. But in Canton, at the
time of my visit, at any rate, there were no crowds of wor-
shipers and no busy priests. The one large temple of the city
had the usual gatehouse but no Milei welcomed me and no
Wei-to was there to guard the Dharma. Even the two
heavenly Generals had disappeared. Probably Dr. Sun Yat
Sen had carried them off. He needed a general, at that time,
in all conscience. Beyond the gatehouse a very dirty walk,
littered with orange peel, leads between two slimy ponds to
the main temple. This, when I visited it, was locked. But I
got the caretaker (no monks were visible) to get the key and
let me in. There was a central Buddha with two P'usas, and
sixteen Lohans-the two others having been sent away with
Milei and the Generals. In place of the Kwan-Yin screen, a
Taoist divinity, with an enormous beard, presided amid dust
and dilapidation, plainly doing his best to keep up appear-
ances. There were no signs of incense or candles having been
offered to any of the inhabitants of the hall for a long time.
Behind this building was another large hall with a small pa-
goda inside it-apparently one used for meditation and prob-
ably the dormitory of the monks when there were monks in
Canton. It was filled with lounging soldiers when I stepped
in. At one side was a third large hall, this one for the Five
Hundred Lohans. Here they sat, with eyebrows as long as
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
321
•
ever, and though covered deep in dust still screwing up their
faces into the same astonishing, sardonic smiles they had worn
in happier days. Possibly this was not altogether without
reason; for I noticed a little incense had recently been burned
to some of them (by the soldiers, perhaps) and in this they
certainly fared better than the Buddha. As usual, the care-
taker introduced one of them to me as Marco Polo.
Buddhism, with most things Chinese, has spilled over into
Annam, and, mingled with the amorphous conglomeration
of superstitions and beliefs sometimes referred to as the
"Popular Religion of China,” Chinese temples of a name-
less sort, patronized by the Chinese inhabitants rather than
by the native Annamese, are sprinkled along all the way from
the Tonquin border to the Cambodian line, beyond Saigon.
They have little that is Buddhist about them and little in
common with the Buddhist temples of central China. One
that I visited several times in Saigon had a most attractive
court, a picturesque gateway, a very busy and business-like
temple office or shop for the sale of incense, candles and
fortune papers, and beyond that an altar with two small por-
celain P'usas of Chinese origin. In front of the P'usas were
bouquets of paper flowers, incense, fruit, two fresh lotus
blossoms in vases, several gongs, three books, many strings of
paper money, and a large glass jar of tea. This, however, was
the subordinate shrine. The principal shrine was farther on,
in the dark recess of the extreme rear, and in it sat a large
bearded figure with a gilt crown, called Sing Wong (or King
of the City)-a Chinese ruler of many centuries ago. He
had a very un-Buddhistic appearance, and I was glad at any
rate that he was not sitting on a lotus. At his sides were two
trios of protectors, quite black with smoke and dust and
nearly invisible (fortunately, I thought) in the deep religious
gloom.
There are a few Buddhists among the native Annamese,
and these have temples of their own, very different in type
from the Chinese temples in Annam. The type is marked by
extreme simplicity. Three simple buildings with simple
roofs are put together in a row, one behind the other, the
inner walls are partly removed, and the overhanging eaves
made to project against each other, so that from within the
322
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
three buildings appear like one long hall. There is no decora-
tion or even plaster on the interior, though the façade has a
rude fresco of a dragon. The main shrine, toward the front
of the hall, has a Buddha with several attendants, and repre-
sents Paradise. A worshiper from Cambodia had somehow
added a little Hinayana Buddha, standing on a lotus-as a
reminder, I suppose, of home and of the distant West where
the Blessed One is revered in the old-fashioned way. The
little Cambodian Buddha looked rather homesick among his
strange surroundings. Farther back in the large hall are
more shrines, a fourteen-handed Buddha on a lotus, the
image of an Annamese princess who died a long while ago,
and others. There are also many votive Mileis, accumulating
dust; but alas for the transiency of human fame!-the
monk did not even know that they were meant for Milei.
He had never heard of Milei-Fo. He only knew they were
P'usas-and that it was his business to keep an eye on the
curious visitor from America lest he should pocket one of
the images. I had no great temptation to do so, for Milei
is ordinarily no favorite with me; yet the little P'usa looked
so unappreciated and forlorn that I almost wished to take
him back with me to China.
Western China, as well as Southern China and Annam,
has its own variations in temple plan. As one goes up the
Yangtse from Hankow, through Hupeh and into Hunan
and Szechuan, the type of temple changes. In Hunan and
all along the T'ung T'ing lake and the Siang river, the tem-
ples commonly have cement side walls of striking shape and
often strange coloring, ending at the upper corners in enor-
mous horns stretching outward and upward. The portal and
the inner shrines, particularly the central hall, have curving
roofs of very accentuated form, even more accentuated than
those in Hankow and Wuchung. Many of the larger city
temples in Hunan and Szechuan have a theater or elevated
stage at the front side of the main court and facing the first
of the shrines. These temple theaters regularly have very
accentuated roof-horns and many fantastic finials and deco-
rations. Few of these southern and western temples follow
the regular arrangement of the north and east.
The two
guardians are seldom seen and the Four Heavenly Kings are
•
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN CHINA
323
frequently lacking, and even Milei-Fo, though he is sure to
appear somewhere, fails to greet the visitor as he enters the
first of the shrines. In his place may be some Fo or
P'usa, or an image behind glass, so shrouded in yellow cloth
that his identity cannot be determined. Wei-to is much
more tenacious of his place than Milei or the Kings, and in
nearly every temple he will be found in his usual post, at the
back of the first shrine, looking into the second court and
toward the central hall. And indeed he is needed in these
degenerate days. Often he seems a rather forlorn figure, still
standing sword in hand, guarding the long-violated Dharma
-reminding one sadly of the boy who stood on the burning
deck whence all but he had fled. In the central hall are the
usual three Buddhas; or more often Shih-chia Fo reigns alone
(perhaps with Ananda and Kassapa), while the Eighteen
Lohans line the side walls, as they do in other parts of China.
Sometimes, however, even these familiar features are lacking,
as in the temple at Changsha in memory of the heroes of the
Republic, where there is but one large court and one large
hall, in which one finds three small gilt Buddhas, perhaps
ten inches high, and no other images of any sort.
As one goes farther west, up the Yangtse, the height of
the portals is increased. They rise frequently to two, some-
times to three stories, and they often have double roofs with
exaggerated curves and out-reaching horns. In Szechuan
there is to be found even less regularity in temple plan
than in Hupeh and Hunan-owing in part, I imagine, to the
great irregularities of the hillsides on which so many of them
are placed. Many of the city temples are in such a dilapi-
dated and despoiled condition that it is hard to make out the
original arrangement. The No Han Tung, the largest of
the Chunking monasteries, is entered through an artificial
cave, quite in the midst of the city, with rock sculptures on
each side. From the further end of this cave or tunnel the
visitor emerges in a court now given over to the oil business,
but to the left one finds a hall where Milei-Fo may once have
reigned, and where Wei-to-a fine, well-gilded Wei-to, in
fact-still stands sentinel. Back of the Wei-to hall is the
usual court and the main hall with Shih-chia Fo and his dis-
ciples, while the large court behind it is flanked on one side
324
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
by the refectory, on the other by a hall for meditation, and
in the rear by a third shrine, with pictures of the Sakyamuni,
Wenshu and P'u-hien over the altar and an image of Milei-Fo.
Back of this is still a fourth shrine with a gilded Kwan-Yin
under glass and a beautiful marble Buddha recently brought
from Siam. If after emerging from the cave-like entrance
you turn to the right instead of to the left, you come to the
Hall of the Five Hundred Lohans-not quite so well done
as those in the great temples of the Lower Yangtse, but on
the whole very much like them.
This chapter, even with its appendix, makes no preten-
sion of exhausting all the variations of arrangement in the
Buddhist temples of China. But possibly enough has been
said to exhaust the patience of the reader, and enough, I hope,
to be of service to him should he go to China and try to find
his way intelligently around its temples without a guide.
CHAPTER XVII
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
No one who has read the preceding chapter will need to
be told that the original cost of the Buddhist temples in China
must have been very great, and that the expense of their up-
keep, if we include the support of their resident monks, is
considerable. In Peking alone, according to Gamble's
Survey, there are two hundred and ninety-six Buddhist
monasteries and one hundred and sixty-nine convents. For
the rest of China I have no figures, but the total number of
Buddhist monasteries and temples in the eighteen provinces
must be prodigious. Few of the temples of China are new,
and most of them, as I have already pointed out, go back to
the vanished Ages of Faith. They owe their foundation to
the munificence of emperors, viceroys, and rich men, and to
the self-denial and faith of monkish founders and devout lay
communities. Many of the large monasteries, at their foun-
dation, were endowed with lands, and additional endowments
are sometimes made by pious aspirants after merit. From the
income of these lands the expenses of the monasteries, in-
cluding the support of the monks, are paid. T'an Che Ssu,
to which I referred at the close of the last chapter, is said to
own some three hundred and sixty-five villages with their
rice fields and to "devour a village a day." Less fortunate
temples, which had no original endowment, or whose abbots
have been unskilful or dishonest in the management of the
estate, have to depend in whole or in part on the money
earned by the monks in chanting at funerals and praying for
the departed, or on the gifts of lay worshipers. It is espe-
cially pilgrims that may be relied upon to help out the
finances. Many a temple encourages an annual pilgrimage
to its shrine, during some special week of the year, and counts
on the coppers of the pilgrims to carry it through the re-
maining fifty-one weeks.
325
326
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Originally many of the temples belonged to the districts
in which they lie, and some at least in theory do so still. In
strict theory, to be sure, they all belong to the Buddha; but
the earthly trusteeship may be in the hands of the village
headmen, though almost invariably the real trustee is the ab-
bot. At the foundation of a small temple a priest is secured
to take charge of the property and attend to the worship.
The priest selects a boy to be his assistant, educates him in the
priesthood, and often appoints him to be his successor. Thus
young priests come to be regarded as almost the adopted sons
of the older ones who gave them their training, and the
relation is fraught with much of that respectful and pious af-
fection which the Confucian code inculcates between teacher
and pupil, parent and child. It sometimes happens that the
priest comes to consider the temple as his own possession, and
in this case the pupil-son, to whom he leaves it at his death,
receives it with an increased sense of private ownership. An
unscrupulous priest in such a position may make evil use of
his trust, the more so because he is aware that no member of
the lay community, to which the temple really belongs, is
likely to interfere. His fellow citizens, as he knows well,
are all Chinese and believe that each individual should look
out for himself and his family and not meddle with other
matters. I heard recently of a Buddhist priest who has been
in charge of a village temple in the country districts of Chihli
some thirty years, and who has treated the temple and its
lands as private property to the extent of selling off nearly
all the many acres which belonged to the temple when it
came into his hands. The money derived from the sale he
treats entirely as his own, and he lives most of the time in
Peking. A Buddhist nun recently tried to sell to the mis-
sionaries of the American Board the convent over which she
presides.
The larger temples and monasteries are, of course, not at
the mercy of a single individual. So far as I know there are
no constitutional limits to the abbot's power, but here as
elsewhere in China public opinion is the real master, and the
public opinion of a group of monks would prevent any mal-
feasance of funds which might affect the rice supply.
Neither monks nor abbot can, in theory, own anything in-
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
327
dividually. The earnings of the monks from chanting ser-
vices at funerals, etc., are paid into the common treasury. In
many monasteries the treasurer doles out to the monks a
certain amount of money, twice a year, to buy their clothes
and pay the barber, the amount given to each depending on
his rank. In matters of discipline the abbot is in theory
supreme-but here again he is limited by public opinion
resting upon custom. He is largely influenced by the advice
of the ex-abbots (who continue to live in the monastery),
and as the abbot's term is as a rule but three years, there are
frequently several ex-abbots in a large monastery. Bud-
dhist monasteries in China have little of that systematic or
hierarchical organization which one finds in Tibet and Mon-
golia and within the different sects of Japan or even among
the Taoist monasteries. There is no Buddhist pope or cen-
tral committee, though there are occasional conventions or
councils made up of representatives from many temples.
With few exceptions each monastery is independent, the
organization of each sect (so far as we can speak of any
such thing) resembling that of the Congregational church
in America. Each monastery selects its own abbot without
interference from outside. Sometimes the abbot chooses his
successor, sometimes the choice is made by the vote of all the
monks, sometimes by the ex-abbots and the other elders.
-
The reader will have noted that I have used the words
monk and priest almost interchangeably. In this I have fol-
lowed the usual custom of foreigners in China, a custom
which is justified by the actual situation. For there is no
such distinction between priests and monks as in the Catho-
lic church, nearly all the religieux of China being both monk-
ish and priestly in their functions. Those in charge of vil-
lage temples and those in city temples where the clerics are
few and the lay worshipers many, naturally have more of
the usual work of the priest to perform than those who
dwell in secluded monasteries, or in large city temples with
many resident clergy. In such centers as the latter those
who wish to spend most of their time in meditation and study
may easily do so without being interrupted by professional
duties. If the line were a little sharper we might properly
confine the name monks to members of this latter meditative
328
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
class and use the word priest to designate those whose chief
business is to chant, burn incense, make offerings, and per-
form funeral services. In a general way I shall try to do
this, but so large a number divide their work pretty evenly
between these two classes that it will be impossible to
keep the distinction sharp. Besides, I shall need an English
word for the whole body of religieux, and for this I shall
retain the term I have used in discussing the other Bud-
dhist lands thus far studied, and call them simply the
monks.
that
1
The Buddhist monks of China are divided into four prin-
cipal sects. By far the largest of these is the Ch'an ¹ sect, or
Ch'an tsung-the word tsung being the Chinese equivalent
of our word sect. This, the reader may remember, was
founded about 520 by Bodhidharma, and its chief charac-
teristic has always been its emphasis on meditation. I have
never seen any statistics as to the numbers of monks belong-
ing to the different sects, but it would be a fair guess to
venture the assertion that eighty per cent of the Buddhist
monks of China belong to the Ch'an tsung. It is subdivided
into a number of sub-sects, with whose names I shall trouble
neither the reader nor myself. Next in importance to the
Ch'an sect is the T'ien-t'ai,2 founded, as the reader may have
forgotten, by Chih K'ai toward the close of the sixth cen-
tury. In contrast to the Ch'an tsung which is the sect of
meditation, the T'ien-t'ai tsung is the sect of study. The
most bookish and learned monks of China, and also the most
philosophical usually belong to the T'ien-t'ai. A third sect
is the Lu tsung or sect of the Vinaya, which claims to trace
its history back to India-indeed back to Upali, one of the
immediate disciples of Sakyamuni, but which, at least so far
as China is concerned, was founded in the early six hundreds
by Tao Hsuan. It is hardly a sect in the same sense as the
others, for it has no special doctrine, but confines itself
purely to the training of monks in the monastic discipline.
In some sense, all the monks of China belong to the Lu
tsung and one may be a member of it and of any of the
others at the same time. Still some monasteries are regarded
1
* This is the same as the Zen sect of Japan.
* This, of course, is the Tendai of Japan.
.
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
329
3
as pertaining specially to the Lu, even if their abbots happen
to belong to some other order. It is strongest in the coast
provinces. The fourth real sect of China is the Lotus, or
Pure Land, known sometimes as the Lien tsung, sometimes
as the Tsing To tsung. This was founded in the fourth cen-
tury by one Hwi Yuan-though the worship of O-mi-to
and belief in his "Pure Land" go back much further than
this.5
6
Possibly for the sake of approximating a complete state-
ment I ought to mention two or three other sects, though
they are so small in membership that I had at first intended
to omit them, and the reader may well skip them if he likes.
One of these is the Hua-yen tsung, which traces its course.
back to Tibet and ultimately to India, as it is founded on the
Atavamsaka Sutra. The exact date of its arrival in China is
uncertain, but it seems to antedate the founding of the T'ien-
t'ai tsung. At one time it was a very popular and powerful
school of thought, but today it has but few members. Like
the T'ien-t'ai it is essentially a philosophic sect; and today
philosophy is not in favor with Chinese Buddhist monks,
and they that do care for it are likely to accept T'ien-t'ai
doctrines. I should also mention the mystical school called
variously Mih tsung, Chin Yan (or Chên-yen), Yoga, and
Tantra-the sect which links the Tantra practices of Bengal
and Tibet with the Shingon sect of Japan. It claims to have
been founded by an Indian, Vajrabodhi, about the year 730,
and is thus the youngest of the Chinese sects. Some of its
practices survive in China, especially in connection with All
Souls' Day; but as a sect it is at best so nearly dead that the
doctors disagree on the question of its continued existence.
Eliot calls it "not so much a separate corporation as an as-
pect of all Buddhist schools." 7 One more sect that I must
mention here is the Tsu En tsung or Fa Hsiang tsung, founded
by Hiuen-Tsiang, the great traveler, translator and thinker.
B
-
3 This, for example, is true of the Fa Yuan Ssu, perhaps the most important
monastery in Peking. The abbot belongs to the Ch'an tsung.
"Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 171; Reichelt, op. cit., Chap. V.
Corresponding to the Kegon sect of Japan.
7
"Op. cit., III. 317.
There is no sect in Japan exactly continuous with this, but in doctrine it is the
forerunner of four Japanese sects, namely, the Jodo, Shin, Jishu, and Yutsu Nembutsu.
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THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
8
In its teachings it goes back to Vasubandhu and Asanga. As
a sect of monks it has entirely died out of China but it
exists in Japan as the Hosso sect, and several of the most
learned and able Buddhists that I met in China, all of them,
laymen, are carrying on a lively revival of its doctrines."
All of these sects or monastic orders, as the reader will
have noticed, are very old. No new sect has been founded
since 730. Something approximating a new order, however,
is to be founded in the Tsun Lin monasteries. They do not,
indeed, constitute a new order or sect in the full meaning of
the word, but they do mark a new movement within Chi-
nese monastic life which is worth noting. The aim of the
movement is to increase the learning and devotion of the
Buddhist clergy by providing monasteries in which earnest
and studious monks from any and every order may meet
with each other and live together, and where their study
and training will not be interfered with by the presence.
of lazy monks who so often tend to give the tone in the larger
monasteries. The necessary financial assistance was secured
through the generosity of a Buddhist layman who had not
wasted his opportunities as Commissioner of the Salt Gabelle,
nor been slothful in looking out for Number One when
promoted to be Minister of Finance, and who was glad to
exchange a considerable amount of superfluous worldly
lucre for an indefinite supply of merit in the other world.
A number of Tsun Lin monasteries have thus been founded
at different centers in Northeastern China, and monks from
the older monasteries, of whatever sect, who desire an oppor-
tunity for hard study and rather strenuous devotion may
make application to one of the Tsun Lin abbots, and if they
seem worthy they are admitted and given a certificate of
membership. This certificate gives them the privilege of
living as long as they like at any of the Tsun Lin monas-
teries. The monks in these centers therefore present a con-
siderable sectarian and also geographical variety. No be-
ginners are received by them; only full-fledged monks are
admitted. They engage in very little work of a priestly
-
8 It is also known as the Dharma-lakshana, and is of course the same as the Indian
Yogacara or Vijnanivadin. The founding of it is sometimes attributed not to Hiuen-
Tsiang but to a monk named Chich-hsien.
0 Four other schools besides those named are sometimes mentioned.
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
331
nature, seldom participating in funerals or public chant-
ing, but devote almost all their time to study, worship, and
meditation.
The level of intelligence in the Tsun Lin monasteries is
naturally much higher than that in most of the older re-
ligious houses. The general intelligence of the Chinese monk
is, in fact, decidedly low. The abbots as a rule know some-
thing about their religion, do some reading, teach the novices
the necessary minimum, and are able to answer questions
about the actual practice of Buddhism and some questions
of a theoretical sort that do not go too deep. In every
monastery of any size there are usually one or two monks
besides the abbot who have a fair acquaintance with the
more obvious teachings and practices of Buddhism. But if
these be away at a funeral or on some other mission, and if
the abbot be indisposed or busy, the inquisitive visitor will
have a hard time getting much information. This, at any
rate, has been my experience on innumerable occasions. For
example, at the Fa Hua Ssu, a rather famous temple on Pao
Fang Hutung in Peking, which Li Hung Chang used to make
his headquarters when in town, I asked the young monk who
(in the absence of the abbot) received me, to tell me about
the Buddhas before whom he was burning incense. As to
Yao-shih Fo, he could tell me nothing besides his name.
When I asked whether Shih-chia Fo (Sakyamuni) had ever
been a man and lived on earth he replied that sometimes he
comes to earth and some of his time he spends in the Western
Paradise. Of India and the historical appearance of Saky-
amuni he seemed never to have heard. Looking about for
something easy, I asked him the meaning of the prayer
"Namu O-mi-to Fo," which he, in common with nearly all
Buddhist monks, repeats many hundred times a day. He
responded that he didn't know. He only knew that it
helped your heart to say it over and over when you were in
trouble.
This question concerning the meaning of Namu O-mi-to
Fo I made a point of asking in many parts of the country, as
a kind of intelligence test for the monks. Namu is from
the Sanskrit Namas, meaning hail, or adoration to, and the
whole phrase is a form of worship, praise, and prayer, by
C
332
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which one gives "adoration to Amida Buddha," or prom-
ises devotion or self-surrender to him. I found a good many
monks that knew all about it and repeated it intelligently.
But I should say about fifty per cent of the monks I asked
proved to be as ignorant as the young man in the Fa Hua
Ssu. Sometimes they had a dim notion that it had something
to do with "surrender," frequently they only knew that they
repeated it a good many times a day. The climax is reached
in Annam where some of the monks take literally the Chinese
characters by which the Sanskrit sound Namas is expressed.
These characters mean south no. So they repeat these pious
words over and over, thinking that they mean "The South
has no O-mi-to Buddha! The South has no O-mi-to
Buddha!"
The whole thing of course seems unutterably silly when
thus expressed, but it is not so silly as it seems. As a psy-
chological fact, the literal meaning of a formal prayer con-
tributes but a small percentage of the religious values which
its repetition creates for the soul. The devout Roman
Catholic may get real spiritual aid from the Latin prayers
of the church even though he have but a dim notion how
they should be translated. And I think careful introspec-
tion of what happens during the recitation of the Litany in
the Episcopal church, or of the Lord's Prayer in the Pres-
byterian, would show that many of those who get most
from it give but little attention to the meaning of the sepa-
rate words as they flow from the lips. The value of most
formal prayers—especially of those which, like the Hail
Mary, or the Om Mani Padme Hum, or the Namu O-mi-to
Fo, are repeated many times-consists in the prayerful or re-
ligious mood which they evoke. We may smile at the old
Scotch woman who was so helped by "that blessed word
Mesopotamia"; but if she found it a blessing it was a blessing.
For a similar reason I feel sure that though my young friend
in the Fa Hua Ssu could not tell the meaning of the words
"Namu O-mi-to Fo," the repetition of it was a truly re-
ligious act for him that was not without its value. He was
ignorant about the translation; but one thing he knew: "it
helps your heart to say it over and over when you are in
trouble."
GA
W
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
333
G
I do not wish to exaggerate the ignorance of the Chinese
clergy. There are a number of very learned monks, though
these are too busy with their books and their devotions to be
seen very often by the casual visitor. One of the abbots that
I met was in fact so learned that his knowledge clogged his
exposition. He had traveled over the Strait Settlements, In-
dia, Burma, and Ceylon in the study of Buddhist history.
Though a member of the Ch'an sect (which discourages
reading), he had made a detailed study of all the subdivi-
sions of his own Order, and also of the teaching of the T'ien-
t'ai and the Fa Hsiang tsung. He looked his part, too, his
face a mass of learned wrinkles, and his ancient bald pate
shining like a teapot. He received us most cordially and as
we took our seats around the table in his private room while
the servant brought in the tea and the melon seeds and the
candies, I thought the auspices for once were ideal for a most
fruitful interview. But, alas, I ventured an unlucky ques-
tion as to the subdivisions of the Ch'an sect, and the old
gentleman started, with a scholar's relish, into a disquisition
on the history of each and the distinctions between them,
"the eight clubs" and "the four shouts," from which it was
impossible to recall him, so that the morning was gone-as
were most of the sweets-and we were still immersed in the
hopeless bog of endless Buddhist refinements and technical
terminology, and getting in deeper with every step and every
question.
This old abbot, however, was decidedly an exception.
Most Chinese monks are astonishingly ignorant about their
own religion. Very few of them, to take a further instance,
have so much as heard of the Four Noble Truths or of the
Noble Eightfold Path. Not many of them know anything
about the important position of the destruction of desire in
the teachings of the Founder. The Five Precepts or Vows
have quite a different position. Every one knows the Five
Vows. But many of the monks seem to have quite forgot-
ten or to be at least a little uncertain as to the additional
vows which they took-or should have taken-on being ad-
mitted to the Order. Nor is it in learning only that they
seem rather below par. Many of them are decidedly dull.
A large number of them come from peasant homes or from
TRAN
334
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the coolie class, and are probably inferior to most coolies in
intelligence. Life in a monastery does not tend to sharpen
the wits.
Nor does life in a monastery automatically transform
one into a saint. Some of the monasteries in or near the large
cities are said to be retreats for criminals or even worse. As
none of the Buddhist monks in China are allowed to marry,
there is more or less of the sort of immorality that is found
the world over among groups of unmarried men who are
living a life artificially deprived of most of the normal in-
terests of hard work and social intercourse.
A monk, of course, may occasionally be found commit-
ting almost any sort of crime. A young woman whom I met
on a Yangtse steamer told me that on her way up the river
she had missed two pairs of her stockings and also a coat and
a sweater belonging to her baby. The officers had the ship
searched and found all the articles on a Buddhist monk. He
was wearing both pairs of stockings, and had tried to put
on the tiny sweater and coat, as a kind of vest underneath
his arms.
As even with the utmost stretching they could
not be made to meet, he had tied the ends in front with a
string. The occurrence was probably as rare as it was ludi-
The stories of crimes by Buddhist monks that one
hears in the East are to be interpreted in the light of the
stories of absconding Sunday-school superintendents that
one hears in the West. The fact that the stories are worth
so much prominence is a commentary on the rarity of their
crous.
occurrence.
I have no reason to suppose that the average Chinese
monk is any worse than the average Chinese layman; and the
average Chinese layman is a pretty decent fellow with a fairly
high code of morals. The Buddhist gentlemen of my ac-
quaintance, though they looked down on the monks intel-
lectually, respected them morally, and regarded them as a
necessary and useful part of the community. The country
monasteries in this respect stand higher than those in or near
large towns, and in many of them the level of negative
morality is high. Not so much can be said for their positive
morality. Most of the monks are lazy. Few of them feel
a call to do anything for the community besides chanting
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
335
-
for the dead-for which, indeed, their monastery re-
prayers
ceives a substantial remuneration. They live in a land of
great want and are willing to be fed on the rice which others
raise, without contributing anything more than they have to
toward the spiritual or moral well-being of the commu-
nity.10 There are notable and noble exceptions, but the rank
and file of the monks get very much more than they give.
In short, most of the Chinese monks lead a rather colorless
existence. They do no harm, further than the destruction
of a considerable amount of food, and they do little good.
They have few positive sins, and few positive and active
virtues. But I must qualify this by one further statement.
They possess emphatically the virtue of hospitality. To this
they are urged by constant repetition in their sacred books.
The Sutra which according to De Groot is of more influence
in China than any other says, "If a son of the Buddha pos-
sesses nothing with which to supply the needs of strangers,
he ought to sell himself, sell his sons and daughters, even cut
off his own flesh and sell it to supply the needs of his vis-
itor." 11 This command of course is hardly taken literally,
but the spirit of it has been fairly contagious in most Bud-
dhist lands. Buddhist hospitality is a very lively virtue. A
Chinese country monastery keeps open house the year round.
The stranger in need can always find at least a roof and a
bowl of rice and a friendly greeting from these rather ig-
norant and lazy followers of the Blessed One. It would be
unpardonably ungrateful of me to write this book and fail
to make my testimony to the unfailing welcome I—an utter
stranger-invariably received at their hands, whether I came
for a ten minutes' visit to the temple, for a difficult inter-
view of hours upon Buddhist philosophy, or for a stay of
several nights and days. Their ready smile of greeting,
their gentle courtesy, the friendly teacup, always ready for
me and always replenished when I emptied it, the good-
humored patience with which they bore my unpleasant ques-
tioning and did their best to answer me, the candor with
J
10 What the Buddha would have thought of a great many Chinese monks today
may be pretty clearly seen from a verse in Chap. XXII of the Dhammapada: "Better
it would be to swallow a heated iron ball, like flaring iron, than that a bad unre-
strained fellow should live on the charity of the land."
11
De Groot, Le Code da Mahyana en Chine (Amsterdam, Müller, 1891), p. 129.
}
336
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which they admitted their ignorance, and the unmistakable
good will toward me with which they shook their own hands
(in the Chinese way) or put them together (in the Bud-
dhist way), with many a deep and courtly bow at my de-
parture these things occupy a conspicuous place in the
picture I carry away from China, and I trust I shall not for-
get them. Doubtless they have their faults, these Buddhist
monks-faults chiefly of ignorance and laziness; but they
are good fellows.
Monkhood is a life-long profession. Most monks become
such in boyhood. The motives leading to their joining the
Order are varied. A large number of the monks were put
into monasteries in their early childhood by their parents.
This is sometimes done in conformity to a vow made during
some illness, that in case of the child's recovery he should be
devoted to the Buddha. Sometimes if the family be large
and the parents pious Buddhists they will feel that one of
their sons ought to be a monk. Or the boy himself may feel
attracted by what he sees of the monks' life and persuade his
father to let him join the Order, or even run away from
home with this purpose in view. One abbot whom I ques-
tioned told me his motive had been the desire always to have
enough to eat. There had been a famine in the land during
his fourteenth year and he was afraid of starving and so had
taken his refuge in the Buddha. A monk at a neighboring
monastery said he had joined the Order at eight because he
wanted to leave his family. Another told me he applied for
admission before he had any belief in the Buddha; he was
poor and in trouble and wanted protection and support. It
was only after he had been accepted as a novitiate that he
learned about the Buddha and believed on him. The pres-
sure of 400,000,000 hungry mouths competing for a limited
food supply is so great that it is a wonder more of the Chinese
do not take their refuge in the Law and the Order. Professor
Hodous estimates that there are in China altogether about
400,000 Buddhist monks, and 10,000 nuns; according to
Dr. Reichelt the number of monks and nuns together reaches
about 1,000,000. Among those who begin the religious life
in mature years there are also other motives than those I
have mentioned. Criminals sometimes become monks so as
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
337
to escape punishment,' or (at least they did in Manchu
days) in order to lighten their penalty. In recent years there
has been a considerable influx into the Order from the ranks
of disappointed generals and politicians. Sad experience and
blasted hopes have taught these men the truth of the Bud-
dhist doctrine that "this world is all a fleeting show for man's
delusion given." These retired politicians are usually able
and often educated men, and they sometimes make excellent
abbots. Their aim in taking their refuge in the Tathagata
may properly be called religious-a felt need for the Bud-
dhist type of life and the help that the Buddha can give. I
suppose that occasionally other mature men besides politicians
and generals enter the Order, though I have never actually
come upon such a case. Two of the monks that I questioned
took the vows in boyhood for distinctly religious reasons, to
"transcend life and death," to "do what Sakyamuni did."
On the whole, however, it must be said that the religious
motive is rare (although commoner with nuns than with
monks), and that the very great majority of Buddhist monks
were either put into the Order by their parents or chose the
religious life as an easy and sure way of getting a living.
The attitude of the monks toward their work and their
religion is about what one might expect from what has been
said of their intelligence and their motives. There is no skep-
ticism among them, so far as I was able to discover, and not
hypocrisy. On the other hand there is rather less reverence
than I had anticipated. In fact, the rather irreverent bearing
of the Chinese in general toward their religions and their
supernatural beings and in their temples is one of the things
that first strike a foreign visitor. From the great emphasis
upon reverence in the Chinese classics I had expected to find
this one of the salient characteristics of the Chinese. In
matters of worship I know of no other people that has so
little of it. One may do anything one likes in Chinese tem-
ples-wear one's shoes of course, smoke cigars, shout, feel
of the Buddha images, laugh at the Lohans-and no one
will protest or even take notice of it. Most of the monks
12
12
C
"Some of these bad characters are in an amazing way changed by the monastic
life. They repent and become new men, who with intense fervor concentrate on
meditation and worship." Reichelt, op. cit., p. 232.
338
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
will not care, and those who are sensitive enough to dislike
such conduct will be too polite to mention it. There are ex-
ceptional temples, to be sure, especially those which enshrine
some sacred relic; but as a rule the contrast between China
and other Buddhist lands in the matter of reverence is most
striking. The monks are more reverent than the laity; yet
even they perform their duties in a mechanical manner which
I think would shock a Siamese or a Japanese Buddhist. In
one large monastery where we were witnessing a chanting
service several of the monks stopped their chanting, left their
places near the altar and came to the door to look at the
foreigners and talk to us. One of them asked me for a
cigarette. This, of course, was extreme, and I never came
across anything quite like it elsewhere. And I should of
course hasten to add that if there are a few learned monks
there are many reverent monks, who take their calling seri-
ously. Some of them are so in earnest in the matter that for
years they take the vow of silence, or have themselves shut
up in solitary confinement, seeing no one for long periods
but the servant who brings their daily food, and devoting
themselves to prayer and meditation. This of course is rare;
but it is common enough to be a constant influence upon the
imaginations of both clergy and laity. Dr. Reichelt, who
knows China much better than I, says that "there are many
of the monks and their lay helpers who are fired by real
spiritual zeal.”
ܚ
As a kind of summary of the strength and weakness of
Chinese monks I shall quote here the evaluation of them
given by the foremost monk of China-Tai Hsu, the leader
of the Buddhist Revival, who understands the monastic life.
of his country as few others do.
In China the Buddhists have the following shortcomings: First, they
are seldom interested in social service or the work of educating the
society. The priests or rather monks are generally ignorant, and their
services to society are confined to singing of masses or prayers in the
funeral services. Secondly, although the monks divide themselves into
sects or schools, each pursuing a special object, yet they always fail to
accomplish that object. Thirdly, the monks are always religious recluses,
taking no interest in the affairs of the community or the country and
they are in turn slighted by the Government or the ruling classes.
Fourthly, most of the Chinese Buddhist monks lack the necessary modern
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
339
scientific knowledge and are also ignorant of the current thoughts and
ideas in the world. In view of such disabilities, they are unable to preach
the doctrines of the Buddha in such a way as to appeal to the minds of
the modern people. The Chinese Buddhist monks, however, have also
their good points: (1) Most of the devout monks always lead a most
austere life of a religious recluse. They remain in inaccessible regions,
leave all the vanity and human desires behind and devote themselves ex-
clusively to prayer and contemplation. (2) Although the monks divide.
themselves into different sects or schools, yet their views are liberal and
tolerant. They never engage themselves in religious controversies. (3)
The Chinese monks are internationalists. They regard the human society
in the world as of the same family regardless of races, creeds, or nation-
alities. This is the fundamental principle on which the Buddha founded
his teachings. (4) Although the thoughts and religious notions of the
Buddhist monks in China have somewhat undergone a change during the
Sui and Tang dynasties, yet up to the present they still preserve the main
features of primitive Buddhism.13
Admission to the Order in China is excessively easy. So
far as I could make out there is no universal rule about it,
but each abbot uses his discretion. Many members of the
staff in some monasteries have never been ordained, and re-
main novices to the end of their lives. All these assistants
need to know is a few prayers. For these there is not even a
minimum age requirement, and many a monastery is thus
manned chiefly by little boys with shaven heads and priestly
garb.
For the external mark of the Buddhist monk in China is
a shaven head and a characteristic gown. The gown is long
and dark, usually black or gray, and has voluminous sleeves
and a V-shaped neck. That is all I should be able to say
about it myself; but my Fellow Pilgrim tells me to add the
following: The side panels meet in front and instead of
crossing straight over the chest as a layman's would, they
cross in front, the one from the left shoulder folding over the
one from the right, and are cut diagonally downward. The
garment has no collar but a stiff band that comes down on
a slant, edging the fold of the gown, and fastens under the
right arm, being tied there by a small piece of cloth. The
sleeves sometimes end in a flowing point. Caps are occa-
sionally worn but these are of various shapes, usually small
and black, and often ending in a point such as one sees in the
13 "A Statement to Asiatic Buddhists," The Young East, I. 179-80.
î
340
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
pictures of Tibetan Lamas. The shape varies with the dif-
ferent orders.
Besides having his head shaved and donning the monastic
robe, the new monk must also take certain vows on enter-
ing the Order. He takes of course the Five Universal Vows
of the Buddhist world-not to kill, not to steal, not to be
unchaste, not to lie, not to drink intoxicants. In addition
to these (which laity as well as clerics are expected to keep),
most monasteries require the novitiate to accept the two hun-
dred and fifty monastic rules and to make the five additional
vows; though some merely present him with the two hun-
dred and fifty rules which he is expected to obey. The five
extra vows are variously stated by various monks—the chief
explanation of the divergence so far as I could judge being
the differing memories of the different individuals.14 I am
sure, at any rate, that on the ignorant and lazy members of
the Order these five additional vows make but slight impres-
sion.
In the more careful monasteries, the young novice before
being ordained receives not only practical training but some
amount of theoretical instruction. This means two or three
months of rather severe and concentrated study. At the
completion of it he is ready for the first ordination. In
monasteries which observe carefully the ancient rules, two
ordinations are held. The first is for the novitiates who at
this time take the ten vows and accept the two hundred and
fifty rules. There is usually but one monastery in a given
city or region which has the right (granted by imperial de-
cree) to hold ordinations; and thither the novitiates gather
once or twice a year from all the district. It is on this occa-
sion that the young monk receives at the hands of the abbot
his robes and that his head is shaved. Some time after this
-it may be months or years-when he is thought by his
abbot to have progressed sufficiently in the spiritual life,15
the monk comes up for his second ordination. This begins
W
14 The five extra vows or precepts, I will remind the reader, are (1) not to eat at
forbidden times; (2) not to dance, sing, or attend plays; (3) not to adorn the person
or use perfumes; (4) not to sit on a high seat; (5) not to receive (for one's self) gold
or silver.
11.5 In some convents the nun is given this second form of ordination at the same
time as the first.
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
341
with a solemn act of confession and penitence on the part
of all the candidates for ordination, and after several earnest
invocations to the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, the two
hundred and fifty rules of the Order are read and the candi-
dates vow solemnly to observe them. This part of the cere-
mony ends with a period of quiet meditation. But it is not
the end of the ordination. A few hours later an additional
ceremony is held in which the new monk is given an oppor-
tunity to show his devotion to the Buddha by having a num-
ber of holes burned into his scalp-a kind of fiery baptism
requisite for full membership in the Order. The monk may
choose to have 3, 9, 12, or 18 holes, according to his zeal and
courage. All the monks whom I have seen have carried
either 9 or 12 scars. The holes are made by inserting small
pieces of wood into the scalp and setting them on fire till they
burn into the flesh-resulting in an honorable scar which the
monk carries to his grave. The ceremony is usually con-
ducted with considerable éclat, before a good-sized audience
of clergy and laity, and the pain is usually borne with Bud-
dhist patience by the aid of O-mi-to, on whose name the
sufferer calls throughout the trying moments.16 In some of
the stricter monasteries a third ordination is held (on the
birthday of Sakyamuni) for those monks who aspire to be
Bodhisattvas. In this they take the additional fifty-eight
vows or precepts of the Sutra of the Thread of Brahma.17
The life of the monk, except in a few of the stricter
monasteries, is not strenuous. It has, however, certain char-
acteristics which are not exactly comfortable. There is
little that one must do but chant and meditate, but these
duties must often be performed at such extraordinary hours
that to most of us with our Western habits of work and
comfort, life in a Chinese monastery would seem a combina-
tion of loafing and annoyance. At the great Zin Ssu on the
island of P'utow, for instance, the monks rise at midnight
and study till two, and are expected to attend service in the
temple at 5 A.M. At the Si Yon Ssu in Soochow they rise at
two for meditation; at the Nien Hua Ssu in Peking they be-
D
wy
16
A careful description of the whole ordination ceremony will be found in Chap.
XIV of De Groot's Le Code du Mahayana en Chine.
17
11 Cf. De Groot, op. cit.
342
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
gin the day at three, with a prayer service; in the Shi Fang
Tsun Lin Ssu at Tsinan fu they read the Lung Yan Sutra
from four to 5:30 A.M. This Sutra, if read at that hour, is
said to subdue the evil spirits, and I can believe it. In a few
monasteries the first service is placed at six.
It will be noted from what I have said of the rising hour
that there is no uniformity on this matter throughout China.
Each monastery follows its own customs; and it does so not
only in regard to the beginning of the day but in all the
detail of the day's routine. There are usually three meals a
day-the Southern custom of fasting after mid-day being
quite disregarded except by a very few of the ascetically
minded. Breakfast usually comes at 6 and dinner about 12,
with a light supper toward the end of the afternoon. The
refectory is usually a large room, with a shrine in the center,
and several rows of tables at right angles to the entrance
and facing each other. The monks march in and take their
places and participate in a short service of prayer and praise.
One of their number usually makes an offering of food at the
shrine, and then they all fall to. At the mid-day meal each
monk finds at his place a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and
a dish of vegetables. On feast days a greater variety is sup-
plied. Each, as I have said, has his own separate bowls which
are filled by the attendants; they do not follow the usual
Chinese custom of forming little groups and helping them-
selves out of a common central dish.
In some of the monasteries which attract earnest monks,
the prayer, reading, and meditation are of a rather strenuous
sort. Thus at the Si Yon Ssu in Soochow there are two lec-
tures a day, and a large part of the remaining hours are given
to meditation during which severe discipline is maintained,
infractions of it being punished by beating. At the Tien
Tong near Ningpo there are nine periods of meditation
daily, each nearly an hour in length, and each followed by a
short recess. The meditation periods are measured by the
burning of a large incense stick, and the recesses by short
incense sticks. The monks are allowed four holidays a
month.
Both of these monasteries belong to the Ch'an sect and
both are far above the average in earnestness as well as in
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
343
learning. The meditations in which their monks spend so
much of their time is of the usual Ch'an sort, an attempt to
empty the mind completely and thus get back as close as
possible to the original nature from which they came, the
Buddha nature which is within all. It is nearly vain to seek
a description of the process from a monk. An old abbot
near Changsha told me that he begins his meditation by try-
ing to make himself as much like an image of the Buddha as
he can. He takes the Buddha posture and remains motion-
less. He repeats the "Namu O-mi-to Fo." He cuts himself
off from everything. He seeks singleness of heart. If your
heart is without distraction you are very happy. Your mind
is thus carried upward—this indicated by a gesture, putting
his hand to his head and pointing on high. If you should
kill him at such a time he would not know it. Further than
this in description of his meditation he can say nothing.
Whether the soul leaves the body or remains in the body he
cannot tell. The answer to all questions concerning the
nature of this state of the soul is Nothing.18
The general run of monasteries make no attempt at forc-
ing their monks to meditate. Usually the abbot tries to do
a little of that sort of thing, partly to give a good example
to the younger monks, partly for the sake of his soul, partly,
I suppose, for the sake of his reputation. The mere monks
may meditate if they like; they are not forced to. Most of
the monks of China live in easy-going monasteries of this
sort; though it is worth noting that the stricter monas-
teries are sometimes very large, with several hundred inmates.
In these monasteries meditation, and a great deal of it, is
often required. For the novices the practice is at first de-
cidedly unpleasant. They look forward to the meditation
periods with dread, so I have been told, and long for them
to be over. One is reminded of Saint Teresa's description
of her first years of meditation and how she suffered from it.
The older monks-like Saint Teresa in her mature years—
find it a great source of joy, and look forward to it with
delight. In a few monasteries it is carried to extremes and
<
G
18 For a brief but excellent description of Buddhist meditation see Reichelt, op. cit.,
p. 281. In general the ancient Indian model is followed: meditation on the vileness of
the body, the joy of deliverance, and in addition the Mahayana realization of the
identity of the believer with the Buddha.
344
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
occasionally results in insanity. This, the monks say, is due
to evil spirits and comes about not because one meditates
too much but because one uses wrong methods and goes in a
wrong direction.
Not all monks meditate and study, but all must take part
in chanting the Sutras and some have the special duty of
seeing that the offerings are made daily to the Buddhas and
their celestial following. Food is offered before the images
every morning—and in the morning only, for the Buddhas
are better Buddhists than the monks and do not eat after
mid-day. Of course no one, probably not even the most
ignorant, thinks they eat at all. The offering is like a hymn
or prayer, a means of humbling oneself before the Highest.
But it would be inappropriate to offer food to the Buddha
image at an hour of the day at which the Buddha taught
his followers not to eat. Incense and candles may be burned
before the Buddhas at any hour of the day. As we have seen,
a chanting service regularly takes place early in the morn-
ing, though there is no uniformity as to the hour in the dif-
ferent temples. There is almost always a second service later
in the day, and sometimes two. The last one comes any
time between four and ten. At the close of it, if it be in the
evening, the monks promptly retire and the day is done.
And high time that it should be, at least in those monasteries
where the praises of the Lord Buddha must be chanted again
at 2 A.M.
In the chanting service-one might call it the Buddhist
mass-the monks take their places not directly in front of
the altar, as in Siam, and Japan, but on one side. They sit,
either on mats or on low benches, in a line or several lines,
usually (not always) at right angles to the altar and facing
toward the center of the hall. Sometimes, and especially if
a large number of monks are present so that both sides of
the temple are occupied, they face toward the rear wall.
The service is preceded by ten or fifteen minutes of an-
nouncement by bell and drum. Especially in the larger
monasteries this call to worship is an impressive affair and
its solemnity grows upon one with increased acquaintance.
The instruments, if so we may call them, are played with
considerable skill and some practice is required to perform
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
345
the rite properly. When the first streaks of gray appear in
the eastern sky one hears the hollow booming of the loud-
mouthed drum, or the deep notes of the great bell with the
solemn sound, rolling out at intervals of a minute or more—
distant, mysterious, reverberating through the courts of the
temple, or carried far through the sleeping city. This is
followed by the more mellow tones of the gong and by the
quicker notes from the hollow wooden fish, leading up to a
crescendo of rapid beats. The monks now begin to congre-
gate in the temple. The leader takes his place, the smaller
gong by his side is sounded, the monks bow deeply, and be-
gin chanting the praises of the Buddha. It cannot be said
that their singing is musical, at least if heard from near-by.
At a little distance it is pleasing. There is considerable varia-
tion in it, the leader sometimes chanting alone, followed by
all the voices in unison. There is no real tune in their hymn-
ing, but there is often a decided rhythm. At certain points
in the chanting one of the gongs is sounded, either the metal-
lic one or the hollow wooden gong, sometimes alone, some-
times as an accompaniment to the singing. Some services
close with a repeated circumambulation by the chanting
monks in a solemn procession around the interior of the
temple. For some occasions special robes are donned. In
the larger temples there may be elaborate services in which
fifty or a hundred monks participate, divided into two
bodies, with antiphonal chanting, and much bowing, stand-
ing, and kneeling. The monks as a rule use no books in these
services, but recite the verses without notes; for the passages
more commonly used they keep in their memories, or (as
they say) "in their stomachs.'
در
A
Some of the passages thus chanted are taken from the
Sutras. These are sometimes in Chinese, sometimes phonetic
transliterations from the Sanskrit. The latter are considered
the more sacred. They are, in fact, Sanskrit mantras,
specially sacred verses, and they are retained in their original
sounds, without translation, because they are too holy for
translation and because a translation necessarily involves per-
sonal interpretation on the part of the translator. So holy
a thing is therefore best given in its original purity. Of
course no one can understand them. They are not Chinese,
w
346
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
but neither are they Sanskrit, for a Chinese attempt at pho-
netic rendering of foreign words is ludicrously inexact. But,
as I have already insisted in another connection, ignorance
of the original meaning of a prayer or hymn does not neces-
sarily rob it of all religious value. The monk who chants
it, if he be a religious soul, may put more of spiritual signifi-
cance into it than it originally possessed, or may get more
religious value out of it than he would if he understood and
dwelt upon the literal significance of its words. And I should
hasten to add that many of the prayers found in the official
prayer books and daily used in the temples are in perfectly
good Chinese. They consist of hymns and litanies composed
by Chinese Buddhists of various schools and various genera-
tions; and they have accumulated and been handed down
through the centuries and are used in the temples of all the
sects. There are several compilations of these hymns, the
favorite being the Prayers of the Ch'an School for Daily
Recitation, which according to Mr. Johnston,
include prayers for use by both monks and laymen in connection with
all such circumstances of daily life as can be brought into relationship
with religious observance. There are, of course, prayers for use on
saints' days-that is, on the days specially consecrated to the worship of
the great P'usas. There are burial services for monks and laymen, services
for the ordination of monks, services in commemoration of pious founders
and benefactors and "spiritual ancestors." There are prayers for use
before and after child-birth, prayers for fair weather, for rain, for de-
liverance from plague and famine, for the divine guidance of rulers
and magistrates. There are prayers to be used before taking food, prayers
for those in danger or difficulty, prayers for those at sea, prayers express-
ing repentance for sin, prayers for the sick and dying. Such books also
contain many superstitious survivals, such as sacred words and charms
which are supposed to have a controlling power over the forces of nature,
and there are prayers for purely material benefits, such as wealth and
worldly prosperity, and rituals which correspond more or less closely with
Christian masses for the dead.19
Gadg
Beside the regular chanting services of each day, there
are many special services for the dead, at which one, two, or
three monks, or perhaps the entire monastic force partici-
pate, according to the price paid by the relatives of the de-
19 Johnston's Buddhist China, p. 307. A translation of a large part of the Kwan-Yin
ritual will be found in Beal's Catena of Buddhist Scriptures in China, pp. 399-409.
Reichelt has translated several of the Pure Land hymns, op. cit., pp. 134-40.
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
347
parted.20
There are also solemn celebrations, such as the
harvest festival, the birthday of one of the Buddhas or of
Kwan-Yin, and services for special emergencies such as
drought, flood, famine, pestilence. In a few of the more
modern-minded and a few of the more ancient-minded
temples there are occasional or regular lectures or sermons.
The ancient rules prescribe that there must be preaching on
twelve special days of each year—the anniversaries of the
birth and the Nirvana of Sakyamuni, the birthday of the
emperor, etc., and, in addition, on each day from the fif-
teenth of the fourth month to the fifteenth of the seventh.
Besides this the abbot must preach or appoint a preacher
whenever the monks or a delegation of laymen request it.
The monastery is rare today, however, in which such request
is frequently made or in which the ancient rules are strictly
carried out. More attention, I judge from the inquiries I
made, is given to the ancient custom of Patimokkha, or the
public reading of the two hundred and fifty rules of the
Order and the public confession of the infraction of them.
Preaching before public gatherings of laymen is much more.
rare. In De Groot's opinion this is due largely to the tradi-
tional attitude of the government, under almost all the
dynasties, of discouraging and even forbidding religious ac-
tivity on the part of the laity. Nowhere, so far as I could
discover, is there any such thing as a regular public preach-
ing service, though sometimes one may find an occasional ad-
dress or a course of lectures lasting several weeks. This is
very infrequent, however, and even the occasional sermon or
lecture is rare indeed. In indirect fashion, however, the
monks do something toward the religious education of the
community. There is more or less intercourse between
clergy and laity in both the temples, the homes, and the city
streets, and in all these ways the monks inevitably dissemi-
nate among interested laymen what knowledge of the teach-
ings and hope of Buddhism they may themselves possess.
Especially is interchange of ideas on religious matters facili-
tated at times of pilgrimage. The peasant pilgrims often
According to a dispatch in the New York Times for Jan. 27, 1927, the monks and
nuns of Hankow and Wuchang "have formed a union demanding union scale for
prayers."
20
348
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
spend the night under the hospitable roofs of the temples
and this presents an opportunity for questions and conversa-
tions on themes of Buddhist belief and practice from which
the peasants return to their homes with a little greater
knowledge of their religion and considerably greater interest
in it than they had on leaving home. Occasionally, also,
education of a more direct sort is given in the monasteries,
not only by lectures and sermons, but in the training of
young boys who are left with the monks with this end in
view by pious parents. Not all the boys one finds in Chinese
monasteries are destined to become monks. Some are there
merely for the sake of receiving several years of education in
religion and manners, and at about twelve years of age they
return to their homes. I should add that the monks are al-
ways ready to go to the homes of the laity to teach the
Dharma if invited. To be sure, they are not often invited.
They are more likely to be asked to chant than to teach.
Sometimes a family will have several monks in to read the
Sutras in a series of prolonged services lasting a week. The
family is present part of the time-they come in and go
out as they like—and the neighbors are invited. The pur-
pose of the reading is not instruction but the acquisition of
merit, usually for the benefit of the dead. Instruction, in
fact, would be out of the question from such a service, for
no one can understand what the monks read. So, at least,
I have been told.
Besides giving occasional instruction the monks in a few
places and at times of special need serve as dispensers of free
food. The rice which wealthy and pious laymen provide
for the poor during famines, or it may be in any winter
season, is sometimes distributed by lay Buddhist societies,
sometimes by the monks of some central monastery. I have
heard of one instance in which as many as thirty-one hun-
dred poor were thus "fed with yellow millet mush, cooked
in 16 vats about five feet across, and served in any vessel
presented by the recipients. There were baskets, pots, pans,
tubs, buckets, broken dishes, and Standard Oil tins.
Such distribution of free food or, in fact, of any sort of
» 21
"The Fleshpots of China" in the Contributors' Club of the Atlantic for Feb.,
1927.
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
349
charity, is rare, and it would be a mistake to picture the
Buddhist monastic Order in China as a charitable institu-
tion-except in the obvious sense that it lives on charity.
The life of the nun is very like that of the monk. Noth-
ing definite is known as to the number of nuns in China, but
Reichelt and Hodous estimate that there are perhaps a tenth
as many nuns as monks. The convents are small, and fre-
quently are situated near a monastery, whose elders give it
some advice in matters of administration. The nuns "have
their little temple hall, etc., where they perform their ser-
vices and meditations often with great piety. They often go
out to the homes of the many lay Buddhists among the
women and do a great work both from a religious and a
financial point of view. Nobody collects so much money or
pulls so many invisible strings as do the nuns." 22 A glimpse
into the really beautiful life of one convent is given in the re-
cently translated Diary of a Chinese Buddhist Nun.23 The
picture given by this novice in her private journal shows the
intimate relations between the nuns and the more religious
lay women of .the neighborhood, the eagerness with which
the monastic life is anticipated, the appeal of the convent's
untroubled calm, the intensity of the devotion felt toward
the Buddha, the peace produced by the daily meditations, and
the spiritual elevation of some of the nuns.
In weighing the contribution of the Buddhist monks of
China to the community we must not forget that it is they
who keep up the temples and monasteries, and hence what-
ever of value to the life of China is contributed by these
beautiful and often truly religious buildings must be set
down in large part to the credit of the clergy. I shall not
attempt to assess the value of these monasteries to China; it
is among those imponderables that defy quantitative mea-
surement. But I am sure that to any one with esthetic and
spiritual appreciation, the thought of a China deprived of
its monasteries and temples must be unspeakably dreary.
They are gems of ancient beauty, coming from a time long
past, amid a land of plains and crops and dirty towns. They
are places of refuge for the weary soul from the monotonous
22
23 Reichelt, op. cit., p. 265.
23
Trans. by Y. Y. Tsu, in the Journal of Religion, Oct., 1927, pp. 612-18.
350
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
materialism of Chinese life. Their hospitable gates are ever
wide for whosoever feels the need of a quiet hour and of sug-
gestions from a loftier world. And it is the monks, after all,
that keep them going.
Things like these should be kept in mind during those
moments (and they are frequent enough) when the meager-
ness of the direct services of the clergy to the community
fills one with impatience at the entire Order. That one able-
bodied man in every four hundred of the entire population
should spend his life in the lazy and fruitless way I have
described, particularly in a land constantly so near the starva-
tion line as China-this is a situation which many West-
erners, with our usual views of the importance of economic
productivity, will regard as almost intolerable. One fre-
quently feels that the great majority of the Chinese monks.
should somehow be cleared out and made to earn an honest
living. Yet an institution so inextricably interwoven into
the life of China as is the Buddhist monastic Order cannot
be judged merely by the specific and direct services which it
performs for those individuals who seek its aid. As was
suggested in the preceding paragraph, it is a part of an en-
tire situation, and its general influence rather than its par-
ticular contributions must be the decisive factor in any as-
sessment of its value.
-
GWE
The great contribution which the Buddhist Order makes
to the life of China consists in keeping before the minds and
imaginations of the people the fact of religion, the reality
of the spiritual life. Doubtless this great function of keep-
ing the lamp of religion alight is often ill performed by the
Buddhist clergy. But as things actually are in China today,
and have been for many a century, the clergy, whether
worthily or not, are the torch-bearers of religion, and if they
should drop their light, it might well be extinguished in the
darkness of worldly, unspiritual preoccupation. It is not
without value in the life of the Chinese people that they
should be constantly reminded of the fact of Buddhism, re-
minded of it as at least an unfailing potentiality. It is not
without value that an Order of men should be consecrated to
the lifelong study and service of religion, that buildings of
ancient beauty should be devoted to the praises of the highest
BUDDHIST MONKS IN CHINA
351
ideal that China knows, that quiet cloisters should be set aside
for the meditation of holy men and of all who wish to medi-
tate. It is not without value that the poorest beggar, the busi-
est politician, the saddest woman, the most guilty sinner
should carry ever in the subconscious regions of their minds
the thought that, if they will, they may go any morning or
any night to the near-by temple, hear the solemn music of
gong and drum and chanting monks, watch the smoke of in-
cense ascend before the image of the Blessed One, and catch
some intimation of a higher life, a loftier world, a deeper
peace than they have known before.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
IN almost any land but China such an expression as the
Buddhist layman, the Christian layman, the Mohammedan
layman, would have a fairly definite meaning. But who are
the Buddhist laymen in China? As we have already seen,
nearly every person in the land, except the highly educated
Confucianists, is in some sense a Buddhist. He is a Buddhist
and at the same time a Confucianist and a Taoist. If we are
to define the Buddhist laity of China so as to include all those
who have some belief in Buddhism and make some use of
Buddhist monks and ceremonies or shrines, we shall have
about 350,000,000 to 400,000,000 Buddhist laymen, includ-
ing in the number nearly all the Taoist laymen and nearly
all the Confucianists. If, on the other hand, we exclude
from the Buddhist laity the Taoists and the Confucianists,
we shall have hardly any one left. It is plain that we cannot
divide the people of China on religious lines as we do those
of other lands, nor draw fast and sure limits round any col-
lection of them and label this the Buddhist laity. The best
we can do is to point out certain groups who are rather more
Buddhist than others.
G
The widest group of those who can in any special sense
be called Buddhist is, I suppose, composed of those families
who have their funerals conducted by Buddhist monks or
employ Buddhist monks to pray for the souls of the dead.
There is a general popular belief in Chinese Buddhism that,
for the soul fortunate enough to escape all of the hells, forty-
nine days elapse between death and his assignment to the
Western Paradise or to a new birth. Some say he may
be
reborn in fourteen, or even in seven days; but forty-nine days.
is the period usually given. These seven weeks are occupied
by his transition through the different stages of purgatory.
Sometimes three services are held on each of the first seven
352
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
353
days; sometimes one service is held on every seventh day till
the expiration of the forty-nine, to give the soul assistance
in his perilous journey. This, of course, is expensive, and if
the family be poor or the heirs not notable for filial piety,
they may take a chance that the virtues of the departed will
be sufficient to carry him through the dangers of the next
world without constant benefit of clergy; in which case one
service, held the seventh day after the decease, may be made
to do the work of all seven. These services for praying the
dead out of purgatory consist chiefly in the chanting of
sacred verses by the monks. The Buddha, I was told by a
monk, hears the chanting and saves the soul. Before the
funeral there is frequently such a service over the body, pro-
longed for hours, in the home. Often the chanting service
is in the temple. At the temple service for the dead it fre-
quently happens that no one is present, except the monks;
though in some cases it is attended not only by the immediate
relatives of the deceased but by a large group of family
friends, especially of the women. There are also occasional
services in which the incidents of the soul's progress through
purgatory are dramatically presented, some of the monks
personifying evil demons and refusing to let the bier with the
tablet of the deceased pass on until appeased by a certain
amount of silver.¹
The Buddhist portion of the funeral service proper fre-
quently consists of two parts, one in the day and one at night.
At the former of these,
Nine or more monks are in charge and the Sutras of the Pure Land
(the Sukhavati Vyuha Sutras) are repeated with the accompaniment of
music. In the evening the Yoga Tantra is recited, accompanied by the
throwing of dice, bread and money (to feed the hungry hosts and supply
the needy in hell), the magical finger play (to prevent the dead from
being attacked by the evil ghosts) and what is most important, invoca-
tions to the compassionate Amitabha, that the dead may be reborn in-
stantly in the Paradise of the West.²
It is, I suppose, a smaller group of laymen who not only
seek the aid of the Buddha at the time of a death in the fam-
ily, but who also worship him in less solemn hours by offering
1 See Hodous, Buddhism and Buddhists in China (N. Y., Macmillan, 1924), pp. 35-36.
Leong and Tao, Village and Town Life in China, p. 145.
2
354
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
prayers and praises, incense and gifts, in his temple. When
one considers the immense mass of China's population, the
number of those who frequent Buddhist temples seems very
small. The visitor to China, judging by what he sees in the
dusty and frequently empty temples, concludes that there
are very few Buddhists in China. The appearance of the
temples is not so good evidence on this matter as the appear-
ance of Christian churches would be on the corresponding
question at home; yet I am convinced that, relative to the
population, the number of earnest Buddhists in most parts
of China outside of the lower Yangtse valley is very small
indeed.
The devout Buddhist layman-and more especially the
devout Buddhist laywoman-goes to the temple from time
to time to pray and make her vows, to gain assistance, ac-
quire merit, and also to get, if possible, a glimpse into the
future. For fortune-telling is inextricably mixed up with
worship in most Chinese temples which are popular with the
masses. Two methods are commonly used. The simpler,
which might be called the yes-no method, is carried on by a
combination of petitional prayer with a couple pieces of
wood, about the size of a Chinese woman's shoe, and in shape
something like a sweet potato that is flat on one side. The
pair thus fit, roughly, together. The worshiper holds them
to her forehead, utters her prayer before the Buddha, then
drops them at his feet. There are, of course, only three
possible combinations in the way in which they may alight.
Both may lie with their flat sides up, both with their flat sides
down, or one in one way and one in the other. I must con-
fess that I am not an expert in fortune-telling and do not
know which is the lucky combination, but one of the three
means that the petition will be granted, another that it will
be refused, while the third is ambiguous. The other method
of fortune-telling is more elaborate and is a means of con-
siderable income to the temple. He who would have a look
into the future is provided by the priest with a cylindrical
box, one end of which is entirely closed, while the other is
closed except for a small opening. The box is filled with
bamboo rods, each bearing a number. The worshiper who
is seeking to know his fortune stands before the Buddha with
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
355
this box in his hands and manipulates it in such a fashion by
a series of shakes that one of the rods makes its way out
through the small aperture and falls upon the floor. The
worshiper takes it to the temple office and hands it to the
presiding monk. This office is usually in a space adjoining
the main shrine where, among other things, the presiding
monk has at his elbow a filing catalogue, as we might call it
—a cabinet with 50 to 100 sections, each of them numbered,
and each containing a pile of printed slips of paper, descrip-
tive of fortunes, good, bad, and indifferent. The monk
takes the bamboo stick, notes the number which it bears, and
(for a consideration) presents the fortune-seeker with a
printed slip from the section indicated by the bamboo.
Worship is not always followed by fortune-telling,
and in fact the majority of worshipers simply come in, pre-
sent an offering of incense, candles, paper money, flowers or
vegetables, make their prayers and depart, without seeking
to unveil the future. I remember a typical scene in a temple
in Swatow-the temple swarming with earnest worshipers,
mostly women and girls, kneeling with lighted incense sticks,
bowing deeply before the draped image, and moving their
lips in prayer. Many offered large leaves of gilt paper money.
After presenting them with bows before the altar they would
put them in a kind of incinerator, provided for the purpose,
where from time to time an attendant priest would burn
them. There was also a considerable amount of fortune-
seeking, by both the methods I have described. One old lady
was particularly devout and persistent. She tried the yes-no
method several times, apparently with ill success, though she
prayed long and earnestly. The pieces of wood persisted in
falling in the wrong combinations, spite of her many trials.
The bamboo rods she also used more than once, usually with
no better success, if one could judge by the anxiety in her old
wrinkled face. Her last attempt with it seemed more suc-
cessful. The kind-faced monk at the office, who produced
the red paper fortune-slip, apparently said some reassuring
words to her, she returned to the altar, prayed again a long
time before the Buddha, tried the yes-no method once more,
and after a final prayer, went out of the temple with face
smiling and radiant.
G
356
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
I happened into a temple in Saigon on a day of some
unusual sacredness and watched for hours the throng of
Annamese and Chinese worshiping before the various shrines.
One Annamese that I singled out for special attention-man
or woman, I know not which-came in with many incense
sticks which he or she had bought in the office at the en-
trance. (The trousers would probably indicate that he was
a woman; whereas, the long hair, done up in a knot at the
back of the head, would indicate that she was a man.) The
incense sticks were carefully lighted at the little flaming lamp
on the altar and distributed in front of the many images.
She also bowed many times (for the chances are it was she)
and mumbled a silent prayer standing before the central
altar, now and then drawing a loud sharp breath, suggestive
of deep emotion. At the end of her prayer she took off her
shoes and knelt four times in succession before the altar,
showing much unmistakable reverence and earnestness. As
she went out another Annamese with trousers, back hair, and
uncertain sex came in and lighted a cigarette at the wick of
the altar lamp.
Several Chinese women now began to arrive, each bring-
ing on her arm a large and heavy basket. There was a
table in front of the chief altar, and on this table each wom-
an on arriving opened and unpacked her basket. Most
of the baskets contained about the same things. The prin-
cipal object in each was a large roasted goose, done to a turn
as only the Chinese can roast a goose, roasted and decked and
odorous, so as to make even a P'usa's mouth water. Besides
the goose there were fruits, vegetables, a teapot, several small
cups, and a bottle of water or of wine. Fortunately the table
was large, for each woman put all her goodies upon it. I
counted seven roast geese upon the table at once. Each
woman would lay out her offering, filling the little cups from
the teapot or bottles, then take large bunches of incense
sticks and candles, light them and distribute them before
the different shrines, bow, pray, and sometimes try the
fortune-sticks. After this she would pour the liquid back
from the cups into the teapot, or bottle, take the goose away
from the poor P'usas, put all the goodies back into the basket,
and go out into a little court at the side, where there were
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
357
four humble but very popular shrines. Arrived at the shrine
of her choice, she would unpack her basket once more and
lay out all the goodies reverently before the holy place and
re-begin her prayers. In this court with its four shrines there
happened to be a large turtle, waddling about and making a
living from the crumbs and offerings left by the women and
the P'usas. While I was watching, this turtle got his eye on
the roast goose lying before one of the shrines and made many
masterly attempts at it, being warded off just at the critical
moment at the point of the umbrella which the woman had
brought, perhaps with this in view, and which she used with
skill between the phrases of her prayer. At one time she
knocked him over on his back, where he lay with paws
clawing the air, to the great merriment of several of the
women, until their Buddhist consciences got the better of
their resentment and their sense of humor, and they righted
him; whereupon he recommenced his campaign, sometimes
by direct attack, sometimes by strategic retreats and unex-
pected flank movements. At length the prayers were ended
and the woman rescued her goose and her goodies definitively
from the turtle, packed them all up in her basket, paid her
fee to the attendant at the office, and started home with her
now very blessed dinner.
-
The space I have given the old woman and her goose must
not lead the reader to suppose that all lay worship in the tem-
ples is as largely external as hers seemed to be. As a fact, I
have never seen roast goose offered in a Buddhist temple out-
side of Annam. There is not infrequently a good deal of
earnestness in the worship of the layman-and for that mat-
ter, the old woman with the goose was certainly dead in
earnest. Sometimes the worshipers are not only earnest and
devout but enthusiastic in almost an evangelical sense. I
remember seeing one old gentleman in a Peking temple who
put on a temple robe and took part with the monks in a
service of circumambulation. After the ceremony was
over he laid aside the sacred robe and had a long talk with
me. I found him devout to the verge of zealotry. Religion
was the breath of his life, and it was not a religion of external
ceremonies but of inner experience. He had had several
visions of the Buddha and believed that the Buddha had con-
W
358
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
versed with him. Zeal such as his, however, is decidedly un-
usual in China.
From what I have said it will be seen that the use the
average laymen make of their temples is sufficiently different
from that which we Christians, and particularly Protestant
Christians, make of our churches. The worship of the Chi-
nese layman in the temple is chiefly individual worship.
Sometimes, indeed, he is present at the chanting service of
the monks. This is often a mere chance coincidence, and
not an unusual one, since (as we have seen) the monks have
two or three services every day. In some devout Buddhist
families, however, it is not a matter of chance; for the more
strict families observe the custom of attending the early
morning service in a near-by monastery or convent on the
first and fifteenth of every moon. On these occasions they
first listen to the chanting of the monks-or of the nuns-
and after these have finished, the family, with the father at
their head, repeats a certain ritual of prayer and praise before
the Buddha. The fact that this family service is usually held
about four in the morning may help to explain the further
fact that the average tourist sees nothing of it and goes home
to tell his friends that the laymen in China seldom go near a
Buddhist temple. There is a certain type of tourist who
thinks a religious service must be held on Sunday morning,
and at half past ten.
It is doubtless true, however, that the number of fami-
lies who observe this custom of bimonthly attendance at the
temple service is relatively small. Most Buddhist families
attend the services on behalf of their own dead, and those
held on special occasions, and beyond that it is only now and
then that they visit a temple. Their attendance at the tem-
ple, moreover, as I have said, must not be thought of as the
same sort of thing as our Protestant Christian attendance at
church. As a rule, when a Chinese Buddhist goes to his tem-
ple it is not to hear a sermon nor to listen while some one else
prays. He goes there to pray himself. Communal worship
is something of which the Chinese have very little concep-
tion. It is odd how difficult it seems to be for Westerners to
grasp this fact, even when they have resided for some time in
China. A missionary describing in a recent number of the
C
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
359
Chinese Recorder 3 a prayer conference that took place at
Hang Chow in May, 1924, expresses his surprise that he
found no prayer-meeting going on-just individual worship-
ers reverencing the Buddhas, silently and by themselves, and
the monks chanting verses. As a fact, of course, a Chinese
Buddhist could hardly conceive of such a thing as a prayer-
meeting. It is odd also that this obvious fact is so seldom
made use of by Christian missionaries in planning out the
services for their newly made converts. These services are
almost invariably copied exactly after the pattern of church
services at home; and no opportunity is offered the convert
from Buddhism and Taoism for that individual worship to
which, and to which alone, they have been accustomed since
their infancy.*
D
The devout Buddhist layman does most of his praying at
home, and many men and women who would call themselves
Buddhists and trust in and pray to the P'usas, who look for-
ward to O-mi-to's Paradise and make use of monks at family
funerals, seldom go near a temple. As I have said, it is much
more difficult to gauge the strength of Buddhism in a given
district by the number of laymen one finds in the temples
than it is to make a similar estimate with similar methods in
Christendom.
The laymen who do come to the temple to pray do so in
part because of the opportunity here at hand to make offer-
ings to the Fos and P'usas-both of gifts for the immediate
glorification of the Holy Ones, and also of money to aid in
support of the Sangha. By these means one acquires merit.
Another reason for worship in the temple is that the sacred
associations of the place and the presence of the images makes
one feel more like praying-puts one in a more religious
frame of mind-and presumably the prayer in such circum-
stances is worth more. Probably the most ignorant directly
worship the temple images (whatever that may mean!), but
for most laymen the image seems to be merely a sacred repre-
sentation of the holy Being, who himself is in heaven. With-
out the image, one Chinese explained to me, it is difficult to
3 "A Unique Buddhist-Taoist Union Prayer Conference," by Clarence B. Day.
Chinese Recorder for June, 1925, pp. 366-69.
•
A few of the wiser missionaries realize this fact and are trying to persuade their
fellows that a great tactical mistake has been made.
360
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
concentrate one's thought upon the Buddha. One comes to
the temple because before the image of the Buddha prayer is
easier and more natural.
There are, of course, exceptions to this. In a large tem-
ple partly Buddhist and partly Taoist a few miles from Tai-
yuan fu I found an image of a P'usa to which the peasants
pray for rain, and which, in time of specially bad drought,
they carry around in a chair so that she may see how dry
the land is. This, of course, seems to imply idolatry in the
extreme sense. Such an attitude toward images is rare, how-
ever, and I think in this case it was due to the influence of
Taoism. The P'usa, in fact, was a very local one, and looked
more Taoist than Buddhist.
Belief in the efficacy of prayer is fairly general, and is
naturally encouraged by the temple authorities. At the
temple I have just mentioned there is a large sign reading,
"If you pray you will have an answer." In another temple
I saw a collection of red cloths left there by worshipers whose
prayers had been answered, each cloth bearing the name of
the donor and the date of the divine response. As will be seen
from this, popular Chinese Buddhism does not share the com-
mon prejudice of Southern Buddhism against petitional
prayer. Some of the more learned will tell you that there
are many things for which you should not make petitions;
but the rank and file of the Buddhist laity pray for what they
want. They sometimes differentiate between their super-
natural friends, moreover, somewhat as Roman Catholics
often differentiate between the saints. One prays to Kwan-
Yin for rain, for help in danger, for children, for recovery
from sickness. One prays to O-mi-to for eventual entrance
into the Western Paradise. When visiting a temple in Soo-
chow I happened to mention to the monk that I had a head-
ache; he told me that Kwan-Yin very likely would remove
it if I prayed to her to do so. The more spiritually minded
pray to the Buddha for peace; or pray that ultimately they
may "become Buddha."
S
Conta
5
The Prayer Conference to which I alluded a few pages
back was called, as its name indicates, for the sake of in-
suring peace and warding off calamity. It was a cooperative
0
Kiangsu Chekiang Prayer Union Conference for Peace and Prevention of Calamity.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
361
undertaking of Buddhist and Taoist clergy and laity. The
date at which it was assembled, May 20, 1924, will indicate
to the reader who was interested in Chinese affairs at that
time, the circumstances that probably prompted it-the civil
discord within the province of Chekiang which soon resulted
in the war between governors Chi and Lu. It was held in a
secluded monastery among the hills west of Hang-chow,
lasted for two weeks, and was attended by "groups from
widely separated places in the two provinces of Kiang-su and
Chekiang, who met for prayer for a common purpose and
in a spirit far removed from the warring of the militarists,
showing a faith in spiritual forces and their power among
men. " In addition to peace and prosperity the Conference
prayed for the souls of the dead. The bulletin which gave
notice of the Conference said: "We must pray for the souls
of the dead soldiers lost in the European battles and for the
victims of the Japanese earthquake"; "Pray for universal
harmony"; "Let every soul heed." The praying, I should
add, seems to have consisted in reverential bowing before the
Buddha images, and in chanting by the Buddhist and Taoist
monks, in four prayer halls. There seems to have been little
or no spontaneous petitional prayer. A two-months' session
of daily prayer was started in the Lama temple in Peking on
June 1, 1927, with the hope "that peace and order may thus
be restored." 7
Prayer conferences of this sort are rather rare occur-
rences. But it is not unusual in case of drought or pestilence
for an entire village or district to demand in a body that the
monks of some near-by monastery should seek supernatural
assistance by chanting prayers. A description of a service.
held for this purpose will be found in Hodous' Buddhism and
Buddhists in China. It consists in symbolic acts and offer-
ings and in set petitions to Kwan-Yin or the Dragon King,
to take pity upon the people and remove the cause of their
suffering.
8
As I have indicated, some of the better-read monks and
laymen insist that for most things direct petitional prayer
Mr. Day, op. cit., p. 368.
"Peking Leader for July 15, 1927.
8
* Pp. 24-27.
362
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
is useless. If one's father is ill, one monk told me, it is idle
to pray for his recovery and one does not do it. For his ill-
ness is due to his sin and is the inevitable consequence of his
sin; and prayer cannot make this sin less. One may, how-
ever, pray directly for one's own growth in wisdom or good-
ness and also for one's success. One may also pray for the
success of other people. The distinction between prayer
for other people's success and for their health, the monk did
not make plain. He admitted, however, that we might indi-
rectly help a sick man through prayer, by helping his spirit
and thereby enabling him to be less sinful. In this case it is
the subjective effect of prayer that is relied on. This monk
was nearer than most of his Chinese colleagues to the Hina-
yana point of view.
P
Offerings of some sort are usually made in the temples in
conjunction with prayer. The gift may be of copper cash
or paper money. Sometimes it is candles, but most often an
incense stick, or several of them. Flowers also are occasion-
ally given, and vegetables.
9
By no means all the prayer made by the laymen in the
temples is petition. Much of it, as with the monks, consists
in repeating some form of sacred words. Sometimes they
gaze at a Buddha image during the process to keep their
minds properly concentrated. Sometimes they repeat sen-
tences taken from some favorite Sutra. Those who know
no passages from the Sutras content themselves with re-
peating many times the Namu O-mi-to Fo, occasionally
keeping track of the number of repetitions on a rosary. By
this means one acquires merit and also produces upon one's
own mind a certain desirable effect. One feels better after
doing it. Of course it is not only in the temples that this
kind of prayer (or should we call it meditation?) is pur-
sued. It is practiced also in the home or in any solitary spot.
Sometimes busy men in need of spiritual repose will devote
a few hours consecutively, or a whole day, to this form of
prayer, shutting themselves up in their own homes or retir-
G
D
"The number of beads in a monk's rosary is one hundred and eight (in theory).
In the western hills near Peking I was told that the number of beads in a layman's
rosary was nineteen. imagine that there is no uniform usage throughout China, and
that many laymen use rosaries with one hundred and eight beads. It is interesting to note
that the Vaishnava rosaries in India have the same number of beads.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
363
ing to a monastery. They repeat the Namu O-mi-to Fo
from 100 to 5000 times at a stretch, recording the repetitions
on a rosary. The practice has, they insist, unquestionable
effects in inducing elevation and enlightenment of spirit;
and by means of it they find themselves making spiritual
progress. Western acquaintances of theirs sometimes testify
that if the practice does not make these men more honest, it
does seem to make them more gentle.
If the Namu O-mi-to Fo, or a passage from the Sutras,
is properly repeated and if one puts one's mind upon it with
deep reverence, one will thereby acquire merit. The amount
of merit thus acquired will depend upon the mental state.
Mere mechanical repetition is (in theory) worthless. On the
other hand, the repetition of almost any text may acquire
merit if repeated with great reverence. The merit thus ac-
quired is transferable (a good Mahayana doctrine, it will be
remembered), though a certain amount of it will be lost in
the process. Pious women often transfer the merit they
have acquired through vows and penances to the members of
their family. Most frequently it is to the dead that merit is
transferred. The transfer is most economically brought
about immediately after the death of the beneficiary-as,
for example, when a son causes verses to be chanted for the
benefit of his father who has just died.
Just how far the Buddha is involved when one prays is
a question on which Chinese Buddhists are no more agreed
than are Buddhists in other lands. The popular view is very
simple. The Buddha hears and answers prayers, just as do
the gods of other religions. So, of course, do the various
P'usas. This is a very common belief among both laymen
and monks. The more learned Buddhists regard this view as
mistaken. Some hold (as we shall see in a later chapter)
that the Buddha is quite unconscious. Others will not go so
far as that, but say that though the Buddha may be aware
of our prayers, it is not at all necessary that he should be.
For the reverent act itself accomplishes the effect quite auto-
matically. Those who hold this view, of course, discourage
petitional prayer and believe only in the reverend and
thoughtful repetition or chanting of sacred words. Such
chanting or repetition, if done in the presence of a sick
364
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
1.
father, may benefit his spirit directly (i.e., subjectively);
and it also will produce merit which may be transferred to
him without the intervention of any supernatural being.
Prayer thus works in much the same automatic fashion as
in Burma. The doctrine of prayer does not differ greatly
among the learned whether their Buddhism be of the Hina-
yana or of the Mahayana variety.
>>
The more zealous Buddhists, in addition to making offer-
ings at the temples and praying there and at home, make
occasional vows of various sorts and for various reasons. A
common form of vow is to promise to eat no meat during a
given period. For the laymen of China, like the laymen of
most other Buddhist lands, are seldom vegetarians. Women
frequently take this vow to eat only vegetable food for a cer-
tain length of time, either in order to acquire merit (which
they share with those they love) or in order to gain some wish
explicitly named in the vow, such as the birth of a son, the
recovery from illness or the like. Another special means of
acquiring merit is the "emancipation of living creatures.
It is especially on days fixed by Buddhist custom for this
purpose that this pious deed is performed. The devout Bud-
dhist will then buy fish at a market (in China fish are kept
alive at the markets) and put them in the pond in some
nearby temple compound. Perhaps the commonest vow is to
repeat some sacred verse such as the Namu O-mi-to Fo a
certain number of times. Just how many times this is to be
done may be settled by the divining blocks. The worshiper
proposes a certain number of repetitions as the price he will
pay for the desired mercy and then throws down the blocks.
If they fall in such a way as to mean No, he tries again,
offering a larger figure, and so continues till he and the Fo
or P'usa have struck a bargain. This done, he has to make
sure, by the aid of the rosary or some other mechanical de-
vice, to carry out his side of the agreement to the letter.
A
One of the commonest of vows is to make a pilgrimage
to some sacred shrine. The making of pilgrimages is still
popular in China. It is of course not only in fulfilment of a
vow that pilgrimages are performed. The devout Buddhist
makes the pilgrimage for its own sake. And indeed it is not
surprising. It is of course primarily a serious religious busi-
"
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
365
ness; but that does not make it a solemn business. And the
Chinese pilgrim, like other pilgrims, has a very good time.
It is a joyous as well as an uplifting experience. Sometimes
the pilgrims go alone; more often in company. Some-
times they pay their own way; sometimes they are helped by
the pilgrim club to which they belong, and which pays the
expenses of a certain number of its members every year to
go to some famous and sacred shrine. Mat sheds are erected
at frequent intervals along the last stage of the journey, and
at these free soup, free tea, or free gruel is often provided
for the pilgrims, at the expense of some charitable society
or pilgrim club. Bands of professional entertainers-veau de
ville artists as they would be called in the West, sleight of
hand performers, dancers-frequently go on pilgrimages and
perform for the benefit of their fellow pilgrims without sug-
gesting a remuneration or passing the hat. In short, the
whole spirit at many of these pilgrim centers is one of co-
operation, good will, and general helpfulness.
There are many pilgrimage resorts in Buddhist China;
but four of them are peculiarly sacred. These are, of course,
the four mountains consecrated to the four Great P'usas
already referred to in a previous chapter, namely, the island
of P'uto off the coast of Chekiang, sacred to Kwan-Yin; Mt.
Omei in Szechuan, sacred to P'u-hien; Wu T'ai Shan in cen-
tral Shansi, sacred to Wen-Shu; and Chen Hua Shan in
Anhwei, just south of the Yangtse, sacred to Ti-tsang. To
each of these, great streams of pilgrims, both lay and
clerical, make their way every year, a few almost every day
of the three hundred and sixty-five, but in large troops at
the appropriate seasons. Nor are these the only goals of
pilgrimage. China is dotted with sacred shrines to which
religious journeys are made from greater or lesser distances.
There are many of them especially near Hang-chow and in
various parts of Chekiang. And hardly a day passes in the
month before the rice is planted or during the pleasant
weather of the autumn after harvest time, but one will find
at least two or three peasants in most of these shrines, mak-
ing the round of the holy places, buying a few incense sticks
or candles and placing them reverently before the images of
Kwan-Yin or one of the Buddhas, and trudging their weary
A
366
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
way homeward with lighter pockets and lighter hearts and a
contented smile upon their faces.
10
These pilgrimages are taken joyously, but, as I have said,
also religiously and seriously. Occasionally one meets or
hears of ascetic practices carried on by specially zealous pil-
grims-walking for three days without food, kneeling or
kow-towing every few steps on a pilgrimage of several miles,
wearing chains or the garb of criminals, having oneself sad-
dled and bridled like a horse and beaten by an attendant,
piercing one's cheeks with a skewer. Extremes of this sort
are rare very much rarer than in India, for example. But
even the least zealous pilgrim is careful to conduct himself
with propriety. Improper actions and even improper
thoughts, he knows, must be avoided or the toil of his rather
arduous journey will be wasted. Hence guidebooks are writ-
ten for the monk and incidentally for the layman to give
the pilgrim information as to both geography and conduct
which may be useful to him. Mr. R. F. Johnston, in his
delightful book on Buddhist China translates and paraphrases
a considerable section of one of these books, and what he
says of its preface in particular seems to me so enlightening
as to be worth quoting at this point:
The short preface urges the pilgrim, in general terms, to cultivate
reverent and decorous habits of thought and conduct while engaged in
the serious business of visiting the holy mountain shrines of Buddha.
From his mind all feelings of vexation, hatred, and ill-will must be eradi-
cated. Gentleness and compassion and humility of spirit must be his
guiding principles. When he arrives at a shrine of Buddha let him bow
his head and in due reverence worship the Three Holy Ones,—the Buddha,
the Law of Buddha, and The Company of the Saints. Let him extirpate
all thoughts of worldly ambition and personal gain; let him wholly cease
from covetousness and selfish anger. The preface is followed by a page
containing four precepts: Hold written characters in respect; Regard all
living things with love and pity; Keep your mind from evil thoughts;
Let your mind be directed unswervingly towards the Buddha.11
Not only guidebooks for pilgrimages are occasionally
provided the Buddhist layman: guides for life's pilgrimage,
in the form of moral and religious tracts, are frequently
10 I have been told of one pilgrim who nailed his cheek to the wall of a temple and
remained in this position for twelve hours.
11 From Chap. VII, pp. 151-52.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
367
printed by religious centers such as Hang-chow or gotten out
by individuals and distributed gratis in thankfulness for an
answer to some prayer or in fulfilment of a vow. These
tracts usually proclaim the beauty of some well-known vir-
tue or illustrate it by some shining tale. The virtue most
stressed is the Confucian virtue of filial piety and of rever-
ence for the "Five Relations"; after this come the more
specifically Buddhist virtues of mercy and purity and the
Five Vows, together with the consolations of religion and
the hope that it brings. "So by precept and example, by
threat of punishment here and hereafter, and by declaration
of reward in the future, Buddhism has tried to maintain the
family virtues of the Confucian system and has attempted to
permeate them with the spirit of sacrifice." 12 Some of the
tracts deal not with moral matters but with the delights of
the monastic life, contrasting its ease with the toil and dis-
comfort of life in the world.13 A few tracts purport to have
a supernatural origin, or to quote the exact words of some
recent revelation, seeking by divine threats to terrify the
readers into decency. A rather common form centers atten-
tion upon the praises of O-mi-to. One that came into my
hands while I was in China was circulated in honor of the
birthday of the great Pure Land Buddha, and signed by a
committee for the propagation of Buddhism in Hang-chow.
It consists of a sheet of thin paper about nine inches long and
six wide, bearing on one side a brief account of the life of
O-mi-to, and on the other the following injunction, in rather
larger characters:
12
C
The 17th of the 11th month being the birthday of O-mi-to Fo, we
ought to do the following things:
(1) Worship the Fo three times at home,
(2) Repeat the NAME at least ten times,
(3) Promise to pray for the people and the country,
(4) Forbid killing of living things, and refuse to eat meat for one day,
(5) Do philanthropic work according to our ability.
If you do the above five things you will get happiness and do away with.
suffering.
A
13
Hodous, op. cit., p. 34.
Mrs. E. T. Williams, "Some Popular Religious Literature of the Chinese," J.R.A.S.,
No. China Branch, XXIII. 11.
368
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Besides these instructions there is a list of lecture dates and,
in the middle of the page, the six characters of the Pure Land
prayer or sacred formula: Nan Wu O-Mi-To Fo: with the
injunction after them, "Read Reverently."
A peculiar class of institution that should here be men-
tioned is the Lay Buddhist Society or the vegetarion sects.
Most of these trace their origin back to some of the many
epochs in Chinese history when Buddhism has been under
the imperial ban, when monastic life was forbidden or re-
pressed, and religious organizations (other than Confucian)
were looked upon with suspicion. At these times earnest
Buddhists who felt the need of social encouragement in the
religious life formed little groups and systems of groups
which held secret meetings for the practice of Buddhist
training and worship. They were secret societies but in the
case of many the chief or only secret thing about them was
their membership. They persisted through Manchu times,
much to the perplexity and anxiety of the Government
which frequently misunderstood their aim and persecuted
them when it could. Their aim, I am told, has seldom been
political, but it is not strange that the Government failed to
realize this fact, considering the number and power of po-
litical secret societies that had made trouble for the various
dynasties of China. Since the Manchu overthrow these re-
ligious societies have enjoyed a fair degree of prosperity,
though in the first years of the Republic they were still ob-
jects of governmental suspicion. The largest of these soci-
eties is known in the north as the Tsai Li, in the south as the
Tsai Chow, which means "within the religions"-a name in-
tended to indicate the fact that the society seeks to mediate
between the three religions of China. The northern branch
(the Tsai Li) has thirty-one subordinate centers or organiza-
tions, several in Peking.14 I have no figures for the southern
branch (the Tsai Chow) but I am told it also is widespread
and has a large membership.
Almost all the members are from the lower classes. They
are rather simple people and they have but little Buddhist
learning. They all worship Kwan-Yin and repeat Buddhist
verses in the common Chinese way, thus combining prayer
14 Hodous, op. cit., p. 43.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
369
and meditation. O-mi-to and his paradise plays a large part
in their thought and so does Milei and his coming incarnation
and regeneration of the earth. They do not frequent the
temples and have no temples of their own. In both south
and north they abstain from wine, tobacco, and opium, and
in the south (though not in the north) they abstain also from
meat. In the south a few of the middle class belong; in the
north only the lower class. While they all worship Kwan-
Yin, they make use of her image in the north, but not in the
south. Many of the groups, both south and north, use in
their meditation the verse so common in Hinayana lands,
Om mani padme hum, and they have a theory that each of
these syllables comes from a separate part of the abdomen or
chest and that the repetition of the words brings them physi-
cal as well as spiritual benefit. Plainly there is some distant
relationship between this and the breathing methods of the
Hindus. Improvement of the health is thus one of the aims
of the society, as is also moral and spiritual advancement.
Mutual assistance is another of their aims. In most large
cities there is a local headquarters for the society, whose lo-
cation is kept secret from all outsiders, at which members
can get help when they need it. I should add that it seemed
to be the general impression of both the Chinese and the
foreigners with whom I talked that the influence of the so-
ciety on its members was decidedly of a moral sort, and that
it was made up, as a rule, of good and earnest, if simple,
men.15
15
My statements concerning the Tsai Li are based on information given me by
several Chinese gentlemen of my acquaintance. In his Chinese Buddhism (published in
1879) Edkins gives an account of a somewhat similar society (in Fukien province), the
Wu-wei-Kiau, which seems to be partly Buddhist, partly Taoist. It is vegetarian, medi-
tative, and non-ritualistic. It teaches that "Religion consists not in ceremonies and
outward show, but in stillness, in a quiet, meditative life, and in an inward reverence
for the all-pervading Buddha. Buddha is believed in but not worshipped" (op. cit.,
Chap. XXIII). According to De Groot this sect, known also as the Sien-Tien was
founded under the Ming dynasty, and contains in its teachings a good deal of ancient
Chinese and Taoist philosophy, though Buddhist thought is predominant. The mem-
bers are mostly from the well-to-do classes. At their meetings they "recite fragments
of Buddhist Sutras, formulas, and numerous names of Buddhas, or they repeat one
name many times.
Besides, the meetings are devoted to pious conversation, par-
ticularly about the Five Commandments, to the faithful keeping of which they admonish
and encourage each other" (Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China, p. 190).
Another society rather widespread in southeastern China is the Lung-hwa. This sect
is made up of plainer people than the Sien-T'ien, and though it teaches the same
mingled Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, and claims the same founder, it makes use of
much ritual and of many Chinese gods (mingling on easy terms with Bodhisattvas).
•
•
370
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
As in most Buddhist lands, the more devout Chinese do
more of their worshiping at home than in a group, whether
that group assemble in a club or in a temple. In Southern
China and in the Yangtse valley most Buddhist homes have
an image or two of some member of the Buddhist cycle in
their domestic shrines. Kwan-Yin is almost invariably one
of these. If one steps into almost any of the house boats on
the river front at Canton, in which so many families spend
their entire lives, he will see, in what we might call the front
room, a little shrine, with the familiar figure of the Goddess
of Mercy, and a few other less easily recognizable images.
In Chungking, fourteen hundred miles up the Yangtse,
one comes occasionally upon a shop with a little shrine hid-
den away in a corner or on the back wall, holding always a
Kwan-Yin and usually a Yo Wang (The P'usa of Medicine).
Almost the only time I have ever made a Chinese angry was
the occasion on which I asked one of these Chungking
shopkeepers for how much he would sell me his Kwan-Yin.16
The presence of private shrines in these two regions is par-
ticularly interesting because Canton and Chungking are
notable for the decay of their Buddhist temples. So far as
I could find out, the Buddhists of Peking and the north
rather seldom have domestic shrines with images of Fos and
P'usas in their homes. I have seen a few such home shrines
in Peking, but I think they are rare.
The worship carried on in the domestic shrines in south-
ern China consists largely in the reading or reciting of Sutras,
or the repetition of sacred verses or the Namu O-mi-to Fo.
Like the Sien-Tien its members are vegetarians and lay great emphasis on the five
Commandments. In the variety of its ranks and the glory of the titles given to them,
it rivals our own Ku Klux. It has an elaborate initiation ceremony. Sutra reading,
usually accompanied by tappings on a wooden gong or a metal bell, forms an important
part of their services; and as the members are usually illiterate, the reading is frequently
recitation from memory with very slight understanding of the meaning of the words
recited. As is the case with most of these lay Buddhist societies, Kwan-Yin is the chief
recipient of the prayers. Most of the members are very devout worshipers of her,
not only in their group meetings but in their domestic devotions. I should add that
her kindly spirit seems to have been contagious, for her worshipers in these societies
are said to be very kind and helpful to each other. The lay Buddhist society has
broken through family lines and expanded the family affection of the Chinese so as to
take in an immensely wider group than most Chinese outside of these sects ever find it
possible to love and care for.
16 It was a sacrilegious question on my part, and I honored the man for being angry
with me.
As a fact, I made the attempt chiefly to test his religion, and was glad to see
him flare up.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
371
'
This repetition is not very intelligent. The sentiment rather
than the thought which accompanies the recital is important.
Given the proper sentiment, the number of repetitions is
the chief concern. These are counted sometimes on a rosary,
sometimes on a "Sutra pagoda”—a roughly printed wood-
cut of a group of pagodas each made out of a certain Chi-
nese character which by the addition of a single stroke of
the brush may be made into the character for 100. Such
a stroke is given at the completion of each group of 100
"prayers" or repetitions of a Sutra verse. But
Sutra pagodas are more than substitutes for memory. By means of a
seal of wood or stone they are stamped by the owner in the top corners
with his name, and he also inscribes there his address, and any other in-
formation he desires to give to the Saints; and they are then forwarded
to the abodes of bliss by means of fire, to be entered to his credit in the
books of justice or to the credit of the departed for the salvation of whose
soul he has done the good work.17
There are a good many ways in which the domestic wor-
ship may be carried on, varying in simplicity and length ac-
cording to the zeal of the worshiper. Several of these I find
described with some care in a popular little book entitled
A Guide Book for Those Not Advanced in Pure Land Knowl-
edge. The title sufficiently explains the purpose and nature
of the book. It was written three or four years ago by the
Tao-yin, or chief magistrate of Ningpo, in simple language
and much zeal, for the benefit of those too unlearned or too
busy to seek their salvation by the methods of the more
sophisticated schools. One of the simpler methods of wor-
ship here recommended is the following (I quote the trans-
lation made for me by my interpreter):
Either in the morning after getting up, or before going to bed, wash
cleanly your hands, face the West and worship once, or bow yourself.
You need only fold your hands and murmur Na-mu O-mi-to Fo, these
six Syllables. Don't try to remember the times: also don't limit the
number of times-just murmur them at one breath. With a long breath
you may repeat the words a dozen times, with a short breath fewer.
After reciting Buddha thus in ten breaths, say the names of Kwan-Yin
and of three other great P'usas. Also say the "Simple Promise" once;
then worship or bow once.
That is finished. If you carry out this
17
De Groot, op. cit., I. 226-27.
372
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
1
method you shall succeed in going to the Western Paradise of O-mi-to.
The "Simple Promise" prayer consists of eight sentences, namely:
I wish to use this merit and virtue
In the Pure Land of the Solemn Buddha
To requite the four-fold grace on high
To deliver the three Ways of Suffering.
Everyone who sees and hears
And has a pure heart within him
And devotes all his body for the sake of his return,
Shall be born in the Most Happy Land of the West.
The author of this little book makes a great deal of the
value of "reciting Buddha," as he calls it; but he insists re-
peatedly that one must also keep the Five Precepts and "have
three kinds of sincere heart." Mere verbal repetition, more-
over, is of no value. One's mind should be concentrated
and one's heart quiet if the recitation is to be of much value.
The author tells us that some Buddhists find such recitation
difficult; that when they begin to recite Buddha their hearts
begin to feel very uneasy.
A thought would pop up suddenly and suddenly fall down-so rest-
less in this way. The harder I try to keep my heart quiet, the disquieter
my heart becomes. [To such people, the author continues, he would
reply as follows:] It is indeed not good to recite with the mouth and to
think of other things. But the mind of an ordinary man is generally
disorderly. How can he have a quiet mind when he begins practicing
recitation? You need only to have a sincere heart, slowly and gradually
you are sure to have a quiet mind. Moreover, the disorder in your mind
has already been there, and is not due to reciting Buddha. For instance,
we cannot see the dust in the air until the shining of the sun. Before
reciting Buddha you are not conscious of your manifold thoughts. Re-
citing Buddha makes you conscious of them, that's all. When you feel
that you have many thoughts, your mind has really improved to a quieter
degree. You need only be patient and sincere in your recitation—you
are sure to improve day by day.
I have quoted this passage because it throws some light
on the Buddhist notions concerning prayer, showing, among
other things, that the end sought is not merely salvation in
the Pure Land but also an immediate improvement in one's
own spiritual condition. It is, in short, subjective as well
as objective worship. And there can be no doubt that the
author evinces considerable psychological insight in his dis-
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
373
cussion. The subjective effect desired, I should add, is
sought not only for its own sake but also because it is con-
sidered a step in the great effort toward disclosing and real-
izing the Buddha nature which, though disguised and hid-
den, is at least latent in all men.
The reverend repetition of a sacred name or verse or
chapter may be of use not only in gaining eternal salvation
but in warding off many purely temporal dangers, and
should be practiced in all emergencies. In southeast China,
it is usually performed before an image of Kwan-Yin. Many
devout women, as I have indicated, keep such an image in
their bedrooms or on a little household altar. "A common
custom is to place a cup with some dry tea upon the altar,
and when the recital is over to pour hot water on the tea
and drink it, as highly beneficial to health; or else the tea is
put away as a medicine for future use." 18
Kwan-Yin is
thus singled out for particular and constant adoration for
sound empirical reasons. She has repeatedly shown herself
merciful by special providences. Your devout Buddhist
can tell you of special answers to his own prayers; and some
have known of actual visions of the blessed Goddess of Mercy,
which she has vouchsafed to devout worshipers who have
needed her help.
There is very little attempt among the Buddhist laity
at the systematic religious education of their children, or
the instruction of adults. There are no Sunday schools and
no regular preaching services. The children pick up what
they know by imitation and through incidental talks. Con-
sequently, the influence of Buddhism upon the life of the
Chinese layman is not nearly so great (if I may judge from
what I have seen and heard) as it is upon the laymen of most
other Buddhist lands. But so far as that influence goes it is
almost unqualifiedly good. The Five Precepts are known
by a good many, and especially the first of them, not to kill,
is constantly emphasized. And here let me remind the
reader once more that Buddhist books and Buddhist teachers
when they are true either to the Hinayana or to the Maha-
yana do not confine themselves to the letter of this first great
law but emphasize its spirit. For the true Buddhist it means
18 De Groot, p. 225.
374
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
not merely to abstain from taking life but actively to save
the life of all living things. In similar fashion the second
Precept means not merely to abstain from stealing but to
give what you have to the needy. The practical worldly
sense of the Chinese and their family loyalty have prevented
Buddhism from making the positive side of these Precepts as
influential as they might have been with a people enjoying a
wider social horizon. But Buddhism has had its very consid-
erable though diffused and diluted effect. In China as in
every other part of the Buddhist world, universal pity is one
of the characteristic products of the religion. As usual,
moreover, this is emphasized almost as much in relation to the
animal world as toward human beings, and sometimes in a
way that seems to us bizarre.19 In some ways this feeling for
animals has been most praiseworthy. There can be little
doubt that the very general kindness, or even respect, paid to
the cow all over China is a result of Buddhism; the ancient
books indicate pretty plainly that it was introduced by Bud-
dhism into China from India. It is to be wished that the same
thing could be said of the dogs, for whom Buddhism has
been able to do but little. One may say, however, that the
quality of mercy is appreciated and admired pretty uni-
versally, even by those Chinese who do not practice it.
-
Among the more ignorant not much is known concern-
ing the life and example of the Founder; but O-mi-to's vow
and Kwan-Yin's mercy are common property. Especially
does the figure of the Goddess of Mercy shine forth in real
beauty and purity amid the callousness of the Chinese masses,
like a good deed in a naughty world. Few mythical produc-
tions can equal Kwan-Yin for real moral beauty or breadth
and depth of actual influence. She has a power over the
imagination of the Chinese Buddhist world that is of in-
calculable moral value. Her influence, and that of Bud-
-
19
The Kokwa Jichiroku, a Chinese Buddhist book of casuistry, says:
"To rescue one from capital punishment, one hundred goods (or units of merit) for
each person rescued. For rescuing the life of horses, oxen, and other animals used by
man, twenty goods for each life. For rescuing the life of such insignificant things as
gnats, mosquitoes, ants, flies, and minnows, one good for each ten lives.
"To save the life of rats and snakes and other beings which inflict injury, one good
for each life saved. Note: If a snake has not yet bitten a man, it does not merit death
punishment. However great the injury inflicted by a rat, it never commits a deed
sufficient to merit capital punishment" (Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan,
XLII, Part II, 744-45).
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
375
dhism in general and its constant inculcation of mercy, is
probably responsible for a large part of the charity which
Chinese Buddhists have always shown toward certain classes
of the needy. Professor Hodous, in his little book on Bud-
dhism and Buddhists in China, quotes at some length the
reply which a Buddhist preacher in Peking made to the ques-
tion: "What can Buddhism do for the lower classes?" The
reply was as follows:
"For this class Buddhism has the ten prohibitions. Every man has in
him ten evils, which must be driven out. Three have to do with evil
in the body, namely, not to steal, not to kill, not to commit adultery;
four belong to the mouth, lying, exaggeration, abuse, and ambiguous talk;
three belong to the mind, covetousness, malice, and unbelief."
"Is not this entirely negative?"
"Yes, but it is necessary, for during the process of eliminating these
evil deeds, man acquires patience and equanimity. Buddhism does not
stop with the prohibitions. The believer must practice the ten charitable.
deeds. Not only must he remove the desire to kill living beings, but he
must cultivate the desire to save all beings. Not only must he not steal,
but he must assist men with his money. Not only must he not give
himself to lasciviousness, but he must treat all men with propriety. So
each prohibition involves a positive impulse to virtue, which is quite as
essential as the refraining from evil."
"What energizing power does Buddhism provide?"
"First, is purgatory with its terrors. The evil man, seeing the con-
sequences of his acts upon himself, becomes afraid to do them and does
that which is good. Then there is transmigration with the danger of
transmigration into beasts and insects. Again, there are the rewards in
the paradise of Amitabha. Moreover, there is even the possibility not
only of saving one's self, but by accumulated merit of saving one's
parents and relatives and shortening their stay in purgatory." 20
To the more intellectual Buddhist, his religion means a
great deal. In the lives of a number of Chinese gentlemen
of my acquaintance Buddhism seems to be the central influ-
ence. It apparently dominates their thought and their ac-
tivity and enables them, most of the time, to live upon a
higher level of being. They get from it new insights and
larger vistas. To the mystically minded it has much to
offer. Professor Hodous, who for sixteen years was a Chris-
tian missionary in China, speaks of meeting by chance a
Buddhist lady at a temple, in whose heart, he discovered
20 P. 56.
376
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
there was "a genuine longing for God that overwhelmed all
the artificial, the material distinctions and devices through
which men have limited to particular and exclusive paths
their way of search," and who was astonished to learn that
Christianity could be as much an inner experience of the
heart as Buddhism was to her. He tells also of a convert
from Buddhism to Christianity who gradually discovered
that he was not being nourished by his new religion and felt
his joy slipping away from him, and who finally returned to
Buddhism, where he found more of the consolation and inner
peace that he longed for than was to be had in the mission
church.21 Another missionary told me of several converts
from Buddhism who had become Christian pastors, and who
had confessed to him (though they would not tell it to other
missionaries) that from time to time they go back to the
Lotus (the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra) for the spiritual
help and the mystical nurture which somehow they do not
get from their adopted religion.
What Buddhism and what the example of its Founder
have meant to the real saints of China-and every genera-
tion, including our own, has its saints-may be seen from an
episode in the life of Hiuen-Tsiang during his journey to
India. He had been captured by pirates on the Ganges, who
prepared to sacrifice him to Durga, their goddess. They had,
in fact, bound him to the altar and were producing their
knives for the bloody deed.
When Hiuen-Tsiang saw there was no escape he spoke to the brigands.
and begged them to allow him a little time and not to crowd about him
painfully, but “let me," said he, "with a joyous mind take my departure."
Then with an undivided mind, bent on the Tusita heaven, he thought on
Maitreya and earnestly played to be born in that place that he might
pay reverence to the Bodhisattva and receive from him the Yogachariya-
bhumi-sastra, and listen to the sound of the excellent Law. "Then
having perfected myself thoroughly in wisdom," he prayed, "may I return
and be reborn here below, that I may instruct and convert these bandits
and cause them to practice good works and to give up their evil deeds,
and thus by diffusing far and wide the benefits of religion, give peace to
all the world."
As he thus prayed he seemed caught up into the Tusita
heaven, "his body and soul were ravished with joy, he knew
21 Op. cit., pp. 2, 74.
THE BUDDHIST LAYMAN
377
nothing of the altar on which he was bound and completely
forgot the robbers" who were to kill him.22
There are, I presume, not many to whom Buddhism
means so much as to these deeper souls of whom I have just
spoken. Yet Buddhism is a religion of such inwardness,
with so little self-advertisement and display about it, that no
one can tell the extent of its influence on the inner lives of
many individuals who both cultivate and hide a deep spirit-
ual experience under a conventional exterior. Still it would
probably be safe to say that such semi-mystical experience
is relatively rare in China; among the lower classes it
may be very exceptional. For these simpler, less in-
tellectual and less spiritual people Buddhism brings rather
a sense of safety and of consolation and of hope, united
with a little less callousness and a slightly greater gentle-
ness of spirit. I remember meeting a rather simple old
gentleman of the middle class in the rooms of the Fo Hua
Shieh, or Buddhist Association, in Tsi-nan Fu, sitting alone,
reading and meditating. I learned that he regularly spent
hours there in this fashion. He told me he was very happy.
He had not always been happy, for he had not always been
a Buddhist. He was a merchant and till recently had had but
little interest in religion. Some one had told him about Tao-
ism and Buddhism, and had said that the Taoists possessed the
ambrosia of life. He had, however, not accepted either re-
ligion at first. But on one of his business trips to Tsi-nan
Fu he had drifted into the rooms of the Buddhist Associa-
tion and there had heard some lectures on O-mi-to and the
Pure Land. These had made a strong appeal to him, and
through them he had become a Buddhist. Since then his
life had been very much happier than ever before. Through
Buddhism he had got rid of all worldly cares, for he had
come to realize that money and possessions and all worldly
things are vanity. So he had given up all desire for them
and was now in possession of deep happiness.
Probably even this man's experience, though not uncom-
mon, was hardly typical. Probably not many Chinese find
Life of Hiuen-Tsiang (Beal), pp. 87-88. Not to leave the reader in permanent
suspense, I should add that at this critical moment a tremendous storm arose and so
alarmed the pirates that they unbound their victim who thereupon preached to them of
the pains of hell and the joys of the Good Law, and so converted them all to Buddhism.
378
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
S
so much in Buddhism as he. But I feel sure that the dullest
layman who is at all devout, as he sits rather stupidly re-
peating on his rosary the Namu O-mi-to Fo, would at least
be able honestly to say of his simple Buddhist prayer what
the monk in the preceding chapter said: "It helps your heart
to say it over and over when you are in trouble."
CHAPTER XIX
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA
EVEN in distant America one hears a good deal about the
Buddhist revival in China. The phrase is becoming familiar
and the subject attracts one's interest from afar. One de-
termines, on reaching China, to investigate it, to talk with
the revivers, observe their methods, and get statistics as to
their results. On landing in China, one discovers that the
subject is as baffling as are most things Chinese. A little in-
formation at second and third hand one can scrape together
if one has good luck, but beyond that the process of investi-
gation is a good deal like stumbling along in the dark. The
immensities of oriental space and time get in one's way. One
has to be satisfied with a very little.
(
So far as I can make out, the beginnings of the revival
go back to the Boxer times. The anti-foreign and anti-
Christian sentiment of those days seems to have roused a new
sense of loyalty to the ancient faith which expressed itself
among the common people in a greater religious zeal and
among the upper
classes by a new interest in the intellectual
and also in the mystical side of Buddhism. Before 1900
Taoism seems to have been the favorite refuge for those who
felt the need of religion; but, for some reason which I shall
not attempt to guess, the turn of the century and the turmoil
of the times shifted the weight of popularity from Taoism to
Buddhism—at least in parts of northern and eastern China.
Particularly in eastern Chihli there has been a notable increase
of Buddhist zeal. How far this extends in other parts of
the
country I do not know, but it probably is felt at least
slightly through most of the northeast.
A new impetus was given to the movement with the rise
of the Republic. Since 1912 politics has been a great game
—a game in which every possible kind of help is needed,
natural and supernatural, and a game at which many must
379
380
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
inevitably lose and which therefore rouses a new sense of
world-weariness and a new demand for non-worldly con-
solation. Hence, it has come about, so I have been informed
from many sources, that one of the chief classes partici-
pating in the Buddhist revival is to be found among the poli-
ticians and ex-politicians. Many men still in active politics
find in the mystical side of Buddhism a much-needed re-
laxation-a kind of warm bath for the spirit-from which
they may return to the world of men in both a kindlier and
a more rested mood. And if at last they fail and are forced
to retire from active politics, they find in Buddhist philoso-
phy the comforting assurance that the game was never worth
the candle anyhow, that this world is all a vain show and
the winners have really won but a hollow prize; and in the
abstractions of the Mahayana Sutras they find their atten-
tion pleasantly called away from vain reflections upon an
unsuccessful past.
There is thus both a ceremonial, a mystical, and an in-
tellectual side to the Buddhist revival. There is also an active
side, seen in the charitable distribution of rice and tracts to
poor Buddhists, and still better in the orphan asylums which
have been instituted in a few cities and are supported by
Buddhist zeal. There is a large one in Peking, connected
with the Lung Chuan Ssu, in the southwestern part of the
Chinese city. In Ningpo I found two orphanages, both sup-
ported and run by Buddhists. The children of these insti-
tutions are well cared for, carefully educated in the usual
elementary subjects with modern methods, and in addition
each is taught a trade. Daily worship in the Buddhist shrine
is required, and the fundamentals of the Buddhist religion-
especially the five Precepts-are inculcated. According to
The Young East, a Buddhist monthly published in Tokyo,
Shanghai Buddhists
(
have recently distributed large numbers of sutras in condensed form
among passengers on the Shanghai-Nanking Railway, while regularly
holding once every month a lecture class on Buddhism for railway em-
ployees. Reformatory works for prisoners according to the principle of
Buddhism was first undertaken in Chehkiang Province in 1919 and since
that time similar work has been undertaken in the prisons of some other
provinces with encouraging results. Succour of the poor also constitutes.
one of their important works, a remarkable activity being shown for the
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 381
relief of starving people in 1921 when North China was overtaken by a
terrible famine.1
paga
But most of the energy of the Buddhist revival goes into
efforts at reform within Buddhism and attempts to propa-
gate it. Not for years, I am told, have there been so many
Buddhist books, pamphlets, and periodicals placed on sale
and read by the intelligent public. Two new editions of the
Chinese Tripitaka 2 have recently been gotten out, or at
least started. One of these is merely a new printing of the
former edition, the expense of publication being borne by
a wealthy Buddhist lady. The other is a photographic re-
production of a really new edition, with modern and schol-
arly commentary, which is now in course of publication in
Japan. But the aim of the leaders of the Buddhist revival
is not to reproduce the ancient Buddhism but to purify the
religion from the superstitions that have gathered round it,
to harmonize it with modern science, and to spread abroad
a knowledge of the essentials of Mahayana thought. As
to what the essentials of Mahayana thought are the leaders
naturally differ, some expounding the abstruse conceptions
of the T'ien-t'ai or the Dharma-lakshana philosophies, some
teaching the simple faith of O-mi-to and the Pure Land.
A few of the leaders of the movement are very bitter toward
Christianity, seeing in it, naturally, a great danger to Bud-
dhism, and they attack it with ridicule and invective. This,
however, is not commonly met with, Chinese Buddhists
as a rule being men of very great liberality of mind. And
even the most extreme critics of Christianity save some of
their sharpest weapons to be used against the monks of their
own religion. Some even go so far as to urge that monks
should marry and live and work in the world with the lay-
men as the Christian clergy do. Even the traditional Maha-
yana does not always go unscathed, especially its failure to
do more for women than it has done being frankly acknowl-
edged and rebuked. The real spirit of the Mahayana, it is
said, recognizes the equality of men and women, and for
that matter the equality of all human beings. A frequent
boast of Chinese Buddhists is that the Mahayana, since it
1 The Young East for Jan., 1926, p. 272.
2 The canonical books.
Wa
-
382
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
levels all differences, is the most democratic of all religions.
or philosophies.
Propaganda of Mahayana philosophy by means of peri-
odicals is a difficult thing in China, because so few can read
articles upon abstruse questions; and also because the Bud-
dhist movement has no funds with which to support such
periodicals as are published. Christian periodicals manage
to keep the field because they are, as a rule, heavily sub-
sidized. The Buddhist revival is as yet quite unorganized
and has but slight funds. In spite of this it has a fair list of
publications as one can see by a visit to the Ta Fo Ssu, in
the Eastern city, which is the Peking headquarters for Bud-
dhist publications, and where also religious pictures and im-
ages, rosaries and gongs, and other objects of a similar nature
are sold practically at cost to the Buddhist laity. There is
another publication center in the West city. An organi-
zation called the Buddhist Propaganda Party has started
work in the south and is publishing a paper, and distrib-
uting tracts of a religious and moral nature among the
soldiers.3
-
-
A slight effort toward Buddhist revival is also made by
preaching or lecturing services. In some of the larger mon-
asteries in Peking, and especially in the suburbs, occasional
preaching services are held. So far as I have been able to
find out, there is only one place in the city in which there
is a regular preaching or teaching service carried on at stated
hours from week to week (namely, in the Kwang Chi Ssu on
the street that leads to the P'ing Ts'e Men). Three times a
week at this temple a learned layman expounds one of the
Mahayana Sutras to a group of laymen. The morning that
I visited it, there were in the audience thirty-six men and
twelve women. Each was provided with a copy of the
Sutra that was being explained, and all followed with evi-
dent interest the words of the lecturer.
In Chungking I was treated to one of those surprises
which turn up every now and then in the study of Chinese
Buddhism and which make one question the worth of all
second-hand information concerning this elusive subject.
We spent three weeks in or near this interesting city and
"The Young East for June, 1927.
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 383
one of my first undertakings was to visit the Buddhist tem-
ples and to question every one I could find as to the local
condition of the religion. The unmistakably moribund con-
dition of Buddhism in Chungking is the first impression one
gets, and I was assured by a number of resident Americans
and Englishmen that nothing further was to be said about
the matter. I particularly inquired as to preaching services
in Buddhist temples or signs of a revival of Buddhism. An
English business man who had spent years in the city and was
much interested in the religious situation assured me that
there was no attempt at Buddhist revival in Chungking and
never a preaching service in any of the temples. Two
American missionaries of many years residence told me the
same thing. Then, one morning, as I was strolling through
the town, I dropped in for a second or third visit to the chief
Buddhist temple, and found the place crowded with men and
women, listening with great attention to a sermon by a
monk. There must have been about three hundred in the
audience. One of them told me that preaching services of
this sort had been held in that temple every day, except in
case of rain, for over three months, and that a genuine re-
vival of Buddhism was taking place.
-
In Cheng-tu, the capital of Szechuan, a similar revival
is being carried on. For most of my information on this
subject I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Brace, a Y.M.C.A.
secretary in that city, whose campaign for new members in
the "Y" was seriously hurt by the Buddhist revival move-
ment. He has kindly written out for me a statement which
I shall simply insert without comment.
(a)
In the summer of 1922 disciples of the famous Monk T'ai Hsu jour-
neyed from Shanghai to Chengtu in Szechuan Province to bring the
modernized message of Buddhism as taught by their master. Their com-
ing was the occasion of great rejoicing, and a real revival of Buddhism
was the result. They had been heralded for more than a year and their
way prepared by a wide circulation of T'ai Hsu's popular magazine "Hai
Chao Yin"-"The Voice of the Sea," or "The Sound of the Tide." Very
carefully edited articles had prepared the people for the visit of the
missionaries, and the new message found a ready response even before
their arrival. It brought a mesage of peace for the troubled days, and
the magazine clearly stated that the new message was destined to lift
the sublime teachings of the Mahayana Doctrine for the help of the
384
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
people tossed about in the sea of modern doubt. The message was essen-
tially spiritual and taught, or stood for, three propositions, (1) a real
desire to reform monasticism, (2) a plan to reconstruct Buddhist the-
ology along lines of modern philosophy, (3) to use the teachings of
Buddha to elevate the people and improve social conditions. On the
arrival of the missionaries, they were welcomed officially by the Governor
of the Province. The sixteen daily papers all joined in a welcome, and
gave columns to the new teaching, thus supplying a liberal supply of
advertising. The opening meetings were attended by large crowds who
listened attentively to the new program, and large numbers voluntarily
enrolled themselves for the daily course to be given. In fact, a real
program was gotten out, much like a university course, or a summer
school curriculum, and fees charged for the course. Then daily the
large hall in the Public Garden of the Manchu City was thronged with
auditors to hear the public addresses, and the class rooms were filled with
eager students to listen and follow the course throughout. A thorough
course was given in the history of Buddhism, what it had done for the
world, and how it had become encrusted with many superstitions. Now
all was changed. The old simple story of the Enlightened One and how
he found the way of salvation was declared. Idolatry was opposed, and
in bygone days it was only tolerated as an accommodation to the weak-
ness of the ignorant people. Now education was to be stressed, the
priests had always been ignorant. A Buddhist university was to be
established. The monks were to be encouraged to be busy as learners
and servants of the people rather than follow the lazy lives of the past.
The mercy of Buddha was taught and enjoined so that the wicked might
be led to kindness, the selfish to righteousness, the hungry to find satis-
faction in the doctrine. Most emphasized were the daily hours for fast-
ing and meditation. A real revival was effected along these lines, and
many of the foremost business and professional men took the vows and
followed the course of meditation regularly. Many men who had not
been interested in religion came under the sway of the new-found faith,
and personally told me of the value of the hours of meditation and how
their faith had been strengthened. The course on reading was followed
widely. The students burnt incense daily as they read and meditated.
At the meetings singing was indulged in, and often tunes quite similar
to Christian tunes were used, and one song used with the refrain, "Take
the name of Buddha with you." They even organized a Young Men's
Buddhist Association which is going strong.
I was told by another Christian missionary that the Bud-
dhists of Cheng-tu have also recently started several Bud-
dhist schools in which both the Chinese Classics and the
Buddhist religion are taught. Following the example of their
brethren in Japan they have adopted Christian hymn tunes
and put Buddhist words to them, for the school children to
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 385
4
sing. In addition to Cheng-tu, Chia-ting is also developing
as a strong center of Buddhist revival, and with such success
that it is becoming difficult for the Christian missionaries to
make converts in that region.
There are two Buddhist organizations which should be
mentioned in any account of the Buddhist revival, namely,
the Li Shang Hui and the Young Men's Buddhist Associa-
tion. The Li Shang Hui, or Buddhist Reform Society, ante-
dates the movement we have been considering by a number
of years. It was founded under the Manchu Dynasty, and
its aim is not propaganda but moral reform. It is essentially
what in America we should call a temperance society. Its
aim is to prohibit the use of opium, tobacco, and alcohol
among its members, and also the eating of meat. Its mem-
bership within Peking is said to be 10,000 and it has branches
in all the provinces." I asked the intelligent monk who runs
the bookstore at the Ta Fo Ssu if he knew anything about
the Li Shang Hui and he assured me he knew all about it.
He confirmed several of the things I have quoted from
Gamble, but added that he had little respect for the society.
It is composed, he said, of very low people, and its work is
not orthodox Buddhism.
The Peking branch of the Young Men's Buddhist As-
sociation was only about a year old when I reached Peking,
and was still in a rather amorphous condition. Its head-
quarters were in one of the rooms of the Kwan-Yin Ssu,
near the parliament building, and its equipment at the time
of both my visits consisted of a set of teacups. Let not this
be misunderstood, for in China especially-and in my per-
sonal opinion, all the world over-the teacup is a thing to
conjure with. I can imagine no better center for the sort
of helpful social intercourse this Young Men's Buddhist As-
sociation means to institute than the teacup, symbol of so
much warm hospitality, so much intelligent discussion, so
much friendly good will. Let no one belittle the teacup in
my hearing! As to the membership of the association I must
speak with less certainty. On my first visit to the head-
S
"This borrowing, I should add, has not been all on one side. The Christian mis-
sionaries have wisely adopted a few popular Chinese tunes which the Buddhists had been
using and have fitted Christian words to them.
D
See Gamble's Social Survey of Peking.
386
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
quarters I was told that they had two hundred members: on
my second that they had five hundred: I do not think the
membership really more than doubled during my absence.
I think both answers were prompted by hope rather than
by statistics, and that at my second visit hope had more than
redoubled. For hopes should be mentioned along with tea-
cups as a part of the really very useful equipment of the as-
sociation. The officers of the association, I was told, planned
to have several schools, a Buddhist university, and many
preaching places. Already, they assured me, the association
conducted regular preaching services at the Kwan-Yin Ssu
once or twice a week (they were a little vague as to whether
it was once or twice), and they published a journal, which
was supported in part by the emperor and which counted
many Japanese among its subscribers. These two were the only
activities, they said, which were really started, but they hoped
to open some of their schools in the spring. On taking my
leave I unfortunately inquired as to the size of the audience
at their biweekly preaching service, and was told that in the
spring they hoped to have a large attendance; but that as
a fact just at that time they hadn't any preaching services.
at all. Since my visit (I am informed) the association has
temporarily disbanded.
The Young Men's Buddhist Association in Hankow-
the real headquarters for all China-has much more of solid
achievement to show. I speak of it as the Young Men's
Buddhist Association though its local name is the Hankow
Buddhist Society. It was started in 1921 and has now a
large and excellent building of its own, with an auditorium,
a temple, a lecture or preaching hall, reception parlors, of-
fices, and a primary school for boys. The Society, I was told,
has three thousand members in Hankow. In the lecture hall
there is a preaching service every evening. I was not present
at the service, as I was a little too early for it, but twenty
or thirty men and women had already gathered in the hall
before I left. Besides these things they too have their hopes
and plans-plans some of which, they assured me, were on
the verge of being accomplished. Among these are to be
mentioned a middle school, and a high school for poor boys,
a nurses' training school, a vegetarian restaurant, men's clubs,
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 387
and places for the study of the Sutras. They already have a
place outside the city where laymen may retire for medita-
tion. They also publish the periodical of the World Bud-
dhist Association, and are the headquarters of the World's
Women's Buddhist Association which is just being organized.
There are three resident monks in the headquarters, who
lead in the religious services. One of these services I at-
tended, where I found nine laymen and seven boys chanting
the Sutras, under the leadership of a monk, with a good deal
of unmistakable fervor. The resident monks, I should add,
have little to do with running the Association. It is em-
phatically a layman's movement, and it has evidently a good
deal of strength in this region. I was told that across the
river, in Wu Ch'ang, there is another branch of the Young
Men's Buddhist Association, and that all told the Associa-
tion has in the Province of Hupeh upward of 20,000
members.
The aspect of the revival movement which I suppose is
most in harmony with the Chinese genius is the effort that
is being made for the spread of a scholarly knowledge of
Buddhist thought. There are two or three Buddhist col-
leges where serious study is given to the Mahayana Sutras,
under the direction of really able scholars. One of these
centers is Mr. Ouyang's college in Nanking. The institu-
tion is small: at the time of my visit it had but twenty regular
students and ten graduate students or investigators. But the
work done is of a serious nature and the young laymen that
go out from Mr. Ouyang's instruction are well grounded in
Mahayana metaphysics, and some of them are qualified to ex-
tend to others some insight into the mysteries of this very
difficult philosophy. Study of a less systematic but still
serious and advanced sort is sometimes carried on by some of
the great monastic centers of Buddhism, such as P'utow and
Wu-t'ai-shan. In these and similar places learned monks
train a few promising young members of the order; and so
much of this training as is really sound may properly be
classed as a part of the Buddhist revival. The movement as
a whole is emphatically a layman's movement, and the aver-
age monk, such as one usually finds chanting at funerals or
loafing in temples, has no part nor lot in it. Yet if one
C
G
388
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
were asked to name one man as the leading spirit of the
present effort to revive Buddhism, there is little doubt what
name should be chosen. Nine men out of ten acquainted
with the situation would answer the question by the name
of the monk T'ai Hsu." T'ai Hsu has earned this distinction
by combining in himself, as no one else has done, the intel-
lectual and the religious sides of the movement. Some re-
gard Mr. Ouyang as the sounder scholar and deeper thinker,
but Mr. Ouyang's interest in Buddhism is chiefly intellectual.
T'ai Hsu is both scholar, thinker, and mystic. He is in the
late thirties or early forties, rather under the average height,
with shaven head and monk's garb, quite near-sighted and
having the quiet prosaic air of the scholar, yet somehow giv-
ing one the sense that in spite of his thick glasses he has seen
things which the rest of us hardly guess. Some time after
entering the order he shut himself up for a period of three
years in a monastery in P'utow, with his books and his
thoughts and his undisturbed solitude. Since 1914 he has
been teaching. At first he taught at Hang-chow; but early
in 1922 when ex-governor Li of Kwangtung, an enthusias-
tic Buddhist, founded a new Buddhist college at Wu Ch'ang,
T'ai Hsu was called to be its head. It was there that I met
him. After a pleasant interview I was permitted to attend.
one of his lectures. At the lecture were sixty-three students,
all but five of them being monks. T'ai Hsu lectured without
notes and very easily, making constant use of the blackboard.
Each student had a copy of the Sutra that was being ex-
pounded, and followed the lecture eagerly, taking careful
I gathered from what my interpreter told me that
his lectures were less abstruse than those of Mr. Ouyang. His
influence must be considerable. If sixty monks, or half that
number, can be sent out every year with his impress upon
them, there is still hope for Chinese Buddhism.
J
notes.
At a meeting of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists held in
Tokyo, in November 1925, T'ai Hsu outlined his pro-
gram for a general revival of Mahayana Buddhism as fol-
lows:
I am told that in the opinion of many the monk Yung Kuang (originally from
Shensi Province), whose headquarters are in P'utow, is quite as influential in the revival
movement as T'ai Hsu.
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 389
The first thing we should do is to organize an International Buddhist
University to train men for the propagation of Buddhism. In the said
institution, there should be two departments: one is to teach the students
such liberal subjects as languages, sciences and philosophies and the other
to teach the Buddhist sutras, religious disciplines, Buddhist esoteric teach-
ings, etc. Besides the educating of the monks, we should preach Bud-
dhist doctrines to the masses by means of schools, publications, lectures
and dramas. The preaching should take place in the market places, on
the highways, in trains and on boats, in soldiers' barracks, hospitals, fac-
tories and prison wards. Our immediate object should be to teach the
masses such good virtues as loving their fellow men, obeying the law of
the land, diligence in the pursuance of their daily avocations, muttering
of prayers and names of the Buddha, etc., etc. Our social services should
be (1) famine relief work, prevention of natural calamities and medical
aid to those wounded in war, (2) promotion of industry by establishing
factories and encouraging land reclamation, (3) aiding such helpless people
as the aged and crippled persons and helpless widows, and (4) to build
bridges and roads and provide street lights, free ferry services and such
like public utilities for the travelers."
T'ai Hsu summed up his aim, in a conversation with me,
by saying that he longed to make Buddhism known as it
really is. He is the more hopeful that his effort in this direc-
tion will bear fruit because it is in response to a real demand.
Chinese students are returning every year from Europe and
America, or graduating from colleges in China, and demand-
ing to know what Buddhism is. The question, he insists,
must be answered from Chinese sources-from the great
Mahayana Sutras-and in a scholarly and philosophical way.
His primary aim is, therefore, scholarly and philosophical.
Solid knowledge and solid thinking must form the basis of
anything lasting in the way of a Buddhist revival. Only in-
directly does he hope to spread Buddhism among the com-
mon people. I told him of certain degenerate conditions I
had found in Shansi Buddhism, and asked him whether he
hoped to do anything to regain such regions as this to the
Buddhist faith. "Not directly," was his answer. But he
wishes to make the truth of Buddhism shine forth, and he
believes that once this is done, it is bound to conquer. Had
he spoken Latin instead of Chinese he would probably have
said, "Magna est veritas et praevalebit."
S
Yet, as I have already said, his interest is decidedly re-
7 The Young East, I. 181-82.
390
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ligious as well as philosophical, and while intellectual instruc-
tion is the weapon upon which he chiefly relies, he uses
others as well. In marked contrast to Mr. Ouyang's col-
lege, daily worship at the very attractive little temple is a
part of the training given at T'ai Hsu's institution, and in
this he himself regularly takes part with all his students. He
also publishes a religious periodical, and has organized a
World's Buddhist Association, which has an annual meeting
every summer for lectures and discussions. It is characteris-
tic of his liberal attitude of mind that in 1923 one of the
addresses at this Buddhist convention was given, at his invi-
tation, by an equally broad-minded Christian missionary,
upon the doctrine of the Logos.
The effect of the revival campaign undertaken by vari-
ous leaders is beginning to be felt in many parts of China.
A few pages back we saw its rather striking success in
Cheng-tu-a thousand miles from T'ai Hsu's headquarters.
Less startling but perhaps equally lasting results it is doubt-
less producing in the heart of many a thoughtful and quiet
man and woman who says little or nothing about it. Bud-
dhist devotion has a way of hiding itself in unsuspected
places. It seldom wears its heart upon its sleeve, and it never
does much advertising. The week before we left Peking
my Fellow Pilgrim and I were asked to a dinner given at the
house of a distinguished admiral, an earnest Buddhist, where
we found as our fellow guests a group of thirty young
women and girls who constituted a kind of Buddhist school
or unofficial convent. Our host, the admiral, explained to
us that during the dark days of disillusion that followed the
inauguration of the Republic, he and two other gentlemen,
appreciating the evil condition of the times, cast about to
see what they could do to better them. They decided that
the hope of the land lay in Buddhism. Hence they not only
deepened their own devotion to their religion, but they
founded this Buddhist school or order for their daughters
and the daughters of a few of their friends. The girls have
entered into the spirit of the enterprise; they study the Sutras
diligently and hear lectures, dress very simply, live on plain
vegetarian fare, and have decided to live celebate lives of
meditation and service. The school had been in existence
maig
THE BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN CHINA 391
three years at the time we dined with the girls. It was to
me rather significant and rather typical of the Buddhist dis-
like for publicity that I had spent five months in Peking
seeking for just this sort of thing before I happened upon
the school, and that the best informed resident Europeans I
met-men deeply interested in Buddhism-had never heard
of it.
This school of girls was the product of a combination of
the ancient monastic spirit and of the modernized form of
Buddhism which the revival is stimulating. The same com-
bination of influences I do not doubt is making itself felt in
many parts of the land, and hiding itself away in quite as in-
conspicuous a fashion as in the girls' school. A few years
ago one of T'ai Hsu's religious periodicals published a letter
written by a young woman to the editor, part of which I
reproduce herewith, and which, I expect, represents the as-
pirations of more than one Chinese girl:
Formerly I was a student at a school, and was not inclined to believe
in Buddhism. Later unconsciously my faith sprang up and then I be-
came convinced that the Law of Buddha is the absolute and only true
religion, unbounded and most lovable. So at the age of 19, I made a
vow before Buddha, that in this life I would never marry but give my
life to Him as a nun. I have kept this vow for four years, and many
times I wanted to shave off my hair, but was prevented by my parents.
I am sorry that I cannot be a nun early in life. I have three friends with
the same mind. One is married, but she daily thinks of shaving off her
hair and "forsaking the world"; only she is prevented from doing so by
her husband. But she is persuading him to become a monk, and I won't
be surprised if they two should "forsake the world" together before the
end of the year.
(For a girl to be able to shave off her hair and be a
nun it is the most happy thing. Now-a-days some nuns complain that
their lives are unhappy, while the lives of lay-folk are happy. I really
cannot understand their way of thinking.) The other two friends were
both my school-mates. One is called "Pure-root"; she has no parents,
but a brother-none to prevent her-and so she became a nun in the
spring of last year. The other is only 18 and yet her determination to
"forsake the world" is unusually strong. This year her mother wanted to
betroth her to someone, and so she decided to leave home secretly. I
recommended her to a certain nunnery. Of us four, two have already
realized their wish, leaving my cousin and myself outside the fold. I feel
grieved and also envious of their good fortune. At first we thought
that by becoming nuns we would escape from the world's misery and
sorrow, enjoy peace, and work off by penance some of our sinfulness.
Furthermore, by becoming nuns we sisters could live together and never
392
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
be separated, which is supreme joy. But now after reading Hai Chao
Yin, we know that "to forsake the world" is to benefit others, not our-
selves. Having known this my will to be a nun has become stronger than
ever. I wish that I could now and here shave off my hair.8
I am not oversanguine as to the success of the Buddhist
revival in China. It is an interesting movement and on the
part of many of its leaders and followers an earnest and a
deeply religious movement. But it will hardly set China on
fire. For the matter of that, China seems to me pretty safely
fireproof. We may, however, hope that the Buddhist revival
will be one of many influences to check the advance of
materialism in thought and life, to hold up a standard around
which the lovers of the loftier ideals may rally, and to build
up the nobler China that is to be.
8
Quoted by Yu Yue Tsu in an article on "Present Tendencies in Chinese Buddhism,"
Journal of Religion, I. 510.
CHAPTER XX
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
THE preceding chapter and also the one before it have
both dealt, incidentally, with certain aspects of the thought
of Chinese Buddhism; but the subject is too large and too
important to be passed over in purely incidental fashion. To
be sure, Chinese Buddhism believes and thinks in accordance
with the general philosophy of the Mahayana which we have
already considered. But there are changes and variations of
some interest in it, and if the reader's point of view is the
same as mine he will care to know the living beliefs and
problems of our Buddhist contemporaries in China quite as
much as the philosophic doctrines of ancient Sanskrit Bud-
dhism. Unfortunately the subject is as difficult and un-
certain as it is interesting. For China is a large place and
contains a good many people and a good many ideas; and
not only are there considerable diversities of belief within
Chinese Buddhism, but much of its thinking is peculiarly
elusive to the Western mind. Moreover, while a good deal
has been written on the Mahayana philosophy in general, I
have been able to find relatively little, in either books or
periodicals, about contemporary Chinese Buddhist thought.
A large part of this chapter, therefore, will have to be based
on material that I managed to scrape together piecemeal, in
conversations with monks and scholarly Buddhist laymen and
well-informed foreigners. My presentation will thus be
necessarily incomplete and must not be taken as in any
sense final. Much of importance I shall doubtless leave un-
touched, and the relative amount of space I shall give to the
different beliefs or forms of thought will certainly be out
of proper proportion. But what I shall say will, I hope, be
worth reading: for, with all its shortcomings, it will at any
rate be based largely upon first-hand information.
With so difficult a theme before us it will be well to be-
393
394
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
gin with the easiest part. I shall, therefore, first take up some
of the more popular beliefs of Buddhism, such as are held by
the mass of half-educated monks and laymen, and go on
gradually to the more involved conceptions of the scholars
and thinkers. Between these two extremes there is a great
variety of views, but all are Buddhist and are recognized as
such.
It is seldom that one Buddhist says another Buddhist is
mistaken, no matter how he may disagree with him; and it is
very rare indeed that one Buddhist will say of another's be-
lief, That view is un-Buddhistic, or It is heresy. In fact,
Buddhist tolerance, as a rule, goes out far beyond the fold
of Buddhism. I remember being told by the old abbot of
T'an Che Ssu that not only Shih-chia Fo and O-mi-to were
expressions of the divine revelation, but that the same was
true of Confucius and in fact of all holy men. A monk in
another of the temples in the Western Hills asked a visiting
missionary, who had been brought there by a friend of mine,
to burn a little incense to the Buddha. The missionary re-
fused, saying that he and the monk had different gods. To
which the old Buddhist replied, "But, sir, there is only one
God." In the "Southern Monastery" on the island of P'utow
I was discussing with one of the monks the question of the
future life. He was impressing upon me the need of faith
in the Buddha: but he interrupted himself to add very
quickly that Christians who believe in Christ and are good
men will
go to heaven. Of course there are many heavens——
"many mansions" in the Father's house-and Christians can
hardly expect to reach as high as Buddhists. Yet a monk in
Soochow, noting with delight my interest in his religion, en-
couraged me to think that in my next incarnation I might
be a Lohan (and how I shall enjoy braiding my eye-brows!),
and both a Pekinese monk and a monk at Chieh Tai Ssu as-
sured me that all good people whose hearts at death are pure
will go even to the Western Paradise of O-mi-to. Yes, this
included Christians also; for Christianity, one of the monks
insisted, is really a branch of Buddhism, and good Christians
are not merely good people morally but are really good
Buddhists without knowing it. Not many monks, I think,
would go quite this far. But appreciation of what is fine in
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
395
other religions and honest good will and good hope for all
is a universal Buddhist characteristic. Miss Bredon in her
book on Peking tells of asking the abbot of the Fa Yuan Ssu
why there were tablets on the altar of his temple for the
souls of the European soldiers who were killed in the Great
War. "Do you not realize," she asked, "that none of these
soldiers were Buddhists?" "Yes," he answered; "but may we
not admire the beauty of their sacrifice? and are not all faiths
fundamentally alike in that they desire the good of all mor-
tals? In your Christian churches do you not pray for the
salvation of all and believe in it?" 1 Miss Bredon could not
give an affirmative answer to this question.
Most of the more important beliefs of popular and un-
philosophical Buddhism I can go over briefly. In the opinion
of nearly all the simpler Buddhists, Shih-chia Fo, O-mi-to,
and the other Buddhas are existing personalities, who have
never merged their being in a Nirvana of the Hinayana type.
And not only do they continue to exist: many Buddhists
consider them also in some sense active beings. They are
working in this world of ours, although invisibly. Some-
times it is suggested that they do their work through the
P'usas, to whom (in the form of the Sambhogakaya) they
appear and whom they instruct, inspire, and direct. The
P'usas, also, are of course conceived as real and blissful beings:
and, as we have seen, petitional prayers are often directed to
both these classes of divinities (for, as pictured by the simple
Buddhist, the non-Buddhistic name divinity would fit them
very well). The P'usas, on the whole, are much more active
than the Fos. Ti-tsang, for example (so I was told by a
monk in Soochow) takes various forms for various
helpful purposes. He has come so near to Buddhahood
that he has stripped off the limitations of particular
personality and so is indifferent to all form and also to all
place. Certainly he is to be found on his sacred mountain,
Ch'iu Hua; but he may also be met with here in Soochow,
1000 li away. You or I might meet him at any time and
not know it was he. The P'usa Maitreya-Milei-Fo-is
somewhat different from the rest. He is in heaven, await-
ing the day of his appearance. The Chinese, like the Bud-
Peking (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1922), p. 219.
396
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
dhists of most other lands, look forward to his appearance
and expect the usual marvelous and delightful rearrangement
of the earth when he arrives.
As to man, there is, of course, no such sharp dividing line
between him and the Fos and P'usas as exists between man
and his gods in most other religions. Many of the Fos them-
selves were once men-for the matter of that, they were
once animals as well-and all men have within them unlim-
ited possibilities. The fundamental Mahayana view that the
Buddha nature is in all men has found a ready echo in the
minds of the Chinese, who for ages before Buddhism reached
their land had been taught by Confucius-and probably by
sages long antedating Confucius-to believe in the essential
goodness of human nature. I remember visiting a primary
school in Nanking-tiptoeing in unobserved, attracted by
the hum of twenty boyish voices repeating the lesson aloud,
as is the custom throughout the East. When the master
spied me he had one of the little fellows recite by memory
about half the primer-a book made up of sentences from
the classics. The first sentence of all was the following: "In
the beginning man was born good." This doctrine the Chi-
nese have always learned in early childhood and have always
believed; so it has not been difficult for them to think this
Chinese thought in the more metaphysical Buddhist way,
and to look within their own hearts, once purified and made
"sincere," for the Buddha.
This view of human nature has fitted well with the uni-
versalism of the Indian faith. The upward path may be
long for some and difficult, but it is never hopeless.2 The
views of the more scholarly and philosophical Buddhists as
to the fate of man after death I shall refer to later on in the
chapter, for it can hardly be discussed until we have dealt
with more fundamental metaphysical questions. The simple
beliefs of the rank and file of monks and laymen can be
rather briefly recited. If I may trust the various answers I
got to my questions concerning the next life, transmigration
seems to hold a more prominent place in the thoughts of
H
2
So at least nearly all Buddhists believe. I met a monk at Chieh Tai Ssu, in the
Western Hills, who said that some unfortunate sinners never get out of hell; but this
view is most exceptional.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
397
Still,
Chinese Buddhists than in the Buddhism of Siam.
heaven and hell are certainly quite as prominent. The usual
answer to a question concerning human fate is that the bad
go to hell and the good to heaven, while those who are neither
very good nor very bad are reborn in this world. Often
further information is proffered that after a stay of consid-
erable duration in heaven or hell, the good and bad are born
once more as men. One monk made the additional remark
that "Heaven is a very dangerous place." It is dangerous
because by going there one is likely to be filled with pride;
and this great sin will inevitably result in an undesirable re-
birth on one of the three evil Paths, or possibly as a man.
But if rebirth is a common thought, not many Chinese are
very clear about it. One monk, rather better read than the
average, told me there were three stages on the upward path.
The first consists of seven lives, and if one has been faithful
and obedient to the Buddha in all these, one goes on to the
second stage, which consists of three lives. This leads to the
third stage which is forever. In it we shall go where we
please and be free from the senses and leave the body behind.
But, he mused, it is difficult to say what one can be thinking
about when no senses are left and no body.
3
In a conversation with a group of monks in one of the
large monasteries on the island of P'utow, a leader of the
group told me that there were three classes of men: (1)
those who disobey the Dharma and do not believe in the Fos;
these at death are reborn as animals. (2) Those who believe
in the Fos and are not bad, but are not devout and do not
work for others; these are reborn as men. (3) Those who
have devoted their hearts to the Fo and help other men to
come to him; these become Fos and P'usas and live in heaven.
At this point in the conversation the small boy refilled our
teacups from the pot on the brazier; and either the fresh
tea or the remarks of the spokesman stimulated the minds
of the other monks who sat around the large table opening
melon seeds with their well-nicked teeth. A lively conversa-
tion followed, with much writing of imaginary characters.
in the air, and finally my interpreter told me the other monks
did not agree wholly with what had been said concerning
'Hell, the animal world, and the world of hungry ghosts.
des
398
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the fate of the second class: such men as these, they insisted,
go to heaven and are not reborn. I had the ill nature to
ask what was the difference between the fate of the second
class and that of the third, for both apparently go to the
same place. This was a puzzler. The best solution they
could work out, after some twenty minutes' discussion, was
that the men of the second class probably do not stay forever
in heaven, but are reborn as men upon earth; whereas those
of the third class remain in heaven forever. But it was plain
they had never thought much about the subject till I asked
them.
One noticeable fact about popular Chinese descriptions
of the next life, as compared with what one finds in Southern
lands, is the absence of any reference to Nirvana or its
equivalent. The nearest approximation to it that I heard
from any of my clerical acquaintances was the expression
"becoming Buddha." This is common enough. Its mean-
ing is usually left quite vague. One intelligent monk in
Soochow, however, whom I pressed upon the subject, gave
me a fairly definite answer. The state of becoming Buddha,
he said, can be conceived only negatively. We can tell what
it is not by denying all details. If one attains to Buddhahood
there is nothing left of personality. All individual charac-
teristics are gone. What is left is the essence of Buddha and
of all the Buddhas. One who has attained this state may
take any form, for he has no form of his own.
The followers of Pure Land Buddhism have, of course,
a much more vivid and clear-cut picture of the next life
than other Buddhists. O-mi-to's famous Eighteenth Vow is
well known in China, and thousands are trusting that He
will bring to the Pure Land-the glorious Western Paradise
-all those who respect his name with faith believing and
whose faith has kept them from the worst of sins. O-mi-to's
Paradise is pictured, in the Chinese imagination, as a glorified
Buddhist temple with elaborate and beautiful grounds. One
may find colored pictures of it in various headquarters of
Buddhist propaganda. In the center sits O-mi-to, on his
lotus throne, with Kwan-Yin and Ta-shih-chih on either
side. Surrounding him are the Lohans and many P'usas, while
in the large pond before him grow unnumbered lotus flowers
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
399
and from the heart of each flower is born a redeemed soul.
It is faith and the grace of O-mi-to that bring one to this
second birth: yet some of the old Buddhist feeling is still
preserved in one account of the Pure Land which teaches that
if one's sins are great, the lotus in which one is born will not
open till after many years.
4
The repetition of the Namu O-mi-to Fo is at all times
helpful. It is particularly so at the hour of death. But, as
the Guide Book for Those Not Advanced in Pure Land
Knowledge points out, it is probable that only good Bud-
dhists who have cultivated right habits and devout thoughts.
will be able to "recite Buddha" at that critical moment.
The habit of devout prayer not only prepares one for the
hour of death but it builds up one's stock of merit and makes
one's future abode more beautiful. "When a person in this
world prays it makes a lotus grow in Paradise. When a per-
son dies O-mi-to and Kwan-Yin and Ta-shih-chih take the
lotus his prayers have made and receive him into Paradise.
He then grows out of the lotus. But if in this world one
begins to pray and then neglects his prayers, his lotus in
Paradise will decay, and if he never prays any more his lotus
will vanish."
G
-
"There is no woman in the Western Paradise: because
women who are saved are born there as men. For woman-
hood implies pain, and there shall be no pain there." "Three
ideals characterize all those in the Western Paradise: self-
control, unchangeableness, wisdom." "In the Western Para-
dise there will be no more sorrow, death, or sin." In contrast
to it, this world is a sad place. "Man's body is very un-
strong [so my interpreter translates]. When it is hurted he
will be die." Therefore we ought to realize that the body is
very unimportant and pay attention only to character, so
as to reach the Pure Land of O-mi-to.
-
S
-
The beliefs thus far discussed in this chapter are those
one finds among the less philosophical Buddhists. They are
the simple views of rather simple people, comparable in a
way to the simple faith of simple Christians, innocent of
philosophy. From this point on things will begin to thicken
up. My information concerning the opinions of the more
"From which I quoted in the previous chapter.
400
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
philosophical Buddhists is drawn in part from conversations
with a few Chinese thinkers and a few foreign scholars in
different provinces, in part from articles in periodicals (Eng-
lish and Chinese), but chiefly from a number of very help-
ful discussions I was fortunate enough to have with a group
of about a dozen Buddhist gentlemen in Peking. We met
first on the invitation of my friend, Mr. Yen Te Ching, and
dined together at a vegetarian restaurant. Several other
philosophical symposia followed, at the homes of some of the
members of the group. It was for me a rare opportunity,
as it gave me some insight not only into the doctrines of the
books and sects but into the working of thoughtful Buddhist
minds as well.
·
All Chinese Buddhist thinkers, so far as I know, accept
the ancient Indian view of the two levels of truth and real-
ity. This must be kept in mind when one hears the rather
common assertion of Buddhist philosophers that the true and
the false, the real and the unreal are one. This assertion re-
fers only to the lower realm-the world of appearance (as
we in the West would call it.) On the higher level all is
true; hence there are no distinctions within it. (So Mr.
Ouyang of Nanking, perhaps the foremost Buddhist scholar
in China, explained it to me.) In the lower realm nothing
is completely true; so there also no ultimate distinctions ex-
ist. But there is a real distinction between the two realms.
The higher realm, Mr. Ouyang added, we may reach by in-
tuition after much study. It cannot be reached by either
study and logic nor by intuition alone. Since no assertions
concerning the lower realm can be entirely true, and all
may contain some truth, the characteristic tolerance of Bud-
dhism is logically justified. All sorts of symbols are defen-
sible if appropriate, and different symbols may properly be
used with different kinds of people. Your typical Buddhist
philosopher not only tolerates but has faith in even the naïve
Pure Land teachings. But, as Keyserling would put it, he
does not confuse faith with believing to be true. The loving
personal O-mi-to, the brilliant pictures of the Pure Land, all
these things are useful symbols of the truth. Already in
the Lotus Sutra, Sakyamuni points out his elastic method of
presenting the truth as an example of the "skillfulness" of the
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
401
Buddhas-the famous "method of adaptation." As Pro-
fessor Francis Wei puts it," "Any kind of teaching and any
way of preaching is Buddhist provided it leads to enlighten-
ment; for when enlightened, one will see the difference be-
tween truth and falsehood or rather the non-existence of
both and hence the non-existence of any such difference."
This doctrine of the two realms explains to some extent
the Mahayana attitude toward morality. Insight transcends
morality. Morality is on the lower level and hence is only
approximately real or true. The aim of Buddhism is to reach
a plane of being that is beyond both the good and the bad-
jenseits von Gut und Böse. In all this, of course, Western
absolute idealists of Mr. Bradley's school would agree. Mo-
rality tends ever to transcend itself. Yet the Mahayana, since
it deals tentatively with the world of appearance, does not
obliterate all moral distinctions. These distinctions are real
as far as they go; they are as real as anything in this lower
realm can be. Buddhism, said Mr. Ouyang to me, recognizes
three things: insight, contemplation, morality. Insight is
the aim: but it can be attained only through contemplation,
and successful contemplation presupposes morality. This
was true even for Sakyamuni in his earthly life. Insight is
like pure water which reflects like a mirror. Contemplation
makes the water pure, and morality protects it.
6
On the more fundamental metaphysical problems, the
Buddhist thinkers of China are not entirely at one. The
Left, as it would probably be called in Europe, expresses it-
self chiefly in negatives and consciously distinguishes Bud-
dhism from other forms of thought by its insistence upon
negating what the rest of the world believes in. Thus Mr.
Liang Chi Chao-perhaps the foremost man of letters in
China-asserts that Buddhism consists essentially in the
denial of personality. What is commonly called personality
is really a combination of will, feeling, thought, etc.; or bet-
ter still, a succession of pulses of consciousness. Each of these
7
In a letter to me.
0 This position of Mr. Ougang's is extraordinarily faithful to both Buddhism and
the traditional emphasis of China on the value of study and the importance of morality.
A typical Indian Buddhist, I think, would have made much less of both these latter
things.
7 In an article in a Chinese periodical, translated for me by my friend, Mr. Millican
of Ningpo.
402
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
pulses is separate. There is nothing back of them, no sub-
stance or subject, nor any sort of permanent entity. Im-
permanence is the truth. More in detail, the phenomena of
mind are analyzed into five parts: 8 (1) Seemingly objective
things-colors, forms, etc., which the naïve realist takes for
material objects. These are really subjective and must be
interpreted idealistically. (2) The power of perception.
(3) the power of retaining, recalling, and imagining. (4)
Activity of body and of thought, notably discernment and
the power of choice; and including all the powers of mind
except those set down under (2) and (3). Finally, (5)
Consciousness. This is the most difficult of all to explain.
It is the ability to experience and differentiate. It is the
unity which is the recognizer. But it, like the rest, is im-
permanent, dependent, with no lasting self-identity, and
hence unreal. There is no physical world and the psychical
world is made up of appearances with nothing substantive
about them. This, in Mr. Liang's opinion, is the essence of
the Buddhist classics. It is plain that it is one way of har-
monizing Hinayana and Mahayana: for it singles out a point
of view common to both and makes it and it alone decisive.
It is plain, moreover, that this view is closely related to the
Madhyamika of Nagarjuna. In fact, one could find ample
justification for it in the Sutras and the Commentaries, not
only of the Madhyamika but of several other Buddhist
schools. While the tendency of popular Buddhism and of
many Buddhist thinkers in China and Japan has been de-
cidedly away from this seemingly nihilistic view, it is inter-
esting to see that it still retains a following in China.
To a considerable extent the monk T'ai Hsu, the leader
of the movement for the revival of Chinese Buddhism and
one of the representatives of the T'ien-t'ai philosophy, might
be set down as belonging to this negative school, though, as
we shall see, he has more to say than mere negation. In the
periodical which he edits (the Hai Chao In) there were pub-
lished, a little while ago, a letter from an inquirer and T'ai
Hsu's reply, both of which I found of interest. The in-
quirer was emotionally drawn to Buddhism but his reading
of Western science had made it difficult for him to accept
These, of course, are the five Khandas of the Nikayas.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
403
the idealistic interpretation of reality. Geology in particu-
lar made him trouble: for how explain the world as the
product of consciousness during those long ages before con-
sciousness arose? It will shed some light on the Buddhist
form of idealism to quote part of T'ai Hsu's reply, as trans-
lated for me by Mr. Millican:
There is not much connection between Buddhist philosophy and any
of the Western theories of idealism, materialism, or dualism. The per-
ception theory of Buddhism has a certain importance in explaining the
beginning of things, but it must not be taken as equivalent to Western
idealism. For if you take perception to be a reality you also take all
things as real. All that has been said by Buddhism is for the sake of
expelling the creations of a doubting heart. Heart doubt itself is empty,
unreal: how can its creations exist? Western philosophies, whether
idealism, materialism, or dualism, all first postulate that the men and
worlds before our eyes are a reality. Now, to follow this up, What were
these men and worlds in their original substance, before they became
existent? If you say that originally they were only Mind, or Matter,
or a Mind-matter dualism, how and in what manner did they later change
into their present form? In thinking of this sort, vagueness and error
enter in at the very beginning; hence, howsoever you search you cannot
come to the truth. Buddhist teaching is not thus. It teaches, rather,
that the appearances known as the world and men are empty, non-existent.
And since men and the world are non-existent, why discuss what they
were originally? It would be like asking where the horns of a rabbit
came from. Men and the world are like a deceptive dream. Blindly they
go about acting in their dream. Although it seems to the dreamer that
his objects are real, when once he awakens and realizes that it was a
dream, not one thread of all these appearances remains. You must first
pay some attention to this teaching and then you will understand Bud-
dhism. Now we are in a proper position to understand the Buddhist
sayings, "The Three Worlds are only Mind," and "All things are only
perception." What are mind and perception? They are the deception
of the dream. What are the "Three Worlds" and all things? They also
are a dream. In a deceptive dream all is in the end unreal. You must
understand that there really is no mind and no perception to differen-
tiate. You cannot postulate a world or a sun. Nearby us there is
neither a thought nor a particle which should be considered as if existent.
In the distance, in the ten directions and the ten worlds, there is nothing
to search for.
The Ch'an sect naturally leads into this via negativa
quite as readily as the T'ien-t'ai. Three of the Buddhist
gentlemen in the discussion group with whom I so often
dined in Peking favored the Ch'an form of Buddhism and
404
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
they all put their chief emphasis on its negations, though at
times their negativity led them very near to materialism, at
least in words. Two of these men insisted that both matter
and mind are indestructible and that they are inseparable,
and the word mind they used largely as interchangeable with
force. One of the two added that man's "soul" is only the
activity of the material brain, and hence the human mind is
inseparable from matter. He added that he did not believe
in transmigration. I asked him if he considered himself a
Buddhist and he replied that he did: that only the most gen-
eral outlines of Buddhist thought are necessary for one using
that name, and that within these a good Buddhist may think
with perfect freedom. I was anxious to see how many of the
nine others at the feast would agree with this denial of trans-
migration and tried to get a vote on the subject. It was not
easy-not because of any diffidence on the part of my ac-
quaintances to state their views, but because of the distract-
ing nature of this pleasant non-existent world at the mo-
ment. With some twenty dishes full of dainties dotting the
large table, with rice bowls before each diner, and ten pairs
of shining chop sticks visiting each dish with amazing rapid-
ity and deftness-like bees over a garden of poppies-taking
from each a little of its inviting contents to be deposited with
wonderful skill on the owner's rice bowl-or on mine, for
they were very attentive to their guest and knew the clum-
siness of his fingers-with such an accompaniment and at
such a moment it is not surprising that it was a bit difficult
for my friends to focus their thoughts on transmigration, a
subject which though pious could hardly be considered at-
tractive. Eventually, however, I got my vote and found
that two besides the speaker whom I last quoted refused to
accept transmigration; while the seven others not only ac-
cepted it but admitted, when I pressed them, that in their
opinion the denial of transmigration was absolutely non-
Buddhistic. The man who had denied transmigration con-
tinued his discourse on Ch'an Buddhism as he understood
and believed and practiced it. Other religions and phi-
losophies and sciences, he said, construct; Buddhism destroys.
It nullifies time, space, and all distinctions, including the
distinction between right and wrong. Christianity, Con-
M
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
405
fucianism, and the rest have erected sharp distinctions here;
Buddhism breaks them down because they are ultimately
mistaken. When one attains to the true insight, anger and
hatred will be destroyed; and with them love will be de-
stroyed also, and one's power to distinguish between love
and hate. All things in this world are one, and when one
reaches the higher level where this is realized, one wants
every man and woman and every dog and every conscious
being to reach it also. It is, he insisted, not love that prompts
this wish for others. If he reaches this insight alone then
only a part of the One will have reached the higher plane.
It is not that he loves others but that he wishes all parts of
himself to be perfect too. On the higher stages of realiza-
tion there is no self, no other, no you, no I, no distinctions.
The aim of Buddhism is to reach this realization, to attain
to the state of absolute indifference, above right and wrong.
All Buddhist sects are really seeking to gain this lofty level,
and all are merely means of reaching it. The best means of
all is through the point of view and the exercises of the Ch'an
sect. So my acquaintance ended up his exposition of Bud-
dhism as he understood it, adding finally that though he him-
self was seeking the high level of realization he had described,
he had not reached it.
-
Thereupon a friend of the speaker chimed in, saying that
he himself had reached the level thus described. The really
strenuous part of the feast was now over, the dishes removed
(except for the innumerable sweets) and we were sitting
over our tea and cigarettes. "Yes," continued the new
speaker (also a follower of the Ch'an), "I have reached a
pretty high level of indifference to right and wrong, and have
attained to a good deal of tranquillity." I asked him whether
he had risen to a plane from which he could view the death
of a dear friend with indifference. He replied-not quite
directly (I hardly expected that he would do that), but at
least aiming his remarks at the general theme I suggested-
that before he began his Ch'an training he had great difficulty
in controlling his emotions. Now he notices a great change:
in fact, he now has difficulty in rousing his emotions at all.
Most of this paragraph I have transcribed from a carefully prepared statement
which the speaker wrote out for me after the feast.
406
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
He used to plan ahead and worry afterwards over many
things. Now all this unpleasant anxiety has gone. He takes
things as they come, with no worry. Formerly he enjoyed
doing certain things while others were distasteful. Now he
accepts all things philosophically, not caring what happens.
Formerly he admired people better than himself and looked
down on those lower than he. Now he does not admire
any one, not even Shih-chia Fo, nor does he look down upon
even the meanest coolie. All people to him are alike. If he
admired Shih-chia Fo, he would look down on bad men.
But he has now reached a stage above good and evil. This
state of the soul he has reached by the practice of Ch'an
meditation. There are several methods of going at this, but
the aim of all is to make your mind a blank. This does not
mean going to sleep or being unconscious. One may keep
one's mind a blank while talking to a friend or doing various
things. The point is to get rid of the emotions.
At the highest stage of realization, he continued, the
question whether the Buddha exists or does not exist simply
does not present itself. As a matter of fact, he believes that
Shih-chia Fo has long since ceased to exist. Heaven and hell
are merely states of mind. To be a Buddha is merely a state
of mind. At the high stage of realization all differences
cease, including the difference between existence and non-
existence.
Such a view as this is plainly related to the Madhyamika
view of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna's school as such never had
any large following in China, and what it had has long since
died out. In our little group at the feast, however, was to be
found one follower of this ancient Indian school, who in
fact prided himself on being the only strict follower of
Nagarjuna in China. He was one of the few members of the
group who spoke English and frequently interpreted for me.
In fact, he repeatedly went out of his way, in truly Bud-
dhist spirit, to do me little kindnesses-as, indeed, did nearly
all the members of the group. He usually listened to the dis-
cussions and to the assertions of his colleagues in silence and
with a certain air of amused superiority. For he was con-
vinced that all the things we talked about were emptiness,
vacuity. The thought that everything is empty, that noth-
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
407
ing is real, that no assertion is true, seemed to give him pecu-
liar delight. Every statement that one makes is untrue, he
asserted; and when I asked whether this assertion of his was
also untrue he responded in the affirmative with an air of
absolute glee. The material world of course is unreal, the
self is unreal, the truth is unreal. One cannot truthfully say
that the transmigration doctrine is true or that Nirvana is
real. All affirmation is false-apparently because affirmation
involves distinctions, but chiefly because all terms are neces-
sarily false, the real being ineffable. I asked whether, then,
we reach insight and the ideal state in deep sleep, to which he
answered that, on the contrary, after we had come fully to
recognize the unreality of all things it would not be like
unconscious sleep but like a great awakening.. I suppose it
follows from this that the True is not nought and that the
Madhyamika philosophy is not a form of nihilism. I say
I suppose this is the case: but I am sure that had I asked our
friend he would have replied with his usual delight that my
conclusion was absolutely false. He would say the same
thing, and with equal glee, if I should conclude that the
True is naught and that his philosophy is nihilism; so I
think we need not be too much troubled by his assertions
of falsity.
The real meaning seems to be that the True is positive and
real but not to be put into any form of words. The expres-
sion used, to be sure, both by Madhyamika books and by their
spokesman in Peking, usually makes it appear that all reality
is denied and that the philosophy is a pure nihilism. This
form of Buddhist thought often seems only a rather absurd
way of insisting that words are not things. The doctrine
that no assertion can be true thus boils down to a paradoxical
and striking way of asserting the fact (which no one would
think of denying) that the words one uses are not the reali-
ties to which they refer. There is, of course, more to the
Madhyamika philosophy than this; but what goes beyond this
it holds in common with most philosophies of mysticism
which deny multiplicity and relations and look beyond and
behind them to an ultimate and ineffable unity.
If Nagarjuna has only one strictly loyal follower in
China, Asanga and Vasubhandu have not many more. I was
408
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
told on excellent authority that the Tsu En tsung or Fa
Hsiang tsung, brought to China by Hiuen-Tsiang the great
traveler and based directly on the Yogacara or Vijnanavadin
philosophy of Asanga and his brother, died out soon after the
close of the T'ang dynasty, only a few of its Sutras and none
of the commentaries on them being left in the land. Both
Sutras and commentaries, however, had been carried to Japan,
and during the 1880's copies of them were brought back to
China by a learned Buddhist scholar named Yang. Mr. Yang
founded the first Buddhist college in China for laymen and
there taught several forms of Buddhist thought. Three of
his students became enthusiastic and scholarly adherents of
the Yogacara philosophy of Asanga. Mr. Yang died some
years ago and his school went out of existence, but these
three men have continued his work, lecturing upon the
Yogacara philosophy and publishing some of its texts. One
of these three, Mr. Ouyang, to whom I have already referred,
has a small Buddhist college in Nanking; while the two
others, Mr. Wei and Mr. Kwai reside in Tsi-nan Fu and
Peking respectively. I had the good fortune to meet all three
of these gentlemen and found them scholarly thinkers and
earnest Buddhists. From my many conversations with them
I gathered (what they themselves would hardly admit in
words) that the school as it exists today in China is divided
into a pluralistic and a monistic branch. The pluralistic sub-
division is rather ardently opposed to the monistic views of
the T'ien-t'ai and Ch'an schools, though it agrees with all the
Mahayana in giving an idealistic interpretation to the world.
The individual is not lost in the One-to say that it is lost
is heresy. (The representatives of this pluralistic school
were, I think, the only Buddhists I have ever met who used
the word heresy or its equivalent.) Individuals may help or
harm each other; they may be united in the sense of sharing
the same joy or sorrow; but they are not one in any deeper
metaphysical way. I have seldom heard the creed of indi-
vidualism so explicitly expressed or so ardently advocated as
by these Buddhist acquaintances of mine. I should add that
they and some Japanese monks of the same school are the only
Mahayana Buddhist thinkers I have ever met who cham-
pioned it at all. The individual is not only independent,
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
409
say they; he is also eternal. And each one creates his own
world for himself; all are dreamers dreaming separate dreams.
The material world of each is merely dream-content and
ceases to exist when unperceived. These Chinese Buddhists.
were quite unacquainted with Western philosophy, but they
would have accepted gladly Berkeley's phrase that the esse
of material objects is percipi. The fact that we construct our
dreams sufficiently alike to have certain common objects is to
be explained by the similarity of our natures and of our
Karma. If my Karma is to create a world like that of others
for fifty years, then it will seem that I live fifty years with
them. Most of the objects that I thus create are not under
the control of my will-as in a dream. A few of them I can
control. Buddhism aims at the increased control over these
objects of our own creation.
The real inner self which is the creator of my world is
the Alaya-vijnana. There is no universal Alaya-vijnana but
a multiplicity of individual ones. It is never perceived,
never an object (except as we make it the object of our
thought, as at present). It is always the subject, yet cannot
even be called the thinker, for it is deeper than this. It is
very subtle. We cannot describe or picture it because our
thought is gross. The Buddha knows what it is. We add
to our understanding of it, however, if we keep in mind the
distinction between actuality and potentiality; for the Alaya-
vijnana far exceeds all actualities. All our potentialities in
fact (and they are far beyond all imagination) are within it.
It is eternal and its action is endless and continuous. Noth-
ing else is continuous and eternal. The formation of habit is
due to it and presupposes it; for all consecutive things require
something continuous and permanent. The world which it
creates the world of our perception-is in constant flux,
changing with unimaginable rapidity, faster than the
minutest divisions of time. Phenomenal personality changes
at the same rate. Even seemingly solid structures are in con-
stant change. The bricks that were brought to build this
building, the wheelbarrow in which they were brought, the
man who pushed it, all changed many times during their
transit and have been changing ever since. Seer and seen
arise together. One is not (chronologically) prior to the
-
410
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
other. But underneath all this flux is the eternal Alaya-
vijnana.
This idealistic interpretation of reality and self has direct
bearing on the question of man's fate. Literally speaking,
there is no such thing as transmigration; for transmigration
taken literally implies a transition from one place to another.
As a fact (so teaches this school) the self does not go any-
where at death. It is not in space; space is in it. Space is
one of its creations. What we call death is really the end of
one dream and the beginning of another. An individual
Alaya-vijnana creates a world that lasts, say, fifty years, with
many things in common with the worlds that certain other
individuals create. At the end of that time it will create a
new world that will have nothing in common with the people
of its present world, but that will have objects in common
with others, now unknown. Life was full of constant
change, and death is only a larger change. Transmigration,
heaven, and hell are thus but changes in one's state of mind.
The Western Paradise of the Pure Land sect is real in its way,
and one may properly believe in it; but properly interpreted
it is not a place to which we go but a state of mind which we
create. There is, therefore, nothing to fear in death. It is
only a change in a state of mind. As anything more than this
it is illusion: it does not exist.
The way of salvation, for this type of Buddhism, is
chiefly through morality. Our control over the world we
make for ourselves depends at last on the purity of our
hearts; and our hearts may steadily be purified by moral
training, especially training in the six great virtues: gen-
erosity, obedience to the precepts, patient endurance, dili-
gence, meditation, wisdom or insight. The morality of the
Mahayana is superior to that of the Hinayana in the same
way that a college is superior to a school. It goes farther
along the same lines. More in particular it has two great
advantages over Hinayana morality. In the first place it
is less self-centered and puts more emphasis upon unselfish
devotion. In the second place, the Mahayana interprets the
moral teachings of the Buddha idealistically, just as it inter-
prets the objective world idealistically. It teaches that it is
not the bodily acts that count, but the mental states. Only
1
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
411
·
these can be either good or bad. Thus one of the members
of this school with whom I talked tells me that though he
considers himself a strict Buddhist he eats meat. The bodily
act of eating meat, he argues, is not wrong for the Mahayana.
For the Hinayana it is wrong, no matter what one's mental
state may be. The Mahayana thus leads to a kind of rational
antinomianism, which stresses the spirit and leaves aside the
letter; while the Hinayana is bound by the letter and has not
attained to the freedom of the spirit. For a Hinayana monk
to lie in the same bed with a woman would be a great sin
even if he were sound asleep all the time and knew nothing
of it: for it would be a transgression of the Vinaya. For
the Mahayana it would not be a sin at all. But if a man
sleeping alone, wakes in the night and hears a noise in the
next room and says to himself, That was a woman's hairpin
falling, he sins. For he would not interpret the sound as a
falling hairpin but for a lustful thought in the back of his
mind.
The power that Buddhism has toward a life of higher
morality is partly through the training that it gives and the
ideals it sets up; partly through the joy that it induces. Joy
is a large part of the motive power of Buddhism, so my
friends insist; and they say that those who have followed its
training and practiced its meditations will all bear this out.
The Yogacara philosophy of the pluralistic sort of course
knows no Absolute. But it recognizes the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas as real and living spiritual beings. These, like
ourselves, are in constant change so far as their empirical
consciousness is concerned. They also are many and not one.
Unlike Asanga, the founder of the school, these Chinese plu-
ralists do not recognize the unity of the Dharmakaya. The
Buddhas are superior to the Bodhisattvas in enlightenment,
but they have not entered Parinirvana. They have a right
to do so, but they prefer to stay in the world and save men.
Thus not only in its doctrine of man but also in its theology,
these Chinese pluralists might be called personalists. With
the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas it is possible for us to come into
communion. As like elements produce like phenomena we
may continuously come to have more in common with them
as we grow more like them in character, and thereby may
412
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
gradually be enabled to perceive and communicate with
them, i.e., to have them as a part of our world.
It will be evident to the reader who has clearly in mind
the Yogacara philosophy of Asanga and Vasubandhu, as I
tried to expound it in Chapter XII, that the pluralistic
Chinese form I have been depicting in this chapter is not in
all respects identical with the teachings of the founders. This
pluralistic form, however, is not the only form under which
one meets this philosophy in China. It is sometimes presented
with a monistic turn, which the pluralists consider heresy.
This is brought about by interpreting the Alaya-vijnana
cosmically. In some sense, thus, the inner selves of all merge
in one, the Bhutatathata of the "Awakening of Faith." This
ultimate cosmic Reality, I was told, cannot be got at within.
experience; yet it is omnipresent and pervasive. In one sense
we are within it, yet not in the sense of space, for space is in
the world of doubt or illusion, and the One Reality is not.
This One Reality is not even to be described as thought, nor
yet as not-thought. If it had any qualities it would not be
pure Reality. One Chinese philosopher told me it was closely
related to the higher Brahma of the Upanishads and the
Vedanta philosophy. It is neither the Christian God nor the
Chinese Tao. But while it is neither thinkable nor speakable,
and while even the Buddhist classics do not describe it, the
study of Buddhist philosophy may help one ultimately to get
an insight, a revelation of its true being. When one has
gained this, one is a Bodhisattva. It is doubtful, so I was told,
whether there are at present any Bodhisattvas in the world;
though in the past there certainly have been. Certainly
words and thought cannot express the Ultimate, but imme-
diate realization would reveal it. Just as we can know a
man only by seeing him, or better still by being he, so we can
know the Real only by immediate contact or union. How,
then, I asked, do we who have never had this experience,
know that It exists? It is, I was told, a matter of simple
logic. Phenomena presuppose a noumenon, a without pre-
supposes a within. This is a matter, therefore, not of faith
but of knowledge. There must be an ultimately Real.
The name most commonly met with in China, without
respect to sect or school, for this ultimate Reality is Jen Ru.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
413
A Sinologue would spell it Chen Ju-which would probably
not suggest to the reader the pronunciation intended, which
is indicated in my spelling. This term is perhaps most asso-
ciated with the T'ien-t'ai philosophy. For the T'ien-t'ai
does not stop with the negations which I cited from some of
its representatives in an earlier part of this chapter. Accord-
ing to the best-known spokesman of T'ien-t'ai philosophy in
China, the monk T'ai Hsu from whom I have already quoted,
the word Ru means that which is changeless and ever the same. It is
that definite quality and principle in any and every thing or event which
never, in any place or at any time, changes. Because of the changeless-
ness of this quality, Ru is also Chen, which means truth. Now although
Chen Ru (Truth-Sameness) is not the same as things, yet it is never
separate from all things. In short, that quality of changelessness or
sameness in all things, places, and events, is given the name Chen Ru.
"It is conceived of as the intangible-not seen, heard, scented
or felt; as perfect emptiness, yet an emptiness which is the
only reality; as the true Unity without beginning and with-
out end, without life and without death, and the source of
all things. It is also conceived of as Nature and as Universal
Mind or Spirit." 11 In the letter from T'ai Hsu to his con-
fused disciple, from which I have already quoted, he says:
•
Chen Ru is the true nature of all things. Outside of Chen Ru all is
imaginary and without reality. Chen Ru is not Mind or Matter: it is not
anything. It has no form to grasp, and no activity to effect. There is
no time or place which has only Chen Ru and has not mind or matter.
And there is no thought and no material particle which is not Chen Ru.
Although all things come from Chen Ru as their true nature and Chen Ru
is eternally the true nature of all things, it never changes to become all
things. So we cannot say all things issue from Chen Ru. Chen Ru is simi-
lar to what the scientists call real space. Chen Ru has everywhere an ever-
moving spiritual consciousness. You must understand that the
differentiations of all things are the result of thought activity, that reality
is Chen Ru and that Chen Ru is absolutely without the multiplicity of
things which are the creations of thought activity. If you grasp this
and also realize that differentiation and multiplicity are due to ignorance
and the delusions of vague active thought, then you will see that the
world of existence is unreal and that all things melt away and the hidden
Buddha nature becomes manifest. Then you will rejoice that Buddhahood
has been attained.
•
C
10 "The Meaning of Chen Ju and Ju Lai" in the Chinese Recorder for Feb., 1924,
p. 119.
11
"F. R. Millican, "Chen Ju" in the Chinese Recorder, Feb., 1924, p. 116.
414
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
M
The concept of Chen Ru as held by the T'ien-t'ai philoso-
phy is susceptible of two interpretations; and both these in-
terpretations are justified, in the sense that each of them
describes the position of a number of Buddhist thinkers. One
of these interpretations stresses the negations of the school
and considers its philosophy a form of nihilism. For exam-
ple, my friend Professor Francis Wei of Boon College writes.
me:
I should judge that Chen Ru is not conscious, any more than Truth
is conscious. Certainly it is not the Idealist's Absolute. A Buddha is
one who gets hold of the Truth and he will speak of it in whatever
terms may be intelligible to the people of his time and place. He may
quite legitimately refer to Chien Ru as the Highest God, for instance,
if that should be the most efficient way of preaching in order to enlighten
them. Since all paths lead to the Lion's Den it does not matter
what track you follow! In fact, it is the opposite of enlightenment to
ask whether Chien Ru is conscious or not. When enlightened the ques-
tion solves itself, for there would be nothing to be enlightened and
nothing to raise a question. It is nihilism.
The other school of interpretation understands the Ulti-
mate Reality as something decidedly positive and decidedly
spiritual. Thus Mr. Reichelt of Nanking-a man deeply
read in the Buddhist scriptures and acquainted on intimate
terms with T'ai Hsu and many Buddhists-tells me that in
his opinion "the great emptiness" which the Mahayana em-
phasizes means to most Buddhist thinkers today something
far from nihilism or mere indifference or negation. It is for
them essentially positive. This is seen in the intense joy with
which it fills them. This is for them a very real and positive
mystical experience. They describe it by all sorts of nega-
tions so as to purify it from all earthly taint. They begin
with negatives and pile on the negatives and this tends to
mislead the Western listener or reader into supposing that the
Reality with which they believe themselves to have come into
contact is merely the Void; but as a fact the Reality they
have in mind, when finally reached, is positive. The process
is comparable to the great Christian truth that one can find
one's life only by losing it.
W
I am more inclined to accept Mr. Reichelt's interpreta-
tion as applying to at least many Chinese Buddhists because
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN CHINA
415
of the parallel situation in Indian and Western mysticism.
More than one student of the psychology of mysticism has
pointed out that the ineffable experience of the mystic com-
monly leads him to attribute to the divine Being with whom
he believes himself to have come in contact the same inde-
finable nature, expressible only in negatives, which character-
izes his own mystical experience.12 In every land mystics
who have followed the via negativa, and thinkers who have
reasoned on the basis of it, have built up a theology which
consisted chiefly, so far as words go, in negations. This out-
come is the more natural in China because the only form of
mysticism commonly practiced there is not one which brings
a "sense of presence," but the Ch'an form which seeks to
empty the mind; while the whole habit of Buddhist thought
is subjective and tends not to interpret the mind through the
world, but the world through the mind.
One of the most scholarly Buddhists I met in China,
Professor Liang Su Ming of the Government University of
Peking, told me that while he had formerly interpreted the
Mahayana doctrine in the sense of nihilism, he had, after
much thought, changed his opinion, and now interprets it in
the sense of idealism. The ultimate Reality for him is spirit-
ual: it is the One Dharmakaya of all the Buddhas. In their
Sambhogakaya, as in their Nirmanakaya or historical appear-
ance, the Buddhas are many, but in their ultimate being they
are one. Yet in merging their personalities in the Dharma-
kaya they do not lose their individuality, but still send it
forth in various manifestations for the salvation of the world.
And we, too, partake of the Buddha nature. The world of
matter and sense is unreal; but the Buddha nature within us
is real and positive. Salvation consists in being freed from
slavery to the body. Immortality is real and means conscious
continuance. After shuffling off this body we shall no longer
be weighed down by the senses, but we shall still be conscious
beings. This consciousness we shall all share, for it is the One.
We shall merge our individuality, as the Buddhas do, in
Chen Ru, in the Dharmakaya.
12
Cf. Leuba: "Tendancies Religieuses chez les Mystiques Chrétiens," Revue Philoso-
phique, LIV. 480; The Psychology of Religious Mysticicism (London, Kegan Paul, 1925),
Chap. X; also my book on The Religious Consciousness, Chap. XVIII.
416
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
While both the negative interpretation and what I might
call the spiritual interpretation of Chen Ru are to be found
side by side in all parts of China today, and while both will
probably continue to have their adherents as long as Chinese
Buddhism lasts, it seems to me probable that as Japanese
Buddhism and Western idealism and perhaps the Indian
Vedanta come to be better and better known in China, the
spiritual view of Reality will gain ground over the other.
I think it is the opinion of most students of Buddhism that
the more idealistic interpretation of the Mahayana has been
slowly gaining ever since the religion was transplanted from
India into China and Japan.
Taken in this spiritual sense there is something large and
appealing in the concept of Chen Ru. It is not Christian, it
is not Western; it transcends too completely the personal for
that. But it has an inclusiveness, a restfulness, a spaciousness
which every one with a cosmic sense must at least acknowl-
edge, whatever he may think of it intellectually. There are
minds, at any rate, in the West as in the East, to whom our
Western personalism seems at times too active, too efficient,
too definite, too restless, and who long for something larger
and more cosmic, with a longing as of one who hears afar
the distant murmur of the sea. To such an one the concept
of Chen Ru may bring the Great Peace of the Buddha-Chen
Ru in which all separate things merge and petty distinctions
melt and future and past become one in the timeless present:
a Spiritual Reality behind the world of action and of striv-
ing, in which all differences are reconciled, all discords har-
monized, and which has power
to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the Eternal Silence.
C
-
CHAPTER XXI
KOREAN BUDDHISM
As the reader will doubtless recall, it was during the con-
fused centuries of political division which followed the fall
of the Han dynasty that Buddhism won its first extensive
victories in China. Especially among the small kingdoms
north of the Yangtse it spread with rapidity. Nor did it stop
at the Great Wall. As the barbarian invaders had come
southward into China, so Buddhism, carrying with it much
of Chinese culture, swept northward into Manchuria. No
details of its progress are left us, but we may picture the
earnest missionaries of the new faith, with a pack animal or
two carrying Buddha images and Sutra manuscripts, trudg-
ing slowly and inconspicuously, but irresistibly and fatefully,
over the flat Manchurian plains, covered perhaps then as now
with high growths of sorghum, and broken here and there
with sudden outcroppings of rock, rising in cliffs above the
level land. Past what is now Mukden they must have pressed,
some stopping to spend their lives in missionary activity
among the villages along the way, others "carrying on" into
the sparsely settled and inexhaustible North, till Parinirvana
put an end to their earthly pilgrimage, and still others direct-
ing their steps east and northeastward until stopped by the
waves of the Yellow Sea, or the tawny flood of the Yalu
River. Here for a while they paused and converted to the
new faith the little Chinese kingdoms which filled that re-
gion, and here they died, handing on to a new generation the
task of carrying the torch still farther into regions where as
yet the Light of Asia had not shone. The new generation
was not slow in taking up the torch, and in the year 369¹
1 According to Frederick Starr. See his Korean Buddhism (Boston, Jones Co., 1918),
p. 4. According to Bishop Trollope the first Buddhist missionary reached Korea in 372.
Introduction to the Study of Buddhism in Corea, Tr. R. A. S., Korea Branch, VIII. 12.
Griffis also gives 372 as the year of introduction into Northern Korea but adds that
"long before this the faith of India was established in Hiaksai" (i.e., Pakche), Corea,
the Hermit Nation (London, Harpers, 1905), p. 35.
417
413
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
a priest named Sundo, under the auspices of the Buddhist
king of one of these little kingdoms, with his images and his
Sutras crossed the Yalu and began the work of spreading the
Dharma in the “Land of the Morning Calm.”
At that time what we know now as Korea, with some
additional territory to the north and west of the Yalu, was
divided into three kingdoms, called respectively Koguryu or
Korai,2 Pakche or Hiaksai, and Silla or Shinra. Korai was
in the north, Pakche in the southwest, and Silla in the south-
east. It was probably Korai, the northern (and larger) king-
dom, into which Buddhism was first introduced-though
according to Griffis the little kingdom of Hiaksai or Pakche
received Buddhist missionaries by sea from China before the
first priest crossed the Yalu. At any rate, by the year 374,
there were two Buddhist monasteries at P'yeng-Yang (the
modern Pingyang), the capital of the northern kingdom.
These, as is so often the case with Buddhist monasteries, were
schools as well as temples, and from them new missionaries
went out in various directions, who did their work so well
that in a few years Buddhism became the official religion of
Korai. In 384 the little kingdom of Pakche sent to China for
Buddhist missionaries, and their success was as rapid as that
of their brethren farther north. Pakche, in fact, seems to
have become the most enthusiastically Buddhist of the three
Korean kingdoms, and it was her king who in 552 and again
in 572 sent missionaries, images, and Sutras to his friend and
ally, the Emperor of Japan. Silla, on the southeast, was the
last of the three kingdoms to receive the new religion, which
she did in 424.
3
Buddhism very early became the state religion, not only
in Korai but in the two southern kingdoms. It remained the
state religion long after Silla (with the aid of China) had
conquered and absorbed both her rivals and made Kyun Ju
the capital of all Korea. The modern village of Kyong Ju,
far from the tourist route, still preserves many impressive
remains of its ancient splendor and of the Buddhist zeal 5
of its monarchs and nobility at the time when it was one of
Which the Japanese call Koma.
3 Kudara in Japanese.
Shiragi in Japanese.
"Notably in the near-by cave temple at Sukkul-am.
KOREAN BUDDHISM
419
the world's most cultured capitals. But the great success of
Buddhism proved at length its own undoing. So rich and
powerful did its monasteries become and so completely did
they, during many a reign, control the mind of the king, that
the land was burdened with taxes in support of monastic
luxury and gorgeous ritual, and the economic productiveness.
of the country was seriously lessened by the drafting of large
numbers of young men into the priesthood. Under some of
the kings of the Koryu dynasty, which in 918 overthrew the
house of Silla, the ranks of the monks were recruited largely
from the nobility, and every family with four sons was com-
pelled by the throne to devote at least one to the monastic
life; later this rule was extended to families with three sons.
The monks transformed many of their monasteries into for-
tresses and themselves took the sword, thus making the va-
rious monastic centers into great military powers, just as
their brethren were doing at the same time in Japan. In spite
of the growing strength of the monks, however, and in spite
of the continued favor shown by the crown to Buddhism,
the military and civil officials were coming under a rival in-
fluence-an influence that like Buddhism had come to Korea
from China-namely, the Neo-Confucianism of the Sung
epoch. The rivalry of these two cultures added to the chaos
of the times and hastened the fall of the dynasty.
в
m
-
It was in 1392 that the house of Koryu was overthrown
and succeeded by the Yi dynasty, which continued to rule
Korea until Korea ceased to be an independent kingdom and
became (in 1910) a province of Japan. The 1392 revolu-
tion was in part a rebellion against the excessive power of
the monks. And though Buddhism was not at first directly
attacked by the new dynasty, after some eighty years of
alternating indifference and favor, under a young king
named Chasan, the government decided to eliminate once for
all the danger of monastic interference and rivalry, and drove
the monks at first out of Seoul, the capital, and soon there-
after out of all the cities of the land. "The priests took
refuge in the mountains and from that time down until
these latter days [i.e., till the early years of this century]
there have been no Buddhist temples in Korean cities. There
Longford, The Story of Korea (London, Unwin, 1911), p. 106.
420
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
have only been monasteries in the mountains, often in inac-
cessible places."
>> 7
In spite of the expulsion of the Buddhist clergy from the
cities and villages, a considerable amount of devotion to the
religion lived on throughout the land for many a century, as
is shown by some of the Buddhist monuments which neither
time nor Hideyoshi destroyed. Thus at Eun-jin there is an
immense rock Buddha, whose temple near by, first erected in
1386, was rebuilt (so the ancient inscription declares) in
1581 and again in 1674.8 It was shortly after the first of
these rebuildings that Hideyoshi sent his Japanese on their
expedition of conquest and plunder; and during those dread-
ful days Buddhist monks and their students gave a good ac-
count of themselves in the desperate attempt to defend their
country. Yet in spite of occasional signs of energy Bud-
dhism was fast losing its hold over the people of Korea. This
was, of course, inevitable. With no clergy, no official teach-
ers, no ritual, no temples, the Koreans in all the populous
parts of the land eventually forgot their religion. The more
educated contented themselves with the teachings of Con-
fucian ethics, while the overwhelming majority drifted back
into the animistic nature worship and primitive superstition
from which Buddhism, for a few centuries, had raised them.
Although the ban upon monks and temples was lifted a few
years ago, under Japanese influence, Buddhism was in most
of the towns too far gone to be resuscitated.10 Hence if one
dag
1 Starr, op. cit., p. 28.
8
See the account of a visit to it, with a trans. of the long inscription, by the Rev.
G. H. Jones, Tr. R. A. S., Korea Branch, I. 53-60.
0
At the monastery of Yu jom sa, in the Diamond Mountains, is still preserved the
banner of the ancient abbot of that temple who once drove back the soldiers of
Hideyoshi.
10
There are still about 185,000 Buddhists in Korea, and many of them are fairly
zealous. Dr. C. S. Deming, long a missionary in Korea, writes: "The laity come to
scck assistance at the Buddhist shrines in every kind of need. They hire the monks to
recite sacred prayers, they fling themselves repeatedly before the altar in prayer, with
their foreheads in the dust, murmuring softly the words of supplication, of prayer, of
sorrow. Many women go to the temples on New Year's day, taking money or fruit
Some also go at the
to the monks to solicit their prayers for prosperity during the year.
death of relatives to pray that the soul of the departed may not remain long in
purgatory but go soon up to heaven. Others pray that they may give birth to children.
When the priest offers the prayers for others he first beats a drum or cymbal and with
a loud voice prays, 'O merciful Buddha, hear the prayer of this supplicant and grant
him prosperity.' If one is rich he brings money and the priest buys fruit and rice with
it and then comes before the Buddha and prays." (From an unpublished paper on
"Prayer in Buddhism.")
KOREAN BUDDHISM
421
would get acquainted with the Korean Buddhism of today
one must forsake the centers of population to follow up some
narrow gorge or climb some cliff or wooded hillside. For
in many a picturesque and hidden spot the Buddhas keep
their ancient places, where monks still feed the lamp of faith
and lay pilgrims from distant villages still come to pray.
The most important of these centers of Buddhism is the
Kongo-San, or Diamond Mountains, a region of wild peaks
and crags, brooks, pools, and waterfalls, in the northeastern
part of Korea, resembling the Adirondacks both in latitude,
climate, and (to some extent) in formation. The mountains
are clad with woods much like those of the Adirondacks,
and they rise to about the same height-the highest of them
being about the height of Mt. Marcy. They are, however,
much wilder than the New York mountains, the brooks are
more precipitous, the cascades more numerous, and the peaks
much sharper, with many fantastic outcroppings of strange
rocks and sudden precipices, reminding one of the Dolomites
or the Cullin Hills of Skye. Perhaps the most marked differ-
ence of all is to be found in the inhabitants. For there are
hardly three villages in all the Kongo-San, and hardly a farm
or farmer, almost the only inhabitants being the monks who
dwell in the many secluded and picturesque monasteries,
which have brought more fame to this region than even its
peaks and waterfalls. As early as A.D. 515, it is said, Buddhist
monks, with their usual eye for natural beauty and romantic
situations, began building temples in this lonely region; and
now there are some nineteen temples with their monastic
appendages in the Kongo-forty or more if one applies the
term Kongo to as wide a territory as is sometimes done.
From Chosen on the Sea of Japan, where, with mingled
cursings and thanksgivings, one leaves the precious little
steamer, one goes by auto to On-sei-ri, a picturesque Korean
village which gets its name from its delightful hotsprings,
and which boasts several excellent hotels. One can see typi-
cal parts of the Diamond Mountains by making one of these
hotels one's headquarters and taking all-day tramps in various
directions. But the only way to get the full charm of the
region is to commit oneself whole-heartedly to the moun-
tains, and with food and bedding loaded on the shoulders of
422
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
several stout "jiggy-men," to turn one's back upon the civili-
zation of On-sei-ri and plunge into the wilds. The little trail
will lead you along slippery rocks and beside many a preci-
pice, across torrents on felled trees, over high passes and
through deep gorges; but it can always be trusted. In the
worst places you will find footholds that have been cut in
the solid rock for you long, long ago. Great stone Buddhas
guard the way, and Chinese inscriptions cut in the cliffs by
Korean poets from Shakspeare's time to ours, remind
you of
the many pilgrims, your predecessors, who have gone safely
over this ancient trail before you. Cold water, fresh from
brook or spring, is always ready for your use; and it is water
that you can drink with no fear of germs-a joy which only
those can appreciate who have tramped in oriental lands.
When you are ready for your swim a great green pool will
offer itself. Such pools as these in the Kongo-San I have
never seen elsewhere nor ever quite dared to dream of-so
impossibly beautiful are they-green as an emerald, or as the
oak leaves that bend above them. And at the end of the day,
at the top of some little valley, you come upon the temple,
with its group of monastic buildings, where you are to find
food and sleep, and (if you are not too stiffnecked) a little
religion as well. The jiggy man is already there before you,
and the monks give you a real welcome in their decorous and
formal fashion, the sincerity of which is unmistakable, even
if you cannot understand the words they say. Your bedding
and other luggage is unpacked, the brazier is brought out,
the kettle put upon it, and a monk fans the charcoal while
you make the coffee and warm up the beans which good Mr.
Heinz has sent you all the way from Pittsburgh, or while you
open up the jam which Messrs. Cross and Blackwell serve
indifferently to you in the Kongo-San and to King George
in Windsor. Finally out from the refectory comes another
monk with a bowl of rice which at home would have served
all your family but which in the mountains you now think
by no means too large for yourself alone. With it comes a
tray of condiments and side dishes which never fail to rouse
your interest if not always your appetite. Never is the col-
lection twice alike, but you will probably find bean curd
(looking rather nasty and tasting delicious), bean sprouts,
KOREAN BUDDHISM
423
dried fish of various sorts, one or two kinds of fried seaweed
(crisp and tasty), and perhaps some dark green moss, up-
wards of a hundred years old, scraped from the rocks in the
mountains. The temple is usually situated in a kind of am-
phitheater among the hills, and, especially as darkness comes,
the fantastic rocks on the summits round about take on
the forms of Buddhas in all the traditional attitudes-pray-
ing Buddhas, sitting Buddhas, standing Buddhas, to many
of which the pious monks have given special sacred names-
till you feel yourself compassed about by a cloud of super-
natural witnesses. And as you lie down in your little room,
you hear the deep sound of the gong in the temple, followed
by the voices of the monks, praising in unison the Blessed
One, while you fall away into slumber.
-
Buddhist monasteries in Korea, as in Japan and China,
contain several buildings, the larger ones suggesting small
villages. The roads leading to them almost always lead up
some narrow valley or gorge, crossing the foaming stream
by picturesque bridges, till at last you come to a kind of
alcove in the hill, where the early Buddhist missionaries
ended their journey, built a pagoda, and laid the foundations
for their temples and their sleeping rooms. There is no
regular plan for the arrangement of the monastic buildings
-in fact you will find no two monasteries alike, for new
buildings are added, through the centuries, as need arises and
endowments accumulate; but in general plan there is a cer-
tain approximation to uniformity. Almost invariably you
enter the monastery enclosure through a monumental portal,
with the swaying roof so familiar in both China and Japan,
beyond which you come into a court surrounded on the sides
by walls or storehouses, and usually containing a great
bronze bell. The monks will probably assure you that this
is the second largest bell in Korea, or the second largest in
the world. I have seen at least five such "second largest"
bells. They will also be pretty sure to relate to you the fol-
lowing tale. The maker of the bell could not get from it
the desired tone, or for some reason could not cast it at all.
On the night when the final attempt at casting was to be
made, his daughter-a beautiful maiden-threw herself into
the molten metal, and thus assured her father's success. The
424
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
bell therefore gives out a lugubrious note, which is really the
voice of the fair victim, wailing her short life. When you
first hear this story it is very touching; but you get used to it
after you have heard the incident solemnly attributed to the
casting of half a dozen bells in different parts of Korea, as
well as in connection with the two big bells in Peking.
Beyond the first court with its big bell is a second en-
trance gateway, this one containing the gigantic and scowl-
ing figures of the Guardians of the Four Quarters, quite as
terrific as those in China, who protect the monastery and its
temple. Evil spirits cannot get beyond them. You, not
being an evil spirit, are not too frightened by their dreadful
looks to proceed, and so you go on through the next court
to the great temple or central shrine of the monastery. This
building is always elaborately carved and decorated, with
swaying roof, ornate doors, and artistic inscriptions in Chi-
nese characters; while immediately in front of it there fre-
quently stands an ancient stone pagoda, perhaps thirty feet
high, with from three to nine stories, and dating from a thou-
sand years ago. The interior of the temple is usually lofty,
rather dark, and with much carving and decoration-inva-
riably two great dragon-heads in wood thrusting downward
from the ceiling, and two or more streamers of colored cloth,
ten or fifteen feet long, suspended at the sides of the dragons.
The central object of interest is, of course, the altar with its
image of the Buddha or of several Buddhas with their attend-
ing Bodhisattvas.
The most popular Buddhas of Korea (or Bools as the
Koreans call them) are Sakyamuni and Amitabha-whom
they know under the names Sukka Yurai, or Syek-ka-muni,
and Amida respectively. The Buddha of healing, familiar
in China as Yao-shih-Fo 11 and known to the Koreans as
Yaksa Yurai, is also a common object of worship. Less fre-
quently found are Vairocana and Loshana. According to
Bishop Trollope,12 these two, with Sakyamuni, are on the
altars of a few temples, grouped in a trinity, in which case
Vairocana is interpreted by the learned as standing for the
Dharmakaya, Loshana for the Sambhogakaya, and Sakya-
11 The Bhaisajaguru of Sanskrit: Yaku-shi in Japan.
Tr. R. S. A., Korea Branch, VIII. 19.
GRAD
看
​KOREAN BUDDHISM
425
muni for the Nirmanakaya.13 Sometimes reference is made
by word or on kakemono, to the "Seven Buddhas"-by which
is intended the four Buddhas of the present kalpa and the
three Buddhas who preceded it.
Of Bodhisattvas, or Posals, as the word is pronounced in
Korean, there are six special favorites, namely: Miryek Posal
(Maitreya, the Chinese Milei-Fo),Ti-tjang Posal (Chinese
Ti-tsang P'usa), Kan Seon, or Kwan Sin, or Koan-syei-eum
Posal (who is of course Kwan-Yin), Tai-sei-chi Posal (the
Chinese Ta-shih-chih, better known under the Japanese name
Dai-seishi), Moun-sou Posal (the Sanskrit Manjusri, Chinese
Wen-Shu), and Po-hien Posal (the Chinese P'u-hien).¹4
Of these Bools and Posals the four most popular are (as
one coming from China might expect) Sukka Yarai, Amida,
Koan-eum and Miryek. On the many altars of most temples
Sukka Yurai (Sakyamuni) has, as in China, the position of
honor at the center, accompanied on the two sides either by
Amida and Yaksa Yurai (as in China) or by the two Bodhi-
sattvas Koan-eum and Tai-sei-chi. But in actual worship
Amida is more popular than Sakyamuni, and he is, of course,
often prominent upon the altar. In fact there is greater
variation in the arrangement of the altar in Korea than in
China. Sometimes three Trinities are presented on one altar,
each consisting of a Buddha with two attendant Bodhisatt-
vas. 15
In general a Korean altar is rather more carefully and
13 That is the Body of the Law, the Body of Bliss, and the Body of Transformation,
respectively. See Chapter XIII.
14 See list at end of Chapter XV.
15 There are many other variations in arrangement that might be noted. Thus at
the Ma-ka-yön Am (or monastery), the chief place is given to a tiny image of Pakti
Posal, or the Law-giving Bodhisattva, kept behind glass; while at Yu jöm sa the altar
holds-instead of the usual Buddha seated on his lotus-a miniature tree, with over forty
little Buddhas seated in its branches. This rather curious variation is connected with the
story of the founding of the temple. Many centuries ago-some say several hundred
years before Christ-there were fifty-three little stone Buddhas in the Punjab who
decided to leave India and go to Korea. The journey they accomplished in a stone
boat, which, in fact, is still pointed out in the "Sea Kongo," a boatshaped rock jutting
above the waves at the edge of that rocky coast, where the mountains plunge abruptly
into the sea, and the sea sends long arms into the mountains. It may at first scem
unlikely that the journey from India to Korea could have been made in a stone boat;
but it might well be asked what kind of conveyance would be more appropriate for
fifty-three stone Buddhas. At any rate, they arrived and were revealed to the official
of the district at the site of the present monastery; for he founded it here in recognition
of the divine condescension. Not at once, however, did the little Buddhas succeed in
obtaining control of the locality; for nine dragons were already in possession, and they
challenged the little visitors to a test of strength. The Buddhas had taken refuge from
426
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
artistically arranged and regarded with a little more rever-
ence than is the case with the average temple in China. The
walls of the central temple building are usually decorated
with pictures of various Posals, not to mention brilliant
lotus-covered heavens and terrific hells; and in all the larger
temples there are additional buildings devoted to images of
Posals and Lohans and other subordinate members of the
Buddhist cycle. Notable among these are the Ten Kings of
the Ten Hells. The "Temple of the Nether World,” as their
shrine is called, is especially devoted to the souls of the dead;
and lest the Ten Kings should be too suggestive of the fate
of the departed, an image of the merciful Ti-tjang-the
equivalent of the Chinese Ti-tsang, who saves even from hell
is always associated with the more dreadful figures. An-
other hall or shrine is commonly devoted to the sixteen chief
disciples (the sixteen "Rakan" of Japan, corresponding to
the eighteen Lohans of China); or to the greater company
of five hundred Lohans, each of whom is given individual
representation. There may be also a tiny shrine to the
Seven Stars, and one to the Spirit of the Hill. The Bodhi-
sattva Miryek has no such prominent position in Korean
temples as Milei-Fo occupies in China; but he has a coun-
terbalancing distinction. Korea abounds in large stones of
odd contour that have been roughly shaped into Buddha
images. These are commonly said to be images of Miryek;
in fact, the word miryek or miriok has come to be the com-
mon noun which denotes these stones. Besides these, there
are many gigantic bas-reliefs of Miryek graven upon the
face of the cliffs in various parts of the land.
There are two sects of Buddhism in Korea, to one or the
other of which all the monks belong. These are the Syen
jön, or mystical sect, corresponding to the Ch'an sect of
China, and to the Soto branch of the Japanese Zen shu, and
the Kyo jön, or dogmatic and "reading" sect, corresponding
-
Categ
the dragons in a tree, and the dragons called down such a terrific wind that the Buddhas
fell to the ground; and the wind was followed by such a rain that the little Buddhas
were almost drowned. At this juncture they had recourse to the first of the "three
refugees." They wrote the name Buddha on a leaf and put it upon the waters; where-
upon the waters began to boil at such a rate that the dragons could stand it no longer,
and departed for a distant part of the stream (known now as the "Nine Dragon Pool,"
with a large pot-hole for cach dragon) leaving Yu jöm sa to the fifty-three little
Buddhas and their adoring monks.
KOREAN BUDDHISM
427
to the T'ien-t'ai. The monks belonging to the first of these
-the mystical sect-seem to be much more spiritual and
much more in earnest than the Kyo jön monks. The services
of the two differ notably. The Kyo jön service consists of
the usual prostrations and chanting of Sutras, or repetition
of the phrase "Nam Mu Amida Bool" (which of course is
the Korean version of Namu O-mi-to Fo) with the accom-
paniment of bronze and wooden gongs and the burning of
incense and candles. This service outsiders may attend with
no complaint-but with considerable distraction-on the
part of the monks. In many of the Kyo jön monasteries it
takes place but twice a day, and at very comfortable hours.
Quite different is the practice, and the atmosphere, at the
Syen jön monastery. At Yu jöm sa, for example, we were
politely requested not to attend the service; for, they said,
it is a very spiritual time and they preferred to be alone. At
the little Syen jön monastery of Ma-ka-yön—the most re-
mote and in many ways the most attractive that we saw in
all the mountains-we were allowed to watch from outside
the temple the evening service. After the initial prostra-
tions, each monk took off his outer priestly robe, and knelt
upon a cushion facing the wall, the abbot in the outer hall
or entrance facing away from the other monks and from the
altar. Thus they remained in perfect silence, rapt in medi-
tation, until long after our curiosity was exhausted and we
had gone to our beds. At three in the morning the same
service is repeated, and again at eight, at 2 P.M. and once
more in the evening. In some monasteries each of the first
three of these services lasts two hours, and the evening ser-
vice three; so that nine hours every day are given to kneeling
meditation—or, as the Japanese call it, zazen.
The two sects are not at all hostile to each other. In fact,
at the large monastery of Chang-an Sa I found both sects
represented. Until about 1910 the monastery had been ex-
clusively Kyo jön (the "reading" sect), but in that year a
group of Syen jön monks had been admitted, and there are
now ten of these and twenty-six Kyo monks in the mon-
astery. Each group has its own hall of worship and holds its
own services. But the abbot they share in common. He
belongs, in a sense, to both sects. When he does zazen with
C
-
428
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the meditative monks he is Syen jön; when he reads with the
larger group he is Kyo jön. To be abbot under such condi-
tions must be a rather strenuous and sometimes even bewil-
dering experience. I use the word bewildering intentionally;
for the two sects differ not only in their methods but in some
of their rules. Syen monks, for example, must be celibates,
while the Kyo monks may marry if they like. I am not sure
whether the abbot was already married when he took on the
new duties of membership in the Syen jön. If so the alter-
nation from marriage to celibacy and back again several
times each day must give him an odd sense of dual person-
ality.
According to Starr, the abbot is usually relieved of the
spiritual responsibilities which one naturally thinks of as part
of an abbot's task. "He has to deal with the outside world
and to oversee everything; he is business manager; he has
little to do with spiritual direction but has to settle all quar-
rels and deal with all the problems that present themselves
to the monastery. Next comes the religious head, who leads
the services and sees that they are properly observed." 16
At the death of the abbot his successor is chosen by vote of
the monks.
In addition to the monks, with their abbot and their
spiritual leader, there are in all the larger monasteries a num-
ber of acolytes or novitiates, and frequently several orphans.
For Buddhist monasteries are the orphan asylums of the land;
in all Buddhist countries the care of orphans seems to have
been, since earliest times, one of the chief forms of Buddhist
activity. Many of the novitiates, naturally, are drawn from
the orphan boys who have been brought up in the monastery.
In the meditative order the period of the novitiate lasts, in
theory, three years, and a certain amount of study is re-
quired. The word "study," however, let me warn the reader,
must not be taken too seriously. Before one can become a
monk one must know how to chant the necessary responses
in the ritual, but I gather that not a great deal more is actu-
ally required. Some boys enter the monkhood at ten. At
the close of the novitiate there is a ceremony of putting on
the robes, at which the family of the new monk may be
16 Korean Buddhism, p. 46.
KOREAN BUDDHISM
429
present. At this time the new member of the Order takes
the universal Five Vows-not to take life, steal, be impure,
lie, or drink intoxicants. They do not take the five further
vows which the Founder insisted upon for the clergy, nor are
they bound to absolute poverty. They may have a little
pocket money if they can get it. They shave their heads
once a month. Most of the abbots that I met, in addition to
shaving their heads, tried to raise beards. It would be no
tax upon one's faith to believe that the hairs of all their beards
are numbered.
The rank and file of Korean monks and even of Korean
abbots seem to be rather unusually ignorant. Nor are they
brilliant examples of morality. Occasionally they, like men
of other professions in other lands, are given to vice. Their
temples are not always distinguished for the peace and love
which the Founder sought to bring. Mr. Starr reports that
in one monastery which he and his party visited he noticed
that "the head priest lacked a tooth, but we found out only
after we had left the place that the most devout of the monks
had knocked it out the day before, having had a fight with
his superior." 17 But this sort of thing is presumably un-
usual. A number of the monks we met impressed us as truly
spiritual men.
The philosophy or theology of the monks, if so dignified
a word may be used in this connection, consists chiefly in a
belief in Sakyamuni and Amida and in Maitreya and the God-
dess of Mercy. Sakyamuni they know once lived in India
and taught righteousness. His aim was to reduce the amount
of sorrow in the world, to teach people the laws of health and
how to reach old age, and how to have a peaceful, wise and
spiritual mind. So I was told by the most intelligent monk I
met in Korea. Sakyamuni, I was several times assured, is now
living and conscious, and hears our prayers. Of Nirvana I
heard no mention. Sakyamuni and all the various Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas seem to hold a position not very different
from that of the gods of some highly ethical polytheism. So
far as I could discover, there was no tendency on the part
even of the most ignorant monks to identify the Buddhas
with their images-no crass idolatry. The Buddha images
17
Op. cit., p. 57.
430
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
they considered as Buddhist monks the world over do-
merely sacred aids to the religious imagination.
I said just now that I heard in Korea no mention of Nir-
vana. I mean this both in connection with the Buddha and
in relation to human fate. Repeatedly I asked the question
what became of men at death, and invariably I was told that
the good go to heaven and the bad to hell. By "heaven" the
Korean Buddhist invariably means Amida's Western Para-
dise, pictured so commonly and so resplendently upon kake-
monas and temple walls. If you go further with your ques-
tions and ask whether the soul may be reborn on this earth,
you will usually get an affirmative reply. But it is the
thought of heaven and hell that fills the mind of the Korean
Buddhist-as it does that of the Chinese and the Southern
Buddhist-rather than the thought of transmigration. Not
that this Indian idea plays no part. An old abbot with whom
I had a long conversation-and whose attention was repeat-
edly distracted from the profound truths of Buddhism by the
fascination of my walking stick and by the migrations of an
elusive flea-told me (when the flea had at last been caught)
that in the next life he was hoping to be born a rich man.
Another monk told me that after the good have been in
heaven for a while they will be reborn as noble and high-born
men; while the bad, after a term in hell, will be reborn in
evil conditions. For his own part, the monk added, he had no
special form of hope for the future life in mind: he merely
tried to be good. Several monks told me (and no one as-
serted the reverse) that all good people, no matter what their
religion, would go to heaven and have a favorable rebirth;
one does not have to be a Buddhist to go to Paradise.
C
All the monks pray to the Buddha and the Buddha hears
and answers prayers. As in China, prayer consists largely
in the repetition of sacred phrases, notably Namu Sukka
Yurai, or most commonly Namu Amida Bool. For it is to
Amida that most prayers are addressed. Beside prayer there
is in some of the more spiritual monasteries a certain amount
of confession. So at least I was informed at the Pyo hum Sa.
If a monk has broken one of his vows he confesses it to the
Buddha at a stated time in the month; and there is a regular
ritual of prayer, etc., by which he is reinstated. If his sin
KOREAN BUDDHISM
431
!
is great he may be put out of the monastery. In that case
he may sometimes be readmitted by confession to the abbot.
A few of the more learned monks have heard of the Four
Noble Truths, but these have no practical place in their
moral lives. More vital are the Five Vows and Six Paramitas
or "means of passing to the other side of the ocean of misery"
-namely, charity, morality, patience, energy, contempla-
tion, wisdom.18
Bishop Trollope assures me that in the southern part of
the Diamond Mountains, which I did not visit, there are a
few monasteries with really learned abbots and spiritual
monks. Personally, I found in the monasteries I was able
to visit no real learning; but I did find what seemed to be
genuine spirituality and an earnest effort to cultivate the
higher inner life. Naturally the monks of whom this is true
are in a minority. Most of the monks are not very spirit-
ual and most of them are very lazy. The monasteries as a
rule own rice-lands in the valleys from which they get a
steady income. A few are said to receive something from the
government. Nearly all, as in China, get some revenue from
visiting pilgrims. Thus the monks never have to work for a
living. Their isolated position as a rule makes even the
chanting at funerals, which constitutes so large a part of the
monastic occupation in China, quite out of the question.
There can be little doubt that it is this idle and easy life
which attracts a good many of the members of the Order.
Of course many come into it because they have been brought
up in the temples as orphans. With them it is the natural
step. A few join the Order out of truly spiritual motives—
leaving the world to find the truth and the peace of the
Buddha. This had been the case with some of the more
spiritual young monks with whom I talked. But for the
rank and file, I fear, especially in the Kyo jön, the chief at-
traction is a good living with nothing to do. This is certainly
true of most of the nuns. At a convent we visited there were
ten old monastic ladies, wrinkled as walnuts though giggly
as schoolgirls-nearly all of them old enough (and certainly
ugly enough) to be the grandmothers of most of the monks
in the convent near by. We asked them why they had
18
See Trollope, op. cit., p. 26.
432
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
adopted the religious life. They responded quite frankly
that it was because they had become widows and had no one
to support them. The convent was really just an Old Ladies'
Home.
If the monasteries were simply Homes for Old Men there
would be little or no criticism to give. But their member-
ship is largely made up of young men who ought to have
something better to do. I asked at every monastery we
visited what they did for the neighborhood-whether they
had schools for the boys, held preaching services, attended
funerals, etc. A very small proportion, I discovered, main-
tain schools; only one, I think, claimed to hold preaching
services and this one was at a place so remote in the moun-
tains that the congregation could consist of hardly more.
than the proprietor and servants of a nearby inn, kept for
traveling pilgrims. And as to funerals, the monks never take
part in them. They instruct pilgrims in the truths of Bud-
dhism if any come and ask for instruction. That sums up
the contribution that most of the monasteries we visited
make to the welfare of the outside world. Probably there
are a few in less remote regions that do a little more. Mr.
Starr seems to think so; in fact, he asserts, much more is
done for the outside world "than could be expected. At
several of the monasteries there is a school for outside chil-
dren; some have undertaken a definite work of teaching and
some others realize that they have a genuine opportunity to
aid in the elevation of the country. More and more of
the monasteries seem to awake to the existence of these
possibilities.” 19
This awakening of Korean Buddhism is not as yet very
marked; but it is certain that a real beginning has been made
toward a revival of the old religion. In 1918 Mr. Starr was
able to write about it as follows:
F
Buddhism appears today to be very far from dead in Korea. It
shows signs of life and there may be prospects of its future growth and
large development. The monasteries of Korea are under control of thirty
head monasteries. These head monasteries in 1902 had become
greatly reduced in property, membership, influence and splendor. They
were estranged from each other. There was no feeling of unity among
them. Each monastery was a thing by itself and decay and corruption
19 Op. cit., p. 64.
KOREAN BUDDHISM
433
were everywhere evident. But about six years ago the priests of these
thirty head monasteries came together; they held a great meeting and
discussed their common interests; they decided that union was necessary
and a forward movement, a thing such as was tried in 1902 and which
failed then. It was tried again and has not failed. They elected a presi-
dent of their commission, with a term of office of one year. His whole
time is devoted to the interests of united Korean Buddhism for that year.
They bought property in the city of Seoul and erected a central building,
partly temple and partly office building. The expenses of this head office
are borne by the thirty temples in proportion to their importance and
wealth. The monasteries are graded into five groups and each contributes
annually a set sum for the advancement of Buddhism in the peninsula.20
The headquarters building in Seoul, to which reference
is made in the above quotation, is a large and business-like
structure, and is emphatically a school and office building
rather than a temple. It is known as the Kajo Kwakwan.
Its activities are divided among three departments-religious,
educational, and industrial. The department of religion car-
ries on nine lines of work (I quote from a recent circular
translated for me by a Japanese) namely: "(1) Regular lec-
ture and preaching meeting, (2) Notable men's lecture, (3)
Study of Buddhism, (4) Sunday school, (5) Young Men's
Buddhist Association, (6) Women's meeting, (7) Concert
and amusement, (8) Translation of the Buddhist Bible and
publishing of magazines, (9) Employment bureau." The
educational department conducts a night school, with about
thirty or forty students. The industrial department gives a
course in dressmaking and a course in shoemaking. In Seoul
there is also a Buddhist "theological seminary" for monks
and novitiates from the mountain monasteries.21
The magazine referred to under the eighth line of work
in the department of religion, as quoted above, started out
quite hopefully in 1913, but at the time Mr. Starr wrote his
book (in 1918) it had suffered four breaks in publication
and had appeared under five different names.22
It has ap-
peared a few times since 1918, but its latest appearance, so
far as I can learn, was in January, 1921. "Since which
date," Bishop Trollope observes, "it appears to have flickered
20 Op. cit., pp. 34-36.
21 Starr says he found sixty-five students at this seminary.
See Note 6 in Starr's Appendix.
434
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
out, and I can not discover that anything has taken its
place." 23
The Y.M.B.A., however, seems to be prospering. Ac-
cording to the Tokyo Young East for June, 1925, "it has now
upwards of two thousand members. Dividing its work into
departments of propagation, education, literature and art,
gymnastics and children, and having branch offices in many
important centers, it is actively pushing a useful work." Á A
few of the Buddhists of Korea seem to be awakening also to
the call for humanitarian service. A "Keijo Buddhist
Charity Association" has been formed which though it has
not as yet accomplished a great deal may mark by its very
existence the beginning of a new point of view in Korean
Buddhism. Its name, of course, suggests that the Association
is, in part, under Japanese auspices (Keijo being the Japanese
name for Seoul). This society recently founded a home for
the aged at the capital.24 A wealthy Buddhist lady (a Ko-
rean) has just founded a second "home" for the same purpose
on a much larger scale in the suburbs of the city.25 The
great Nishi Hongwanji temple of Kyoto has recently started
a school for girls in Seoul, the school to be run on Buddhist
principles.26 A Buddhist college was begun early in 1927.27
A movement is on foot to collect and publish a number of
commentaries and other Buddhist works by eminent Korean
monks.28
A movement that may well be more portentous for the
future of Korean Buddhism is the rapidly increasing prac-
tice of sending students to Japan to study the religion in the
scholarly Japanese fashion. This movement has been going
on for some time, but in the last three or four years it has
assumed rather significant proportions. The mountain mon-
astery of Yu jöm Sa at the time of our visit had sent nine
students to Japan for this purpose. There are said to be
twenty-nine Korean students at the Rissho College (of the
Nichiren sect) alone.29 Some of these Korean youth are dis-
tinguishing themselves among their Japanese brethren. One
of them has recently been made abbot of a temple in the
"Buddhist Literature in Korea," the Korean Bookman (of Seoul), for Sept., 1922.
27
Ibid. for Feb., 1927.
28 Ibid for Feb., 1928.
20
Ibid. for Nov., 1925.
21
The Young East for March, 1926.
25 Ibid. for Sept., 1926.
20
Ibid. for June, 1926.
#
KOREAN BUDDHISM
435
vicinity of Kyoto, another abbot of a temple in the Tokyo
Prefecture and at the same time appointed professor in one
of the Buddhist colleges. In another generation, when these
students shall have returned to their native land with new
insight into the real teachings of their religion and shall have
used what they have learned in systematic efforts at revival
and reform, it may be that Korean Buddhism will once more
become a spiritual power in the land.
I must confess, however, that I am not oversanguine of
this result.30 At any rate it must be admitted that, except
for the first few centuries after its introduction, Buddhism
has done (and has been allowed to do) but little for the peo-
ple of Korea. Korean Buddhism, however, did one great
thing. It handed on the Light of Asia to Japan. Korea in
fact was the bridge by which both the Indian faith and the
Chinese culture passed over from the continent to the Island
Empire. As one studies the map, the Korean peninsula seems
as if built for this express purpose; and an imaginative vital-
ist who extended his theory from biology to geology might
depict Asia, in obedience to the urge of its entelechy, as send-
ing out a great tentacle of land toward the group of islands
which lie just beyond its reach. Doubtless this is fantastic,
but to the Buddhist pilgrim in these regions, geography itself
becomes symbolic. And indeed the wide valleys, majestic
rivers, and distant hills of southern Korea, its far-stretching
blue-green paddy fields dotted with the brown thatched
roofs of tiny villages, and its deep blue skies, put one in the
mood for dreaming. One has a sense everywhere of spacious-
ness and of the sea-the sea which though invisible is always
near. One longs to follow in the footsteps of those daring
missionaries from ancient Pakche who carried the lamp of
their faith to the unknown islands beyond the straits, and to
reach the last stage in the long pilgrimage of Buddhism. So
one's thoughts press on to the port and to the watery road
that leads from the Land of the Morning Calm to the Empire
of the Rising Sun.
80 The religious statistics of Korea, given in the Young East for Nov., 1926, show
how small a part Buddhism plays in Korea as a whole. A mixture of Taoism, Confu-
cianism and superstition known as Chyondokyo has 2,000,000 followers: Christianity
has 350,000; Buddhism 382,000; Shinto 75,000. The editor adds: "Inasmuch as the
total population of Chosen (Korea) is 17,000,000, it is plain that an overwhelming
majority of the Korean people are without any religious belief.”
CHAPTER XXII
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
ALL day long the blue sky and the shining sea and the
straight, straight line-the mystery of the straight, unbroken
line which is yet a circle-where sky and ocean meet. Yet
not always unbroken, for now and then a blue opalescent
island swims into view, out there on the world's edge: while
the westering sun lowers behind us, where China and Korea
lie, hidden now in the depths of our past, as the setting sun
will soon be in the ocean's waves. Island succeeds island, and
the evening comes; and with the dark, scattered yellow lights
appear along some distant shore. At first rare and separate,
the flashings of isolated beacons, they become more frequent,
and gather into clusters, which must be villages along some
unguessed coast. New streams of light in the sky, shot up-
ward from hidden cities, lure the imagination; the great ship
calls with its tremendous voice for the pilot, like some sea
monster frightened at the dark; and we are in the straits
of Shimenoseki, with Kyushu to starboard and Nippon on
our port, plowing through the jeweled darkness the waters
of Japan.
All night we steam through the straits, and with the
dawn we are upon the Inland Sea. With seeming uncer-
tainty the ship finds her way through a maze of islands, at
times nearly landlocked as she sails down some long avenue of
isles with an apparent cul de sac at the end. But a sudden
turn, sharp and unguessed, brings us once more into the open,
and for hours we are again on the broad sea. Then more
islands and islets and rocks, and further alternations of nar-
row channels and open stretches, through this sea of endless
fascination and constantly changing beauty.
But the land of Japan is no less beautiful than its Inland
Sea. I have known many lands of great loveliness, but none
that I know, save Italy alone, and perhaps Greece, can vie in
-
436
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
437
beauty with this empire of the rising sun. It lacks, indeed,
the sense of spaciousness one gets in China, and even in parts
of southern Korea, and almost everywhere, except in the
higher mountains one has a feeling that the land is built upon
a smaller scale than most others: that here one is viewing some
of Nature's delicate cabinet work, her more minute carving.
But as a piece of exquisite beauty, in which Nature and Art
have united with one harmonious purpose, Japan has prob-
ably no equal. Even from the windows of a rapid express
one gets this impression. It seems as if Nature had prepared
this land in advance for the possession of a sensitively artistic
people, laying it out as a landscape garden with a constant
variation of advancing uplands and receding valleys, with a
bit of sea or lake or river in the foreground, and ever at the
back the irregular sky line of the distant hills. The main
island is so narrow and its central rib of mountain range so
long that there is hardly a place on it from which one may
not see either the mountains or the ocean, and very often
both are united in an intricate intermingling or embrace of
ravishing beauty. Rarely is there anything commonplace or
monotonous about the Japanese mountains. There are few
level ridges but a constant succession of peaks and chasms:
while almost every little hill seems to feel it his artistic duty
to cherish an individuality of his own, or else in shape to
imitate and emulate Fuji. In Fuji, as every Japanese knows,
Nippon possesses a thing of beauty which, even were the rest
of the land a plain, would make it famous. The view from
Fuji, to be sure, is not especially beautiful-at least I did not
find it so. It is much too distant, much too like a map for
beauty. But the view of Fuji at all possible angles and in the
constantly varying effects of the Japanese climate of sun and
shade, of cloud and mist, reflected in a hundred lakes and
streams, or viewed from the far sea, towering above the
nearer hills, or hanging, as it so often seems, from the sky
with an ocean of cloud beneath, and belonging rather to
heaven than to earth-Fuji is rightly felt by all the Japanese
to be a joy forever.
The trees join with the mountains in this effort of Nature
to make Japan unique. Nowhere else have I seen so many
shades of green crowded into one hillside. Many of the trees,
438
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
too, taken by themselves, are of peculiar loveliness. Fore-
most, I suppose, stands the giant cryptomeria, shedding about
it a sense of almost religious calm and meditative silence,
whether one finds it in forest aisles or in long avenues leading
up to solemn temples. But the Japanese pine is almost its
equal, its parallel branches giving to the hillsides which it
clothes something of that bewitching beauty that makes the
heart leap up when it beholds a rainbow in the sky. The
isolated pine, too, with its knotted arms reaching out at
strange angles upon a background of sky or sea, is something
never to forget, as the makers of Japanese screens and prints
have so abundantly realized. One should mention too the
maples with their minutely cut and lace-like leaves (whose
glory in the autumn, alas, we did not see), the cherry and
plum trees with their wonder of pink blossoms in the spring
(which also we missed), the Kiri with its wisteria-like flow-
ers, the generous azalea, the great Icho tree, dominating the
courts of so many Buddhist temples, the lustrous chestnut of
the mountain slopes, and, loveliest of all trees that grow, the
tender, graceful, clustering bamboo.
To all this beauty the climate adds its last poetic touch.
For the Sea of Japan on the west and the Pacific on the east
send in their clouds to cluster round the mountain peaks,
while at their base are festooned white veils of mist, that rise
from lake and stream. No one realizes better than the Japa-
nese themselves the value of these silvery curtains, that sug-
gest more than they hide. Japanese painting exults in it.
And the earliest writings this sensitive people produced show
the same feeling for the added beauty which their climate
breeds. In the Nihongi we read that when Izanagi and
Izanami had created Japan, "the great-eight-island Land,"
Izanagi looked down upon their work and said: "Over the
country which we have produced there is naught but morn-
ing mists, which shed a perfume everywhere.” ¹
To the pilgrim fresh from China, among the striking
features of Japan are the great uncultivated areas of forest
and mountain. Only one sixth of Japan is arable.2 Eco-
nomically considered this is doubtless a great pity: but es-
1 Aston's trans., Transactions of the Japan Society, Supplement I, I. 22.
ด
According to R. L. Buell in the Weekly Review for Sept. 10, 1921.
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
439
thetically it is, of course, an enormous advantage. Not only
does it add directly to the beauty of every landscape, but it
gives one also a general sense of space and room to breathe
and of fresh wildness and relief from too much humanity.
The cultivated regions themselves, moreover, are broken up
and broken into by invading mountains and long arms of
sea, where crops give way to forest, or to fishing villages,
white sails, sampans, and the drying of brown nets on the
shore. The land has no great rivers, but it is full of moun-
tain streams, riotous with waterfalls and youthful shoutings
in their earlier courses, and in the plains harnessed to water
wheels or diverted and divided into irrigating ditches to fill
the paddy fields. The rice fields of Japan are on the whole
less picturesque than those of China, partly because rice cul-
tivation is not carried so high upon the hillsides, partly be-
cause the Japanese farmer, with his more scientific methods,
drives his lines straight and makes his fields rectangular. Yet
even in a square field rice culture cannot fail of interest,
while near by the wheat, barley and millet give pleasant con-
trast in their tones of green, yellow, and brown. On higher
levels one finds the dark green of the rounded tea plants and
the light green of the mulberry. As everywhere else, the
world over, the harvest time-which comes here in late
August and September-is full of varied interest; but more
varied still are late May and early June. For at this time
go on side by side in adjoining fields the harvest of the early
wheat and the transplanting of the rice. Terribly hard labor
this transplanting; yet somehow in Japan, to the on-looker
at least, it seems less dreary and more colorful than elsewhere.
It is often done by a group of eight or ten young men and
maidens in line, the pink or purple obis of the girls giving a
touch of gaiety to the scene, their kimonos tucked up above
their stalwart knees, all of them advancing together in a
triumphant march over the flooded fields, like children wad-
ing in a pool.
One of the most memorable features of the Japanese
countryside is its temples. In the hills one finds them, Shinto
shrines or Buddhist monasteries, perched on top of some peak
or nestling in a glen or beside a waterfall. And in the culti-
vated plains one cannot go far without seeing a forested
-
440
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
knoll or perhaps just a little round grove on the level—a kind
of island in the midst of sunny rice lands-with a torii or
gateway before it, and a temple roof dimly suggested within
the branches and shadows of the tree-tops. Nor are these
fanes deserted or ruinous, as country temples in China are
so apt to be. Enter them and you will find them ancient
but well kept up, clean as if a New England housewife had
just been at them with brush and broom; and it will be
strange if you do not discern a peasant bowing in front of
the central shrine, throwing down a coin and mumbling a
prayer or two before he goes away. On the edge of every
village or at its center the same tale is repeated-a simple
Shinto shrine with its round mirror in lieu of idol, perhaps
a pair of stone foxes guarding the entrance, or a Buddhist
temple with its meditative Amida or Kwannon the Merciful
One, or the loving Jizo who saves little children.
A Japanese village as yet untouched by Western architec-
ture-especially if it be on a hillside-is a thing of beauty
hardly to be surpassed. I remember one in which I spent
the evening of a fête day. All the houses were adorned with
paper lanterns, and through the winding streets, up the
crooked stairways, under the projecting roofs, streamed the
children of the village, each little boy and little girl carrying
a red lantern, while the older young people, in serenading
groups of six or eight, filled the night with music and happy
voices.
The rural cottages of Japan seem to have been planned to
fit the landscape. Their curving lines, high thatched roofs
of a rich brown or covered over with splashes of many-
colored moss, are no intrusion upon mountain and meadow.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the modern type
of Japanese building. Particularly—and painfully-striking
is this intrusion of the new upon the old as one travels east-
ward toward Tokyo. Most of rural Japan is still but slightly
marred by the West; but as one enters the zone devastated by
the recent earthquake the contrast and clash of the two
cultures becomes almost tragically evident. Interspersed
among the ancient houses, with their swaying lines and their
lofty thatch, are numbers of modern structures, put up to
take the place of the older buildings the earthquake leveled.
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
441
These new houses are wooden shacks, with straight lines,
right angles, and low roofs of corrugated iron.
The immediate occasion of this substitution of the ugly
for the picturesque is, of course, the earthquake and grim
necessity. But the deeper cause is the invasion of Japan by
Western culture. It had made itself felt in the cities long
before September, 1923. If rural Japan is unsurpassed in
beauty, the westernized Japanese city is, and for years has
been, unsurpassed for ugliness. The Yokohama of the pre-
earthquake days was notable among the ports of the world
for deadly commonplace and for the mingling of just the
worst features of East and West. And as for Tokyo, the
capital of the Empire, the metropolis of Asia-where is there
another city remotely approaching it in size so lacking in
distinction? Name three temples, two parks, and a few
tombs, and you have told all there is that raises itself above
the dead monotony of this endless straggling village-this
village that is neither East nor West. So it was before the
earthquake. Since then it has, of course, the distinction of a
great tragedy. Not that any desolate spaces are left or any
noble ruins. There was nothing architecturally noble to ruin,
and the great central section that was swept clean by the fire
was quickly rebuilt with little wooden shacks, so that, when
I last saw it, this part of the city presented the appearance of
a western or southern American town where they have re-
cently discovered oil.
Fortunately, not all Japanese cities are like Tokyo and
Yokohama. In fact, no others are. Osaka is fast becoming
in appearance an up-to-date Western town, with broad,
straight streets, and brick and stone business blocks. Kobe is
mostly Western, with a few attractive Japanese streets in the
native section. There are still some cities which the West
has but slightly touched, and these retain considerable charm.
Notable among them is, of course, Kyoto, one of the most
attractive towns in the world, with its colorful streets, its
little river lined with gardens, lanterns, and gay tea-houses,
its parks and palaces, and the fringe of great temples with
their exquisite gardens that surrounds the whole city, and
farther out the rim of hills and mountains that look down
upon it from every side.
442
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
A
It might be said of most peoples that in some respects
they seem to fit the lands in which they dwell. Of none is
this more notably true than of the Japanese. Their land
seems made for them and they for it. I have already pointed
out that everything in Japan except Fuji and the crypto-
merias seems built on a smaller scale than one finds in most
countries, and the inhabitants are no exceptions to the rule.
That is usually the first thing the foreigner notices about
them. On further acquaintance this characteristic is increas-
ingly brought home to one. One's first introduction to a
Japanese sleeper fills one with mingled amusement and dis-
may-this double row of tiny berths, too low to put anything
under them, too short for most Westerners to stretch out in,
this aisle too narrow for any luggage, yet in which all the
luggage must be put, these wash-stands so low one must
bend double to reach them. In a Japanese house there are,
of course, no beds nor chairs, but they have dining-room
tables, which are perhaps four inches high, and within the
"honorable recess" there is usually a still smaller table sup-
porting a full-grown pine tree which from root to topmost
branch may reach to eighteen inches. Most Japanese auto-
mobiles are of foreign make; but there are some home-made
ones a trifle larger than rickshaws and noticeably larger than
Western baby-carriages. Not only do the Japanese find little
things useful: they have a great love for the tiny as such.
Dwarf trees are their delight, and with marvelous skill they
grow minute specimens of many a forest giant. A space in
a backyard that most of us would consider too small for
thing but a garbage can they will make into a garden, with
ponds and streams, stone arched bridges, lanterns, flowers
and a forest of dwarf trees. In such a land an ordinary
American feels like Gulliver in Lilliput.
any-
Next to the small size of the Japanese and of much of
their work, the thing that is most likely to strike a casual
visitor is the fact that many of the things one has been told
about this interesting people are palpably untrue. This is
notably the case on the question of honesty. Which of us
has not been credibly informed by innumerable persons that
the Japanese are so dishonest that all cashiers in Japanese
banks but I refrain from repeating what every one has
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
443
heard. One lands in Japan ready to be cheated, fleeced, and
robbed. One soon learns, to one's enormous astonishment,
that there is not a land in West or East where one's property
is safer. I have been told, to be sure, by American and
British business men that Japanese merchants do not live up
to the spirit of a contract so thoroughly as Chinese mer-
chants, that the goods they furnish are not always certain to
be up to specification, that their word is not so uniformly
equal to their bond as is that of the Chinaman. Of these
things I know nothing. But I know I have never been in a
land where the tradesmen seem farther removed from sharp
practice, where the proper change is so regularly returned to
one, where so little advantage is taken of the stranger's igno-
rance, where one can with impunity be more careless of one's
luggage and one's valuables. Honest as is the Chinese mer-
chant, one feels always that he is honest because he is keenly
aware that honesty is the best policy; and that alongside of
his honesty there goes a certain let us say-financial point
of view. With the Japanese merchant I do not have this feel-
ing to anything like the same extent. His attention does not
seem to be so steadily glued to the main chance or to the
financial aspect of life. His honesty is a little less that of the
merchant, a little more that of the gentleman.
Both peoples have the morals that have grown out of their
cultures and their histories. Both have developed intensely
the virtues of the Oriental family and of the conventional
Confucian morality. Beyond that the Chinese have particu-
larly emphasized the morals of the merchant, while the
Japanese have been trained in the virtues that grow out of
the soldier's life and out of the feudal relationships. Further-
more, Buddhism, which has been taken so much more seri-
ously in Japan than in China, has had its noticeable effect in
imparting to the Japanese mind a certain other-worldly point
of view, a way of disregarding and even scorning the good
things of a materialistic common sense, which would be quite
incomprehensible to your average Chinese. Spread quite
widely among the Japanese people there is a desire for self-
discipline, a Nietzschian love of hardness toward oneself,
which is largely traceable to Buddhist stoicism and especially
to the Zen training and ideal, and which one would seek for
444
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
in vain among the eminently sensible Chinese. The exigen-
cies of their history and their social organization, moreover,
have developed in the Japanese a sense of loyalty to the social
group which is notably lacking in individualistic China. The
glories of Bushido have, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated
and Japan's feudal age has been idealized by both native and
foreign writers past all historical recognition; yet there is no
denying the fact that in those centuries of civil war and
feudal allegiance and Buddhist training, the upper classes of
Japan did work out a form of morality that was rather noble,
and that was notably different from that of the rest of East-
ern Asia.
But if we of the West have underestimated the honesty of
the Japanese, most of us have certainly overestimated their
cleverness. We have built up, and are still adding to, a myth
that the Japanese possess a kind of uncanny or superhuman
cleverness. We often picture them as almost miraculously
efficient and almost diabolically astute. One does not have
to know the Japanese very well to discover that this whole
point of view is another illustration of the adage, omne igno-
tum pro magnifico. The Japanese are undoubtedly efficient
and astute, but not more so than many other peoples. They
have particularly "backed themselves" to learn the German
art of war, and they have succeeded very well. The astute-
ness of their diplomacy has been greatly exaggerated. Their
diplomats have often been free from political idealism of the
Gladstonian, Wilsonian type, and so have won the admiration
and applause of many little-minded on-lookers. But if they
have seen clearly certain small things that others overlook,
they have failed to see certain large things in human nature
and the life of nations which in the long last are more essen-
tial to sound policy than are the innumerable brilliant little
coups of a cynical and disillusioned Realpolitik. And in
matters industrial and mechanical they are imitators only,
and frequently rather stupid imitators at that. Outside of
their unquestioned artistic qualities, they have as yet shown
small sign of becoming in any sense rivals of the Western
peoples. One of the things that most strikes a visitor to
Japan is the cheapness and flimsiness of many of their
productions.
G
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
445
1
Yet I hasten to add that the Japanese are certainly a very
intelligent race. Only an intelligent race could assimilate so
much of an entirely foreign civilization as they have done in
the last fifty years. They are great learners. They are om-
nivorous readers.3 I have never seen a city in either Europe
or America in which there were one quarter as many book-
shops as one will find in Tokyo: and the other cities of Japan
are not far behind the capital in this respect. Japan has an
immense reading public, filled with a great intellectual
curiosity; and this fact is bound to tell in many ways.
Like the Chinese, the Japanese are a very industrious peo-
ple. They work long hours, and, like the Chinese again, they
seem to enjoy their work.
But the quality that has struck me most forcibly in the
Japanese is their restraint. It goes through a large part of
their lives and comes out in all sorts of unexpected ways. It
is, of course, very noticeable in their courtesy. A large part
of all courtesy, for that matter, is restraint-restraint of im-
pulses that might prove unpleasant to others. But the Japa-
nese seem to carry this farther than most peoples. They
train themselves to inhibit not only such actions as would
give offense, but all expressions of emotion that might sadden
others. Long faces and sorrowful words are taboo. Shortly
after the earthquake I asked a Japanese whom I met on a
train whether he had lost any of his friends in the catastro-
phe. He answered with a forced laugh that his children had
all been killed. One would have thought he regarded it as a
good joke on himself. I am sure the man's heart was torn as
any father's would have been, but he had been trained to
laugh at whatever happened, so as not to force his private
woe on others.
Laugh and the world laughs with you-
Weep and you weep alone.
-
This, thinks Japan, is as it should be.
But Japanese courtesy goes deeper than this. It is not
merely a matter of restraint. It is not merely negative. The
Japanese are, I believe, the most courteous people in the
* According to the Young East, during the year 1925 Japan published more books
than any other country save only Germany.
446
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
world, and their courtesy is more than superficial. It does
not come merely from the desire to keep up appearances-
though doubtless this desire contributes largely to it. It
comes in part also, I am convinced, from genuine good will
and honest kindliness. One sees it in their eyes and in their
actions. It is a kind of impersonal kindliness-a readiness
to look out for human beings as such. Foreigners traveling
in the earthquake zone just after the catastrophe unani-
mously testified to the positive kindness they received
from all sorts of people-men and women of all classes going
out of their way to help the foreigner and if they had no
more, sharing their last crust with him. Of course if the
mob spirit gets hold of them, the Japanese like other peoples
can lose their courtesy and lose their heads. After the earth-
quake Japanese mobs treated many Koreans almost as cruelly
and madly as our American mobs treat the negroes. But it is
very rare, this sort of thing, in Japan, and even a national
insult is not enough to break down the deeply rooted habits
of courtesy. We were in Japan at the time of the passage of
the Exclusion Act by the American Congress, and could see
how deeply hurt all classes of society felt at what they re-
garded as an incomprehensible slap in the face. Yet never
even in the most exciting moments did we see or hear of a
discourteous act toward an American. On the contrary, we
repeatedly were treated, by all sorts of people, with positive
and uncalled for kindness. It seemed as if the Japanese as a
whole had made up their minds to show Christendom what
it means to love your enemies.
The courtesy of the Japanese has still another source than
those I have mentioned. It is the product not only of care-
fully practiced restraint and genuine kindness of heart: in
seeking to explain it one must refer also to the peculiar gen-
tleness and refinement native to the race. The Japanese are
an extremely sensitive people, on whom bad taste in conduct
or in art rasps unpleasantly. This may seem inconsistent
with what I have said of the hardness which they cultivate
toward themselves and the callousness toward suffering which
I shall have to mention later on as one of their characteristics.
But he who expects the character of the Japanese people, or
of any other people, to be free from contradictions must have
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
447
had but small acquaintance with human nature. I do not say
that gentleness is native to them in the sense of being a bio-
logically inherited trait. I am not here distinguishing be-
tween biological and social heredity. It is quite probable, I
think, that the gentleness of which I speak is a racial charac-
teristic, both in the biological sense and as a socially incul-
cated habit and ideal. The Japanese are naturally gentle
except when there is a call for aggressive action. They love
gentleness and inculcate it. It is very rarely that they lose
their temper, very rarely that they raise their voices. One
could live years in Japan without seeing a quarrel. All classes
of society show a deep-lying refinement of manners and of
taste which is very striking indeed.
This refinement and gentleness are particularly noticeable
among the women. Their gentleness begins with their atti-
tude toward their own children and is carried on to all the
world. There is none of the bawling at naughty children so
common in Europe, no loud-voiced threats, and very little
corporal punishment. Probably there should be more than
there is, for Japanese children are sometimes spoiled. Yet
they seem to need active and violent control less than West-
ern children; for they, too, are, in most cases, astonishingly
gentle, and consequently easy to govern. Probably they ac-
quire the characteristic by imitation from their mothers.
And with the gentleness of the Japanese mother there goes.
also a great patience, a beautiful humility of bearing, and the
usual unselfishness which regularly characterizes the women
of the East.
Yet with all their gentleness, the Japanese are essentially
and notably a brave people. In a sense, of course, all peoples
are brave. Courage is one of the commonest and cheapest of
the virtues. But the courage of the Japanese is not merely
of the common sort. Theirs is the courage of endurance,
the courage of self-repression, the courage of restraint. Here,
once more, I think we may see the influence of Buddhism,
with its reiterated lesson of killing out the thought of self.
The peculiarity of the Japanese soldier in the Russian War
was not the courage of daring, in which the Westerner quite
equals him. It was the courage of selflessness: the willingness
of the individual to lose himself as an individual in the whole;
448
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
not merely to die gloriously, but just to go out quite name-
lessly and with no memory. The same courage of restraint,
the same persistent endurance came to the surface again in
the presence of the great disaster of September, 1923. The
survivors of Tokyo and Yokohama, and in a sense the whole
nation, faced the situation with a kind of stoical calm and
quiet unsubduable persistence that must wring admiration
from even the most prejudiced.
ter.
It may be in part owing to this constant undertone of
restraint that one feels the Japanese to be at heart a somewhat
sad people. Not that they are lacking in smiles and laugh-
On the contrary they laugh by far too much. One
quickly becomes very weary of their recurrent laugh, regu-
lar as clockwork, whatever be the subject of conversation.
It is even difficult at times not to lose one's temper and cry
out, For Heaven's sake, be serious! But as I have already
pointed out, the laugh of the Japanese is not a token of
inward gaiety, but a part of deliberate courtesy, consciously
inculcated. It has not the merry and whole-hearted ring of
Chinese laughter; and underneath this smile that refuses to
come off there may beat a very heavy heart. It reminds one
of the smile on the faces of archaic Greek sculpture-of the
heroes of the Aegina marbles who have been smiling now
these 2500 years with a sword piercing their vitals.
The constant restraint which goes so deep in Japanese
life has its unpleasant as well as its attractive features. Most
foreign residents of Japan from Lafcadio Hearn down will
tell you that nearly every Japanese keeps his true self forever
hidden behind a wall of reserve which no outsider can ever
break through. Their outer lives seem to possess no privacy,
and their inner lives have nothing else. This constant self-
restraint, so deliberately inculcated and practiced, means, of
course, a constant self-consciousness which results in a cer-
tain stiffness of manners that I have never noticed to the same
extent in any other people. Those, indeed, who have been
educated abroad are frequently free from it, but there are
very few Japanese who have grown up entirely in their own
land who seem able to throw it off. With a group of Chinese
gentlemen one may soon feel as much at ease as with a group
of Americans. There is a suppleness, an easy largeness and
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
449
naturalness about them that gives them at once the air of
men of the world. They seem cosmopolitan and to the
manner born. Your Japanese gentleman seems hopelessly
incapable of losing himself.
Restraint, once more, is the chief secret of what is most
characteristic in Japanese art. Not that it is by any means
their only artistic quality, for they have all sorts; they are, in
fact, possibly the most thoroughly artistic people of our
times. But the characteristic which most completely differ-
entiates their art from the art of the West seems to me just
this ability to deny themselves the satisfaction of going the
whole distance, this knowledge of when to stop, this surpris-
ing temperance in expression, this insight into the enormous
emotional appeal that results from leaving to the imagination
of the beholder the climax of the entire piece. In sculpture,
to be sure, there is little chance for this, but in Japanese
architecture at its best (which unfortunately is not Japanese
architecture at its latest), this noble restraint is as obvious
as in Greek temples of the Periclean age. It is, however, in
painting and in poetry that its effects are best observed. On
many a screen the glorious pine tree rises, marked out sharply
from its golden background, and as the eye follows its fasci-
nating lines toward the glory of its full-branching develop-
ment, a cloud intervenes, or there is an absolutely blank
space, behind which, or in which, the imagination may guess
at forms more beautiful than any brush can paint. The
landscape leads out to widening and enticing vistas, but just
as the full promise is about to be attained, a mist closes in.
So in the No plays, the tragedy on which the Western play-
wright would lavish the greatest pains and to which the
whole play has led up is only vaguely hinted. Rien de trop
is the great canon of taste for the Japanese artist. It is char-
acteristic of this people that they have developed the arrange-
ment of flowers into a professional art, and that never more
than five sprays are used in a bouquet.
In saying that the Japanese are perhaps the most artistic
people of our times I am only quoting the opinion of many
who are much better judges than I. Certainly they seem to
be in love with beauty as hardly any others. They carry ever
with them the fresh eye, prepared to see beauty wherever it
450
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
exists. They feel a need for the constant enjoyment of the
beautiful of which we in the West have little conception.
We fill our houses with beautiful things-and seldom look
at them. If one disappears we note its absence, but its pres-
ence is taken for granted. This is partly because we have
become accustomed to it, in its regular place, partly because
it is mixed in our rooms with a quantity of other beautiful
things. We want to have beautiful things around us: the
Japanese want to enjoy beautiful things. To bring this about
they keep in a room but one picture or one bunch of flowers
at a time and as soon as the eye grows familiar with it they
take it away and put a new one in its place. They consider
it almost as difficult to enjoy two pictures on one wall as to
enjoy two pieces of music played at the same time. They
really want to enjoy the beautiful. And they really do
So.
Spl
They not only love beautiful things: they produce them.
As a people they show extraordinarily good taste-except,
indeed, when they imitate Western architecture or Western
fashions: for then they can unconsciously turn out as ugly
things as the mind of man ever devised. But when working
along their native lines they still produce, as they always
have, innumerable things of exquisite charm. It is, for in-
stance, most instructive to compare a modern china shop in
China with one in Japan. The Chinese cups and saucers,
plates and jars, are almost uniformly ugly in both shape and
color and type of decoration-at times extremely so. A
Japanese china shop, on the other hand, is full of exquisite
things, almost every one a work of art in its way. They may
cost only a few sen but they are things of beauty. Every-
thing that the Japanese uses he insists must be beautiful;
and he usually sees to it that it is so.
In loving the beautiful the Japanese loves the world not
as it is but as it ought to be. This tendency of his is, per-
haps, not unrelated to a quality that has often been pointed
out and is indeed extremely obvious. The thing I have in
mind is a certain unreality, a certain lack of realism, a kind
of universal conspiracy and agreement to shut the eyes to
undesired realities and to substitute fancy for fact. Mr.
Gulick in his excellent work on the evolution of the Japa-
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
451
nese has given a name to this quality: he calls it "nominality."
The Bishop of Southampton evidently is thinking of the same
thing when he says, "The Japanese can pretend longer than
most." We must not be too surprised at the power of pre-
tending nor regard it as peculiar to the Japanese. We peoples
of the West are also pretty good at it. Most of us cherish
certain pious fairy tales-of a political, economic, moral or
religious nature-which we know are not true but which we
agree to respect, and somehow we repeat them to each other
with straight faces. The Japanese are merely like the rest of
us in this, with the single difference that, as the bishop says,
they can pretend longer than most. The quality comes out
in all sorts of ways, but is, perhaps, most striking to us West-
erners in the strictly official attitude which almost all Japa-
nese take on the myth of the divine descent and of the divine
nature of the imperial family. Their ability to keep their
faces straight when talking on this subject ranks them one
grade higher than even the Roman augurs.
4
Their ability to cherish a living belief in one half of their
mind which in the other half they must know to be purely
fanciful is due in part to the fact that, with all their realism,
they live their lives largely in an ideal world. In interna-
tional relations they admire Realpolitik, but in a large part
of life they are sentimentalists and idealists. They have in
them a good deal of the mystic. It is not the mysticism of
St. Teresa nor that of the emotional revival meeting, but it is
mysticism none the less. It is partly due to this that they
may properly be called a religious people. They are
by nature much more religious than the Chinese. In
G
'Cf. the following Suggested Solution for World Peace:-"To preserve the world's
peace and to promote the welfare of mankind is the mission of the Imperial Family of
Japan. Heaven has invested the Imperial Family with all the qualifications necessary
to fulfil this mission. He who can fulfil this mission is one who is the object of
humanity's admiration and adoration and who holds the prerogative of administration
for ever. The Imperial Family of Japan is as worthy of respect as God, and is the
embodiment of benevolence and justice. The great principle of the Imperial Family is
to make popular interests paramount-most important. The Imperial Family of Japan
is the parent not only of her sixty millions but of all mankind on earth. In the eyes
of the Imperial Family all races are one and the same; it is above all racial considerations.
All human disputes, therefore, may be settled in accordance with its immaculate justice.
The League of Nations proposed to save mankind from the horrors of war can only
attain its real object by placing the Imperial Family of Japan at its head, for to attain
its object the League must have a strong punitive force of a superracial character,
and this force can only be found in the Imperial Family of Japan." Trans. from the
Japanese paper "Niroku" and published in the Japan Advertiser of May 6th, 1919.
452
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
fact, I am inclined to think that among the peoples of
the East they stand in this respect second only to the Indians.
Not only have they a decidedly strong mystic vein: they
have also a great interest in and feeling for the cosmic. And
not only have they a feeling for the cosmic: they have, in my
opinion, a really philosophical attitude toward the ultimate
problems which religion presents. I cannot at all agree with
Keyserling that the Japanese are a superficial people, that
they fail to understand their own religion, that they are lack-
ing not only in appreciation but even in seriousness." The
thinkers of Japan have taken their Mahayana Buddhism seri-
ously, have written many books in the exposition and defense
of it and made some progress in developing it. Those that I
have met are able to discuss it and its problems with real in-
telligence. And certainly they have adorned their religion
with a feeling for beauty so that the charm of it is beyond
almost anything that we know.
The Japanese, like the rest of us, have their faults, and
some of them I have tried to indicate. To be sure, the faults
that we of the West most often attribute to them are hardly
of the sort that can be properly called racial or national faults.
at all. The fact that they live simply and cheaply and work
hard is scarcely a reproach, although of course these qualities
of simplicity and industry may make them unpleasant com-
petitors. That their government has pursued an aggressive,
imperialistic and at times unscrupulous and tyrannous policy
is a grave accusation against the government. That this
policy has usually had the approbation of the Japanese people
is a grave accusation against the people and one that justly
makes other nations look at Japan with a certain amount of
uncertainty, not to say suspicion. These facts, however, are
hardly surprising and need no reference to racial dispositions
to explain them. They are sufficiently explained by the
political situation of the times, the example of Western na-
tions, and the short-sighted views that necessarily go with a
youthful and enthusiastic nationalism. They are events,
policies, and do not go deep enough to be called national
qualities. What may justly be described as a national
quality—whether due to biological or to social heredity, or to
The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, II. 158f.
-
Gush
JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE
453
6
both is a certain indifference to the welfare and a callous-
ness to the sufferings of others, especially when these others
are not immediately visible, which the Japanese, in common
with the Chinese, not infrequently display. The ruthless
violence with which the Japanese government put down the
insurrection in Korea was short-sighted and unscrupulous
policy; but the almost universal indifference on the part of
the Japanese people-Buddhist, Shinto, and Christian alike.
-toward the aspirations and the sufferings of the Koreans
showed that this policy was not merely an isolated event but
the cropping out of a truly national characteristic. For the
attitude of the Japanese people during the recent Korean
persecutions was not an isolated affair. It must be read in
the light of history. One must recall the outrageous ruth-
lessness of the Japanese soldiers in Hideyoshi's invasion of
Korea three hundred and fifty years ago, and the martial
hardness and indifference to suffering to which so large a
portion of the people trained themselves during the centuries.
of medieval civil war. In making up one's picture of the
Japanese people one must not stop with Lafcadio Hearn's
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. One must not think of them
merely as a race of charming and beautiful little fairies flying
about in kimonos and on butterfly wings. All that indeed
should go
into the picture. In ordinary circumstances they
are a people of wonderful courtesy and of genuine kindness.
But one should remember also Hideyoshi's ear mourned in
Kyoto and the iron heel shown in Korea in our own times.
But where is the people that have no faults? And in
spite of those I have mentioned I cannot close this chapter
without testifying to the fact that personally I found the
Japanese immensely more likable on the whole than I had
anticipated. Nearly every American who lives among them
for any length of time comes to be fond of them. The fond-
ness is not as a rule so great as that which the residents of
China feel for the Chinese; for, as I have pointed out, there
is an aloofness about the Japanese character which usually
prevents close intimacy, a certain stiffness which seldom
G
Again I wish to draw the reader's attention to the fact that when I say national
I do not necessarily mean racial, i.e., in the biological sense. I am not committing
myself one way or another in the difficult theoretical question here involved.
454
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
allows personal relations between them and foreigners to get
beyond the formal stage. Yet one can hardly help feeling,
however one likes or dislikes them, that they are a nation of
gentlemen. On the whole it must be said they are a brave,
courteous, admirable people, an efficient, intelligent, sensi-
tive, and likable people, and a people to whom we of the
West, and especially we Americans, have in recent years done
but scant justice.
It was to this able and gifted people that Buddhism came
in the sixth century of our era. That some of the qualities
of the modern Japanese are due to Buddhism is undoubtedly
true-as in fact I have already pointed out. But, on the
other hand, the development that Buddhism has had in Japan
is in part due to the qualities which it found in the Japanese
people. The Japanese are often spoken of as mere imitators
because they received the essential elements of their religion
and their art from China and Korea. But, as we shall see,
the Japanese were no more content with merely imitating
Chinese Buddhism than with merely imitating Chinese art.
When Buddhism and Art came, it must be remembered, the
Japanese were still in the formative stage of their racial life.
Their condition was quite comparable with that of our own
ancestors at the same time. They accepted Buddhism and
Chinese civilization from abroad, just as our English, French,
and German ancestors accepted Christianity and Roman
civilization; and in both East and West a somewhat parallel
development went on. In fact, the Japanese were Buddhists
before most of our ancestors were Christians. Buddhism
came to Japan before Charlemagne had civilized the Franks
and Christianized the Saxons, and before Hengest and Horsa
had landed with their pagan hordes on the shores of Britain.
The story of Japanese Buddhism is therefore a long one,
and some acquaintance with it will be necessary to an intelli-
gent understanding of the Buddhism of modern Japan. To
this historical and introductory study we must therefore turn
in the following chapter.
PERIODS IN JAPANESE HISTORY
Mythical, Traditional, and Pre-Buddhist Period,
660 B.C.-522 a.d.
Introduction and Early Spread of Buddhism, 522-709.
Nara Epoch, 709-794.
Heian Epoch (Fujiwara and Taira Supremacy), 794-
1192.
Kamakura Epoch (Minamoto and Hojo Supremacy),
1192-1335.
Muromachi Epoch (Ashikaga Supremacy), 1335-
1573.
Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu, 1573-1616.
Tokugawa Shogunate, 1603-1867.
Restoration and Rule of the Emperors, 1867 to the
present.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
THE immediate source of Japanese Buddhism was Korea.
The original source of it was, of course, the teachings of
Gotama. Yet if we should confine ourselves to the contribu-
tions made by Gotama and by Korea we should have to leave
out of account immense portions of the Buddhism of Japan.
As we have seen, before Buddhism left India on its long pil-
grimage to the northeast, it levied heavily upon all that India
had to give of stored-up spiritual treasures. The Founder
himself was not merely a founder but also a transmitter, and
much of the wisdom of the Vedas and possibly of the
Upanishads, and many a concept from the Samkhya and
Yoga he welded into his rich and composite teaching. His
successors, in spite of their earnest orthodoxy, added much.
The developing Vedanta philosophy and the Bhakti schools
made their contributions. Hindu mythology wove its fes-
toons around the growing religion, Indian logic, mathe-
matics, astronomy gave all they had, and Indian architecture,
sculpture, painting and poetry decked out the whole. Nor
was this all. Before Buddhism started out for China it drew
upon the resources of central Asia, it borrowed incidental
ideas from the Persian Zoroastrians and perhaps from other
peoples, and in visualizing its thought of the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas it took all that the Greek sculptors of Bactria
had to give. It was this magnificent procession from the
Indian world that came to China in the first part of the
Christian era, taking (to borrow a current phrase) several
centuries "to pass a given point.
""
I spoke of its entrance into China as if it had been one
long procession. It was not one procession but many. Differ-
ent pilgrim bands took different routes. Each caravan found
fresh recruits and fresh treasures on its long way. From
Khotan they came, from Tibet, from Mongolia and the
456
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
457
Himalayan states, from the islands of the sea. All these pil-
grim caravans converged on China and there unpacked their
treasures and poured them into the common melting pot.
Then the Chinese brought from out their store new contri-
butions, things both new and old, and added them to the
common hoard. A few of these things must be here speci-
fied. One of them was the feeling for the communal life,
always so strong in China, which, though it may not have
changed a line in the writings of any Buddhist philosopher,
surely did soften down and mellow the rather sharp and hard
individualism which was one of the aspects of the original
teachings of the Founder.¹ Confucianism added its concept
of filial piety and family loyalty and its large store of prac-
tical morality, while Taoism brought its mystical insight and
poetical feeling. Chinese learning and poetry and art merged
themselves in the rich store. New treasures poured in also
from central Asia, once Buddhism was well at home in China
-central Asia, that mart of ideas through the long centuries
now so dark to us, where East and West, Hindu, Confucian,
Manichæan, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Greek,
and Christian exchanged religions and philosophies with their
wares. Thus enriched, Buddhism swept up into Korea, and
gathered what this poetical and artistic people had to offer.
So at last it was ready for its pilgrimage across the straits
into the island empire of Japan.
When we say, therefore, that Buddhism began to be car-
ried over to Japan in the sixth century, we refer to very
much more than simply the teachings of Sakyamuni. In a
sense we might say that most of eastern and central and
southern Asia rose up and marched across the straits. Nor
does the story of the enrichment of Buddhism end here, for
the Japanese people had also their contribution to make. As
we shall see, this gifted people have done with Buddhism
what they have done with everything else that has been
brought them from abroad. They have accepted it simply,
humbly, in sincere and almost childlike fashion, and then
they have laid the stamp of their own transforming genius
upon it.
One further remark of a general nature let me make be-
1 Cf. Okakura, The Ideals of the East (New York, Dutton, 1905).
458
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
fore we proceed to the more detailed story of Japanese Bud-
dhism. I have spoken of the many accretions to the religion
and the many developments within it after the lips of the
Founder were mute. The interesting thing to note here is
the fact that these many and multiform additions, with the
exception of certain superstitions and externalisms, have
been so transmuted by adoption, have been so thoroughly as-
similated, that foreign as they at first appear one is con-
strained, on further examination, to say, Yes, these are thor-
oughly Buddhist after all. Within the original form of the
religion there seem to have been quite literally innumerable
potentialities that required only the touch of new conditions
and new human needs to bring to light. The Buddhist re-
ligion had no little hard kernel of sharply definable selfhood
to prevent it from merging and mingling, absorbing and as-
similating, adapting itself with wonderful elasticity to all
sorts of new situations and identifying itself fearlessly with
many a spiritual force that seemed on the surface foreign
and antithetic. The Anatta doctrine could hardly find a
better exemplification than in Buddhism itself.
I have said that Buddhism came first to Japan from
Korea. That is true in the sense that the first successful
landing, so to speak, of the great Pilgrim was made by the
help of Koreans and from Korea as a base. But the first
attempt to carry Buddhism into Japan was made by a Chi-
nese monk, one Shiba Tachito as the Japanese learned to call
him, who in 522 reached Yamato and built a temple there,
enshrining an image of the Buddha. Whether he made any
proselytes is unknown; but he abode steadfastly at his shrine,
worshiping the Buddha through long years with the patience
of an oriental and the confidence of an unshakable faith.
The more spectacular beginning of Buddhism in Japan took
place some thirty years later (552) when the King of Pakche
-the southwestern division of the peninsula, called by the
Japanese Kudara-sent to Kimmei, the emperor of Japan, a
copper image of the Buddha (probably Amida) plated with
gold, together with several Sutras, some flags and umbrellas,
and a royal letter, which read, in part, as follows:
This doctrine is among all most excellent. But it is difficult to ex-
plain and difficult to understand. Even the Duke of Chou and Con-
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
459
fucius did not attain to comprehension. It can produce fortune and
retribution immeasurable, illimitable. It can transform a man into a
Bodhi. . . . Moreover, from farthest India to the three Han, all have
embraced the doctrine and there is none that does not receive it with
reverence wherever it is preached.2
The emperor seems to have been pleased with the image
but not to have known what to do with it. Rather charac-
teristically the military members of the council, and those
closely connected with the ceremonials of the native re-
ligion, Shinto, were decidedly opposed to the acceptance of
the gift and the introduction of the new religion; they,
therefore, urged the emperor to take no chances on the anger
of the native Kami or deities, but to reject the gift outright.
Some of the civil officials of the court, on the other hand,
under the leadership of the Soga family advised the emperor
to take the more daring course and put Japan in line with
the more advanced and cultured nations of the world,
namely, Korea and China. The emperor finally decided to
"play safe," and adopted the experimental course of trying
out the image on the family that had urged its acceptance.
The bronze Buddha was accordingly intrusted to the Soga
chief, with the command that he must worship it.3³ He of
course obeyed and courageously made his house into a temple
for the new god; and the court and capital waited to see
what would happen. The experiment turned out very ill
for the Sogas and the new religion; for the first thing that
happened was a pestilence, which was of course taken as a
token of the anger of the Kami. The image was accordingly
thrown into a canal, and for twenty years nothing more
was heard of Buddhism, except near the little shrine of Shiba
Tachito (the Chinese monk), where the sound of bell and
gong and chanted prayer rose as regularly as morning and
evening.
By 572, when the emperor and all his ministers had died,
the king of Pakche made a second attempt, sending this time
to the imperial court "two hundred volumes of sacred books,
an ascetic, a yogi, a nun, a reciter of mantras, a maker of
images, and a temple architect." The Koreans were per-
Nihongi XIX. 33, 34. In Aston's trans. (London, Kegan Paul, 1896), II. 65-66.
3 Nihongi XIX. 36, Aston, II. 67.
4 Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People (London, Encyclopædia Britannica
Co.), p. 132.
SONG
460
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
mitted to build a private temple in what is now Osaka, and
other Korean missionaries soon followed. The Soga family,
still faithful to the new religion, once more took it under
their protection and built a new private temple for the new
images. They also hunted up Shiba Tachito at his shrine,
and with his assistance found one other Buddhist in Japan,
a Korean priest. Shiba Tachito now dedicated his daughter
to the holy life, and the new-found priest ordained her a
nun, with two other girls. So the religion was given a new
chance. Once more, however, the pestilence broke out and
once more the images were thrown into the canal. But as
the pestilence grew worse instead of better, the Soga family
argued that it might mean the anger not of the Kami but of
the Buddha. So the new religion was allowed to remain.
The next emperor, who ascended the throne soon after.
the end of the pestilence, was a nephew of the head of the
Soga family, and it is recorded of him that he "believed in
the law of Buddha and reverenced Shinto"; and during his
reign the new religion apparently enjoyed imperial favor and
flourished correspondingly. At the emperor's death (in the
arms of Buddhism), the opponents of the new religion led
a revolt which was put down by the combined exertions of
the Soga family and the son of the late emperor, a youth of
sixteen, whose name was destined to be one of the brightest
in all the annals of his religion and of his country, the prince
Umayado, known to history as Shotoku Taishi.
New bands of Buddhist missionaries from Korea now
followed each other into Japan and the faith of the Buddha
began to spread among the common people. The lasting
success of the new religion was made certain when, in 588,
Suiko became empress and Shotoku Taishi, her nephew, was
nominated prince imperial and regent. The prince did not
live to become emperor in his own right;" but he wielded the
power of an emperor during his life, for he and the empress
were apparently of one mind in all matters of importance.
Shotoku Taishi has been called the Constantine of Japan.
It would be more fitting so call him the Asoka. In more
ways than one he emulated (whether consciously or not)
the career of the great emperor of Magadha. He was an able
"He died in 621; the Empress Suiko, in 628.
:
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
461
administrator, a devoted servant of his country, and a re-
former of its laws; and he and the empress bent their united
efforts toward spreading the faith in which they profoundly
believed, and encouraging the rapid introduction, from
Korea and China, of the art and culture that seemed an in-
extricable part of the new religion.
It was Shotoku Taishi who built the first public Buddhist
temple in Japan. His most famous construction was the
great religious institution (one can hardly call it less) at
Horyuji. The heart of this institution was the temple which
still survives-filled today with noble art treasures produced
in the Suiko epoch or shortly after it, and some of them
said to be the work of the great prince himself. The temple
was surrounded by many other buildings, for this was not
merely a place of worship but a place of learning, a small
university for the study of Buddhist thought and the art of
music, and a place of human helpfulness as well, with a
hospital, a dispensary, and a poorhouse, where the Buddhist
ideal of universal love was put into actual practice. "The
whole foundation thus served as a focus of the Buddhist re-
ligion, morality, and art, which now became integral parts
of the national life.” 7
6
The national life, in fact, interested Prince Shotoku quite
as much as the Buddhist religion; and it was largely for the
sake of the national life that he did so much to spread and
deepen the faith of his adoption. He regarded it as a pillar
of the state and as a means for harmonizing and unifying the
social life of the people. It is important to realize this fact.
Even in its earliest days in Japan Buddhism was regarded by
the leading men who adopted and taught it, not as a religion
for the lonely individual, or at least not only for him, but as
a religion possessed of great potentialities for social solidar-
ity. It was for this reason that the second article of the
famous "Seventeen Article Constitution" which Shotoku
Taishi promulgated, begins thus: "Reverence sincerely the
Three Treasures. The Three Treasures-viz., the Buddha,
the Law, the Order-are the final refuge for all generated
"Dedicated to the Shi-Tenno, or Four Guardian Kings. It was built in 587, in the
province of Settu. See Brinkley, pp. 137-38, and the Nihongi, Aston's trans., II. 123.
7 Anesaki, Buddhist Art (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1915), p. 21.
462
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
beings, and the supreme objects of faith in all countries.” 8
It is significant that of the three Buddhist works on which
Shotoku Taishi wrote commentaries, one was the Vimalakirti
Sutra, the whole aim of which is to praise the helpful active
life, not of the monk, but of the devoted layman.
9
It is not surprising that with the stimulus given by the
Empress Suiko and her able regent Buddhism grew with
rapidity, and that before her death there were forty-six
Buddhist temples in the land, eight hundred and sixteen
monks, and five hundred and sixty-nine nuns.10 Additional
reinforcements continued to stream in from Korea during
the years that followed Suiko, many Buddhists also came
from China, and at least one noted Buddhist saint from India.
This man is known by the Japanese name Hodo. He is said
to have healed the Emperor Kotoku in 645, and to have
preached among the people with great success.11 The ex-
ample of Suiko and Shotoku Taishi was emulated by many
of the monarchs that followed the Suiko era, and particu-
larly by the ladies who occupied the imperial throne. This
was the beginning of an age of temple building quite com-
parable to the eleventh and twelfth centuries in western
Europe.
The reasons for the rapid spread of Buddhism during this
period were numerous, for the new religion appealed to vari-
ous parts of human nature, some of them lofty, some de-
cidedly commonplace.
To Shotoku Taishi Buddhism was evidently a religion of the rational
moral sense-a religion not only of obligation or of fear but of gratitude
for the receipt of blessings, if not unsought for at least undeserved. But
to most of his contemporaries, Buddhism was simply a splendidly easy
device for obtaining temporal and perhaps everlasting prosperity, for
dodging the Devil or Devils, and escaping the pains and penalties of the
various Hells. Buddhism made its appeal to the ignorant vulgar by
its magicians and exorcists, by its living saints in the flesh who were
supposed to possess strong court interest with the dignitaries of the
ghostly world, by the gorgeousness of its temples and the solemn pomp
of its ritual observances. Yet in spite of all this it held in its embrace
•
Nihongi, Aston's trans., II. 129.
The reader may recall the long quotation from this Sutra toward the close of
Chapter XI.
10 Brinkley, p. 144.
11 See Takakusa, "What Japan Owes to India," The Young East, I. 74-75.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
463
higher and loftier elements that could do, and did do, much for the
culture and civilization of Japan.12
13
It seems probable that during the period following Sho-
toku Taishi Buddhism gained not only in extension but in
depth. The school of Buddhist philosophy founded by the
great prince for the education of an intelligent priesthood,
together with the advent of large numbers of Korean and
Chinese scholars, can hardly have failed to have an influence.
Some evidence of the same conclusion would seem to be
furnished by art. There are at Horyuji two small bronze
Buddhist trinities, both from this early period but one of
them produced about sixty years after the other. A com-
parison of the two shows, as Fenellosa has pointed out,¹³ a
marked superiority of the later over the earlier work in
spiritual expression and religious value. This means chiefly,
of course, a gain in technical skill; but it suggests also a
deepening influence of the religious ideal within the spirit of
the artist. This finer side of Buddhism speaks out especially
in the many images of the Bodhisattvas, the visible mani-
festations of the Buddhist virtues-Kwannon personifying
mercy, and Jizo also quite as loving, Monju typifying wis-
dom, Bisjaimon courage, and others like them. "The simple
attitude of the Suiko and Nara congregations," writes Fen-
ellosa, "may be said to have regarded these virtues and graces
not as ethical abstractions in their souls, but as living and
gracious spiritual presences, with just personality enough
to pray to. It is the idyllic deification of all the good in
man and society." 14
The rapid importation of ideas and arts from China,
now at the height of its military power and of its artistic
achievement under the early T'ang dynasty, had an immense
effect upon young Japan. In 709 the Emperor Shomu made
Nara his capital, and the city developed rapidly into a large
metropolis embellished with the new culture and devoted to
the new religion. Not content with building temples, this
devout Buddhist monarch resolved to outdo all his prede-
12
James Murdoch: A History of Japan, I (Yokahama, Kelly & Walsh, 1910),
pp. 174-75.
13
Op. cit., I. 69.
14 Op. cit., I. 107.
464
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
cessors by building a stupendous image of the Buddha Vair-
ocana (known by the Japanese as Dainichi). This immense
figure-the largest bronze statue in existence-was paid for
in part out of the emperor's treasury,15 in part out of volun-
tary contributions from large numbers of enthusiastic Bud-
dhists of all classes. Before the completion of the work the
emperor abdicated to become a Buddhist monk.
The Dai Butsu, as the great image is called, was only the
most striking of innumerable expressions of Buddhist zeal
during the Nara period. Several large temples were founded
at the capital, and the provinces did not remain far behind.
Twenty years or more before the beginning of the Nara
epoch an imperial rescript had ordained that every house-
hold in the land should provide itself with a Buddhist shrine
and place in it a Buddhist image. This did not mean an
attack upon Shinto, for the emperors themselves were usu-
ally-in one sense always-pious Shintoists and all their sub-
jects were expected to be the same. There was some dogged
and passive opposition to Buddhism on the part of some of
the conservative members of society, but apparently until
the nineteenth century there was very little open antagonism
between Buddhism and Shinto such as prevailed so frequently
at the Chinese Court between Buddhism, Taoism, and Con-
fucianism. The loyal Shinto sovereigns of Japan, who be-
lieved themselves lineally descended from the Sun Goddess,
and counted many of the other great Shinto deities as blood
relatives, thought it in no wise inconsistent both to build Bud-
dhist temples and to carry on ardent works of Buddhist
propaganda. As early as 695 Buddhist missionaries were
sent under imperial sanction to the distant island of Yezo
where many converts were made; and at the same time an
imperial decree directed "that a certain Sutra should be read
during the first month of every year in each province."
chudai
C
During Mommu's time (697-707) Buddhist hierarchs were appointed
to the provinces. Their chief functions were to expound the Sutra and
offer prayers. The devout Shomu not only distributed numerous copies
of Sutras, but also carried his zeal to the length of commanding that
15 The wealth of a great and growing empire had literally been cast by Shoumu
into this proud creation of a colossus. For it special taxes from provinces a thousand
miles away and recently wrested from the Ainus, and stores of copper and gold from
Japan and Corea had been amassed in monasteries." Fencllosa, I. 110.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
465
every province should erect a sixteen-foot image of Shaka (Sakyamuni)
with attendant Bosatsu (Bodhisattvas) and, a few years later, he issued
another command that each province must provide itself with a pagoda
seven stories high. By this last rescript the provincial temples were
called into existence and presently their number was increased to two
in each province, one for priests and one for nuns. The kokushi attached
to these temples labored in the cause of propagandism and religious edu-
cation side by side with the provincial pundits whose duty it was to
instruct the people in law and literature; but it is on record that the
results of the former's labors were much more conspicuous than those
of the latter.10
As I have said, this elaborate propaganda of Buddhism
was not regarded as in any way an attack upon Shinto: for
the very good reason that it really was not an attack upon
Shinto. This lack of destructive animus against other re-
ligions is regularly one of the distinctive marks by which
Buddhist missionary work is differentiated from the work
of Christian and Moslem missionaries. The Christian-Mos-
lem view has usually been (it is not universally so any
longer) that destruction must precede construction, or at
any rate that the two must go hand in hand. The Buddhist
aim has usually been to do no destroying and to put all the
emphasis on the constructive and positive side. Hence Bud-
dhism was quite generally accepted in Japan from the first
as an additional insight, and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
were simply united with the native Kami as proper and help-
ful objects of reverence or worship. Shinto shrines and
Buddhist temples were spoken of in one breath as forming
a kind of religious unity-the "ji-sha" or "temple-shrines."
In some, and probably in many places, the two religions
(which were not recognized as two religions in our sense)
tended to merge within the same sacred precinct. Prac-
tically speaking, this was the beginning of Ryobu Shinto,
or the mixed Shinto, which was destined to be the religion
of the masses of Japan for so many centuries.17
A further step toward the amalgamation of the two re-
ligions was taken in the reign of the devout Shomu-the
imperial descendant of the Sun Goddess who inaugurated the
immense image of the Buddha at Nara, and then became a
16 Brinkley, op. cit., pp. 194-95.
17 Cf. Brinkley, p. 195.
466
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Buddhist monk. This further step was taken under the
guidance of a great Buddhist preacher of the day, Gyogi
by name. It is said that before beginning the work of con-
struction on the Dai Butsu the emperor Shomu, uncertain
how the native Kami would feel toward so great an honor
being paid to Vairocana, sent Gyogi to the shrine of the Sun
Goddess at Ise to inquire what was her good pleasure. Gyogi
returned bearing an answer that was not only favorable to-
ward the particular task, but which went much further and
declared that the Buddha Vairocana (Dainichi) was none
other than her own very self. This identification of the
emperor's favorite Buddha with the divine ancestress of the
imperial house and head of the Shinto pantheon was as
natural and logical as it was effective. For Vairocana is the
Buddha of the central sun, and hence to a liberal religious
mind was rather obviously not other than a new name for
the Sun Goddess. We need not, therefore, ascribe this identi-
fication to astute political insight on the part of Gyogi as
if he were a clever schemer and had devised a subtle method
for advancing his own religion. It is enough to say he was a
Buddhist: that he shared the almost universal disregard of
mere names which Buddhism has shown in every land, its
universal willingness to see the truth under many
different forms, and to accept the symbols of other
religions as fitting and admirable provided the un-
derlying significance be really valid. The Sun God-
dess was for Gyogi a Japanese name or symbol for the Reality
in which he believed, and I think it probable that he was
convinced the Ise shrine really gave, or at any rate meant,
the answer he brought back to his imperial master. It is
recorded that the emperor, a few nights later, had a con-
firmatory dream in which the Sun Goddess appeared to him
and again identified herself with Vairocana. This was the
beginning of the theoretical side of Ryobu Shinto, which
eventually resulted in the identification of the Kami with the
members of the Buddhist cycle.
T
K
This identification, however, showed only its faint be-
ginnings in this early age. As yet, for the most part, the
Shinto deities were conceived as holding the same relation
to the Buddha as that attributed in the Mahayana Sutras to
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
467
the ancient Hindu gods of India. They were attendants,
guardians, worshipers, hearers, but by no means identified
with the Buddha and his glorious Bodhisattvas. Apparently
it did not enter the heads of the Kami at this time that they
could aspire to anything so sublime as Buddhahood. Two
very early cases are reported of Kami expressing their de-
sire to receive Buddhist instruction, so that they might hope
for ultimate salvation-they were tired of being merely
gods.18 It was not until the Fujiwara and Kamakura periods
that the identification of the Kami with the Buddhas became
explicit and general.¹9
This relationship of friendliness between Shinto and Bud-
dhism of course made the spread of the new religion im-
mensely more easy. Nor was it merely new names for old
deities and new forms of ecclesiastical art that the Buddhist
missionaries carried with them. It was new ideas, new as-
pirations, new insights, and a new attitude of justified sym-
pathy for all one's fellow creatures. Not that the Buddhism
preached in Japan laid its emphasis on moral questions to
anything like the extent to which the Founder had laid it.
From the moral point of view the Mahayana as at first taught
in Japan was inferior to the early Hinayana and inferior
also to the form of Confucianism which was being intro-
duced into Japan at almost the same time as Buddhism.20
The emphasis sometimes laid upon mere externals of an al-
most magical sort-entirely out of keeping with the origi-
nal teachings of the Founder-is seen in the fact that the first
printing in Japan consisted of a million charms, in Chinese
characters transliterating Sanskrit sounds, made by the order
of the pious empress Shotoku in 770-she having read in a
Buddhist Sutra that whoso made a certain number of these
charms and placed each in a pagoda should secure long life
and forgiveness of sin.21 Yet moral emphasis was by no
G
-
18
See Coates and Ishizuka, Honen Shonin, the Buddhist Saint (Kyoto, Chionin, 1925),
pp. 17-19.
10 Idem, scc pp. 13-14, 33.
20
Cf. S. L. Gulick, The Evolution of the Japanese (N. Y., Revell), p. 269.
21 See Carter, The Invention of Printing in China, Chap. VII. While this use of
charms by early Japanese Buddhists indicates a most unintelligent and even superstitious
attitude, we should remember that this attitude is common to large numbers of the
pious followers of every religion. It is interesting to note that the earliest extant
468
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
means wholly absent in early Japanese Buddhism, and while
one hears nothing of the Four Noble Truths, the ideal of
universal sympathy went with the Buddhist propaganda, as
it always has. And it went not only in theory but in prac-
tice. Not only were temples built, but educational, medical,
and other philanthropic and humanitarian institutions were
founded. Physicians as well as preachers were sent about.
The empress Komyo, during the Nara period, founded (un-
der Buddhist influence) one of the first leper hospitals in the
world. It is said that as an example to her people and in
order to dispel their terror of leprosy and abhorrence of
those suffering from it, she bathed a leprous woman and
ministered to her; whereupon the Buddha himself appeared
and gave the empress his blessing.22 In addition to their
labors of propaganda and helpfulness, the Buddhist leaders
were also frequently foremost in the dissemination of Chi-
nese and Korean applied science. They built bridges and
ferries, harbors and roads.
G
Among the various industries introduced into Japan by the religious
fervor [of Buddhism] [writes Count Okuma] the following may be
mentioned: the carving of images, building of temples, painting and the
manufacture of tiles, concrete, lacquered and earthen wares, woven
goods, embroideries, paper, ink, and dyeing materials. It was also
through Buddhism that calendars, music and useful plants were brought
into the country, and by means of their philanthropic work medical art
was improved, schools and orphan asylums built, and hot springs dis-
covered. . . . From this array of facts we can safely conclude that the
civilization peculiar to Japan and existing before the Restoration un-
doubtedly had its source in Buddhism.23
Christian missionaries are not only Christian: they are
also Protestant or Catholic-Congregational, Presbyterian,
Methodist, Baptist, or members of some other denomination
-and inevitably, after the first large foundation of the
European block print (other than playing cards) is an image of St. Christopher with
the inscription:
"In whatsoever day thou seest the likeness
of St. Christopher,
In that same day thou wilt from death no
evil blow incur."
This print was made in 1423, some six and a half centuries after the Empress Shotoku's
quite similar charms. See Carter, op. cit., Chap. XXI.
22 From an article by W. M. Dannor in the Seoul Press for Dec. 16, 1925.
23
Fifty Years of New Japan (London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1910), pp. 71-72.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
469
Christian church in the new lands are laid, they teach the
form of Christianity which their own denominations stand
for. The same thing had to be true of Buddhist propaganda
in Japan. The first Korean and Chinese missionaries had
preached Buddhism in general; but after a start was made
and native monks had to be instructed in the philosophy of
the new religion each missionary necessarily taught that of
the sect to which he belonged. Thus it came about that
before the end of the Nara period six of the Buddhist sects
of China had established themselves in Japan. Three of these
six no longer exist in Japan, so I shall not trouble the reader
with their names.24 The three that still continue were the
Hosso (Dharma-lakshana, or Tsu-en tsung of China), the
first of all the Chinese sects to reach Japan (it came about
650); the Kegon (the Hua-yen tsung of China) which ar-
rived in 736; and the Ritsu (the Vinaya or Lu tsung of
China) which was the last of the six sects to reach Japan (in
754). All three of these survivors of the early six are at
present in a moribund condition. In fact, the Ritsu shu is
sometimes said to have disappeared long ago. I found it
still existing, however, or at least claiming to exist in the
Nibudera temple in Kyoto and claiming to have its head-
quarters still at Nara.25 If not actually deceased it might
almost as well be if one can judge by its present condition.
And while Hosso and Kegon are decidedly stronger than
Ritsu, they have but few temples and few monks and little
direct influence on the laity. In the eighth century, how-
ever, these with the three other sects long since disappeared,
known conjointly as the six Nara sects, were a great power
in the land. Their monastic establishments were enormously
wealthy, their monks numerous, and their influence extended
not only throughout matters religious but into politics as
24 For the reader who reads footnotes I shall here append the names of the three dead
sects, and the dates of their arrival in Japan:
Sanron (Madhyamika) 625
Jojitsu (Satya-siddhi-sastra) 625
Kusha (Abhidharma-kosa-sastra) 658
Both the Jojitsu and the Kusha are regularly spoken of by Japanese and Western students
of Japanese Buddhism as Hinayana sects. They were not Hinayana in the sense of this
volume, and in fact I think it very doubtful if the Indian Hinayana has ever had a
footing in Japan. A list of all the principal sects of Japan with the names of their
founders and their dates will be found in a note on page 519.
25 In the To-sho-dai-ji.
470
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
well. It is said to have been partly on account of the ham-
pering influence of the monks of these great orders that in
784 the Emperor Kwammu decided to change the site of his
capital. A new capital city was built on the site now known
as Kyoto, and in 794 the court took up its headquarters
there. From one of the names early given to the city,
Heian-jo (castle of peace), the next period of Japanese his-
tory (794-1192) is usually referred to as the Heian epoch.
In advance of the emperor came the monk. Not quite
that either: for young Saicho had not as yet taken holy
orders. He was a deeply religious youth, this Saicho, who
was destined to have so large a share in shaping the religious
history of his country. The externalism and political med-
dling, as well as the philosophy of the Nara monks-particu-
larly of the Hosso monks-displeased him, and in order to
deepen his religious life, instead of entering one of the mon-
asteries of the capital, he left Nara and built himself a her-
mit's hut on the side of Hiei-san, the mountain that looks
down upon the valley of Kyoto from the east. Whoever
has tramped over its broad shoulders or climbed its twin
peaks and roamed through its forests of giant cryptomerias
and graceful bamboo, must almost envy the young hermit
and wish for at least one look through his eyes upon the
scene that lay before him when the forest paths were almost
untouched by human feet, when Kyoto was not yet begun
and the mountain dreamed across the green valley to Nishi-
yama on the west and gazed on the east upon the blue waters
of Lake Biwa, perhaps still surrounded by virgin forests. It
was in his nineteenth year that Saicho, or Dengyo Daishi
(to use the name by which he is best known to history) be-
gan his solitary vigils on Mount Hiei. Here he stayed for
some years. In 788 he built a small Buddhist temple on the
mountain 26 and divided his time between serving in the
temple, watching the new city come into being in the valley
below him, and studying a new form of Buddhist doctrine
which a few Chinese missionaries had recently introduced
into Japan, the famous T'ien-t'ai doctrines, now at the
height of their influence in China. Meanwhile the fame of
Goth
GA
GOOG
This became the great mother monastery of the Tendai Order, under the name
Enriaku-ji.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM 471
the young hermit's sanctity was spreading, and the emperor
Kwammu, who apparently had known of the little temple
on Hiei-san and may even have encouraged its construction,
came to feel that Dengyo was just the man he wanted to give
the new capital and the new venture in government the
kind of religious assistance that it needed. The two men
seem to have understood each other and cooperated in the
task of establishing the imperial government on a firmer
basis, away from the influence of meddling, worldly monks,
and of renewing Buddhism on a more spiritual level. When
the capital was moved from Nara to Kyoto, in 794, Dengyo
was chosen as the celebrant of the high mass at which the
emperor was present.27 The emperor also sent him about
preaching the new doctrines of T'ien t'ai and expounding
the truths of the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra-the "Lotus
Gospel"-on which the new sect was so largely founded.
But Dengyo felt his knowledge of the great subject insuf-
ficient and he longed to complete his studies by going to the
fountain-head-the monastery of T'ien-t'ai itself, in dis-
tant China. He wished also to get ecclesiastical authority
from the sect in China to found it in Japan, for as yet the
sect had no official representatives in the island-like others
of his time and of every time he felt the value of apostolic
succession. At this period the culture of the T'ang dynasty
was still flowing rapidly into Japan, and the emperor was no
less eager to learn from China than was the monk. His
new capital in fact was being laid out in imitation of
Ch'ang-an. So in 802 he sent Dengyo to the T'ang capital,
in the train of the Japanese ambassador.28 This middle
period of the T'ang, it will be recalled, was one of great in-
tellectual and spiritual activity in Chinese Buddhism. Ar-
rived in China, Dengyo went at once to the famous mother
monastery of the sect of his choice on the T'ien-t'ai moun-
tain in Chekiang. After a few years of study here, he re-
turned, rich in new ideas and experiences and with many vol-
umes of Buddhist lore, and, perhaps most important of all,
the longed-for ecclesiastical authority from the mother sect
in China.
"Cf. Arthur Lloyd, The Creed of Half Japan (London, Elder, 1911), p. 230.
29 Brinkley, p. 228.
-
472
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Thus Dengyo Daishi became the founder of the Japanese
sect of Tendai-the Tendai shu (shu means sect or denom-
ination). The philosophy taught by this school of Buddhism
will be discussed in a later chapter. Here it will be suf-
ficient to point out its two leading ideas-namely, the liberal
view that all the varied forms of all the Buddhist schools were
merely symbolic ways of expressing the same truth, and the
more specific doctrine that the heart of Buddhism was to be
found in the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra and its teaching
that the Buddha nature is in all men. It was on this point
particularly that Dengyo attacked the Hosso monks of Nara
who taught that only a limited few could ever become Bud-
dha, and that most men were forever excluded from Bud-
dhahood.29 All men, Dengyo taught, were potentially Bod-
hisattvas-or Bosatsus, as the name is called by the Japanese
--and the members of the new, or transplanted, Order were
expected to act as such. Their first duty was devotion to the
community, and in the early days the Tendai monks seem
to have been earnest servants of the state and eloquent popu-
lar preachers of the Buddhist religion.30 The influence of the
sect throughout Japanese history (both ecclesiastical and po-
litical) has been enormous. Out of it have come, directly or
indirectly, nearly all the later sects of native origin. And
the philosophy of the Tendai and Kegon combined (they are
on fundamentals almost one) may be called the very keel of
all serious Buddhist thinking in Japan.
Two years after Dengyo Daishi went to China to com-
plete his studies, a friend of his, several years his junior, fol-
lowed him on a similar errand. This was Kukai, better
known to history as Kobo Daishi. Stories are told about
his childhood similar to those our Christian Middle Ages
loved to tell about great Christian saints and mystics: his
childhood piety, his exhaustless devotion, his precocious in-
tuition. Certainly he was one of the greatest minds and
one of the greatest men Japan has produced. His chief phil-
osophical work he composed at the age of twenty—a treatise
in dialogue form, presenting the arguments of a Buddhist, a
pa
GRAN
20
See Bruno Petzold, "Dengyo Daishi and German Theology," in the Eastern Bud-
dhist, II. 352.
30 Petzold, op. cit., pp. 353-55.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
473
Confucian, and a Shintoist,31 and showing in the end that
only a doctrine founded on universal truths such as the
Mahayana can form a trustworthy religion.32 In China he
studied especially the teachings of the Chen-yen, or True
Word, sect, which in Japan is known as Shingon. This sect,
it will be recalled, had been brought to China from India
in 720. Its fourth Chinese patriarch, Hui Kuo by name,
was living at this time, and he received young Kukai and
saw at once the promise of his mind. Tradition says that
when the patriarch first saw the young Japanese he said to
him, "I have been waiting for you a long time," and that
at the end of four months' instruction he gave him ordina-
tion, and commissioned him to spread the esoteric doctrine
of the True Word in Japan.33 In its philosophy Shingon
is very nearly in agreement with Tendai, though differing
in details. To be exact, its philosophy is nearer to that of
Kegon than to that of Tendai. But its distinguishing char-
acter is to be found in its elaborate use of outward and
visible signs, among the ignorant approaching almost to the
magical, and in the detail and beauty of its ritual. It is
sometimes called the high church of Japanese Buddhism.
For many years after his return to his native land Kobo
Daishi devoted himself almost entirely to missionary jour-
neys, especially in the uncivilized north. He preached every-
where the Shingon version of the central Mahayana truth
which Dengyo Daishi was also preaching in the Tendai
fashion-the essential unity of all men with the Buddha.
Like Dengyo Daishi, Kobo felt it necessary to hand on his
teachings in a regularly ordained order of monks. For a
suitable site for the mother monastery and temple of his new
order he searched (under supernatural guidance, says tradi-
tion) 34 and finally decided upon the lofty summit of Mount
K
Glady
81
Or Taoist, as is sometimes said. The Japanese on first learning of Taoism seem to
have regarded it as equivalent to their native Shinto.
32
See the address of Prof. Tomeri Tanimoto of the Imperial University of Kyoto, on
the occasion of the 1134th anniversary of the birth of Kobo Daishi, published in pam-
phlet form by the Japanese Chronicle of Kobe, in 1907.
33
Ryanon Fujishima, Le Buddhisme Japonais (Paris, Maisonneuve, 1889), p. 81.
84 Just before embarking from China on his return home, "standing on the sea-beach
he threw his vajra [a bronze instrument used in the Shingon ritual] toward Japan,"
It disappeared from view in the distance. After reaching his native land, while search-
ing for a suitable site for his temple among the mountains of Kii province, "two dogs,
one white and one black, and a hunter came to show him the way, and brought him
474
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Koya, covered with a silent forest of cryptomerias. Here,
far from Kyoto and its court, far from Nara and its polit-
ically-minded monks, he founded his first temple and his
little hermitage. Later on, the emperor, feeling the need
of this new form of really spiritual religion and its great
leader within the capital, induced him to come to Kyoto for
a few years and inaugurate a great Shingon temple there.
This temple, Todai-ji by name, the emperor built for the
saint. Here,
Here, and on further missionary journeys, Kobo
Daishi led an active and useful life, devoting himself not only
to the spreading of his form of Buddhism but to the ex-
tension of learning, art, and applied science.
It was the united influence of Dengyo Daishi and Kobo
Daishi that produced the completed form of Ryobu Shinto
-the amalgamation of Shinto with Buddhism through the
(theoretical) identification of many of the greater Kami
with the Buddhas. This conception was a natural outgrowth
of the Tendai and Shingon philosophies, with their insistence
upon identity, their denial of ultimate separateness, and their
monistic idealism. The marriage of the two religions was in
many ways unfortunate for Buddhism.35 It enabled it to
make rapid strides at first, and to take nearly all the inhabi-
tants of Japan into its fold; but it made this gain only at
the price of losing much of its distinctive character. The
results have not been so evil as were the results of the partial
union of Buddhism with Taoism in China-although the
Japanese union was for a long time much more complete
than the Chinese-because of the superiority of Shinto to
the degraded form of later Taoism. Shinto is lacking in
profundity, but it has a certain charm, and especially the
nature side of it has retained much of that ancient beauty
to a place where there had once been the shrine of an ancient Buddha." This place
was Mt. Koya, and the god of the mountain appeared to him and "offered him that
place until the coming of Maitreya, in order that the land might be blessed." Thereupon
the saint found his vajra, lodged in a pine tree, where it had been ever since he threw
it across the sea from the shores of China. This was another sign that Koya-san was
the place for his mountain monastery. If one doubts the story one can still see on the
summit of the mountain the very tree in which the vajra was found! (The sentences
quoted in this note I have taken from the Namu-daishi, a Japanese poem on the life of
Kobo Daishi, trans. by Arthur Lloyd as Chap. XXI of his The Creed of Half Japan.)
And in some ways fortunate for Shinto. Dr. Kato points out that Buddhism did
much to deepen Shinto, making it moral and spiritual, A Study of Shinto (Tokyo,
Meiji Society, 1926), p. 182.
30
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
475
that the poets have found in Hellenic Paganism. Most of
us, I suspect, feel now and then a certain wistfulness in
looking back at the nature-worship of the ancients, at the
times when every spring had its nymph, and every wood its
satyr. Our modern western religion has become so largely
a matter of moral acivity for social betterment that in mo-
ments of weariness or relaxation we feel with Wordsworth
that "the world is too much with us," and almost wish our-
selves pagans once more,
Suckled in a creed outworn.
O ye mountains and little hills,
bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him forever.
O ye fountains, bless ye the Lord:
praise him and magnify him forever.
O ye seas and rivers, bless ye the Lord:
praise him and magnify him forever.
-
Now Shinto is the last remnant among a civilized people,
in our scientific and sophisticated age, of the common pagan-
ism of the ancient world. For it the earth and the fulness
thereof is still effulgent with deity. For it the fountains are
mysterious and the waterfalls doubtless the haunts of the
Kami. In a Shinto shrine, by the side of some torrent or on
some mountain side, one feels like singing the Song of the
Holy Children:
In nature worship such as that of Shinto the poet and the
philosopher can gladly join. And the attitude of the great
Japanese thinkers who adopted Shinto into Buddhism was
that of the philosopher and the poet. In this simple worship
of their fellow countrymen these pantheistic mystics recog-
nized a simple and symbolic way of expressing a great truth.
Yes, they said in effect, the Shinto view of Nature is true.
There is a divinity in mountains and streams; all these are
shadowings forth of the One divine nature in a million
forms. It is the truth, though put in children's language.
Therefore let us not deny it, not destroy it, not oppose it;
but adopt it.
Of course it was not in this philosophic sense that the rank
and file of Japanese Buddhists adopted Shinto. For them-
and at times even for Kobo Daishi himself-the Shinto Kami
476
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
were very much more than names or symbols for a deeper
reality. Within this phenomenal world they were as real as
they ever had been. Even the War God Hachiman (a most
unBuddhistic figure) had been admitted to the great Todai-ji
temple in Nara in 749; before long he was recognized as a
Bodhisattva,36 but a Bodhisattva of surely a peculiar sort, and
one that hardly added greatly to the ethical value of Bud-
dhism. In spite, therefore, of the poetic beauty of many
Shinto shrines, I cannot but feel that the amalgamation of
the two religions was a loss to Buddhism, and that in bring-
ing it about Kobo Daishi did rather more harm than good to
the faith of Shaka.
-
In matters of art Kobo's influence was of less ambiguous
value. Like Shotoku Taishi he was a sculptor of preeminent
ability. It was he who introduced into Japan the conven-
tional iconographic forms for the representation of the vari-
ous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.37 He was also a master of
chirography, a great grammarian and linguist, and something
of a poet. He is said to have been the first to introduce a
knowledge of Sanskrit in Japan; 38 and the invention of one
of the phonetic syllabaries, by which writing has been made
so much simpler for the Japanese than it is for the Chinese,
is usually attributed to him. Besides all this he planned roads
and bridges, promoted the newly introduced culture of the
silkworm, and founded a great school in connection with his
Kyoto temple, the first school in Japan for giving common
education to the children of the masses. With all his active
tendencies and practical powers, the mystic in him was
strong; and when old age approached he left his great temple
80 Coates and Ishizuka, Honen, pp. 16, 23.
87 According to Prof. Tanimoto, op. cit.
88 According to Professor Tanimoto. This, however, is far from certain.
There is pretty good evidence that, in the reign of the Emperor Shomu (who made
Nara the capital and inaugurated the Dai Butsu), an Indian Buddhist monk named
Bodhi-Sena was living in Nara, and that he was a friend and colleague of the famous
Gyogi. It is said that he taught Sanskrit to the Nara monks. (See Takakusa, "What
Japan Owes to India," Young East, I. 107-108.) It is quite likely, however, that Kobo
Daishi had a good deal to do in spreading Sanskrit in Japan and quite possible also
that he reintroduced it. His influence in turning the thoughts of Japanese Buddhists
not only to China, but to India may be indicated by the belief that Kongo Sammai,
the first Japanese Buddhist to make a pilgrimage to India (in 818) was a disciple of
Kobo Daishi, and by the fact that the second Japanese to start on a pilgrimage to
India was
a Shingon monk who had studied on Koya-san. This was the Imperial
Prince Takaoka. Unfortunately he died on his way to India, somewhere in the Malay
Peninsula. See Takakusa, op. cit., pp. 37-39.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
477
in the city and retired to his remote mountain sanctuary on
the summit of Koya, where in 835, surrounded by his monks
and his silent forests, he died, and where his followers be-
lieve he is still sitting in his tomb, waiting, like Mahakassapa
in India, for the joyous coming of Maitreya.
Both Dengyo Daishi and Kobo Daishi, we have seen,
eagerly cooperated with the emperor in the spread of the
new civilization and in support of the government. Once
before in this chapter I have referred to the great contrast
between Japanese Buddhism and the early Indian Hinayana
in this matter of social cooperation and the effort not to
escape from the world but to make this world a better place
to live in. Buddhism did not cease in Japan to be a religion
for the spiritual cultivation of the individual, but it became
also a religion for the elevation of the social life of man.
This was the logical outcome of the Mahayana Bodhisattva
ideal, and of the fundamental conception that one nature
exists in all men. While this interest in society and in the
life of the world is doubtless a source of strength in a religion,
it is a source of danger also, as both the history of Christian
and the history of Buddhist monasticism sadly show. The
great Tendai monasteries in Hiei-san and Lake Biwa, the
great Shingon monasteries at Kyoto and on Koya-san rap-
idly grew into centers of immense wealth and power; and
in the centuries that followed began to mix in politics in
the worldly fashion that had characterized the Nara sects in
the earlier period-and, for that matter, still continued to
characterize them. It was not only in politics that these
great monasteries began to mingle, but in actual war. Many
a temple became a fortress, and three of them in particular 39
came to be centers of armies of ruffians and professional
soldiers, employed by the monks to enforce the interests of
the sect. At times the monks themselves did not hesitate to
violate the whole spirit of their religion to the extent of tak-
ing arms in their own hands and joining in battle and in
plunder. Some of them had wives, built houses, cultivated
lands.40 They often controlled the policies of the court, and
99
Enryakuji on Hiei-san, Miidera on Lake Biwa, and Kofukuji at Nara.
40
Cf. the memorial presented by Myoshi Kiyotsura to the emperor in 914. See
Brinkley, p. 245.
478
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
through their influence superstitious and prodigal emperors
wasted the wealth of the land, wrung from the populace by
heavy taxes, upon thousands of superfluous temples, images,
pictures, and pagodas.41
The state of the laity seems not to have been much better
than that of the clergy. Not that they were losing their
faith in Buddhism-far from it. Never had its temples been
more crowded, never had its ceremonies been more magni-
ficent. But the trust of the people was in its ceremonies and
in various external practices not far removed from super-
stition, and the noble moral and spiritual sides of the re-
ligion were being largely forgotten.12 Though the period
was filled with enthusiastic reverence for the Buddhas and
their train, it marks one of the lowest levels to which Japanese
Buddhism has ever sunk. But it seems to have possessed one
element of promise, namely a deep longing for something
better.
G
It must not be supposed that all the monks were poli-
ticians and soldiers or all the laymen superstitious worldlings
during these degenerate days of the later Heian epoch. In
the Tendai school of philosophy connected with the great
monastery in Hiei-san there were many devout as well as
learned scholars; and in the subordinate sanctuaries and cells
that covered both sides of the mountain there were still a
few-and perhaps more than a few-earnest souls in whom
the old spirituality still burned with all its former intensity.
Men such as these felt great dissatisfaction with the degen-
erate condition of Buddhism in their day. Particularly did
they feel the need of some simpler form of religion than was
provided by the philosophy of Tendai and the Nara sects
or by the elaborate ritualism of the Shingon. It was natural
that this feeling should turn their thoughts toward the
simple teachings of Pure Land Buddhism and the worship
of Amida. A learned Tendai monk and teacher on Hiei-san,
Genshin by name, did much to make this form of Buddhism
41 The ex-emperor Shirakawa, who, though he had retired (in 1086) from office and
taken the tonsure, still continued to wield the imperial power, ordered the construction
of 21 large pagodas, 446,630 small ones, 6080 images, 5470 Buddhist pictures, and 127
statues, each 16 feet high; he also forbade the taking of animal life, and to enforce
his edict had 8000 fish nets destroyed, which involved suffering upon thousands of
families who depended on fishing for a living.
42
Cf. Coates and Ishizuka, Honen, Hist. Introd., Chap. II.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
479
-as yet quite ill-defined in Japan-into a specific doctrine.
He did not attempt to establish a new sect, and remained
within the Tendai fold to his death; but his influence had
much to do with the formation of the new sects that began
to spring up in the next generation. Another student in the
Tendai university (if so we may call it) on Mount Hiei,
whose name was Ryonin (1072-1132) and who, largely
through Genshin's influence, had come to a view similar to
his, was convinced that the new and simpler way of salvation
through the grace of Amida needed a new and simpler church
for its propagation. Hence he founded the first native Bud-
dhist sect in Japan-the Yutsu Nembutsu shu (shu, it will be
recalled, is the word for sect or denomination). The name
means "Society for Mutual Benefit through the Nembutsu.”
Nembutsu is the name for the great Pure Land prayer or
meditation formula, "Namu Amida Butsu," which, under
the form "Namu O-mi-to Fo," we have seen so popular in
China. It means, of course, "adoration to Amida Buddha,”
and it is also considered a name of Amida. Ryonin had been
greatly impressed by the famous vow of Amida, recorded
in the Larger Sukhavati Vyuha, in which He promises that
all shall be saved who with faith repeat his name. Hence he
taught that neither knowledge nor works was needed for sal-
vation, but simply the repetition of the Nembutsu, with a
heart concentrated upon Amida. He himself made a prac-
tice of repeating it some 60,000 times a day.
The Yutsu Nembutsu shu is still in existence. But it is
small and has never had any great influence. Pure Land
Buddhism became really important in Japan only through
Honen Shonin and the Jodo shu which he founded in 1175.43
Like so many of the other pious and promising Japanese
lads who afterward became religious leaders, he was sent from
his native village to study Tendai Buddhism at the great
Hiei-san school.44 The Tendai doctrines, however, did not
fully satisfy him. We have, fortunately, his own account
Glob
43 According to Suzuki the Yutsu Nembutsu sect can hardly be classed as a Pure
Land sect in the full sense of the word as it is based on the Atavamsaka Sutra, Eastern
Buddhist, III. 288.
-11
He was a boy of such promise that the monk who had been his teacher sent with
him to the university the message, "I am sending you a little Manjusri" (Coates and
Ishizuka, Honen, p. 125).
480
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of his conversion to a simpler and more evangelical
faith.
Having a deep desire to obtain salvation and with faith in the teach-
ing of the various scriptures, I practiced many forms of self discipline.
. . . But the fact is I do not keep even the precepts, nor do I attain to
any one of the many forms of meditation. Unless one get free from
obtain deliverance from the
What shall I do?
What shall I do? What shall
practice the three disciplines
evil conduct and evil passion how shall he
bondage of birth and death? Alas! alas!
I do? The like of us are incompetent to
of the precepts, meditations, and knowledge. And so I inquired of a great
many learned men and priests whether there is any other way of salvation
than these disciplines, but no one could either teach me the way or even
suggest it. At last I went into the library where all the Scriptures were,
all by myself, and with a heavy heart read them all through. I hit upon
a passage in Zendo's 45 Commentary, which runs as follows: "Only repeat
the name of Amitabha with all your heart, whether walking or standing,
whether sitting or lying: never cease the practice of it for a moment.
This is the very work which unfailingly issues in salvation; for it is in
accordance with the Original Vow of Amida Buddha."46
•
This passage from the great Chinese teacher seemed to answer
all the young man's questions, and by following the injunc-
tion contained in it he gained the peace of soul and assurance
of salvation for which he had longed. And in order to help
others to find the same simple road into the Western Para-
dise he founded a new sect, the Jodo. Japanese Buddhists
recognize two ways of salvation: Shodomen, or "Holy Path"
which leads to salvation through self help, and Jodomen, or
"Pure Land" which brings salvation through the aid of An-
other. The Jodo shu taught nothing essentially different
from the Yutzu Nembutsu shu (it made the recitation of the
Nembutsu perhaps a little more simple, with less of medita-
tion), but it succeeded where the other had failed in extend-
ing to large numbers of Japanese the hope of salvation
through faith and divine grace and the simple practice of
the Nembutsu.
The new evangelism took quick hold not only upon the
masses, but upon many of the more religiously minded mem-
bers of the aristocratic and intellectual circles. It had a
45
The great Chinese teacher of the Pure Land doctrine, who had been converted
to it in a similar fashion. See page 287 of this book.
46
Coates and Ishizuka, op. cit., pp. 185-87.
47
It was not generally recognized as an entirely independent sect until the beginning
of the Tokugawa Shogunate (Coates and Ishizuka, pp. 59-62).
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
481
notable effect upon the art of the day, in the later Heian
and early Kamakura times.
The mystic vision of the reformers wished to discard the elaborate
rituals and focus all force into the invocation of the central Amida, the
Buddha of boundless light, who was seen in ecstasy as a form of dazzling
light surrounded by a gorgeous company of Bosatsu, all equally
luminous.48
Throughout the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries this gentle and beau-
tiful art kept pace with the spread of Amida worship. Vigor gave place
to meekness, sweet harmony became more conspicuous than virile inspira-
tion, and the artists worked in ecstasies of tender piety and self-forgetting
devotion.49
Upon the literature as well as the art of the Heian and
Kamakura periods Buddhism had its considerable influence.
Japanese poetry is seldom upon religious themes, but many
a verse in the colorful, picture-like four or five-line poems
that come to us out of the Japan of a thousand years ago,
bears unmistakable evidence of the deep imprint that Bud-
dhism had made upon the minds of the writers. The recur-
ring note of sadness with which Buddhist thought brings
home the transciency of all earthly things found a quick
echo in the native melancholy of the Japanese mind. As in
these verses from an anthology collected in 905:
Even as this passing life of ours
The cherry-blossoms fair display.
Scarce have we gazed, in fragrant showers
Of petals, from the wind-tossed spray,
The blossoms' beauties pass away!
See the red maple-leaves that swirl
In Autumn storm winds! Brief their span.
Into the outer dark they whirl.
More fleeting still the life of man.5º
48 Fenellosa, I. 163.
49 Anesaki, Buddhist Art, p. 28.
50
<
The sorrow that came to so many families during the civil
wars between the Tairas and the Minamotos (1159-1185)
and the rapid rise and even more rapid fall of the Taira clan
seem specially to have impressed the imagination not only of
contemporaries but of many successive generations, and to
Trans. by Clara A. Walsh, in The Master-Singers of Japan (London, Murray,
1910), p. 60.
482
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
have made more intense the Buddhist feeling for the tran-
sciency of worldly glory. The Taira Atsumori, in the No
play that bears his name, has come back to earth some years
after the great battle in which he was slain, and is made to
say:
Now the clan of Taira, building wall to wall,
Spread over the earth like the leafy branches of a great tree.
And the Chorus responds:
Yet their prosperity lasted but for a day:
It was like the flower of the convolvulus.
There was none to tell them
That glory flashes like sparks from flint-stone.
And after-darkness.
Oh wretched life of men!
All is not sadness, however, for, as the Chorus reminds us,
The Buddha bids the flowers of Spring
Mount the tree-top that men may raise their eyes
And walk on upward paths;
He bids the moon in autumn waves be drowned
In token that he visits laggard men
And leads them out from valleys of despair.
And at the end of the play, when Atsumori recognizes in a
Buddhist priest who has prayed for him Rensei (the Mina-
moto chief who had killed him in the battle) and rushes at
him, sword in hand, to take his vengeance, the Chorus tells
us:
551
the other is grown gentle,
And calling on the Buddha's name
Has obtained salvation for his foe:
So that they shall be re-born together
On one lotus-seat.
"No, Rensei is not my enemy,
Pray for me again: oh, pray for me again!" 51
-
It is plain that the twelfth century was a time of great
searchings of heart among large numbers of Japanese. Honen
Shonen founded his evangelical denomination in the midst
of the Taira-Minamoto wars, and it made an immediate ap-
These quotations I have taken from Arthur Waley's trans. in The No-Plays of
Japan (New York, Knopf, 1922).
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM 483
peal to large masses of earnest people. The same longing
for greater inwardness, which with simpler souls found its
satisfaction in Amida's grace, showed itself in profounder
minds in increased practice of those methods of contempla-
tion which have been the common property of Buddhists
in all lands and which were specially developed by the Ch'an
sect in China. Representatives of this sect had been in Japan
for centuries 52 and many Tendai monks had adopted some
of the Ch'an practices and ideas; but as a distinct sect it
had never been established in Japan until, in 1191, a devout
member of the Tendai sect named Eisai, who had studied on
Hiei-san, returned from China where he had investigated the
doctrines of the Southern Ch'an school. This marks the be-
ginning of the Zen sect (for so the word Ch'an was under-
stood in Japan). In 1202 Eisai founded a temple of the new
sect in Kyoto, but the monks of the older sects got the em-
peror to drive him from the capital; so he went to Kamakura
(the headquarters of the Bakufu, or military administration
which, under the able Hojo family, really ruled Japan). The
Hojos protected him and, with many of their followers, be-
came ardent adherents of Zen. It was probably the virility
and self-reliance and spiritual discipline of Zen that made it
appeal to the soldiers of the Bakufu in the great military
camp that Kamakura then was. But an incidental advan-
tage was to be found in the fact that it despised books and
learning, maintaining that truth could be transferred from
heart to heart without the intervention of words: this surely
must have appealed to the rude soldiery of the times, hardly
one of whom could read.53
C
The particular division of the Chinese Ch'an sect with
which Eisai had been connected is known as the Rinzai: so
it was this school of Zen which he founded in Japan. An-
other of the subdivisions of the Chinese Ch'an sect, Soto by
name, was brought to Japan by Dogen about 1225. A third,
called Obaku, was brought over from China much later,
62
It is said that Hiuen-Tsiang taught the Dhyana form of Buddhism to a Japanese
monk named Dosho, who came to China to study with him, and that Dosho taught
the practices of the Dhyana school on his return to Japan, but did not found a branch
of the sect in any ecclesiastical or authoritative sense. See Takakusa, What Japan owes
to India, I. 106.
Cf. Murdoch, History of Japan, I. 485, 487.
484
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
about 1654. Thus the Zen shu in Japan includes three sub-
divisions, each of them ecclesiastically independent, namely
Rinzai, Soto, and Obaku.54 They differ but little, save that
the Soto makes rather more of Buddhist learning and litera-
ture than Rinzai, while Obaku mingles with Zen training
the worship of Amida.55
In the same year that Dogen introduced the Soto branch
of Zen into Japan, a new evangelical sect developed out of
the Jodo, and one that was destined to become in the num-
ber and activity of its members, the largest and most power-
ful of all the sects in Japan. This was the Shin-shu, founded
by Shinran Shonin. Shinran was born in 1173, a member
of the great Fujiwara clan, and thus connected with the high-
est court aristocracy. He was a deeply religious and thought-
ful lad and was educated for the priesthood, studying for
many years at what I have sometimes referred to as the Ten-
dai University on Mount Hiei. A very large part of this
great ridge between Kyoto and Lake Biwa was, by Shinran's
time, covered with monasteries and monastic schools-some
three thousand monasteries altogether there were, each with
its abbot, and all under one chief abbot. The great Tendai
establishment had thus become a city of monks; and while
some of these monks were politicians and some were soldiers,
there were also many who were scholars and at least a few, I
presume, who were "called to be saints."
Among these Shinran, in the course of years, came to
have a great reputation for learning and piety. But neither
his piety nor his learning gave him satisfaction, and he sought
in vain for the deep peace of mind that religion had brought
to so many others but not to him. One day in his twenty-
ninth year, while still searching for the insight that he lacked,
he came down to the capital and worshiped in the little
Shingon temple Rokkaku-do.56 Here he had a vision of
Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy. This seems to have been
one influence of several in turning his thought away from
64
Each of these originated in China, and all are descended from the Southern school
of the Ch'an sect. This school very soon after its origin divided into two subdivisions,
namely the Rinzai and the Soto. The Obaku school is a later subdivision of the
Rinzai. See Kaiten Nukariya, The Religion of the Samurai (London, Luzac, 1913),
p. 49.
16
G
See Kaiten Nukariya, p. 49.
60
An interesting octagonal temple just east of Karasmaru, still very popular.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
485
A
the salvation through "self-strength" of Tendai to the sal-
vation through "another's strength" of Jodo; and soon after
his vision he went to hear Honen Shonin propound evan-
gelical Buddhism, in the eastern part of the city. This was
the last influence needed, and Shinran found the light and
comfort he had been seeking. He became a disciple of
Honen and eventually his ablest and most promising disciple.
Honen had long been doubting the value of the Buddhist
law of celibacy for monks. He may have felt that it set a
bar between clergy and laity; more likely he felt that it was
a remnant of the older doctrine of salvation through works
which he and his Jodo church had thrown off. At any rate,
he urged Shinran, as one of the most prominent members of
the new sect, to give an object lesson to the world by enter-
ing into the state of marriage.57 Shinran saw the point and
obeyed his master's command. He not only married but he
ate meat and lived in the world, while still devoting his en-
tire time to the spread of the new Gospel. This act of
Shinran's marks a further step in the secularization of Bud-
dhism, begun away back in India when the Mahayana was
first formulated as a distinctive attitude toward life. The
two leaders of the new movement, master and disciple, had
great success in spreading this new conception of what the
Buddhist life might be. Much hardship, however, was be-
fore them. Through the jealousy of some of the old Nara
sects they became objects of dislike in court circles. Honen,
now 77 years old, and his disciple Shinran, were both exiled,
and to distant and widely separated parts of Japan.58 Shin-
ran made use of his misfortune to spread the new evangelical
Buddhism in the land of his exile. When the decree of
banishment was repealed he carried on missionary activity for
some years in various provinces of the East, and finally re-
turned to Kyoto. Honen Shonin was now dead and his
followers were divided into two schools, the more conserva-
tive retaining the name Jodo shu, while the more advanced
m
-
J
Ga
17
The immediate suggestion to Honen Shonin was made by one of his lay disciples,
a member of the Fujiwara family. See Lloyd, Shinran and His Work (Tokyo, Kyo-
bunkwan, 1910).
68
Honen to Toso Province, in the Southwest, Shinran to Echigo in the Northeast.
See a little booklet with a Life of Shinran, published by the Otaniha Hongwanji in Kyoto,
entitled Principal Teachings of the True Sect of Pure Land.
486
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
followed Shinran in founding the "Jodo Shin shu," or True
Pure Land Sect, commonly referred to as the Shin shu.
This differed from the more conservative Jodo in giving up
the ancient Vinaya discipline which the Jodo retained, al-
lowing its priests to marry, eat meat, and live as laymen, and
in laying relatively little stress on the repetition of the Nem-
butsu, but trusting for salvation solely to the grace of Amida
and to faith in him. As many writers have pointed out,
Shinran was thus the Martin Luther of Japan, both in lead-
ing the way out of the monastic life and in preaching salva-
tion through faith alone. The attitude today of the great
Shin sect toward him is indicated in the following passage,
which I take from a little book authorized and circulated
by the Sect headquarters.50
The Shonin was apparently a manifestation of Amida-Butsu, he was
indeed a saving light who came among us some seven hundred years ago
to dispel the darkness of this world. His life of 90 years on earth was
an imprint eternally engraved on the hearts of sinners not yet freed from
impurities. He lived among us to typify the life of a sinful soul who
could yet be saved through his faith in the boundless love of Amida.
It was in 1192 that Minamoto Yoritomo became shogun
and established his capital at Kamakura (which must be dis-
tinguished from the capital of the emperor at Kyoto.) He
seems to have felt that his success was in part due to divine
assistance, and the sentiment of gratitude that he and his
followers felt toward Buddhism showed itself in many ways.
It was he who planned the great image of Amida at Kama-
kura, perhaps the most majestic image in the world, a work
showing both artistic ability of a high order and real religious
feeling. Kamakura became in fact a religious as well as a
political and military center. It was particularly the Zen
type of Buddhism that flourished under the Minamotos and
their successors at Kamakura, the Hojos. For Zen made a
great appeal to the soldiers of these centuries, and thus a new
and knightly element developed in the religion which had
seldom been guessed before. It was largely this Zen Bud-
dhism which gave the Hojo regent and his knights the calm
courage to defy the seemingly irresistible force of Khubla
Khan and his Mongol host, when in the latter part of the
Principal Teachings of the True Sect of Pure Land.
G
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
487
thirteenth century they threatened to engulf the little island
empire.
60
The very success of Zen, Jodo, and Shin during these
years aroused a certain amount of antagonism in the older
sects, but this antagonism got its most forceful expression
not in a conservative but in a fiery and radical spirit who be-
came himself the founder of a new sect. This was Nichiren.
He studied for a time in a Shingon temple, but like so many of
his spiritual predecessors he received the major portion of
his education in the Tendai school of philosophy on the slopes
of Hiei-san. The influence of Tendai thought he never lost.
His philosophy to the end remained essentially that of his
teachers, and he took from Hiei-san especially the profound
reverence for the Lotus Gospel which has always been the
basis of Tendai thought. He was not willing, however, to
spend his life in philosophic contemplation on Mount Hiei.
The center of religious as well as temporal influence had in
his time shifted to the region of Kamakura; and Nichiren,
essentially a man of action, on completing his education began
his preaching in and near the Shogun's capital. The burden
of his impassioned sermons was the evil of the times, both
religious and political. The greatest offenders, in his eyes,
were the monks of the Jodo and Shin sects who had deserted
the great teachings of the Lotus Gospel and had set up in the
place of Sakyamuni the imaginary being Amida. The Zen
sect was attacked almost as hotly, and even Shingon was ridi-
culed for its superstitious rites and practices. The govern-
ment, too, came in for its share in the general denunciation,
and predictions of evil for the land, like those of Amos, were
published abroad.61 The government responded as had the
High Priest of Bethel to Amos' thunders, by having Nichiren
banished, and at one time almost had him executed. In
spite of which Nichiren thundered on.
-
G
But he was not merely a denouncer. The positive note
in his sermons and writings, the cure which he offered for
the evils of the time, was a return to the teachings of Sak-
yamuni. To Nichiren, however, we must realize, to Nichi-
-
60 See Brinkley, p. 361.
01
Nichiren predicted even foreign invasion—a prophecy which was, in a sense,
fulfilled a few years later, when the great power of the Mongols sought to annex Japan
as it had China and did get an insecure foothold on some of the outlying islands.
488
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
ren who knew nothing of the Pali Scriptures, the cry "Back
to Shaka" (Sakyamuni) meant "Back to the Sakyamuni of
the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra"-the Lotus Gospel of the
Tendai sect. It was, thus, neither a more scholarly form of
historical research nor a new philosophy that characterized
the new sect which in 1253 Nichiren founded, but rather a
greater zeal, a tremendous devotion to the Lotus Scripture,
and a literal acceptance of the prophecies given in the later
part of that Sutra.
Concerning this question of prophecy a few words must
be said. As we have seen, an old Buddhist tradition, ac-
cepted in both Hinayana and Mahayana lands, had from
early times pointed to a gradual decay of the Dharma. In
Japan this general expectation had been made more definite,
and the centuries of degeneration after the death of the
Founder had been divided into three distinguishable ages.
These were the Age of the Perfect Law, in which the Dharma
was strictly observed and which covered the first thousand
years after Shaka's Nirvana; the Age of the Copied Law, the
second thousand years, in which faith and morals
declined, but piety was still to a considerable extent
preserved; and the Age of the Latter Law, which
was to last
last ten thousand years, a time of evil and
war. "Though there were
were minor variations in the
tradition as regards the time divisions, all Japanese Buddhists
believed in the apocalyptic legend as a whole. And since
they put the Buddha's death in 949 B.C., they believed that
the last of the three ages began in the year 1052 A.D.'
The wars and moral degeneration of Nichiren's day seemed
to tally very exactly with the nature of the Age of the Lat-
ter Law as predicted, and it was plain to Nichiren, living
two centuries after this third age should have begun, that
they were well within the evil time. With this commonly
accepted view Nichiren connected a prophecy which he took
from the fifteenth chapter of the Saddharma Pundarika, in
which the Buddha shows to his human followers a great band
of celestial helpers under the leadership of four great Bod-
hisattvas who are destined to keep alive and spread the true
Dharma in future ages. The first of these four was named
Anesaki, Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet (Harvard University Press, 1916), p. 4.
>> 62
€2
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
489
Visista-caritra; and as Nichiren found himself, through
years of persecution, standing almost alone for what he con-
sidered the pure Dharma, it was borne in upon him that he
himself was a reincarnation of this great Bodhisattva, and
that he thus had a peculiar mission to restore the truth of the
Lotus Gospel.63 As he had implicit faith in his own mission
and in his ultimate success, he substituted an optimistic view
of the future of Buddhism for the pessimistic one prevalent
in most other sects.
The little band of followers whom Nichiren gathered
round him naturally accepted this saint and prophet at his
own self-evaluation, and their many successors have ever
since regarded him as a great Bodhisattva who was born in
the darkest days of Japan's history with a special and divine
mission to perform. The Nichiren sect is still one of the
most influential and active of Buddhist denominations. Its
appeal is chiefly to the common people and it retains a good
deal of the energetic and contentious spirit of its founder."
64
But the last sect of Buddhism to be found in Japan was
of the Pure Land or Amida type which Nichiren had so
strenuously opposed. In the later years of Nichiren's life,
an earnest monk of the Jodo sect, who had originally been
a Tendai monk, and who felt that new impetus should be
given to the Pure Land doctrines, went through many prov-
inces on long missionary journeys, probably in part to coun-
teract the influence of Nichiren, preaching everywhere the
glory of Amida's love, and the simplicity of salvation through
his grace. This monk is known to history as Ippen Shonin
(1239-1289). In 1275 (seven years before the death of
Nichiren) he left the Jodo shu and founded a new sect-
69 The reader will be reminded of the somewhat similar yet characteristically different
belief which was being taught in Christendom by almost a contemporary of Nichiren,
Joachim de Flore (born in 1132, ninety years before Nichiren's birth). This Christian
theory, like the Buddhist, divided the centuries of faith into three Ages; but unlike the
Buddhist triad they were ages not of steady degeneration but of steady advance-the
Age of the Father, dating from the Mosaic dispensation till the coming of Christ, the
Age of the Son, extending to Joachim's time, and the Age of the Spirit, which was then
to begin and was to last till the end of the world. See Gebhart, L'Italie Mystique
(Paris, Hachette, 1893), Chap. II.
01
For us Westerners, ignorant of Japanese, acquaintance with Nichiren, Honen, and
Shinran is easier than with most of the other leaders of Japanese Buddhism, owing to
Professor Anesaki's interesting little book, Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet, the great
Life of Honen Shonin, edited by Coates and Ishizuka, and Lloyd's Shinran and His
Work.
490
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the last Buddhist sect to be founded in Japan-which is
called the Ji-shu.65 Ippen's teaching differed only in slight
details from Honen Shonin's. He seems to have stressed the
necessity of rejecting self-help and of mere reliance upon
Amida, and to have been influenced somewhat by Zen
thought. The chief reason for his founding a new sect,
however, was his conviction that he had received a special
and immediate revelation from Amida (in the form of the
god of the Kumano shrine). The influence of the Ji-shu
has never been very great, and it is today, like the Yutsu
Nembutsu, in a rather failing condition. The great pros-
perity of Jodo and Shin leaves little room or need for the
two smaller Pure Land sects, which indeed have nothing
of importance to differentiate them from their larger sis-
ters.
Except for the importation of the small Obaku branch
of the Zen, brought by Yin Yuen from China, in 1654, there
have been no new sects of Buddhism in Japan since 1275.
The story of Japanese Buddhism for several centuries after
that date is principally the story of the steady permeation
of Japanese society by the four more recent sects-Jodo,
Shin, Zen, and Nichiren-with the Tendai philosophy as
the intellectual background of the whole. Hiei-san and the
other great monastic institutions continued for centuries to
send out the great scholars of the times, who kept up the
cultured life of the capital. The mass of the people were
illiterate but it was the Buddhist monks alone who made any
effort to educate them. The example which Kobo Daishi
had set early in the ninth century by founding a school in
his great temple in Kyoto was followed by many temples in
various parts of the empire, where instruction in learned sub-
jects was given by learned monks. "It stands to the credit of
these bonzes that they made no attempt to monopolize erudi-
tion. Their aim was to popularize it. They opened temple-
seminaries and exercise halls where youths of all classes could
obtain instruction and where an excellent series of textbooks
66
5 See Reischauer, Studies in Japanese Buddhism, p. 128, and Coates and Ishizuka,
op. cit., pp. 54-55. The name Ji-shu means the Hour sect, or the Now sect, indicating
the founder's belief that his sect was the one needed by the men of his time.
60
6º Cf. Yoshitaro Yamashita, The Influence of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, Trans-
actions of the Japan Society, IV (1897-98), 260.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
491
was used.” 67
One of the chief aims of these textbooks was
moral education; and if one may judge by the quotations
given in Brinkley's history, the virtues taught were not pe-
culiarly Buddhist in type-except for the emphasis they put
upon generosity.
Of all the schools of Buddhism it was probably the Zen
that had the most influence during these centuries on the
cultural life of Japan. It was especially the Zen monks who
became the most zealous educators. As in China, it was Zen
Buddhism that had the greatest influence upon painting.
The great school of mystical landscape painting which had
flourished in China under the Sung dynasty scarcely touched
Japan until the times of the Ashikaga Shoguns (1335-1573);
then it united its influence with Zen Buddhism, and the
school of Japanese landscape painting was the result.68
As a method of achieving a union of the individual soul with the
cosmic spirit, Zen training manifested itself in art of a transcendental
kind. Naturalism and intuitionism enabled Zen not only to absorb the
screnely transient beauty of nature, but also to express it, distinct from
human passions, in placid dignity and pure simplicity; while individualism,
a necessary consequence of Zen practice, found expression in a vigor and
freshness of artistic treatment always implying a touch of original genius.
The influence of Zen pervaded the lives of the people and moulded
their perceptions in every branch of art-in the composition of poems, the
building of houses and furnishing of rooms; in methods of flower ar-
rangement, of gardening, and even of preparing and drinking tea. In-
deed, there is in Japan hardly a form of thought or activity that Zen
has not touched and inspired with its ideal of simple beauty.69
Fans, kakemonos, calligraphy, the Japanese smile, the sternness of
expression, everything now known as peculiarly Japanese was the product
of Zen, directly or indirectly."
70
A
But in recalling what the Buddhism of Kamakura and
Ashikaga days did for Japan we must not forget the other
side of the picture. The great Tendai and Shingon and
Hosso establishments continued their political and military
meddlings, and the new sects too often followed suit. In
fact, the Tendai power on Hiei-san became so menacing to
the state that in 1574 Nobunaga attacked it with his army,
burned down its 3000 monasteries and temples, and put to the
Brinkley, p. 448.
68
Cf. Fenellosa, Vol. II, Chap. XII.
00
70
Anesaki, p. 53.
From a lecture by Professor Anesaki.
492
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sword most of the monks who had not already perished in
the flames. Under the Tokugawa Shoguns the mountain
was restored to the Tendai shu and a few new monasteries
were built on the ruins of the old ones; but the political and
military power of Tendai never reappeared. And for that
matter, under Nobunaga and his strong successors all the
Buddhist orders ceased to be centers of political influence or
military force.
72
It was in Nobunaga's time "¹ that Christianity was in-
troduced into Japan by Francis Xavier and his Portuguese
Jesuits. The missionaries were kindly received by the Bud-
dhist monks of the region in which Xavier landed. The ab-
bot of the Shinshu monastery in Kagoshima, and other
monks, spoke of the newcomers in most favorable terms.
After a few weeks, however, the fiercely exclusive and even
violent form of the new religion forced the Buddhists to
change their opinion of it and their attitude toward the mis-
sionaries. In the course of a few years these earnest but nar-
row Jesuits, and their less politic followers, the Franciscans
and Dominicans, had forced the government to feel that
Christianity was a menace to the Japanese nation; and finally
in 1635 it was expelled and forbidden.
Twenty years after the arrival of the Jesuits they had
succeeded in founding a mission in the capital (Kyoto) and
one of them, Froez by name, has left us his impressions. It
is interesting to note that he was struck with the high moral
level of the people and seems to have attributed it in part to
the teachings of the Buddhist monks. "After describing
and praising a sermon by a bonze he heard in a Kyoto temple,
Froez tells us that he ceased to wonder how it was that Bud-
dhist priests were held in much respect and reverence by the
people; and he adds, 'In truth these people both in goodness
of nature and excellence of wit surpass many nations of our
Europe.' " 73
The Tokugawa Shoguns (1600-1868) adopted a paternal
attitude toward Buddhism; they protected, patronized, and
controlled it. They endowed many of the temples richly,
often pampered the priests and made them financially in-
72 Murdoch, History of Japan, II. 65.
11
In the year 1549.
73 Idem., II. 150, note.
THE STORY OF JAPANESE BUDDHISM
493
dependent of the people. The result was very deleterious
to the priesthood, and, through them, to the religion.
Buddhism became practically a state church. By command
of the third Tokugawa, in order to make sure that Chris-
tianity could not reenter the land, a census of the popula-
tion was taken, under the supervision of Buddhist monks,
and it was decreed that every inhabitant must be registered
as belonging to some specific Buddhist or Shinto parish, and
Buddhist and Shinto temples were ordered to keep accurate
lists of their parishioners and of the births and deaths in their
families. Every daimyo, moreover, was required to adhere
to some specific sect of Buddhism.74
The paternal attitude of the Tokugawa Shoguns toward
Buddhism did not mean that they sought to propagate
Buddhist thought, as the early emperors had done, or that
they protected it from rival teachings. On the contrary
they cultivated Confucian philosophy, and endowed schools
for the spread of it. During the last part of the Tokugawa
régime Confucian scholars had quite wrested the intellectual
and moral leadership of the land from the Buddhists, and
the upper classes largely ceased to be interested in Buddhism.
The financial backing of Buddhism by the government still
continued, but the chief effect of this was to keep the clergy
in a state of passive satisfaction, saying masses, chanting at
funerals, and living lives of elegant inactivity. These late
Tokugawa years thus resembled in some ways the period
of moral slump that Buddhism went through in the century
prior to the rise of Jodo and Zen. They constitute the
second low-water mark of the religion.
During the last century of the Tokugawas a new rival
arose to offer unexpected opposition to Buddhism: namely
its old ally, Shinto. For Shinto had at last become self-
conscious, and rebelled against its partial absorption into
Buddhism in the form of Ryobu Shinto. This revival of
pure Shinto, by scholars and patriots, was one of the chief
influences in finally overthrowing the Shogunate and re-
storing the emperor to power. It was in part for this reason
that at the restoration Buddhism was disestablished and
74 Brinkley, pp. 578, 583; also Anesaki's lectures.
CUR
494
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Shinto was made the state church.75 The government
withdrew its financial support from Buddhist monks, ap-
propriated much of the landed property belonging to Bud-
dhist temples, and for a time even entered upon a mild
attempt at persecution. Some temples were stripped of their
treasures, their monks driven out and forbidden to teach.
It was, to be sure, for only a short time that the government
-so eager to be modern-continued this most unmodern
procedure, but its attitude toward Buddhism was still
notably hostile. At the same time it opened the country
once more to Christian missionaries, who flocked in and
soon had made large numbers of converts, not only among
Shintoists but among nominal Buddhists.
These events came as a stunning blow to Buddhism,
from which at first it seemed almost impossible that it
should recover. But as one looks back now through the
sixty years or so that have elapsed since then, both the with-
drawal of government support and the entrance of Chris-
tianity are pretty plainly seen to have been blessings in
disguise, not only to Japan but to Buddhism itself. The
patronage and control of the religion by the Tokugawa
government had been a great spiritual handicap, whose
withdrawal was like the lifting off of a heavy weight; while
the presence of an active and noble spiritual rival has proved
to be just the stimulus which Buddhism most needed. How
much life there is left in the old religion, and how much
soundness of heart and of head, will, I trust, be made clearer
by the following chapters.
75 Government officials and many Japanese Shinto scholars will insist that this state-
ment is unjustified. The term, I acknowledge, is not exact, but in a rough and general
way it expresses the actual situation. Cf. Holton, "The Political Philosophy of Modern
Shinto," T.A.S.J., XLIX (1922).
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BUDDHIST CYCLE IN JAPAN
ALL or nearly all of the more important beings rever-
enced and worshiped by the Buddhists of Japan are already
familiar to the reader, under slightly different names-pro-
vided, at least, that he has read the chapters in this book
that deal with the rise of the Mahayana in India and the
Dramatis Personae of China. There is, however, in Japan a
slightly new attitude toward some of them and a different
relative emphasis among them, and there are, besides, a few
actual additions to the familiar list; so that for the sake of
the intelligibility of the following chapters it seems best
to set down here a few remarks about the cycle of Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas in Japan, which will be useful for refer-
ence if not for reading. The result, I fear, will hardly be
worthy of the name chapter, but will degenerate, rather,
into something scarcely distinguishable from a mere list.
The word for Buddha in Japanese is Butsu; that for
Bodhisattva is Busatsu. As is so often the case in Japanese,
the last syllables of these words are barely sounded. There
are four Butsu and six Busatsu of primary importance in the
religious life of the Japanese Buddhist. These ten great
beings are the same as the great ten in China, and their
names in Sanskrit, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, will be
found in the list on page 304. From the Japanese point of
view a slight change should be made in the list. If we are
to arrange it in the order of importance, Amida should be
at the head, taking precedence of Shaka (Sakyamuni).
Concerning the four Buddhas of this list little further
need here be said. The orthodox members of the Pure Land
sects believe that Amida was once a man, Hozo by name
(in Sanskrit Dharmakara) and that it was as Hozo he took
the famous vows to save mankind. In art Amida is usually
presented with the first finger of each hand pressed against
495
496
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the thumb. The first finger represents man, while the
thumb means the lack of all separateness; so that this atti-
tude symbolizes the identity of man with the Ultimate.
Amida is usually accompanied by the Busatsu Kwannon
and Sei-shi. Dainichi wears a crown instead of the usual
cephalic protuberance; but a crown more lofty and ornate
than that of the Busatsu. The first finger of his left hand
is usually held upright and grasped by his right hand, in such
a way that the tips of the two first fingers touch. Accord-
ing to Shingon symbolism, the right hand means the
Buddha, the left-hand man, and the touching of the two
fingers means, as in the case of Amida, the union or identity
of the two. Shaka (Sakyamuni) is commonly accompanied
by Monju and Fugen, while Yaku-shi has for his attendants
the Sun (Nikko) and the Moon (Genkko). I ought to
note here in passing that the Buddha images of Japan rank
with those of Siam as the finest product of Buddhist reli-
gious sculpture. Some of them, of course, are unsuccessful,
but the average level is high, and the Japanese Buddha at its
best is one of the most spiritual creations of religious
art.
A little more should here be added to what I said in
Chapters XI and XV on the great Bodhisattvas. Monju
and Fugen often accompany not only Shaka but also
Dainichi. This fact makes them rather prominent in art,
but as religious objects they have lost in importance and
popularity in coming from China to Japan. In character
and function they have not notably changed. Neither, for
that matter, has Kwannon (Kwan-Yin). Here as in China,
the Goddess of Mercy is extremely popular; and as an object
of worship among the less intelligent masses she is second
only to Amida in importance. She is represented in many
forms, often as a youth with the usual crown bearing an
intaglio of Amida; generally she (or he) carries a lotus.
Then there is the eleven-headed Kwannon (wearing a crown
with ten small head-like decorations), the horse-headed
Kwannon (with the picture of a horse's head in her crown),
the forty-handed Kwannon (called the "Thousand-handed
Kwannon"), and many other forms too numerous for men-
tion in this place. The Butsatsu Sei-shi has notably gained
THE BUDDHIST CYCLE IN JAPAN
497
in popularity since leaving China. This, I expect, is due to
the great extension of Amida worship in Japan and to the
fact that Sei-shi is regularly joined, in artistic representa-
tion, with Kwannon as one of the two attendants or com-
panions of Amida. Among his functions (or hers?) is the
important one of coming with Amida and Kwannon to
meet the soul after death. As Kwannon is the personifica-
tion of the mercy of Amida, Sei-shi personifies his wisdom,
and thus trenches upon the function of Monju.
Concerning Jizo more should be said. For Jizo occupies
an even more important place in Japan than Ti-tsang does
in China. As in China he delivers souls from hell, but he has
also acquired a number of other specific functions, most of
them connected with his quality of mercy. He helps
women in childbirth and is (like Kwannon) the giver of
healthy children." He drives away the demons of disease
and calamity. Sometimes he is regarded as a kind of sixfold
deity-the "Six Jizos" -and as such is the object of a
special and popular cult. Like Kwannon again he is at
times (especially in the Jodoshu) associated with Amida,
and has the function of leading souls to the Western Para-
dise. In a special way he is the protector of travelers and
pilgrims. But most of all he is the loving guardian of little
children. And not only of living children but of dead
children as well. This conception seems to be of purely
Japanese origin. Parents who have lost their little ones
make a special point of worshiping Jizo; the toys of their
dead children are offered in his temples, their diminutive
kimonos are hung up before him, and their little red bibs
festoon many a rough stone Jizo in temple courts or along
country roads. An ancient Jizo image by the roadside, with
from one to twenty little bibs around its neck, is at first
sight a rather ludicrous object; but when one understands
all that it means it becomes a symbol full of pathos to the
1 He has in part taken the place of the Shinto phallic deities of fecundity.
2
De Visser suggests that this may be due to the fact that in the Sanskrit Sutras
dealing with him (under the name Kshitigarbha) he takes many bodies to save all
beings in the "Six Paths." The Chinese Sutra of the Ten Kings refers to the six
Ti-tsangs; but there never was a popular cult of the six Ti-tsangs in China as there is
of the six Jizos in Japan. This Japanese cult is said to date from the ninth century.
See De Visser, "The Bodhisattva Ti-tsang in China and Japan," Ostasiatische Zeitschrift
for 1913 and 1914.
498
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
unbelieving, and doubtless of hope and comfort to the be-
reaved but faithful heart. For, as many Japanese believe,
the souls of little children at death go to a land beside the
sea³ 3 where they amuse themselves by piling up little towers
of stone. No sooner have they made their little towers than
a terrible red devil rushes forth, knocks to pieces the piles
of stones, and terrifies the children. And then, as though in
answer to their cries, great, calm, tender Jizo, strong and
loving, appears and drives off the devil, while the little ones
take hold of his staff or hide in the folds of his garment.
So he rescues them and (presumably) takes them back with
him to Amida's Paradise.
But it is not only the children whom Jizo aids. Who-
ever is in need and calls upon him receives his help. He heals
the sick; he substitutes himself for the heavy-laden and does
their work for them; he suffers with and for his worshipers;
he even takes the place of animals who are threatened or
killed by hunters. Many miraculous deeds are attributed to
him, and many stories are told of his guidance or of his
actual appearance to the eyes of his worshipers; as, for ex-
ample, the following.
Myogwan, who lived in Hoki province about the year
775, had a great longing to see the living Jizo. "For many
years he had been a devout believer in Jizo and every morn-
ing at daybreak he opened the window looking out to the
south and recited Jizo's holy name, with almost closed eyes
and quieting his heart, in the hope that the Bodhisattva
might appear. But he always looked in vain." Then he
was told in a dream that if he would go to Mount Iwafune
in Shimotsuke, Jizo would appear to him. So he made a
pilgrimage to the mountain. "When Myogwan arrived at
the foot of Iwafune, the dusk was falling and he was hos-
pitably received by a Buddhist monk who lived in a lonely
dwelling far from the mountain village." The monk as-
sured him that if he would wait till the eighteenth of the
month and then go to the top of the mountain his great wish
"Some think that the children's souls go to a remote part of the Japanese coast and
it is here Jizo rescues them. See Lafcadio Hearn, Glympses of Unfamiliar Japan (Lon-
don, Kegan Paul, 1894). A variant of this myth has it that the little souls go to hell
where an old hag forces them to build towers of stones; and then Jizo comes and rescues
them. De Visser, op. cit., sec. III.
THE BUDDHIST CYCLE IN JAPAN
499
would be granted. So Myogwan waited, staying as a guest
of the monk. "During these days he observed that the
monk was called Jizo bo (priest Jizo) and that he helped
the people in all kinds of work. During the night he heard
old men and women knocking at the door and calling
Jizo bo, whom they begged to assist them the next day in
plowing or thatching a roof or digging a well, and the good
monk always consented. Myogwan saw him actually en-
gaged in all these kinds of work during the daytime. On
the morning of the eighteenth the mysterious monk led
Myogwan part way up the mountain and pointing to the
peak he said: "That peak is Mount Iwafune. Go there and
joining your hands look up to the top of the mountain with
a heart filled with devotion: then Jizo's shadow is sure to
appear.' After these words he vanished." Myogwan did
as he had been directed and soon saw a gigantic golden
shadow of Jizo rising over the mountain peak. When the
vision had passed the mysterious monk returned and said,
"Today your prayer has been fulfilled; now you may return
to your native village." Thus they descended the mountain
together, and on the way the monk expounded the Law to
Myogwan in wonderfully clear and subtle fashion, and at
the foot of the mountain bade him farewell. And Myog-
wan realized that the monk was none other than Jizo
himself.4
Jizo is almost always represented as a monk, with shaven
head. Usually he stands, bearing in his right hand a pil-
grim's staff, in his left a pearl. The staff is of the sort com-
monly carried by Buddhist pilgrims. At its upper end there
is a metal ring from which hang six other rings. These six
rings are symbolic of the virtues of charity, discipline, per-
severance, effort, meditation, and wisdom.5 The pearl too-
in Jizo's left hand-has its significance, in fact both a shal-
lower and a deeper one. The shallow meaning is that all
blessings are contained within the jewel and Jizo can give
any of them in answer to prayer. The deeper meaning is
Pure Mind: and this may be interpreted to mean whatever
P
"De Visser, op. cit., II. 397-98.
B
These, of course, are the six Paramitas or cardinal virtues of the Mahayana: see
Chap. XI.
500
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
virtue the worshiper most longs for in himself. This virtue
can be obtained by earnest prayer to Jizo.
Of the remaining members of the Buddhist cycle in
Japan little need be said, and what I shall set down here will
be of value chiefly as a matter of reference. One more
Buddha should be added to the list given at the beginning of
this chapter, namely, Ashaku, in Sanskrit Akshobhya, one
of the five Dhyani Buddhas referred to in Chapter XI. The
Shingon sect in Japan makes something of Ashaku," but
elsewhere he is of no religious importance. Another Bodhi-
sattva should also be mentioned who plays some part in
Shingon Buddhism, though little elsewhere. This is the
Busatsu Kokuzo. His Sanskrit name is Akasagarbha, and he
represents the ether and is one of the group of eight promi-
nent Bodhisattvas. Like Monju and Sei-shi, he personifies
wisdom. A more prominent religious figure is Fudo. Like
the two just named he is of importance chiefly in the Shin--
gon sect. Many scholars think he is derived from the San-
skrit Acala or Achala, and for this reason is known as the
Immobile. However this may be, he is for the Japanese
Buddhist a form of Dainichi. It is said that he was incar-
nated as a slave in order to serve all beings and that he took
a vow to destroy all evil in the world. He is one of the few
frightful-looking members of the Buddhist cycle. In his
right hand he holds a sword to smite the wicked and in his
left a lasso to catch and bind them. His face and arms are
usually a deep livid blue, and behind him rises a mass of red
flames. Like most frightful beings in religions derived
from India, he is terrible only to the wicked, and is the
friend and protector of those who are really striving to live
the decent life.
8
7
Fudo is not spoken of as a Busatsu, but as a form of
Dainichi he seems to rank as one. The level below that of
the Bodhisattvas is, I suppose, in theory, that of the great
Arahants. It will be recalled that the early Mahayana rec-
"He is one of the five Buddhas in the Vajra-dhatu Mandala, and one of the thirteen
celestial beings used in the funeral ceremonies of the Shingon sect. See Getty, pp. 30,
notc, 33-34.
'He also belongs to the thirteen celestial beings of the Shingon funeral ceremony.
Kobo Daishi considered Kokuzo his personal protector.
8
Cf. Getty, pp. 33-34. See also Anesaki, Buddhist Art, p. 34.
THE BUDDHIST CYCLE IN JAPAN
501
ognized sixteen of these as of special importance, and that
the Chinese raised the number of "Lohans" to eighteen.
Japanese Buddhism went back to the orthodox number and
recognized sixteen "Rakans." Of these sixteen only one is
singled out as a figure of independent importance, namely,
Binzuru. According to Miss Getty, Binzuru is a popular
form of Yaku-shi, the Buddha of healing. Certainly Bin-
zuru is one of the gods of healing, as a glance at his image
on the external wall of many a popular temple will indicate.
I have said that only Binzuru is singled out among the
Rakan as of special importance. I should add that some-
times one finds Dammo (Bodhidharma) represented as one
of the Rakan (especially on Zen scrolls), and wherever
Dammo is present he is, for the Zen followers, a very impor-
tant figure. He is regularly represented as clad in brilliant
red, and is a favorite theme not only with the makers of
Zen kakemonos, but with the woodcarvers of Nara.
Below the rank of Rakan stands a long list of beings bor-
rowed from Indian and Japanese mythology, and added, by
the liberal interpretation of Buddhist thinkers and the
superstitious tendencies of the Buddhist masses, to the Bud-
dhist cycle. Prominent among these are the Ni-O, or two
Deva Kings, Indra and Brahma," who often guard the outer
entrance to the temple; and the Shi-Tenno or Kings of the
Four Quarters, familiar in both Sanskrit and Chinese and
Korean Buddhism. One of these Four Kings, Bishaimon
(Sanskrit Vaisravana) is singled out for special attention in
Japan, as one of the seven gods of luck. He is thought to
be connected with the Chinese god of wealth. Decidedly
important is Hachiman, commonly called the god of war,
whom Buddhism in an unBuddhistic moment borrowed
(with the blessing, apparently of Kobo Daishi) from the
patriotic hero-worship native to Japan. According to
Anesaki his name is Buddhist in origin, meaning the Eight
Symbols, or eight perfect ways or morality. He is generally
said to be the deification of the son of the war-like empress
Jingo, who invaded Korea in the third century and left
This is the common interpretation.
aspects of Narayana, a name for Vishnu.
Young East, I. 147.
-
Professor Takakusa thinks they are two
See "What Japan Owes to India," in The
502
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
behind her not only one war god but a progeny of war
lovers in all lands and all centuries who most appropriately
bear her name. Another Shinto deity who has crept at least
part way into Buddhism is Inari, an ancient rice god, some-
how associated with the fox. Little Inari shrines will be
found on the outskirts of many a Buddhist temple.
Four of the seven (or eight) gods of luck possessed by
the Japanese came in the train of Buddhism from India.
One of these is Bishaimon, already referred to. A second is
Daikoku, originally a form of Shiva; a third is Benzai, de-
rived from the Indian goddess Sarasvati; while the fourth
is Kichijo, who originated with Lakshmi. Emma-O, the
regent of hell, and known in China as Yen-lo, is a direct
descendant of the Vedic Yama. He has, as in China, several
assistants and doubtless he needs them. I add in a note a
few other Indian deities who have found a new home for
themselves, under new names, in modern Japan.10
To this list of objects of Buddhist reverence should be
added a few historical Japanese Buddhists, such as Shotoku
Taishi, Gyogi Busatsu, and the founders of most of the great
sects. All these names combined make a formidable list.
It would be a misunderstanding, however, to take them as
"the Gods of Japanese Buddhism." The uneducated Japa-
nese Buddhist regards them in much the same way as the
uneducated Roman Catholic regards the saints of his calen-
dar. The Buddhist who understands his religion smiles at
many of these popular figures, reverences a number of them,
and realizes that even the greatest and highest of them are
but representations, symbols, visions of the Buddha nature
which is in all things.
Sho-ten, derived from Ganesa; Kompira, whose derivation is uncertain; Sui-ten,
who is Varuna; Taishaku, who is Indra; Bon-ten or Brahma; Kojin or Rudru;
Ucchushma, an aspect of Agni. I take these names and their derivations from Professor
Takakusa's article already referred to, pp. 144-145.
10
CHAPTER XXV
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
If the pilgrim to Japan makes Kyoto his first stop, his
attention immediately upon alighting from the train will be
called to the great roofs of the Higashi Hongwanji, the
immense temple of the Shin sect near the station. The
majority of Buddhist temples in Japan follow the Chinese
custom of facing south; but there are exceptions aplenty,
and this is one of them. Like many of the Shinshu temples
it faces the east. Three monumental portals pierce the front
wall of the sacred enclosure, the central one a gigantic
gateway with a high double roof, rich with elaborate carv-
ing. Passing through this, one finds oneself in a spacious
court. A small shrine is at one's left, with a kind of pa-
vilion before it in which a few old or weary people are
always to be found, resting in the shade and chatting pleas-
antly with their neighbors. Beyond this is the southern
gateway and a bell tower. A fountain is playing in the
court, made in the form of a huge lotus bud, and in another
place there is a large bowl with running water, roofed over
for the protection of pilgrims who often wash here before
worshiping. One sees also a few large bronze lanterns.
But at first these things are hardly noticed, for one's eyes
turn irresistibly toward the two great halls on the western
side of the court. The northern and larger of these is the
hondo, or founder's hall, with a double roof, and the smaller
Amida-do, to the south, with a single roof, is connected with
the larger building by a covered corridor. Along this cor-
ridor are piled several huge coils of rope, many inches in
thickness and made of human hair, donated for the purpose
by zealous Buddhist women at the time of the building of
the temple. It was with these ropes that the great beams.
of the temple were carried and hoisted into place. The roofs
of both the main halls are too high and steep to give that
503
504
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sense of perfect proportion which the earliest Japanese
temples possess; but the curve of the roofs and the tilt of
the eaves, rather less pronounced than those of Chinese tem-
ples, is exceedingly graceful. And what the exterior lacks
in beauty, as compared with the few extant specimens of
early Japanese architecture, is more than atoned for by the
impressiveness of the interior.
To one whose acquaintance with Buddhist temples is
confined to China and Korea, these great Shinshu interiors
will come as a revelation. Here no confusion of tawdry
decoration and cheap votives, no burning of paper money
or even of incense, no dirty floors or fantastic Lohan images;
just a great, cathedral-like open space (in this case 42 by 66
feet) covered with matting and immaculately clean, a rail
dividing the hall in two unequal parts, and behind it a rich
but not confusing altar, and a single image, executed in
exquisite taste. The standing Amida in the Amida-do is
particularly beautiful and reminds one at once of the
Madonna in some Italian cathedral. The worshipers, as well
as the building, present a striking contrast to those one has
become accustomed to in China. As I have said, there is
here no burning of paper money, no fortune-telling, but
just little groups of silent, earnest worshipers, coming in,
kneeling a few moments before the shrine in earnest prayer,
and silently departing. The whole atmosphere of the place
is unmistakably religious; and he who cannot worship his
God (whatever that may mean to him) in this shrine of
Amida must, I think, be somehow lacking in spiritual
susceptibility.
The Higashi Hongwanji temple of Kyoto is typical of
nearly all the large temples of the Shin sect and fairly repre-
sentative of many Jodo temples as well. It can hardly be
said to represent all Japanese Buddhist temples, for the
Buddhist temples of Japan have no such regularity of plan
as that one finds in most Chinese temples. So far as I know
there is only one Japanese temple laid out on the regular
Chinese plan—the large headquarters of the Obaku division
of the Zen sect at Uji, built in 1650 by Chinese Buddhists and
kept for many years after its founding in the hands of
Chinese monks. Some of the larger Zen and Shingon tem-
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
505
ples, while not following at all strictly the Chinese pattern,
follow the general scheme of having a large portal, with
guardian gods, and back of it, in a spacious enclosure, a
succession of two or three large temple-halls, with the build-
ings for the monks at the rear and on the sides. This, how-
ever, is not very common, and, as I have said, there is no
regular plan for either the exterior or the interior of a
Japanese temple. Yet certain things are fairly constant.
Most constant of all, perhaps, is the universal cleanliness
and excellent repair-a characteristic of nearly every temple
I have visited in Japan. Nearly all Buddhist temples have
a court or enclosure, though I have seen one or two without
anything of the kind. The enclosure is usually entered
through a roofed gateway in which are often enshrined the
gigantic and terrible Ni-O-the two Devas, Indra and
Brahma. These are genuine objects of popular worship, as
the many little "spit-balls" of paper sticking to the wire
netting in front of the gods clearly show. In place of the
Ni-O one may find the Kings of the Four Quarters, so fa-
miliar in China and Korea. Sometimes the temple enclosure
is entered through a torii (of the more artistic and less ar-
chaic variety),2 borrowed, of course, from Shinto in the
days before the Restoration, when the two religions were
practically one. Sometimes just within the gateway is a
tiny Shinto shrine, especially in temples of the Shingon and
Nichiren sects. There may be also a pagoda, with two,
three or five stories. In some temple grounds, especially in
those of the Shingon sect, one will find a sotoba or stone
monument made up of five parts, symbolizing the five ma-
terial elements. The lowest part is a cube or parallelopiped
signifying earth; the second a sphere signifying water; the
1
-
It is a popular belief that one may tell whether or not one's prayer to the Ni-O
will be answered by chewing a bit of paper, making it into a "spit-ball," and throwing
it at the wire grating. If it sticks, the prayer has been heard.
2
*
There are two forms of torii, one with straight cross beams and of rather ponderous
appearance; the other much more graceful, with cross beams that have swaying lines
and an upward tilt at the ends. The straight and ponderous kind is thought to be the
more ancient form, while the graceful type is by far the more popular. The archaic
style of torii is found only at a few Shinto shrines (never at Buddhist temples) and is
always the token of a self-conscious effort to revert to pure Shinto uncontaminated with
Buddhist or Chinese influence. It is found, for example-characteristically enough-at
Ise, where the government sees to it that everything is as it was in the beginning, at the
historical moment when Jimmu Tenno descended from the skies. The great majority
of Shinto shrines have clung to the more graceful form of torii.
506
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
third a cone with broken apex, signifying fire; the fourth
a crescent signifying air or wind; and the uppermost a ball
ending in a tip or flame-like point, signifying ether. A few
temples have, in some part of their grounds, a peculiar
cylindrical metal column known as a sorinto. The upper
part of the shaft is surrounded with nine metal rings and
usually surmounted with a lotus carrying a pointed ball, like
that on the summit of the sotoba.
The court or enclosure of a Buddhist temple is one of
the loveliest things in Japan. The stone lanterns, the an-
cient pine trees, the wonderfully wrought brazen dragons
that spout water in a fountain, the stone Jizo, wrapped
about with votive cloths presented by devout worshipers
whose little children have gone to the far land where now
only Jizo can help them, the bell tower, the façade of the
temple itself with perhaps half a dozen smaller structures
standing about it, the lotus pond with its gold fish, the
many pigeons that fly about the court, owing their living to
the kindness of the pilgrims, and most of all the glad looks
of the worshipers who have come in their best kimonos to
do homage to the Buddha, and the joyous faces of the many
children almost invariably found here, make it a scene not
to be forgotten. For the temple courts are the playgrounds
of Japan. They do not merely happen to be playgrounds.
The children are desired. Many temple courts are provided
with swings and various simple games; and the children love
the place and learn thus early to associate religion with
delight. A very large proportion of the men and women of
Japan must look back upon some Buddhist temple as the
scene of their happiest hours. Besides the children there are
tired mothers with their babies on their backs, and weary
people of various ages. Some have come here with their
grandchildren to watch them play, some have come for
an hour's chat with old friends, in the shade of a great tree
or beside the fountain, some, still in the midst of life's work,
have fled here for a moment's refreshment and worship,
spent in part before the calm image of Amida in the shrine,
in part out here in the fresh air of the courtyard filled with
the cooing of doves and the shouts of children.
Many of the tenderest memories and most significant
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
507
moments of life thus cluster round the Buddhist temple.
Not only the children but at times people of all ages find
the temple court a kind of playground. Many a temple
has a monthly fair, when for a whole night the sacred en-
closure is luminous with colored lanterns, and filled with
booths at which you can buy all sorts of pretty things, and
the air is musical with the notes of the temple gong, the
chanting of priests, and the voices of young people.
But the temple enters also and of course into the solemn
hours. Here the funeral service is held, and the memorial
service for the dead. Here the tablets of many of the de-
parted are preserved and sometimes a portion of their ashes,³
and around many a Buddhist temple lies the ancient
"churchyard," as we should call it-its gray stones cluster-
ing about the sacred walls, just as they so often do in New
England-and Old England.
The main hall of the temple, in some of the Buddhist
sects, is not infrequently closed. But except at night the
temple inclosure, and at least one of its shrines, central or
subordinate, is always open, and worshipers enter and depart
during any hour of daylight. If one is tempted to criticize
the enormous amount of capital that has been expended on
Buddhist temples in Japan, saying that all this money might
have been invested in more profitable ways, this answer may
at least be given, that hardly anything in Japan is in more
constant use than her temples.
The temple proper-the building itself as well as all the
subordinate buildings belonging to it-is, like everything
else in Japan, made of wood-of wood and paper. Fre-
quently portions of the roof and the ends of the overhang-
ing beams are elaborately carved. There is usually no great
front door, as in Chinese temples, but just many sliding
screens, mostly of paper. A familiar figure just outside the
door of many of the larger temples is Binzuru, one of the
sixteen Rakans, who, the story goes, once looked after a
woman too curiously and thereafter was forbidden to enter
the sacred building. This punishment (or was it his sin?)
In the Shi-Tenno temple at Osaka the ashes of the dead are sometimes mixed with
clay and made into small Buddha images, which are deposited in one of the shrines, a
rather striking symbolization of the hope that the departed one has "become Buddha."
508
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
seems to have resulted in making him more popular than
all his brethren. Tradition has endowed him-or his image
-with a miraculous power of healing. The worshiper who
is ill has only to rub his hand upon the part of Binzuru's
image corresponding to the diseased part of his own body
and then to rub his hand upon the infirm member; if he does
this with sufficient faith he will be healed. So firmly planted
is this belief in large numbers of temple visitors, that the
legs and arms of most Binzuru images are half rubbed away.
The Binzuru at the Asakusa temple in Tokyo has healed so
many parts of so many ailing bodies that there is hardly
anything left of the poor fellow. The government at times
has had to lock up Binzuru images to prevent the spread of
disease through their miraculous touch.
The other Rakans are seldom seen. There are two or
three temples in Kyoto, and one in Nagoya where they are
carved in the round though of smaller size and less fan-
tastic in shape than in China, and so far as I know they
never (except at Obakusan) occupy the position in the
central temple which Chinese custom assigns them. Usu-
ally one sees them, if at all, represented not in carving but
painted upon kakemonos, hung up in the exhibition rooms
of the temple, or (quite as often) in some museum. For
the Rakans in Japan are of antiquarian and artistic interest
chiefly and (except for Binzuru) form no part of the real
life of the religion.
The interior of the temple is arranged in various ways
with little that is absolutely uniform. There is, of course,
always a central shrine or throne-more commonly a shrine
with doors that may be, and often are, closed. Within this
shrine (or on the throne if there be one) usually sits or
stands an image of one of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or
founders, although a tablet may be substituted for the
image, bearing a name upon it, or (as in some Shinshu
temples) the sacred formula Namu Amida Butsu. As I
have indicated, the shrine is quite frequently closed and
the image may be shown only at certain times of the day
or, it may be, only at intervals of many years. In front of
the shrine stands the altar, a long and narrow table which
usually contains a large incense burner in the middle, two
GRE
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
509
candlesticks, one on each side, and at each end a spray of
lotus leaves gracefully carved of wood and gilded. The
candlesticks may be of brass or lacquer; the incense burner
is usually of bronze, though it may be of lacquer or of por-
celain. Usually the altar contains little or nothing else
besides these five things, though at times one finds it
crowded with offerings of food, flowers, and candles, as in
China. Among the votives frequently placed on or near
the altar (sometimes in the shrine itself), the Shinto mirror
is not uncommon
uncommon (especially in Shingon, Kegon, and
Nichiren temples). In the larger temples there are usually
two subordinate shrines at the right and left of the central
shrine and further back-close up against the rear wall.
These are usually sacred to Kwannon or Jizo, or Fudo or
Monju, or to the founder of the sect or some distinguished
abbot; or one of them may be devoted wholly to the tablets
of the dead.4
Besides the shrines and altars I have mentioned, a Bud-
dhist temple may contain all sorts of things; and in fact its
irregularity of plan and the almost endless variety which
it may present constitute a large part of its unfailing fasci-
nation. In a large and popular city temple like that of the
Shi-Tenno in Osaka there are any number of little side
shrines to all sorts of Buddhist and Shinto nobility (if I
may use the phrase), with votives of every kind from the
odd to the pathetic-from pictures of mothers with breasts
spouting streams of milk, to little kimonos that once be-
longed to children now dead, and presented by their parents
to Jizo in the hope that somehow he may clothe them. Many
Buddhist temples have long rows of show apartments which
are in fact museums and in which are to be seen some of the
choicest specimens of Japanese painting at its best. All
monastic temples of course possess dormitories and a refec-
tory, and most of them have offices as well. The larger tem-
ples thus form a maze of buildings, with hundreds of occu-
pants. Sometimes one finds a round or octagonal building
erected to house the Buddhist scriptures. Occasionally
these round library buildings are so constructed as to revolve
G
For description of the temple interiors of the different sects see appendix to this
chapter.
510
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
when sufficient force is applied the idea being that by
whirling the building and its contents around several times
one may in economical manner acquire the merit of read-
ing all the books. The idea may seem superstitious, but it is
probably true. One rather interesting feature-unique so
far as I know-is to be found in the great Zenko temple
(of the Tendai sect) in Nagano, up among the central
mountains. A steep dark stairway in the main hall
leads down into a passage running beneath the central
shrine. One gropes one's way in absolute darkness, turns
two corners, and under the holy of holies one's hand (guided
by a long depression on the wall) comes in contact with a
key, the touch of which has some miraculous quality. Then
one pushes on past two more corners in the same Stygian
darkness and clambers up another stairway to the light. It
is indeed an act of faith; and faith, let us hope, never goes
without some reward.
But I fear that my attempt at description, overloaded
as it probably is with detail, has failed to transmit to the
reader any suggestion of the charm possessed and exhaled
by the Buddhist temples of Japan. It is upon the temple
that the people lavish their greatest care. Nothing is too
good or rich for it. Their own houses are often tiny shells,
but the house of the Buddha is lofty and full of that re-
strained beauty for which the Japanese have so sensitive a
feeling. In all their lovely villages and towns the temple
is the loveliest thing of all. But to see it at its best one must
desert the towns and cities altogether and thread one's way
up some ravine or climb to the forest solitudes of some
mountain side, where, far from the haunts of men, the
Buddha and a few of his chosen monks dwell apart in a
monastic shrine whose curving roofs and ancient thatch and
lichen-covered lanterns and images seem to be as much
Nature's own as the peaks and glades that surround them.
Up some deep gorge you take your way, as at Komoro,
among the central rib of mountains near Samayama, fol-
lowing a rushing stream whose many waterfalls shout the
praises of the Kami and the Buddhas, greeted now and then
by an ancient image of Dengyo Daishi partly covered over
with ivy, and further along you climb a crag commanding
CON
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
511
a wide panorama where you find a shrine with ancient
images, at the feet of which space opens below you for a
dizzying distance. The little path beyond it leads you past
a few gray stone figures, and on to the Tendai temple, at
the top, where in unbroken calm Shaka in his golden shrine
grants peace alike to monks and pilgrims.
Sometimes an entire mountain top of many square miles
extent is given up to temples-is in fact one great temple
enclosure. Notable especially is Hiei-san, the mountain near
Kyoto, once covered with over three thousand monasteries
of the Tendai sect, until Nobunaga's fires and his soldiery
brought destruction to nearly all. Early in Tokugawa times.
some of them were rebuilt on the old foundations, and
though the glory of Tendai on Hiei-san never returned, the
forest glades and the summit and sides of the mountain have
still many a noble shrine to the Buddha and his great Japa-
nese disciple. Impressive these woodland temples are and
captivating to the eye and to the imagination quite beyond
any power of words to express. Down long avenues of
giant cryptomerias you tramp, and suddenly through the
trees a vista of forest aisle opens up ahead with a gateway
and the swaying lines of a temple roof at the end of it. The
Japanese nightingale among the leaves heralds your ap-
proach with his unforgettable song, strangely tentative in
its beginning, and prolonged into a trill of unimaginable
sweetness. But the temples are silent and the woods are
silent with a silence that seems musical, and that speaks of
awe and reverence and centuries of meditation. Behind one
of these forest temples lie the ashes of Dengyo Daishi, and
before the central shrine burn two lamps whose fire, tra-
dition says, goes back to him-well over a thousand years
ago. Through the woods comes the boom of some distant
temple bell. And occasionally through a forest window on
the mountain slope you catch a vista of Lake Biwa, in the
valley below you, stretching off far to the northeastward,
and other mountains beyond it, and the rest of the world
out there—the busy, struggling world out there, while you
and the monks and the ashes of Dengyo Daishi and the fire
which he lighted are still here in the shadow of the great
cryptomerias, where the monks chant their praises to the
512
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Buddha at dawn and evening, and where a day seems as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.
But most impressive of all the sacred places in this land
of the gods is Koya-san-Koya-san the headquarters of the
Shingon sect, and the center of pilgrimage from all over
the empire, Koya-san with its more than fifty monasteries
suspended between earth and sky, whose venerable forests,
silent temples, and sacred graves speak of eleven hundred
years of unbroken and deeply reverent worship. So remote
is this center of ancient religious life from the world of the
plain below it, and from all our twentieth-century thought
and activity, that to the pilgrim who has gained its summit
the ages somehow seem telescoped, and one feels only just
too late to hear the echo of Kobo Daishi's footfall as he
followed the ghostly lead of his supernatural monitor when
first he explored this mountain top and laid the foundation
of his spiritual community.
The pilgrimage up the mountain side from the village of
Shiba is still unprofaned by trolley or motor car or carriage.5
One must go on foot, as a pilgrim should, or be carried up in
a basket. And every day the pilgrims come, especially from
Shiko-ku, which was Kobo Daishi's birthplace. For the
zealous Buddhists of that island, in imitation of their great
saint, hold it a special means of grace to make the round of
sacred places in their own land, as Kobo Daishi is said to
have done, and to complete their long pilgrimage by climb-
ing Koya-san. The journey up the mountain is one of in-
creasing beauty and impressiveness. For a considerable dis-
tance upward from the river one is accompanied by ter-
raced rice fields. Then the woods begin, and soon one is in
an unbroken forest of lofty cryptomerias, varied with pines,
chestnut, and bamboo. Not for a moment can one forget
that this is no ordinary mountain. Little shrines are passed
at frequent intervals, now and then a tea-house for the
rest of pilgrims, where rosaries and images of Kobo Daishi
may be purchased for a few sen, ancient stone Jizos guard
the pathway, while fellow pilgrims are seldom far from
I am informed that this is no longer true: that a cable-car line is being installed
to carry passengers up the mountain. Thus one more step has been taken toward the
Americanization of the world.
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
513
sight, clad in abbreviated kimonos or short coats and tight-
fitting leggings, with broad-brimmed straw hats, and often
carrying long pilgrim staffs, like the one Jizo uses, and
little wooden boxes that contain certificates from various
holy places to which they have already journeyed. The
sacred precinct occupies most of the broad mountain top,
and one enters it under a great stone torii, with a fine bronze
Jizo on one's right and an even finer Kwannon on one's left.
Within the enclosure the path still leads nearly a mile more
through forest, then past temples and monasteries, along a
village street lined with shops almost wholly devoted to the
sale of religious objects, on to the most wonderful ceme-
tery that man and Nature and Religion ever combined to
make glorious. Lofty aisles of giant cryptomerias, ancient
monuments of gray stone, lichen-covered bridges over little
streams, unguessed depths of mingled forest and graves,
images of Jizo and symbols of the unity of God and man-
a place, in short, so filled with light and with deity that if
one knew one were to be buried here one might well look
forward with impatience to that last long sleep. The stone-
paved avenue that leads through the Necropolis finally
crosses a last arched bridge and leads up a flight of broad
steps to the temple of Kobo Daishi; and the climax of the
seven-mile pilgrimage is reached in the rear of the temple,
where, beyond a simple rail, past which one may not go, one
catches a glimpse of the grave of the Saint and Founder.
On one side is the temple, on all other sides the deep forest,
whose tall trunks, straight and aspiring, lift the pilgrim's
eyes to the sky and his thoughts to heaven. For the whole
atmosphere of the place is such that here surely, if any-
where, one may feel that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,-
Until the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony and the deep power of joy,
We see into the Life of things.
In such a place one finds religion in act; not religion in its
more active and efficient form, to be sure, as in its crusade
514
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
against evil, but the religion of the heart, the religion of
the cosmic sense, the religion of meditation, from which,
indeed, so much of the more active life is fed. Even the
memory of that summit of Koya-san is enough to bring back
some of the haunting sense the place inspires as
. . of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
It is with a sense of things like these that I look back upon
the forest vistas of Koya, with their solemn trees, the large
bronze lanterns with their golden Chinese ideographs scat-
tered among the trunks of the cryptomerias; the incense
burner in front of the rail, from which during most of the
day a cloud of fragrant smoke is constantly rising; the little
group of earnest worshipers about it; half a dozen monks
in the background, by the temple wall, murmuring a
prayer; two kneeling figures, reading from the Sutras, close
by the rail; and beyond it, guessed rather than seen, some-
where among the trees and shadows, the ancient grave.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXV
Characteristic Temple Interiors of Various Sects
NEARLY every Japanese sect has its own special way of
arranging the interiors of its temples, so that it is usually
possible to tell the sect of a temple by scrutinizing its in-
terior. For the benefit of those who may be interested,
particularly of those intending to visit Japan, I shall set
down here some of the points of temple arrangement char-
acteristic of the different sects, which I collected by exam-
ining closely a large number of Japanese temples.
In Tendai temples-and in many others for that mat-
ter-there is usually a railing right across the hall, dividing
it into two unequal parts, the one nearest the entrance
being perhaps ten or fifteen feet wide. All the worshipers
are admitted to this and here most commonly they kneel
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
515
or stand, saying their prayers and gazing up at the shrine
and altar. The larger space, beyond the rail in Tendai
temples, is usually covered with matting, but in the middle
part of it, immediately in front of the altar, there is a good-
sized square space with no matting on it—just the polished
wooden floor. Sometimes this is further marked off from
the rest of the interior by a row of Sutra boxes on each side
for the use of the monks at the chanting service. The
temple interior is thus divided into four sections; the part
outside the rail, the central square, with its bare floor, and
the two wings, which are also beyond the rail and lead back
to the rear and side walls. In the center of what I have
called the square space there is a chair or throne for the chief
priest to sit during the service: not a Western chair but a
kind of platform, four or six inches high. In front of this,
i.e., between it and the altar, is a low table, on which there
are a number of ceremonial objects-usually a few bowls
for offerings and vases for flowers. Sometimes the table is
square and contains in the center a reliquary in the shape
of a tiny pagoda and four bunches of artificial flowers, each
bunch containing five flowers of different colors. Over the
seat and table is suspended a gilded baldaquin, usually
square, and at its sides or at each of the corners there usually
hangs a do-ban. The do-ban was originally a collection of
hanging banners or strips of cloth. Those one finds today
are of two kinds: the commonest are made of carved wood
gilded, the less common of cloth, usually obis, the gifts of
zealous women. The do-ban hanging over the central
square, to which I have referred, are of the gilded wood
variety. If the temple is small, there will be but two of
these, one on each side of the canopy; if it be large, there
will probably be four of them and several cloth do-bans
suspended in the wings at the sides. The central image in a
Tendai temple may be almost any of the distinguished mem-
bers of the Buddhist cycle-especially Shaka, Amida, Ya-
kushi, Dainichi, Kwannon, or (not infrequently) Dengyo
Daishi.
-
A Shingon temple has much the same interior arrange-
ment as the Tendai, but is distinguished by means of its
central table from all other sects (except Kegon and Ritsu,
516
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which in form of service are nearly identical with Shingon).
This Shingon table is always square and contains invariably
certain ceremonial objects, more numerous and more com-
plicated than those on the Tendai table. In the center there
is a reliquary in the shape of a small brass pagoda. Close to
the pagoda is a bouquet of five artificial lotus buds, and at
each corner of the table stands another bouquet, all of them
similar, except that the five bouquets are of different colors.
Behind the square table is a seat for the priest, and on the
table in front of him are ranged eleven objects, viz., a cen-
tral incense burner, signifying effort (from analogy of the
smoke which is ever ascending); two water bowls, symmet-
rically placed on the sides of the incense burner and sym-
bolizing love (since water seeks its level and levels all things
and makes the low high and the high low); two bowls
holding a sweet powder and signifying discipline and obe-
dience; two flower vases meaning perseverance; two lamps,
meaning wisdom; and two bowls for food offerings, sym-
bolizing meditation. Beyond this row of bowls is a tray
holding a bell and a peculiar Shingon sacred implement
known as a goku-a rod with five points on each end, sym-
bolizing the five kinds of potential and actual wisdom, and
held by the chief priest during certain parts of the service.
Over the table and the seat of the priest there is frequently,
though not invariably, suspended a gilded canopy. The cen-
tral image in Shingon temples is usually Dainichi, Shaka,
Amida, or Kobo Daishi. In most Shingon temples of any
size, in addition to the central shrine there is likely to be
(as in some Tendai temples) a shrine at one side to Fudo,
with a square table in front of it for use in the fire ceremony.
Every Zen temple, except the smallest, is supposed to
possess the following seven buildings: (1) gateway, (2)
Buddha hall, (3) lecture hall, (4) meditation hall, (5)
residence of the presiding priest or abbot, (6) bell tower,
(7) bath hall. The central or Buddha hall of the Zens is
distinguishable from the main hall of other Buddhist tem-
ples by having in its center a high platform, accessible by
three stairways. Some Shingon and Kegon temples have halls
with similar platforms, but these are for lectures or ordina-
tions, and do not constitute the temples' central shrines. The
GOOD
G
BUDDHIST TEMPLES IN JAPAN
517
Buddha hall in the Zen temple is used only on great occasions,
the daily worship of both monks and laity being performed
in the modest chapel in one of the buildings farther to the
rear. These Zen chapels which form the real center of de-
votion are distinguishable from temples of most other sects
by their notable, almost severe, simplicity. The image before
a Zen altar is usually Shaka.
Jodo went out from Tendai, and the interior arrangement
of a Jodo temple is hardly distinguishable from that of the
parent order except in being rather simpler. It has the same
division of the main hall by a long rail, the same central un-
matted square, the same seat for the priest with a small table
in front of it. This table is smaller in Jodo than in Tendai
and has fewer things upon it. A gilded canopy is suspended
above it and gilded do-bans hang at its sides. The central
image in the main hall of Jodo temples is usually Honen
Shonin, though it may be Amida. Larger Jodo temples usu-
ally have a Founder's hall and an Amida hall, and sometimes
a Shaka hall as well.
As we have seen, the Shin sect went out from Jodo, and
as we might expect, its temples are much like those of the
parent sect, with variations in the direction of still greater
simplicity. Almost all Shinshu temples have two halls of
worship-the Hondo and the Amida-do-the Founder's hall
and the hall of Amida. The Shin temple is said to have de-
veloped in part out of the tomb of Shinran; which explains
the importance of the Hondo. The Amida-do was added
later as an afterthought. The central image in the Hondo
is of course that of Shinran; while that in the Amida-do is
Amida. Shin temples never possess a Shaka-do, nor even any
image of Shaka. The interior of these temples is very simple
in arrangement. They have retained the long rail of the
Tendai and the Jodo, but have done away with the square
unmatted space and its seat for the priest, and have substi-
tuted for baldaquin and do-bans merely a few hanging
lanterns.
The distinguishing feature in a Nichiren temple is the
drum. This drum is of a characteristic shape, usually about
eighteen inches or two feet in diameter and perhaps four
inches thick. Its place is on one side of the central square,
518
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which is marked off in Nichiren temples much as it is in
those of Tendai and Jodo, and over which is hung a gilt
canopy. There is usually also a peculiar kind of gong-a
gong in the form of a large bronze bowl placed upon two
red silk cushions which rest on a pedestal. The central image
in a Nichiren temple is sometimes Nichiren, sometimes Shaka.
Rather oddly-considering the Protestantism of the Founder
-Nichiren temples frequently have about them many traces
of Shinto, notably a mirror or two in or near the central
image and in the court several tiny Shinto shrines.
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
EVERY Buddhist monk in Japan belongs, as a matter of
course, to one or another of the great sects or denominations
into which the religion is divided. If you ask an orthodox
Japanese Buddhist how many sects there are he will, in all
probability, answer "Twelve." Just why he should answer
twelve I do not know. For if one disregards subdivisions
and counts only the main sects there are at most but nine;
while if one counts all the sub-sects recognized by the gov-
ernment there are over fifty.¹ In spite of which, the usual an-
swer you will get is "Twelve." We can hardly attribute this
fondness for twelve to the number of the apostles nor of the
tribes of Israel; nor can it be explained by the motive which
led the little cottage girl to answer "We are seven," for the
dead sects are no longer included in the enumeration. In
fact, if we should count all the sects of Japan, both the quick
and the dead, we should have not twelve but fourteen.2 In
spite of which the old answer holds. So authoritative a
source as the Japan Year Book, for example, enumerates just
twelve sects. To do so it has to call each of the subdivisions
of Zen a separate sect, refuse to recognize the subdivisions
CHAPTER XXVI
650
Sanron (Ekwan) 625
Jojitsu (Kwan-roku)
Hosso (Dosho)
Kusha (Chitsu) 658
Kegon (Do-sen) 736
Ritsu (Gan-jin) 754
¹Reischauer, op. cit., p. 129.
2
"I append here a list of the sects (including the three sub-sects of Zen) in the
order of their introduction or foundation, together with the names of their founders
(or introducers) in parentheses, and the date of their introduction. If Zen be counted
as but one sect, we shall have fourteen, as suggested above.
625
Tendai (Dengyo Daishi)
Shingon (Kobo Daishi)
804
806
The six Nara
sects
Yutsu Nembutsu (Ryonin) about 1100
Jodo (Honen Shonin) 1175
1225
Rinzai division of Zen (Eisai) 1191
Soto division of Zen (Dogen)
Shin (Shinran) 1225
Nichiren (Nichiren) 1253
Ji (Ippen Shonin) 1275
Obaku division of Zen (Ingen)
Ga
1654
519
520
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of other sects as separate, and leave out the Ritsu sect³
altogether.
The statistics concerning the temples and monks and lay
members belonging to these sects, as given out by the Federa-
tion of the Buddhist Organizations for Children, may be of
some interest to the reader as a matter of reference, and I
therefore copy them down here for his convenience. They
are for the year 1919.
Name of Sect
Temples
Preaching Stations
Monks, Teachers, etc..
Lay Adherents
Name of Sect
Temples
Preaching Stations
Monks, Teachers, etc..
Lay Adherents
•
•
•
•
Name of Sect
Temples
Preaching Stations
Monks, Teachers, etc..
Lay Adherents
• •
•
C
•
•
•
Hosso
43
13
463
10,286
Jodo
Kegon
32
3
30
21,211
495
8
613
256,011
Ritsu
23
523
14
629
60,495
33
18,948
Rinzai Soto (Zen) Shin
(Zen)
8,350
19,661
2,236
6,068 14,228
405
238
640
10,418 9,391 25,218 40,008
3,116,840 2,397,924 5,887,429 13,089,890
Ji
Obaku
Shingon
Tendai
4,548
203
10,070 17,208
2,093,903 16,025,463
12,290
1,001
Nichiren
5,009
999
8,452
2,810,987
GANG
Yutsu
Nem-
butsu
361
3
472
30,421
3
* Which on the preceding page it had referred to as one of the present sects.
I have given these sects in the order of their foundation
or introduction. If I had arranged them according to their
size and influence the order would have been very different.
As the reader will observe, if we list them according to the
numbers of their clergy (and combine the three sub-sects of
Zen) the six largest would stand in the following order:
Shin, Zen, Shingon, Jodo, Tendai, Nichiren. If we list them
according to the numbers of their (reputed) lay adherents,
the same sects would stand as follows: Shingon, Shin, Zen,
Jodo, Nichiren, Tendai. Neither of these lists properly rep-
resents the relative influence of the sects with the people of
Japan. Particularly should the figures given as to lay ad-
herents be taken with no great seriousness. They represent
the traditional alignment of Japanese families, inherited from
Tokugawa days, and mean very little as to the actual con-
ditions of contemporary Buddhism. There is no doubt that
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
521
the Shin shu stands first in the number of its earnest lay
adherents, and its hold upon the masses. The Nichiren sect
also, which expends most of its efforts among the lower
classes, naturally has a larger popular influence than Zen. In
the aristocratic days before the restoration Zen was chiefly
the church of the Samurai, and its adherents today are largely
the descendants of the old Samurai families. Jodo also is
rather more aristocratic in its membership than Shin or
Nichiren. Shingon makes, in some ways, the same varied
appeal to high and low as does the High Church of England.
It is hardly so active, however, as are Shin, Nichiren, and
Jodo. The Tendai shu never fully recovered from the ter-
rific blow dealt it by Nobunaga, when all its monasteries
on Hiei-san were destroyed. The majority of observers will
tell you that the most active and influential of the sects today
are Shin, Zen,* Nichiren, and Jodo.
All or nearly all of the sects (or of the sub-sects when the
sect is split up) have a chief temple or monastery which is
the official headquarters and which transacts the executive
and disciplinary business of the sect. This temple is called
the Honzan or "Main Mountain." The abbot of the Honzan
is usually ex officio head of the sect and its official spokesman
-the patriarch or bishop as we should probably style him.
Usually he is elected by the abbots of the subordinate monas-
teries. In the two great branches of the Shinshu the pa-
triarchal office is hereditary in the Otani family. There are
ten sub-sects of Shin, but only two of them, known as the
Eastern and Western Hongwanji, are of large importance.
For three centuries and a half after the death of Shinran, the
founder, these two were one, and were presided over by the
descendants of Shinran's daughter, the Countess Otani. In
1602 the Hongwanji was divided by Iyeyasu into an Eastern
and a Western division," and the office of bishop or patriarch
was made hereditary in two branches of the Otani family.
Against this monarchical form of rule in perhaps the most
popular branch of Japanese Buddhism there is considerable
complaint; the "Kingdom of Hongwanji" is not liked, and
Op
Especially the Soto branch.
5 The Higashi Hongwanji and the Nishi Hongwanji, so called because of the relative
position of their headquarters temples in Kyoto.
522
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
rebellion may break out at any moment. Each of the two
Hongwanjis is divided geographically, for administrative
purposes, into about thirty chief dioceses, and these into some
four hundred or more subdivisions, each with its chairman
or administrator. There is a Central Conference (or Diet),
the legislative authority of the sect, which is composed of
representatives elected by the thirty or more dioceses, and a
few other members appointed by the bishop. It meets once
a year.
The Hongwanji divisions of the Shin shu are, so far as I
know, the only sects whose heads are hereditary. The pa-
triarch or bishop of Jodo is chosen by the votes of all the
active monks from among the four great abbots of secondary
rank; and he becomes ex officio the abbot of the Chionin
temple in Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect. Jodo divides
Japan into eight large dioceses, the head of each of which
is appointed by headquarters (the Honzan). Each diocese
is divided into smaller sections of which there are, altogether,
forty-eight. Each of these elects a member to represent it
in what might be called the control committee at headquar-
ters. This body, constituted of these forty-eight representa-
tives, is the ultimate authority of the sect. Most of the other
sects are organized in some such manner as Jodo. The abbots
of the subordinate temples (or Matsuji) are usually ap-
pointed by the patriarch (the abbot of the Honzan), due
consideration being given to the wishes of the local monks;
and when he dies, the abbot of the various Matsuji elect his
-
successor.
During the Tokugawa Shogunate a large part of the
funds for the support of Buddhist temples came directly or
indirectly through state assistance. Almost all of the greater
and more ancient temples owned extensive lands and thus had
stable incomes in addition to the contributions made by lay
members. At the restoration state support was withdrawn
from Buddhism and many of the landed endowments of
temples were seized by the crown. Some temples still own
lands and derive from them a steady income. I remember
one Zen temple on the outskirts of Kyoto which owned
several lots in its immediate vicinity and rented the lots to a
moving-picture company. The aggregation of Japanese ac-
tors and actresses, in striking and gaudy costumes, posing for
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
523
a new film just outside the gray old walls of the rather som-
ber Zen temple was an interesting sight. Most temples, how-
ever, have to depend on the contributions of their lay mem-
bers. A great many Japanese families are still listed as
belonging to certain specific temples, and from these a definite
annual sum is expected, which amounts almost to a tax.
The Honzan or headquarters temples of the various sects
have no such lay members, and therefore, for their own sup-
port, they levy a certain tax upon branch temples, which is
raised from the lay members of these branches. Something,
moreover, is added to the income of each temple by the gifts
of pilgrims and occasional worshipers and (in the branch
temples) from funeral services and masses for the dead. The
Asakusa temple received last year from these incidental
sources 160,000 yen. The expenditure of the temple funds
is in the hands of the abbot.
6
The religious and secular duties of the abbot are some-
times divided, especially in large Zen monasteries, a spiritual
director having charge of the culture of the religious life
among his clergy, while the abbot attends to the administra-
tion of the more worldly affairs of the temple. The Tendai
shu has for centuries recognized fourteen grades within the
priesthood, and most of the sects have adopted the Tendai
system. Shingon, I believe, has sixteen. Promotion from
one grade to another is made by headquarters on recommen-
dation from the abbot of the local monastery, on the basis
of conduct, life, and discipline. Zen makes a distinction
(in an informal way) corresponding to that in Christian
monasticism between monks and priests; for some of their
monks live together in monasteries, beg their food, and give
themselves up to a life of meditation and study, while others
are entrusted with the more active duties of administering
small temples.
A considerable number of monks in nearly all the sects
are married. This innovation, as we have seen, originated
with Shinran, and the Shin monks have regularly followed
his example. In some of the other orders marriage has long
been permitted in a few exceptional cases. But until the
7
0
This, at any rate, I found to be the case at the Shokokuji temple in Kyoto, and I
suppose it is not unique.
7 In Tendai, for example.
524
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
restoration these cases were rare, and Japanese monks pretty
generally held the same attitude toward family life as their
brothers in other Buddhist lands. A monk, presumably in-
tended to be typical of the fourteenth century, in the No
Play called Komachi 8 is made to say:
In a dream-lull our lives are passed; all, all
That round us lies
Is visionary, void.
Yet got we by rare fortune at our birth
Man's shape, that is hard to get;
And dearer gift was given us, harder to win.
The doctrine of the Buddha, seed of our salvation.
And me this only thought possessed
How I might bring that seed to blossom, till at last
I drew this sombre cassock across my back.
And knowing now the lives before my birth,
No love I owe
To those that to this life engendered me,
Nor seek a care (have I not disavowed
Such hollow bonds?) from child by me begot.
A thousand leagues
Is little road
To the pilgrim's feet.
The fields his bed
The hills his home
Till the travel's close.⁹
With the rapid westernization that commenced when
Japan was opened up to the rest of the world, this traditional
monastic view of the ideal life has begun to wane. Soon after
the Restoration, various sects rescinded their prohibitions
upon matrimony and monks were allowed to marry if they
chose. In most of the sects except Shin, Jodo, and Nichiren,
however, there is a decided feeling against it, and the highest
positions are filled by celibates. To take a wife is considered
a mark of weakness and of yielding to the flesh, and the more
spiritual monks, it is thought, are those who remain single.
In some sects marriage is likely to stand in the way of promo-
tion within the priesthood. None the less, as I have said,
many of the priests marry. These as a rule live at their
homes with their families, and come to the temple in the
8 By Kwanami, who died in 1384.
'Waley's trans., op. cit., pp. 114-15.
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
525
morning for their daily work, returning in late afternoon or
evening.
The majority of the monks remain celibate. They live,
of course, in the monasteries, sleeping in a common dormi-
tory and eating together in a refectory. In the dormitory
the sleeping spaces are arranged along the walls. All Japa-
nese, of course, sleep upon the floor, and in the monastic
dormitory, as in most homes, the floor is covered with thick
matting. On the wall, at the end of each of the sleeping
spaces, is a shelf or locker where during the day the blanket
or comfortable is stored. In Zen monasteries and in others
where the monks meditate, the dormitory is often used in
the daytime for a hall of meditation. Sometimes only one
blanket is provided for each monk, and at best the bed is
hard and often cold.
The abbots and vice-abbots naturally have more preten-
tious apartments. The vice-abbot of a large Zen monastery
which I visited near Tokyo, received me in his private quar-
ters, at once study and bedroom. The room was small and
nearly square, with immaculate matting-covered floor, slid-
ing doors at each end of the room, and a row of windows on
one side. On the other side was of course the "honorable
recess," raised some three inches above the rest of the floor
and containing a small table or stool-perhaps eight inches
high-on which were two bowls and some papers. Beside
it stood two potted dwarf trees. On the wall was a scroll
bearing a few artistic Chinese characters and in the corner
was hanging a kind of wand, looking like a fly-flapper-a
token of authority carried by the higher clergy in certain
ceremonies. Beside the things named there were in the room
three cushions, on one of which the vice-abbot was sitting
when we entered, the two others being intended for my in-
terpreter and me. At the side of our host was a large porce-
lain charcoal brazier, with the never-failing hot-water pot
upon it, so that tea might be prepared for every emergency.
The patient teapot and the vice-abbot's teacup were sitting
on a tray close by, and near it was another tray containing
writing materials. A young monk followed us in and after
prostrating himself made tea and placed a cup of it before
each of us; and also a tray with sweets, a box of cigarettes,
526
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and a small brazier with a spark of smoldering charcoal to
light our tobacco.
While I am on the subject I might add (for it was typical
of Buddhist hospitality) that when, after an hour's inter-
view, I started to go, the vice-abbot insisted upon our staying
to lunch and would take no refusal. So after a little stretch-
ing of my poor legs about the room I curled them up again
on my cushion, seeking to look as much like a Buddha upon a
lotus as I could-which, for a Westerner, is no easy thing
to do. The lunch was served to us where we sat, and a dainty
and tasty lunch it was. During our conversation over the
rice and vegetables I heard the sound of a telephone; and
remarked that it seemed to me somewhat incongruous in a
Buddhist monastery. Whereupon my host informed me that
they had sixteen telephones in the monastery. He also
added that the cooking for the monks was done by electricity.
The reader will judge from these last details that Japanese
Buddhism is much more "up to date" than it is usually pic-
tured in the West, and that the life of the higher members
of the clergy in the city temples is far from that of the tra-
ditional hermit. The same impression is given by the homes
of the married clergy. A Nichiren abbot whom I called upon
had a really luxurious and beautiful Japanese house, with a
large suite of three interconnecting rooms for the reception
of his guests. The abbot was out walking when we arrived,
and we were asked to await his return, and meanwhile were
served with tea, sweets, cigarettes, and a charcoal brazier.
There were, of course, no chairs nor tables, but cushions,
and the honorable recess; and upon the walls were two Chi-
nese scrolls and a painting. Through the windows we could
see a very pretty Japanese garden, with a lotus pond, dwarf
trees, and the usual miniature river and wood, which never
fail to delight the Japanese and me. When the abbot re-
turned he approached us in courteous fashion on his knees,
bowing to the floor; although (as I discovered during our
conversation) he was by nature a rather abrupt man, with
much self-confidence and ready learning-in short, one who
was and felt himself to be every inch an abbot. At the close
of our interview he offered to send us to the railroad station
in his rickshaws (of which he had two); but then consulting
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
527
his watch he said, "No, there is hardly time for that; I will
send you in my car." So he issued orders and his chauffeur
whisked us off through the crowded streets to the train.
It is, I gather, a rather small minority of the monks who
have homes of their own; and the life of the celebates who
live in the monasteries has much of the monastic routine
followed by the monks of China and Europe. The day opens
with a chanting service before the Buddha, at an early hour,
seldom later than five, sometimes as early as three. This ser-
vice is usually followed by breakfast, after which they have
an hour of reading and study. A large part of the morning
is devoted to the business of the temple, funerals, distribution
of help to the poor, in some monasteries a lecture, preaching
services for the laity, and in temples that are sect headquar-
ters more or less secretarial and administrative work. Or
there may be special addresses to groups of pilgrims or special
masses for the dead. In many temples, I doubt not, there
is a certain amount of loafing. Frequently there is another
chanting service just before lunch; which comes about
eleven. In the afternoon, there is more study and business,
and some free time, with supper about six; and sometimes a
third chanting service before bedtime. In Zen, which con-
centrates more than the other sects on the cultivation of the
inner life, the monastic day is more minutely systematized.
Zen monks live a rather simpler and more strenuous life than
do those of other sects; they do nearly all their own work,
gardening, cooking, cleaning, and even begging some of the
rice for their meals in Hinayana fashion. In some monas-
teries they rise at three and do an hour of zazen 10 before
breakfast. After breakfast they clean and put in order the
various shrines, and from nine to ten they do zazen once
more. In some monasteries there is a lecture for the monks
every morning, given by the abbot or director; and the
monks may have personal interviews with the director con-
cerning their progress and their difficulties in the spiritual
life. Special calls may also come from the laity for funeral
services or masses for the dead. About ten-thirty they cele-
brate mass-i.e., perform another chanting service-before
the Buddha. Dinner comes about noon, and after it each
10
10 The Zen form of meditation.
S
C
528
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
monk cleans up his chopsticks and his three bowls. This is
followed by an interval of rest and by a period of study.
Or in place of the study there may be a special lecture for the
laymen which the monks also may attend. At four there is
another service of prayer before the Buddha, and at five-
thirty they have supper. It will be noted that the monks of
Japan, like those of China, disregard the rule so strictly ob-
served in Hinayana lands against eating after midday. A
few very strict monks of the Shingon sect observe this rule
but I do not know that any others do. The day closes, in a
Zen monastery, with a third period of zazen, from seven-
thirty to nine, after which the great bell rings and they go
to bed.
Possibly something more should be said at this point
concerning the method of doing zazen. It is described in a
series of directions written by the founder of the So-ji-ji
temple, the headquarters of the Soto sect, and though these
directions were written about five hundred years ago they
are observed fairly well even today. They read in part as
follows:
There are two postures in Zazen-that is to say, the crossed-leg
sitting, and the half crossed-leg sitting. Seat yourself on a thick cushion,
putting it right under your haunch. Keep your body so erect that the
tip of the nose and the navel are in one perpendicular line, and both ears
and shoulders are in the same plane. Then place the right foot upon the
left thigh, the left foot on the right thigh, so as the legs come across
each other. This is the posture called the crossed-leg sitting. You may
simply place the left foot upon the right thigh, the position of the hands
being the same as in the cross-legged sitting. This posture is named the
half crossed-leg sitting. Do not shut your eyes, keep them always open
during whole Meditation. Do not breathe through the mouth; press
your tongue against the roof of the mouth, putting the upper lips and
teeth together with the lower. Swell your abdomen so as to hold the
breath in the belly; breathe rhythmically through the nose, keeping a
measured time for inspiration and expiration. Count for some time
either the inspiring or the expiring breaths from one to ten, then be-
ginning with one again. Concentrate your attention on your breaths
going in and out as if you are the sentinel standing at the gate of the
nostrils. If you do some mistake in counting, or be forgetful of the
breath, it is evident that your mind is distracted.¹¹
The regular daily routine of the monastery described two
paragraphs back is broken into at various seasons by special
"I take this from Kaiten Nukariya's The Religion of the Samurai, pp. 189-90.
11
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
529
P
services. There may be a series of public lectures, or, in Zen,
protracted periods of zazen. In some temples there are es-
pecially long hours of prayer on the first, fifteenth, twenty-
second and twenty-ninth of each month. The Rinzai divi-
sion of Zen sets aside six periods of a week each, during the
year, in which the monks are required to do zazen many
hours every day. In some Soto temples there is only one such
week of protracted meditation, but it is extremely severe,
the monks getting only two hours of sleep each night. In
ordinary times each Zen monk who is seriously studying goes
to his spiritual director perhaps once a day or less often; but
during this period of intensive effort he frequently goes three
times daily, in order to talk over his difficulties and report on
the
progress he has made. During these weeks of "retreat,
moreover, the director preaches every day.12
In addition to performing funeral services and celebrat-
ing masses for the dead, the monks occasionally visit the
homes of some of their lay parishioners. This is usually in
response to an invitation, but at times the initiative comes
from the monks. There are many modern-minded young
men in the monasteries of Japan, and some of these are be-
ginning to take an active part in the life of the laity. A
monk whom I met in the great Tendai temple at Nagano-
up among the mountains of central Japan-was the leader of
a boys' club which he had organized, and it was difficult to
determine whether he was most enthusiastic over Buddhism
or baseball. He had spent two years or more in America
studying electrical engineering, whence he had been recalled
by his brother who was a priest in the Nagano temple. He
was glad to come back, for he wants to be saved by Amida—
though, he added, he might have been saved had he stayed in
America and turned Christian, for good Christians are saved
just as Buddhists are; but he is glad to be saved by Amida.
His American training has not been wasted, however, and
he is putting into the service of the Buddha a breeziness and
active energy which one associates rather with the American
engineer than with the monk of the Orient. While in Cali-
fornia he attended a Christian Sunday school, and though
12
دو
According to Schuej Ohasama, in his little book, Zen, der lebendige Buddhismus in
Japan (Gotha, Klotz, 1925), p. 16.
530
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the teaching he received did nothing to undermine or weaken
his enthusiastic Buddhist faith, he did get from it—or from
somewhere-a vivid conception of efficient social service,
and this he is applying in his new job. Not only does he
perform his share of the temple ritual with contagious en-
thusiasm, and preach to bands of pilgrims ten times every
month; he has, as I have stated, formed a boys' club and
taught the boys to play baseball and tennis; he takes them
on trips to compete in athletic games with other clubs; he
has even gone into the politics of the town and succeeded in
getting a large lot set aside for the public sports of the town
children. This priest is, of course, unusual-in part because
of his American experiences. But he is by no means unique.
Many Japanese monks have been in America, or Europe, and
many who have not have a full share of the Western spirit
for efficient social service. According to the Young East
for January, 1928, a new mode of helpfulness has been devised
by Buddhist monks in Hiroshima and a few other prefec-
tures. "It is to make use of part of the temple premises as a
sort of kindergarten for the benefit of peasant women dur-
ing their busiest season, when they have little time to look
after their young children. In other words, the priests will
take charge of the young ones while their mothers are busy
at work on the field." A Japanese newspaper not long
ago gave an account of a group of young monks in a village
temple organizing a dramatic club among the young people
of the village, and planning to give a Buddhist pageant in the
interests of Buddhist foreign missions. The abbot of their
temple was of the old school and vetoed the proposal. Where-
upon seven of the young monks went on a strike, leaving him
to do all the work of the temple, while they reorganized the
dramatic club. During our stay in Kyoto there was a very
serious strike on the car lines of Osaka. Both sides at length
appealed to the Shingon monks of Koya-san, who acted as
mediators and arbitrators, and successfully ended the strike.
It is plain that the Buddhist monks of Japan are very
much more active than are their brothers of China. They
are also better educated and more wide-awake in their in-
terests. On the other hand, they are, at least outside of the
Zen sect, less meditative, less "monastic." One hears occa-
N
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
531
}
13
sionally of a specially zealous monk whose religious devotion
requires some special outlet for its expression-such as fast-
ing after midday, or having only one clete in one's zori.'
Most monks frequently find the monastic life sufficiently
ascetic without any such additional forms of self-denial.
The dormitories, for example, are often very cold in winter,
and frequently the blankets provided are quite inadequate.
No matter how cold the monks may be, they are never
allowed to sleep together and thus keep each other warm.
But the suffering in summer nights is often worse than that
in winter, as every one will believe who has spent a summer
in Japan, outside the mountainous regions. I do not refer
to the heat, though this is bad enough, but to the mosquitoes.
Monasteries are seldom provided with mosquito netting—
never, so far as I know; and for the monk it would be a great
sin to kill a mosquito. To do zazen several hours a day and
keep awake and strenuous at the process, after having fed the
mosquitoes during a large part of the night forms a suffi-
ciently ascetic life for most Japanese monks. Rarely do
they shut themselves up for years of solitary confinement
as do the more zealous monks of China; 14 but few occiden-
tals, I fancy, will blame them for this omission.
-
The Japanese nun has, naturally, fewer outside activities
than the monk. I have no statistics as to the number of nuns
in Japan, but it is very much smaller than that of the monks.
It is especially the Jodo order that encourages them; and at
the Jodo headquarters-the Chionin temple in Tokyo-there
13
14
Apparently to avoid taking insect life when walking.
Some of them, however, live relatively isolated and very simple lives.
Thus a
monk whom the people refer to as "Saint Fruit-eater" (Mokujiki Shonin) has lived for
more than thirty years in a small temple in the suburbs of Tokyo, who in his love of
frugality is typically Buddhist and in his love of beauty typically Japanese. I quote
from the Young East (for July, 1927) concerning him. "As his nickname indicates,
he has subsisted on nothing but fruit, barks of trees, roots of grass for nearly half a
century in the past. Having no desire after worldly pleasures, he has had no need of
money for his own use. And almost all the offerings presented to him in money have
been kept in a wooden box. Sometimes he bought towels and other small necessities
for poor beggars and laborers thrown out of jobs. When he counted his money
recently, however, he found that there was more than one thousand yen in the box.
He thought the money should be spent in such a way as would please the public for
all the time to come. After a careful consideration, he spent his money in purchasing
azaleas, pine trees, arbor vitaes, and a few other kinds of trees, bearing beautiful flowers.
And without the assistance of other people, he has planted them on the embankment of
the railway track near his temple. The azaleas, which he has planted there, bloomed
beautifully in June and delighted the weary eyes of railway passengers and of all the
people living in the neighborhood."
532
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is a convent with about sixty nuns and a school with about
three hundred girls who are preparing for the religious life.
The daily routine of the nun is much like that of the monk,
except for the slighter emphasis on outside activities. At
some convents the first chanting service begins at four-
thirty, followed by breakfast and various duties about the
temple. A second service takes place at eleven, followed by
the midday meal; while a third service is held after supper.
The nuns sometimes sit up as late as ten. The religious vo-
cation is still regarded as an honorable career for the daugh-
ters of the aristocracy. Thus the office of lady abbess of the
Che-gu-ji convent at Horyuji is always given to some nun
from a family of the nobility; and the same position in the
Jodo convent at Nagano is filled by an imperial princess.
The Japanese nuns that I have seen appear greatly superior
to the nuns of China and Korea, in both intellectual, spir-
itual, and social qualities. Many of them are earnest stu-
dents of Buddhism and devoted servants of the Dharma or
Amida.
Amig
Both nuns and monks at ordination take the tonsure,
which means having their heads completely shaved; and keep
their heads in this condition of artificial baldness to the end
of their lives. There is no ceremony of burning holes in
the scalp as in China, and the ordination service is a rather
simple affair. Candidates are admitted to the Order at about
twenty years of age. In most sects there is a novitiate of a
few years, beginning at about fifteen. On entering this the
boy (or girl) takes the usual ten vows of the Buddhist
clergy, and on being admitted to the full rank of monk (at
twenty) he adds the traditional two hundred and fifty vows
having to do with the special rules of the Order. Accord-
ing to Lloyd, "When a Buddhist priest is ordained, he re-
ceives 'letters of orders' on which are given the principal
names of the priests through whom the succession has come
down to him from the Apostles of Sakyamuni.
>> 15
After being ordained the monk assumes the regular
priestly garb. This varies somewhat among the different
sects, but I am told that there is a general similarity in the
15 The Creed of Half Japan, p. 234, note. The Yutsu Nembutsu sect is an exception
to this rule which traces back only to its founder in the twelfth century.
:
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
533
case
a
or
garb of all the monks which is quite sufficient to strike the
eye of any woman. Unluckily when I try to recall details
like these my mind reverts to the condition of the Alaya-
vijnana or even to the original Buddhist Void; but here, as
usual, my Fellow Pilgrim comes to my rescue and furnishes
me with the following description. The monk, it seems,
wears a kimono, like any other Japanese, except that in his
it is usually white. Over it is bauri
coat of special cut. Like the hauri of the lay-
man it comes down to the knees; but there is attached to
it a kind of flounce in pleats-not gathers (I am particularly
instructed to insist it is not gathers, though personally I could
not possibly tell a gather from a pleat)—and this flounce
extends below the knees some eight or ten inches. This
hauri or coat is usually made of a fine grenadine material,
varying in thickness with the season. It is sheer and dressy
so that you can see the white undergarment or kimono
through it. It is frequently black but it may be green, plum,
or some other color. It is sometimes made of silk grenadine
and gives an elegance and distinction to the wearer. Over it
is the chasuble, a long band several inches wide hung around
the neck and coming down in front on both sides. This
is usually of silk damask in lovely colors, adorned with in-
woven peonies, azaleas, and other flowers. Suspended by a
band around the neck, like a child's book-bag, is a square
piece of damask about sixteen inches on a side, patched to-
gether from several pieces (reminiscent, I will add, of the
patched garb of the first followers of Shaka). It is often
decorated with flowers or gold woven into the damask and
is worn on the left hip or in front.
-
Before being admitted to the priesthood the candidate
must pass an examination; but in most of the sects except
the Shinshu this offers but slight obstacle to ignorant piety.
Sometimes all that is required is ability to read a few Sutras
in Chinese; sometimes committing to memory these Sutras is
sufficient, with no unpleasant questions asked as to what they
mean. Many Japanese monks are still very ignorant. Fif-
teen or twenty years ago Professor Inonye Tetsujiro of the
Tokyo Imperial University wrote as follows: "Buddhist
priests, in spite of a few notable and brilliant exceptions,
534
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which only serve to make the general darkness more visible,
are behind the rest of the world in education, character,
morals, and influence.” 16
To give a trustworthy picture of the situation, however,
one should add that since these words were written the
"notable exceptions" have become more frequent, and that
the ignorant condition of the priesthood is being rather
rapidly remedied in all the more advanced sects. As we shall
see, all of these sects have universities or advanced schools
for the training of their priesthood, and while it is still pos-
sible to enter the order without going to any school, a larger
and larger proportion of the clergy is being recruited from
among the graduates of these educational institutions. Many
of the monks of Japan, as I have said, are still ignorant, but,
a fair number are learned, and the proportion of those with
an intelligent apprehension of Buddhism is steadily increas-
ing.
The same charges are brought against the morality of the
Buddhist clergy that one hears against the morality of the
clergy in most lands except Protestant Christendom.17 The
truth seems to be that the Buddhist monk is decidedly in-
ferior in moral earnestness to the Christian preacher; but
that he is by no means worse than the average Japanese lay-
man. So far as negative morality goes he is probably a good
deal better. One hears of scandals among Buddhist monks
for the same reason for which one hears of scandals among
American Sunday-school superintendents. They are human,
and if in exceptional cases they commit some striking offense
every one is interested in publishing the fact. The chief ac-
cusation that can properly be brought against them is the
lack of some of the more positive virtues. Many of them
are lazy and many of them are satisfied to serve the com-
munity which supports them in no other way than chanting
at the funerals of the dead-for a consideration.
On the other hand, as we shall see in the next chapter,
many monks, and an increasing number of them, do a good
Quoted by Reischauer, op. cit., p. 316. Dr. Armstrong also has a very poor
opinion of the old school of priests, but admits that "an increasingly large number" of
of them are trying to reform "the almost hopeless system"-Buddhism and Buddhists in
Japan (New York, Macmillan, 1927), pp. 75-77.
17 These words were written before the appearance of Elmer Gantry.
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
535
deal of active service among the laity, and lead useful lives
of helpfulness. And not only of these more efficient mem-
bers of the Order but of nearly all it may be said that they
exemplify, as their colleagues and predecessors in all Buddhist
lands have regularly done, the virtues of mercy, generosity,
hospitality, and every sort of liberality. A recent number
of the Outlook reports the experience of a Christian col-
porteur in trying to sell a Bible to two women in a Japanese
house where he was calling in the course of his business
rounds. From the next room he heard the voice of a monk
loudly repeating Buddhist prayers. The women hesitated to
buy the Bible; whereupon the monk stopped his praying long
enough to urge the women to make the purchase; adding,
"Books like that are good to have. All religious books are
helpful." Tokichi Ishii (a murderer converted to Chris-
tianity while imprisoned awaiting execution) tells in his
journal of an interview with the Buddhist chaplain of the
prison, shortly after his conversion. On learning that To-
kichi had been converted to Christianity and that Christian-
ity had changed his heart, the chaplain said, "Then your re-
ligion is an admirable thing. There is no better than the
teaching that changes a man's heart." 19 On another
page of
his diary Tokichi writes:
,, 18
Today the head chaplain came to my cell and made enquiries about
the state of my mind. He knows that I believe in Christ but still he
comes once every week or two to talk with me. Being a Buddhist him-
self, he would naturally think he would talk about Buddhism; but never
once has he done so. He has never suggested that it would be well for
me to believe in Buddhism. He simply encourages me to believe more
deeply in Christianity. Not only that, but he has lent me Christian
books to read. I have a very great admiration for this chaplain, 20
The Japanese monks are pleasant and agreeable gentle-
men, not very learned as a rule but on the whole intelligent,
and almost without exception, kindly, hospitable, generous.
As a rule they have little enough to be generous with except
18 The Young East, I. 171.
10
See Caroline Macdonald's delightful translation of Tokichi's journal, under the
title, A Gentleman in Prison (Doran, 1922), p. 88.
20
Op. cit., p. 154.
536
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
time, and it would be ungenerous of me if I, who have taken
so much of their time, should fail to testify to their gener-
osity with the one thing they have to give. I can imagine
few things more delightful than to start out morning after
morning, as I did during several months, accompanied by
my Fellow Pilgrim and my interpreter, and armed with note-
book, pencil, and shoehorn, to take our way, by rickshaw or
on foot, through the colorful streets of Kyoto or of some
other city, crowded with courteous people in fresh kimonos,
and lined with little shops whose wares are always beautiful,
out through the larger spaces of the suburbs, and on through
some ancient monumental gateway guarded by gigantic
Ni-O and the Four Kings, into the peace of a temple en-
closure, and up to the office of the monastery, there to send
in our cards, take off our shoes, and spend a quiet hour with
some courtly abbot of princely bearing or some modest but
earnest monk, sipping endless tea and discoursing on the deep
things of the Mahayana. One of these visits, I should add,
a visit of three days and nights on the summit of Koya-san,
stands out in the memories of both of us as among the great
intellectual and religious experiences of our lives. The un-
imaginable beauty of the place, the almost incredible kindness
and courtesy of every one there, the intellectual banquet of-
fered us by the reverend professors of the Koya-san Daigaku,
the impressive interview with the Lord Abbot (the Bishop
of Shingon), the earnest attitude of the hundreds of collegé
students preparing for the Shingon priesthood, the atmos-
phere of monastic calm, of cosmic security, of spiritual se-
renity-influences like these gave us the feeling that few
places on earth can be so near to heaven as this monastic
center on the summit of Mount Koya.
Koya-san is probably unique, and not all the Buddhist
monks of Japan are like those on its summit. Many are ig-
norant, many are lazy, many I presume are selfish. Some
are certainly immoral. Yet, on the whole, they are a likable
lot. In comparison with the monks of China (and all human
praise and blame must be largely a matter of contrast) the
Japanese monk is perhaps a little less congenial, a little less
easy, a little more formal; but he is notably more intelligent,
more enlightened, more active, and useful, and perhaps more
BUDDHIST SECTS AND CLERGY
537
deeply religious.21 Like most of his brotherhood he has
caught a good deal of the Founder's catholicity of spirit and
liberality toward every formulation of the truth. He
shares, as a matter of course, in the beautiful courtesy of his
nation. He has his faults; but one can hardly deal with him
without feeling that he honestly and deeply wishes well to
all sentient creatures.
21
It may be well to append here the opinion expressed by Tai Hsü, the leader of the
Buddhist revival in China, concerning the merits and failings of the Japanese monks.
"Of their good points there are four: (1) They organize themselves into bodies, which
by cooperation are capable of doing public charity work or carrying out large scale
education campaigns for the benefit of the public. (2) Japanese monks are better trained
for the work of propagating the Buddhist religion. (3) They are patriotic and often-
times render useful, though worldly, services to the country and the community.
(4) Their minds being more susceptible to western thoughts and ideals, they are
capable of making the Buddhist teachings acceptable to the modern mind. Regarding
shortcomings, (1) they are less devout in their religious life and unable to undergo the
austerities of a religious recluse as their brethren in China and Tibet can do, (2) they
are more sectarian and have no unity among the different sects and (3) they are too
patriotic and nationalistic to pay much attention to the Buddha's teachings of universal
brotherhood, (4) they learn so much of modern scientific studies as to tinge the
Buddhist teachings they preach with a touch of Modernism." The Young East, I, 180.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
IN Tokugawa times, the head of every Samurai clan had
to be registered as a member of one or another of the Buddhist
sects, and every family in the land was listed as belonging to
some particular temple or shrine. As nearly all Shinto shrines
were then of the Ryobu-Shinto type, and as the census-
taking was put into the hands of Buddhist monks, the result
was that nearly every family in the land was in theory as-
signed to some Buddhist or semi-Buddhist temple. Since
the time of the restoration, when Buddhism was disestab-
lished, this custom of religious registration has no longer
been enforced by the state, but a large number of families
have allowed their names to remain on the temple books and
have continued to support these temples and make use of
their priests at funerals. Thus there is something in Japanese
Buddhism distantly corresponding to church membership
in Christianity. Only it is not individuals but families that
are the church members, and so far as an individual can be
called a member, it is not by voluntary act but by heredity.
Members of what we might call registered families have an
hereditary right to have their funerals celebrated in the tem-
ple of their registration, and in some sects to be buried in the
temple graveyard. They may also have the right to have the
third and seventh anniversary of their deaths celebrated in
the temple, and sometimes to have their tablets placed within
the sacred building. Registered members are expected, at
least in several of the sects, to aid in defraying the temple
expenses. Beyond these funeral rights and financial duties,
temple membership means little. It does not necessarily im-
ply worship in the temple of registration, nor any special
kind of belief. No one cares what a member believes, but
one cares what priests conduct the funeral services of the
family. If a member of one temple is buried by the priests
538
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
539
of another temple, the priests of the temple of his registration
will refuse to act for his family at future funerals. Of
course, for the more devout, membership in a temple may
and does amount to much more than this. An earnest lay-
man may worship regularly in his family temple, aid it
financially, attend its preaching services and receive frequent
visits from its clergy in his home. But all this he might also
do though not registered as a member of any temple. There
are large numbers of simple believers who worship devoutly
at temples of their choice and help support them but who are
not registered anywhere and have no special temple rights.
The headquarters temples of the various sects have no
members: it is only the branch temples that have registered
members. Most Japanese, as I have said, inherit their mem-
bership and go through no ceremony of baptism or confirma-
tion. The Nichiren sect alone, so far as I know, has a rite
approximating that of baptism. The new-born child is
brought by his father or nurse to the priest of the temple in
which his family is registered, and the priest touches his head
with the sacred scripture (the Hokkekyo, or Saddharma
Pundarika Sutra). If an adult who has no hereditary con-
nection with the Nichiren sect wishes to join it he goes to
one of the branch temples, has his name registered, and the
priest gives him a rosary and touches his head with the Hok-
kekyo. In the other sects, so far as I could learn, there is no
rite even of this simple sort for joining the church. If a
man is converted to a given sect to which his family does
not belong, he simply goes to a branch temple of that sect
and has his name enrolled. The branch temple will there-
after see to the funeral rites of his family, and it hands his
name in to the headquarters temple.¹
While there is no sacrament of confirmation for the Bud-
dhist layman, some sects have a rite somewhat comparable
to it for the benefit of the more zealous. It is a purely
voluntary and individual matter, and takes place on certain
special occasions. Thus Jodo has at times a series of what
-
1
¹A distinction is made in some sects between those whose families have belonged to
the sect since Tokugawa times and those recently converted. Thus the West Hong-
wanji has on its rolls some 1,450,000 families with an aggregate of 7,209,755 individuals,
and in addition some 143,427 individuals who have been registered as converts since
the restoration.
540
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
evangelical Christians might call "protracted meetings,"
lasting a week, in which the "five-fold instructions" are
given to whosoever wishes to receive them; and at the close
of the period the lay participants may take the Five Vows,
for a limited period or for life, and go through the form of
having a razor put to the hair, as if they were to take the
tonsure, a symbol of joining the Order as it were. The
Shinshu also has a similar ceremony of the "shaving of the
head," and many of the more devout go through it. It is
merely a way of expressing their greater zeal. A new name
is given the believer at this "conversion ceremony" and a
small contribution—perhaps a few yen-is made by him.
Those who have had this rite of confirmation, as we might
by analogy call it, may wear thereafter a badge of distinc-
tion (usually a piece of silk, green or some other color,
thrown over the shoulders), and have the privilege of sitting
inside the rail at religious services. Zen also has a special
ceremonial, suggesting adult baptism, for the more devout.2
A large number of the laymen registered as members of
Buddhist temples have little knowledge as to the beliefs of
the Buddhist sects or of the differences between them. To
many of these nominal Buddhists their religion appears to
mean hardly more than that they remember playing in Bud-
dhist temple courts when they were children, that they oc-
casionally attend a Buddhist festival in some temple precinct,
and that they expect to be buried by Buddhist priests when
they die. It goes without saying that a large proportion of
them never look into any of the Buddhist scriptures: this
goes without saying because it is a characteristic which the
Japanese "Buddhist" shares with several European and
American "Christians." One Buddhist I met in Nikko (a
curio dealer) told me he was a member of the Zen sect. I
asked him to tell me about zazen and he replied he had never
heard of it. He was a member of Zen, I discovered, only in
the sense that he admired the simplicity of Zen temples and
the self-control of Zen members and that he had some Zen
utensils of ritual in his home shrine. He also said that he
regularly read from the Buddhist scriptures. When I asked
2 The reader will find a brief account of this in Armstrong's Buddhism and Bud-
dhists in Japan, pp. 47-49.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
541
him the name of some of these scriptures, he said he would
have to go and ask his wife. Another Nikko curio dealer
with whom I talked called himself a member of Tendai.
Personally, he said, he prayed to Amida-every one in Nikko
But
prays to Amida. All the Buddhas, he said, are one.
then, he suddenly added, Amida and all the other Buddhas
are just imagination. In spite of which he continues to
pray to Amida and teaches his children to do the same. He
also prays to his ancestors. But he believes his ancestors are
all annihilated. Buddhism teaches paradise and hell, but
personally he believes that when a man dies it is all over with
him. Buddhism, he said, is just imagination and the teach-
ing of mercy and wisdom. But he keeps on praying to his
ancestors and to Amida just the same. Most Buddhists
under fifty, he asserted, believe as he does. It is chiefly the
older people who really believe in the Buddhas and in the im-
mortality of their ancestors.
This man's knowledge of his countrymen was confined
chiefly to Nikko; and if applied to the inhabitants of Nikko
only, what he said may possibly be true. Nikko is, of course,
a Shinto rather than a Buddhist center, and I am told there
are few places in Japan where Buddhism is so weak. Prob-
ably the attitude of the Nikko curio dealer toward his re-
ligion could be duplicated in many other places; but it is
characteristic not of Japanese Buddhists but of Japanese
skeptics. And there are many of both. It is, however, the
Buddhists we are studying; the mind of the skeptic is pretty
much the same the world over.
The religious books read by the more devout and intelli-
gent Buddhists vary according to the sects. Of the ancient
and canonical books the most commonly read are, perhaps,
the following: the Saddharma Pundarika (called in Japanese
the Hokkekyo), the Vajrakkhedika or "Diamond Cutter,
the Prajna-paramita-hridaya (popularly known as Shingyo)
and the Vimalakirti. In theory the Larger and Smaller Suk-
havati Vyuha are of primary importance for the four Pure
Land sects, but their chief use is for ritualistic purposes.
Jodo followers read chiefly the letters of Honen Shonin, the
Shin followers the letters of Shinran and Renyo. Zen mem-
bers read the Goruku, or sayings of the Zen masters. There
در
i
$42
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is, beside, a growing mass of modern religious books, maga-
zines, and pamphlets which probably have a larger reading
among many classes of religious people than the canonical
and semi-canonical books.
Reading from the sacred books occupies a less conspicu-
ous place in the life of the devout Buddhist-as it does in
the life of the devout Roman Catholic-than is usually
given it by the old-fashioned orthodox Protestant Christian.
Prayer, praise, and the presentation of offerings are more im-
portant for the Buddhist than reading. The devout mem-
ber of the Shinshu practices five different ways of "nourish-
ing his faith,” which are expounded in the Catechism of the
sect as follows: "The best way is to recite the Nembutsu
[Namu Amida Butsu]. Second, read with appreciation the
Scriptures. Third, cultivate joy in the heart by dwelling
in imagination upon the enlightenment of Paradise. Fourth,
worship and adore the images of Amida. Fifth, meet with
like-minded believers, praise the merit of Amida and talk
about his Law."
>> 3
G
CON
The injunction "to meet with like-minded believers" is
characteristic of the Shin sect rather than of the other divi-
sions of Japanese Buddhism. As in other Buddhist lands,
much the greater part of worship in the temple, as well as
in the home, is individual rather than communal. The
regular morning and evening chanting services of the monks,
in most of the sects except Shinshu, is seldom attended by
laymen. Most of the layman's worship is carried on in his
home; and the major portion of his temple worship he per-
forms by himself and at times when the monks are not carry-
ing on their services. As in other parts of the Buddhist world
this individual worship of the layman is a very simple mat-
ter, and there is an immense amount of it. One seldom en-
ters a Japanese temple of the more popular sects without
finding at least a solitary worshiper, standing in silent prayer
before the Buddha-silent except for the long sibilant in-
drawn breaths with which the Japanese regularly express the
emotion of reverence, or the softly repeated prayer, "Namu
Amida Buts (u), Namu Amida Buts (u)." Sometimes the
"A Catechism of the Shin Sect," trans. by A. K. Reischauer, Tr. A. S. J., XXXVIII
(1912), 385.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
543
mode of worship seems a bit cavalier and quite lacking in
inwardness. A casual visitor to a Japanese temple may thus
naturally enough come away with the conviction that Bud-
dhism means very little to the native worshipers. My own
first impression amounted to as much. The first Japanese
temples I visited were in Kamakura, and I find in my early
notebook the following entry:
At the Hachiman temple and before the great Kwannon the wor-
shipers clap their hands three times and toss a coin into a receptacle for
offerings and that is about all. Some stand a moment repeating some
very brief prayer, some do not do so much. A group of eight or ten
pilgrims visited each of these shrines at the same time with us, and did
as above described. By them as by all the others whom I watched, with
the exception of one earnest old woman, the Kwannon image seemed
to be taken in much the same way as we took it-as an object of artistic
and archeological rather than religious interest. I think I felt quite as
much real reverence as any of them showed. As to the clapping of the
hands three times, this I note is what the maid does when she comes to our
door, instead of knocking. Before the great Dai Butsu-a really religious.
and imposing statue-I think I was more reverent than any of the Bud-
dhist visitors whom I saw. In fact, though I was as "gentle" as Kipling
could have wished, I saw no "heathen" praying before the Buddha of
Kamakura.
This was written on my first day in Japan; and I should
hasten to add that before I had been long in the country I
had to revise very considerably my opinion as to lay worship
in the temples. There is much superficial and purely ex-
ternal worship in Japanese temples, but also much that is
unmistakably fervent; and when one gets acquainted with
the mask of external gaiety by which almost all Japanese
hide their inner feelings, one comes to the conclusion that
some of the worship which seems to the onlooker purely
formal may have behind it an unsuspected depth of mean-
ing. The extravagant expression of religious emotion which
one used to find at an old-fashioned American prayer meet-
ing would seem to most Japanese an indecent exposure of soul.
The mode of individual worship at the temples is, as I
have said, very simple and resembles in many ways what one
finds in China and even in Southern Buddhist lands.
many of the smaller temples there is a bell over the en-
trance, with a rope attached by which the bell may be
In
544
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
K
sounded. The worshiper on entering sounds this bell, or
claps his hands and usually throws a coin into the coin re-
ceptacle, and there stands for some moments in prayer,
making low bows or prostrations at the end. Family parties
appear, father, mother, and several children: they kneel, in-
tone prayers, and pass out. An old woman has been sitting
as near the altar as she can get for a long time, mumbling the
Namu Amida and recording its repetitions on a rosary. A
man is reading a Sutra to himself in an audible voice-in
Nichiren temples sometimes accompanying the reading by
gently sounding a wooden gong. Outside, a specially zealous
devotee is apparently carrying out a vow by circumambulat-
ing the temple a great many times, repeating prayers as he
goes. The impression one gets at a great city temple like
the Asakusa in Tokyo, from the unceasing procession of
worshipers, arriving, praying, and departing, is very con-
siderable. Possibly more impressive is it to step into some
smaller shrine and find it quite empty save for the merciful
Amida and one lone worshiper, a woman, sobbing out her
broken heart before him.
The chanting services of the monks vary considerably
between the different sects. In the Tendai, Shingon, Jodo,
and Nichiren sects, the abbot or an appointed leader takes
his seat on the low platform in the middle of the central
square, with his monks seated in two rows at his right and
left, facing each other and him, while he faces the altar.
The service in all the sects consists, as in China, principally
or entirely of chanting, sometimes by all the monks, some-
times by the leader alone, and at various tempos, sometimes
slowly and with much solemnity, and again hastening on
with rapid beating of the gong or bell to an exciting presto.
The Shingon services are the most elaborate and ornate, and
include besides chanting various movements of the goku,*
and the presentation of symbolic offerings by the celebrant.
'The goku or vajra is a symbolic implement, usually of bronze and about four to
six inches long. It seems to have originated from the trident of Siva, but it has been
greatly modified on passing from Hinduism to Buddhism. Instead of having three
points it has five-five on each end. Four of these are arranged about the fifth or
central one, and these four outer points are at the extremity turned inward, so that all
five tips meet. It is largely used in Tibet. According to the Shingon interpretation
the five points on one end symbolize the five kinds of a priori or innate wisdom pos-
sessed in actuality by Dainichi and potentially by all beings; those on the other repre-
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
545
While the major portion of the layman's worship is, as
I have said, individual, a small group of the more zealous
laity is sometimes found at the chanting services of the
monks, which thus come to take on something of the aspect
of communal worship which all our Protestant services pre-
sent. In some Shingon masses there is an opportunity for
the laymen present to participate if they wish, by going, at
a certain point in the service, to a side shrine and there mak-
ing, with great reverence, a simple symbolic offering of a
few grains of incense. In Tendai temples, especially in those
which are the resorts of pilgrims, laymen sometimes kneel
in considerable numbers outside the rail and follow with
reverence and with prayer and bowing the chanting of the
priests. An impressive service of this sort we witnessed at
the great temple at Nagano, where a curtain, behind the
altar, ordinarily hides the sacred image. At the climax of
the mass this curtain was dramatically drawn, and exposed
for a few moments the Buddha in the darkened recess be-
hind.
G
The Nagano temple is peculiar in being used for both
Tendai and Jodo services. It belongs to the Tendai shu, but
just outside of the monastery grounds there is a convent of
Jodo nuns, and these are allowed the use of the great temple
for their morning service-which follows the Tendai ser-
vice at an interval of a few minutes. This Jodo service was
one of the most memorable I have seen, for the celebrant was
peculiarly reverent and chanted what might be called the
solo portions of the service with great impressiveness and
with a voice of unusual charm. At first I thought the cele-
brant, with close-shaved head, was a very young monk; and
then I realized it was a nun-the lady prioress of the con-
vent, the imperial princess to whom I referred in the preced-
ing chapter. I shall not soon forget the depth of reverent
feeling and the sense of significance she put into the words,
"Namu Amida, Namu Amida." The little lady-she was
twenty-two-looked every inch a princess, and bore herself
as such. After the service there was a kind of recessional
senting the five kinds of a posteriori wisdom. Members of the Shingon sect make much
use, during meditation, of one of the Sanskrit characters corresponding to our vowel A.
It symbolizes identity and difference.
546
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
through the temple grounds to the Jodo convent, and as she
led the way, followed by her nuns and attendants, the pil-
grims knelt in a long line and she touched the head of each
with her silk tassel in blessing."
Services somewhat more like our Protestant type are to
be found in the more popular sects, Nichiren and Shin. The
Nichiren services are often held not in the main temple but
in some smaller and less sacred building within the temple
enclosure. Forty or fifty people may collect in such a room,
with one or two priests to lead them, and conduct a rather
noisy service of praise in which all take part, with con-
siderable assistance from the drum. The drum is one of the
chief characteristics of the Nichiren sect, as only the mem-
bers of this sect make use of it. In a Japanese city one may
hear the booming of the drum from some far-distant Nichi-
ren temple, and know that an enthusiastic service of prayer
and praise is going on. Young laymen as well as priests are
taught to beat it, which they do with great skill and with
a peculiar rhythm. The noisy cadence thus produced is said
to be helpful toward inducing the spirit of praise and prayer.
The daily morning service of the Shinshu (about 5:30
A.M.) is attended by a considerable number of laymen, and
once every month, on the monthly celebration of the death of
Shinran, the service is especially elaborate and the attendance
especially large. At one of these services which I attended
in the Higashi Hongwanji in Kyoto there was an audience of
about six hundred. All of these but about a dozen sat out-
side the rail, which divides the temple into two unequal
parts. Within the rail were twelve or more laymen who had
gone through the rite of having the razor put to the hair,
and who wore, on this occasion, the badge of honor, a piece
of colored silk over the shoulders. These sat at the sides. In
the central space within the rail and in front of the enclosure
containing the altar were the monks-seventeen in number.
Back of them, near the altar, sat the abbot and bishop of the
sect (the head of one branch of the Otani family), with
three or four other dignitaries, and still farther back, on a
throne facing the altar was the celebrant, a young monk,
nephew of the abbot. The service began with a chant by
"Two of the kneeling pilgrims thus blessed were Americans.
J
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
547
-
the chorus of monks-each line of their chant being first
intoned by their leader. This first chant, I was told, was
from a Chinese hymn by Zendo. The celebrant then in-
toned part of a prayer by a grandson of Shinran, sounded a
gong and burned incense, while the priestly chorus intoned
the Namu Amida Bu (tsu). A period of deep silence fol-
lowed during which (as every good Shinshu member would
know) the celebrant read to himself the rest of the prayer
by Shinran's grandson, and the audience appeared to be wor-
shiping. After this the celebrant descended from the throne,
bowed three times toward the altar, and slowly circum-
ambulated it, taking his seat near the abbot, while the chant-
ing continued, fell to a pianissimo, and died. A gong was
twice sounded and the abbot read a poem of Shinran, line by
line, the chorus repeating each line after him-a poem in
praise of the seven patriarchs beginning with Nagarjuna."
This was followed by another intoning of the Namu Amida
Bu, interspersed with some of the Wasans or Psalms of Shin-
ran, begun by one of the higher dignitaries and taken up by
the priestly chorus. Buddhist chanting resembles somewhat
the intoning of the Anglo-Catholic church: it is on various
notes though hardly a tune or song. At the end of the last
Wasan, a gong was sounded three times, the abbot bowed
toward the altar, the higher dignitaries bowed in the same
way, the chorus of priests bowed, and last the audience
bowed. Most of the clergy retired but nearly all the lay
congregation remained and continued their individual wor-
ship, after which many of them went to one of the larger
halls of the temple where a preaching service was held.
If one compares this Shinshu service with the masses said
by the monks in the older sects (no lay congregation being
present) and also remembers that it is Shinshu more than any
other which marks the direction in which Buddhism is de-
veloping, it will be plain that there is nothing fixed or un-
duly conservative in Buddhist cult, and that the tendency is
steadily toward larger participation by the laity and a form
G
The reader may find this in part translated in a little book by S. Yamabe and L.
Adams Beck, entitled Buddhist Psalms, in the Wisdom of the East Series (London,
Murray, 1921). A large part of the West Hongwanji ritual translated into English,
together with descriptions of many special ceremonies, may be found in a little book,
The Vade Mecum, by Rev. and Mrs. Ernest Hunt and A. R. Zorn.
548
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
It
of public worship more like that of Protestant Christianity.
This tendency and also the flexibility of the Buddhist cult
become the more noticeable if one visits the temple recently
built by the Shinshu as a mission chapel in Honolulu. The
exterior, I regret to say, has little of the beauty of the Bud-
dhist temple in Japan, and the interior, except for the Bud-
dha in his gilded shrine, might easily be taken for an Ameri-
can church. There are pews, pulpits, and organ, and they
have a service every Sunday with a choir and a sermon.
is to be hoped that Buddhist worship will not become too
much like ours. I am afraid it will. Japanese converts to
Christianity, I am told, usually prefer a non-liturgical and
simple service. They also say they dislike the dimness of
many Buddhist temples-it makes them sad. Probably we
shall have to make up our minds to the Americanization of
a good deal of the world. Shinshu and Jodo theology is al-
ready quite evangelical and it may be that their cult and
their architecture will follow suit.
-
In addition to the kind of temple services I have men-
tioned, the special masses for the dead play a large part in
the religious life of the Japanese layman. These services are
held in the main temple or in some of its subordinate shrines,
and vary through all degrees of simplicity and elaborateness.
The members of the family attend and sometimes take part,
coming forward, one by one, at a certain point in the ser-
vice, burning incense, kneeling and praying before the altar.
ma
The funeral ceremonies of Buddhist families-unlike
marriages, with which the Buddhist clergy, until recently,
have had nothing to do-consist largely of prayers by the
monks. These masses for the dead are held on the day of cre-
mation and burial and (as in China) at intervals over seven
weeks after the burial. Seven days after the death of the
departed a special ceremony is held in the home and one in
the temple, and at the end of every week till forty-nine days.
have passed a priest is employed to read the scriptures for
the dead. During this time the soul is supposed to remain in
purgatory. Some of the rites connected with these sad weeks
will seem to the reader both superstitious and touching. As
for example, the following, which I take from Lafcadio
Hearn's Unfamiliar Japan:
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
549
When a child dies, the mother buys a small wood-cut of Jizo and
with it prints an image of the divinity upon 100 little papers. And she
sometimes also writes upon the papers words signifying, "For the sake
of
inscribing the soul name which the Buddhist priests have
given to the dead child and which is written also upon the little com-
memorative tablet kept within the Buddhist household shrine.
Then
upon a fixed day (most commonly the forty-ninth day after the burial),
she goes to some place of running water and drops the little papers there,
one by one, repeating as each slips through her fingers the holy invocation,
Namu Jizo Dai Bosatsu."
•
""
In most sects except Shinshu tablets of the dead are kept
in the temples to which the family belongs as well as in the
homes. Almost universally the Buddhists of Japan practice
cremation. The greater part of the ashes are left at the place
of burning, but a portion are usually buried in the Buddhist
graveyard. An interesting custom is followed in Osaka-
and it may be in several other places so far as I know-some
of the ashes of the dead are brought to the great Tenno-ji
temple and there mixed with clay and molded into an image
of the Buddha, which is thenceforth preserved in the temple.
Thus the body as well as the soul "becomes Buddha."
This same Tenno-ji temple exemplifies in extreme fash-
ion another aspect of the Buddhist cult which is far less at-
tractive than the temple worship I have been describing.
One who wished to make a case against Buddhism and charge
it with superstitious and absurd practices would do well
to spend some time in this immense and ancient temple.
Long ago it became a center of the worst mixture of Bud--
dhism and Shinto and this it still retains. It does but little
to stimulate the religious sense but it seeks to offer a magic
refuge from fear and disease and is run chiefly for the bene-
fit of the sick and the dead. The fox cult, the monkey cult,
the sale of charms, the rubbing of diseased members on the
corresponding member of the Binzuru image (which thus
becomes an efficient spreader of disease germs 8 and is nearly
rubbed out of recognition), more healing by the touch of
magic paper, the writing of one's name on
name on a lucky
strip of wood-shavings with a prayer stamped on
it (which one procures for a consideration)
and
'Op. cit., I. 169.
The government has now locked up the Binzuru of Tenno-ji within an iron
grating so that it may be seen but not touched.
550
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the presentation of it to
of it to a stone turtle in a pond,
so that he may take it to the next world-things like
these make the immense enclosure a busy scene of which
Kobo Daishi might have approved but which would have
shocked Honen and Shinran and enraged Nichiren, and
would have made Sakyamuni feel that the Dharma had
nearly disappeared from the earth and that it was high time
Maitreya should descend from the Tusita heaven.
9
10
Possibly I have maligned the great Kobo Daishi (for
whom indeed I cherish deep respect), but the superstitious
attitude of the masses (not of the intelligentsia) of Shingon
partly justifies my guess. As every extremely ritualistic
church is in danger of doing, the Shingon sect encourages
its uneducated followers to lay great stress on the spiritual
value of form and ritual. These in Shingon consist of finger
attitudes, sacred implements, and other externalisms of
various sorts. Nor are they alone in this. Fortune telling
such as one finds in Chinese temples is common enough, not
only in Tenno-ji, but in other large city temples such as
Asakusa in Tokyo (a Tendai temple) and Todai-ji in Kyoto
—especially in the Kobo Daishi shrine. Other things of the
same sort might be mentioned. But it would be as unfair
to call this Buddhism as it would be to describe the doings at
and near the church of San Isidro in Madrid and call it
Christianity.
A more truly Buddhist expression of religious zeal on
These various arrangements of the fingers, or mudras, are used in prayer and
worship, each of them being symbolic of some truth of the Shingon teaching. There
are twelve of these mudras, such as pressing the palms tightly together with the fingers
slightly open, placing the palms loosely together with the ends of the fingers touching
each other, etc., etc. The thumb symbolizes the Void, or the Buddha, the first finger
man, and the two when joined stand for the truth of the unity of the divine and the
human. Or the four fingers may symbolize the four elements air, fire, water, earth, and
the thumb may stand for the Sanskrit A and its mystic meaning, Ultimate Reality.
10 The method is the same as in China. He who would interrogate the future is
provided with a box containing one hundred small sticks or rods, each bearing a number.
He shakes one out before the altar and presents it at the temple office. There are ten
types of request represented by the sticks, such as recovery of the sick, the return of
absent ones, a happy rebirth, etc. To each of these there are ten answers: that is a total
of one hundred possible answers. These one hundred answers are printed out on little
slips of paper arranged in the office in a kind of filing case, and each bearing a number
corresponding to the number on one of the sticks. So when a stick is presented at the
office, the monk in charge gets out from the filing case the corresponding paper slip.
Of each ten answers to any one of the possible ten questions or requests, seven are good
and three bad. Out of one hundred answers there are fifteen utterly and hopelessly
bad ones. But if you draw one of these you may wait a while and try again.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
551
the part of laity and clergy alike is to be found in the joyful
practice (which Buddhism shares with Shinto) of making
pilgrimages to various sacred shrines. As in China there
are many pilgrim clubs which pay the expenses of one or
more of their members each year on some pilgrimage. The
undertaking is usually either an act of thanksgiving or one
of penance. The pilgrims "come almost exclusively from the
peasant and artisan classes and wearing a special garb, go on
foot in twos and threes, begging for alms from house to house
and chanting songs in melancholy tone as they trudge wear-
ily along the country road. Thirty-three temples in the
districts around Kyoto (including Koyosan) and eighty-
eight in the large island of Shikoku are the goals of their
piety." 11 Most of them carry a long staff like that borne
by Jizo, adorned at the top with a circular metallic band to
which are attached six rings. They wear a white hauri or
coat (here my Fellow Pilgrim again comes to my aid), which
is usually white, or of some color adopted by the pilgrim
club to which they belong. Many of them have the official
seals of the various shrines which they have visited stamped
upon their hauri, and when they die they are clothed for
their graves in this coat adorned with the evidences of their
past piety. They usually also receive from each shrine a
certificate (a paper stamped with the seal of the shrine)
testifying to their pilgrimage. Some also carry, strapped
upon their breasts, a box in which donations from the gen-
erous may be placed. They never beg; but if one wishes to
help them out with a few sen and thereby acquire an in-
definite amount of merit for oneself, there is the box! This,
with a long rosary around their necks, a white band round
their heads, and an immense straw hat, ending in a peek and
large as an umbrella, completes their costume.
Many of the pilgrims are broken men and women suf-
fering from disease and seeking cure; and it is the be-
lief of some who watch them that the venture of faith is
by no means always in vain. A pious Buddhist woman who
has given her life to aiding these processions of needy and
hopeful people says, "It is not rare that a pilgrim suffering
from evidently incurable ailment comes back completely
11 F. Kawabata in "A Friend of Pilgrims," The Young East, I. 85.
-
552
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
restored to health. On such occasions I cannot but feel
grateful for the mercy of Buddha." 12 This woman, by the
way, is a beautiful example of Buddhist piety and pity.
Though with no resources of her own she collected about
50,000 yen and with it erected a group of buildings in a
desolate corner of Shikoku, between wild mountains, situ-
ated on one of the most important pilgrim routes. Here
she has spent her life, welcoming and succoring thousands
of pilgrims and supplying their needs. The money for this
purpose was raised chiefly from poor people who gave what
they could-one gift of seven thousand yen coming from a
village of peasants who live on millet and accumulated the
money for their donation by saving a few sen a day.
Each Buddhist family has a household shrine. Some of
these are exceedingly simple affairs, hardly more than shelves;
some are very elaborate with much carving and gilding. The
shrine, whether simple or ornate, contains at least one image
of some member of the Buddhist cycle. In Zen families the
image is likely to be Shaka-though the red-clad Dammo
(the Bodhidharma of China) is usually somewhere in evi-
dence. Shinshu families use no Shaka images but substitute
a picture or image of Shinran or of Amida, while Jodo fam-
ilies may have representations of Amida, Zendo, and Honen,
and occasionally Kwannon and Seishi. The more intelli-
gent members of the Nichiren sect insist that Shaka should
be the central image of the household shrine and of the
temple; but very often his place is taken by Nichiren him-
self. Besides the shrines, scrolls with religious pictures or
inscriptions will be found in many a pious home, represent-
ing one of the Buddhas and his chief Bodhisattvas, the West-
ern Paradise, Jizo saving little children, a death-bed scene
with Amida receiving the departing soul, a Buddhist pursued
by monsters and enemies representing sins, and walking
across a bridge between this world and the next, spanning
fire and a hungry sea, guided and sustained by the warning
voice of Shaka and the beckoning hands of Amida.
Worship is performed before this household shrine in all
the more zealous families morning and night. By much the
larger part of Buddhist worship is in the homes and hence
12 Quoted by Kawabata, op. cit., p. 86.
G
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
553
quite unseen by the outsider. Once a month in many fam-
ilies, a monk is invited to the house to give advice and to
pray.
In addition to this home worship of the Buddhas should
be mentioned the cult of ancestors: for, in contrast to the
conditions in China, Japanese Buddhism has incorporated
this as a part of itself. It found a rather primitive ancestor
worship when it arrived, already being molded into definite
form through the rapid invasion of Chinese influence. As
the Reverend James H. Addison has pointed out, the adop-
tion of this Chino-Japanese custom by Buddhism necessarily
affected both its external forms and its inner meaning.
Buddhism, in the first place, could supply a definite picture of the
future state of the departed. Its heavens and purgatories offered vivid
pictures of a life beyond death which had hitherto been devoid of color
or detail. So far as Buddhism was true to its own teachings, its tendency
was to minimize the power of the dead to aid the living, and to magnify
the needs of the departed and the power of the priesthood to aid them.
Its doctrines operated to encourage prayer offered for the dead rather than
addressed to the dead. But with that inveterate tolerance so character-
istic of Mahayana Buddhism, it found a place for all the older beliefs;
and if it did not call the ancestors kami, it conceded to them as hotoke
the power to exercise "a calm tutelary protection over the living de-
scendants." And the spirit of gentle charity, so essential in every type
of Buddhism, permeated the rites with the atmosphere of affectionate
tenderness, and colored them with compassion.
The ancestral tablets or ihai of a Buddhist home are
placed beside the Buddha images in the butsudan, or Buddhist
shrine. They vary in size and shape but are usually from
four to twelve inches in height and are mounted on a base
carved like a lotus, are lacquered and gilded, and inscribed
with the posthumous names of the dead. "The first religious
duty of the morning in a Buddhist household is to set before
the tablets of the dead a little cup of tea made with the first
hot water prepared. Daily offerings of boiled rice are also
made; and fresh flowers are put in the shrine vases; and in-
cense is burned before the tablets." I take this from Laf-
cadio Hearn's description.14 In a particularly elaborate
shrine in the house of a priest whom I met, there were two
13 "Religious Life in Japan," by J. H. Addison, Harvard Theol. Rev., XVIII. 332.
14 Unfamiliar Japan, II. 407-408.
554
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
lighted candles before the Buddha images and many fresh
peaches before both Buddhas and ancestral tablets. There
are special celebrations for the more beloved dead on the
monthly and on the yearly return of the day when they died,
with special offerings, and frequently with special prayers
by a priest, who is invited in for the occasion: and on the
Bon festival, or Feast of Souls (which comes in August)
the butsudan is gayly decked and the whole house is made
beautiful with flowers, food, and lanterns.
In Buddhist families a distinction is made between those
long dead and those who have recently died. To these latter
one seldom prays or cries for help-rather one prays for
them, at least to the extent of uttering the formula, "O Lord
Amida, vouchsafe augustly to welcome this soul." But real
prayers are addressed to the Hotoke, the souls of those long
dead. Lafcadio Hearn gives the following examples: "That
our family may be preserved!" "That we may enjoy long
life without sorrow!" "That the perpetuity of our descent
may be assured.”
Besides these formulae, any prayers
prompted by the heart, whether of supplication or of grati-
tude, may be repeated.
In the temples as in the homes, the rank and file of the
less learned Buddhists, outside of the Jodo and Shin sects,
make petitions to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas-and in
fact to almost any of the Buddhist cycle-for all the various
things that the human heart longs for.
Everywhere at shrines and temples people write their prayers on little
pieces of paper and present them to a god or temple. These prayers reveal
the heart of the suppliants and the common need. Men pledge themselves
to abstain from wine and women for definite periods of time. Some prom-
ise to give up gambling and others who are diseased promise that if they
are cured they will make a thank-offering. Lovers pray that the object
of their love may be led to them or that peace and harmony may be
established. Before the Jizo shrine women pray for many things. Some
are happy in expectant motherhood and seek blessings relating thereto:
others are sick or troubled and seek relief. Before Yakushi, the Buddha
of healing, a woman troubled with warts on her face prays for their
removal within two weeks; a man prays for restoration of his hearing;
and a weary mother prays that her peevish child may cease crying in
the night and that her own swollen limbs may be healed.15
15 R. C. Armstrong, in the Year Book of Christian Work for 1922, p. 101.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
555
neg-
Much of the prayer of the less spiritual Buddhists-as
much of the prayer of the less spiritual in all religions-is
of a rather mechanical nature. Many laymen doubtless have
no more real belief in the reality and present power of the
Butsus and Bosatsus than my Nikko curio dealer, and yet
continue praying to these beings out of mere force of cus-
tom, and because of the unreasonable discomfort which
lect to do so would bring. But among the many laymen to
whom the sacred beings of Buddhism are realities prayer also
is very real. As in China, a large part of the praying is done
through the reverent repetition of sacred formulae, such as
the Namu Amida Butsu (which, of course, means, Rever-
ence to Amida Buddha!), or the Namu Jizo Dai Bosatsu
(Reverence to Jizo the great Bodhisattva!), or the common
prayer of the Nichiren sect, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo (Rev-
erence to the Lotus Sutra of the Good Law!). Members of
Shingon use the mysterious syllable Abiraukein in much the
same way as Jodo, Nichiren, and other sects use the three
prayers or formulae just named. This is for Shingon a highly
symbolic word, and its reverent repetition signifies belief
in Dainichi and in our identity with him.
W
C
-
The monks of the various sects insist, and teach the laity,
that the repetition of prayer formulae is valuable only if
one's mind be in the right state. Mere repetition by the lips
is of little use. When one says the Nembutsu, so a Jodo
monk told me, one must also will to do right. If one repeats
the prayer with a bad will no benefit will result: but if one
says it with a heart full of true devotion one will be led to
the right kind of living, and saving grace will be received in
the soul. The Namu Amida, it will be observed, is neither
a petition nor a formula of meditation, but, at its best, is a
means of prostrating oneself before the Divine, a pouring
out of one's soul in the pure feeling of devotion, a rushing
forth of the impulse to worship, a vent for what Otto calls
the emotion of the numinous.¹ That it is just this to many
10 The Shinshu gives several translations to this phrase. Most commonly members of
this sect regard it as simply the full name of Amida. The semi-official "Catechism of
the Shin Sect" renders it "The Glorious One who has Boundless Life and Truth," and
"The Glorious One from Eternity whose Light Radiates Freely in all Directions,"
Reischauer's trans. in the Tr. A. S. J., XXXVIII. 361.
17
The Idea of the Holy (Oxford U. Press, 1924), Chaps. II, III, IV.
556
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
a devout Buddhist can hardly be doubted by any one who has
intelligently watched what goes on in Japanese temples.
This may be as good a place as any for a last word on the
matter of prayer. Much might be said in favor of the Bud-
dhist view that prayer should seldom be petitional. Peti-
tional prayer for particular things involves a theory of the
universe which is becoming increasingly difficult today. The
very act of making petitions, moreover, fastens the mind on
the finite things for which request is made rather than on
the Divine, and thus begets a mental state which is hardly
the most religious. If petitional prayer be given up, prayer
may still be retained as thanksgiving, and as such it has a
real and permanent place in the life of the soul. This, how-
ever, is hardly the chief office of prayer. More important is
prayer as realization or perhaps as spiritual discovery, a voy-
age of the soul in realms beyond the physical. For the mys-
tically minded this may be a useful exercise and at times even
a great experience. Much the same may be said of prayer
as an inner listening for the voice of the spirit, an emptying
of the mind so that the Divine may fill it. Both of these
last-mentioned uses of prayer are helpful and admirable for
those more adept in the spiritual life; but for the rank and
file of earnest but not deeply mystical men and women they
will often prove of little value, and will sometimes result in
bewilderment and even boredom rather than benefit. There
is, however, one use to which prayer may be put of which all
earnest souls may avail themselves, and that is the active de-
basing of oneself before the Divine, the August, the Over-
powering, the immediate sensing of the contrast between
one's own finiteness and the infinitude of the Eternal, the
pouring forth of one's soul in deep humility and reverence
before the unspeakable Whole of things which is never far
away. For this each of the great religions has its formula of
expression, a form of words that both pours forth and re-
inforces the numinous emotion. Judaism has its "Holy,
Holy, Holy," Islam its muezzin's cry, "God is Great, God is
Great, there is no God but God," Hinduism its Gayatri or
address of reverence to the Source of light and life, the
Hinayana its "Om Mani Padme Hum." The form by which
this emotion gains at once its vent and its rekindling matters
Cat
GAR
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
557
not greatly, but I doubt if any verbal formulations for it
are really more effective than the Namu Amida of Mahayana
Buddhism.
The worshiper who repeats this sacred formula usually
knows what the words mean: but that is of relatively slight
significance. The important thing is that he knows what he
means, and the words help him to realize this meaning in his
own mind. The repetition of the vernacular words which
mean "reverence to Amida" could hardly bring him the
same religious emotion as do these more sacred sounds.
Words in his own language would get in the way of the
meaning of his soul. For he means very much more than
any verbal assertion can express. Forever
words are weak
The glory they transfuse with proper truth to speak.
It is this essential inadequacy of language to the inner life
which explains the very real advantage which a foreign and
sacred tongue so often possesses in the expression of religious
emotion. These reverend sounds, which are to the worshiper
both less and more than words, do not compel him to sign
on any dotted line or to confine his meaning to any statable
proposition. They suggest but do not hide. They are like
music.
The Namu Amida, therefore, instead of being, as at first
it seems to many of us, a superstitious and meaningless repe-
tition, has, as a fact, profound justification in human psy-
chology. Doubtless it is often misused as a mere mechanical
contrivance for acquiring merit-as is the Lord's Prayer.
But we should not judge its nature or its value by its misuse.
As used by the more intelligent and spiritual Buddhists it is
a psychological means of producing really desirable results.
One can easily understand how for the simple-minded "it
helps your heart to say it over and over when you are in
trouble," while with the more spiritual it may play the same
part as that prayer which the Fioretti tells us St. Francis
used to repeat for hours in the night, "O my God! O my
God!"
In the repetition of the various prayer formulae of Bud-
558
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
dhism a rosary is frequently used 18 as in China. The habit
of repeating these prayers, begun in childhood and continued
through many years, naturally sinks deep into the mind and
they rise to the surface at all sorts of emergencies. Even
complete abandonment of Buddhism and conversion to an
alien religion cannot put an end to this. A missionary
friend of mine told me of an old woman who, four years
after her conversion to Christianity, complained that she
still found her old Buddhist prayers coming up into her mind
at frequent intervals. She felt that it was a kind of sin and
thought it must be due to a fox spirit, or perhaps a badger.
She had no trouble in giving up liquor; but tobacco and
Buddhist prayers were habits that she found difficult to
conquer.
On the question of the manner in which prayer works
and the appropriateness of petitional prayer there is much
the same divergence of opinion as in China. To the masses,
as we have seen, prayer is as simple a matter as in most other
religions: one prays to the Buddhas, or to any member of the
Buddhist cycle, for anything that one wants, and the Being
thus addressed hears and answers. The theory of the Nichi-
ren sect about prayer is not essentially different-except that
prayer should be directed to Shaka-or to Shaka through
Nichiren. If one's father is ill (so I was told by an abbot
of the Nichiren sect) one prays earnestly to Shaka, either
by means of a sacred prayer formula, or by a direct petition,
and Shaka hears and answers. In the Hosso sect also direct
petitional prayer is approved-though the repetition of a
Each sect has its own type of rosary, and one familiar with the matter can there-
fore tell by seeing a Buddhist's rosary to what sect he belongs. In most sects the rosary
is used chiefly as in Catholic Christianity to keep track of the number of formal prayers
repeated. In this, as in most things, Shingon is rather more elaborate and symbolical
than the other sects. A Shingon rosary contains 108 beads (as do so many rosaries in
China and India) because, say the Shingon authorities, there are 108 Buddhas. (There
are, of course, an infinite number of Buddhas, but this is not inconsistent with the
statement that there are 108.) So in saying the rosary one names the 108 Buddhas.
But there is another and a better reason for the number: the steps of the Bodhisattva's
path in attaining Buddhahood are 54; and twice 54 is 108. One says the 54 beads
meditating upon the 54 steps and so reaches the 54th bead, which is of glass or amber,
or in some way made more glorious than the others. This symbolizes Buddhahood.
Inasmuch as it is impossible to go beyond Buddhahood, on reaching the 54th bead one
reverses the rosary and says the 54 again in the reverse order. The first time one says
the 54 beads it is for his own sake, the second time is for the community, and so on
alternating. This is because in helping others one helps oneself, and in helping oneself
one helps others.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
559
Sutra is the more common method-and the Buddha hears
and answers. The great temple of Horyuji was built in ful-
filment of a vow that was made in connection with a pe-
titional prayer for recovery from illness. Among most of
the other sects there is a feeling on the part of the more
learned against direct petitional prayer. A Tendai monk
told me that while the common people in his sect pray for
all sorts of favors, he himself did not approve of that sort
of thing and never practiced it, and did not believe that pe-
titional prayers were answered. Prayer, he said, should be
only reverence and praise. The Shingon theory is much the
same, though characteristically more complicated. The
learned Shingon monks do not believe that the Buddha hears
and answers prayer. For them prayer is primarily medita-
tion. More specifically it is meditation upon the identity of
the Buddha, the maker of the prayer, and the object of it.
By meditating upon this truth one becomes both the Buddha
and the person for whom one would pray. Thus if I would
pray for my sick father I meditate on our common union
or identity with the Buddha, and my praying thus is my
father praying. He prays if I pray, once I have reached in
meditation the unity of myself with him and with all things
in the Buddha. For by such deep realization one gets back
to the real world where there are no differences. It is only
in the phenomenal world that such things as illness exist,
and this is due to ignorance and illusion. By destroying
this illusion one gets rid of illness.
Jodo and Shin are less mystical in their theories but none
the less insistent (in fact very much more insistent) that
direct petitional prayer is useless. Not only is it useless.
Both Honen Shonin and Shinran regarded petitional prayer
as almost sinful. One should repeat the Nembutsu over
and over again with a heart full of devotion to Amida, and
with simple trust that He knows best.
Though Japanese Buddhism clings persistently to the
Anatta doctrines-the denial of a substantial soul-the un-
educated Buddhist layman probably does not make a great
deal of it. At any rate, the rank and file of the four Pure
Land sects expect at death to go to the Western Paradise of
Amida, much as the simple Christian expects his soul to go
560
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
to heaven. Amida for them is really a personal God, though
there is doubtless in the back of their minds at the same time
a recognition of the teaching that somehow all the Buddhas
are one and that all beings are one. Many members of the
Tendai and Shingon, and some members of Zen, have much
the same attitude toward Amida (or Dainichi) and toward
the problem of immortality. Ask one of them what he ex-
pects will become of him after death, and he will probably
reply, "I shall become Buddha." But what he means by this
neither you nor I nor he can tell. Doubtless the Buddha
knows.
In Japanese Buddhism as in Chinese Buddhism there is
less relative emphasis on morality than there was in the
original teachings of the Founder, probably also less than
there is in contemporary Siamese Buddhism. One rea-
son for this is, of course, the fact that Japanese
Buddhism includes so many more doctrines of a metaphysi-
cal nature, it has so many other things to emphasize, than
the Hinayana, whether ancient or modern. The type of
morality taught is also different. There is little reference to
the Four Noble Truths, and in fact little knowledge of them.
A learned Hosso monk in Nara whom I questioned had never
heard of them. One of the few Japanese references to the
Four Noble Truths I have ever come across is in a little
pamphlet published by the Federation of Buddhist Organiza-
tions for Children, and entitled The Mahayana Buddhists.
Under the heading, "What are the Fundamental Teachings
of the Buddha?" it gives the following astonishing version of
the "Fourfold Noble Truths": (1) Life is pain; (2) This
is the result of past deeds; (3) In order to obtain a release, an
end must be put to all that; and (4) finally, there is the way
to do this." The reader will have noted that the original
Second Noble Truth (the cause of sorrow is desire) has been
entirely omitted and a reference to former lives substituted.
This is altogether typical of Japanese Buddhism. It is ex-
tremely rare in Japan that one comes upon any recognition
of the evil of desire as such. Broadly speaking, the Bud-
dhism of modern Japan makes absolutely no attack upon
desire but distinguishes, much as Christianity does, between
desires, some of which are bad and some good. There are
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
561
many good desires, and the Mahayana does not urge that
these should be destroyed.
Like Chinese Buddhism, the Buddhism of Japan has to a
great extent adopted the Confucian morality; in fact, so far
as ethics is concerned, the impress of Confucius is quite as
obvious as that of Gotama. Filial piety, loyalty in the vari-
ous relations of life, truthfulness, and the social virtues it
Its
emphasizes in no different way from Confucianism.
more typically Buddhist coloring is seen chiefly in its greater
emphasis upon mercy and kindliness. The Bodhisattva ideal
of self-sacrifice for the sake of others gives its good will a
certain intensity and extensity 19 that the more conventional
and limited Confucian teaching and practice does not possess.
In common with the Buddhism of all other lands it empha-
sizes the Five Precepts; and in good Mahayana fashion it
adds to its ideal the Six Paramitas, or virtues of perfection,
namely, generosity, discipline, patience, energy, meditation,
and wisdom or insight. These moral precepts and ideals are
taught in various ways. The children learn them from their
parents and teachers and from the monks. In some of the
temples one finds ethical ideals engraved or written upon the
walls in prominent places. As we shall see in the next chap-
ter, the sermon and the Sunday school are becoming effi-
cient tools for the propagation of moral as well as other
teachings.
No one, I think, would deny that Buddhism has had and
still has an immense influence on the character of the Japa-
nese people. In spite of their martial disposition they have
imbibed a great deal of the gentleness of Gotama and much
of his sympathy, generosity, and liberality of view. The
Nichiren sect alone is sometimes accused of having lost this
almost universal Buddhist virtue of tolerance. But I know
that both monks and laymen in that sect may be thoroughly
liberal in their views toward other sects and other religions.
20
19 Kindness toward animals is sometimes carried to an extent that seems to Westerners
almost grotesque.
Pet dogs are not infrequently buried in temple grounds. According
to Dr. Armstrong, "The Young Men's Buddhist Association in Kyushu recently held
a memorial service for 34,000 frogs, 7000 rats, 1000 hares, 500 dogs, 500 cats, 300 hens,
and 500 doves dissected in the study of anatomy in Kyushu University" (Year Book of
Christian Work for 1922, p. 94).
20 A Nichiren monk told me that good Christians, like good members of the Nichiren.
sect, would "become Buddha" after death. One of my interpreters had been brought
562
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Against the other sects I have heard no accusation of intol-
erance. From early times, moreover, and up to the present
day, it has not been uncommon for earnest Buddhists in time
of war to pray for their enemies.21 Masses are often said
and occasional monuments erected for the repose and the
memory of friend and foe alike. The Japanese are good
soldiers but the better Buddhists among them do not forget,
even in the excitement of war, that the Buddha nature is in
all men.
But while the ancient Buddhist virtues of sympathy, gen-
erosity, and liberality have been maintained, Japanese Bud-
dhism has taken on some of the active and (at times) even
knightly qualities of the Japanese. Zen Buddhism was for
centuries the inspiration of the Samurai, and the Nichiren
sect makes much of the teaching of patriotism. As we saw
in the historical chapter, from the very first introduction of
Buddhism into Japan the leaders of the new religion dis-
tinguished themselves by active propaganda, by energetic ef-
ficiency in humanitarian and cultural undertakings, and even
by participating prominently-at times all too prominently
-in the public and political life of the nation. Japanese
Buddhism has always had and still retains a good deal of
other-worldliness; but it has been but seldom characterized
by that renunciation of the world, that fleeing from the
world, that disregard of the welfare of human society which
is so often found in other Buddhist lands.
In its relation to human happiness as well as to human
ww
up in the Nichiren sect, his mother being an ardent worshiper of Nichiren. But when
at eighteen he started going to a Christian Sunday school and chose Christianity instead
of Buddhism his mother did not object, for she thought that both Christianity and
Buddhism were good for life.
21
An interesting case of requiting one's personal enemy with good is reported in
The Young East for July, 1927. In May of that year "the chief priest of a Buddhist
temple in Fukushima Prefecture, his mother, an acolyte and a maid servant were
murdered by an armed burglar, who was later arrested and was identified as a desperate
old offender. He was condemned to death. Now this man has two children, a daughter
of 11 and a son of 7. The girl was adopted by a remote relative, but the boy was left
wholly helpless, none caring to adopt the son of such a ruffian. Hearing of this, a man
and his wife have come forward with a proposal to adopt the poor orphan. They are
Mr. and Mrs. Shoten Aoyama of the city of Toyohashi, and Mrs. Aoyama is the sister
of the murdered priest. For some years past Mr. and Mrs. Aoyama have been engaged
in social service in their city, chiefly taking care of orphans and depraved boys and
girls. I am not sure to what extent the poor father of the boy is to blame for the
crime he committed. We must remember our society is still so imperfect,' said Mrs.
Aoyama. She proposes to console the souls of her mother and brother by bringing up
the boy as her own and making him an honest man."
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
563
morality Buddhism has gradually changed since entering
Japan. As I have pointed out in an earlier chapter, it is
hardly correct to describe Buddhism in its total world view
as pessimistic. But the picture which early Buddhism draws
of this world and the life of the worldly (abstracted from
its total setting) is certainly dark. That is the whole point
of the First Noble Truth. Hence in all Buddhism there is
at least a certain gentle melancholy which perhaps will never
disappear. As I suggested in another connection, Buddhism
did not lose this quality in coming to Japan; its partial sad-
ness struck a note to which the Japanese heart quickly and
naturally vibrated. The very love of beauty so deeply im-
planted in these sensitive people gives a certain poignant qual-
ity to beautiful objects which mingles with the Buddhist sense
of the transitoriness of all things earthly. The cherry-blos-
soms and the autumn leaves-what more lovely, and what
more perishable? And such, the Buddha taught, is this life
of man.
What of our life! 'Tis imaged by a boat:
The wide dawn sees it on the sea afloat:
Swiftly it rows away,
And on the dancing waves no trace is seen
That it has ever been.22
But while the tender melancholy of Buddhism has been
felt by the Japanese, I do not think one can justly say that
it has made them a sad people. Surely little of this melan-
choly is found in the modern teachings of Jodo, or Shin, or
Nichiren. And in the other sects Buddhism has at least given
as much of joy as it has taken away. The childlike light-
heartedness of Shinto Buddhism has indeed modified. But if
superficial and thoughtless delight in the things of this world
is no longer possible for one who has gained a taste of Bud-
dhist feeling, a certain deeper joy has been made possible by
its deeper thought and its more lasting promise. Shinto has
little to say of death, Buddhism much. But Buddhism not
only faces death: it gives a hope for something beyond death,
a conception of a point of view transcending death, of which
Shinto never dreamed. Buddhism has not made life more
D
22 From a compilation of Japanese poems made in 922, trans. in Clara A. Walsh's
The Master Singers of Japan, p. 61.
564
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
gay for the Japanese, but it has made it immeasurably more
significant. It has perhaps taken away a certain amount of
gaiety but it has given peace, joy, and depth. As I think over
the Japanese Buddhists I have known they do not seem to
me a sad people. The less educated were filled with a stead-
fast hope based upon the love and promises of Amida and
the grace of Kwannon and Jizo. And the more intelligent
were living lives colored by an idealistic philosophy and a
noble mysticism, and filled with a certain calm confidence in
the universe which if it be not joy is something more than
peace.
Another modification which Buddhism has taken on from
this land of its last pilgrimage is a peculiar charm, the char-
acteristic beauty of Japan. Charm, indeed, Buddhism has
possessed to an unusual degree in every land where it has
dwelt. It has allied itself spontaneously with the native
forms of beauty wherever it has gone. But just because of
the peculiarly artistic nature of the Japanese it is in Japan
that Buddhism has attained a level of charm which is quite
unique. Keyserling, who has no very high opinion of the
depth of the Japanese mind, has felt and expressed this
unique character of their Buddhism so well that I must quote
a few of his words.
Japanese religiosity has created realities in the domain of sensibility
and in the realm of moods which belong to the most priceless treasures of
the human race.
In the realm of sensibility the Japanese stands,
perhaps, higher than all other men. No wonder therefore that in spite
of his essential superficiality he excels everyone in the power of religious
sensibility.... The Japanese objectification of spirit is artistic in the
highest degree; her forms are never allegories, always symbols, and they
have all the advantages of an expression whose elements are born of
feeling. . . . In so far as Confucius is right, the Japanese Church may
be regarded as the crown of Indian wisdom. Kung Fu Tse taught that
only such wisdom was to be regarded as perfect which appeared in the
form of charm: this has happened here. It is the genuine spirit of
Mahayana, all-embracing, earnest and profound, which animates this
form of Buddhism-but its appearance is pure beauty and charm.23
There is no form of Japanese Buddhism which this charm
has not touched. Its temples, its images, its religious paint-
ings, its ritual, are things of beauty: and even its philosophy
Travel Diary, pp. 160, 157.
THE JAPANESE LAYMAN
565
both to the -
and its myths and its ways of expressing abstract truths are
wreathed about with a certain wistful and suggestive love-
liness. Let me close this chapter with one further illustra-
tion of the sort of thing I mean.
The Emperor Go-Mizuno-In, an ardent Buddhist, who
abdicated in 1629 and later on became a monk, wished to
write a little book which would teach the lessons of the
world's transitoriness and the Buddha's comfort, and he put
it in the form of a story, typically Japanese and Buddhist
in flavor. There once lived near the capital, so the story be-
gan, a man of meditative disposition who never married but
devoted himself entirely to the care of his mother and to the
cultivation of the flowers in his garden. With such loving
care did he tend these that the neighbors gave him the name
Kocho, which means Butterfly. In time his mother died, and
his heart was filled with woe; and as he walked through his
garden, filled with sad thoughts, he noticed that his flowers
too were fading and falling and strewing the earth with their
petals. It was not unnatural that these events impressed
upon his mind the Noble Truth of Sorrow and Transitori-
ness; and he soon took his refuge in the Buddha and became a
hermit in the wild recesses of Kitayama. After dwelling
alone for many years, it happened that one stormy night,
when he had been for hours rapt in meditation, there came
a knock upon the door of his hermitage, and he heard the
voice of a woman asking instruction in the way of the Bud-
dha. The hermit at first hesitated to admit a woman to his
cell, but so urgent was she in her supplications that he had
not the heart to deny her request, and so admitted her. She
was an old woman and apparently a nun, though clad in a
light green robe. No sooner had she entered than two young
girls, of about 16, dressed in willow-colored robes with pur-
ple hoods, came gliding into the hut; and after them other
girls and young women, all beautiful, all brilliantly clad, and
all earnestly beseeching instruction in the Buddha's Law.
So Kocho preached to them a Buddhist sermon, emphasizing
the vanity of this world's pleasures and the dangers of its
temptations, but holding open the door of hope to all who
would put their trust in the grace of the Buddha. By this
the ladies, young and old, were filled with joy, realizing that
566
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the mist of blind attachment that had bound them to the
wheel of birth and death was now cleared away and that the
Moon of Truth had been revealed to their hearts. So, mois-
tening the sleeves of their kimonos with their joyful tears,
they thanked the hermit and arose to go. For a moment he
detained them, asking that they would tell him who they'
were. To this they responded: It is very right that you
should know. We are the spirits of the little flowers that
you tended, long ago, in your garden.24
-
21 This little story has been translated into English by A. L. Sadler and published
by the Meiji Society of Japan under the title Kocho (Tokio, 1922).
!
CHAPTER XXVIII
PROPAGANDA, EDUCATION, AND PHILANTHROPY
AT the close of the Tokugawa régime, Japanese Bud-
dhism was in a moribund condition. It was, to be sure,
largely supported by the government, but it was also largely
controlled by the government, and the great majority of its
clergy had settled down into a condition of comfort and
complaisance, feeling they need make but little effort to-
ward the preaching of their religion, and none for its puri-
fication, and well satisfied with themselves and with the
status quo since the cult was duly performed and nothing
interfered with the rice supply. Thus they were ill pre-
pared for the rude shock of disestablishment and even mild
persecution that came with the restoration. Fortunately for
Buddhism, not all the clergy were of this complaisant and
lethargic sort, and a few of the leaders were gifted with both
insight and imagination, and therefore able both to cope
with the present and anticipate the future. Prominent
among these men was Count Kozon Otani, the bishop of the
West Hongwanji division of Shinshu. Soon after the ban
upon foreign travel was lifted he sent a commission to Europe
to study religious conditions and Christian methods, and
on the basis of its report the West Hongwanji adopted new
forms of religious activity.¹ East Hongwanji very soon fol-
lowed suit, and it was not long before the other more im-
portant sects began at least to wake up from their former
lethargy.
G
But it was chiefly the inrush of Christian missionaries.
and the whirlwind campaign they carried on and the as-
tonishing initial success they won that roused Japanese Bud-
dhism from its sleep. Christianity was carried into Japan
on the tidal wave of Western prestige, which threatened to
overthrow most of the older forms of culture and thought
1 Cf. Addison, "Religious Life in Japan," Harvard Theol. Rev., XVIII, 333-34.
567
568
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and, up to the late eighties, seemed to be carrying all before
it. Throughout the nineties came a reaction, with a new
appreciation of ancient Japanese culture and the cry "Japan
for the Japanese." Just as Christianity had profited by the
early fad for everything foreign, so Buddhism now profited
by the revival of love for everything native. But this was
not all. As Buddhism began to pull itself together after re-
ceiving the double blow of being thrown off by the govern-
ment and faced with a new and active rival, its leaders dis-
covered that the lessons of adversity need not be altogether
bitter, and that in fact it might be posible for their religion
to profit by both its seeming misfortunes. For disestablish-
ment brought spiritual freedom and the presence of a rival
brought spiritual stimulus, and the study of Christian
methods in both Europe, America, and Japan suggested new
ways of strengthening the hold of Buddhism upon at least
a portion of the population. This movement of revival and
reform, begun, in one sense, as far back as 1870, and show-
ing its effects throughout the nineties, has been continued
with steadily increasing strength ever since, and particularly
in the last ten or fifteen years has assumed proportions such
that no study of modern Buddhism can overlook it.
G
G
One of the things which Japanese Buddhism has learned
from Christianity is the value of preaching. Of course I do
not mean by this that there were no Japanese preachers until
the Christian missionaries arrived and set the example. Bud-
dhism was spread throughout Japan in Shotoku Taishi's time
and before by means of preachers; and if we go back to an-
cient and Indian Buddhism, the Founder himself was pri-
marily a preacher and teacher. Long before the restoration,
however, preaching had come to play a decidedly unim-
portant rôle in the actual life of Japanese Buddhism. For
that matter, if we compare Buddhism with Protestant Chris-
tianity, preaching plays a decidedly secondary rôle in Japan
still. But a start, at least, has been made in the more active
sects toward something like the Christian methods. If we
compare Japan with America it appears to have very little
preaching; if we compare Japan with China it has a good
deal.
There is quite as much difference between the various
P
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
569
Buddhist sects on this matter as there is between Buddhism
and Protestant Christianity. The Hosso sect sends around an
itinerant monk at times to do a little work of propaganda,
but it seldom if ever has a preaching service or a lecture
(for laymen) at one of its temples. Kegon also has no regu-
lar preaching services: but at the Todai-ji temple in Nara
they occasionally have a public lecture on the life of Dosen
(who introduced the Kegon sect into Japan), and illustrate
it with moving pictures. Only a few Shingon temples hold
preaching services, though the number of those that do is
slowly increasing. Tendai is in much the same condition
as Shingon. At the Shoren-in temple in Kyoto, for example,
there is a sermon once a year; at the Dai-ko-do on Hiei-san
a sermon is preached once in five years—and this for monks
only (so at any rate one of the monks at the temple told
me). At the great Tendai temple in Nagano, on the other
hand, they hold preaching services for the pilgrims several
times a week. In the Asakusa temple, in Tokyo, also there
are evangelical meetings (with a sermon) very frequently.
In fact, one of the Asakusa priests assured me they held a
service of this sort every evening. I believe he believed it,
but my experience with Oriental monks has made me realize
that the ideal world is so real to them it occasionally gets
substituted for the actual. It is, however, probably safe to
say that they hold frequent evangelical services at the Asa-
kusa temple. My informant added that their audiences
varied from three hundred to a thousand. I take it this
should not be construed to mean that they never have less
than three hundred. The Asakusa and Nagano temples,
however, are exceptional in Tendai; and it may be said of all
these older sects, from Hosso to Shingon, that they still
make very little use of preaching, though sermons are com-
moner than they used to be.
When we turn to the younger sects the situation is
markedly different. Zen naturally trusts less to the "foolish-
ness of preaching" than the other members of this group,
but there are many Zen temples that make a good deal of it.
At the Obakusan, the headquarters of the Obaku division of
Zen, there are six preaching services a month, in the hall at
the rear of the temple. The other Obaku temples, I under-
570
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
stand, do very much less. The Rinzai branch of Zen-con-
servative of the old Zen traditions and skeptical of the value
of instruction and of books-naturally preaches but little.
Rinzai temples are for the cultivation of the mystical and
monastic life. They have lectures, in some cases as often as
six times a month, and laymen are admitted to them if they
choose to come; but the lectures are not sermons. They are
intended primarily for the monks, and have to do with the
technique of zazen and other things of little interest to the
average layman. In the Soto branch things are different.
Soto is less conservative than Rinzai and believes in the utility
of modern methods of instruction. In many Soto temples
popular sermons are preached for the benefit of the laity at
intervals of a week or ten days at six A.M. The preacher
points to the heart and tells his hearers that it is there the
Buddha is to be found. He urges them to bring their hearts
to the temple, and their wishes whether good or bad, to get
rid of evil and especially of worry and anxiety. This he
helps them to do by instructing them in the ultimate iden-
tity of all Reality and in the non-existence of separate selves.
At some temples Sunday is chosen as the day for the sermon
and they have one every week. In the So-ji-ji at Tokyo I
was told they have an audience every Sunday of about one
hundred and fifty. In addition to these there are special
sermons for special occasions; and noted preachers or dis-
tinguished abbots sometimes make preaching tours in vari-
ous parts of the country.
The Nichiren sect has always done more or less preach-
ing. Its constituents have regularly been drawn largely from
the common people, and the founder of the sect gave an
example of intense, almost violent street preaching which
has never wholly lost its effect among his followers, and is
still sometimes imitated. In many Nichiren temples there
is a sermon every Sunday or at less regular but equally fre-
quent intervals, and itinerant preachers are also sent about.
In their sermons they seek to put a few philosophical ideas in
very simple terms, to inspire loyalty to the nation and loyalty
to the Nichiren sect, and to depict the more picturesque inci-
dents in Nichiren's life, especially the sufferings he went
through during the many years of his persecution, thereby
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
571
eliciting the emotions and warming the faith of the hear-
ers.
Jodo, I gather, is about on a par with Nichiren in its use
of preaching. At the great headquarters temple in Kyoto,
the Chionin, there is a sermon every Sunday with an audience
of about thirty or forty. At the Kurodani, also in Kyoto,
they have preaching services twice a month. Of course there
are many temples in Jodo and in all the sects, except perhaps
Shinshu, which have preaching services but seldom. On the
other hand, Jodo, like Nichiren, sends out evangelists in the
autumn, winter, and spring, to preach in those districts.
which otherwise would be neglected. Jodo sermons, as
might be expected, are devoted largely to the grace of Amida,
the glories of his heaven, the value of the Nembutsu, and the
edifying events in the life of Honen Shonin.
It is the Shin sect which has made and is making the
greatest use of preaching. Every Shin temple, I have been
told, holds preaching services, and nearly all of them at least
once a week. The two great Hongwanji temples in Kyoto
have one every day, and frequently two-morning and eve-
ning. In many places where it has no temples, Shinshu has
established preaching halls-the West Hongwanji has 248 of
these and East Hongwanji about as many. It will be noted
from the statistical table given on page 520 that in addition
to its temples and halls Shinshu possesses 2236 preaching sta-
tions, scattered through the land. Both branches of Shin
also do a good deal of work in the army and navy, West
Hongwanji having seventy-four preaching centers of this
sort, each in charge of a priest who on Sundays or Saturdays
preaches to the soldiers and sailors and distributes tracts
and pamphlets. Shinshu has also established missions among
railway employees. Several Japanese sects provide preachers
for the prisons, but it is Shinshu that does most of this work.
The custom of preaching to prisoners is a very old one in
Japanese Buddhism. It is said that a Buddhist monk named
Shuncho, who lived many centuries ago, being refused ad-
mission to the prisons, committed theft seven times deliber-
ately in order that he might be imprisoned and attempt to
reform and comfort his fellow prisoners through exhortation
and instruction. The prison authorities of our day are of
=
math
572
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
course glad to have prison chaplains and preachers, and many
Shinshu priests avail themselves of the opportunity thus of-
fered. The West Hongwanji alone furnishes one hundred
and fifty-nine preachers for this service, who work in eighty-
nine prisons; the East Hongwanji has seventy-one chaplains
in forty-seven prisons. In November 1926 a special three-
weeks' course of lectures was given for the benefit of the
prison chaplains in Tokyo.
In this last paragraph I have given a number of statis-
tics, and as I foresee that during the course of the chapter I
shall have to give a good many more, I will take this oppor-
tunity to warn the reader against taking my figures too seri-
ously. I do not vouch for their exactness. Some of them are
drawn from the year 1919 and are therefore no longer exact,
and some of them I fear never were exact. The Oriental is
not greatly impressed with the importance of a meticulous
nicety in statistics—and there are some of us who sympa-
thize with him. While the statistics of this chapter, there-
fore, may not be as exact as they would probably be if drawn
from Western sources, they are, I believe, trustworthy in a
general way, as giving a fair idea of the sort of work modern
Buddhism is doing.
The Buddhist leaders do not confine their efforts at propa-
ganda to preaching in the temples and prisons. Various
other methods are used. I have mentioned street preaching,
especially in the Nichiren sect. A Buddhist Salvation Army
has been started in Tokyo. Various organizations and socie-
ties have recently been founded by energetic and loyal Bud-
dhists for getting hold of different classes of people and doing
something for them in the way of spiritual guidance."
Prominent among these are the Young Men's Buddhist Asso-
ciations and the Young Women's Buddhist Associations. I
use both these terms in the plural, for there is no united
Y.M.B.A. or Y.W.B.A. such as our Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A.;
instead, each of the more active sects has its own association,
or (as in the case of Shinshu) it may have two of each. It is,
G
2 The most recent I have heard of are the "Eastern Buddhist Association" and the
"Buddhist Union to Reform the Buddhist World," both started in Tokyo in 1926, and
the "Liberal Buddhist Association," organized in 1925 by a philanthropic Buddhist
physician, with the purpose of "initiating human beings through religious faith and
scientific help into noble happy life."
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
573
of course, the Shin Associations (belonging to the West and
East Hongwanji) that are by far the largest and most active,
the one belonging to the West Hongwanji having upward
of 100,000 members (on paper), with centers in sixty differ-
ent places. The Tokyo center is the largest, and here they
have just completed a new building for the benefit of the
students in the Imperial University. There is a Y.M.B.A.
closely associated with nearly every university in Japan. The
activities of the Y.M.B.A. and of the Y.W.B.A. are in part
evangelical, in part social. In the Central Tokyo Y.M.B.A.
(belonging to the Shin sect) the Social Department runs a
dormitory for boys and young men in need of a home, at
which about twenty-five are accommodated, and a sleeping
place for transients, which takes care of about forty-five a
night. This department also has a Bureau for Consultations
on Personal Problems and a Women's Employment Bureau
which finds places for needy young women. The Evangeli-
cal Department carries on a Sunday school for children and
conducts a series of Saturday evening evangelical services, at
each of which a lecture or address is made by some priest,
professor, or learned layman. The audience, I was told,
averages about one hundred, and the subjects of the lectures
are such as the following (I take them from the 1924 list):
"The Mind of the Buddha and Mind in General," "Concern-
ing Primitive Architecture," "What is Human Life?" "The
Dignity of One's Native Land," "The World Religion,"
"What is Shinshu?" "Death, Love, and Peace," "Social
Activities of Believers in Shinran," "Shinran as the Incarna-
tion of the Law.”
**
The Y.W.B.A. is much like the Y.M.B.A., though smaller.
Its membership in Tokyo is about two thousand. It carries
on both evangelical, educational, and social work, publishes a
journal, sends, occasionally, some of its members to Korea to
propagate Buddhism, and has recently initiated a campaign
for woman's suffrage.
There are several other societies of Buddhist women, be-
sides the Y.W.B.A., which carry on various sorts of evan-
gelical and philanthropic work. For example, in the East
Hongwanji, the Fujin Howakwai, or Society of Women for
the Deepening of Devotion, which has two hundred and
574
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
forty-six branches and a membership of about 190,000; a
similar society of women in the West Hongwanji with four
hundred and seven branches; the Fujin Seineukai, or Young
Women's Society which combines the study of Buddhism
with training in the manual arts; a school in Tokyo for
young
women about to be married, the aim of which is to teach
them some of the things they will need to know in order to
be good wives. The Buddhist women of Japan are fairly ac-
tive and do their share in the Sunday schools, kindergartens,
orphanages, nurses' schools, and other social institutions
which the new spirit of Japanese Buddhism is initiating.
This new spirit of Buddhism is new in more ways than
one. Not only is it an expression of the revival of the spirit
of the Founder and an application of it to new lines of
activity: its leaders, in typical Japanese fashion, sometimes
make a special point of utilizing the very latest methods and
devices in carrying out their efforts at propaganda or ser-
vice. No one can accuse them of being behind the times.
Every year on April 8, the birth of the Buddha is celebrated
-the Lumbini Festival it is called-with lectures, evangelis-
tic meetings, and dramatic representations of the life of
Shakamuni, etc. The following account of the Lumbini
Festival in 1926 is typical:
P
As usual the birthday of Buddha, April 8, was celebrated with great
rejoicing throughout Japan. A recent welcome sign in connection there-
with is that whereas in former days the festival was held in Buddhist
temples only, it is now a popular event and the felicitous day is observed
as children's holiday in many homes. In Tokyo this year, the festival
was ushered in with a great meeting held on the evening of April 4 in
the auditorium of the Hochi, the daily journal enjoying the largest circu-
lation in the metropolis. At this meeting music and dancing were given,
besides lectures on Buddhism and its founder by Prof. Taiken Kimura
and a few other eminent Buddhist scholars. The day preceding Buddha's
birthday members of the Y.M.B.A. conducted an evangelistic campaign.
at ten different places in Tokyo, and the same evening the Tokyo Radio
Office broadcasted a story for children of the birth of Buddha by Mr.
Takaaki Iwano. Mr. Sazanami Iwaya, Japan's foremost writer of fairy
stories, also sent on the air an account of a Lumbini festival observed by
Japanese residents in Berlin twenty-five years ago, the first ever held
by Japanese abroad, and the Lumbini Chorus ³ rendered hymns in praise
"The Lumbini Chorus is a new organization whose aim is to produce new Buddhist
hymns and sing them. It plans to publish new hymns every two months.
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
575
of Buddha. During the night Buddhist believers held parties in many
places appropriate to the occasion. The following morning four aero-
planes flew over the capital raining millions of petals of lotus flowers
made of gold and silver colored paper. The same day ceremonies in
celebration of the birth of Buddha were held in Hibiya Park, at which
not less than 10,000 Buddhist devotees were present. In the evening
lectures on Buddhism were given at the Tokyo Imperial University
Y.M.B.A. building and other places. The same day the Radio Office
broadcasted a lecture by Mr. Motosada Zumoto on "The Significance of
the Birth of Buddha” and another by Dr. Junjiro Takakusu on "Buddha's
Birth and Art.” For the benefit of foreign residents Mr. Zumoto specially
spoke in English. In the evening Mr. Fukuo Kishibe, President of the
Tokyo Girls' School, talked to children on the birth of Buddha and Dr.
Masataro Sawayagi to the general public on the Lumbini festival. Selec-
tions of Buddhist music were then given, including a chorus by boys and
girls of Buddhist schools. Several books and pamphlets in commemo-
ration of the day were published and widely distributed.*
At the second anniversary of the recent earthquake
Bishop Shuikyo Michishige of the Jodo sect, who is seventy-
one years old, "boarded an aeroplane in Tokyo, early in the
morning, and after visiting Yokohama and saying mass for
the victims there, flew back to the capital and circling over
the ground of the Military Clothing Depot (the place where
upward of 30,000 people perished in the flames) dropped
300,000 pamphlets and paper lotus flowers." 5
6
For the sake of more efficient extension of the work of
Buddhism, some of the more alert leaders have felt the need
of greater cooperation between the different sects. A dozen
years ago, or more, a union preaching hall was built near the
Asakusa temple in Tokyo-with but little influence, it must
be said. The sect leaders are quite as sectarian as the leaders
of some of our American denominations were a few years.
ago. Unsystematic efforts at cooperation are made occasion-
ally and rather more frequently than in former years. The
adventurous old Jodo bishop who went up in the aeroplane
to say mass and scatter lotuses, has shown his modern spirit
in possibly more effective if less spectacular fashion by enter-
ing on a campaign of joint propaganda with the bishop of
the Soto branch of Zen. The Jodo, Tendai, and Shingon
sects in Tokyo have recently joined hands to found a "United
4
B
The Young East for April, 1926, pp. 370-71. The Young East for Sept., 1925.
Reischauer, p. 313.
Sh
576
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Buddhist University." Perhaps the most hopeful effort in
the direction of union and cooperation is to be found in the
Kakushu Rengokai, or Interdenominational Association, or-
ganized in 1918.
7
Though far more loosely knit, it corresponds in certain respects to
our Federal Council of the Churches of Christ. Representing all the
leading sects except the irreconcilable Nichiren, it speaks for the Bud-
dhist church and the Buddhist community, especially in regard to public
affairs or matters involving relations with the imperial government.
During the past few years, for instance, it has been working to secure the
passage of the new universal-suffrage bill; and on one recent occasion it
combated successfully the proposal to receive at court a permanent papal
envoy.8
This Interdenominational Association aims at doing more
than producing cooperation between the Buddhist sects of
Japan. It wishes also to unite, in spirit and in effort, the
whole Mahayana world. With this purpose in view, a few
years ago, it invited the Buddhists of China, Korea, and
Formosa to send delegates to a "Far Eastern Buddhist Con-
ference." This conference was held in Tokyo on November
1, 2, and 3, 1925, twenty-one official delegates from China
being present, three from Korea, and three from Formosa.
A large number of people ("1300 persons including many
ladies") attended the open meetings. Many papers were
read and many resolutions passed, as is the custom with con-
ferences East and West. The resolutions must not be taken
as necessarily prophetic, but some of them will be worth re-
porting here, to show the sort of thing modern Buddhists are
interested in and would like to do. I jot down a few, copy-
ing them from the columns of the Young East.
CON
8
G
That Buddhists of Eastern Asia shall coöperate for worldwide propa-
ganda, so that all the nations on earth may eventually bask in the bound-
less mercy of Buddha. To attain this object it is planned to publish
Buddhist books and magazines in several Occidental languages, to send
missionaries abroad and to establish a mission school either in Tokyo or
Peking by coöperation of Japanese and Chinese Buddhists.
That in connection with general education, plans shall be framed
and considered for fostering in the minds of children religious sentiment.
Education during holidays (Sunday Schools and Summer Schools)
The Young East for Jan., 1926.
Addison, "Religious Life in Japan," Harvard Theol. Rev., XVIII, p. 338.
<p
M
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
577
shall be made a regular annual function following the methods taken
by early Buddhists of India.
That fundamental principles shall be fixed in Buddhist education.
That plans shall be framed and considered for spreading social edu-
cational work.
That kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, girls' higher
schools, colleges and universities shall be made complete.
That women's education shall be advanced to the level of men's.
That plans shall be framed and considered for completing Buddhist
text-books.
That a Buddhist primary school shall be established in England.
That a federation of Buddhist social welfare works shall be brought
about.
That endeavors shall be made to do away with all evil customs which
are at variance with the respect of personality of women and children
as well as to complete arrangements for their protection.
That works for giving free medical treatment and free medicines to
the poor shall be extended.
That aggressive and vigorous movements for the suppression of drink-
ing and opium-smoking shall be started.
M
The next meeting of the Far Eastern Buddhist Confer-
ence is to be held in Peking, at the call of the Buddhists of
China. It is possible that this movement in conjunction with
Tai Hsu's World Buddhist Association may succeed in unit-
ing and increasing the activity of the Mahayana world in its
efforts to deepen the spiritual life and elevate the intellectual
comprehension of its followers. But the leaders of Japanese
Buddhism are not satisfied with this aim. They would like
to unite, if they could, Southern with Northern Buddhism.
And some of them are eager to extend the blessings of Maha-
yana Buddhism to the whole world. Not infrequently one
sees the statement in some Japanese publication that universal
peace
and the solution of the world's woes are to be looked
for only through the spread of the Mahayana conception
that all men share in the Buddha nature and are therefore
brothers, and in the acceptance of the Bodhisattva ideal of
self-devotion and loving service."
'An organization called the Federation of Mahayana Brotherhood has recently been
started with the purpose of aiding the movement toward universal peace through the
spread of Mahayana ideals. The "manifesto" of its organizer begins thus: "Love of
mankind as taught by Mahayana Buddhism does away with social discrimination and
with international differences. Still more it makes us forget individual differences in
respect to wealth, position, intellect, and character. When people once awake in the
great spirit of Mahayana brotherhood all races, nations, and communities of the world
will enjoy the glory and happiness of coexistence and mutual prosperity." Reported in
The Young East for Dec., 1925.
578
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The more active sects are not satisfied with pious wishes
that Mahayana Buddhism might be carried to other lands:
they have undertaken a certain amount of foreign mission-
ary work. Much the larger portion of this is hardly on all
fours with what Christianity knows as foreign missions; for
the major portion of it is carried on among Japanese families
who have left Japan, and nearly all the rest is in lands which
are nominally Buddhist, at least in part. The mission field,
thus understood, includes Korea and Formosa (both now
parts of the Japanese Empire), Siberia, Saghalien, Manchu-
ria, China, Singapore, a few of the South Sea Islands, Hawaii,
the Philippines, and the western coast of North America.
Statistics on Japanese missions are somewhat difficult to in-
terpret, because of the contradictory statements which one
finds, which may be due chiefly to a varying use of terms.
Thus the most recent report by the Japanese government
gives the following figures for China (including Manchuria),
America (including our western states and British Colum-
bia), Hawaii, and the South Seas (Sumatra, Singapore, the
Philippines):
China
America
Hawaii
South Seas
•
10
•
No. of Priests
45
36
44
S
Chapels and
Preaching Halls
The Young East for April, 1926.
22
136
41
3
Obj
According to a pamphlet put out in 1920 by the Federa-
tion of the Buddhist Organizations for Children, there are
87 Japanese Buddhist "missionaries" in China (note the gov-
ernment statistics specified 45 "priests"), 77 in America, 86
in Hawaii, and in Korea and Formosa together 306. There
is no real contradiction here, as only a portion of the mission-
aries are priests; but probably neither of the lists is abso-
lutely exact. The West Hongwanji in 1927 announced
that it had eighty missionaries in America, and desired to send
two or three hundred. 10
Five of the sects carry on this missionary activity, namely,
Shin (including both the Hongwanji's and four of the small
Followers
45,608
7,357
64,750
218
N
COND
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
579
branches), Jodo, Nichiren, Zen (both Soto and Rinzai), and
Shingon. By far the largest part of it is done by the two
Hongwanji divisions of Shin, which taken together support
126 missionaries in Korea, and 74 in China.¹¹
The need of Buddhist mission work in both Korea and
China will, I trust, be plain to any reader of this book. Its
aim is, of course, largely to look out for the unchurched
Japanese who have emigrated to these lands; but an effort is
also made toward propaganda among the native Koreans and
Chinese. In the other mission lands the effort of the mis-
sionaries is confined almost exclusively to work among Japa-
nese, and Japanese subjects.12 In the United States and
Hawaii a few converts have been made among Americans and
Europeans and, according to an article in the Young East,13
"some Europeans and Americans in Hawaii and California
have erected at their own initiative Buddhist halls and hold
regular weekly meetings. Three of such persons have be-
come priests of Nishi Hongwanji missions, and ten others,
including some ladies, preachers." On the whole, however,
Japanese missionaries are too sensible to spend much of their
time trying to convert Americans, and believers in the
Yellow Peril and haters of the "heathen" need not be greatly
terrified by Buddhist propaganda on American soil.14
The sort of work done by these Buddhist missionaries
when at its best may be seen by an analysis of the activities
of the Hawaiian mission. There are over forty Buddhist
missionaries in the islands and these together hold some 660
preaching services a month; besides giving lectures, making
visits, and distributing tracts. The principal temple in
Honolulu has a membership of 2000, with 700 children in
11 According to the pamphlet of the Federation of Buddhist Organizations for Chil-
dren the Shingon sect sends out 68 missionaries, Jodo 158, Rinzai 5, Soto 153, West
Hongwanji 245, East Hongwanji 125, other branches of Shin 12, Nichiren 73. This,
it will be noted, makes a total of 839 missionaries.
12
For example in Formosa where the West Hongwanji has a few missionaries, and
where it is planning to send some young native Formosans whom it is educating for the
purpose in Japan. In the Palao Islands, held by Japan as a mandate under the League
of Nations, the East Hongwanji has a few missionaries, and is now introducing modern
Sunday-school methods.
3 For Dec., 1925.
14 In 1924 there were in the United States and Canada "twenty-seven Buddhist
churches with forty priests. The membership numbers over 8000, and the church
property is valued at from $450,000 to $500,000 (Buddhist Annual of Ceylon for
1924).
580
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
*
the Sunday school. In the Hawaiian Islands as a whole there
are thirty-three Buddhist Sunday schools with about 8350
children and 200 teachers. They have a Y.M.B.A., with 26
branches, doing the same general kind of work as the Tokyo
Y.M.B.A.; and they have also a Y.W.B.A. with a few
branches. They publish a religious monthly known as Dobo
(or Brotherhood); and besides this Honolulu magazine there
are five other Buddhist monthlies published in other parts of
the Islands. They also print and distribute tracts in both
Japanese and English. A Buddhist middle school is sup-
ported at Honolulu and another at Hilo, each with a six-year
course and having at present 340 and 65 students respec-
tively. These are for boys; but there are also two schools
for girls, in the same cities. Twenty-three primary schools
and a few kindergartens complete the educational activities
of the mission. There is also a Buddhist Women's Society
with nearly 50 branches and 3500 members; and a Propa-
ganda Association whose object is to train missionaries in
English for work among American-born Japanese.15
The work in Hawaii seems to be done with efficiency.
Some years ago the younger generation of Japanese, born
in the islands and speaking their parents' tongue but slightly,
were found to be falling away from Buddhism because they
could understand but little in the Buddhist temples and were
attracted by the English preaching in Christian churches.
To put a stop to this disadvantage an English Buddhist of
scholarly distinction, who had already become a monk—the
Reverend M. T. Kirby, Ph.D.,-was induced to come from
California and preach, or lecture, every evening in one of the
Buddhist temples. He attracted and kept large audiences
right up to his recent departure for Japan. How his place
will be taken in Honolulu I have not heard, but I have no
doubt that modern methods and lectures in English will be
continued. A recent writer in the Young East, who was
born and had spent his whole life in Hawaii, has just given
his impressions of his first visit to Japan: and his chief im-
pression is that the Buddhist Sunday schools in Japan and the
G
18 These figures I take from an article in the Young East for July, 1925, and from
a pamphlet published by the Hongwanji Mission in Honolulu entitled A Short History
of the Hongwanji Buddhist Mission in Hawaii, 1897-1927.
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
581
methods of making Buddhism appeal to the young are far
inferior to those used by the partly Americanized Buddhists
of the islands.16
From this summary of the work of the Hawaiian mission,
it will be seen that a large part of the activity of aggressive
Buddhism in the foreign field is devoted to education. The
same thing is true of aggressive Buddhism at home. It will
be recalled that the first school in Japan was founded by Kobo
Daishi, in connection with his great Shingon temple in Kyoto.
The example thus given was followed here and there in other
temples, and in the thirteenth century the "Terakoya" sys-
tem of "temple schools" was officially adopted and the edu-
cation of the common people put into the hands of the Bud-
dhist clergy. The system was something like the educational
system of Burma. Boys from ten to fifteen went to the
monasteries and were taught the elementary subjects by the
monks. In 1873 these Terakoya schools were given up, hav-
ing been replaced by government schools. After this event
and until nearly the end of the century but little was done
by Japanese Buddhism toward specifically religious education
of a systematic sort for its young people; and except in those
centers where Buddhist Sunday schools exist, the same con-
dition still obtains. Even in a pious Buddhist home it is rare
indeed that there is anything corresponding to that syste-
matic Bible reading which used to be so common in Puri-
tanical England and America-and which is becoming so
uncommon today. Japanese children watch their parents
worship at the home shrine, and are taken with them occa-
sionally to the temple, and learn to imitate what they see.
The parents show them how to bow before the Buddha and
how to place their hands and how to repeat a few sacred
formulae. As we have already noted, even skeptical parents
usually teach their children to pray though they themselves
have ceased to believe, in theory, that prayer is of any use.
Children of zealous parents get a little more than this. I
have already referred to one of my interpreters whose mother
had been made a zealous Buddhist by Kwannon. When the
boy was born she had been unable to nurse him and had be-
sought the Goddess of Mercy to give her milk for her child.
10 The Young East for March, 1926.
C
582
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The gracious Kwannon had answered her prayer, and she
became an ardent member of the Nichiren sect, and brought
up her little son religiously. She instructed him in various
moral precepts such as honoring his parents, and taught him
the story of Nichiren's life-though nothing about Shaka-
and trained him to pray to Nichiren. For three years-from
the time he was fourteen till he was seventeen-she took him
with her every morning to the temple to pray, and had him
learn how to beat the temple drum in connection with the
prayer: and she urged him never to forget that whenever he
was in trouble he should pray. The temple priest taught him
also a little about Shaka. This constituted the sum of his
religious education until he was eighteen, when his uncle
induced him to go to a Christian Sunday school. I expect
that his Buddhist education was much more systematic than
that of most Buddhist boys.
But there are thousands of Buddhist children today who
are receiving a fairly systematic religious education. This is
owing to the organization of Buddhist Sunday schools—obvi-
ously and confessedly imitated from the Christian Sunday
schools. The new movement was begun about 1890 when
several "religious associations" of children were instituted,
and after a short time these were organized into Sunday
schools after the Christian model, with the usual adaptations
to the Japanese conditions which the Japanese know so well
how to make. The older and the inactive sects of course are
only now beginning to take up this new and Western form
of religious activity. Hosso has as yet no Sunday schools at
all. Kegon, Tendai, and Zen have very few. The Shingon
and Nichiren sects have Sunday schools in the principal tem-
ples of the principal towns. Jodo has rather more and is
rapidly increasing its numbers (so, at least, I was informed
by President Mochitzuki of the Jodo University in Tokyo).
It is the aim of Jodo to have a Sunday school in every one
of its temples and to give thorough and systematic religious
instruction. As yet it has not succeeded in carrying out its
plan in the country temples, but most city temples are pro-
vided with schools, and evangelists are sent into the country
districts to do something corresponding to Sunday-school
work. At the Jodo headquarters temple-Chionin in Kyoto
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
583
-they have a large Sunday school which claims to have
nearly a thousand members. It is, of course, the Shinshu in
its two great branches, the West and East Hongwanji, that
does the most work of this sort. Its Sunday schools are by
far the most numerous 17 and are probably the most syste-
matically conducted. Taking the Buddhist Sunday school
as a whole, one may say that though it is not nearly so wide-
spread as is the Christian Sunday school in America, it has
made a fair start. More than half the 1163 Buddhist tem-
ples in the city of Tokyo have Sunday schools.18 In 1920
there were in Japan as a whole 6928 Buddhist Sunday schools,
with 18,750 teachers and 788,146 pupils.10 The numbers
have probably increased very considerably since then, though
I have recent figures only for the West Hongwanji. In Feb-
ruary, 1928, this church (if so I may call it) had two thou-
sand five hundred Sunday schools and announced that each
of its temples (nearly ten thousand in number) must estab-
lish a Sunday school during the year. A certain amount of
system and cooperation is introduced into the many Sunday
schools of the various sects by the Bukkyo Shonen Rengo
Dan, or Confederation of Young Buddhists Association, a
non-denominational Sunday-school union.
It is only the more modern-minded Buddhists that have
gone into Sunday-school work, hence most of the Sunday
schools are decidedly modern and efficient in their equipment.
The Sunday school is never held in the temple proper, but
has a hall of its own (which of course may or may not be
within the temple enclosure). The assembly room for the
school is sometimes supplemented by small classrooms and a
library. In the main hall there is an altar and shrine (usually
with an image of Amida, Shotoku Taishi, the founder of the
sect, or some other member of the Buddhist cycle). For the
actual work of the school an ample equipment is provided-
an organ or piano, hymn books, blackboards, pictures, charts,
children's books and magazines, games for recess time, and a
17 In 1920 the West Hongwanji carried on, at home and in the mission fields, about
2000 Sunday schools, with 9595 teachers and 385,134 pupils, according to the official
pamphlet on The Buddhist Sunday School put out in 1920 by the West Hongwanji.
In February, 1928, it had twenty-five hundred Sunday schools. (Young East, Feb., 1928).
38 Mrs. Nobaku Shiodome, "Activities of Buddhist Women in Tokyo," Young East
I, 29.
18
10
The Mahayana Buddhists and Their Work for Children, 1920.
584
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
school flag. Each pupil is given one or two sacred books or
leaflets with colored pictures illustrating the story of some
Buddhist saint, a hymn-book, a rosary, and a monthly atten-
dance card. This, at least, is the rule in the West Hongwanji
Sunday schools, and in the other sects there is no great differ-
ence. The pupils are usually divided into classes according
to age. The superintendents and head teachers are largely
drawn either from the priests or from young men studying
for the priesthood. The women of the parish of course assist
but the proportion of men teachers in the three Sunday
schools I visited was very much larger than it is in American
Sunday schools. Some of the sects have a special adminis-
trative officer, who has studied religious education in the
United States, to supervise all their Sunday-school work.
A Buddhist Sunday school is a very pretty and interesting
sight. In the Shingon Sunday school on Mount Koya which
we visited there were about one hundred and eighty children
present, varying from four to fourteen in age; and with their
brilliantly colored kimonos, their black hair, their sparkling
eyes, their sunny gladness, they made a very sweet picture.
They all sat together in the center of the hall, and (of
course) on the floor, with no teachers or other grown-ups
among them. The teachers stood around the walls and the
children were left to listen and sing, to whisper and play, or
to get up and go out as they liked. No effort at discipline
was made, but none seemed greatly needed. The Japanese
Sunday school depends for order upon the good manners of
the children and the interest the speaker can inspire in them.
The service opened with the unveiling of the shrine, be-
fore which all bowed, holding their little heads down, down
for a few seconds. Then all the little heads bobbed up and
all the shrill voices joined in repeating a prayer of veneration.
This was followed by the singing of a hymn in unison which
all the children knew and which they sang with a will. One
of the boys then came forward and offered incense before the
shrine and a girl followed him, offering flowers and tea.
Then came the serious and difficult part of the morning-an
address by the superintendent. The subject of this address
was the meaning of the Five Vows which were to be read later
on in the service, and while it may have been scholarly and
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
585
elevated, it was not very interesting to the younger children.
Some of them were slightly restless (no one blamed them)
and about twenty of the littlest got up and toddled out of
the building, at various intervals during the address-return-
ing to their places when it was over. No one objected and
it seemed quite the natural thing for them to do. When the
address was over and the young wanderers had returned (of
their own accord), a student in the seminary told them a
story. He was a real story-teller, and though his tale lasted.
half an hour the children listened with close attention.
Story-telling is a part of the Sunday-school work and the
first prerequisite of the story is that it shall be interesting.
In addition to that it may be instructive and edifying-the
story, perhaps, of Kobo Daishi or some other saint; but the
one prerequisite is interest. After the story was finished, all
the children bowed toward the altar and the assistant super-
intendent read them the following introduction to the Vows:
We must be honest and do good. But it is hard to do good things
and to be honest. Those who do wrong and tell lies are hated by their
emperor, teachers, fathers and mothers. Not only so. Even if we study
hard in school, if we tell lies and do wrong we cannot grow up to be
great men. Therefore we must ask the Buddha to protect our little
hearts and we must try to do right. Kobo Daishi, who lies up there in
the Holy of Holies of the temple, is a person of great mercy, and when
we worship him with our hands clasped he tells us we are good children
and makes us his children. The Bishop of Kongobuji 20 teaches us to be-
come children of Kobo Daishi by making these vows. So let us make
these vows to Kobo Daishi.
Hereupon the five following vows were read out in turn
by the leader and repeated in unison by all the children:
We will be diligent in our duties.
We will worship the Buddha and the Kami.
We will be loyal to the emperor and dutiful to our parents.
We will have merciful hearts.
We will do everything honestly.
After taking these vows to Kobo Daishi the children sang
another hymn and a student assistant made a short address.
20 Kongobuji is the headquarters temple of the principal branch of Shingon and the
residence of its Bishop, the Lord Abbot of Koya-san.
586
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Unfortunately it occurred to the superintendent at this point
that it would be only courtesy to ask the American visitor
to make some remarks, so the poor children had to listen to
a fourth talk, which, however, had the interest of being en-
tirely unintelligible until translated to them by my inter-
preter. I was sorry the children had to stand it, but it was
of some interest to me that a Japanese Buddhist Sunday-
school superintendent should invite a visiting American
Christian to address his children. I have not often heard of
a Buddhist being asked to address a Christian Sunday-school.
This school on Koya-san belonged, as I have said, to the
Shingon sect. In the Shinshu Sunday schools I visited (both
West and East Hongwanji) there was more real instruction
and study: as will be shown by the following schedule,
which I copy from the official pamphlet published by the
Hongwanji:
Opening bell at 8:50 A.M.
1st Period, 9:00 A.M.-9:40 a.m.
1. Opening of the Shrine
2. Worshiping
3. Incense-burning (by a representative of the pupils)
4. Service
5. Hymn
6. Sermon
7. Worshiping
8. Closing of the Shrine.
(10 minutes' recess)
2d Period, 9:50 a.m.-10:20 a.m.
1. Moral tales (for each class)
2. Teaching of Hymns (for each class)
(10 minutes' recess)
3d Period, 10:30 A.M.-11:30 a.m.
1. Story-telling (historical, nursery, etc.)
2. Exercise of Chanting
3. Exercise of Hymn-singing
4th Period, 11:30 A.M.
1. Opening of the Shrine
2. Hymn
3. Worshiping
4. Closing of the Shrine
Closing bell
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
587
Monthly Topics for Moral Discipline in 1919
April, The Spirit of Progress
May, Piety
June, Prudence
July, Temperance
August, Honoring of Ancestors
September, Order
October, Filial Piety
November, Loyalty
December, Public Service.
January, The Grace of Buddha
February, Integrity
March, Gratitude.
The order of exercises on the day of my visit was not
quite the same as that exhibited above, but followed it fairly
well. The children sang with even greater fervor than in the
Sunday school on Koya-san. The Sutra which they chanted
they knew by heart, and for the hymns each was provided
with a hymn book, and their shrill little voices-especially
those of the boys-rang out with a peal of irresistible joy. I
have never heard such hymn singing by children before nor
since. The sermon in this Sunday school seemed to be rather
more interesting than the superintendent's address on Koya
had been, and consisted in a discussion of the three mottoes of
the school namely: "(1) Let us praise the name of the Most
Merciful Buddha who is always with us and for us. (2) Let
us worship and thank the Most Merciful Buddha who loves
us. (3) Let us believe in the Most Merciful Buddha who
watches our actions, and be good and kind." In the course
of his address upon these mottoes, the preacher emphasized
the need of loving one another, and he illustrated one of his
points by telling a story about the boyhood of Andrew Car-
negie, who was a good boy and worked hard. The whole
sermon lasted but seven minutes.
As will be noted from the schedule given above, there are
three recesses during the Sunday-school service, and inasmuch
as the service lasts from 8:50 to 12 or later, they are needed.
They are used for outdoor games. In the second period the
children divide into classes, each class going to its own room;
while in the third they reassemble in the large hall for moral
stories-which are excellently told and illustrated with pic-
588
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
tures drawn by the story-teller on the blackboard. Here, as
at Koya, no attempt whatever is made at "discipline," and
the speaker depends for the order and attention of the chil-
dren upon the interest he can arouse in them.
Sunday schools are by no means the only educational in-
stitutions founded and directed by Buddhists. Like Chris-
tian missions, the Buddhist sects are supplementing the gov-
ernment educational system by schools of their own in which
the usual subjects are taught but through which they hope
to breathe a spirit of religion. These schools are of all grades.
Altogether there are nearly a hundred primary schools under
Buddhist direction and over a hundred secondary schools,
twenty-six "middle schools" (high schools) for boys, and
thirteen for girls, forty special schools (including three for
the training of nuns),21 ten colleges and four universities
(or colleges of university rank),22 beside which there are
several theological seminaries as we should call them. Of
these universities one belongs to the West and one to the East
Hongwanji, one to the Soto branch of Zen, one to Nichiren.
An additional university is being organized through the
amalgamation of three of the lower colleges supported by
Tendai, Zen, and Shingon. I should add that the Jodo Col-
lege in Tokyo is in faculty and curriculum about on a par
with the "universities," and that the Reverend Sonyu Otani,
abbot of the West Hongwanji, is planning to found a Uni-
versity for Women in Tokyo.23 Most of the Buddhist col-
leges are theological seminaries, that is, technical training
schools for the priesthood, and every sect 24 has at least one
of these. Some of the sects have also summer schools for
young priests or for candidates for the priesthood who have
had insufficient training. The universities and the better
colleges are centers of real scholarship, with generous cur-
ricula, good libraries, learned teachers, and fairly adequate
equipment. The West Hongwanji University at Kyoto
(known as the Ryukoku Daigaku) is typical of the best and
21 I can vouch for the inexactness of these figures: they are the result of an
attempt to harmonize statistics from the pamphlet published by the Federation of
Buddhist Organizations for Children, and from The Young East for Oct., 1925. I be-
lieve, however, that they are approximately trustworthy.
22
These figures are given by The Young East for June, 1926.
23
P
The Young East for April, 1926.
21
I am not absolutely certain about two or three of the smallest sects.
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
589
the content of its curriculum may be of interest. Its regu-
lar course is of three years' duration and includes the fol-
lowing subjects: (1) Doctrine of Buddhism, (2) Doctrine
of the Shin Sect, (3) History of Buddhism, (4) Outline of
the Science of Religion and of the History of Religion, (5)
History of European Philosophy, (6) Psychology, (7) Ethics,
(8) Pedagogy, (9) Sociology, (10) History of Indian
Philosophy and Literature, (11) History of Chinese
Philosophy and Literature, (12) History of Japan and
of the Japanese Classics, (13) History of European Litera-
ture.25
The less active sects give less elaborate training in their
colleges than that offered in the Ryukoku Daigaku, and edu-
cation is not necessary for admission to the priesthood. Still
all of the larger and more active sects have excellent colleges
for those who wish to train in them for the priesthood, and
the opportunity is embraced by a steadily increasing num-
ber. It seems most probable that when the present genera-
tion of students reach middle age, the Buddhist clergy of
Japan will be, on the whole, a well-educated and intelligent
body of men.
-
Schools and colleges are not the only institutions made use
of by Japanese Buddhism toward the advance of insight and
the extension of religious knowledge and of general educa-
tion. The Jodo sect supports forty-one public libraries,
which in 1922 had a circulation of 30,843. Both Jodo and
Shin have special courses for study in social service, and Jodo
28 I take this from Rev. J. T. Addison's valuable paper on "Religious Life in Japan"
(in the Harvard Theolog. Review for Oct., 1925), who adds the following interesting
information concerning the extra-curricular activity of the students: "Despite the lack
of college dormitories the social life of the students is active and highly organized.
Those interests and activities' which in America vie so successfully with the interests
of education and the activities of study, are familiar in Kyoto. Most of the numerous
clubs (which meet in university buildings, tea-houses, hotels, or the students' own
rooms) are organized as departments of a general Student Association. Each club has a
Faculty adviser or guide. There are, for instance, four religious clubs which meet for
the discussion of religious problems or of current topics. A Sunday-school department
conducts Sunday-schools in different parts of Kyoto. Another department publishes
two student magazines, one of a scientific, the other of a popular, nature. Several music
clubs and an orchestra constitute the music department. And still other interests are
represented by the poetry club, the debating club, and the art club. Yet more varied
are the athletic activities-jiu-jitsu, wrestling, fencing, archery, riding, rowing, tennis,
and baseball. In baseball and tennis especially the university teams compete with other
colleges, including the Otani University of the Higashi Hongwanji sect. Sectarian
rivalry thus takes a novel form, the spectacle of which would no doubt prove baf-
fling to some of the mediaeval founders."
590
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
recently sent three students abroad to study social service
methods in the West.20 In 1925 the West Hongwanji initi-
ated a compaign of political education in view of the coming
election (in 1928) in which for the first time the suffrage
was exercised by all male citizens over twenty-five years
of age (including Buddhist monks, who had never had the
franchise till then). With this purpose 300 priests and lec-
turers were ordered to different parts of the country, and
conferences were held with government officials as to pro-
grams, etc. Two pamphlets of an educational nature were
also prepared for distribution among the new voters, and
twenty-eight priests (mostly from the West Hongwanji)
ran for Parliament; one was elected.27 There is a Bud-
dhists' "Temperance Movement League, and various
Women's Associations which do propaganda work against
the use of intoxicants. The East Hongwanji publishes over
a dozen religious periodicals, mostly monthlies; 28 and all the
more active sects do much the same. Foremost in the reli-
gious periodical literature of Japanese Buddhism should be
mentioned the Eastern Buddhist, a quarterly for scholarly
articles on the philosophy and history of Buddhism, pub-
lished in Kyoto; and the Young East, a monthly, founded in
June, 1925, by a group of forward-looking Buddhists, who
believe that the world, particularly the Western world, needs
the message which Mahayana Buddhism has to give, and who
hope to do their share in extending this message by interpret-
ing Japan and especially Japanese Buddhism to Europe and
America.
G
Mention should also be made of the Mahayana, the organ
of the Koju Society, whose aim is the translation of San-
skrit Buddhist literature into Japanese, Modern Bud-
dhism, a monthly magazine in Japanese, of a scholarly nature,
and The Study of Religions, a monthly of the same sort pub-
lished by the Interdenominational Association (Kakushu
Rengokai) 29 and edited by Professor Anesaki. Buddhism
has also two weekly journals and a daily paper. Altogether,
20
Saneharu Ojima, "Some Aspects of Modern Japanese Buddhism,” in the Christian
Movement in Japan for 1923, p. 294.
27 The Young East for Sept., 1925, Feb. and March, 1928.
28
Principal Teachings of the True Sect of Pure Land, pp. 47-48.
20
See page $76 above.
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
591
according to the Young East for April, 1926, "the number
of periodicals relating to Buddhism in Japan totals 167." 30
Perhaps the most important piece of work of a combined
scholarly and religious nature which has been undertaken in
the Far East for many a year is the new edition of the Chinese
Tripitaka or Buddhist Canon.31 It is to include 2633 books,
717 of which have never been included in any previous
edition of the Tripitaka. Professors Takakusu and Wata-
nabe, both of them scholars of the first rank, are the editors,
and the work as planned will be complete in fifty-five large
volumes. Forty of these have already been published, and the
editors expect to complete the work by November, 1928.
The editors have collated their material with the three great
previous editions, and are adding new material derived from
the discoveries of Aurel Stein in the caves of Tun Huang.
This immense edition of the Tripitaka is, of course, for
scholars only. A work of a more popular nature has been
carried out by some of the Buddhists of Nagoya who have
written and published a concise exposition of Buddhism in
modern Japanese. "Copies of this book have been distributed
among the elementary, middle, and girls' higher schools at
Nagoya, and in the districts of Aichi Prefecture. Other
prefectures will follow suit and shortly present the book to
schools of elementary and secondary grades in them.” 32
Some years ago, according to Mr. Reischauer, the leading
sects began
circulating what might be called Sectarian Bibles; namely volumes bound
in convenient form which contain the chief scriptures of the sect with
standard commentaries on the same. One of these published first in 1911
passed through forty-five reprints in three years. Biographies of Buddhist
saints, catechisms, expositions of Buddhist philosophies, essays and ser-
mons on various moral and religious topics are appearing in greater num-
ber from year to year.* 33
30
Classified according to the different sects to which they belong they are as follows:
Shin Sect
Shingon Sect
Jodo Sect
Nichiren Sect
•
•
71
13
12
12
31 It is to be known as the Taisho edition.
32 The Young East for Oct., 1925.
33
Studies in Japanese Buddhism, pp. 311-12.
Soto Sect
Rinzai Sect
Tendai Sect
Others
·
•
•
•
10
10
3
36
592
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
A most elaborate publication of this sort is now being
planned, and work on it begun: namely, an edition of all the
important Buddhist books and writings that have appeared
since the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. The edition
will consist of ten large volumes.34
Several of the movements and institutions referred to in
this chapter, as the reader must have noticed, should be
classed not merely under the headings of propaganda or
education but also as philanthropic or humanitarian under-
takings. One of the principal characteristics of the Buddhist
revival in Japan has, in fact, been a renewal of these works
of charity and mercy. I say a renewal, for philanthropic
activity, in at least spasmodic fashion, characterized Japanese
Buddhism from the days of Prince Shotoku until the restora-
tion. In Chapter XXIII reference was made to the charitable
institutions which the Prince founded, and we saw that his
noble example was followed by many monks and many Bud-
dhist rulers. In the Nara period, the famous monk Gyogi
founded orphanages, dispensaries, and homes for the aged,
and Ganjin, who introduced the Ritsu or Vinaya sect from
China, was distinguished as a physician and is known as the
father of medical science in Japan. During these early days
the distribution of medicine among the people seems to have
been one of the functions of the Buddhist clergy, as well as
the distribution of food in time of famine. They seem to
have been particularly busy with famine relief during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and they also founded
homes for beggars and homes for the sick, giving help of
various sorts especially to the lepers. As we have seen, many
Buddhist activities slowed down during the deadly last years
of the Tokugawa régime, and at the restoration a number of
the philanthropic undertakings which had been in charge of
the Buddhist clergy were taken over by the imperial govern-
ment. There followed a short period of relative inactivity:
but with the arrival of the Christian missionaries and the
initiation by them of various charitable movements, the
Buddhist leaders were stung into activity once more, and
since then the larger sects have sought to emulate the exam-
ple of the new religion.
34 The Young East for Oct., 1925.
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
593
If we compare the number of Japanese Buddhists with
the number of Japanese Christians, and on this basis com-
pare the philanthropic work carried on in the land by the
two religions, it will be seen that Buddhism is very far in the
rear of its rival. Still something of a substantial sort is being
done by Buddhism, and when one compares it with con-
ditions of a quarter century ago the contrast is notable, and
the promise for the future correspondingly bright. I shall
not trouble the reader with a detailed and minute account,
but shall simply copy out here a few representative statistics
for the year 1919 (I can find no inclusive figures of a later
date) given in a government report on the charitable or-
ganizations supported and controlled by Buddhism.
Kinds of
Institution
Institutions for the Re-
lief of the Destitute
Homes for the Aged..
Institutions for the Re-
lief of Sickness.
Homes for Children.
Reformatory Schools..
Free Elementary Schools
Schools for Blind or
Deaf and Dumb.
Infant Day Nurseries..
Employment Offices.
Lodging Houses for La-
borers
Institutions for the Care
of Ex-convicts..
Miscellaneous Charities.
Totals
•
•
•
•
•
•
No.
• ·
24
11
16
70
21
12
7
18
9
8
462
33
No. of the
Rescued
701
1,354
325
273,485
2,843
528
2,185
189
865
7,385
79,963
Direct 3,218)
Indirect 28,529 S
Annual Expenses
Yen,
58,232
56,659
82,138
328,335
103,985
27,109
18,826
24,334
5,017
20,767
185,325
79,256
Property
Value
989,983
Yen, 113,518
78,403
183,737
876,642
75,228
Over 400,000
I might add that of these 701 organizations, eight are
supported by Tendai, fifteen by Shingon, forty-five by Jodo,
forty-seven by Zen, one hundred and four by Shin, twenty-
four by Nichiren, forty by the other sects together, three
hundred and sixty-seven by the United Buddhists Organiza-
tion (three hundred and forty-five of these were organi-
zations for the care of ex-convicts), and fifty-one by non-
sectarian Buddhists.35
Since the earthquake Buddhist charity has found new
35
I take these figures concerning the sects from the pamphlet on The Mahayana
Buddhists and Their Work for Children.
57,110
93,725
42,674
323,565
47,533
1,892,135
594
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
demands upon its care and has, like Christian charity, re-
sponded gladly. A large part of the temple land of the
Zo-jo-ji-the chief Jodo temple of Tokyo-was for a year
and more after the catastrophe covered with temporary huts
for the lodging of earthquake sufferers, and several other
temples in and near Tokyo and Yokohama were similarly
helpful. The West Hongwanji is undertaking the construc-
tion of several halls in these two cities for various social wel-
fare works, at an estimated cost of 1,660,000 yen. For the
wise administration of their charity funds-not only for
earthquake relief but for its philanthropic undertakings in
general-several of the sects, including both the Hongwanjis,
the Jodo, Soto, and Nichiren, have established social service.
departments, with trained workers at their heads.
The educational and philanthropic movement within
Japanese Buddhism, the activities of which we have been
studying in this chapter, owes much of its force to the stimu-
lus and example of Christianity. It is by no means wholly
due to Christian influence, for, as we have seen, Buddhism
was active in both these directions long before Christianity
was heard of in Japan. Japanese Buddhism, indeed, has
always been rather notably active, and has been character-
ized by efforts to mix in politics, spread Chinese culture, and
educate children, quite as much as by any tendency to with-
draw from the world. The new developments in helpful
activity of a modern sort have their roots in the earliest
traditions of Japanese Buddhism. Indeed their roots go much
deeper than that. They reach back to the teaching and ex-
ample of the Founder himself. Buddhism has always been
a religion of mercy and generosity: and in a sense its modern
activities are a natural evolution from the example of the
Buddha and from the Bodhisattva ideal of the Mahayana,
made efficient in their application through methods borrowed
from the West. What we are witnessing in Japan is the spirit
of Gotama coming to its own.
-
But while human helpfulness is natural to Buddhism, it is
still true that the activity of Japanese Buddhism and its aim
to make this world a better place to live in, rather than to
get away from it into some solitary monastery or some un-
knowable Nirvana, is in considerable contrast to what one
EDUCATION AND PHILANTHROPY
595
finds in China and what one reads about in many works on
Pali Buddhism. This is in part the explanation of the rather
surprising attitude toward the new movement adopted by
many Western critics and not a few missionaries. When in
modern Buddhist books or papers they read that the Bud-
dhist aim is in part to make this a better and a happier world,
they shake their heads and say with sad disapproval, Not
Buddhism! The interest which a certain type of Christian
missionary seems to feel in the orthodoxy of his Buddhist
neighbors is almost touching. He stamps as non-Buddhistic
whatever was not once delivered unto the bonzes by the
Arahants, and insists strenuously upon the formula quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. This, as I have inti-
mated, is not wholly due to the desire to keep all the human
merit for his own religion; but also to the notion which so
many of us share that Buddhism must necessarily be defined
by what we read in the works of Rhys Davids about the
original teachings of Gotama. The truth is, of course, that
those teachings with the practice that went with them were
Buddhism, that the religion of Siam and Burma is Buddhism,
that the religion of Japan is Buddhism, and that if we want
to know what Buddhism is we must not dogmatize about it
but study the religion of Buddhist countries and see. The
question how, with their many divergencies, these varied
forms of religion can all be Buddhism, how Buddhism or any
other religion or any other living thing can change, we shall
have occasion to consider in a later chapter.
CHAPTER XXIX
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN-THE EARLIER SECTS
PERHAPS the most fundamental characteristic of Bud-
dhist thought in Japan is its liberality and tolerance. More
than once in this book I have had occasion to point out these
traits of Buddhism in general. To a greater or less extent
they are found in nearly all Japanese Buddhists. Some of the
sects, to be sure, are less liberal than others. Members of the
Nichiren sect in particular are sometimes relatively intoler-
ant, and assert that salvation in the fullest and highest sense
is possible only to followers of Nichiren. The leading abbot
of the sect, however, assured me that in his own opinion not
only members of other Buddhist sects but also all good and
sincerely religious men-Christians as well as Buddhists-
would be saved. On this matter we must remember that for
Buddhism there is no such absolute division between the sheep
and the goats as one finds in Christian teaching. In Buddhist
belief you need not necessarily in the next life. go either to
heaven or to hell. There are many mansions not only in
heaven but in other parts of the universe. Thus some mem-
bers of Shinshu believe that while only followers of the Pure
Land sects, or at most only Buddhists, can go to the Para-
dise of Amida, good men of other religions will go to some of
the other heavens, or will have a desirable rebirth here. The
more liberal members of the Shin sect teach that highly
earnest and devout Christians will be received by Amida
into his Paradise quite as readily as Shinshu believers, because
in reality they are Shinshu believers without knowing it.
One of the most prominent Shinshu abbots of Tokyo-a
most kindly and delightful old gentleman-told me that this
was his own belief. "But," he added, with just the sugges-
tion of a twinkle in his eye, "I have never yet met such a
Christian-not even among my foreign visitors.
The sects that make less of faith and more of philosophy
در
Key
596
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
597
are naturally rather more liberal than the Nichiren and Pure
Land sects. Thus the Lord Abbot and Bishop of Koya-san
told me that Shingon teaches the present and actual salvation
of all just in the measure in which they apprehend the truth.
In this he was expressing not only Shingon doctrine but that
also of Tendai, Kegon, and (in a sense) of Zen. "The one
truth," he said, "appears in all religions. Whoever reaches
the ideal and perfect state in his own religion will reach the
same level as the highest in any other religion. Different
religions have different methods of attaining the highest
In the phenomenal world we distinguish between re-
ligions. But if each religion developed to the full its highest
potentiality, they would all reach an identity. Up to that
point our states will be different. But the final fate for all
men will be the same." By that fate, he meant, of course,
identity with the Real. The thought is not new nor does.
it owe its source to modern or Western conceptions. In the
tenth century a Buddhist poet sang:
Many the paths that twist and wind
Through stream-cleft vale or forest maze;
But those who reach the hill-top find
(Though they have climbed by different ways)
On the wide summit, clear and kind,
Just the same moonlight softly plays,
Shining on all with equal rays! 1
This liberal attitude toward other religions, as we have
seen, has been made easier for Buddhism by its generous in-
terpretation of symbolism, by its occasional disregard of the
niceties of logic, and by its doctrine of the different levels of
truth and degrees of reality. It was in this way, as we have
seen, that Buddhism was able to adopt, at one time or an-
other, nearly all the Kami of Shinto and thus to become the
dominant religion of the land. It is especially by the doctrine
of Hoben, or the accommodation of truth to the minds of
the hearers, that Buddhism was able to absorb so much of
Shinto with a good conscience, and that each of the sects is
2
S
1 The Master Singers of Japan, Walsh's trans., p. 83.
2 The Catechism of the Shin sect quotes the great Shin teacher Rennyo as follows:
"The so-called gods (Kami) are but transformations of the Buddhas and Bosatsus,
But since it is difficult for men of this world to approach the Buddhas and Bosatsus,
deity is revealed by accommodation as gods. Thus connection with mankind is made
and man is brought finally into Buddhism" (Tr. A. S. J., XXXVIII, 386).
598
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
3
able to recognize that the teachings of all the others-and
most of the teachings of Christianity, for that matter-are
all true.
Three realms are to be recognized and distin-
guished: the realm of delusion, the realm of accommodated
or relative truth, and the realm of absolute truth. Many
seemingly contradictory views may be reconciled and ac-
cepted by placing them in the second of these realms. "The
shield is convex." "The shield is concave." Both these as-
sertions are true-true in the relative sense-spite of their
seeming incompatibility. From the higher point of view the
shield in one sense is both, in one sense neither.
The nature of both the material world and the self, as
viewed by Buddhist thought, must be considered in the light
of this distinction if they are to be understood. Neither the
self nor the physical world is sheer illusion, but neither is
absolute reality. All Buddhist sects in Japan in final theory
are idealistic and none explicitly deny the Anatta doctrine,
while most of them explicitly affirm it; yet all leave room to
speak as if the self and the world were real. There is a
reality in each, but the reality is not what it seems. What
seems to be the self is really (for all but the popular party
of the Amida sects) a temporary collection of qualities,
themselves as transitory as the collection. Even so non-
technical and non-sectarian a periodical as the Young East
recently printed a paragraph on this subject, ending thus:
"Anatta signifies unreal, without a substance, without what is gen-
erally called soul, I, ego, self, thing-in-itself. Anatta is the fundamental
basis of the Buddhist philosophy."
4
According to Professor Suzuki:
The refusal of modern psychology to have soul mean anything more
than the sum-total of all mental experiences, such as sensations, ideas,
feelings, decisions, etc., is precisely a rehearsal of the Buddhist doctrine
of non-atman. It does not deny that there is a unity of consciousness, for
to deny this is to doubt our everyday experiences, but it refuses to assert
that this unity is absolute, unconditioned, and independent. Everything
in this phenomenal phase of existence is a combination of certain causes
and conditions brought together according to the principle of karma; and
Cf. pp. 241 above. See also Reischauer, op. cit., pp. 184-88; and Knox, The Devel
opment of Religion in Japan (N. Y., Putnam, 1907), pp. 119-21.
*I, 186, for Nov., 1925.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
599
everything that is compound is finite and subject to dissolution and there-
fore always limited by something else. To maintain the existence of a
soul-substance which is supposed to lie hidden behind the phenomena of
consciousness is not only misleading, but harmful and productive of
some morally dangerous conclusions.5
As the last sentence in the passage just quoted indicates,
Buddhism rejects the soul theory for both a metaphysical and
an ethical reason. The concept is part and parcel of the
whole substance view of realism, which Buddhist idealism
discards; and it involves, moreover, difficulties of both an
a priori and an empirical nature which in Buddhist opinion
are insuperable. No Western student of objective idealism
or of psychology needs to be told what these are. But the
ethical reasons for the rejection of the soul theory probably
appeal to most Buddhist thinkers even more forcibly than do
the metaphysical ones. The Founder seems to have taught
that it was the thought of self and the belief in it which more
than any other one thing has brought sin into the world and
all our woe; and it seems to the thinkers of the Mahayana
to be incompatible with that unity of all beings which is the
basis of every virtue.
Liberality, the belief in degrees of truth and reality, an
idealistic interpretation of the external world, and the Anatta
doctrine are characteristics of all the Buddhist sects of Japan
(with the possible exception of the Amida sects). Nor are
these by any means the only things they hold in common.
It will, however, save time and probably make for clearness
if I take up the more important sects singly and outline
briefly their several positions. It is natural to begin with
the Hosso sect, both because of its antiquity and also be-
cause all the other sects unite in distinguishing it from the
rest of Japanese Buddhism as being not "complete" but only
"provisional" Mahayana. As I have dealt in previous chap-
ters at some length with the Indian and Chinese forms of this
school of thought," it need not here detain us long. I should
remind the reader that it was this school that added a seventh
and an eighth plane or element to the Indian analysis of mind,
the eighth being the Alaya-vijnana, or repository conscious-
ness, a kind of subconscious reservoir, from which the images
0 See pages 242-248, 408-412.
Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 41.
鲁
​600
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
arise that are the physical world. The followers of this
school in Japan as in China seem to be divided on the ques-
tion of monism and pluralism. At any rate, Dr. Armstrong
informs me that Japanese books expounding the Hosso phi-
losophy teach an ultimate and absolute Reality which they
call Nirvana or Shinnyo, and from this they say the Alaya-
vijnana (or Alayashiki) is derived. The Hosso monks with
whom I have talked, on the other hand, say nothing of an
ultimate, monistic Reality, take Nirvana (Shinnyo) to mean
merely the state of the individual when enlightened, and in-
sist that each individual has his own Alayashiki (Alaya-
vijnana) and that back of this philosophy cannot go. A
learned Kegon monk did something to clear up the matter
for me by insisting that while Hosso thinkers when pressed
have to admit an Ultimate, or (what amounts to the same
thing) to recognize the metaphysical reality of Nirvana
(Shinnyo) as a trans-individual reality, they suggest no logi-
cal relation between it and the Alayashiki and never refer to
it nor make use of it in their philosophy.
The two great Hosso temples are Horyuji and Kofuku-ji
(at Nara), and I went to both in search of light. The
Horyuji abbot was out when I called, but one of his followers
listened to my questions and did his best to answer them.
The seventh kind of consciousness, the Manashiki, he told
me, thinks everything in a bad way and is responsible for
the illusion of selfhood, being misled by desire. The Alaya-
shiki, the eighth level or form of mind, though not itself a
form of explicit consciousness, is the fountain of all phe-
nomena, the storehouse which contains the seeds of all this
phantasmagorial world. Each man has his own Alayashiki
which is separate from that of others and which produces
for him his own world. Space and time are merely its pro-
ductions and must be interpreted idealistically. The Buddha
is still existent and is now in the highest heaven, though his
spirit is everywhere; for heaven is not a place but a state
of mind. Good men will go at death to heaven and the bad
to hell; and this of course means that their Alayashiki will
produce for them the kind of world which, according to the
law of Karma, they deserve. For each man's Alayashiki, in
creating the external world for him, acts in strict conformity
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
601
to Karma. Each man thus has his own world; yet this world
which every man makes is common to all. But, I asked,
how is this to be explained; how do we happen to make our
worlds alike? He replied that there was a very learned monk,
the Reverend Saikyo, in Kofukuji at Nara, and I had better
go and ask him.
K
As my kind Horyuji monk was evidently getting beyond
his depth and was plainly distressed by my persistent ques-
tioning, I took his advice, and my interpreter and I mounted
our rickshaws, caught the train for Nara, and were rushed
with other rickshaws to a modest house within the large en-
closure of the ancient and famous monastery of Kofukuji
(most of whose buildings have long been destroyed) and in-
quired for the Reverend Saikyo. The learned monk wel-
comed us in grave but kindly manner and invited us to sit
on the floor in front of him—and partake of the usual cheer-
ing cup that certainly could never inebriate. He was a dark
little man of perhaps forty-five or fifty years, dressed wholly
in black and very simply, with long eyelashes and medita-
tive expression. He had an air of decision and finality about
him and spoke with self-confidence and in the long, clear
tones of one accustomed to lecturing, repeating his formulas
with a relish and at times rolling them under his tongue.
After my interpreter had made his usual little introductory
speech, filled with Japanese courtesy, and we had bowed to
each other several times afresh, I recounted to him, while
sipping the honorable tea, the end of our conversation at
Horyuji, and put to him the question which the Horyuji
monk had been unable to answer: why, though each of us
makes his own world, we all make it alike and have a common
world to live in. He replied:
A
G
Ca
Hosso recognizes that the noumenal world cannot be the
source of the phenomenal world (this, apparently, in con-
trast to the teaching of Tendai and Kegon). Phenomena can
come only from phenomena. Hosso, therefore, recognizes
the relations between things in this world. It does not recog-
nize nor bother with any hypothetical Reality or Substance
beyond this world that we know, as the other sects do. I
pointed out that all this was interesting and enlightening,
but it did not answer just the question I had asked, about our
602
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
common world. His answer this time was to the point.
Each of us, he said, makes his own world; and these worlds
which we make may in part be the same and they may not.
Often they are not the same and never are they completely
the same. What we call the same moon may be to one man
joyful, to another sad. The world of each depends for its
nature on the spirit of each. It will be a good world or a bad
world according to the man's character and his past con-
duct. We are all making our own worlds by ourselves and
the world we experience now is the result of our past deeds
and our merit or Karma. In each man the ultimate source
of the world is the Alayashiki (Alaya-vijnana). Each of us
has his own and this is not identical with that of any one else.
It does not merge in any cosmic Alayashiki or Butatathata.
The Hosso is thus essentially individualistic and pluralistic.8
7
G
9
This extreme pluralism and individualism is shared by
none of the other Japanese sects. In fact, spite of many
superficial contrasts, the other sects are, from the philosophi-
cal point of view, closely allied and when put in their ulti-
mate terms they all defend a nearly identical form of spirit-
ual monism. The general trend of the Mahayana would be
enough to explain much of this similarity, but some of it
must be attributed to the historical fact that the Tendai is,
in a sense, the philosophic mother of all these sects, save
Kegon and Shingon; 10 and further that Kegon thought is
closely related to that of Tendai, and that Shingon has
adopted most of its philosophy from Kegon. I shall, there-
fore, give a rather detailed account of the Kegon-Tendai
philosophy and thereby shall be enabled to deal with the
theoretical teachings of the other sects much more briefly.
For the Kegon-Tendai point of view is the very keel of
Japanese Buddhism.
It is the theory of both these schools (which are so nearly
"Whatever one may think of this solution for the difficulty which subjectivism
makes for itself, surely it is about as good as that which Gentile and his school pro-
pose for the same predicament.
8 Cf. similar statements by my Chinese friends who belonged to this same school,
pp. 408, 409, 411, 412.
It will be recalled that the founders of all the more important sects subsequent
to Shingon studied Buddhist philosophy on Hiei-san.
10 I should add that in some respects (as we shall see) Zen is closer to Kegon than
to Tendai.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
603
1
one) that Sakyamuni expounded his doctrine in five stages, or
in five grades of teaching: and Tendai pictures these five
formulations of his truth as having been given out at five
different periods of his life. In the first period, lasting only
a few weeks after his enlightenment, he taught the philo-
sophic truth in all its depth, as found in the Avatamsaka
Sutra the great scripture of the Kegon sect. But he soon
discovered that only a few could comprehend this great doc-
trine; and so, following the pedagogical method of all the
Buddhas, viz., milk for babes and meat for strong men, he
taught in the second period merely the simple truths of the
Hinayana. These were all true. The Mahayana never asserts
that the Hinayana doctrines are false. They are not false,
but they are very incomplete. In the third and fourth
periods,¹¹ therefore, Sakyamuni led his listeners on to larger
visions, and finally in the fifth period he gave the full truth
of the Saddharma Pundarika.12 This, in Tendai opinion,
differs from the great Kegon Sutra, revealed during the first
period, not in philosophical meaning (except for details), but
in being inclusive of all the other teachings. Tendai means to
deny nothing, but to find a place within itself for the truths
of all other Buddhist schools, even the Hinayana.
As the Kegon sect is a little older than the Tendai (both
in China and Japan), I shall treat of its philosophy first-
and rather briefly, for its importance in Japanese thought is
less than that of Tendai. The world, it teaches, may be
viewed in four different ways and in fact is so viewed by
different schools of Buddhist thought, each of the four hav-
ing some degree of truth, but only the fourth (which is that
of Kegon) being fully true. Some people think of the world
as made up of separate things. This first way of viewing
reality is, of course, very illusory. A second way is the ex-
treme denial of separate and phenomenal things. This view
centers upon the One Being back of phenomena which is
Reason itself. "All things returning into Reality are lost."
.
11 In these periods Chih K'ai (the Chinese Founder of Tendai) placed a number of
the earlier Mahayana Sutras, which had been the chief scripture of the Sunyata, Yoga-
cara, and other early Mahayana schools of thought.
12
For
a more detailed account of these five stages see McGovern's Introduction to
Mahayana Buddhism, pp. 123-29; Armstrong, The Doctrine of the Tendai Sect; Eastern
Buddhist, III, 32-34; Reischauer, op. cit., pp. 172-74.
604
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
"Individual distinctions are lost and everything disappears,
having no place to rest"-thus wrote the philosopher Tojun,
expressing this second point of view. This is less untrue
than the naïve acceptance of separateness and of the phe-
nomenal, but it needs supplementation. A third and truer
view accepts Reason, but not abstract Reason: it teaches
Reason in relation to things. The reality of things is no
longer denied but everything is looked at from the viewpoint
of its source. The water thus is seen to be the wave, and the
wave the water, and the one is found in the many. The final
truth, which is the fourth world view, the view of Kegon, is
a continuation and completion of this third position. Every-
thing is here seen to blend with Absolute Reality. To know
one thing truly is to know all-to understand the flower in
the crannied wall is to know what God and man is. Things
mutually enter into each other like two lights reflected in
parallel mirrors. Two things may be different in one sense,
yet really the same, as the water and the wave. All things are
one, and the one is all. For all things exist in mutual har-
mony at one and the same time. In the atom all things are
at work performing one function, just as one taste of the
ocean is revealed in one drop of water. The laws of all
things are exhibited in each thing. One sees the Absolute
Reality by looking at each detail with understanding eyes.
I am indebted for this exposition of Kegon chiefly to con-
versations with Dr. Armstrong of Tokyo, and to his book on
the sects of Japan, which, though still in manuscript form,
he most kindly permitted me to read. Professor Suzuki has
presented much the same interpretation in the following
brief summary:
W
The Kegon conception of the world is not pantheism; for what it
teaches is that each object is not only itself but every other object, and
that all things are mutually conditioning to such an extent that the with-
drawal of one of them means the disturbance of the whole system, which
is to say, the world grows imperfect to that extent. When this theory
is pushed to its logical conclusion the complete network of interrelation-
ships of all things rests on the point of a single hair. As this pen moves
along the lines of this ruled paper, the triple chiliocosm moves with it,
and as I think out my thought, in it are reflected all the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas of the past, present, and future, even as the moon and stars
and all other heavenly bodies are mirrored in the ocean, eternally serene
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
605
and undisturbd. The world of Kegon is thus known as the world of
interpenetration, which is regarded as one step further than the idea of the
oneness of the phenomenal and the noumenal world-this latter being the
doctrine of “imperfect" Mahayana Buddhism.¹³
As I have already said, the chief scripture of Kegon is the
Avatamsaka Sutra. The point of view which it expresses is
very like that of the Lotus (the chief scripture of Tendai)
with, however, more repeated emphasis upon the telescoping
of all time into one moment, and upon the interpenetration
of all things in each other.
All lands are interpenetrating in the Buddha-land
And they are countless in number,—a phenomenon beyond our under-
standing;
There is nothing that does not fill up every quarter of the universe,
And things are inexhaustible and unmeasurable and move with perfect
spontaneity.
All the Buddha-lands are embraced in one Buddha-land,
And each one of the Buddha-lands embraces all the others in itself;
But the land is neither extended nor compressed:
One land fills up all the ten quarters of the universe,
And in turn the universe with all its contents is embraced in one land,
And yet the world as it is suffers no damage.¹4
It is difficult to get a great deal of insight into the Kegon
philosophy from the monks; for Kegon monks are few and
(like other monks) not always thorough masters of the doc-
trine they profess. None the less I mean to set down here
some of the things I got from Kegon monks and professors
because, as I have more than once stated, my aim in studying
Buddhism has been largely to find out what actual living
men believe, and not merely what is said in learned books
written by men long since dead. The center and headquar-
ters of the Kegon sect is in the ancient Todai-ji monastery in
Nara. Unluckily for me, on the day of my visit there, the
abbot was ill and could not see me; so I had to content my-
self with some of the lesser lights. The first monk with
whom I conversed was a man of perhaps thirty-five, with a
kindly face, large dark eyes, and a direct and friendly way
of looking at you. Much of the information he gave me
-
19 The Eastern Buddhist, I, 235.
14
From the Avatamsaka Sutra, epitomized and translated by Professors Yamabe,
Akanuma, and Suzuki, in the Eastern Buddhist, I, 237.
606
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
was in substantial agreement with the more exact and learned
account I had gleaned from Dr. Armstrong and the Avatam-
saka Sutra. He also added that the ultimate aim held out by
Kegon is the attainment of Shinnyo, or Nirvana, and that
this is a state of mind. It is not to be described but may
be achieved and experienced by giving up our desires and
denying ourselves. To do this is to become Buddha. We
must distinguish, however, between the Shinnyo that may
be gained in this life and the complete form of it which the
enlightened enter into at death. These were both seen in the
case of Shaka. At death Shaka became Shinnyo and is there-
fore eternal and timeless. One who fully enters Shinnyo
becomes also eternal and identical with Shaka and with all
the Buddhas. Individuality is thus sloughed off at the death
of the enlightened.
Is Shinnyo, then, I asked, to be identified with the Ulti-
mate and Absolute Reality? The honest and kindly monk
replied that he could not give me a clear answer to that ques-
tion, for he was still studying the doctrine; but that there
was a very learned monk from Kyoto visiting another tem-
ple in Nara that very day, and that he would give me a
letter to him. So, armed with the letter, my interpreter and
I dashed off in our rickshaws, through the winding lanes of
ancient Nara to find out the answer to my tremendous ques-
tion. But alas, the learned monk, when we reached the tem-
ple where he was visiting, was too busy to see us. So back
we came, carrying our question with us to Todai-ji once
more. This time our friend was reinforced by a colleague
who had gone further in Kegon philosophy than he, and was
in some ways more alert in mind. He answered my ques-
tion at once and with confidence: Shinnyo is the Absolute
Reality. It is also, already and always (whether we realize
it or not) the real being of each of us. The aim of Kegon
is thus to make explicit that which is already and eternally
implicit.
The statement that Shinnyo is the real being of each of
us, I interposed, suggests a relation between it and the Alaya-
shiki of the Hosso. What is this relation? The monk re-
plied that there was no relation between them. But at this
point a third monk, who had been listening to the discussion,
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
607
broke in and corrected his colleague. This monk was much
more scholarly in appearance than the others. He wore a
white kimono with black lace and embroidery over it, had
large round spectacles, and looked like a true scholastic.
There is no logical relation, he said, between Shinnyo and the
Alayashiki, but the latter comes from the former—as, in one
sense, all things do. Shinnyo is not only the Absolute
Reality it is the phenomenal world as well, for the phe-
nomenal and the Absolute are one. In this Kegon differs
from Tendai.
Here, in fact, we have the one difference of any impor-
tance between these two great schools of Japanese thought.
It is in part a matter of emphasis, Tendai stressing unity and
the Absolute, Kegon multiplicity and the phenomenal. My
third monk at Todai-ji carried the contrast to what was
perhaps an extreme, so as to make Kegon seem at times even
realistic. Every particle of matter, he said, partakes of and
represents the nature of all things, is at the same time phe-
nomenal and absolute. It would continue to exist if you and
I should cease. Trees have the Buddha nature and are there-
fore just as real as we. Kegon, he said, does not make use of
the concept of consciousness and so the question of Berke-
leyan idealism does not arise.
Two of the professors in the Koya-san university put the
difference between Kegon and Tendai in much the same way.
Kegon, I was told, recognizes identity as Tendai does but also
recognizes and stresses difference. Tendai thought reaches
the Absolute and rests there: Kegon recognizes it but insists
upon reverting to this world with its multiplicity and ac-
tivity. Real activity is something which Tendai fails to find
a proper place for. Moreover, Kegon insists that back of
both identity and diversity, back of both passivity and ac-
tivity, there is a third aspect of Reality whose existence we
must recognize but about which we can make no predica-
tion. This unknowable aspect of the Real is still identical
with the world of difference and with the world of identity,
and is needed to explain the two. Thus, in brief, Tendai
asserts only one thing, namely identity: Kegon asserts three
things: identity, difference, and an Unknowable back of
both. But the three are one.
-
608
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
It is hardly safe---as a professor of Tendai philosophy
once said to me when I read from my notes on this conversa-
tion with the professor of Kegon-it is hardly safe to take
Western terms such as monism and pluralism and apply them
to Tendai and Kegon. In all Buddhist thought, he said, sub-
ject and object are unified in one, and no attempt is made to
distinguish them sharply. (This would naturally follow
from the Anatta doctrine.) Nor is it correct, he insisted,
to assert that Tendai fails to recognize multiplicity or to see
that each thing is represented in all, and all in each. Still it
is true that Tendai stresses unity and identity, while Kegon
stresses multiplicity and diversity. The difference (I might
suggest) between the two forms of thought seems not unlike
that which one finds within English Hegelianism, between
the schools of Bradley and of Bosanquet.15 I think, in fact,
that if the Kegon philosophy could be translated into West-
ern terms without warping it too violently, it would prove,
in its ultimate assertions, to be rather strikingly like the doc-
trine taught in Bosanquet's Principle of Individuality and
Value.16
-
The philosophical views of the Shingon sect are taken
over very largely from Kegon. Some details, however, have
been added, and at times a different emphasis is given; hence
a few words should be said concerning Shingon thought as
distinct from Kegon. The relation between the two schools
is so close that what is to be said of Shingon should plainly
be set down here, before going on to the great Tendai phi-
losophy, in spite of the fact that chronologically Tendai is
a little earlier (at least in Japan) than Shingon.
We found the thinkers of the Kegon school putting more
emphasis than most Mahayana philosophers upon the phe-
nomenal world and its activities. This tendency is contin-
ued in Shingon, with especial emphasis on the body and the
15 Dr. Kyoson Tsuchida suggests that Japanese Buddhist philosophy in general has
close logical relations to Husserl's and Meinong's theory of knowledge. See his Con-
temporary Thought of Japan and China (London, Williams and Norgate, 1927), pp.
65-66.
10
For a more technical and thoroughly Japanese presentation of the contrast between
Tendai and Kegon, see McGovern, Introduction, pp. 69-72. He sums up the difference
thus: "In this system [Kegon] phenomena are emphasized at the expense of the
noumenom; or let us say that instead of trying to understand the nature of the par-
ticular by comprehending the universal, as is done in the Tendai school, we must
attempt to understand the universal by studying the particular" (pp. 71-72).
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
609
elements (material and otherwise) into which all things may
be analyzed. These are earth, water, fire, air (or wind),
ether (or the Void), and mind.17 One school of Shingon in-
Both
terprets these elements literally, one symbolically.18
agree that all beings, including even the Buddha, are com-
posed of these elements; which is another way of denying
any ultimate difference between beings and a way of insist-
ing that in the last analysis all things possess the Buddha
nature. This Buddha nature in the sense of the Absolute,
Shingon never wearies of asserting, is not abstract and passive,
but concrete and active. It is all things and all things are it.
Matter is never separate from mind, nor mind from matter.
The expressions of Shingon thinkers often verge upon real-
ism: in fact, the school would, apparently, like to be both
realistic and idealistic at once, and as so often happens with
semi-mystical forms of thought, logical contradiction gives
it very little trouble.
ܝ
-
The world is thus truly many. But it is as truly one. In
art, ritual, and teaching Shingon lays repeated emphasis upon
the doctrine of identity. All things are at last identical with
each other and identical with the One. This One is sym-
bolized by the Buddha Dainichi (Vairocana), who, from
the religious point of view, is the supreme Buddha for this
sect. He is the great Sun, the great source of all being, from
which all finite beings stream forth, as from the One of
Plotinus. Or, more exactly, Dainichi is the all-inclusive
Reality, identical with all finite things.19 He is matter as
well as spirit; in this sense Shingon approaches more nearly to
pantheism in the strict sense than any other Buddhist
philosophy.
Thus it will hardly do to express the relation of the
Absolute to the phenomenal by saying that the phenomenal
world is the manifestation of the Absolute.20 The relation
17 The first five of these are symbolized by the five geometrical forms of the sotoba
so often found in Shingon temple enclosures and graveyards. See pp. 505, 506.
18 Thus earth means eternity or timelessness, etc.
10 The relation of Dainichi to the world is symbolized particularly in the two great
mandala representing the Taizo-kai and Kongo-kai (the Womb-store cycle and the
Diamond cycle.) For details see Anesaki, Buddhist Art, pp. 38-42, with plates.
20 The relation of the phenomenal and the Absolute is a central problem for Shingon
and one on which Shingon thinkers have expended a good deal of thought. Shingon
recognizes two worlds—an a priori and an empirical. These it calls the Taizo-kai (or
Womb-store world) and Kongo-kai (or Diamond world); and these are two aspects of
610
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is one of closer identity than this." The two are one-so a
Professor in the Koya-san university told me-in the same
way that water is one with its various forms of steam, liquid,
and ice. This figure will be helpful to some. To my obsti-
nately realistic mind it suggested further questions. Is the
phenomenal world (I asked the professor) really the Abso-
lute Reality? For the ice is the water, and with no remainder
and no difference of quality. Now if the phenomenal world
is the Absolute in this literal sense, what becomes of the de-
nial of differences? The crux of the matter seems to lie in
the problem how to reconcile the reality of the phenomenal
world (which Shingon admits) with the identity of all things
(which Shingon asserts). The professor could only answer
that the One Being takes many shapes: the shapes are differ-
ent but the essence one.
I am not sure whether this explanation will satisfy the
reader. It satisfies the followers of Shingon, and thereby
enables them to reach what they regard as a more direct road
to Buddhahood than some other sects possess. For on the
one hand they adopt almost a realistic recognition of matter,
pluralism, activity; yet on the other hand maintain the
strictest denial of differences and the most absolute identity
between the many and the One. Not only in my mind or
spirit do I find the Buddha: I may equally well find Him in
my body. His mouth and body as well as his mind are, or
may become, mine. The difference between me and the
Buddha is one of degree only. Hence salvation-or the com-
plete realization of the Buddha nature-is not difficult. And
in fact in this process of salvation the Buddha works with and
in me-not indeed expressly for the sake of my salvation,
but out of the spontaneous joy of his eternal activity.
Buddhahood is the perfect condition of the heart. To know
T
Reality. The Taizo-kai is the unseen and unexperienced world beyond Time and
Space, the Kongo-kai the knowable world. When we look through this knowable.
world it is the Unseen that we see. Thus in a sense the Unknown becomes known; but
when it does so it (in a sense) becomes identical with the world which we know.
Dainichi, however, or the Absolute, is not to be identified with either one of these
worlds, but with both.
21 Cf. Goethe-
Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten,
Geh nur im Endlichen nach allen Seiten.
Willst du dich am Ganzen erquicken,
So musst du das Ganze im Kleinsten erblicken.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
611
one's own heart truly is to be the Buddha: for the unborn
Reality of all things lies in one's heart. This realization is
Nirvana: and this the central fact of immortality. As to
further details the doctors of Shingon are of two opinions.
Some hold that the enlightened, having become one with the
Universal Mind, loses all distinct personality; while the others
maintain that the enlightened becomes Buddha in essence but
not in existence, and thus continues distinct while retaining
the pure Buddha nature through all eternity.
We come now to the Tendai philosophy, to which more.
space must be given than I have allotted to Shingon, as it has
had such profound influence on the thought of all the
Japanese sects except the three thus far considered. Tendai
teaches a more thorough-going idealism than does Kegon or
Shingon, which, as we have seen, coquet with both pluralism
and realism. "One mind, one thought, includes all the 3000
worlds," said a professor of Tendai philosophy to me. And
this "one mind" means the mind of each individual-yours
and mine. Space itself, in the last analysis, is in the mind.
So also is time, past and future, being really parts of an eter-
nal and timeless present. Ideal also are all the relations be-
tween particular minds; for only such relations as are recog-
nized by minds are real. Each mind, in one sense, absorbs
all of Reality, including all other minds. Each mind is the
whole and thus in the last analysis is identical with all the
others. Reality is not a collection of minds: it is the One
Mind.
pa
Hence this world which seems to be mine in the particu-
larist and separate sense is not mine alone but is the real world
in which all minds are one. The aim of Tendai is to realize
this oneness of all minds and all being. The world of the
many is both real and not real. It is not ultimately real.
It is real in the sense of being the expression, the garment of
the One. Buddhist thought in dealing with this question
seems ever on the verge of hopeless self-contradiction. It is
possible that its contradictory assertions about the Many may
be explained in the way just suggested (the Many being the
expression of the One); yet I am not sure a Buddhist phi-
losopher would be very enthusiastic over the help I have
sought to bring. For it does not trouble him, as it troubles
612
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
us, to have his Universe contain contradictory opposites.
When their presence is pointed out to him he may perhaps
seek to reconcile them, but he may perfectly well smile and
ask if we expect Reality to conform to the rules of our logic
books. At times the Tendai and its daughter schools seem
positively to delight in their defiance of logic. It identifies
extreme Buddhistic opposites. Passion is enlightenment, it
asserts, and birth and death are Nirvana.
Buddhism insists that to know the truth we must enter
through both the "gate of difference" and the "gate of
sameness.'
در
While we have to acknowledge the world of particulars in which
individuality predominates, we must not forget that looking through the
gate of sameness all distinctions and contradictions vanish in a higher
principle of unity. ... Sameness without difference is sameness wrongly
conceived, while difference without sameness is difference wrongly con-
ceived. . . . From the standpoint of Absolute Truth, there is no such
thing as mind or matter or even God or universe. But if we confine
ourselves to this view and become blind to the other side which says that
the many exist, that the world actually is, we are like the man who has
no legs; we are unable to move, we cannot live our daily life.
In one
one sense
sense contemporary Japanese Buddhism accepts
Nagarjuna's doctrine of the Void; but it does not interpret
it as absolute Nihilism. Instead it
teaches the existence of the highest reality that transcends the duality
of body and mind as well as the limitations of time and space. Though
this highest reality is the source of life, the ultimate reason of existence,
and the norm of things multifarious and multitudinous, it has nothing
particular in it, it cannot be designated by any determinative terms, it
refuses to be expressed in the phraseology we use in our common parlance.
. . . It would be madness to deny the reality of the phenomenal world,
but in the midst of these realities the enlightened see their non-reality.
There towers a huge mountain, here lies a boundless ocean, birds are
singing, trees are growing, and I sit here looking over the verdant
meadow: yet in spite of all these, nay, indeed by reason of all these, I
believe in the nothingness of existence, in the non-reality of realities, and
in the absolute oneness of all things; and it is thereby that I gain my
peace of mind and realize the sense of perfect freedom in my everyday
life.22
This identification of all things with each other, of the
Absolute with the phenomenal, of the One with the many,
22 These passages I have taken from the Rev. Soyen Shaku's Sermons of a Buddhist
Abbot, trans. by Prof. Suzuki, pp. 27, 30, 93, 98, 99.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
613
this emphatic denial and yet assertion of differences, is char-
acteristic of Tendai and of most Mahayana thought. Dr.
Armstrong quotes a Tendai philosopher, Dr. Maeda, as say-
ing, in his (Japanese) Outline of Tendai, "Reality is nothing
but things and things are nothing but Reality." Yet we
must remember that things by themselves are unreal, utter
vacuity. Dr. Maeda also asserts that there is no more dis-
tinction and difference among things than within the Abso-
lute. If there is any distinction at all "there is distinction in
both things and reality, and if there is no distinction there is
none in either reality or things." "In this way," writes
Dr. Armstrong in summing up, "all distinction or separation
is destroyed; all things are identical in nature. When the
universe is looked at from the standpoint of the absolute it is
called phenomena perfected by reality, but when looked at
from the standpoint of the relative it is called phenomena
produced by things.".
›› 23
Professor Inabe of Kyoto explained the matter to me
thus: The world is really One, but there are different degrees
of the realization of this truth. Thus we might form a
series of what are phenomenally known as minds according
to the grade of their realization, and this would extend all
the way from the lowest animals through different men with
their varying insight, up to the Bodhisattvas and at length
up to the Buddha, who alone completely realizes the truth,
and with whom all differences fall out. The differences from
the Buddha's point of view fall out because in the fullest
23 The Doctrine of the Tendai Sect," in the Eastern Buddhist, III, 44, 45. Pro-
fessor Anesaki interprets the Tendai doctrine of the One and the Many as follows:
"The synthesis amounts to affirming both vacuity and appearance at the same time.
The conception of vacuity has shown us that a particular existence is void, when taken
in itself; but it points to the reality of the universal, as an outcome of a thorough-
going negation of relativity. On the other hand, the idea of phenomenal appearance
has demonstrated that there is a reality in phenomena which is no less essential to our
conception of being than the reality attached to the universal. The world of the
universal, the unity of all things in the fundamental nature (dhammata), is the
foundation of every particular existence, pre-existent to all particular manifestations.
Yet its manifestations in concrete beings, Dhammas, are as real as the pre-existent uni-
versals, being subject to the laws, Dhammas, which rule all. That they are ruled by
the same laws shows their unity in the basis. The particular derives its being from the
universal nature of things, while the universal could not fully realize its true nature
without manifesting itself in a particular. Both are real, but either by itself is imper-
fectly real. The Middle Path consists in uniting the two aspects of existence, universal
and particular, and in seeing therein the true reality" (Nichiren the Buddhist Prophet,
p. 150).
614
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
sense they are not real. Thus the dog and the philosopher are
one. They are one to the extent of the dog's nature. All
that is in the dog is shared by the philosopher, as a large
circle includes a small one. The same qualities, the same
nature, except for pure negations and limitations, which are
found in the dog are found in the philosopher. (To use a
technical term of Western philosophy, they share the same
what, not the same that.) Their existence, as something
distinct from their qualities or nature, is not identical, for
existence in this realistic sense is an illusion. The real world
is a world of qualities or natures, a logical world.
Two men unenlightened are not identical. Tendai does
not deny differences on the lower levels. (In this Professor
Inabe would seem to disagree with Dr. Maeda, as quoted on
page 613. Tendai admits differences but asserts unity be-
hind the differences. Here the general Buddhist doctrine of
the degrees of truth and reality is of assistance. The world
of the many is not illusion. It is real, but it is on the lower
plane. Its differences are not illusory; but so long as one
fails to realize that the differences are conditioned by iden-
tity the mind is under illusion. The many things are real
because I think them and I think them because the One Mind
in me thinks them. This One Mind, which is the One
Reality, is the Buddha; and he who realizes this fully becomes
one with the Buddha. In realizing the full truth he comes to
full self-realization; he becomes what he is. The knowing
of Reality and the being of It are one.
S
It is our insistence upon the things of the phenomenal
world as merely separate, and especially our insistence upon
the separate reality of our finite selves, that keep up the il-
lusion under which all but the Buddha still somehow suffer.
From the higher and unclouded view we should see with
direct intuition the unity and identity of all things.
In this connection I cannot refrain from quoting the
words of an Indian Vedantist (the late Vasudeva Kirtikar)
upon what is practically the same assertion, as defended by
the Indian Vedanta:
Many European thinkers consider this last position to be absolutely
inconceivable. No doubt, with ordinary humanity, it is so; for, with
the egohood such as we ordinarily have, with the distinction of the ego
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
615
and the non-ego fully alive and staring us in the face, it is impossible
to realize the truth of this position. It belongs to a different plane of
thought; and if we cannot reach that plane or will not endeavor to reach
it, our attitude should be to let it alone. But it is unphilosophical to
comment upon it from the plane which we occupy, and pronounce it as
absurd and nonsensical. Those who can conceive the possibility of its
truth, and those who have realized it to themselves, say that it is im-
possible to discern the highest spiritual truths with "the eyes of the
flesh." 24
Tendai, like the Vedanta, makes appeal to more than the
"eyes of the flesh." It means to be not only a philosophy but
a religion as well. It is under no illusion as to the possibility
of proving its doctrine of ultimate Unity by any processes
of logic; it even disclaims the power of expounding it in
perfectly definite terms. It holds its own formulations, like
those of other philosophies, ever subject to modification.25
No verbal statement of the truth, it holds, can be fully
true. "The name that can be named is not the Eternal
Name." Its truths and all human truths must be taken
symbolically. In this sense it admits, or even asserts, an ul-
timate skepticism. But this skepticism is of the intellectual
sort only, and is the reverse side of an absolute spiritual con-
fidence. In turning away from theoretical certitude Ten-
dai appeals to what is, in the last analysis, a kind of mystical
experience. This is sometimes known by the Sanskrit word
Prajna; which is, after all, only another way of saying re-
ligious insight or intuitive faith. Much is made of this
form of insight by Soyen Shaku in his sermons; and though
he speaks from the point of view of Zen rather than in ex-
plicit exposition of Tendai, what he says will hold for nearly
all Japanese Buddhism.
K
ja
In knowledge subject and object coexist and condition each other;
in faith they become one, there is identity only and no mutuality. Tran-
scending the reciprocity of the "I" and the "not-I," the Prajna beholds.
the universe in its ultimate oneness and feels all forms of life in their
essential sameness. It knows that the impulse it feels is the quickening
spirit of all existence, and that the pulsation of sympathy which beats
in response to outside stimuli is the source of universal animation.26
21 Studies in Vedanta (Bombay, Taraporevala, 1924), pp. 4-5.
25
Cf. McGovern, Introduction, pp. 34, 39-40.
20
Op. cit., p. 137. The entire sermon on Spiritual Enlightenment (pp. 132-145)
should be read.
616
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The truth [says another recent Japanese writer] is essentially inex-
pressible, it is beyond antithesis and can be grasped only by experience.
To seek to make the inexpressible theoretically comprehensible is natu-
rally an impossible undertaking.27
The One Reality, thus known intuitively, is the Buddha.
Including all things, He (or It?) includes evil as well as
good. The attitude of Mahayana Buddhism toward moral-
ity and moral evil is quite different from that of Christianity,
Judaism, Zoroastrianism, or even of Hinayana Buddhism.
This follows necessarily from its monistic character and its
denial of all dualism. The Mahayana feels that morality has
its proper place, that in our activities in the phenomenal
world we must of course regard it and should make much
of it. But the Mahayana insists we should not stop with it.
Religion, it teaches, far transcends morality. To the Maha-
yanist there is in the thought of morality something of con-
straint. Duty usually carries with it a sense of must and
must not. Religion, on the other hand, is free and brings a
sense of freedom. Doubtless the religious man should be
moral; but he should be much more than that. He should
live at least in part in the realm of realization, beyond the
sphere of moral activity.
The Buddha is "jenseits von Gut und Böse." Like the
Bradleyan Absolute, He includes within himself all things,
the evil as well as the good, just to the extent that these are
real at all. But as in Bradley's or Royce's philosophy once
more, so for Buddhism, evil, like other finite things, when
taken up into the Absolute, when seen in all its relations,
is transcended, is overcome, is evil no longer. Its evil con-
sisted in its separateness, and when taken up into the whole,
this separateness disappears. Its evil nature was relatively
illusory. The Buddha includes evil because He includes all
things, but He is not evil.
The evil that we find in this world is relatively illusory
but not wholly so. Hence, though the Mahayana makes
relatively less of morality in its teaching than does Chris-
tianity or the Hinayana, it by no means neglects it. As in
the teaching of the Christian mystics, morality by itself can
never bring one the final insight which alone is of supreme
27
Schuej Ohasama in Zen, Der Lebendige Buddhismus in Japan, p. 48.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
617
value; but one can hardly attain that insight without mor-
ality. Monju is not the only Bodhisattva: there is Kwannon
as well.
If in one sense the Buddha includes evil, so even the chief
of sinners, potentially at least, is in part good. For, whether
they know it or not, and whether they display it or not, the
Buddha nature is in all men.
Tendai claims to carry this
doctrine, of the ubiquity of the Buddha nature, further than
did the schools that preceded it.
The Hosso doctrine teaches that all things have the Buddha nature,
but that the nature of a Buddha just about to be enlightened is not in
everything. In Kegon teaching Reality (Shinnyo) is in all things, but
in inanimate things there is not the nature of a Buddha about to enter
Buddhahood. The Tendai sect says that in all things there is a Buddha
nature. . . . In this way the Tendai doctrine of reality differs from that
of other sects, because it includes the nature of Buddha in stones, trees,
and men.28
When one refers to the Buddha as the Absolute or the in-
clusive Reality, it is of course the Dharmakaya that one
means. Tendai accepts and makes much of the doctrine of
the three bodies of the Buddha, discussed in Chapter XIII of
this book. It is the Dharmakaya or Body of the Law, which
is the ultimate and truly Real. The Avatamsaka Sutra
(which the Tendai accepts and uses) says of it:
The Dharmakaya unfolds itself here, there, and everywhere, respond-
ing to the call of Karma. It is not an individual reality, it is not a false
existence, but is universal and pure. It comes from nowhere, it goes to
nowhere; it does not assert itself, nor is it subject to annihilation. It is
forever serene and eternal. It is the one, devoid of all determinations.
This Body of Dharma has no boundary, no quarters, but is embodied in
all bodies. Its freedom and spontaneity is incomprehensible, its spiritual
presence in things corporeal is incomprehensible. All forms of corpo-
reality are involved therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any
concrete material body as required by the nature and condition of karma,
it illuminates all creations. Though it is the store-house of intelligence,
it is void of particularity. There is no place in the universe where this
Dharamakaya does not prevail. The universe becomes, but this forever
remains. It is free from all opposites and contraries. Yet it is working
in all things to lead them to Nirvana.29
28 Armstrong, op. cit., p. 46.
20
Quoted by Beatrice Lane Suzuki in the Eastern Buddhist, I, 64.
618
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
In the Dharmakaya all the Buddhas are one. In that
ultimate state (the only one that is fully real in the absolute
sense) there is no distinction between Shaka, Amida, Dain-
ichi, or any of the innumerable Buddhas. This absolute
identity, in one sense, of course cannot hold of the two more
phenomenal Buddha bodies. In these the different Buddhas
are distinguishable-in the Sambhogakaya and in the Nirm-
anakaya, the Body of Bliss which appears to the holy Bodhis-
attvas and the Body of Transformation which is identical
with the historical Buddhas of this phenomenal world.
Taken as phenomenal beings, the historical Buddhas and also
the great Bodhisattvas may be real and distinct in the way
in which other phenomenal beings, you and I, are real and
distinct. Within the Tendai fold there is room for various
interpretations of the nature and reality of these beings,
most of whom we outsiders would call mythical. To the
Buddhists they are not merely mythical. To some they
are as real as any persons can be. To others they are real
only as symbols of great spiritual truths. Thus the abbot
Soyen Shaku writes of Kwannon:
The universal wave of love is vibrating in every sentient being, and
when this innermost chord is touched through the deepest spiritual com-
munion one can suffer, it vibrates, and the vibration reaches the very
source of life which is the love of Kwannon, and there takes place the
phenomenon called communion. The universal love-principle has thus
made itself known to the human heart.30
For the philosophical Buddhist the important thing about
Kwannon and the other great Bodhisattvas is thus the fact
that they stand for certain spiritual realities which may be
experienced in the human heart. The question whether
they have some individual existence, like the gods of the
heathen, is relatively unimportant. The Buddhist is able to
have faith in them and derive from them spiritual reinforce-
ment without necessarily believing them to be existent. Sim-
ilarly the historicity of Shaka or Amida (as Hozo) is of
much less interest to the Mahayana Buddhist than is the
question of the historicity of Jesus to the Christian or the
historicity of Gotama to the Hinayanist. If the Christian
80
Op. cit., p. 169.
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
619
and the Hinayanist attack the Mahayanist, saying "Our Jesus
and Gotama are historical and your Amida and Dainichi
are not," he may answer, "Just for this reason my Amida
and Dainichi are superior." Were he acquainted with the
writings of Aristotle he would probably quote the Stagirite
to the effect that poetry is truer than history. The truth
of Amida, he would say, is a universal truth, hence Amida is
more real than are either Jesus or Gotama as merely histori-
cal beings, bound down to a particular appearance in one
place and at one time. As phenomenal beings they could
have at best but a low grade of reality. Their true being,
in so far as they are real at all, is measured not by dates and
external evidence, but by the extent to which they enter into
the Eternal, the degree of their identity with the Dhar-
makaya.
This same principle applies of course to all men, and to
the question of man's fate. Tendai accepts the Anatta doc-
trine. From the ultimate point of view separate selfhood
is illusion. Yet in this phenomenal world there is a sense in
which we are separate; and this semi-illusory selfhood need
not necessarily be ended by the illusory event known as
bodily death. It is thus that many thoughtful adherents of
Tendai are able to maintain the doctrine of transmigration
and of paradise. To other thinkers these terms, paradise and
rebirth, are to be taken only symbolically.31 To only a very
few does Nirvana mean annihilation. As Professor Otto has
put it (and I think he understands these matters with un-
usual sympathy):
-
It is only conceptually that "Nirvana" is a negation; it is felt in
consciousness as in the strongest degree positive; it exercises a "fascina-
tion" by which its votaries are as much carried away as are the Hindu or
the Christian by the corresponding objects of their worship. I recall
vividly a conversation I had with a Buddhist monk. He had been putting
before me methodically and pertinaciously the arguments for the Buddhist
"theology of negation," the doctrine of anatman and "entire emptiness."
When he had made an end, I asked him, what then Nirvana itself is;
and after a long pause came at last the single answer, low and restrained:
"Bliss-unspeakable." And the hushed restraint of that answer, the
solemnity of his voice, demeanor, and gesture, made more clear what was
meant than the words themselves.32
31 Cf. Soyen Shaku, op. cit., pp. 57-58, 173-75, 210-13.
The Idea of the Holy, trans., p. 39.
620
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
-
This answer is, I think, fairly representative. If the
hope of philosophical Buddhism is to be put in one
sentence, we may say the eternal life means Nirvana or
becoming Buddha: and this means self-realization, the ex-
plicit discovery and realization of the Buddha nature
which has all along been hidden but actually present within
one, the identification of all one's true being with the
Dharmakaya.
This picture of merging our personality in the Divine—
the dewdrop slipping into the shining sea-has a certain
great emotional attraction. Western minds, however, are
likely to put the query: Is it anything more than a picture?
Has it any real meaning? Is it ultimately thinkable? To
say that your personality, your stream of consciousness, your
self-awareness, merges in some Absolute Mind, what is this
but to say that it absolutely ceases to be? Is it not merely
another way of saying that death ends all? Can one put real
meaning into any form of immortality other than personal
immortality? Does not the figure of the dewdrop and the
sea mislead us? We form a visual image of the dewdrop
continuing to exist in the ocean. But does not the whole
meaning of my continued existence depend upon my con-
tinued "power to say I am I"?
It would be difficult to refute this argument. It may be
quite unanswerable. But before we can be sure of that we
must have a much more definite and certain doctrine of the
nature of selfhood than I for one would venture to main-
tain. The whole problem is illusive: we feel about in the
dark. Omnis individuatio est negatio is perhaps true; yet
is it so sure that if all the limitations of human individuality
were broken, there would be nothing left? Could not the
small self be continuous with and, to the extent of its reality,
identical with a larger and inclusive self, even though after
the surrender of the smaller self the realization of what had
happened would be felt only by the larger self? What, for
example, should we say of those secondary and split-off per-
sonalities which are eventually suppressed yet contribute to
the resulting total personality? I have in mind cases like
those reported by Dr. Morton Prince 33 and by Dr. W. F.
23 The Dissociation of a Personality (London, Longmans, 1906).
BUDDHIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN
621
Prince.34 These subordinate personalities faced the prospect
of suppression with exactly the same dread that many people
have for death: it meant death to them. Yet this death,
though it was the end of the sense of just that limited in-
dividual, certainly did not mean annihilation. The subor-
dinate personality in one sense lived on in the new, more com-
plete, unified person. And (though this was not true of
the cases reported) it is perfectly conceivable that the larger
personality in which the smaller was merged might have
realized and remembered the whole process and thus might
have experienced the fact, from its higher point of view,
that the submerged personality really survived as an identi-
cal aspect or element of the whole self. I am, therefore, not
at all certain that the figure of the dewdrop and the sea,
the concept of one's identity with the Dharmakaya, is
meaningless.
But let us return to Tendai, and take if we can a rapid,
bird's-eye view of its whole position, in large outline. The
Tendai universe may be called a divine universe with no
"God" in it. The Tendai teaches incarnation, many incar-
nations, without any deity becoming incarnate. For it, in-
carnation means not the descent of deity into human flesh,
but the ascent of the individual to deity by becoming his
true self, which is selfless. "Become what thou art" is its
most fundamental command, a command which underlies
and transcends all the laws of morality. Many individuals,
so Buddhism teaches, have risen from the common level, per-
haps an infinite number, to this higher plane of realization
and divinization: not in the sense of achieving something
essentially new, but by realizing the Buddha nature which
was always theirs and which lies, frequently unguessed, in
all beings. To know Reality is to be it.
To this realization one attains chiefly through cultiva-
tion of the two great Buddhist virtues of insight and com-
passion. These mean much more than mere morality. They
include it, but they include metaphysical comprehension and
mystical experience as well. When these qualities of soul
are fully attained, when self is completely forgotten in love
for others and the illusion of separateness, both in theory and
34 The Psychic in the House (Boston Society for Psychic Research, 1926).
ܝ
622
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
in inner feeling, is overcome, one enters into Buddhahood.
This must mean, it would seem, that compassion and insight,
in some high sense, constitute the ultimate nature of reality.
So one enters into the Dharmakaya, into the Eternal
Peace. For such an one there is no more rebirth, there is
no more illusion, no more world of separateness and of par-
ticulars. And the Buddhist thinker of a mystical turn, with
a feeling for the cosmic realities, looks toward this with a
kind of metaphysical longing, sensing the call of the Eternal.
Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand,
Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that
gleam,
We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath
scanned
•
Ah, but here man's heart leaps, yearning toward the gloom with ven-
turous glee,
From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.
CHAPTER XXX
ZEN
As we saw in the chapter on the history of Japanese Bud-
dhism, Zen was introduced into Japan after the formation
of the Yutsu Nembutsu and Jodo sects. It antedated, how-
ever, the other Amida sects and also Nichiren; while in the
form of its thought it is much older and closer to the origi-
nal Buddhism than is Amida worship. Hence I shall devote
this chapter to Zen and leave the thought of the Amida and
Nichiren sects-which together are the most modern divi-
sions of Buddhism-to the following chapter.
It is with much hesitancy that I deal with the mysticism
and the philosophy of Zen. There is no other subject con-
nected with Buddhism so difficult for a Westerner to handle
intelligently, no other so intangible, so different from every-
thing with which we are acquainted, so hard to make plau-
sible, so unspeakably queer. Nor are there many subjects
more important to an understanding of the Japanese Bud-
dhism of today—and probably of tomorrow. Fortunately
the reader (unless he has skipped a good deal) already knows
something about Zen, in fact is already in possession of the
central thought of this mystical school.
This central thought, or fundamental insistence, when
baldly stated, sounds simple enough: to the effect, namely,
that experience and life are primary, while cult, theory, and
learning are very secondary. No other school of Buddhism
makes so little of its images and of its ritual. One of the
great Zen masters of China, getting up one frosty morning
and having no fuel, threw into the fire the wooden Buddha
that sat upon the altar, and warmed himself ostentatiously
before his disciples. Nor is the discursive thought of phi-
losophy of much more value than Buddha images. Zen does
not actually inveigh against it but warns its followers that
-
-
623
624
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
neither logic nor metaphysics is to be relied upon for in-
sight.¹ Theoretical instruction may be positively harmful.
A Japanese student of mine on his departure from Japan was
directed by his father, an enthusiastic adept in Zen, to be-
ware of studying about the theory of Buddhism. There are
a few books, to be sure, which followers of Zen may read
with some profit-some of the ancient Sutras and the writ-
ings of Zen masters. But even the best of these can do little
for one and if wrongly used may be a hindrance rather than
a help. The truest of books (to use a favorite Zen figure)
can be at best but a "finger pointing at the moon." If we
fix our gaze on the finger we miss the heavenly glory. The
finger is of use only in pointing away from itself to the light
which illumines finger and all.
Where, then, is the "moon" to be found? Where and
how shall we discover the Buddha? The answer that Zen
gives to this question was formulated long ago by a Chinese
Zen master in words that express the conviction of the whole
school through the centuries:
If you wish to seek the Buddha, you ought to see into your own
nature: for this nature is the Buddha himself. If you have not seen into
your own nature, what is the use of thinking of the Buddha, reciting the
Sutras, observing a fast, or keeping the precepts? . . . The Buddha is
The
your own mind: make no mistake to bow to external objects.
mind is the Buddha, the Buddha is the way, and the way is Zen. To see
directly into one's original nature, this is Zen. When this original nature
is not seen into, there is no Zen. Even if you are well learned in hundreds
of the Sutras and Sastras, you still remain an ignoramus in Buddhism
when you have not yet seen into your original nature. Buddhism is not
there [in mere learning]. The highest truth is unfathomably deep, is
not an object of talk or discussion, and even the canonical texts have
no way to bring it within our reach. Let us once see into our own
original nature and we have the truth even if we are quite illiterate, not
¹The third patriarch in China wrote as follows concerning thought (I give the
German translation found in Ohasama's Zen, p. 66):
Dein Denken lass schweigen-
Darauf kommt es an!
Bleibe nicht stehen
Bei gegensätzlichen Gedanken:
Ihnen nachzujagen und sie zu suchen,
Davor hüte dich!
•
Wer vom Gegensätzlichen
Nur einen Hauch beibehalt
Dessen Geist bleibt verworren.
ZEN
625
knowing a word. . . . All the Buddhas in successive ages have spoken
only of seeing into one's own nature.²
To attain the fruits of Zen one need not read nor think
nor pray: but one must do something incomparably more
difficult. For, as the reader need hardly be told, this "see-
ing into one's own nature" is no easy task. For most people,
at any rate, a long and intense training, lasting many years,
is needed. This training consists partly in reading—for some
books may be helpful if one uses them in the proper spirit-
and in the study of the experiences and methods of the great
Zen masters. But the central part of the training consists
in the discipline of self-mastery and concentration given
by zazen.
Zen believes that it was through the process of zazen that
Sakyamuni gained his illumination. He sat for seven weeks
under the Bo Tree at Buddh Gaya rapt in Zen meditation,
and as a result the supreme insight suddenly dawned upon
him. The novitiate is therefore following the Founder's
example as he sits through long hours, cross-legged, regu-
lating his breathing and his thoughts. I have spoken in a
previous chapter of the posture and the breathing exercises.
These of course are but the externals of zazen and are use-
ful chiefly for beginners. The really important part of
the process is concentration of mind. This also is the most
difficult part. When one attempts to turn one's thoughts
away from every outward thing, one becomes aware of the
immense amount of lumber with which one's mind is
clogged: so at least say those who have tried zazen. Worries
and wishes and longings rise to the surface and must be dili-
gently set aside, and at first the more one tries to forget them
the more insistent they become. The man of mystical ten-
dencies, no matter what his religion, is particularly distressed
by this inner multiplicity, this cleavage within him, this
incipiently divided self. He longs for unity in his life and
in his mind. In extreme cases, as Murisier has pointed out,³
this longing for the unitive state and the destruction of all
distractions and all multifariousness, approaches the posi-
-
2 Taken from Prof. Suzuki's admirable article on "The Revelation of a New Truth
in Zen Buddhism," Eastern Buddhist, I, 197-99.
3
Les Maladies du Sentiment Religieux (Paris, Alcan, 1903), Chap. I.
626
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
tively morbid. Many Christian mystics are excellent ex-
amples of this urge toward the narrowing and unification of
consciousness, and they sometimes seek it by means of what
Murisier calls "simpliciation."
The process by which the Zen seeker attempts to demol-
ish this state of inward multiplicity and to become one is
sometimes through direct attack, sometimes through cer-
tain clever devices. By direct attack I mean the explicit
effort to empty the mind. As a leading Zen abbot described
it to me, one must seek to "think nothing. One knows
that the aim is to realize oneself as the Buddha, to find the
Buddha nature within one's mind: yet this must not be at-
tempted through any process of auto-suggestion. One does
not repeat to oneself, "I am Buddha," or anything else, said
the abbot, as the Amida and Nichiren sects repeat their
formulas of prayer, or, he might have added, as the followers
of Coué repeat his formulas. One simply seeks to empty
the mind, to sink oneself into the universe, to give up every
attempt at self-guidance, and so to let the subconscious
forces act. Yet this emptiness of mind which is sought in
zazen is far from unconsciousness or sleep. Those who have
practiced zazen long enough to catch some glimpse of the
kind of experience sought are unanimous in insisting that
the mental condition arrived at and often induced is far
from blank emptiness or negation. The mind is empty, but
the void which fills it is somehow meaningful and luminous.
This explicit attempt to empty the mind I called, a few
lines back, a direct attack upon that multiplicity of our in-
ward life which it is the aim of Zen to destroy. But the
Zen spiritual directors long ago devised less obvious and
more subtle methods for inducing the unity of enlighten-
ment which they seek. The most systematic of these indirect
methods consists in giving the student a problem or koan
upon which to concentrate his thoughts, not for the sake
of the solution but because such concentration has proved
to be an excellent means of bringing about the desired inner
unity and illumination. It should be clearly understood be-
fore any of these problems are read that the aim in present-
ing them is purely psychological: otherwise they will seem
not only meaningless and queer but downright insane. Zen
در
W
ZEN
627
4
masters through the centuries, in China and Japan, have de-
vised more and more of these koan, so that there are now
upward of seventeen hundred of them. They have been
likened to the act of knocking on the door; the Buddha who
dwells within each of us hears the knock and opens. "Thus,"
says Ohasama, “every koan or problem is to be understood
only as a means. Since the Patriarch Engo in China (1063-
1135) and Haku-in in Japan (1683-1768), Zen masters have
used such problems as the foundation of the training they
give their pupils and help them thereby to experience the
Truth." They have also arranged some of the more im-
portant problems in an order of ascending difficulty and
revelation, for pedagogical purposes. The pupil is some-
times instructed to concentrate on his problem during zazen
instead of making the effort to empty his mind. But the
aim of this is not the revelation of any truth connected
with the problem, but the inducement of a state in which the
dominance of the many and the worries of the world may
be cast out and one may realize immediately the identity
of oneself with the Buddha. Concentration upon the prob-
lem does this, I was told by a Zen abbot, through keeping
the mind taut, on a constant stretch, steadily concen-
trated, and thus (to that extent) unified.
The problem most commonly presented first of all to
the beginner is the famous "Joshu's Mu." Joshu was a distin-
guished Chinese Zen master who lived (tradition says) from
778 to 897. On one occasion a monk asked him whether
the Buddha (who it will be recalled is in all things) is also
in the little dog. To this Joshu answered by the syllable
"Mu." This word (the equivalent of the modern Mandarin
Pu) means no. But the significance Joshu gave to the word
was that he refused to answer the question. "The question,
writes Ohasama in comment, "touches the being of the Ab-
solute, which as above all opposites and all classes, cannot be
expressed through any assertion, whether Yes or No, but can
only be directly experienced." In other words, yes and no
5
در
*Zen: der Lebendige Buddhismus in Japan, p. 9.
5
Op. cit., p. 155. Suzuki's comment is: "This mu is not at all understood in its
literal sense; when it is given as a koan it means just 'Mu' and the masters will not
give you any explanation," Eastern Buddhist, I, 216, note. See also Essays in Zen
Buddhism, p. 236 and note.
628
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
G
are both wrong: to assert that the Buddha is or to assert that
He is not in the little dog are alike false, for both imply dis-
tinctions between the two, and within the Absolute there
are no distinctions. A great many Zen pupils have begun
by meditating on this problem. Their spiritual director
does not give them any explanation such as I have suggested
at least not at first. They are to meditate on the "Mu."
They keep in constant touch with their director; and finally
if the light has dawned upon them he sees it, not by any
words which they speak, but by their faces, by their whole
manner, and by that intuitive transmission of thought
through which Sakyamuni communicated with Mahakas-
sapa, and which Zen has ever considered the only way of
really transmitting truth. For the truth of mysticism can
by its nature never be put into words. Words imply dis-
tinctions and drag us back into the world of multiplicity and
relation. The experience sought has no statable intellectual
6
content.
One of my Japanese students at Williams, whose father
was an enthusiastic follower of Zen, had studied for a year
in a Zen monastery, and had been given Joshu's Mu as the
subject of his meditation. He worked at it throughout the
year but got no light (much to his father's disappointment),
and was then allowed to leave the monastery and come to
America. Here he still meditated at frequent intervals on
the Mu, while in his room or while taking lonely walks. He
knows now much more about the meaning of the problem
than I have expressed above, but this is hardly even the be-
ginning of the solution he seeks. For the answer he is after
can never be put into words. It is a unique form of experi-
ence and this he has not yet attained. Still, he assures me,
the time spent upon Joshu's Mu has been far from wasted.
He is conscious that he has gained through his meditation
new powers of self-control, and he believes also that he is
much happier because of it.
Joshu's Mu is not the only problem for beginners. An-
other of my Japanese students, who had also studied in a Zen
monastery, had been set to work at the following problem.
His director clapped his hands and asked, "Do you hear
See page 280.
ZEN
629
that?" The boy said, "Yes." Then the monk made the same
motion as before with his right hand, the left remaining at
his side, so that his right hand beat only the air; and again
he asked, "Do you hear that?" The boy replied, "No."
"Well," said the monk, "listen until you do." This "listen-
ing for the voice of one hand," as the Japanese call it, is not
an uncommon problem. My student had never succeeded
in hearing the voice of one hand, but others have succeeded
where he failed. I once met a Japanese lieutenant, traveling
in Arizona, who had been given this same problem and had
heard the voice of one hand. It cannot, he said, be described
in words. It is not a sound nor a sensation, but a state of
mind. A great Zen teacher explained the purpose of the
problem to me thus: The sound which is worth hearing
is not a sound at all; and the "one hand" that makes it is not
one in the numerical sense but in the absolute sense. It is
"the One without a second." What the pupil has to do is
to realize this One, the Absolute. A sound is made by some-
thing which is in relation to something else—as the first
sound made by the two hands. In the Absolute there are no
relations and no distinctions. The attempt to hear the sound
of one hand is merely one of many ways of bringing the pupil
to this realization.
There are, as I have said, about seventeen hundred of
these problems which have been used on various occasions
by Zen masters. A Zen abbot I conversed with near Tokyo
makes use of the problem "Why is the summer hot?" It
will do the pupil no good in wrestling with this problem to
give the scientific answer. He must, rather, contemplate
himself as heat, as summer itself, and the whole of Reality
as summer. By this means (so the abbot assured me) the
pupil reaches such a stage of understanding that he is no
longer either hot or cold, and he sees that nothing is hot or
cold, or has any real qualities: that all is emptiness. Another
problem which has had some importance historically is called
the Beardless Barbarian. The question was set by the Zen
master Wakuan and is as follows: "Why does the barbarian
in the west have no beard?" The point is that the barbarian
in the west of course has a beard, as every one is supposed
to know. The problem thus purposely seems to assert what
630
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
D
is obviously false. But just through this obvious falseness it
aims to lead the mind beyond the realm of the merely false
or true. So, at least, Ohasama interprets it. "The irrelevance
of all merely relative partial truths is thus made clear and
one is directed onward to the absolute and complete
truth." 7
Closely related to the koan or problems are certain fa-
mous replies and statements made by distinguished Zen mas-
ters of various times, which seem to have nothing in common
but their astounding irrelevancy or paradox, but which by
this very characteristic aim to do the same thing for the
pupil as the koan. Some of these replies, in fact, are used
as koan: the pupil is told of the reply or statement and
directed to meditate upon it until the light breaks upon
him.
The rehearsal of some of these sayings and doings of the
Zen masters makes very queer reading; and I say doings as
well as sayings, for hard knocks with fists and clubs were
often used instead of words to rouse the dormant insight of
the sluggish pupil. Less violent acts also were tried, in the
hope that their symbolic significance might strike the mind
of the seeker. On one occasion a Chinese master, Yoh Shan
by name, was besought by his pupils to preach them a sermon
on the Dharma. "Then ring the bell," he replied. "The bell
rang and all the monks assembled in the Hall eager to hear
the sermon. Yoh Shan went up into the pulpit and de-
scended immediately without saying a word." 8 "A Chinese
Zen master, Bokuji, was once asked: 'We have to dress and eat
every day, and how can we escape from all that?' The mas-
ter replied, 'We dress, we eat.' 'I do not understand you,'
said the questioner. 'If you don't understand, put your dress
on and eat your food.""" "When Kwazan was asked to
describe the nature of the Buddha, he said: 'I know how to
play the drum, dong-do-ko-dong.' A monk once said
to Joshu, "All things return to the One, but whither does
the One return?" To which Joshu replied, "When I was
e
10
G
"Op. cit., pp. 95, 157. Ohasama expounds and interprets some thirty-one of the
most famous problems.
"Nukariya, The Religion of the Samurai, p. 55.
Susuki, Eastern Buddhist, I, 25.
10 Ibid., p. 354.
ZEN
631
in Seiju I had a monk's robe which weighed seven
chin." 11
It is difficult for us Westerners to consider sayings like
these seriously. Instead of digging for some inner meaning,
our mind runs off to memories of the Walrus' reply to the
oysters when they asked if he were going to eat them: "The
night is fine,” the walrus said; "do you admire the view?”
Or to the remark of Mr. Eff's Aunt (in Little Dorrit), to the
effect that when she lived at Henly, Miles' gander was stole
by tinkers.
Of course for Orientals, trained in the interpretation of
subtle suggestions and symbols, and in the use of a language
which prides itself on its ability to hide immensities of mean-
ing under the minimum of verbal expression, for men, more-
over, who have studied and meditated in Zen monasteries
for years, these subtle sayings have an appearance so differ-
ent from that they present to us as to be utterly trans-
formed. Thus it seems obvious enough to a Japanese trained
in Zen that Joshu's remark about the monk's robe, when
asked about the One, was intended to suggest to the ques-
tioner that the One is to be found in concrete reality and
everywhere else; and that the new robe was a symbol of the
new life of spiritual liberty.12 Similarly Professor Suzuki
interprets Bokuju's answer about dress and food to mean,
"Salvation must be found in the finite itself, there is
nothing infinite apart from things; if you seek something
transcendental, that will cut you off from this world of
relativity, which is the same thing as the annihilation of
yourself." 13 Of course we Westerners feel like exclaiming,
If that was what Joshu and Bokuju meant, why didn't they
say so? To which a partial reply would be that if we had
been brought up to speak and read Chinese instead of English
we should feel very differently on the matter; while a more
profound explanation may be sought in the reflection that
direct statements would have defeated the whole aim the
masters had in view-which was not to communicate verbal
conceptions but to put the mind of the pupil on a stretch and
11
Reported by Ohasama, p. 112 (with comment on 175), and by Suzuki, Eastern
Buddhist, I, 30.
12 Ohasama, p. 175.
18
Op. cit., p. 25.
632
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
keep it actively puzzled and concentrated. The pupil must
work out his own intuition of the truth, he must live into
the truth, for himself. A mere verbal solution is but parrot
philosophy, and for Zen a mere conceptual solution is little
better.
I gather that the slaps and physical violence of ancient
Chinese Zen and the irrelevant remarks we have been dis-
cussing are less used than they once were. But the irrele-
vancies, at any rate, have by no means been given up. Thus
a Buddhist lady of wealth, who had suddenly lost most of her
fortune, a few years ago, went to the abbot of one of the
great Hongwanji temples in Kyoto for comfort. He tried
to give her the consolation of sympathy, saying, "Dear
madam, I can only weep with you." From him she went to
one of the Zen abbots and told her story. His only remark
was, "What do you think of the wife of Yoritomo?" 14 The
question, of course, had no more to do with the poor lady's
sorrow than the flowers that bloom in the spring; and that
is why the abbot asked it.
The aim of these extraordinary methods, both psychical
and physical, is, as I have indicated, to jolt the mind out
of its accustomed rut and give the soul such a bang that its
eyes will be knocked open (as one knocks open the eyes of a
Paris doll), and so will suddenly see the light of an utterly
new world. The theory seems to be something like James
and Starbuck's theory of religious conversion. A process of
"incubation" within the subconscious is produced by several
months or even years of zazen, meditation, study, training,
and "atmosphere." When the time is ripe the new insight
will exfoliate suddenly from out the subconscious region if
only it receives, so to speak, a last shake or stir.
It is [writes Professor Suzuki] like picking a hidden lock, the flood
of new experiences gushes forth from the opening. It is again like the
clock's striking the hours; when the appointed time comes it clicks, and
the whole percussion of sounds is released. The mind seems to have
something of this mechanism; when a certain moment is reached, a hith-
erto closed screen is lifted, an entirely new vista opens up, and the tone
of one's whole life thereafter changes. This mental clicking or opening
A
14 Yoritomo, the reader will recall, was the founder of the Minamoto Shogunate
(1192). The incident was told me by one of the monks at the Zen monastery where
it happened.
ZEN
633
is called “satori" by the Zen masters and is insisted upon as the main
object of their discipline.15
A large number of "conversion cases," as we should call
them, are on record, showing in considerable detail how the
strange methods used by the Zen masters have worked in the
past, and with what sudden revelation satori comes. There
is room here but for one or two instances, but many more
like them could be adduced. They will doubtless remind the
reader of some of the cases of sudden conversion in James'
Varieties and in other books dealing with this odd form of
experience.
A Japanese Zen master, Bukko by name (1226-1286),
one of the most influential teachers of Zen at the time when
Japanese Zen was still dependent on China, has recounted
the process of his "conversion" in some detail.
When seventeen I made up my mind to study Buddhism and began
to unravel the mysteries of "Joshu's Mu." I expected to finish the mat-
ter within one year, but I did not come to any understanding of it after
all. Another year passed without much avail, and three more years, also
finding myself with no progress. In the fifth or sixth year, while no
special change came over me, the "Mu" became so inseparably attached
to me that I could not get away from it even while asleep. This whole
universe seemed to be nothing but the "Mu" itself. In the meantime I
was told by an old monk to set it aside for a while and see how things
would go with me. According to this advice I dropped the matter alto-
gether and sat quietly. But owing to the fact that the "Mu" had been
with me so long, I could in no way shake it off however much I tried.
When I was sitting, I forgot that I was sitting; nor was I conscious of
my own body. Nothing but a sense of utter blankness prevailed. Half
a year passed thus. Like a bird escaped from its cage, my mind, my
consciousness moved about (without restraint) sometimes eastward,
sometimes westward, sometimes northward, or southward. Sitting
through two days in succession, or through one day and night I did not
feel any fatigue. [During this period Bukko had an experience of
levitation, in which he was thought dead by many of the monks;
and after that a continuous vision whenever he closed his eyes. He
continues:] One night sitting far into the night I kept my eyes
open and was aware of my sitting up in my seat. All suddenly the
sound of striking the board in front of the head-monk's room reached
my ear, which at once revealed to me the "original man" in full. There
was then no more of that vision which appeared at the closing of the
eyes. Hastily I came down from the seat and ran out into a moonlit
15 The Eastern Buddhist, I, 201.
634
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
night and went up to the garden house called Ganki, where looking up
to the sky I laughed loudly, "Oh, how great is the Dharmakaya! Oh,
how so great and immense for evermore!" Thence my joy knew no
bounds. I could not quietly sit in the Meditation Hall; I went about
with no special purpose in the mountains walking this way and that.
. Thinking thus, I felt all the bonds snapped and broken to pieces
that have been tying me for so many ages. How many numberless years
have I been sitting in the hole of ants! Today even in the hollow of my
hair there lie all the Buddha-lands in the ten quarters! I thought within
myself, "Even if I have no greater satori, I am now all sufficient unto
myself." 16
Satori need not be the result of direct pondering on one
of the problems, though presumably it always requires a
certain amount of subconscious incubation. A merely
chance occurrence-a sight, a sound-may bring it about.
Often it is accompanied by intense emotional phenomena
such as trembling, a rush of tears, or a cold sweat.
A
Hyakujo (724-814) one day went out attending his master Baso.
flock of wild geese was seen flying. Baso asked: "What are they?" "They
are wild geese, sir." "Whither are they flying?" "They have flown
away, sir." Baso abruptly taking hold of Hyakujo's nose gave it a twist.
Overcome with pain, Hyakujo cried aloud, "Oh! Oh!" Said Baso, "You
say they have flown away, but all the same they have been here from the
very beginning." This made Hyakujo's back wet with cold perspiration.
He had satori.¹7
17
Haku-in, who afterwards became a famous Zen master
(1683-1768) had, as a student, been set to work on a prob-
lem which he could not solve, and after long efforts became
so desperate of reaching insight that he left his teacher and
wandered away from the monastery, and lived in a neigh-
boring city, begging his meals from house to house. One
day while standing before the door of an old woman who
had refused to give him anything he fell into so deep medi-
tation over his Zen problem that he did not hear the words
of the old lady until she knocked him over the head with a
switch. Thereupon he experienced the great insight: the
truth he had sought rushed into his mind. Filled with joy he
started back to the monastery. His master saw him ap-
20
From Suzuki, op. cit., pp. 219-21.
17
Ibid., p. 204.
ZEN
635
proaching in the distance and knew by his appearance that
he had attained satori.18
Both for my own sake and for that of my readers I wish
I had a perfectly definite and statable notion what these
mystical experiences of Zen may really be. But, as all insist,
only those who have experienced them can know, and even
they can never tell it; for the experience is essentially in-
effable, and the very attempt to put it into conceptual
terms necessarily defeats itself. This, of course, is only
what all the mystics affirm of every sort of mystical experi-
ence. One can only say, with the Upanishads, "Neti,
Neti," not this, not this. The experience is ineffable, un-
speakable.
(
And yet the mystics do speak a good deal. From the
things that they say it is plain that there are several sorts
of mystical experience, and by careful analysis of the ex-
pressions they do give us it is possible even for the non-
mystic to form some dim notion of the general nature of
the mystical experience and of the larger lines of division
and distinction which run within it. We need not, there-
fore, be too desperate of getting a little light on Zen mys-
ticism for all the insistence of the Zen adepts that the
experience is beyond all words and all conceptual distinc-
tions.
-
18 Ohasama, op. cit., p. 36.
10 Cf. Chaps. II, 1-13, X, 44-47, etc.
GRAD
The experiences of the Zen masters quoted in these last
few pages may have reminded the reader of some of the
events recounted in the Book of Acts.19 Whatever the theo-
logical distance between the two, there would seem to be a
psychological—or at least superficial-parallel between the
coming of satori and the coming of the Holy Ghost. Each is
depicted as a perfectly definite and unmistakable experience.
It happens suddenly at a specific place and a specific moment.
The subject of it realizes at once that something revolution-
ary has happened: and outside beholders also recognize it
without question. Satori has wider relations than this.
Otto, the distinguished author of Das Heilige, who is much
interested in Zen, has pointed out certain similarities between
satori and the feeling of the numinous to which his book
636
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is devoted.20 There is no doubt that the experience sought
and cultivated by Zen is related more or less closely to all
mystical states.
But it is related to some mystical states more closely than
to others. It is sometimes classed with those semi-mystical
conditions brought about through auto-suggestion or self-
hypnosis. Mr. Arthur Waley,21 for example, seems to class
it thus. His knowledge of things Japanese and Chinese is
so profound that I should hesitate long before disagreeing
with him; moreover, the quotation he gives us 22 from Bud-
dhapriya shows how closely early Zen methods imitated
those of the Indian Yoga, in which the narrowing of con-
sciousness was the aim. Yet this process of narrowing and
concentrating the attention was probably seldom carried by
Zen to the extreme unconscious trance, and so far as I am
aware this is never done today. Zazen, to be sure, aims at
"emptiness," but the descriptions given us of satori indi-
cate that it is an intense form of consciousness; and even the
"emptiness" of zazen (as all the followers of Zen insist) is
very far indeed from unconsciousness, trance, or sleep.
-
-
>> 23
On the other hand, the Zen form of experience, whether
in zazen or satori, differs noticeably from either Vedantic
or Christian mysticism. Otto thinks it "far more naïve
than the mysticism of the Vedanta, more blissful, more
thoroughly illumined, far richer in potentialities: it is not
world-rejecting but world-transfiguring." I cannot
agree with this in toto; but satori is certainly more naïve
than the Vedantic form of mysticism and without any sense
of communion or reunion with a Being such as Brahman.
The contrast between it and the usual type of Christian
mysticism is even greater-chiefly because of the greater em-
phasis by Christian mystics on the personality of the Divine
and on love for Him. Not a few Christian mystics, to be
sure, have approximated something like the Zen form of
experience; but the more representative mystics have con-
20
See his article on "Zen Buddhism" in Vol. III of the Eastern Buddhist (pp. 117-
125); his "Gleitwort" to Ohasama's Zen, der lebendige Buddhisms in Japan; and p. 69
of his The Idea of the Holy.
21
See his little monograph on Zen Buddhism in Its Relation to Art.
22 Op. cit., pp. 11-13.
23 Eastern Buddhist, I, 121.
ZEN
637
sidered this experience unChristian. Tauler has an instruc-
tive passage in which he describes this form of mysticism,
of which he disapproves, in terms that distinctly suggest
zazen.24 The follower of Zen does not want communion
with God, nor realization of the presence of the Buddha ex-
"Cleanse your
cept so far as he and the Buddha are one.
mouth even from the word 'Buddha,'" is a typical Zen say-
ing. It is self-realization, not communion, that Zen seeks
and finds.25
Zen mysticism, then, differs notably from the usual re-
ligious mysticism of either India or Christendom. For a
somewhat similar reason it is difficult to class it with Otto's
"numinous feeling." Neither in the unitive state produced
by zazen nor in satori is the Zen mystic conscious of the
presence of any numen. The fear, too, the mysterium tre-
mendum, of which Otto makes so much, is hardly to be
found in Zen mysticism.26 Yet Zen is beyond all question a
form of mysticism. And the great interest which it has for
the student of the psychology of religion is largely due just
to these contrasts which it sustains to other mystical types.
It is, moreover, characteristically Buddhist; and while the
Mahayana is the explicit philosophy of its followers, in spirit
it is closely related to the Hinayana, and it harks back to the
psychical exercises which the Founder is said to have prac-
ticed and to have taught his disciples. As Hinayana Bud-
dhism is a religion without a God, Zen is a form of mysticism
without communion. But it is without communion because
the unity of the individual's nature and the Buddha nature
ness."
24 "What they desire is a type of rest and comfort naturally pleasing to all crea-
tures; and such an experience is possible to any person who only knows the art of
emptying himself of imaginations and impulses. Let a man but separate himself from
all contingencies and from all works, and there will come over him in this state of
emptiness a peace which is very great, lovely, and agreeable, and which is in itself no
sin, since it is a part of our human nature. But when it is taken for a veritable
possessing of God, or unity with God, then it is a sin; for it is in reality nothing but
a state of thorough passivity and apathy untouched by the power from on high, which
any man can attain without special grace of God. It is a purely negative state from
which (if one in arrogance calls it divine) nothing follows but blindness, failure of
understanding, and a disinclination to be governed by the rules of ordinary righteous-
Quoted by Hocking in Mind, XXXVII (1912), p. 59.
The best treatment of Satori with which I am acquainted is Suzuki's essay on
the subject, namely Essay No. V in his Essays in Zen Buddhism.
20
26 Otto thinks it is, but seems to depend for evidence chiefly upon the "monstrous"
expression given to Bodhidharma by almost all Chinese and Japanese artists, op. cit.,
p. 118.
638
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
is felt to be so complete as to be belied by any term which
implies duality.
As I read over the accounts of the various experiences of
Zen adepts, and recall what has been told me by Zen monks,
it appears to me rather hopeless to attempt to put all these
experiences into one category. After all there is absolutely
no evidence to show that all Zen experiences are alike, and
the antecedent probability is that they differ considerably.
Zen writers sometimes recognize this but insist that the vari-
ous experiences are only different stages or depths of the
same thing. How they know they are the same it would
be hard to say, and what can be meant by calling them the
same when as a fact they are so different can be explained
only by leaving the level of psychological description and
branching into philosophical theory. If we stick to the
lower level of psychology it seems to me we must divide the
mystical experiences of Zen into at least two classes (half a
dozen or twenty might be better), namely, the state of rela-
tive vacuity induced by zazen, and the sudden enlightenment
known as satori. That there are innumerable gradations of
experience between these two which, taken together, con-
nect them, I doubt not; but the recognition of the two ex-
tremes and the difference between them is none the less en-
lightening.
As I have pointed out in more than one place, the ancient
and approved methods of doing zazen are notably like the
Yoga methods of India. They fit in admirably with Nagar-
juna's denial of differences; and Nagarjuna's philosophy has
had deep influence with many of the Zen masters. The
answer, moreover, which almost any Zen devotee in Chinese
or Japanese monasteries today will give you if you ask him
what is the principal aim of zazen will be this: to empty the
mind. It would seem, therefore, pretty plain that mental
concentration and unity, the driving out of details, and the
shunning of all relational thought is one type of the Zen
experience. In this it is related to the via negativa of some
of the Neo-Platonic and some of the Christian mystics, and,
carried to its extreme, it fulfils fairly well the rather ex-
aggerated description of mysticism given by Royce in The
World and the Individual.27
77
Vol. I, Lecture IV.
S
-
ZEN
639
The other type of Zen experience is the illumination
found in satori. Satori in Professor Suzuki's opinion is the
very heart of Zen, and I shall therefore quote from him again
upon this matter.
Satori may be defined as an intuitive looking into the nature of
things in contradistinction to the intellectual and logical understanding
of it. Practically, it means the unfolding of a new world hitherto un-
perceived in the confusion of a dualistic mind. Or we may say that
with satori our entire surroundings are viewed from quite an unexpected
angle of perception. Whatever this is, the world for those who have
gained a satori is no more the old world as it used to be; even with all its
flowing streams and burning fires, it is never the same one again. Logi-
cally, all its opposites and contradictions are united and harmonized into
a consistent organic whole. This is a mystery and a miracle, but accord-
ing to the Zen masters such is being performed every day. Satori there-
fore, can be had only through our once personally experiencing it. Its
semblance or analogy in a more or less feeble way is gained when a difficult
mathematical problem is solved, or when a great discovery is made, or
when a sudden means of escape is realized in the midst of most desperate
complications, in short, when one exclaims, "Eureka! Eureka!" But this
refers only to the subjective and emotional aspect of a satori. As for its
intellectual side, it is concerned with the entirety of one's life. For what
Zen proposes to do is a revolution, and a re-valuation as well, of the
spiritual aspect of one's existence. The solving of a mathematical prob-
lem ends with the solution, it does not affect one's whole life. So with all
other particular questions, practical or scientific, they do not necessarily
alter the basic life-tone of the individual concerned. But the opening
of satori is the re-making of life itself. When it is genuine-for there
are many simulacra of it-its effects on one's moral and spiritual life are
revolutionary, and they are also enhancing, purifying, as well as
exacting.
28
A Chinese Zen master in the tenth century described
what satori meant to him in a few verses which Professor
Suzuki has translated as follows:
Something dropped! It is no other thing;
Right and left, there is nothing earthy:
Rivers and mountains and the great earth,
In them all revealed is the Body of the Dharmaraja.29
28 Eastern Buddhist, I, 195-96.
20
Op. cit., p. 214.
Neither the extreme of the via negativa nor the extreme
of the intellectual insight of satori is common; and most Zen
640
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
adepts, I expect, find traces of both in their most precious
experiences. A Zen abbot in Kyoto described his own ex-
perience to me as follows: "The contemplation of Zen pro-
duces right mind; and this means a mind not mixed with
things. It sometimes approximates an empty mind—a
mind without thought. But this does not mean uncon-
sciousness nor sleep. It is difficult to describe. It is not
like death. It is life, it is dynamic. It is not a blank
emptiness like unconsciousness but is full of life and
force."
"In this condition," I asked, "is the mind captivated by
some central object, or is it a blank?"
"At first," the abbot responded, "the beginner is given
an object for thought in the form of an enigmatic question,
in order to keep his mind on a tight stretch. But at last
the heavens open and he sees beyond. In this condition one
asks oneself, What do I see? What do I hear? What do I
feel? What am I? His conclusion is that he sees nothing,
hears nothing, feels nothing, is nothing; but that this 'noth-
ing' is no mere blank or negation. It is like waking from a
dream. It is not a realization of being in accord with the
laws of the universe, for you are then beyond such forms of
thought; and to say that you realize anything would be to
misrepresent the state, for realization comes only after the
experience is past. So, after the experience, you may realize
that you were in accord with the laws of the universe. The
feeling that you are near to God would be too explicit to be
good. Every explicit experience must be transcended. Yet
when you have transcended every explicit thing, it is not
negation that you reach. When you come to the stage where
the ice is broken and the tensity of the mind is overcome,
you must not be captivated by any object, whether God or
Buddha. A sense even of thankfulness to God or the Bud-
dha at such a time would captivate the mind and be an im-
pediment. It would enslave the mind and bind it; and it is
unimportant, once the mind is bound, whether the chain be
iron or gold."
Satori of this sort is plainly emotional rather than intel-
lectual. It is almost entirely lacking in intellectual content,
and yet filled with intense emotion of conviction, and the
ZEN
641
mystic returns from it with a sense of great illumination.
The same phenomenon is common among Christian mystics,
who frequently after ecstasy assert that they have had tre-
mendous revelations yet are unable to state explicitly any of
them.30
Not always are the reports of satori so lacking in definite
detail as was the description given me by the Kyoto abbot.
Another Kyoto Zen abbot told me that in satori one sees the
nature of Buddha in everything, and realizes that we are all
identical with each other and with all material things, be-
cause we and all things partake of the Buddha nature. This
represents fairly well the satori realization described by many
Zen writers. It seems perfectly plain that a revelation of
this sort is to be set down as interpretation rather than as
the immediate experience of satori; or else that the concep-
tion of satori must be enlarged so as to include almost any
emotional intensification of a philosophical belief otherwise
obtained.
That there are all kinds and degrees of satori can, indeed,
hardly be questioned. It is a relative term, and many a good
Zen scholar is uncertain whether he has had it or not. When
the experience comes in its most intense form it is, indeed,
unmistakable: but this intense experience is rare in modern
Japan, just as ecstasy is rare in Christendom, and samadhi in
India. It is said that some have experienced satori as many as
eighteen times (for it is, of course, a temporary and passing
state); but most of those you question will say they are not
sure they have ever attained it though they have approxi-
mated it two or three times. One abbot told me that after
he had studied and done zazen for twelve years his colleagues
thought he had attained this insight, but that he himself does
not think he has attained it even yet. This poor opinion of
himself, however, may have been a matter of deliberate cul-
tivation, for he added that if one thinks one has really at-
tained, that means the beginning of the downward road.
One should always be dissatisfied and seek for further
enlightenment. The zazen which begins to approximate
satori induces, apparently, a kind of relaxation of body and
80 Cf. Leuba, "Tendances Religieuses chez les Mystiques Chrétiens" (Revue Philo-
sophique, LIV, 480); and my book on The Religious Consciousness, pp. 405-11.
642
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
openness of mind not unrelated to the "beautiful silence" of
a Quaker meeting.
I suggested, a few paragraphs back, that the intellectual
and statable content of the Zen revelation is really obtained
elsewhere. When put into words it turns out to be-as of
course we should expect—not something new but a restate-
ment of the leading ideas of Mahayana philosophy. These
are learned by reading, lectures, and conversation, are
breathed in with the very air of the Zen monastery, become
a part of the subconscious or the "apperceiving mass," or
whatever else we wish to call that great body of ideas and atti-
tudes which are so fundamental for the individual as to be
taken for granted; and when the emotional crisis of satori
arrives, or has partially subsided, these ideas are presented to
the mind in relatively objective form as a kind of immediate
intuition, clad with the joy of a personal discovery. I do
not say this is all there is to it: I am by no means persuaded
it is all; but it is a large part of it. There can be no doubt
that the traditional Mahayana philosophy contributes very
much more to the Zen revelation than the Zen revelation
contributes to the Mahayana philosophy.
For, spite of Bodhidharma's silence and spite of a thou-
sand and more years of protest against philosophy, there can
be no doubt that Zen has a philosophy. A Zen abbot once
responded to a question of mine concerning Zen thought by
the simple sentence, "Zen has nothing to say." This was
orthodox and correct. But I noted that, having made his
tribute to Bodhidharma, the abbot had a good deal to say.
What Zen says, however, is far from systematic. Both
the Mahayana in general and mysticism in general feel little
constraint from the rules of logic: and Zen being a combina-
tion of the two is doubly free. Even more than Tendai it
fairly revels in contradictions. Since all verbal assertions are
bound, in the last analysis, to be false, almost any assertion
may be made. The law of contradiction holds only for this
world of the many, and one can see how a Tendai philosopher
can, with some logic, comfort himself by escaping to the
world of the One; but the Zen thinker spurns any such act
of discretion. Of course Zen thought is greatly influenced
by Tendai; but it is still more influenced by Kegon. Change
ZEN
643
for Zen is real with nothing illusory about it. The phe-
nomenal world is the real world. "Nirvana is Samsara." 31
The man who has attained the truth, says one of the most
famous of Zen hymns, "does not reject error. The true
nature of the unintelligible cannot be other than the Buddha
nature. Upon which Ohasama comments: "Truth does
not need to be sought first, for it is present everywhere, even
in error. Hence he who rejects error rejects truth." 32
The backbone of Zen thought is, as I have said, to be
found in the Tendai-Kegon philosophy. But it is plain that
Nagarjuna's doctrine of vacuity has also had profound in-
fluence upon many Zen thinkers. It is easy to see why the
concept of the Void should make a strong appeal to those
who believe that they approximate an immediate intuition of
the Real in the concentrated and "unified" state produced by
zazen. Professor Hocking has pointed out that mystics in
general have been led to attribute unity and ineffableness to
God because they find their trance ineffable and unitary.
"What is a psychological report (and a true one) is taken as
a metaphysical statement (and a false one)."
>>33 Murisier
and Ribot have pointed out a similar influence upon mystic
theology derived from the "monoideism" of the quietest
type.3
In similar fashion, the process of "emptying the
mind" practiced so strenuously by students of Zen most
naturally leads to the conclusion that Reality is found in the
"complete nothing." Which does not make Zen the less
sure that the phenomenal reality of the changing many is
thoroughly real and that "Nirvana is Samsara.
In spite of these various contradictions, however, due, I
suspect, to the natural and widespread human desire to eat
one's cake and keep it too, there is one doctrine or assertion
that Zen sticks to with a consistency that would satisfy the
nicest lover of logic. I refer to the fundamental convic-
tion that to see the Buddha one must look into one's own
83
31 Samsara, it will be recalled, is this world of changing phenomena, which for the
Founder and for the Hinayana is at the exact antipodes from Nirvana.
82
Op. cit., pp. 71, 134.
دو
"Mysticism as Seen through Its Psychology," Mind, N. S., XXI (1912), p. 43.
Murisier, Les Maladies du Sentiment Religieux, esp. pp. 61-62; Ribot, "L'Ideal
Quietiste," Rev. Philosophique for 1915, pp. 440-54. Leuba has also treated this in-
fluence of mystical psychology upon mystic theology in his Psychology of Religious
Mysticism, pp. 306f. See also Chap. XVIII of The Religious Consciousness.
84
644
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
nature and one's own mind. This I have already dwelt upon
in another connection, but it can hardly be repeated too of-
ten, for it is the very heart of Zen. The Universal lies
within, and only by immediate inner intuition can one know
it. Having known it one knows all. Haku-in celebrated
this central thought in the first lines of his hymn:
"In their deepest nature men are Buddha, as water is ice.
And as there is no ice without water, so without the Buddha
there could be no men. Woe to them who seek it in the far
distant, and know not that it is very near." 35
This realization of the identity of oneself with the eternal
Buddha gives the point of view from which Zen regards the
problem of immortality. On the subordinate aspects of this
question there is much disagreement in Zen. Mention is
made of reincarnation: yet the self is of course denied, and
by some 36 the mind is identified with the body. But the
really central doctrine on which nearly all intelligent fol-
lowers of Zen would unite is to be found, as I have said, in
the identity of all things with the Buddha, and in the nature
of eternity. An ancient hymn by the third Chinese patri-
arch of the sect asserts, "A moment is as a thousand years.
.. Past and future, are they not an eternal now?" 37 In
spite of the repeated assertion that change is real and that
Nirvana is Samsara, it is in a timeless immortality that Zen
believes.
:
The eternal Now and the identity of the Buddha with all
things is of course a common belief with Tendai and Kegon
and with most of the sects that have grown out of their
thought. It is not this belief nor any other doctrine that
makes Zen unique. Its uniqueness consists in its persistent
attempt (which it maintains is often successful) to find and
actually to experience the Buddha nature. It does not stop
with faith, it goes on to vision. It knows whom it has
believed. It has much of the conceptual weakness and much
of the empirical strength of all mysticism. Secure within the
certainty of its own ineffable experience, it watches with
35
Quoted by Ohasama, op. cit., p. 62.
30
E.g., by Kaiten Nukariya, who seems to have fallen under the influence of
Haeckel, and whose book on Zen, called The Religion of the Samurai, is so largely framed
on Western categories as to be misleading.
37 Quoted by Ohasama, p. 71.
ZEN
645,
equanimity the fate of the philosophies in which it some-
times dabbles. Your true Zen will discuss philosophy with
you as long as you like, he will read books and write them.
But he is not troubled by the thought that all the philosophies
and all the books may be mistaken. For he knows that the
best and truest of these are but "fingers pointing at the
moon."
CHAPTER XXXI
PHILOSOPHICAL POSITIONS OF THE NICHIREN AND
AMIDA SECTS
-
NICHIREN, as we have seen, never renounced his al-
legiance to the Tendai thought in which he had been trained,
and so far as he differed from his teachers on Hiei-san it
was through a more exclusive and extreme loyalty to the
great Tendai gospel, the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra. Ten-
dai seeks to be inclusive of all the truth in all sects: Nichi-
ren is rather bitterly exclusive of all truth but that of the
Lotus. In positive philosophical insight Nichiren had little
to contribute. He was an intelligent Tendai philosopher;
hardly more. His contribution was rather on the religious
side, attempting as he did to make the truths of the Lotus
gospel live in the hearts of his followers as matters of in-
dividual experience, through meditation, active practice,
and earnest loyalty to Sakyamuni.'
1
The three leading characteristics of the thought of the
Nichiren sect today (so I was told by the abbot of a large
Nichiren monastery near Tokyo) are (1) insistence upon
history rather than myth, (2) antagonism to the pessimism
common in some of the other sects, and (3) emphasis upon
the social and national aspect of religion. The first and third
of these points are especially stressed by all Nichiren thinkers.
Members of this sect, I was told by one of their monks in a
Kyoto monastery, refuse to believe in anything imaginary.
The other sects talk about mythical Buddhas, Amida, Dain-
ichi, and the rest, and about an imaginary Western Paradise.
The Nichiren sect accepts none of these things. It bases it-
self on actual history and on the facts of life and busies itself
about the welfare of individuals here and now and the safety
and happiness of society. My monkish informant, I might
add, looked like the sort of man who would hold that sort
¹Cf. Anesaki, Nichiren, Chap. VII.
646
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 647
of view, a big, dominating fellow, with a positivist, prag-
matist, “cash-value" air. There was certainly little about
him suggesting the other-worldly. For him, and for most
of his fellows, the welfare of Japan and the spirit of nation-
alism are a vital part of Buddhism. They come by this
view rightly. The three great vows of Nichiren, as popularly
known, are the following: "I must be the pillar of Japan;
I must be eyes to Japan; I must be a great ship to Japan."
>> 2
Not all members of the sect would go so far as did the
Kyoto monk in denying reality to all members of the Bud-
dhist cycle other than Shaka. My friend the Tokyo abbot
assured me the other Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are as
real as you and I. They act and work. They have special
natures and exist for special purposes. But they are not ulti-
mately real, as is the One Buddha: and when their work is
accomplished they are reabsorbed into the Absolute Source
of all things, which is, of course, Sakyamuni. For it is from
Him that all beings are rayed out, so to speak, like beams
of light from a central sun. Yet though absolute, he is also
personal. The Absolute is one with the historical Shaka.
And all men are one with both. This, of course, is almost
Tendai doctrine and has little new about it except a certain
personal aspect which Nichiren stresses in the relation be-
tween individual men and the Eternal Buddha. The Buddha
is sometimes thought of, not merely as the Dharmakaya, but
as our Father. My Kyoto monk found in this a contrast
between Nichiren Buddhism and Christianity; and I quote
his remark chiefly because of the light it throws on the kind
of Christian teaching that seems to have got itself published
in many parts of Japan. Christianity, he said, teaches that
we are the children of sin, whereas Nichiren taught that we
are the children of Buddha.
The Japanese Amida sects, like the Nichiren, in one sense
grew out of Tendai and so far as they can be said to have an
official philosophy at all the Tendai philosophy is the basis
of it. The acceptance of this form of thought, however, is
by no means necessary for orthodox members of these sects.
Most of their thinkers accept the Tendai view, a few do not;
but all agree that no abstruse theory is necessary to salvation.
2 Coates and Ishizuka, Honen, p. 67.
K
648
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The central character of all these sects is belief in salvation
through the grace of Amida given freely to all who have faith
in Him.
Amida has as many interpretations as the Christian
God, perhaps more. For the rank and file He is hardly
different from "Our Heavenly Father," except that in the
back of their minds lurks the dim realization that if they
were philosophers they would interpret Him in some more
profound sense. For the philosophical Amidist (if I may
use such a word) Amida is the Absolute, the Tendai Dhar-
makaya. Even these philosophers, however, still retain the
personal view. In philosophy, I was told by a very learned
Shinshu abbot, Shin and Jodo thinkers accept pantheism; in
faith they insist upon the personal view of God. Like other
Orientals (once more) they distinguish between faith and
believing to be true. The personal and the impersonal view
play back and forth within the mind and speech of the
Amidist thinker in interesting fashion. The catechism of
the Shin sect deals with the question thus: "Since the Shin-
shu and Jodo group in general is not argumentative but prac-
tical Buddhism, it leads its adherents by teachings which are
applicable to our daily life. For this reason Amida is repre-
sented as a Buddha who has personal existence." "
3
As a theistic conception [writes Reischauer] the Amida doctrine
breaks down for the reason that no Buddhist philosopher is willing to
think of the Ultimate in terms of personality. Amida is spoken of as a
personal being, but the term Personal is what Buddhist philosophers of
all schools would consider as an accommodation of language when used
of the Ultimate. Even in the West it is a common objection to the
doctrine of a Personal God to say that personality implies limitation, and
that therefore God as the Absolute cannot be personal. The Buddhist
philosopher raises the same objection and says that if Amida is spoken
of as personal, it is only by way of accommodation to suit the doctrine
to the intelligence of the average man who cannot think in the concepts
of philosophy.
The combination of the impersonal Absolute with the
literally personal is made more striking, for the logically-
minded more difficult, and for the religiously-minded per-
3 Reischauer's trans., T. A. S. J., XXXVII, p. 364. This version of the Shinshu
catechism has been republished by the Hongwanji mission in Honolulu in pamphlet
form.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 649
haps more fascinating, by the identification of the eternal
Amida with the man Hozo. It was as Hozo (Sanskrit
Dharmakara), a man who lived at the time when the Bud-
dha Sejizaiobutsu was upon earth, that Amida made his
famous forty-eight vows. According to the Shin catechism
Hozo "was an historical personage, but he does not belong
to the period of authentic history."4 Just when he lived
we cannot tell. Some call it ten kalpas ago, some say he
belonged to the eternities of the past.
But it does not matter whether we say ten Kalpas or eternity, for
the essence of the universe is not subject to space and time. Still it is
the free and eternal truth which belongs to the timeless and measureless
eternity that after all has value for a world which is conditioned by space
and time. Therefore the Amida who attained perfection ten Kalpas ago
is the same as the one who attained Buddhahood in the eternities of the
past. Both are explained in terms suited to meet the degree of intelligence
to which they are revealed, and in reality there is no difference between
them. Do you regard the moon which has tonight appeared from behind.
the mountain as just now coming into existence, or is it not the same
moon which gave light in the ages past?
5
The identity of the man Hozo with the Absolute is one
of those paradoxes which delights the religious heart in many
countries-witness the identification of the child Krishna
with the infinite Vishnu, of the infant Jesus with the Eternal
Logos by whom all things were made that were made. "Lan-
guage fails! Language fails! Language fails! One can only
exclaim Ah! in wonder and amazement." "
Considered in Himself, from the absolute point of view,
Amida is the Real Substance which constitutes the essence
of the Universe. "It is," says the Shin catechism, "the Acme
of Truth." In Spinozistic fashion the catechism continues,
Reischauer's trans., p. 362. We must accept the historicity of Hozo, the cate-
chism continues, on the authority of Shaka, and we must not be too nice in our
insistence upon the meticulous rules of evidence. "If we put too much stress on the
matter of historical evidence, all events in the mythological age of Japan and in the
very ancient periods of Chinese and Western history can be reduced to mere legend.
We must doubt therefore not only the historicity of Hozo Bosatsu, but all ancient
history will become untrustworthy. Since we live in a world which has neither
beginning nor end, we can not deny that at a certain time there appeared such a famous
man and that he was of such an ideal character [as Hozo Bosatsu is alleged to have
been]. In a world subject to such vicissitudes one must guard against getting too
nearsighted and believing only what can be historically established" (op. cit., p. 363).
5
Op. cit., p. 363-64.
"From Mito Giko, quoted in the catechism, p. 365.
650
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
There is nothing in this universe which does not come under one or
the other of the two realities we call matter and mind. By the Real Sub-
stance of the universe then we mean the underlying essence of matter and
mind. This Substance, through the law of Cause and Effect, produces
things and destroys them; it changes things and maintains them. . . .
Real Substance is the Body of Law [the Dharmakaya] which underlies
the entire universe. This is the so-called Spiritual Essence which neither
is born nor perishes. The apparent differences in the world are but the
product of impure thought; outside the mind there are no real differences.
Therefore the real essence of the universe is not to be expressed in words,
nor can it be reduced to any fixed formula. It is incomprehensible and
ultimately it is a Oneness in which there is neither change nor difference.
It is indestructible, and because it is a Oneness it is called Real Substance."
This, of course, is the Tendai philosophy over again, and
from this view it follows that ultimately all the Buddhas are
one, and for that matter all deities of all religions are but
many names for Amida. It was for this reason that Rennyo,
the greatest of the Shinshu teachers after Shinran and the
eighth patriarch of the sect, forbade the explicit worship of
any members of the Shinto or Buddhist cycles save only
Amida, and banished from the domestic shrine of the Shin-
shu believer the Kami shelf which other Buddhist sects had
retained. It is for this reason also that even Shaka is un-
represented in Shinshu temples and Shinshu homes. For
"the act of invoking Amida's name includes within it all that
would be involved in the invocation of them all." This
unification of all that is divine, in fact of all that is real,
under the one name Amida of course does not mean that
the other Buddhas are in no sense real. They are real in a
way, just as you and I are in some sense real. Ultimately we
are all one, but practically we are many; just as all the waves
are water and therefore one, and yet as waves they are many.
Without the waves there would be no water, and without
the water no waves. The task of harmonizing the unity of
being with the multiplicity of the Buddhas is further ad-
vanced by the concept of the Trikaya, the three Bodies of
the Buddha. In their Dharmakaya all the Buddhas are one,
and this one Dharmakaya is really Amida; in their Sambho-
gakaya and Nirmanakaya they are many.
"Op. cit., pp. 365-66.
8 Coates and Ishizuka, Honen, p. 58.
Amida is of course also one of the Sambhogakaya. Moreover, as the Sambhogakaya
is closer to practical reality than the more abstruse Dharmakaya, and hence more repre-
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 651
This brings up the question of the relation of Amida to
Shaka. The Shinshu catechism says:
There are two ways in which the relation between Amida and Shaka
is conceived. One way regards the two as one and the same being; the
other as distinct. When the two are regarded as one and the same being,
the teacher Shaka is looked upon as the incarnation of Amida. He is
regarded as coming temporarily into this world. When the two are
conceived as distinct beings, Shaka is looked upon as the Teacher of this
world and Amida as the Saviour of the world.10
In one of his hymns Shinran wrote: "That Buddha that was
made flesh in India was in this world manifested that he
might preach the Divine Promise of Him who is infinite." 11
One of the professors in the Educational Department of the
Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyoto told me that Shinshu has
a Trinity consisting of (1) Shinnyo or the Absolute or the
World of Identity (which is really Amida), (2) the personal
Amida in the Western Paradise, and (3) Shaka. Shaka is
really Amida taking human form. After the death of Shaka
he of course became again simply Amida. At present there
is no distinct personality Shaka anywhere existent. He added
that Shaka has appeared as a saving power many times since
his death in India, some say 8000 times. Amida appears in
this world in Shaka's form and in thousands of other forms
to save people. In fact, as one of these many expressions of
Amida, Shaka is always present and active in the world.
Naturally at this point I asked how this assertion of Shaka's
present activity was consistent with the earlier assertion that
Shaka as a distinct personality no longer existed. The pro-
fessor replied that Shaka as a man died long ago but that
Shaka's spirit still continues to live and to act. To make the
matter clearer I asked, in Western fashion, Does this mean
that it is the same personality, the same self, that continues
to live and to act? In reply the professor made the comment
that he really did not know what the word personality
meant. It is a new term, he said, recently introduced from
sentative of wisdom and mercy, it is as a Sambhogakaya rather than as the Dharmakaya
that Jodo and Shin love best to envisage Amida. Hence while Tendai and Kegon give
their chief emphasis to the Dharmakaya, the Amida sects stress most the Sambhogakaya.
Cf. McGovern Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism, pp. 95-96.
10 Pp. 355-56.
11 Trans. by Yamabe and Beck in Buddhist Psalms, p. 29.
652
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the West. (A Shingon monk, two days before, had told
me the same thing.) All he could say in answer to my ques-
tion was that Shaka at his death in Kusinara had been ab-
sorbed into Amida. None the less, he frequently comes
back as a saving power, and on such occasions he is again
Shaka. As such a saving power he is present in the world
today. And this, the professor concluded, did not seem to
him at all inconsistent with his earlier statement that the
Shaka who died in Kusinara in 480 B.C. no longer exists.
"But this Shaka who is present in the world today,” I in-
sisted, "is he conscious of himself as Shaka?" The professor
replied that my question had no definite meaning for him.
The Shaka who is active in the world today certainly does
not know himself as the son of King Suddhodana, nor is he
conscious of his exact identity with a particular Indian prince.
Yet he is truly Shaka. In other words, our questions and an-
swers were at cross purposes because of the fundamental con-
trast between Eastern and Western concepts of individuality
—a rather interesting situation. The professor started out on
the presupposition of the Anatta doctrine, and his questions
and answers implied, what he was too courteous to assert, that
it was really the vagueness of our Western concept of
sonality that made me see a contradiction where to the East-
ern mind there was no contradiction at all.
per-
K
If we may trust Dean Inge, this concept of personality
on which the questions I put to the abbot were based, is not
only relatively local but relatively new. In his opinion the
thought of impervious and separate selves goes back hardly
further than Kant; and he insists that at any rate the con-
ception of personality found in the New Testament is "abso-
lutely fluid."
Jesus Christ was seriously suspected of being Elijah or Jeremiah or
even John Baptist who had just been beheaded. And unless we are will-
ing to sacrifice the whole of the deepest and most spiritual teaching of
St. Paul and St. John, unless we are prepared to treat all the solemn lan-
guage of the New Testament about the solidarity of the body and its
members, the vine and its branches, as fantastic and misleading metaphor,
we must assert roundly that this notion of "impervious" spiritual atoms
is flatly contrary to Christianity.12
Personal Idealism and Mysticism, 3rd ed. (London, Longmans, 1924), pp. 94, 95.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 653
I cite these words of Dean Inge not as being final (for as the
reader may have guessed, I am not in full agreement with
him), but to remind the reader that the position of Buddhism
in general upon the question of personality, and of my friend
the abbot in particular, is not peculiar nor merely oriental.
But the central theme of Amidist thought is not the
nature of the Godhead but the way of salvation. I have in
another connection spoken of the division of Japanese Bud-
dhism into two great sections according as they promise
salvation through Shodomen (the Holy Way section) and
Jiriki (self-strength) or through Jodomen (the Pure Land
section) and Tariki (another's strength). The difference is
thus expressed in the Shinshu catechism:
Shodomen has reference to the holy way in which the saints of this
division walk. It is the way for the strong man who relies on his own
strength for salvation. The principle of self-culture which the sects
belonging to this division teach finds in Shaka Nyorai an example. He
revealed in his own life the wisdom attained through meditation and also
the way by which such wisdom may be attained; and so he has made it
possible for mankind to attain the same through religious observances.
Therefore this division of Buddhism is sometimes called the School of
Self-Reliance or the Way of Hardships. Jodomon means the Nirvana
Entering Division. This division recognizing the insufficiency of one's
own strength relies for salvation upon the Great Mercy of Amida Nyorai.
It teaches the principle of faith in the strength of Another. Therefore
this is sometimes called the School of Reliance on Another or the Easy
Way Doctrine.13
As will be seen from this quotation, the Amida sects do
not deny that salvation is (at least in theory) possible by the
Way of Works-morality, meditation, insight. But in the
opinion of Honen Shonin and the founders of the other Pure
Land sects this road was so difficult that for men of their
generation it had become well-nigh impossible as a practical
matter. The simplest and surest way was not through one's
own merits but through the merits and the grace of the gra-
cious Amida and through the might of his famous eighteenth
vow. Honen and Shinran and all their followers have said
in substance with St. Paul and Martin Luther, not once but
many times, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." This faith through
18 Pp. 342-43. Cf. also McGovern, pp. 94-95, 104-08.
654
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
which salvation comes is not an easy matter.
It does not
consist either in the repetition or in the intellectual accept-
ance of a formula. "Ah," said Shinran, "it is difficult indeed
for a man even during a life of many incarnations to meet
with the salvation wrought by the Buddha's great vow.
Even in eternity it is difficult to rise to pure faith. Let him
then who has this faith rejoice: for it was thus predeter-
mined." 14 "Predetermined," however, not by some anthro-
pomorphic Jehovah or Allah, but by one's own merit ac-
quired through striving in many previous lives; and yet the
gift of God as well. It is not chiefly nor even largely intel-
lectual but rather a state of the loving heart.
O
The union of hearts [wrote Honen Shonin, that real saint of the
twelfth century] is the union of our heart with the heart of Amida.
The Tendai sect says truly that in the world there is always a lover and
a beloved and that love is perfected when lover and beloved meet. Amida
is the lover, we are the beloved and when we turn with our whole heart
to Amida and surrender ourselves to Him, our hearts become one with
His. But a heart that is distracted over many things cannot realize this
union. That privilege is reserved for those hearts that are devoted to the
thankful remembrance of Amida's mercies.15
Faith means complete trust in Amida and therefore utter
renunciation of self-help. A devout and mystical member
of the Shin sect whose writings are held in much respect,
expresses it thus:
We are to believe deeply in the mercy of Amida, but if you are too
concerned with your state of mind, the very mercy of Amida may prove
to be a hindrance to the growth of your faith. If you strive to grow in
faith thinking this must be accomplished for your salvation, the very
effort will smother it. For faith means unconditionally to submit one-
self to The Other, and the straining is the outcome of self-power; the
heavier you step the deeper you go into the mud of self-power, and the
further you stand from the Other-power.
There is no need for you
to look backward and forward and to carry along such old stuff as
Nembutsu 17 or faith or joyful heart. As soon as you realize the destiny
14
15
16
16
•
Quoted in the Shinshu catechism, p. 346.
Quoted by Arthur Lloyd in Shinran and his Work, p. 98.
Kojun Shichiri, who died in 1900. Professor Suzuki has translated some of his
"Sayings" in The Eastern Buddhist (Vol. III, No. 2). It is from Suzuki's article that
I take the quotation from Shichiri.
17 As we shall see, Shin in contrast to Jodo teaches that the repetition of the Nem-
butsu is not necessary to salvation.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 655
of
your sinful existence and the infinite, unconditional love of The Other,
begone with the last trace of self-assertion in whatever form, and abandon
yourself, heart and soul, at the feet of the Saviour.
This matter of salvation by faith is so fundamental to
Amidist Buddhism that I am tempted to dwell a little longer
upon it. The Shinshu catechism from which I have so often
quoted is very explicit upon this point and, as the reader will
notice, it has quite the tone of evangelical Christianity.
Thus Question 58 reads:
What is faith in Amida Butsu?
[Ans.] When we hear what is the significance of Namu Amida Butsu,
we recognize that we are deeply involved in sin and evil from which it is
impossible to extricate ourselves through whatever efforts we may put
forth. We must trust firmly and without a doubt in the might of
Amida's Vow to save us and bear in mind his great merciful heart.
To believe the truth is faith (Junshi).
[Q. 59]
What is the state of mind of him who believes in Amida?
[Ans.] Before we know Amida we spend our lives in sin as a result
of which we are drawn into the evil way and are submerged in suffering.
But when we listen to the Voice of Salvation we are saved from our
sinful condition, being taken into the eternal light of Buddha; and so we
are able to share his merit and receive his favor. We rely upon the great
heart of mercy of the Nyorai while we exclaim, "O, thou Nyorai of
great mercy, thou Father of true salvation!" Thus we feel as if we had
escaped from the jaws of the tiger and entered the rescue boat. Relying
upon this Amida Nyorai, we utter the Nembutsu with gratitude and
reverence, with exultation and devotion. Our heart is filled with a great
peace and a great joy. .
[Q. 61] When we speak of believing in the Might of Amida's saving
Vow, do we not mean that this faith comes from the believer's own
power?
[Ans.] Of course it is the believer's heart that does the believing,
but that this heart becomes fixed in its belief is due alone to the believer
having understood the heart of mercy wherewith Amida saves him. The
unwavering faith which submits to the commands of Amida is not the
product of the believer's own strength of heart, but it comes through the
strength of Another. . . . If a man who has only the faith which relies
upon self, prays to Amida for help and salvation, however earnestly he
may pray, he cannot attain the great joy which is called the Peace of
Heart because he relies on himself. But in the case of the man whose
faith comes through the strength of Another, when he prays he relies
entirely upon Amida's commandment of great mercy which calls us unto
656
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
salvation. Therefore the Great Joy which is called either Faith or Peace
is the faith which is the gift of Another.18
From these quotations it will be seen that evangelical
Buddhism has some of the same uncertainties and some of the
same difficulties about the relation of faith and works as
evangelical Christianity. The way of faith is immensely
simpler and easier than the way of works and knowledge,
and we should accept through faith the grace of God. Yet
this act of acceptance and of faith which we are urged to
perform turns out to be not our act at all but the act of
God who works within us. The evangelical thus seems with
one breath to urge us to do something which in the next
breath he tells us only God can do. So eager is he to
ascribe all merit to the Divine Giver that he refuses to
the creature even the meager credit of accepting the gift,
which at the same moment he urges him to take and which
he blames him for not taking. It is to man's discredit if he
refuses to believe, yet not to his credit if he does believe.
Much the same difficulty arises in another connection when
the question of the value of works is raised. It is the old con-
troversy between St. James and St. Paul, between the Church
of Rome and Martin Luther. The Jodo sect sees the diffi-
culty, perhaps, a little more clearly than the Shinshu and
hence hesitates in carrying the doctrine of salvation by faith
to its extreme and logical conclusion. We are saved by faith,
yet works, too, are helpful, and we must perform them.
Shinran and his followers care more for the logic of their
presuppositions and less for the paradox of the consequences.
According to Shinshu doctrine, works help not at all toward
salvation, but are performed as a spontaneous consequence of
faith and as a token of our gratitude to Amida.'
This matter of faith and works I discussed at some length
with a Tokyo Shinshu abbot, a most learned, kindly, and
reverend gentleman in whose house I spent a delightful after-
noon. It was, as I look back upon it, almost ungracious of
me to ply him with unpleasant questions on this difficult
matter as I did, in my clumsy, downright, large-footed
Western way: particularly after his cordial welcome and in
18 Pp. 371-73.
10 Cf. the catechism, pp. 345, 381-83.
19
N
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 657
the midst of his gentle and abundant hospitality. We had
been discussing other topics when the door of his study
opened, and his aged mother and his little daughter (of per-
haps seven years) entered upon their knees, bowing to me as
only Japanese ladies can and bringing with them the imple-
ments necessary for making the honorable tea. The old lady
-and a lady she was, every inch of her-heated the water
over the charcoal brazier, and when it came to a boil poured
it first (according to the Japanese fashion) into another re-
ceptacle and then, when it had cooled a trifle, upon the tea
leaves, so that the bitterest flavor of the tea might not be
brought out as it would have been by actually boiling water.
And then the little girl with the sweet courtesy of her age
and nation brought me the cup, with cakes and other things.
The gentleness of Japanese ladies at their best, old and young,
the beauty of soul that shines through their bodies and their
actions, is surely one of the loveliest flowers of all human
culture. Even after I had eaten my cakes and sipped my tea
and the little maid and her grandmother had withdrawn, it
was hard for me to bring my thoughts back to theology.
But I did. And it was after this idyllic interlude of
touching hospitality that I broke out with my almost brutal
questions about faith and works. What will happen, said I,
after death to a morally bad man who has had faith in
Amida? He will, responded the abbot, be born in the West-
ern Paradise. But, I asked, does not this teaching have an
evil effect upon morality? Our moral life, replied my pa-
tient host (who, I should add, spoke English excellently), our
moral life should be the natural and spontaneous consequence
of our religious faith. A man with religious faith may occa-
sionally fail to do right, but these failures are due to bad
Karma collected in previous lives. Without a religious life
a moral life is impossible. Hence if a man has true faith,
and to the extent that he has true faith, he will not sin. True
faith and a truly moral life are inseparable. What, then, I
asked, is true faith? It is, said the abbot, the realization of
the actuality of Amida's salvation in ourselves. To be more
explicit, said I, if a man thoroughly believes that Amida
exists in the Western Paradise, that He made the forty-eight
vows and will save all who believe in him, has such a man
V
658
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
true faith? The abbot answered Yes. I think this was bad
tactics on his part and not altogether necessary; but he did
say Yes. Whereupon I most discourteously pointed out that
a man might believe all these things and be a villain still, and
ended up by quoting St. James on the devils who believe and
tremble. At this the abbot retracted his Yes of a moment
before, and said that as a fact it is not possible for a man who
has real faith in Amida to commit great sins. But, he added,
one must take into consideration the power of evil Karma,
which is so great at times as to suppress temporarily our free
wills. That even this was not fully satisfactory he seemed
to realize, for he confessed that the point was one of great
delicacy and of great difficulty for the Shin sect. Still, in
spite of all difficulties of detail, it is true, he insisted, that
pure faith is the one thing that matters. How one names the
object of one's faith does not matter, whether Amida or
Jehovah or Jesus, and those of pure faith in other religions, if
such there be, are really Shinshu believers without knowing
it. Earnest faith is the one important thing.
The question of works is bound up with the question of
the use of the Nembutsu; and this is one of the few points
of theory on which Jodo and Shin are divided. The Nem-
butsu (Namu Amida Butsu), as I have pointed out in a pre-
vious chapter, is regarded by all the Pure Land sects as, in a
sense, the name of Amida; and Honen Shonin taught that
salvation came by the repetition of this divine name with a
heart of faith. Thus faith alone was for Honen hardly
sufficient. It should be accompanied and expressed by the
loving repetition of Amida's name. In other words, the repe-
tition of the Nembutsu had for him and has for his sect, in
one sense, an absolute value, and it was for this reason that he
made a point of repeating it several thousand times a day.
The reason why Honen considered the repetition of this
sacred formula so important "was that its efficacy was so ex-
plicitly asserted in Amida's Original Vow. In this Vow
Amida made the Salvation of all sentient beings by the simple
invocation of his name the one condition upon which he
would accept Buddhahood, thus transferring to them the full
merit of all those religious austerities he had practiced
20
20 Ryonin, the founder of the Yutsu Nembutsu sect, did the same.
C
i
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 659
through many kalpas of time." 21 This view seems, of course,
a trifle naïve, and Shinran was quick to see that the logic of
the doctrine of salvation by faith made such repetition no
longer essential to salvation. He did not, indeed, go the
whole distance that his logic implied, for he, too, accepted
the authority of the famous eighteenth vow: but he insisted
that one invocation of the sacred name, "Namu Amida
Butsu" with a heart of faith was quite sufficient to justify
the believer in claiming Amida's promise. After that first
invocation it is doubtless well to invoke the sacred name fre-
quently, but such repetitions help in no wise toward one's
salvation, but are merely expressions-as are all good works
-of one's gratitude for the salvation which has already been
secured.
Salvation thus begins in this life, and means first of all the
union of the human heart with the heart of Amida. It
means also, for most members of the sect, something like
"going to heaven when you die." The Anatta doctrine, so
far as I know, has never been explicitly abandoned by the
Amida sects, but for the less philosophical members of these
sects it has lapsed into obsolescence. The pious but not pro-
foundly educated follower of Honen or Shinran, or Ryonin
or Ippen, believes in a "soul" of much the same indefinite
sort as does the pious Christian. The fate of this soul in the
future life is left rather vague. Transmigration for those
who have not attained to pure faith in Amida is accepted,
quite as a matter of course, by all these sects. They also be-
lieve in the "Western Paradise," the "Pure Land," where
Amida dwells and where he will receive the souls of those
who trust in him and claim the merit of his vow by the
repetition, with pure faith, of His holy name. Shinran
speaks also of a "Temporal Paradise" 22 for those not suffi-
ciently advanced in the life of the spirit for the Pure Land.
For many a pious member of Jodo or of Shin, Amida's
glorious heaven is the final term of the imagined future.
Yet for the more earnest souls, for those members of Jodo
and Shin who have become most saturated with the spirit of
21 Coates and Ishizuka, p. 45.
"Few are the believers that shall be born into the Land that is promised [i.c., the
Pure Land], but many are they that shall be born into the Temporal Paradise," Yamabe
and Beck, Buddhist Psalms, pp. 75-76.
660
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the founders-and of the great Founder-those, in other
words, who are most like Amida himself, even the glories of
the Pure Land are but means to further insight and further
service rather than the final end of all striving. According
to Professor Suzuki, the intelligent Amidist yearns for the
Pure Land chiefly as a means for obtaining the same great
enlightenment which other sects seek here and now by the
more difficult path of self-strength (Jiriki). "The Pure
Land School in this respect shows no deviation from the main
current of Buddhist thought: indeed if it did it could not at
all go under the name of Buddhism. Enlightenment is the
one fundamental note that reverberates through all the
branches of the teaching of the Buddha." 23 The earnest
lover of Amida in fact longs not only for enlightenment
but also for endless opportunity to make use of this enlight-
enment, once gained in the Pure Land, for the salvation of
the sad and unenlightened beings who are still held in the
clutches of Samsara. Hence Shinran's doctrine of Genso-
yeko, which Professor Suzuki translates as "return and
transfer," the doctrine that after having attained enlighten-
ment one may, if one will, "come back to this life to dedicate
all one's merits toward the enlightenment of one's fellow
beings, sentient and non-sentient." 24
When [said Shinran] we shall have attained unto the faith and the
deeds of the Merciful Promise through our Father that is in all things
able to give them unto us, birth and death are henceforward as Nirvana.
And this is called the Gift of Departure. And when we shall have at-
tained unto that height which is desire for the ingathering of all beings
into Paradise, shall we return again into this world that we may be
Saviours of Men. And this is called the Gift of Returning.25
The question will very likely present itself to the reader's
mind, Who is it that returns to this world after enlighten-
ment in the Pure Land? and how is this notion of "return and
transfer" to be squared with the Anatta doctrine? Person-
ally I can of course only join in the reader's wonder. En-
lightenment in the Buddhist sense would seem to mean the
23 "The Development of the Pure Land Doctrine in Buddhism," Eastern Buddhist,
III (1925), 322.
2¹ Suzuki, op. cit., p. 323.
25 Buddhist Psalms, p. 49.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 661
destruction of the illusory limitations of personality, and the
merging of the individual into the Supreme. Shinran him-
self is quoted as saying: "He who is in all things supreme is
Himself Nirvana, and Nirvana is that true light that abideth
in the land that is to come.” 26
It is plain that the Amidist conception of the future life
is quite as lacking in lines of dogmatic precision as is the
Christian—a state of things that is probably to be desired.
"Eye hath not seen nor ear heard." The indefiniteness, in
fact, is carried farther by the Buddhists than I have indi-
cated. For the more philosophically minded, in both Jodo
and Shin, have long interpreted the Pure Land of Amida in
such philosophic and subjective terms as practically to deny
what the orthodox rank and file believe. As long ago as the
end of the fourteenth century Ryoyo Shogei, the Seventh
Patriarch of the Jodo sect,
insisted that the ordinary conception of the soul's being transported to
Paradise and born there was merely a figure of speech, the fact being that
neither Amida nor the sainted beings are to be conceived of as existing
over there at all, because the Pure Land is the ultimate and absolute
reality, and that is everywhere, so that we may be identified with it right.
here where we are. 27
This symbolic interpretation of the Pure Land is plainly
a case of the fundamental Tendai philosophy shining through
the pictorial garb in which Honen and Shinran had draped
it. And while the rank and file of the Amida sects cling to
their pleasant and picturesque mythology, a large number
of the clergy, including, I suppose, a majority of the pro-
fessors in their universities, take the more philosophical view.
I was told by learned monks in both these sects that for the
liberal Amidist, the Western Paradise is really not a place
but a state of mind and that the ultimate goal does not con-
sist in being born in a lotus in the Pure Land but in realizing
one's essential unity with the Buddha. These more liberal
thinkers, moreover, take Hozo and the various Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas in purely symbolic fashion, as mere myths to
help the childlike mind, while even Amida is, in their inter-
pretation, not a personal God but a name for the Bhutata-
Ibid., p. 37.
27
Coates and Ishizuka, pp. 56-57.
20
662
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
thata, the Ultimately Real. Such a view differs, of course,
in no respect from that of Tendai. There is, however, still
a slight difference in emphasis between liberal Shin and Jodo
thinkers and those of the older sects and of Zen. Jodo and
Shin, as I have said, make little of the Anatta doctrine and on
the whole believe in a kind of immortality which is rather
more personal than that of the other sects. But the differ-
ence is very slight. As one of the Shinshu professors said to
me, "In a sense the self is immortal. Still the self that is
immortal is the transcendental rather than the empirical ego;
and the immortality it is to enjoy is not personal in just the
Christian sense."
I should add that the advanced position of the liberals has
provoked a good deal of opposition from what might be
called the fundamentalist school of Jodo and especially of
Shin. Particularly in the Nishi (or Western) Hongwanji
has the division between liberals and conservatives been
marked and, at times, bitter. A few years ago one of the
professors in the Ryukoku university at Kyoto was dismissed
for teaching that the personal Amida and the Western Para-
dise were merely symbols. This is the only case I have come
upon in modern Buddhism of anything approximating a
prosecution for heresy. Of course it was not really that.
One can be a member of Shinshu or Jodo and even a priest
in these sects and give any kind of symbolic interpretation
one wishes to the formulations of Buddhist thought. But
since the distinctive thing within these sects, the justification
for their departure from the more philosophic sects and the
cause of their great hold upon the common people, is their
insistence upon salvation through faith in Amida and his
grace, it is but natural that they should object when their
official representatives, the professors in their endowed theo-
logical seminaries, teach that there is no personal and gracious
Amida to have faith in. Thus the problem for Buddhist
modernism is almost identical in nature with the problem of
Christian modernism. These Buddhist liberals are not only
philosophical but deeply religious men. They see the reli-
gious and emotional value of their ancient symbols, just as the
Christian liberal appreciates the value of the Christian
symbols. But if they are to be honest with themselves.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 663
they cannot give these symbols the old and literal interpre-
tation.
The difficulty goes deeper than at first appears. Ulti-
mately the whole question of God and the Absolute is in-
volved. The position of the philosophic Amidist, whose
religious emotions drive him toward Amida and whose phil-
osophical convictions bind him to the Tendai Bhutatathata
is very close to that depicted by Bradley in a noted essay:
"When you begin to worship the Absolute or the Universe
and make it the object of religion, you in fact have trans-
formed it. It has become something forthwith which is less
than the Universe." 28 And worship of some sort is of course
demanded by the religious consciousness. "The religious
consciousness must represent to itself the Good Will in its
relation with mine. It must express both our difference and
our unity." Yet if you seek to represent this object of wor-
ship, this Other than yourself, as something really other-as
for example personality—you raise for yourself difficulties
no less perplexing.
A God who has made this strange and glorious Nature outside of
which he remains, is an idea at best one-sided. Confined to this idea we
lose large realms of what is beautiful and sublime, and even for religion.
our conception of goodness suffers. Unless the Maker and Sustainer
becomes also the indwelling Life and Mind and the inspiring Love, how
much of the Universe is impoverished! . . . The so-called "pantheism"
which breathes through much of our poetry and art is no less vitally
implied in religious practice. Banish all that is meant by the indwelling
Spirit of God, in its harmony and discord with the finite soul, and what
death and desolation has taken the place of living religion! But how this
Spirit can be held consistently with the external individual Person, is a
problem which has defied solution. . . . For the reality of God means.
His own actual presence within individual souls, and apart from this
presence both he and they are no more than abstractions.29
I cite these passages from the great English thinker be-
cause they so well express the position not merely of the
Amidist but of the religious Mahayanist in general. And I
must remind the reader also of Bradley's rather desperate
solution: "From the above it follows that there is a funda-
28 On God and the Absolute," in Bradley's Essays on Truth and Reality (Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1914), p. 428.
20
Op. cit., pp. 432-33, 436-37.
664
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
mental inconsistency in religion." For on the one hand, it
demands that God be perfect and unlimited; yet on the other
it insists that he shall stand in relation to my will. The reader
may have his own way of getting out of this difficulty, but at
any rate it is well for him to realize that the difficulty is a
very real one and that it is felt to be insoluble by one of the
greatest of our contemporary Western thinkers, and by no
means the result of purely local or chance or arbitrary philo-
sophical conceptions or of oriental vagueness. Recognition
of this inherent difficulty will explain much of the inconsis-
tency within Mahayana philosophy, and many of its refusals
to be forced by the dictum of logical consistency into giving
up either its monism or its religious attitude toward the
Highest. There is a sense in which, for the religious Maha-
yanist of every sect, not only Amida but even the Dharma-
kaya is both God and the Absolute in one.
But while the Mahayana object of reverence or worship is
sufficiently distinguishable from the abstract One of phi-
losophy and sufficiently separable from the finite individual
to be regarded religiously, Mahayana thought seldom seri-
ously makes for itself the additional difficulty of conceiving
it in its ultimate nature as a Person. The latent perplexities
of the religious consciousness to which Bradley refers are thus
at least reduced to a minimum. And there can be no doubt
that, in spite of its great logical difficulties, the attempt to
conceive the Divine as at once spiritual and non-personal
possesses a certain perennial attraction. Many of the mystics
have felt it, and have even felt forced to it by the nature of
their mystical experiences.3 If we could still put full and
definite meaning into the term spiritual while stripping it of
the connotations that cling about the word personal, it might
well be a refuge for the religious soul who cannot and will
not accept naturalism as the last word concerning Real-
ity, and yet who finds it very difficult to interpret the
Divine under the limitations which the word personal al-
most necessarily implies. I do not think that this syn-
30
30
E.g., Mlle. Vé, whose experiences have been so thoroughly investigated by Prof.
Flournoy. She writes, on one occasion, concerning the Divine as experienced in her
progressive trances, "It is more vague and less personal than I had so far regarded the
Divine. It soars beyond good and evil." Flournoy, "Une Mystique Moderne," Archives
de Psychologie, XV. 71.
TY
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 665
thesis of the impersonal and the spiritual has yet been
found. But I am glad that Mahayana Buddhism is still
seeking it.
A partial solution of the problem, and an ancient one, is
of course to be had in the intelligent use of symbolism which
the Mahayana inherited from India. The many Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas and their relation to the fundamental positions
of the Tendai-Kegon philosophy are of course illustrative of
what I mean. They help to nourish the religious life with its
demand for something like a personal deity, while the intel-
lect is quieted with the thought that these beloved figures
may, when necessity demands it, be interpreted in terms of a
more abstract and monistic conception. The great doctrine
of the Trikaya 31 does the same thing even more successfully.
Thus the Buddhist is able, on the one hand, to have faith
without necessarily believing to be true,32 and yet, on the
other, his religion by no means evaporates into what I have
called subjective worship, or the mere attempt to produce
a desirable state of mind within oneself. For much that is
strictly objective is left, since the symbols are real symbols; 33
they are for the Mahayanist not mere pious names nor con-
scious appeals to the will to believe. It is his firm conviction
that they stand for absolute truths, quite regardless of pleas-
ant or unpleasant effects produced upon him by faith in
them.
-
It is quite in accord with this constant use of a very living
symbolism, this interchange of the symbol for the thing sym-
bolized, that Buddhism should be notably lacking in exact
definitions for its theological and philosophical terms, and
that it should have no one and exclusive name for the Divine.
There is nothing in Buddhist terminology to correspond to
the words God, Jehovah, Allah. Sometimes the Divine is re-
ferred to as Sunyata, sometimes as Bhutatathata; it is called
Chen Ru or the Dharmakaya or Shinnyo, or the Buddha Na-
ture that is within all. Buddhist thinkers and mystics would
understand very well Goethe's exhortation in Faust:
31 The three Bodies of the Buddha.
32 This distinction, as the reader will recall, I quote from Keyserling.
-
33 Cf. Stanton Coit's excellent treatment of the reality of symbolism in his National
Idealism and a State Church (London, Williams and Norgate, 1907), pp. 329-30.
666
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Erfühl davon dein Herz, so gross es ist,
Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefühle selig bist
Nenn es dann wie du willst.
Nenn's Glück, Herz, Liebe, Gott.
Ich habe keinen Namen
Dafür! Gefühl ist alles;
Nam' ist Schall und Rauch
Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth.
But while for the Buddhist the Divine is without dog-
matic definition and official name, it is (except for the naïve
Amidist) emphatically of the monistic rather than of the
theistic type. I use the word monistic rather than panthe-
istic, for pantheism usually has the connotation of interpret-
ing the Divine in terms of the world, and the major drift of
Mahayana (as of Hindu) thought is rather to interpret the
world in terms of the Divine. Such a view has as a conse-
quence not a belittling of God but an infinite enlarging of
the world. Buddhist descriptions of the world of time and
space, frankly symbolical of something greater than words
can express, are bewildering aggregations of infinite Buddha-
kshetras and of endless kotis of kalpas. When one turns from
these fantastically magnificent attempts to express infinite
duration and infinite extent, as symbols of timeless and abso-
lute Reality, to the latest descriptions of the universe given
by our Western naturalism,34 one experiences a sense of al-
GAR
31 Cf. the following from Bertrand Russell: "The physical world is large compared
with Man-larger than it was thought to be in Dante's time, but not so large as it
seemed a hundred years ago. Both upward and downward, both in the large and in the
small, science seems to be reaching limits. It is thought that the universe is of finite
extent in space, and that light could travel round it in a few hundred millions of years.
It is thought that matter consists of electrons and protons, which are of finite size,
and of which there are only a finite number in the world. Probably their changes are
not continuous, as used to be thought, but proceed by jerks, which are never smaller
than a certain minimum jerk. The laws of these changes can apparently be summed
up in a small number of very general principles, which determine the past and the
future of the world when any small section of its history is known. Physical science
is thus approaching the stage when it will be complete, and therefore uninteresting.
Given the laws governing the motions of electrons and protons, the rest is merely
geography-a collection of particular facts telling their distribution throughout some
portion of the world's history. The total number of facts of geography required to
determine the world's history is probably finite; theoretically, they could all be written
down in a big book to be kept at Somerset House, with a calculating machine attached,
which, by turning a handle, would enable the inquirer to find out the facts at other
times than those recorded. It is difficult to imagine anything less interesting, or more
different from the passionate delights of incomplete discovery. It is like climbing a
high mountain and finding nothing at the top except a restaurant where they sell
ginger-beer, surrounded by fog but equipped with wireless." From What I Believe,
(New York, Dutton, 1925), pp. 1-3.
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 667
most unendurable oppression, as though the roof of the world
were pressing upon one's head, and the world's walls were
squeezing out one's life. Bertrand Russell's universe seems
so shrunken one can hardly breathe. After reading about
our little up-to-date Western world, the dazzling imagery
of a Buddhist Sutra comes like a breath of fresh air or a vision
of the sea.
But I should remind the reader that there is a tendency
within Buddhism which may well, and at no distant date,
develop into a naturalism as narrow and mechanical as that
of the West. The contrast between the Tendai and the
Kegon is slight but it may prove to be fateful.35 The dis-
covery of Reality in this world of many changing things, if
it stop where Kegon stops, is indeed a healthful counterpoise
to the transcendence of Tendai; but the extension of this
concept by some Shingon and some Zen thinkers so as prac-
tically to deny any other point of view, offers a ready tool,
to those who would be thoroughly subservient to "modern
science," for stripping Buddhism of most of the spiritual
interpretations which the Mahayana has almost always given
to Reality. It is possible that our generation stands at the
parting of the ways between two forms of Buddhism which
will be immensely more antithetic than are any of the sects
of the Mahayana.
Ma
If this cleavage is to come about, however, it will mean
a distinct development within Mahayana philosophy, for,
with all its insistence that the water is to be found in the
waves and the One in the many, there can be no doubt that
Mahayana philosophy, as a whole, and especially so much
of it (and that means most of it) as takes its note from
Tendai thought, has always insisted that somehow or other
there is a spiritual unity back of the phenomenal many, and
in the last analysis has agreed with St. Paul that our citizen-
ship is in heaven.36 Nor is it merely the philosophers of the
G
85
35 A somewhat similar division may be traced within Western idealism. Just as
Gentile and his school corresponds to the Hosso philosophy, so Eucken, the Cairds,
Royce, and Hocking may be compared with the Tendai, and Bosanquet and Hoernlé
with Kegon. Bradley possibly should be classed with Bosanquet and Kegon, but in
some ways he is closer to Nagarjuna.
30
Not only Pauline theology but much of English poetry has a great deal in common
with Mahayana thought. Shelley's lines, for example-so often quoted that I hesitate
to remind the reader of them-are almost a technical expression of Tendai:
668
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Mahayana that hold this view. It is, I expect, primarily the
view of the Buddhist mystics. And when I refer to the mys-
tics of Buddhism I do not mean to refer merely to Zen
adepts. For every school of Buddhism has its mystics, and
all of them aim at that Prajna, that immediate religious in-
sight or intuition which brings one a feeling for the Whole
of things.
Western mystics often regard these flashes of insight as
special acts of the Divine, interferences, peculiar revelations
in which God is present as He is not elsewhere and at other
times. The Buddhist mystics seldom thus interpret their ex-
periences. For them the Divine is everywhere, though, of
course, more nearly realized, more perfectly revealed in some
states and some things than in others. Moments of ecstasy
and insight, therefore, do not mark any special nearness of
God to the soul; they are, in a sense, of psychological interest
only. They are not things that God specially does nor things
that happen to God. They are things that happen to the
individual or acts of apprehension on his part, momentary
glimpses of what is always there. And, I suppose, as the
Mahayana mystic, or the Christian mystic, progresses in his
spiritual career, he trusts less and less to these momentary
and peculiar experiences and more and more to finding God
always and everywhere. God does not change, but man's
realization becomes more constant.
In Buddhism this mystic trend seems to be related to the
Anatta doctrine. For, as the Abbot Soyen Shaku tells us,
the Prajna or intuition of Buddhist mysticism, feels cabined,
cribbed, confined by the limits of the separate self. "Tran-
scending the reciprocity of the 'I' and the 'not-I,' the Prajna
beholds the universe in its ultimate oneness and feels all forms
"The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity."
Or take Thomas Moore's familiar strain, which sounds to modern ears perhaps more
Buddhist than Christian:
"This world is all a fleeting show
For man's delusion given.
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,
There's nothing true but Heaven."
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 669
of life in essential sameness." 37 And (as the reader will re-
call) Christian deans as well as Buddhist abbots insist that the
separateness of the self must be broken down if the unity of
God and man is to be possible.38
to be possible.38 Intercourse is conceivable
on a basis of pluralism, with God and man presented as sepa-
rate selves; intercourse but hardly that participation, that
mutual interpenetration which many of the mystics, Chris-
tian as well as Buddhist, insist upon. The Johannine doctrine
that Christ is the vine (not the root or trunk but the whole
vine), and we the branches, is essentially one with the Maha-
yana doctrine that the Buddha nature is in all of us. Surely
for the mystics of both religions, the Eternal Buddha and the
Eternal Christ have much in common. The words attributed
to Christ in the fragment of an unknown gospel recently
discovered in Egypt might well have been put into the mouth
of the Buddha in some ancient Mahayana Sutra: "Lift the
stone and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there
am I."
This conception of the Buddha nature in all things is the
central thought of the Mahayana. All things share this na-
ture, though not all equally manifest it. Through some it
shines directly, in others it is, to our dim eyes, nearly ob-
scured. Yet in reality it penetrates all things, from the little
flowers and the graceful bamboo and the great cryptomeria,
from haunts even of vice and crime, up through all grades
of animals, men, and kami, to the Bodhisattvas and the great
Buddhas. This is the Buddhist way of putting it; but very
nearly the same thought has been expressed by the greatest
of Christendom's religious poets, in the first canto of the
Paradiso:
La gloria di Colui che tutto muove
Per l'universo penetra, e risplende
In una parte più, e meno altrove.
Each of the Mahayana sects has sought to express and to
realize this thought in its own way: Jodo and Shinshu
through their loving faith in Amida, by whose grace we shall
all some day realize the unity of our souls in the One; Tendai
37
Soyen Shaku, Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot, p. 137.
88 Cf. Inge, Personal Idealism and Mysticism, Chap. IV, p. 144.
670
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and Kegon and their daughter schools in their emphasis upon
the identity of all things in the Dharmakaya; Zen with its
persistent faith that potentially there is within each of us an
eye amid the blind
That dumb and silent readst the Eternal Deep,
Forever haunted by the Eternal Mind.
The expressions of these various Buddhist sects and others
like them are different and crooked ways leading to the one
insight which views all beings as broken lights of the Central
Fire; they are human symbols of the Unseen, fanciful efforts
to express the Unexpressible; in words varying, perhaps con-
tradictory, but one in essential conviction.
Are they mistaken? Is their conviction an illusion? Or
is there really some truth hidden here, dimly adumbrated
by the thinkers and mystics of the many religions? Ah, if
we only knew! Most of us I believe find in our hearts a
responsive echo when the great mystic note, telling of cosmic
harmony and oneness, is sounded. On the other hand, for
many of us, the intellectual formulations of the mystic and
the monistic creeds thus far presented seem logically unper-
suasive if not actually untenable. Pluralism, also, and per-
sonalism have not only much of logic on their sides but make
their own great moral appeal. Both the monistic and the
pluralistic views have behind them a long and noble tradition
of great names. Pity that either should be wholly false! I
wonder, sometimes, may both somehow be true? May Aris-
totle at last be reconciled with Plato, or (what is more diffi-
cult and more to the point) may he be reconciled with the
Upanishads and with the Mahayana? May we some day open
our eyes to an Hegelian synthesis in which all that was true
in both the monistic and the pluralistic traditions is pre-
served?
-
-
R
As yet I, at any rate, know of no such synthesis. All the
formulations of the monistic view-including all those which
the Mahayana has given us—seem to me, logically considered,
quite unsatisfactory. And yet the Mahayana has for me a
compelling power over the attention and a growing appeal to
my incipient "cosmic sense." I do not see how it can be true.
¦
POSITIONS OF NICHIREN AND AMIDA SECTS 671
And yet I continue asking myself, May it not be that, in
Plato's words, at least, "something like it is true"; that in
some deep sense, in some sense that is more than tautology
and that is intensely significant, we all do share the Buddha
nature?
CHAPTER XXXII
A REVIEW OF THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM
A PICTURE of the Buddhism of our day such as this book
has sought to draw would be manifestly incomplete without
some attempt to bring together the facts as to the relative
strength and weakness of the religion in different lands and
to give a general review of its status throughout the Buddhist
world. To attempt this in really thorough-going fashion
would be a gigantic undertaking for which I am quite un-
equipped; but even the general and superficial impressions
which I have been able to gather may be of some value-the
more so, perhaps, because none of those much better equipped
than I have had the temerity to present a general bird's-eye
view of the entire Hinayana and Mahayana world such as I
am going to try to present in this chapter. My only excuse
for rushing in as a fool where angels fear to tread is exactly
because angels do fear to tread where we should all like to
have them lead us. Moreover, the fact that I have studied
superficially but with sympathy all the non-Lamaist lands
of Buddhism and have specialized minutely in none may give
me a certain dispassionate advantage for such a bird's-eye
view. Without further apologies, therefore, we shall plunge
into the problem, beginning our survey with the Hinayana
lands of southern and southeastern Asia.
Southern Buddhism, as a whole-the Buddhism of Cey-
lon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodia-seems to be in fairly
healthy condition. It feels of course, as does every religion
of our day, the effects of the two great drifts of contem-
porary thought, the distrust of authority and the growth of
naturalism. I should add at once, however, that Hinayana
Buddhism has perhaps less to fear through these two tenden-
cies than any of its rivals; for in its pure form it has never
leaned as heavily as most religions do upon authority, and
it has always been characterized by a certain hard-headed-
<
672
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 673
ness of which its atheism is an effect rather than a cause,
and by means of which it has been enabled to look with con-
siderable equanimity upon the advance of naturalism.
William James, in a famous passage, once divided all thinkers
and all philosophies into two classes which he called the
"tender-minded" and the "tough-minded." On such a
classification Southern Buddhism, as I have indicated, would
fall under the tough-minded class. From its origin on, it has
been pretty consistently both hard-headed and soft-hearted.
This rather unusual and very useful combination was par-
ticularly characteristic of the Founder and constituted per-
haps the chief secret of his overwhelming success; and the
direction he gave to the movement has never been lost by
the Hinayana. No other Founder of a religion ever made
so constant and steady an appeal to the cold intellect; no
other ever tried to be so thoroughly scientific; and the re-
sults of his sowing are being reaped today in this age of
scientific and deliberate attack upon authority and upon the
will-to-believe. Not that Southern Buddhism can afford to
be altogether complacent in the face of an ambitious and
militant naturalism. There are positions essential to its life
the retention of which is not compatible with the extreme
claims of a naturalistic philosophy. As a consequence, even
Southern Buddhism is suffering to some extent from the
naturalism and agnosticism of the times. But, as it has few
weak outlying positions for the enemy to attack, it has as
yet suffered less than any of the other great religions from
this source; and it is, as I have said, in a fairly healthy
condition.
Against the attacks of Christian missionaries it has not
been so well intrenched. Especially among the more igno-
rant portion of the Ceylonese have the gains of Christianity
and the losses of Buddhism been considerable. Christian
missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, seeing the great
lack of educational facilities in Ceylon, have made excellent
use of the opportunity thus offered, and have gained many
converts among the children in the mission schools. No such
opportunity was offered in Burma, for, as we have seen, most
Burmese boys get their education in the monasteries. Yet
even here Christian missions have met with considerable
674
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
success. The new feeling of nationalism that has begun to
make itself felt in Burma and Ceylon, the distrust for
Europe, its culture and its religion which the Great War
inspired, and the general dislike of Western institutions
which is so manifest over all the East today, appear to have
given a set-back to Christian propaganda and to have lent
new life to Buddhism. These wide and deep-going move-
ments have much more to do with the Buddhist revival than
have the many little societies with long names and ambitious
lists of purposes, the Congresses and resolutions and ephem-
eral periodicals, which are merely the foam on the crest of
the advancing wave.
The most important and business-like organization in
the Buddhist revival is the Maha Bodhi Society, to which
reference was made in Chapter VII. This has done a good
deal for religious education in Ceylon, but it is most inter-
ested in propagating Buddhism abroad. In this effort it has
joined hands with a group of Germans who in 1912 organ-
ized in Halle-am-Saale a "Bund für Buddhistisches Leben,"
which in 1921 united with a German branch of the Maha
Bodhi Society.¹
The aim of the Maha Bodhi Society is to bring Buddhism
into the personal lives of its members and to introduce it to
their friends. The Bund publishes two periodicals, the
Zeitschrift für Buddhismus and the Pfad, the first learned,
the second popular. It also publishes an occasional book and
arranges for lectures on Buddhism and kindred topics. There.
are at least two other Buddhist periodicals in Germany car-
ried on largely for propaganda as well as for scholarly pur-
poses: namely, the Neu-Buddhistische Zeitschrift, published
by Paul Dahlke, and the Buddhistisches Weltspiegel, pub-
lished by G. Grimm. The Maha Bodhi Society, under the
leadership of its founder and head, Mr. Dharmapala, has re-
cently started a branch in London, where it has bought a
house as headquarters 2 and is issuing a periodical, the British
Buddhist. Branches of the society have recently been
3
1 See the Pfad for Feb., 1926.
2
In June, 1926. It is also raising funds to build a vihara which is to cost R 100,000,
about a quarter of which had been raised in March, 1928.
3
Another Buddhist periodical has recently been started in London, called Buddhism
in England, and published by the Buddhist Lodge of the Theosophical Society.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 675
founded in Denmark and in New York City; while a Bud-
dhist academy is to be opened in Leningrad.
Ever since its foundation in 1891 the principal object of
the Maha Bodhi Society seems to have been to rescue the
great pagoda at Buddh Gaya, where the Buddha attained
supreme wisdom, from the hands of the local Hindu Mohunt.
Buddhist societies in various parts of Ceylon and Burma have
joined with the Maha Bodhi for years in protest, and as the
viceroy's government naturally refused to interfere, the
matter was at length taken up by the All India Congress.
After hearing both sides, the congress ruled that the shrine
should hereafter be controlled by a committee of ten, five to
be Buddhists and five Hindus. This seemed to many clear-
headed Indians a most just and satisfactory solution; * but
most of the Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma, Nepal and Madras
at all interested in the question were —and, I judge, still are
-quite unsatisfied. A Buddhist "Mission House" is being
erected near the pagoda.
4
5
Another aim of the Maha Bodhi is to found a vihara and
at length a Buddhist university at Sarnath, where the Buddha
delivered his first sermon. The government has donated the
necessary land and the plans are drawn. The estimated cost
is 130,000 rupees. Mrs. Mary E. Foster of Honolulu gave,
several years ago, 30,000 rupees toward this amount, and the
Maha Bodhi has been soliciting funds ever since among
"the
Buddhists of Japan, Burma, Ceylon, Siam, China, Tibet,
Chittagong, Arakan, Cambodia, Nepal, Korea, Manchuria
and Sikkim" for the remainder. In March, 1928, it had
raised 13,989 rupees-totaling, therefore, 43,989. The
vihara has already been begun, and it is hoped that the build-
ing will at least keep pace with the collection of funds.
7
There are still a few Buddhists in various parts of India."
In Bombay a "Buddha Society" was founded in 1922 (most
or all of its members, however, being Buddhists only in the
sense of having a scholarly and human interest in the reli-
Getti
-
See the Indian Social Reformer for March 13, 1926.
6 See the protests in the Maha Bodhi for April-May, 1926.
I quote from the Maha Bodhi appeal, published every month in its magazine.
7
In addition to the remnants of Indian Buddhism mentioned in this paragraph,
there is a degenerate form of Buddhism in some of the villages of Bengal and Orissa.
See Dutt's Early Buddhist Monarchism, p. 2, with references there given.
676
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
8
gion); it conducts fortnightly lectures and has voted to start
a Buddhist Journal, and is raising money to build a vihara.
In Kerala, a district of southern India, a considerable num-
ber of Buddhists have built a temple and formed a Buddhist
Association with headquarters at Calicut." They had been
stirred up, it seems, by itinerant Ceylonese monks and have
asked the Ceylonese Buddhists to send them more monks to
aid in a revival of their religion.10 They have also initiated
a movement to put an end to animal sacrifice by the
Hindus.¹¹ A more effective step toward evangelizing India
was the opening of a vihara in Calcutta in November, 1920,
the first thoroughly Buddhist vihara on Indian soil for per-
haps six or seven hundred years. With this solid possession
in the hands of the Buddhists, the invasion of India may be
said to have begun.
For nothing less than the winning back of India to Bud-
dhism is the ambition of the more zealous and energetic
members of the Maha Bodhi and of the various other mis-
sionary societies. It is perhaps unfortunate that so much
of their time and energy should have been spent in passing
resolutions and protests concerning the possession of the
shrine at Buddh Gaya. It would seem that the sending of
missionaries to India would be more to the point. But at any
rate this vihara in Calcutta, with the editorial office of the
8 Buddhist Annual of Ceylon for 1923, and Maha Bodhi for Sept., 1927.
• The Maha Bodhi for Feb., 1925.
10
Concerning these Buddhists, the editor of the Indian Social Reformer of Bombay
has kindly given me the following information. "The association was formed in
Kerala, comprising British Malabar and the Native States of Cochin and Travancore,
some eight years ago with its headquarters at Calicut. The idea of starting the Associa-
tion was inspired by lectures on and exposition of Buddhism by itinerant Buddhist
monks from Ceylon, who were invited to Malabar by a band of young men interested
in the religion. Even at the present day it is not unusual for monks during their
frequent sojourn there to convert people to Buddhism. There are said to be about
3,000 converts to Buddhism in Kerala. The President of the Association is Mr. C.
Krishnan, High Court Vakil and editor of the Mitavadi, a vernacular journal. Mr.
Manjeri Rama Iyer, a leading High Court Vakil of Calicut and Secretary of the
Theosophical Society in Kerala, renders to the Association much valuable help. The
members of the Association are mostly people of the locality belonging to the Thiyya
community. This is accounted for by the general belief that the Thiyyas were origi-
nally Buddhists who embraced Hinduism on their migration from Ceylon to India.
The members also take up social work such as the removal of untouchability, weaning
the people from superstitious beliefs and customs by education, improving the position
of women, etc., as part of their religious propaganda.
Indian Social Reformer for Jan. 15, 1927. This movement in Calicut is in part
a protest by non-Brahmins against caste and privilege-so at least thinks a writer in
The Maha Bodhi for July, 1927.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 677
Maha Bodhi magazine close by, is a real beginning; 12 and
the plan to build a vihara at Sarnath where Buddhist monks
shall live, and to make it the kernel of a Buddhist university
seems wise and promising.
It is the hope of these sanguine Buddhists (whose courage
is surely admirable) that through the instructions to be given
at their future Sarnath University, and through the Buddhist
books which the university staff will translate into the ver-
nacular of India, many of India's millions may be won back
to the faith of the great Indian Teacher. It does not seem
probable that our generation will see any large effect pro-
duced upon India's millions. Yet in the history of religions.
a few centuries are a very little thing, and what may be the
result of a persistent movement by devoted Buddhist mis-
sionaries in the course of say five hundred years it is quite
impossible to predict. One may argue it either way. One
might insist that Buddhism, being native to India, should
make a strong appeal to Indians and rapid progress among
them if once rightly presented. On the other hand, one
might point out that Buddhism once had a large part of
India at its feet and then lost it all, thus showing its inability
to satisfy permanently the Indian nature. To this the Bud-
dhists will unanimously reply with their oft-repeated expla-
nation of the death of Buddhism in India-namely, that their
religion did not die a natural death but was assassinated-
murdered by the sword of Islam. Those of us who cannot
be satisfied with this simple and easy explanation of the ex-
pulsion of Buddhism from India will probably venture no
prediction as to the success of the proposed missionary ven-
ture, but will merely wish that from the heights of Para-
nirvana we might be permitted, some five hundred years
hence, to observe the issue. But whatever the success of the
enterprise in India, there can be no doubt that if it be
earnestly pursued its effect upon the Buddhism of Ceylon
and Burma will be most salutary. The influence of the
Christian missionary enterprise upon the Christianity of the
home lands leaves no doubt upon this matter. In this con-
-
-
(B)
12
A second Buddhist periodical in India is being projected,-this by the Nepalese
Buddhist Mission. It is to be called Buddhist India and is to be published in Calcutta.
(The Young East for Dec., 1926.) A Buddhist quarterly called Buddhist India was
started in Calcutta in 1927.
678
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
nection it is interesting to learn that at a meeting of Cey-
lonese Buddhists in January, 1928, it was decided to send
four monks as missionaries to the Malay States, and (at a
meeting in March) to send three to London.
The condition of things in Siam and Cambodia is in some
ways quite different from that which one finds in Ceylon
and Burma. The form of Buddhism of all four lands is in
essentials the same, but the fact that in Siam and Cambodia
Buddhism is the state religion makes a considerable difference.
The encouragement and support of the governments and
the éclat that comes from the favor of kings have made
things relatively easy for Buddhism in these lands and enabled
it to avoid some of the dangers that it has had to face in
Ceylon and Burma. Christian missions have made but slight
progress among Siamese Buddhists, their successes having been
scored chiefly among the ignorant animistic inhabitants of
northern Siam; while among Cambodian Buddhists Christian
missions have made practically no progress at all. This being
the situation, no need has been felt for special efforts at
propaganda such as one finds in Burma and Ceylon, and no
organizations such as the Y.M.B.A. or the Maha Bodhi Soci-
ety have been started or taken over. The Siamese and Cam-
bodians are pretty well content with things as they are. As
we have seen, most boys in Siam and practically all the boys
in Cambodia go for a time to the wats, or monasteries, and
there learn religion and manners and wear the yellow robe.
The government schools in Siam have regular religious in-
struction, which means instruction in Buddhism. This is not
true of Cambodia, for there Buddhism is not the state reli-
gion in the full sense, as it is in Siam. The government
schools of Cambodia are under the French, and no religion
of any sort is taught in them. As about one hundred per
cent of the boys in Cambodia, however, go also for a time
to the wats, to be trained by the monks, there is as yet no
noticeable loss to Buddhism from the new educational sys-
tem. I should add, moreover, that the French Government
is rather friendly to Buddhism and in 1915 founded a college
at Pnom Penh, l'École des Hautes Études Pali, largely for the
higher education of Buddhist monks. Promising young
monks are here taught Pali and Buddhist philosophy. The
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 679
French authorities are also encouraging the publication of a
monthly in the Cambodian language devoted to Buddhistic
studies.
There is one problem of tendency for Cambodia and Siam
which does not exist for Ceylon and Burma. Chinese from
Kwangtung and Fukien are landing by thousands every year
in Saigon and Bangkok and spreading over all the towns and
into the agricultural districts. Two shiploads of Chinese
coolies are sent every week to Bangkok from Swatow alone,
each load aggregating from three hundred to fifteen hundred.
Some of these, of course, return to China, but many of them
remain. On the streets of Bangkok it often seems as if all the
shops were kept by Chinese, and the situation is somewhat
the same in Pnom Penh. These incoming Chinese, of course,
so far as they are Buddhists at all, belong to the northern or
Mahayana branch, and they bring their religion with them.
In both Siam and Cambodia, therefore, one finds Buddhist
temples of the Chinese sort, and the Mahayana is beginning
to spread in this biological fashion within these two Hina-
yana lands. Many of the incoming Chinese are not Bud-
dhists in any sense, and what religion they have consists in
the cult of their ancestors and of a few of the Chinese gods.
m
The influx of so large a number of Mahayana and of
non-Buddhist immigrants cannot fail to have its great influ-
ence on the future religion of both Siam and Cambodia. A
hundred years from now these countries will be largely
Chinese. In Cambodia, moreover, there is a considerable
admixture of Annamese, who, like the Chinese, either are
Mahayanists or have no Buddhism at all. The problem is
complicated by the mixture of the races. The Chinese and
Annamese intermarry readily with both Siamese and Cam-
bodians, and the population of the cities is already becoming
very mixed. What will be the religion of this mixed race?
In the case of mixed marriages, what is the religion of the
children? These are questions of great significance for the
future of Southern Buddhism, and I wish I knew how they
should be answered. Such meager information as I have
been able to obtain is to the following effect: There are rela-
tively few marriages between Southern Buddhists and non-
Buddhists, but many between Southern Buddhists and Chi-
C
K
680
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
nese or Annamese Buddhists. There are many marriages
between Chinese men (provided they be Buddhists) and
Siamese or Cambodian girls; but relatively few between
Chinese girls and men of another race. Thus in the great
majority of mixed marriages the husband and father is a
Chinese Buddhist, the wife and mother a Southern Bud-
dhist. The daughters of such marriages almost always grow
up in their mother's religion. With the sons there is no such
regularity. If the father is fervent in his religion the boys
will be brought up in the Mahayana faith. The father, how-
ever, is seldom fervent. His religious interest is satisfied
when the ancestral tablets have been duly revered, and the
rest he leaves to the mother. She is much more likely to be
religious than her husband, and so will often influence her
sons toward the Hinayana form of Buddhism. In Siam the
Hinayana has the further advantage that the boys are sure
to be taught its principles when they go to school. The ten-
dency varies according to the locality. In the fishing villages
along the coast of southern Siam the tendency is strongly
Mahayana, while in Bangkok it is as strongly Hinayana.
In general one may say that at present the mixed race which
is forming in Siam and Cambodia tends to be Hinayanist
rather than Mahayanist, but that it would be dangerous to
predict what will be the situation in a few years, particularly
in Cambodia where education is beginning to pass out of
Buddhist hands. But one must remember the fact that both
Siamese and Cambodians are very ardent Hinayanists, while
the Chinese and Annamese representatives of the Mahayana
are not ardent at all on matters religious, a fact that cannot
fail to have its influence.
GARAN
When we pass from Cambodia into Cochin-China, An-
nam, and Tonquin, we come upon a marked change. For we
have here passed the line between the Hinayana and the
Mahayana. As I pointed out in a previous chapter, the line
is extraordinarily sharp, coinciding as it does with the racial
and linguistic boundary between the Khmers and the Anna-
mese. I doubt whether there be another boundary line in
the world the two sides of which are so sharply contrasted
in matters of religion. Not only in content is the Hinayana
of Cambodia strikingly different from the Mahayana of the
A
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 681
Annamese states; the two religions are equally contrasted
in fervor. In Cambodia every one is a Buddhist, the land is
covered with temples, and the road yellow with bonzes.
You cross the border and never a bonze and hardly a temple
can you find. In the city of Saigon so far as I could dis-
cover-either by my own search or by questioning the in-
habitants-there is not a single Buddhist temple, nor a single
Buddhist monk. There is indeed a large Chinese temple in
the city, which has a tiny image of Kwan-Yin on a subor-
dinate altar; but the deities occupying the central altars, and
to whom all the worship is given, are Chinese gods which
have no relation to the Buddhist cycle. In the suburbs of
the city there is a rude Annamese Buddhist temple closed
most of the time and typical in this respect of the Buddhism
which extends all the way up the coast from Saigon to
Canton. The truth is, Buddhism in French Indo-China out-
side of the Hinayana belt is in an exceedingly moribund
condition. The people are getting on without any religion.
The influence of the French has been what the influence of
Westerners usually is upon the peoples of the Orient-dis-
tinctly anti-religious. Annamese Buddhism had little enough
life when the Europeans arrived: their arrival seems to have
given it the coup de grâce.
And so in our geographical survey of the Buddhist world
we come to China! And what shall we say of it? The Bud-
dhism of China is like many other things in this vast land;
any statement one makes about it may easily be proved true,
and as easily proved false. One may cite chapter and verse,
so to speak, and exhibit specific instances to prove almost
anything. The first impression a stranger gets of Chinese
Buddhism is that there is very little of it. One soon learns
that it is almost vain to search for a Buddhist outside of the
monasteries; and on visiting the monasteries one finds that it
is almost equally vain to search for a Buddhist inside them.
In a sense, of course, almost all Chinese are Buddhists—in the
sense, namely, that some members of each family occasion-
ally burn incense in a Buddhist temple and that a monk may
be called upon to help out at a funeral. All have heard of
the Fos and the P'usas and nearly all in some sense "believe"
in them. If the word Buddhist however be taken to imply
682
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
any real knowledge of Buddhism, then the number of Bud-
dhists in China would seem to be exceedingly small. To
many of those, moreover, who know most about the subject
Buddhism is rather an interesting philosophy than a living
faith. The situation reminds one somewhat of a famous
remark made by Oliver Wendell Holmes in reviewing a book
which he had found full of inaccuracies and platitudes: "This
book," he said, "contains much that is new and much that
is true; but the new isn't true and the true isn't new." So
one might say that in China there are many who believe in
Buddhism and a few who understand it; but those who be-
lieve in it don't understand it and those who understand it
don't believe in it.
Such a statement, however, like most general statements,
would be far too sweeping to be true. Those to whom Bud-
dhism means most do not reveal themselves to the casual
stranger; and first impressions are particularly likely to be
misleading in China. The land, moreover, is so enormous
that it would be difficult to make any statement which would
hold of it all. To approximate the truth, therefore, one must
make distinctions.
MAD
If we begin with the Tonquin border we shall find Bud-
dhism in much the same moribund condition that we dis-
covered in Tonquin and Annam. In the city of Canton it
is difficult to discover any traces of Buddhism. All the tem-
ples have been taken over by Dr. Sun and his followers; a
few have been left to the monks, while the majority have
been sold or given up to the military. The principal temple
of the town, the Wa Lum Ssu, is in a state of dirt and decay
remarkable even for China. Its central shrine is closed, the
place is in the hands of caretakers, no monks are visible, and
the former dormitory and main court are now used for bar-
racks. There is hardly a monk left in Canton. This may in
part be owing to the continued state of war from which
Canton so long suffered. Yet I am not sure that it is, and I
have no reason to think that many monks will troop back
on the conclusion of a secure peace. But one must not judge
Cantonese Buddhism wholly by its temples. Many Canton-
ese women, I am told, worship Kwan-Yin in their homes.
There are, moreover, several large monasteries in the country
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 683
districts. In its monastic life Kwangtung is not notably be-
hind other provinces; but this is hardly representative of the
religious life of the people. In some of the villages, I am
told, are still to be found lay Buddhist societies or vegetarian
societies, as they are sometimes called. They are rare today
but those that exist seem to have retained a rather high and
admirable type of Buddhism. The societies are so rare, how-
ever, and their membership so limited that they do not
greatly influence the general level of Buddhism in the south.
P
As we travel northward the signs of vitality in Buddhism
gradually increase. At Swatow there is a Buddhist temple of
no great size, but crowds of Buddhists worship in it and with
a fervor that I have never seen surpassed in China. Foochow
is a Buddhist center of importance and some of the largest
and most flourishing monasteries in China are in its vicinity.
But the center of living Buddhism in China is the lower
Yangtse Valley-say from Kiukiang down. At Kiukiang
itself, to be sure, the religion seems to be in a far from healthy
condition. Its one large temple, possessing a most attractive
pagoda visible for miles up and down the river, is ill-kept,
some of its buildings, including the pagoda, lapsing into quiet
decay. A few monks are left and an occasional worshiper
bows before the trio of Buddhas in the main sanctuary, or
hires the monks to chant and burn incense for the soul of
some departed relative. But there are few signs in the temple
of very active faith. On the edges of the town there are two
or three small Buddhist shrines, all of them dilapidated in
appearance, largely deserted, and speaking chiefly of the
past. Farther up the river, in the cluster of cities at the
mouth of the Han, the religion appears to be in much health-
ier condition; for, as we have seen, Hankow and Wuchang
form almost the center of the Buddhist revival, while on the
outskirts of both Wuchang and Hanyang there are large and
flourishing Buddhist monasteries.
As one goes farther up the Yangtse and its tributaries,
the force of Buddhism as a living and influential religion
gradually declines. In the province of Hunan it retains a
certain amount of strength but most of this is confined to
isolated monasteries in the country districts. There are two
Buddhist temples on the outskirts of the city of Changsha
684
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
that seem really alive. One of these is particularly worth
noting. It is rebuilding some of its shrines at considerable
expense, all its buildings and courts are kept up in excellent
fashion, the monks appear to be earnest and reverend men,
and the whole place has an unmistakably religious atmos-
phere. Nothing of this sort is to be found within the city.
Changsha is undoubtedly a religious place in one sense. Its
streets are full of little shrines in which incense and paper
money are burned. But these shrines are not Buddhist; the
kind of religion which they cater to is of the purely super-
stitious sort, and the few Buddhist temples one does find are
ill-kept and largely deserted.
The number and the condition of Buddhist temples, of
course, must not be taken as an absolute criterion of the con-
dition of Buddhism in Changsha, or elsewhere. The most
intelligent Buddhist laymen often keep conscientiously-and
contemptuously-away from the temples. Yet it is hard to
believe that among the uneducated masses Buddhism can be
very strong in a city where its temples are almost universally
allowed to revert either to dust and solitude, or to purely
non-religious uses.
C
On the upper Yangtse, in Western Hupeh, and in most
of Szechuen, one finds but few sparks of real life in Bud-
dhism. There are notable exceptions to this general state-
All the region about Mount Omei is devotedly Bud-
dhist, and on the sacred mountain (as even the professional
foes of Buddhism acknowledge) there are many devout, in-
telligent, and truly religious monks. Nor is Mount Omei the
only Buddhist center. Scattered in various parts of this large
region there are monasteries and sacred places to which thou-
sands of pilgrims annually troop. In both Chungking and
Chengtu, moreover, as we have seen, pronounced efforts at
an intelligent revival of Buddhism are being made which are
at present meeting with some success. In spite of all this, it
is still true that the general impression one gets from most
parts of this region is that one is witnessing the last gasps of
à dying religion. In the city of Ichang there is not a single
Buddhist temple of any size or influence. On the hills about
it there are many isolated monasteries, a few in fair condition,
most of them in an advanced state of decay, many of them
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 685
quite deserted. The same story is continued as one follows
the river up-stream, through the Gorges, to Chungking.
One passes, to be sure, a really impressive series of temples,
large and small, perched upon cliffs, hidden away in ravines,
or nestling up against small cities. But on investigation it
transpires that less than half are or ever were Buddhist, and
many more than eighty per cent of these have been deserted
by the monks and given up to schools, factories, storehouses,
or (most commonly) to the military. In Wusung, for ex-
ample, there are five large temples, all of them in ruins—not
only deserted by the monks but largely demolished; and
what is left of them is used by the soldiers. It is a rather sad
commentary on the present age in China to find so many
temples originally built in honor of the great Indian pacifist,
made over into armories and barracks. One large temple
that we passed is now the headquarters of a troop of ban-
dits—no longer a house of worshipers but a den of thieves.
In and all about Chungking things continue to be almost
as bad. There are indeed two large Buddhist temples in the
city with no admixture of Taoist images and with fairly de-
vout and even active monks. Except for these, most Bud-
dhist temples of the region are in a deplorable condition.
There is hardly one which has not as many Taoist as Buddhist
images; nearly all of them are deserted and filthy; and a very
large percentage have been quite handed over to non-religious
uses—one, I remember, made into a place for the sorting of
pigs' bristles, another (dedicated to Kwan-Yin!) used as a
military storehouse for the drying of hams.
In Cheng-tu, I am told, Buddhism is in rather better con-
dition than in Chungking. And even in the latter city there
is much more individual worship-especially of Kwan-Yin-
than the condition of the temples would indicate. Many
shops and homes have little private shrines, in some of which
are to be found images of Kwan-Yin and of Yo Wang P'usa,
with offerings of red cloth in token of answers to prayer.
Still I am assured by a number of men and women who have
lived for years in various parts of Szechuen that the influence
of Buddhism throughout the province is but slight.
But all this is changed when one goes down the river
below Kiu Kiang. Nanking, Soochow, Hangchow, Ningpo,
686
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and all the adjacent regions of Kiangsu and Chekiang are
filled with very living Buddhism. New temples are being
constructed, old ones repaired and pilgrimages carried on,
young monks are studying and old monks meditating,
throughout all this region.
The repair and cleanliness of the Chekiang temples and
the sharp contrast they afford to what one finds in many
other parts of China are surely significant. Both monks and
people seem to have a pride in the appearance of their tem-
ples which is an unmistakable sign of real interest in their
faith. Even in this region it is of course chiefly the women
who show any great degree of zeal, the men being more
interested in rice than in religion. They protect the temples
and reverence the Buddhas but do not bother them; in this
respect following out the admonitions of Confucius to revere
the spirits and avoid them. There are many men, however,
especially among the peasants in the agricultural districts,
who go on pilgrimages and worship in the temples with a
very real fervor. Particularly is the cult of Kwan-Yin a
living force, more especially in eastern Chekiang. Almost
every day in the year is a day of pilgrimage to her shrines at
the upper, middle, and lower "Monasteries of India" in the
mountains near Hangchow, and most of all to her chosen
home, the little island of P'uto. To the fishermen of the re-
gion she occupies much the same place the Madonna holds in
the hearts of the Sicilian sailors.
Buddhism, as I have said, has its flood-tide in the lower
Yangtse valley. As we travel northward from the river we
find the tide once more ebbing. In Shantung the dominant
religion is not Buddhism but Taoism. The leading temples
of the cities are Taoist, and many of the so-called Buddhist
temples which one does find have been invaded by Taoist
divinities who seem to receive quite as much of the incense
and of the worship as the Fos and the P'usas. There are a
few Buddhist monasteries in secluded spots, but many of
these are in a condition that is at least somnolent. In the lives
of the peasants in the country districts Buddhism is said to
play but a small part.
The process is continued in Chihli. How one should
characterize the Buddhism of Peking is hard to say. There
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 687
are many fine temples and monasteries in and around the
city, most of them are in a fair state of repair and some of
them in excellent condition. They are maintained by a large
number of monks. Most of the temples are open at all times
and the Fos and P'usas within cannot complain of dearth of
incense or lack of praise. On the other hand, the great ma-
jority of the monks are almost grotesquely ignorant, and
hardly any effort is made for the instruction of the laity.
One sees in Peking but little of the fervent worship so com-
mon in the lower Yangtse valley. Yet Buddhism here is in a
much more healthy condition than in the extreme south. In
the eastern part of the province, in fact, it seems to be enjoy-
ing a genuine revival. So much is this the case that for a
number of years Christian missions in that region have made
little or no progress. In the city of Ma Fang, for example,
there is said to be not a single Christian convert. And this
is due largely to the fervor of Buddhism-a fervor which has
shown itself in the recent renovation of a Buddhist temple
at the expense of upward of $100,000 gold, collected from
among the common people.
As one goes northward from Peking this fervor steadily
declines. In Manchuria, I am told, Buddhism is in a more
decrepit condition than in Chihli. Toward the edges of the
empire the ebbing tide grows even lower, rippling out in a
thin stream into Korea, and dying away amid the Lamaism,
Shamanism, and Animism of the north. The same story is
repeated toward the west. In Shansi one finds Buddhism in
much the same condition of decay that characterized
Kwangtung. Wutai Shan-one of the four sacred moun-
tains of Buddhism-of course forms a notable exception to
this, as does also, to a less extent, Mien Shan farther south.
These, however, are isolated spots and spread no great influ-
ence through the regions round them. In Taiyuanan Fu,
the capital and metropolis of Shansi, there is, so far as I could
discover, only one Buddhist temple and this is closed nearly
all the time, its influence on the people being almost nil. As
one travels southward over the great plain of Shansi one
finds constant repetition of the same story. Shin Ssu, the
largest monastery in the plain, exhibits a strange mixture of
Buddhism and Taoism. It has only five resident monks, and
C
688
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
most of its shrines are closed the greater part of the time, the
only one regularly kept open and the only one that seems
at all popular being Taoist. Farther south the large walled
city of Wen Shu possesses not a single Buddhist temple.
Formerly there was one here but it has recently been torn
down and a school built in its place. Fen Chow, a city of
70,000 inhabitants, has, so far as I was able to make out, but
one Buddhist temple and but one Buddhist monk. Once in a
while a monk from some distant monastery comes through
town and burns a little incense, but there are very few monks
in the region. P'ing Yao, a city some sixty li south of Fen
Chow, likewise possesses one Buddhist temple, but not a
single monk. The temple is in charge of a caretaker. A
Chinese boy whose home is in P'ing Yao told me that he
thought there were a few Buddhists in the city but he him-
self was not acquainted with any. In the smaller towns and
villages one finds Taoist temples but the Buddhist temples
have either been made into schools or are falling to pieces.
All over central Shansi, in short, Buddhist temples and the
Buddhist faith are quietly decaying. The most marked
architectural features of the region are the great bottle-
shaped tombs of former abbots, mute witnesses to the fervor
of the Buddhist faith in this region in a day long past. In
some places one can count a score of these great tombs. They
mark the graves of dead abbots; do they also mark the grave
of a dead religion?
M
Conditions in Shensi do not differ greatly from those in
Shansi. The capital, Si-an Fu, is something of an exception.
There are several Buddhist temples in the city and one good-
sized monastery with something over fifty monks; and many
of the laity make use of Buddhist monks at funerals. The
up-keep of the temples, in the city, however, is no sign of
popular religious interest, for in Shensi Buddhism gets its
financial support largely from one person, the devout and
liberal mother of a recent governor. In the country dis-
tricts, I am told, there is small sign of life in Buddhism,
except in the mountain range, where there are several fine
monasteries. Across the western border, in the distant prov-
ince of Kansu, Buddhism is at a very low ebb. Most of the
villages are either Mohammedan or "Chinese,” i.e., their tem-
་
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 689
ples have the usual array of deities who are in part Taoist and
in part belong to the ancient superstition of China. Rarely
does one come upon a Buddhist temple or a Buddhist monk,
and what Buddhism one finds (I am told) is usually of the
Lamaist or Mongolian type. Of Chinese (or Mahayana)
Buddhism there is very little except perhaps along the south-
ern border of the province, where the influence of Szechuan
is slightly felt. The great cave temple at Tun Huang, where
Stein found so many Buddhist manuscripts and whose walls
are adorned with wonderful Buddhist frescoes from the T'ang
dynasty, is now (and apparently has for years or centuries
been) in charge of a Taoist priest. Beyond Kansu and Sze-
chuan, to the north and west, Chinese Buddhism of course
disappears completely from view.
13
The gradual decay of Chinese Buddhism is no new thing.
It has been going on for years. In 1901 De Groot found
much the same situation.
As to the Buddhist abbeys [he wrote] their days seem numbered.
The hundreds of stately edifices with shining curved roofs standing out
elegantly against the sky, with lofty pagodas and ancient parks, which,
as books so profusely inform us, once studded the empire, picturesquely
breaking the monotony of the mountain slopes: buildings where the pious
sought salvation by thousands, thronging the broad Mahayana to eternal
bliss and perfection, and whither the laity flocked to receive initiation
into the commandments-these institutions can now at most be counted
by dozens. No crowds of sowers are sent out from there into the world
to scatter in all directions faith and piety; no religious councils or synods,
formerly attended by thousands, take place there now. Of many of
these buildings only the spacious temple halls exist, but the clergy who
crowded them to make their hymns resound, have all but a few disap-
peared. Nuns are a rarity. With the greater part of the convents reli-
gious wisdom has vanished. Theological studies belong to history: phi-
losophical works have wellnigh disappeared, and to collect a Tripitaka in
China has become an impossibility. Propagation of the doctrines of sal-
vation through preaching, which the Mahayana principles laid upon the
sons of Buddha as one of the highest duties, has long since ceased. In
short, from whatever point of view one considers the matter-conven-
tual life is at best a shadow of what it was in past centuries.¹4
S
13 I feel the more confident that I have not drawn too gloomy a picture of the
state of Buddhism in China by finding my own conclusions invariably indorsed by men
who are in a better position to judge than I. The larger part of this chapter, for
example, was embodied in a paper which I read before the Chinese Social and Political
Science Association in Peking, in 1924. In the discussion that followed a number of the
members who were intimately acquainted with conditions in various parts of China ex-
pressed opinions in substantial agreement with mine.
14 Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China, I. 132.
690
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
When the Chinese traveler Hiuen-Tsiang was in India,
toward the middle of the seventh century, he visited most of
the places which his predecessor, Fa-Hien, had seen two cen-
turies before. A comparison of the accounts given by the
two travelers is instructive. In the central part of Northern
India Buddhism had held its own in Hiuen-Tsiang's time,
and even increased the number of its monasteries. In sev-
eral of the outlying regions, however, a notable decline had
set in, and in some when Hiuen-Tsiang visited them it was
very nearly extinct. One who reads the descriptions given
by these two ancient Chinese travelers is inevitably reminded
of the present condition of Buddhism in their own land.15
One recalls how, after Hiuen-Tsiang's time, the Buddhist tide
in India, already on the ebb, steadily receded from all the
outlying regions toward the center and there at length com-
pletely died away. Is history repeating itself in China? Is
Buddhism gradually retreating to the Yangtse valley? If
so, what will be the next step after that? . . . Matthew
Arnold's lines on Dover Beach ring through one's head:
The Sea of Faith
Was once too at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright garment furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy long withdrawing roar,
Retreating to the breath of the night wind,
Down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
As to whether Chinese Buddhism is destined to repeat
the story of Indian Buddhism I refuse to make any predic-
tion. And lest I leave too gloomy a picture I should remind
the reader of the one brighter side of the present situation:
one must not forget that there is a new force astir in the
heart of Buddhism, the so-called Buddhist revival.
An entire chapter has, however, already been devoted to
this subject, so I shall say no more of it here. If Chinese
15 And not only by the decrease in the number of temples and monks but also
by the attitude of the clergy. The following description, for example, of the monks
of northwestern India in 635 by Hiuen-Tsiang will sound strangely familiar to one
acquainted with the monks of China today: "They practice the duty of quiet medita-
tion and have pleasure in reciting texts relating to this subject; but they have no great
understanding of them." (Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, p. 120).
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 691
Buddhism could produce many men like Tai Hsu and some
of the other leaders of the revival, there would be consider-
able hope of the success of the movement.
One may well raise the question, however, What can
this little band do among nearly 400,000,000? Especially
unpromising does the future of Chinese Buddhism appear
because of its almost complete lack of anything that could
properly be called religious education. China has no monas-
tic schools like those of Burma, Siam, and Cambodia, and
almost no religious schools like those of Ceylon. The Chi-
nese boy and girl grow up with only such knowledge of
Buddhism as they can get from their parents or their fel-
lows; and this has to do almost exclusively with certain super-
ficial acts, such as kneeling, burning incense, and repeating a
few more or less meaningless syllables. The religious edu-
cation of the monks themselves usually extends only a little
beyond this. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising
that in many parts of China Christian missionaries, before
the present revolution began, made considerable conquests.
More serious are the losses Buddhism is suffering before the
advancing tide of naturalism. To this great body of students
seems to be tending. Not that they have altogether given.
up Buddhism thereby. They know little or nothing about
Buddhist philosophy, but, I am told, many of them have a
kind of tacit understanding in the back of their minds that
if they had a philosophy it would be a Buddhist philosophy.
But this is where their Buddhism begins and ends, and the
young men who in former days would have been leaders of
Buddhist thought are now almost totally ignorant of Bud-
dhism, and either quite agnostic on ultimate questions or
frankly adherents of a naturalistic philosophy which is al-
most as incompatible with Buddhism as it is with Christian-
ity.
-
Several of the most enthusiastic and intelligent Buddhists
that I met in China expressed themselves as having very little
hope for the future of their religion in their native land.
One of them questioned whether the present revival of Bud-
dhism was a revival of the true Mahayana, saying that at any
rate its influence was narrow and that in his opinion the
ruined temples of China would never be rebuilt nor replaced.
692
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Another told me that his only hope for Buddhism was that it
might be reintroduced into China by Western scholars. The
scientific study of Buddhist history and philosophy that is
now being carried on by Europeans and Americans he
thought might stimulate a new interest in the religion among
the Chinese.16 Naturally, however, he was not very sanguine
over this possibility and contented himself by pointing out
that the Buddha himself had predicted the complete dis-
appearance of the Dharma from the earth. After his
prophecy is fulfilled Maitreya will come and reestablish the
Law, Buddhism will spread throughout the world, and a
reign of happiness and universal peace will begin.17
If now we turn from China to Korea, the condition of
Buddhism grows even worse. In fact Korean Buddhism has
been in a very perilous state ever since the year 1472 when
the king cleared the capital, Seoul, of Buddhist bonzes and
temples. This attack upon the religion, it will be recalled,
was followed by a more serious one, a few years later, when
the monks were banished from all the cities of the land and
had to retire to various secluded monasteries. This had the
effect, naturally, of cutting off the monks from the laity,
and the people were left to revert to a condition of Ani-
mism, with almost no knowledge of Buddhism or care for it.
It was only in the early years of the present century that the
attitude of the government changed and the monks were al-
lowed back in the cities. By that time, of course, no one
wanted them back, and only an energetic missionary cam-
paign could have made any noticeable impression upon the
solid heathenism of most of Korea. It need not be said-at
least to those acquainted with Korean monks-that no such
energetic campaign was made. Yet Buddhism is not quite
16 That Western encouragement might be of considerable influence in the revival
of Buddhism is not so preposterous a suggestion as at first it seems. There is little
doubt that Western influence has had a good deal to do with the present revival of
self-consciousness in Hinduism. It is interesting to note, for example, that Mahatma
Gandhi made his first acquaintance with the Bhagavad Gita through Sir Edwin Arnold's
translation and through the influence of an English theosophist in England, and that
his first interest in and real knowledge of Hindu philosophical thought came from the
same source. See his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Eng.
trans. Ahmedabad, 1927), Chap. XX.
17 The total effect of the present revolution upon Buddhism cannot as yet be evalu-
ated. The effects thus far visible are chiefly an increase of superstitious practices on
the part of soldiers and peasants. More and more of the temples are being handed over
to the military.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 693
dead in Korea, and especially since the advent of the Japanese
it is showing a few signs of life. There is one Buddhist
temple in Seoul, supported largely by the Japanese. In the
monasteries, at least in those among the Diamond mountains
and along the east coast, there are some devout and earnest
monks, and a few learned ones. As we have seen, some ef-
fort is being made at a revival of Buddhism. On the whole,
however, the religion is still in a rather moribund condition
in Korea. Bishop Trollope told me that in his entire career
as a missionary in Korea, extending as it does over a long
lifetime, he has only once found Buddhism an impediment
to his efforts at conversion. Animism has stood in his way
many times but Buddhism only once. The fact that of
Korea's 17,000,000 inhabitants only 382,000 are Buddhist
speaks for itself.
The contrast between Chinese and Korean Buddhism,
on the one hand, and Japanese Buddhism, on the other, is
very great. The most rushed and unobservant globe-trotter
on his way through Japan on a fast express can hardly fail, if
he looks out of the train windows at all, to be impressed with
the way in which Buddhism has seized upon every grove and
every little hilltop not already preoccupied by Shinto, for
the erection of a temple. If the globe-trotter visit the
temples he will find not only Buddhist monks chanting verses.
but large numbers of the laity visiting the shrines and pay-
ing their respects to the Butsus. There can be no doubt that
Buddhism is a living thing in Japan.
Buddhism is much more evenly spread over Japan than
it is over China; there are few of those glaring contrasts
between localities that we found in comparing the lower
Yangtse valley with Kwangtung or with Shansi. Yet there
are local contrasts in Japan which are worth recording, and
which, in fact, the hurried visitor to Japan should keep in
mind lest he misjudge Japanese Buddhism by what he finds
in one province or one city. As to the main island, it may
be said that Buddhism is stronger in the southwest than in
the northeast. The center of the religion is probably in and
about Kyoto, whereas Tokyo and all the region to the north-
east of it is relatively weak in Buddhist fervor. The three
other large islands differ considerably in the religious inter-
M
694
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
T
ests of their inhabitants. Kyushu, the probable birthplace
of the dominant clan, the island on which the heavenly
grandson of the Sun Goddess descended to found the race of
the Mikados, is naturally a stronghold of Shinto. In one de-
partment of this island, in fact—namely, Satsuma-during
the latter part of the Tokugawa times, no Buddhist monks
were permitted to enter. This veto has, of course, long been
revoked, but though Buddhist missionaries have been sent
thither, both Satsuma and the rest of Kyushu is distinctly a
Shinto rather than a Buddhist region.18 These conditions are
somewhat reversed in Shikoku, which is strongly Buddhist.
The fourth large island of Japan, Yezo, which lies to the
north, was until fifty years ago inhabited chiefly by the
Ainus, the aboriginal race whom the Japanese long since
drove out of the southern islands. During the last half
century Japanese colonists have been spreading northward
and gradually taking possession of this large island, and the
process is going on with increased rapidity. I have been told
by a Christian missionary who has lived for many years in
Yezo and also by a Buddhist professor of my acquaintance,
that these incoming Japanese have brought and are bringing
their religion with them, and that most of them are Bud-
dhists. The Buddhism they are bringing, moreover, is of a
more living and active sort than the average Buddhism of
the main island. The monks who go with the immigrants
are not always above criticism morally, but they are zealous
in their religion and active in their propaganda of it, notably
so in getting hold of the children through Sunday schools
and in similar ways. Yezo is thus becoming a strong Bud-
dhist center.
JANË
If the strength of Japanese Buddhism varies with the
locality, it also varies somewhat with the generations. Here
as elsewhere religious tradition and belief is stronger with the
old than with the young. The adolescent Japanese is ag-
nostic about many things which his father took for granted.
"The old women in the country," writes Professor Reisch-
18
This must not be taken to mean that there is little Buddhist zeal in Kyushu.
In some parts of the island there is much of it; as is shown by the fact that the
largest scated Buddha image in the world has just been constructed at Beppu (Kyushu).
It is "made of reinforced concrete, and is eighty feet in height, twenty feet higher than
the famous Daibutsu at Nara." (The Young East for March, 1928).
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 695
auer, "and some of the old men are still earnest followers of
things as they were. The younger generation, though nom-
inally Buddhist, is utterly ignorant of and indifferent to the
religion of their fathers." 19 Professor Reischauer knows a
great deal more about the Japanese than I do, but I cannot
help feeling that such a statement as this is far too sweeping.
It is probably true that the contrast between the younger
and the older generation, in matters of faith, is greater than
it is in most countries; but it is the same sort of contrast that
one finds in America, it is due to the same type of causes,
and it will probably resolve itself in much the same way that
it regularly has done both in Japan and in America, as the
younger generation becomes the older generation and feels
the increasing need of religious support and consolation.
Another religious contrast among the Japanese is that
between the masses and the educated. Over the rank and
file of the population Buddhism has a strong hold. It is em-
phatically the religion of Japan. A large portion of the bet-
ter educated, especially in and about Tokyo and Yokohama,
know little about Buddhism or any other religion, and take
little interest in anything religious. So far as they go be-
yond agnosticism and seek the guidance of any system of
thought, it is Confucianism toward which they lean.20 This
position of many of the intellectuals is due, in part, to his-
torical and political causes. Buddhism, as we have seen, was
supported by the Tokugawa government and was in a sense
the state religion. It therefore shared the unpopularity of
the old régime among the intellectual classes who restored
the emperor. There are, of course, other reasons. The
Japanese have no great interest in metaphysics,21 and many
of them find the ethical, political, and naturalistic position
of Neo-Confucianism more interesting than the abstractions
of Tendai and Kegon. The simple evangelism of the Pure
Land sects makes a great appeal to the masses, but the young
men of Jodo and Shin who have studied modern science often
find the teachings of these popular sects rather thin, not to
say naïve. So it comes about that the Pure Land sects tend
Studies in Japanese Buddhism, p. 311.
20
See Yoshitaro Yamashita in the Transactions of the Japan Society, IV. 264.
21 Cf. J. W. Robertson Scott's The Foundation of Japan (Murray).
19
696
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
to lose their hold over many of the intellectual and educated
members of the younger generation.
A very prominent Japanese scholar, well known both in
his own country and in this-himself a Buddhist and a seri-
ous student of Buddhism-expressed to me a very dark view
of the situation, so far as institutional Buddhism is concerned.
As an organized religion, he said, Buddhism has but poor
prospects for the future. Tendai has never recovered from
the blow dealt it by Nobunaga when the monasteries on
Hiei-san were destroyed, but has been ever since, like Hosso
and Kegon, in a rather moribund condition. Shingon re-
tains its hold over the people only by pandering to their
superstitions. Zen will doubtless always have a following,
but, like other mystical forms of religion, can expect to exert
but little influence on an age such as ours. The time was
when its mystical appeal, presented largely through the me-
dium of Chinese art and poetry, found a ready response in
the aristocratic leaders of the land; but those days of aristoc-
racy and good taste are gone, and the number of mystics
in any generation is bound to be limited. The Nichiren sect
is weak for another reason. Its priesthood is notably corrupt,
intolerant, and ignorant. A minority of them, indeed, are
innocent and learned men; but these for the most part lead
secluded lives, investigating the minute points in some of the
Sutras, and exerting no appreciable influence on the life
around them. The great majority are lacking in learning
and philosophy, though full of a narrow religious zeal. The
laity of the sect are notably intolerant. And as to the great
Pure Land sects, their other-worldliness gives them but poor
prospects in the age that is ahead of us. They were formed
in and for an era of civil war and social turmoil, when de-
spair of this present world was prominent in men's minds
and the impress they took on in those times they have never
thrown off. Moreover, the largest of these Pure Land sects,
Shinshu, has the additional disadvantage of being ever on
the edge of something like disruption, because of the ill-con-
cealed dissatisfaction felt by the majority of the members.
with the two dynasties which rule the great Hongwanjis.
Outside of the sects, in the opinion of the scholar whom I
quote, the prospects of Buddhism are much brighter. There
St
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 697
are many carnest laymen, who, though dissatisfied with all
the sects, are filled with the Buddhist spirit and are giving it
expression in various ways-in pantheistic philosophy, in
scientific thought, in social service, in mystic life. It is in
the spread of the Buddhist spirit outside the lines of the sects
that the hope for the future of Buddhism is to be found. But
within organized Buddhism very little is to be looked for.
-
My own opinion on this matter is not worth a great
deal-except, perhaps, as it reflects the views of many with
whom I have talked and whose opinions are worth much.
But whether worth much or little I ought, perhaps, to ex-
press what conclusions I have come to; and if I am to do so
I must venture to disagree with the distinguished Buddhist
scholar and thinker whose rather pessimistic views I ex-
pressed in the preceding paragraph. I am emboldened to
do so, because several Japanese and several foreigners with
whom I talked, all of whom were men of much knowledge
and sound judgment, had reached in substance the same con-
clusion as I. It will be noted that the rather dark picture
of Buddhism quoted in the preceding paragraph referred in
large part to the future rather than to the present. What-
ever may come about in the next fifty years, certain it is
that today Buddhism has a large, and, in some of the sects,
an enthusiastic and devoted following. Now it is doubt-
less true that there are elements in the present situation
which, if they grow and are not counteracted, will promise
ill for the future of Buddhism; but before drawing a dis-
mal conclusion on the basis of these factors, we should first
ask ourselves whether there are not other factors at work
whose influence in the future may well counterbalance those
to which we have just referred. If we ask ourselves this
question, an affirmative answer seems a very natural one.
For it is only within the last few years that Buddhism has
awakened to the need of education and reform, and of giv-
ing systematic culture to the religious life. The seeds are
only now being planted and the probable harvest is surely a
factor that cannot be neglected and that puts quite a dif-
ferent face upon the whole situation. Especially would I
remind the reader of the fact that in a few years Japan will
have, for the first time in her history, a really educated
698
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
priesthood. These future leaders of Japanese Buddhism are
now at school, studying the deeper meaning of their creed,
and learning modern and western ways of educating the
laity. Reischauer, to be sure, seems to anticipate that the
more scholarly study of Buddhist thought and history will
tend to weaken rather than strengthen the religion, because
it will show how far the Mahayana has diverged from the
teachings of the Founder.22 There may be truth in this, and
it may portend the weakening of Buddhism or possibly the
gradual substitution of the Hinayana for the Mahayana. It
is interesting to recall that this identical change actually took
place, centuries ago, in both Burma and Cambodia. An
occasional article in some of the Buddhist periodicals of Japan
by scholarly Buddhists-especially by European Buddhists-
urges a return to something like Pali Buddhism. In spite of
all this I should be surprised if such a return ever came about.
Your Mahayanist, whether Japanese, Chinese, or (ancient)
Indian, cares and ever has cared very little for anything that
history could say. The historical Sakyamuni will never be
of any great importance in the Mahayana. It could get on
without him.
-
If we look again at the weakness of the various sects to
which reference was made a few pages back, it will be seen
that most of them may well be remedied or counteracted
by the forces that are being set free through the advance of
religious education within Buddhism. The Japanese are in-
deed much interested in the science of the West; but they
are also beginning to realize that the philosophy at the basis
of all the branches of the Mahayana is of a sort that is quite
capable of making room for everything that science has yet
discovered or is likely to discover. The more thoroughly
educated members of Jodo and Shin, for example, have al-
ready gotten back of the symbolism of their sects and are
basing their lives and their religion, intellectually, not upon
a naïve mythology, but upon a profound philosophy. The
same resource is open to the Nichiren and Shingon sects.
And both Zen and Tendai consciously and explicitly rest
upon a philosophy that has nothing to fear from science.
27 Studies in Japanese Buddhism,
P. 310.
"Every year's work of Japan's great
educational system is bound to help undermine the present basis of Buddhism in Japan."
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 699
When these facts are more generally recognized it may
well have the effect of increasing the respect of the thinking
classes for the Buddhist philosophy and of rousing a new
curiosity and interest in it. Surely this is a feature of the
situation which must be taken count of in any attempt to
forecast the future. In fact, some of the effects of the new
intellectual stimulus are already being felt. As Professor Ad-
dison of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge re-
cently wrote, on his return from a year's study of condi-
tions in Japan:
Partly as a result, partly as a cause of the Buddhist revival, there is
widely observed, especially in the younger generation, an awakened ideal-
ism and a growing interest in religion. Far less enthusiasm is now mani-
fested for the older type of materialism and skepticism represented by
Herbert Spencer; far more general is the response to the stimulus of
idealism in many forms-whether of the latest German philosophy, of
Christianity, or of a new Buddhism.23
race.
There is an interesting feature in the present religious
condition of Japan which has escaped general notice but
which is worth considering, if one is to embark on the sea
of conjectures as to the future of the land. We have,
namely, the anomalous situation of a highly intelligent people
who are great readers and much interested in Western
science and speculation, a large portion of whom still belong
religiously to a faith which, however beautiful, has come,
with very little change, straight out of the childhood of the
The Political Shinto, to which the government is
officially devoted, may or may not be a religion, 24 but the
Shinto of the great rank and file of the Shintoists certainly
is one. It seems exceedingly improbable that the naïve be-
liefs of this childlike cult will be able to hold for very long a
large proportion of the intelligent and increasingly educated
Japanese.25 When they outgrow it, whither will they go?
I cannot seriously suppose that new "religions" like the
Omo-to-Kyo and Tenri-kyo-more naïve in their way than
Shinto itself-will have any lasting appeal for large numbers
23
Religious Life in Japan, p. 344.
24
See Holton's discussion in "The Political Philosophy of Modern Shinto," Tr. A. S. J.,
Vol. XLIX, Part II.
26
25 If we may accept Dr. Kato's view of Shinto, however, as a developing religion we
shall have to revise this verdict. See his Study of Shinto, the Religion of the Japanese
Nation.
700
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
of these bright-minded people. Some of them will doubt-
less be converted to Christianity. Many will get on with
the kind of agnostic indifference which seems to satisfy so
many of the intellectual Japanese and so many of the illiter-
ate Chinese at present. But it would be strange, to my think-
ing, if Buddhism did not come in for its share of the heri-
tage. Buddhism is by this time a Japanese religion and is so
regarded by all but a few of the extremely sophisticated. It
has therefore certain great advantages of an initial sort over
its Western rival.
One further fact should also be noted here: namely, the
direction that Buddhism is actually taking today and that
it has been following for the past thirty or forty years. When
the Shogunate was overthrown the strength of Buddhism,
as we have seen, was at low ebb. During the first years of
the restoration, after it had been disestablished as the state
religion and deprived of many of its temple-lands, it seemed
to fall even lower. But from that time to this every year has
marked a steady advance both in its influence over the people
and in the quality of its teaching and its devotion. The last
fifteen years in particular have been marked by a notable ad-
vance. It has been stung into new efforts by the advent of a
great Western rival and it has deliberately and successfully
learned from it many of the Western ways of efficient activ-
ity. In education, propaganda, worship, and service it has
taken great strides, and we are witnessing today only the first
fruits of its new sowings. Doubtless there are many agnostics.
in Japan. Doubtless many young men and not a few young
women belonging to Buddhist families are growing up with
much less faith and much less religious interest than their
parents and grandparents. But is this a condition peculiar
to Japanese Buddhism? Is there, in fact, any religion in the
world today except perhaps Mohammedanism in Arabia
which is not faced with the same serious problem? I am
making no prophecy, be it understood, as to the future of
Japanese Buddhism, nor would I for a moment deny that
Japanese Buddhism is confronted with serious difficulties: but
it does seem to me that, as religions go in our time, the Bud-
dhism of Japan is a religion of great present strength and of
pretty fair promise.
PAND
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF BUDDHISM 701
If now in closing our survey of the condition of con-
temporary Buddhism as a whole we cast a rapid glance over
the entire Buddhist world (with the exception, as usual, of
the Lamaist lands) we shall see that it falls naturally into
five sections. The regions at the extreme southwest and at
the extreme northeast-namely, the Hinayana lands and
Japan-are, on the whole, in a fairly healthy condition.
There is also a section in the center, occupying the lower
Yangtse valley where Buddhism is still strong. The two
other sections-South China with Annam, and North China
with Korea-are in a moribund condition religiously, things
growing steadily worse as one draws away from the Yangtse,
and reaching their lowest just before the boundaries of Cam-
bodia on the one hand, and of Japan on the other, are crossed.
So much for the actual present condition of Buddhism
in the world today. As to its prospects in the future, this
is of course all a matter of guesswork at best, though there
may be a difference between a reasonable guess and a mere
shot in the dark. A reasonable guess as to the future of
Buddhism, however, if there be really such a thing, must
base itself on a study of its inner nature, rather than upon
the relatively external facts with which this chapter has been
concerned. It is possible, therefore, that further light may
be thrown upon the prospects of Buddhism by the considera-
tions to which the next chapter will be devoted.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
AFTER writing on the Buddhist religion pages enough
to wear out the patience of the most long-suffering reader,
it may seem strange, not to say unkind, of me to raise, at this
late hour, the disconcerting question, Is there any such thing
as Buddhism at all? Yet the question must be asked; if
we do not put it, it will ask itself. Indeed, I fear the atten-
tive reader has long since raised this query in the back of his
mind. And this seems as good a place as any to face it.
The visitor to the lands I have tried to describe finds few
things so striking as the varied and contrasting forms which
Buddhism presents as one passes from the southwest to the
northeast. The reader of this volume I hope has been struck
with the same peculiarity. Particularly notable, of course,
is the difference between the Hinayana and the Mahayana.
One familiar with the Buddhism of Burma and Siam when
suddenly set down in China feels himself in the midst of an
utterly new and unknown religion. In the smoke of incense
and paper money, before the Fos and P'usas among the arti-
ficial flowers and votive vegetables, he gropes around, at
first in vain, for something familiar. And if he has the un-
usual good luck to find some monk or layman who can ex-
plain to him the Mahayana philosophy, he is the more mysti-
fied, and is tempted to exclaim: By what right is all this-
or any of this-called Buddhism? How, indeed, can the re-
ligions of these various lands justly be subsumed under one
heading, and be called by one name?
G
The diversities between Northern and Southern Bud-
dhism are many. The account I have given of the Buddhism
of today by no means includes all these diversities, but the
reader must have noted a considerable number of them. It
may be worth while here to recapitulate a few of the more
important contrasts.
(A)
702
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
703
Most fundamental, perhaps, among these is the difference
in the scriptures used by the two great schools. In theory
the Tripitaka (in a Chinese rather than a Pali version, to be
sure) is recognized by the Buddhists of China and Japan.
But it is practically never read, and the explicit teaching of
the Mahayana is to the effect that these Southern scriptures
form merely a provisional statement of the truth, and have
been entirely transcended by the fuller truth of the North-
ern school. The Southern school, on its part, refuses to
recognize the Northern scriptures as having any authority
whatever: in fact, it quite ignores them. Following from
this divergence in canonical scripture, an almost equally fun-
damental contrast is to be found in the attitude of the two
schools on metaphysical questions. The Hinayana, in obedi-
ence to the warnings of the Founder, refrains almost entirely
from metaphysical speculation; the Mahayana is interested in
little else. Its emphasis upon morality is relatively slight,
whereas the Hinayana teaching might almost be said to begin
and end with moral matters. The moral ideals of the two
schools have often been contrasted: Southern Buddhism hold-
ing up as the supreme norm for admiration and imitation
the self-contained and enlightened Arahant, while North-
ern Buddhism looks upon his attainment as but a little thing,
and points the learner instead to the unselfish example of
the Boddhisattva. The moral teaching of the Southern school
still makes a good deal of the Four Noble Truths and the
Noble Eightfold Path. It is rare that one finds a Northern
Buddhist who has so much as heard of these things. The
Hinayana is emphatically realistic; the Mahayana as em-
phatically idealistic in its philosophy. In Hinayana lands
while there is a recognition of a long series of Buddhas,
Sakyamuni alone plays any vital part in either theoretical or
practical religion. In China and Korea he is associated with
two or more other Buddhas who stand quite on an equality
with him, and he is compassed about by a host of P'usas, Tao-
ist deities, and Chinese generals who often seem to form a
thoroughly polytheistic pantheon, while some of them fre-
quently take from the Buddhas four-fifths of the offerings
and adoration of the worshipers. In Japan the Taoist and
Chinese additions to the Buddhist cycle merely give way to
-
S
.
704
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the innumerable deities drawn from Shinto; and Sakyamuni,
far from coming back to his own, is in three of the most
important sects explicitly put on a level greatly inferior to
that of some of the other Buddhas. The interest of the
Southern school is fixed almost exclusively on the teachings
of the Buddha; the Northern school is principally interested
in the teachings of philosophy about the Buddha. On
Southern principles (as at present held) there seems logically
nothing for the fully enlightened Buddhist at death but anni-
hilation; and the Founder taught that the ultimate fate of
the enlightened was one of the questions which ought not
to be raised. The Northern school discusses the matter at
length and frequently teaches something like a personal im-
mortality for the perfected soul. Southern and Northern
teaching are usually alike in their insistence that salvation
can be attained only through the individual's own efforts
and his intellectual enlightenment; but many Chinese Bud-
dhists and two of the largest and most forward-looking of
the Japanese sects deny this, and in Christian fashion offer
salvation purely through faith and grace, and by an act of
will. Can religions having these enormous divergencies be
still called, in any significant sense, one religion? That is
our question.
Before attempting to answer this question directly, it
may be well to remind ourselves that at any rate Buddhism
is not alone in possessing wide varieties of belief. Of the
four great religions of the world, Mohammedanism is unique
in being capable of formulation within the compass of rela-
tively narrow and exact theological definition; and even here,
if one contrasts Sunnis with Shiahs, or better still, orthodox
with liberals, one will find very considerable divergencies.
Hinduism contains within itself ever greater contrasts than
Buddhism. And what shall we say of the use of a single
name to designate the religion of the Spanish peasant and
the German philosopher, of the South-American half-breed,
the Russian ikon-worshiper, the English high-churchman,
and the New England Unitarian? In fact, it would not be
difficult to point out within Christianity rather interesting
parallels to many of the Buddhist variations of belief and
practice discussed in the last paragraph.
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
705
Coming
If Northern and Southern Buddhists do not agree on
their authoritative books, Catholic and Protestant Chris-
tians agree no better on the question whether the source of
authority lies in a book, in a man, in a council, or in the
whole body of believers; or in fact whether there is any
such thing as authority at all. There is, indeed, within
Christianity no such division as to the propriety of meta-
physical discussion and the importance of metaphysical doc-
trines, as we found in contrasting the Hinayana with the
Mahayana. All forms of Christianity are more or less in-
terested in problems of this nature. But the answers which
different Christian bodies give to these problems vary almost
as greatly as those furnished by the various schools of Bud-
dhist thought. Well-nigh innumerable are the philosophical
positions carefully expounded by distinguished Christian
theologians, varying all the way from a simple realistic an-
thropomorphic scheme like that of the Old Testament to
the most abstruse systems of Absolute Idealism. Particularly
noticeable is this divergence when the discussion ranges about
the person of the Founder. If Buddhists cannot agree on
the nature and position of the Buddha, no more can Chris-
tians on the nature and position of the Christ. In Christian-
ity as in Buddhism we find again the perennial disagreement
whether the religion consists in the teachings of the Founder
or in the teachings of the Church about the Founder. And
as to his nature, there is an almost continuous gradation of
beliefs, running all the way from the conception of him as
God himself, down to the picture of him as a deluded zealot
and even to the denial of his existence altogether. To match
the contrast between the Hinayana unitary worship and the
popular polytheism of China and Japan, we have the contrast
between Unitarianism and the saint worship of various Cath-
olic and "Orthodox" countries. If the Goddess of Mercy has
supplanted the Buddha in the shrines and in the worship
of many a Buddhist, have we not a striking parallel to this
in the way in which the Madonna has taken the place of both
God and Christ in the hearts of many a simple Christian?
And if the Pure Land sects differ from the rest of Buddhism
on the method of salvation, is not this identical disagreement
to be found again within the Christian fold?
S
-
G
A
706
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
The truth is that if we try to define any of the great re-
ligions (except perhaps Mohammedanism) by means of
creeds and doctrines, we shall find it altogether impossible
to discover any unity in them. We shall be forced to split
each of them into at least four or five quite distinct and even
antithetical religions. As a matter of credal agreement there
is no such thing as Buddhism, Hinduism, or Christianity.
And yet learned writers and ignorant people, literature,
history, and common speech alike, continue to speak of
Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and every one under-
stands in a general way what they mean, and (except in
hypercritical moments) every one knows perfectly well that
this use of the words is justified. What, then, shall we make
of these things, and how shall we come at any defensible
definition of the world's great religions? What do we mean
when we speak of Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism?
As I have already pointed out, one thing is plain: namely,
that all credal definitions are hopeless. For the truth is, the
great religions of the world are not primarily schools of
philosophic thought. They are something very much bigger,
very much more living than any creed can be. They are,
in fact, living things, organic beings, in a sense, and they
can no more be identified with some form of teaching than
can you and I. If we take the historical rather than the
theological point of view, and consider what as a matter of
fact Christianity and Buddhism have been in history and
actually are in the world today, we shall see that neither of
them is or ever has been a creed, but that each of them is
a stream of spiritual life, one of the currents of the spiritual
life of the race, taking its source back thousands of years
and flowing steadily and continuously down through the
ages. Each of these religions is, as I have said, an organic
thing, and as such it has the same kind of unity and of self-
identity that other organic things possess: not the unity of
unchanging creed but the unity of a constantly yet con-
tinuously changing life.
If now we ask what constitutes the unity and self iden-
tity of living organisms, we shall get the clue to the problem
of this chapter. You are the same person that you were
twenty years ago, not because your body has remained un-
J
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
707
changed, not because your mind has remained unchanged:
change, in fact, has been the very condition of your being
alive at all. You are the same person that you were for two
reasons. In the first place, your life has been a continuous and
and unbroken stream from then to now, your self of today
has grown out of your self of yesterday, and that grew out
of your self of the day before, and so back to the beginning
of your conscious existence. And secondly, you are the same
with your self of twenty years ago because, in spite of in-
numerable changes, small and great, there are certain fun-
damental characteristics which were yours then and which
are yours still. These principles hold of every organism and
give it what self-identity it possesses. A material thing may
be identified by the identity of its constituent atoms; a creed
may be identified by its unchanging propositions; but a liv-
ing, and therefore changing, organic being is identical with
its own past self because of the continuity of its life, and be-
cause of the persistence of some of its more fundamental
characters. A complex organism, moreover, possesses vari-
ous organs of varied functions, called out and necessitated
by the demands of its life and the exigencies of its environ-
ment. The eye is not the hand; it is very different from the
hand; yet the two are one in the sense that they belong to the
same organism and serve the same life. Through the un-
broken continuity of growth both trace back their origin
to the same parent cells, and both are informed with the
same spirit and characterized by one dominating purpose, or
innate tendency.
We may, I think, properly compare the great religions
to living organisms. I do not mean, of course, that they are
organisms in the full and biological sense of the word. It
would be as appropriate, perhaps, to compare them to rivers.
For rivers, too, have the self-identity of continuity and some
of them the additional identity of persistent character. But
the comparison of the religions to living things seems to me
rather better, for religions struggle for existence and adapt
themselves to new environments and to changing environ-
ments in almost biological fashion.
But whatever figure we use, it is, I trust, now clear that
we have a right to speak of "Christianity" and of "Bud-
708
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
dhism" and to attribute to each of them a certain unity and
self-identity. For each of them is connected with its own
past and its own origin by the unbroken transition of a con-
tinuous growth, and each of them can be shown to possess
certain persistent characters in spite of an enormous amount
of constant change. In short, it may be said that each of the
great religions has its own controlling genius, which remains
fairly constant underneath the almost endless branchings of
its variations.
It is, of course, no part of our task here to deal further
with the other great religions;¹ but if I am to sustain my
thesis that in a real sense there is such a thing as Buddhism
I must treat in somewhat greater detail those characteristics
on which its unity and self-identity depend. As to the con-
tinuity of Buddhism, if it be not unnecessary it is useless for
me to deal with it in detail at this point: for the whole of
this volume has been an effort to portray it. To me there
are few phases of the spiritual life of man more interesting
or more impressive than the growth and development and
migration of Buddhism. As the title of this book is intended
to suggest, Buddhism has been a pilgrim, beginning its career
in a little town among the foothills of the Himalayas, wan-
dering down river valleys and over great plains and across
mountains; a pilgrim, and after many years an exile, driven
from its mother land and making its way through many a
hardship and many a danger into strange countries and
among strange peoples. Much of its early possessions it has
carried with it, much it has left aside, and in the new lands to
which it has come it has found many an additional treasure
which it has made its own. But throughout its long course
there has been no break. Each phase of its career can be
traced to the preceding phase, or to the reception by it of
some tributary stream. Its course has been like that of a
great river which with its tributaries drains an entire conti-
nent and, with many a bend, pushes its irresistible, majestic
way to the sea. It has had the continuity of an individual
I have made some suggestions toward this in the case of Hinduism in Chapter VI
of India and Its Faiths; and more specifically on the question of Christianity in a paper
entitled “Again What is Christianity?" published in the Hibbert Journal and in an
address on "The Nature of Christianity" printed by the Peking Union Medical College
in 1924.
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
709
life, the continuity of an organic species, the continuity
(from another point of view) of the Hegelian dialectic.
All this, I trust, is plain enough. Not so obvious, per-
haps, are those persistent characteristics which help to make
it, in all its ramifications and in all its history, still one re-
ligion. I shall not, of course, maintain that all those who
burn incense in Buddhist temples or employ Buddhist monks
at funerals are Buddhists, any more than I should hold that
every ikon-worshiper is necessarily a Christian. What I
mean is that there are certain qualities of character and feel-
ing, of point of view, conduct, and belief, which may
properly be called Buddhist, and that these are not con-
fined to any one school of Buddhism, whether Hinayana or
Mahayana, but are to be found in all those who by common
consent would be considered typically Buddhist in all the
lands we have studied, from southern Ceylon to northern
Japan. These qualities, I hold, transcend not only nations
but centuries, and unite the earnest follower of the most up-
to-date Japanese sect with the earliest disciples of the
Founder. Taken together they constitute what, in a rough
and general way, might be called the Spirit of Buddhism.2
As fundamental among these qualities I would point out
first of all a certain attitude, a certain feeling, a certain way
of looking at things, a certain point of view, which is hardly
to be described and for which I can think of no better word
than the German Innerlichkeit. Our English inwardness
perhaps suggests it, but not so well. Buddhism constantly
lays its emphasis upon the subjective as having more im-
portance than the objective. It is interested primarily in
psychology and seeks in psychology for the solution to most.
important questions. Its glance is ever turned inward, and
the events that go on within the soul it regards as immensely
more significant than anything in the outer or material world
can possibly be. Only in the inner life does it feel at grips
2 Cf. the following from Hiucn-Tsiang's oration to the King of Kan-chang, on taking
leave of him:
"In agreement with the mysterious character of this doctrine the world has pro-
gressed in its higher destiny: but distant peoples, coming to interpret the doctrine, are
not in agreement. The time of the Holy One is remote from us: and so the sense of
his doctrine is differently expounded. But as the taste of the fruit of different trees
of the same kind is the same, so the principles of the schools as they now exist are not
different." (Beal's trans. of the Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, p. 31.)
1
710
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
with reality. This has been its point of view from the begin-
ning; and with this fact in mind one sees that the develop-
ment of the Mahayana idealistic metaphysics is not so out of
keeping with the simple teaching of the Founder as at first
it seems to be.
Kat
With such a view of relative values it is natural that
Buddhism in all its forms should regard as of primary im-
portance the cultivation of the inner life. Self-discipline
and self-control are the first aims of its earnest adherents in
every land. It is for this reason, I suppose, that whatever
else of the teachings of the Founder it may have forgotten,
Buddhism has never ceased to inculcate the Five Precepts-
the five great rules of self-control. These are the primary
requisites for reaching the supreme goal, which, whether it
be that of the Arahant in this life or of the Buddhas and Bud-
dhisattvas in the spaceless worlds, or of the simple Shinshu
believer sitting upon his lotus in the Western Paradise, con-
sists in the attainment of a spiritual freedom and an inner
peace that the external world can neither give nor take away.
Other religions have taught the value of an independent
spiritual calm, but no others have given it such repeated and
almost exclusive emphasis. Once this is gained, the Bud-
dhist feels, nothing else counts. He who through strenu-
ous culture of the inner life has attained to this spiritual
freedom, who has won the Great Peace, may snap his fingers
at whatever comes.
G
The inner nature of this supreme goal has determined
inevitably the characteristic form which the Buddhist moral
teaching and moral training have assumed. The destruction
of desire, as the chief enemy of inner peace, was the burden
of many of the Founder's most significant sermons, and for
long years this aim, embodied in the Four Noble Truths,
seems to have occupied a very central place in Buddhist
teaching. The Four Noble Truths, as I have pointed out,
form no real part of Northern Buddhism today, and there
is no general attack upon desire as such. But the essence
of the matter has been retained in the persistent attack
which Buddhism the world over constantly makes upon lust,
anger, and worry. In the insatiable nature of sexual desire,
the destructive excitement of ill-will, and the steady sapping
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
711
of our inner strength that comes from anxiety, Buddhism sees
the three great dangers to our freedom and our peace, and
against these it launches its attacks, in every Buddhist land,
with something of the same vehemence and systematic ear-
nestness that the early Brothers and Sisters put into the prac-
tice of the Noble Eightfold Path. In all these things the
Northern Buddhists and the Southern Buddhists are at one.
GND
Gay
As a reenforcement to these three great attacks upon.
lust, anger, and worry, or rather, as the principal offensive
of the entire campaign, Buddhism when in earnest, in every
part of the world, brings all its forces to bear against self-
centeredness and self-interest, against that common preoccu-
pation with one's own possessions and schemes and wishes and
rights which is so notoriously incompatible with the calm life
of the spirit. I do not mean that all "Buddhists" do this: but
all those in every land who would be singled out as notably
and characteristically Buddhist are distinguished for this ef-
fort. The attack launched by the Founder upon self-centered-
ness has never ceased to have its influence upon Buddhism in
all the lands to which it has been carried. Sometimes, as I have
pointed out in previous chapters, the Buddhist emphasis on
the inner life has resulted in a sophisticated sort of spiritual
selfishness, quite as ugly as the more brutal and naïve form
which it has displaced; but there can be no doubt of the
fact that the Buddhist point of view and the Buddhist train-
ing have resulted in great efforts, both North and South, to
get rid of the more aggressive and obvious forms of selfish-
ness. This has been reflected in the Anatta or non-ego doc-
trine of both Hinayana and Mahayana, and in the readiness
and eagerness of many Buddhists to merge the individual in
the Absolute. It is seen more persistently in a trait which I
think every one must feel who has much to do with Bud-
dhists who are steeped in the thought and training of their
religion, namely, a kind of "negative-self feeling" (to use
McDougall's term), a kind of humility, an unwillingness to
put themselves forward, a dislike for the aggressive attitude.
which seeks to emphasize Number One. This lack of ag-
gressiveness is one of the most marked of Buddhist traits.
It stands out in strong contrast to the large-footed, self-
advertising, red-blooded, self-congratulatory efficiency of the
Ga
-
712
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
West. For that matter, it is, of course, a characteristic not
only of Buddhism but of the East in general; but in the East
itself it belongs peculiarly to Buddhism. It is at the heart of
much of Buddhist pacifism. Your typical Buddhist would
rather give up his rights than fight for them. Self-display
and the instinct of pugnacity have been as nearly eradicated
by the Buddhist training as perhaps they ever are or can be
in human nature. There is little longing in the Buddhist
for a fight as such, or for that positing of the self, that as-
sertion of one's own will, which is at the bottom of so many
an altercation. Moreover, nothing that one can fight for
is worth so much as that inner peace which a fight is certain
to destroy. There is a kind of gentleness in the Buddhist
nature which I think every one must feel.
But this is not the gentleness and non-aggressiveness of
weakness. It is not fear that prompts it. Behind it there is
a spiritual strength of a quiet sort, a power of passive resis-
tance that might well astonish a Western prize-fighter, for-
ever feeling of his biceps. The non-aggressiveness of the
typical Buddhist is a kind of strength in reserve; it is the
gentleness of the strong man who refuses to push his own way
in a crowd, or of the reflective man who is convinced the
game is not worth the candle. Partly as an outgrowth of
this gentleness of spirit, partly in obedience to the never-
forgotten exhortations of the Founder, partly out of con-
tagion from the example and influence of his mesmeric per-
sonality, Buddhism in all the lands to which it has gone has
never ceased to preach and to practice universal pity and
sympathy for all sentient life. Ahimsa, harmlessness, is the
first law. No other religion, except perhaps Jainism, carries
so far this fellow-feeling for all living things, enfolding in
its merciful arms even the lowest forms of animal life. As
every one knows, it influences even the details of the monks'
diet, and is not infrequently seen in what seems to us fan-
tastic forms, as in the refusal of conscientious Buddhists to
kill snakes or mosquitoes. Not only so. This feeling of
pity sometimes defeats its own end, as in the unwillingness
of Buddhists to put a suffering animal out of its misery.
For the roots of it are emotional rather than reasoned. The
unwillingness of Buddhists to kill animals is often explained
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
713
in the West as due to the belief in transmigration and the
consequent fear of destroying in the animal some deceased
friend or relative. There is no doubt that the transmigration
theory has something to do with it, setting the whole animal
kingdom, as it does, on something like an ultimate equality
with man and thus inducing a respect for our brute rela-
tions which in the West is difficult to grasp. But I am sure
there is more in the attitude of the Buddhist than this. It is
by no means purely as a matter of reasoned theory that he
feels for the lower forms of life and dislikes to kill them.
The feeling of pity is quite as fundamental and original as
the theory.
Naturally, not all Buddhists obey the law of Ahimsa.
Buddhist laymen often encourage or even participate in the
killing of animals and fish for food. But this exception to
the law is recognized as an exception, and he who practices.
it knows that in so doing he is not acting wholly as a Bud-
dhist should. The necessities of this present evil world make
it very difficult for all save the monks to follow completely
the councils of perfection. Nor would I assert that pity
for all sentient things and harmlessness toward all human
beings are displayed by every Buddhist, any more than ef-
ficient love for one's neighbor is seen in every Christian;
but I believe it is true that whoever in the lands of the East
is conspicuously devoid of these traits is by common con-
sent regarded as a very poor Buddhist, no matter how many
candles he may burn to the Fos and the P'usas, to the Butsus
and Busatsus. It is not without significance that the only
members of the Buddhist cycle who are real rivals in popular-
ity of the Buddhas are the Goddess of Mercy and Jizo. These
are loved, I am very sure, not only because they may prove
helpful to the worshiper, but because the Buddhist conscious-
ness the world over holds in most reverend esteem and most
enthusiastic admiration the qualities of sympathy and help-
fulness which they embody. In China they will tell you
that the Chinese learned reverence from Confucius and pity
from the Buddha. Much the same thing seems to be true of
Japan. Whatever be the sins of Buddhist monks, and they
are sometimes many, they usually have the reputation, in
all lands, for a real feeling of sympathy; and if they teach
714
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
anything to the layman it is likely to be the law of harm-
lessness. In the more earnest and consistent Buddhists, lay
or cleric, south or north, this sympathy often blossoms into
genuine love and a real desire for positive helpfulness.
S
Another outgrowth of the inwardness, gentleness, and
lack of aggressiveness which are so basic in the Buddhist
character, is an unusual degree of intellectual tolerance and
liberality of thought. This tolerance for the opinions of
others has an intellectual or theoretical root as well. It is
in part the natural result of the lack of any absolutely au-
thoritative book, church, or pope. Buddhism has never had
a theory of literal and plenary inspiration. The Founder
seems regularly to have based his teachings upon his own ex-
perience or on the common reason of the race. Hence, in
Buddhism it is extremely rare to find any trace of that
bigotry which has been all too common in religions which
like Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, claim to
possess a uniquely inspired and infallible book. In the case
of the Mahayana, moreover, this natural tolerance has been
reenforced by a theory of different grades or degrees of truth,
and the possession of a world-view wide enough to make
room for most scientific hypotheses and most non-Buddhist
philosophies as approximate pictures of certain aspects of
Reality. The universal Buddhist belief, moreover, that there
is no absolute division between the sheep and the goats, but
that most of us are both goats and sheep at the same time,
the conception of many heavens and many hells and many
conditions of rebirth in this world, with the refusal to shut
the door of effort in the face of any sinner, however vile, or
to believe that anywhere in the universe there is a gate bear-
ing the inscription "Who enter here leave hope behind"-
all these considerations make it natural for the Buddhist to
recognize many ways of salvation besides just his own. In
an oft-quoted parable in the Lotus of the Good Law, the
Buddha shows not only that in the Eternal Heavens there
are many mansions, but that there are many "vehicles" by
which one may reach them. Over and over again have I
asked monks in both Hinayana and Mahayana lands whether
sincere Christians wo lived according to their best light
could be saved. In only one case, so far as I remember, have
(
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
715
I received a negative answer; and frequently I have been as-
sured not only that Christianity if followed out conscien-
tiously leads to the same ultimate goal as Buddhism, but that
a good Christian is really a good Buddhist, without knowing
it.
I have dealt thus far with the fruits of what I have called
Buddhist Innerlichkeit on their positive side. There are also
negative results which are quite as characteristic and which
must not be passed over. Like other things, Buddhism pos-
sesses les défauts de ses qualities. The constant preoccupation
with the inner and the great emphasis laid upon it naturally
works a corresponding neglect of the outer. The typical
Buddhist usually pays relatively slight attention to the ex-
ternal world. The consequence of this is seen in the lack
of practical efficiency and of serious practical effort so often
pointed out in the great majority of consistent Buddhists.
A good Buddhist is likely to be "an ineffectual angel." Bud-
dhists are not greatly interested in the regeneration of this
evil world, and though they may wish for it in a mild way
they are too busy cultivating their own inner lives to do
much toward it. The morality which they preach and prac-
tice is mostly of a personal sort. It is in danger, in fact, of
being largely of a negative sort. It is not insignificant that
the Five Precepts-the one set of moral laws taught with
emphasis over the entire Buddhist world-are all phrased
in negative form. Earnest and efficient effort for social
morality, for the reform of society, for cooperation with
others in making this a better world, for positive and effec-
tual helpfulness toward one's neighbor, these things are
by no means incompatible with Buddhism-in a sense they
may even be the natural outflow of Buddhist pity, but there
is much in Buddhism that makes them difficult; and, as
a fact, outside of Japan they are rare. In all these ways of
practical and efficient helpfulness and positive as well as lov-
ing service, Buddhism is far behind Christianity.
There are, of course, other causes for this contrast be-
tween Buddhism and Christianity besides the fundamental
contrast in the genius of the two religions which I have been
discussing. Foremost among these are the racial and eco-
nomic factors. No one will question the obvious fact that
}
716
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the Western races, on the whole, are more practically ef-
ficient than the Eastern races. The reason for this may be
what you like, but the fact is undeniable. The Western
races are also more aggressive, they have a larger share of the
sporting, combative spirit than have most Orientals. Now
it is quite thinkable-I should say quite probable—that if,
by some chance of history, Buddhism had gone west and
Christianity east, Buddhism would have been the aggressive,
practically efficient religion and Christianity the inactive
one. The economic situation has reenforced the contrast
of tendency within the two religions so largely brought about
by racial characteristics. The charitable institutions and
the missionary activities of Christendom have been made
possible by the surplus wealth of Christian lands. In the
West the population has never caught up with the food
supply in the way it did ages ago in the East. It is perhaps
more than a coincidence that Protestant missions date exactly
from the period at which Protestant countries, as a result
of the industrial revolution, began to have an excess of
wealth. And it is, of course, perfectly plain that the posses-
sion of political and military power, as well as wealth, has
done much to make possible the actual development of
Christian missions. I do not think these racial and economic
factors when combined are enough to explain the contrast
in outer activity and efficient helpfulness exhibited by the
two religions. I think the original teachings of the two
Founders and the ideas developed by their successors must
be taken as co-causes in developing the differences we find.
All these factors have doubtless had their influence.
Whatever the causes may be, however, there is no doubt
that most Buddhist morality and good will are tinged with
a certain passivity that is unfortunately almost as charac-
teristic of Buddhism as that morality and that good will
themselves. It did not, indeed, characterize the Founder;
and innumerable cases of thoroughly consistent Buddhists
probably might be cited who did not share it. It is perfectly
thinkable, and (as the Shinshu in Japan is demonstrating) it
is practically possible, that Buddhism may come to possess
the active virtues of positive efficient achievement in the ex-
ternal world. But thus far it has done so only in exceptional
-
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
717
cases; and its passivity and disregard of social, political,
economic, and material conditions is a natural if not a neces-
sary corollary of its emphasis upon the inner life.
There is another corollary of Buddhist Innerlichkeit
which is even more unfortunate than its passivity and which
must be pointed out. The inner life is necessarily a private
life. As William James expressed it: the breaches between
"thoughts belonging to different personal minds . . . are
the most absolute breaches in nature." It follows that one
can do relatively little of a direct sort for the inner life of
others. One may, indeed, teach morality and give instruc-
tions in zazen. But most of the work of self-cultivation
must be done by one's self. By one's self and consequently
for one's self. When the chief business of life is the culture
of one's spirit, the constant preoccupation with one's own
inner life and one's advance in virtue naturally tends to
breed much of the self-centeredness which Buddhism is so
deeply concerned to destroy. Only, as I have indicated
above, it is a peculiar form of self-centeredness, a kind of
sophisticated spiritual priggishness and selfishness which is
indeed far removed from the brutal aggressive self-love which
Buddhism constantly attacks, but which is hardly more at-
tractive, though it may be much less harmful. The belief
in Karma and in the acquisition of merit, with all that these
things mean for the future lives of believers, also contributes
to this most undesirable result. With the baser sort of Budd-
hist, the whole thing frequently boils down to a kind of
spiritual materialism in which the merit to be acquired by
each good deed is nicely calculated, and the cash value of
virtue in this or another life is ever present to the mind's
eye.
pla
Fortunately, Buddhism possesses still a further character-
istic which may in time, and possibly at no distant time, to
a considerable extent counteract the unfortunate conse-
quences of its inveterate inwardness. I refer to its remark-
able elasticity and its ability to respond to new needs. Of
this I shall have something more to say before the close of
the chapter. Already, in fact, in both Siam and Japan the
needs of the times are bringing out in Buddhism qualities of
practical and efficient activity in the external world which
718
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
:
show that passivity and selfishness are by no means inevitable
and unescapable consequences of its inward nature. And it
is possible that these new movements within Buddhism may
be only a foretaste of what is yet to develop.
spi
In addition to the qualities I have discussed there are
certain fundamental beliefs which all schools of Buddhism
hold in common, the more important of which should be
mentioned in this connection. Perhaps the most basal of
these is the universal confidence of all Buddhists in the com-
plete dominance of the universe by spiritual forces. South-
ern Buddhism is atheistic in a sense, and neither Southern
nor Northern Buddhism has anything to say about creation
or a creator. But both schools believe emphatically that the
universe itself is supernaturally moral. The fundamental
law of Reality, dominating all laws of the material world,
is the law of Karma, that whatsoever a sentient being sows,
that he shall reap: that virtue and vice have their never-
failing recompense. This faith Buddhism of course shares
with Hinduism, from which, in fact, it borrowed it. Fol-
lowing naturally from this basal doctrine is the correlative
belief in the unimportance of physical death. The laws of
matter being so subordinate to the laws of spirit, it is un-
thinkable on Buddhist presuppositions that the accident of
bodily death should put an end to the life of the spirit. It
is conceivable, think some members of the Southern school,
that absolute enlightenment may bring so full completion
that consciousness as we know it will cease, at the expira-
tion of bodily life; but mere bodily death by itself cannot
possibly have any such momentous influence upon a member
of the spiritual world. What form the future life may take
is a matter of detail upon which different schools and dif-
ferent individuals disagree, though all accept transmigra-
tion as a partial solution. This common acceptance of the
doctrine of transmigration, indeed, deserves more emphasis
than I have space here to give it, as one of the great credal
bonds that hold the entire Buddhist world together. But
more important still is the spiritual and moral conception
of the universe which I have been discussing, the basal faith
that nothing on the physical plane can destroy the life of
the spirit, and that not only the spiritual but the material
G
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
719
world is ultimately governed by moral laws. On these great
doctrines Buddhists of all schools are firmly agreed.
One other common belief, moreover, should be men-
tioned, namely, the recognition by all Buddhists that their
religion in its present form owes its reintroduction upon this
earth to the great Indian Teacher, Sakyamuni. Together
with this historical belief and this recognition of indebted-
ness goes the sense of gratitude and loyalty to him which loses
in intensity, to be sure, as one gets farther away from the
scenes of his earthly life, yet which has still a certain strength
even in distant Japan. Connected with this item of the
common Buddhist creed there is the further belief, accepted
by all, in a series of supernaturally enlightened beings, the
Buddhas, of whom Sakyamuni was one, who out of pity for
all sentient things from time to time appear upon the earth
to reinstate a knowledge of the truth and of the way to
salvation.
Before closing this chapter I must say one further word
about a final quality in Buddhism which I have already men-
tioned and which has been and must of necessity be of great
importance in the life of the religion. I refer to its re-
markable elasticity and adaptability. Wherever Buddhism
has gone it has manifested this characteristic, and manifested
it in a superlative and unique degree. I do not think there
is another religion that possesses so much of it. Buddhism
has been emphatically a missionary religion. Its transplant-
ing to new lands has been accomplished never through con-
quest or through migration but solely by the spread of ideas.
Yet almost everywhere it has gone it has so completely
adapted itself to the new people and the new land as to be-
come practically a national religion. This has been partly
due to the tolerance and liberality of its thought, to which
I have already referred, a tolerance which it has exhibited
both within and without. With the most extremely rare
exceptions Buddhism has held no heresy trials and has carried
on no persecutions. With a daring catholicity that ap-
proaches foolhardiness it has recognized every form of rival
as a possessor of some degree of truth. Its confidence in the
inclusiveness of truth, and of its own truth, has been so
great that it has taken up into itself all sorts of foreign cults
G
720
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
and superstitions and seemingly incongruous and inconsistent
beliefs. The doctrine or policy of hoben as the Japanese
call it, or "accommodation," has been applied to an extent
that astonishes every Western student who reads of it for
the first time. The conception that the beliefs and the gods
of other religions may be true and real in their way, that
they may be symbolic expressions of the truth which we
possess in its fullness, hardly dawned upon the Western
world prior to our grandfathers' time, and before that was
guessed only by an occasional Lessing or Nathan der Weise.
But from the earliest introduction of Buddhism into Japan
and even into China, when our Christian predecessors were
anathematizing each other over an iota subscript, the Bud-
dhist missionaries and thinkers were accepting into their re-
ligion all sorts of native beliefs as dim and symbolic expres-
sions of the Eternal Dharma.
W
That Buddhism has carried this tolerance and liberality
too far for its own good is beyond question, a fact recognized
today by all Buddhist leaders. The adoption of the innumer-
able deities of the Shinto pantheon as merely Bodhisattvas
under new (and extremely long!) names helped indeed to
win over the Japanese people, but it brought into Buddhism
a mass of primitive and superstitious cult which did much to
put the religion into the degenerate condition from which it
suffered for so many of the medieval centuries. Fortunately,
its rival came to its rescue and through the effort of Shinto
scholars who despised Buddhism a reform within Buddhism
was initiated which has been carried on with increasing suc-
cess to our own day. In China the situation has been and
is much more serious. The welcoming of Taoist deities into
Buddhist temples has been carried on with so liberal a hos-
pitality that not infrequently the guests have deprived their
host of all the best rooms and in some cases have turned him
out of doors altogether. The deplorable condition of Bud-
dhism in some of the more distant provinces of China is in
part due to an excess of tolerance and an extreme extension
of the doctrine of symbolic interpretation.
Yet when not carried too far this liberality, this elastic-
ity and adaptability of which I speak, are undoubted ele-
ments of strength. Change is a necessity of life, a sign of
ܚ
THE UNITY OF BUDDHISM
721
life; in its readiness to change its outward forms and to
adapt itself to all sorts of new conditions Buddhism has
shown itself very much alive. When transplanted to a new
land it has acted exactly as a virile biological species acts
under similar circumstances. It has made the adaptations nec-
essary to the new conditions, it has responded to the new
stimuli with an inventiveness and a youthful energy that
betoken an almost inexhaustible store of life and strength.
Never troubled by an excessive love of consistency, that
"vice of little minds," never bound to an absolutely authori-
tative past, never committed to an unchangeable loyalty to
that which has been believed semper, ubique, et ab omnibus,
it has been able to develop its philosophy and its cult accord-
ing to the fresh and changing needs of the peoples it has
sought to feed. Prejudice and hostility have not stood in
its way. Its rivals it has regularly sought to make into
friends and allies; and when they refused this relationship
and declared open war upon it, it has not been too proud to
learn from them and adopt such of their methods as seemed
adaptable to its needs. Christian missionaries frequently ridi-
cule the Japanese Buddhists for their adoption of Christian
hymn tunes and their imitation of the Y. M. C. A., the Sun-
day school, the Salvation Army, and other Christian methods
and institutions. As a fact this action on the part of Bud-
dhism is a token of its life and its wisdom. If it were the
dead thing some missionaries depict, it could not thus adapt
itself to the new needs of the new day. This unique ability
to adapt itself to new conditions, to develop new organs and
functions, is inherent in the fundamental nature of Bud-
dhism. As I have more than once pointed out, the inclusive-
ness of its philosophy puts it in a better position to make
room for new scientific discoveries and new philosophic
hypotheses than can either Christianity or Islam. It can also
deal with its own outgrown beliefs in a symbolic fashion
which must be the envy of religions more explicitly bound
to definite and authoritative creeds. The unity that it pos-
sesses, the spirit that holds it together, as I have tried to show,
are not of the credal sort and not endangered by the new
developments which a new age may demand of it.
The results arrived at in this chapter are, therefore, not
C
Kadag
722
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
without their bearing on the question of the prospects of
Buddhism. In particular, the peculiar elasticity of Bud-
dhism puts the whole matter in a different light from that in
which we saw it in the preceding chapter when we were con-
sidering only the actual conditions from what might be
called a quantitative point of view. A religion with the
kind of self-identity and unity I have described and with
the power of adaptation to changing conditions which Bud-
dhism possesses is far from moribund. Such a religion has
still a mission to perform in this world: and provided it has
wise and awakened leadership, it may face the future with
head erect and with a growing confidence.
G
CHAPTER XXXIV
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
At the close of the preceding chapter we found ourselves
faced once more with the problem of the prospects of Bud-
dhism as it looks toward the future. Several of the factors in-
volved in this problem we have already considered; but there
is one which we have thus far fought shy of, though its
importance must be plain to all. I refer to the state of war
that seems to exist between Buddhism and its great competi-
tor, whose militant and aggressive hosts have been invading
all the Buddhist lands for a century or more. A candid dis-
cussion of this warfare and what it involves leads inevitably
into certain topics which I should gladly avoid. But no
treatment of the present condition of Buddhism (and that
is really what I have wished to present in these pages) would
be even approximately complete if it did not give some
consideration to the great movement of Christian missions in
Buddhist lands, and the present and possible future relations
of Buddhism and Christianity to each other.
I shall make no attempt to furnish the reader with statis-
tics of conversions, of schools, hospitals and other achieve-
ments of Christian missions. These can be obtained from the
various missionary boards and from the many books written
on the missionary movement. Some of these statistics are
trustworthy and valuable; some of them are misleading.
Among misleading statistics should be classed most of those
that deal with conversions. They are not misleading if one
refuses to be misled, but for the inexperienced and unwary
they are likely to be a delusion and a snare. This for two
quite different reasons. In the first place, no one can tell,
because no one knows, how much a "conversion" may be
worth. It may mean that the "heathen" is made over into
a new creature, that the old Adam has been replaced by the
new, that an inward and heavenly revolution has taken place
`723
724
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
in the soul. It may also mean that the old conventional re-
straints and traditional beliefs have been broken and nothing
but a new form of words has taken their place; that the old
symbols which had the sanction of ages of reverence have
been exchanged for new ones which fail to get much hold on
the imagination and the character. In most cases of "con-
version" I believe a real improvement in life and conduct
results. Together with the old beliefs old evil influences are
broken, and the individual is brought into a spiritual environ-
ment which is morally helpful. The missionaries are fully
justified in not making the conditions of admission to the
church very high. Their aim in this policy is not (as some
critics suppose) to swell the statistics of conversions, but to
bring as many as possible of the "interested" into a social
relationship where good influences of various sorts may be
brought to bear upon them. The policy is wise and laudable,
but it has the incidental result of making the statistics of their
work rather misleading for those at home who do not know
how to interpret them. Thus the work of "evangelizing the
world” may seem to the incautious reader to be getting on
much faster than it really is. But there is another side to
the matter, and this, too, contributes to the unreliability of
statistics on this subject. The most important part of the
movement toward evangelization is of the kind that can
never get into statistics: namely, the indirect and imponder-
able influence exercised upon the nominally non-Christian
masses by the little Christian centers that spring up around
every mission. The greatest thing that Christian missions
can do is to disseminate the spirit of Christ, and of this work
there is and can be no measure. Statistics of the "converted"
and of the "heathen" shed little light upon actual results.
Not every one that saith "Lord, Lord" has learned the spirit
of the Master; and many a Buddhist and Confucianist is a
Christian in all but creed and name.
The views that one will hold of the need of Christian
missions in general and of the special need of missions in
special lands, will depend on all sorts of things. There still
are some people-apparently there still are many people-
who maintain that the great aim of Christian missions is to
save souls from hell, and that all the "heathen" are bound
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
725
thither and must reside there through all eternity unless they
accept the "evangelical" creed. Many of my readers will
doubt this statement. They will class the belief in the dam-
nation of the heathen with antediluvian things such as
Tutankhamen and the eggs of dinosaurs. But I can assure
them that not all ancient things are in museums, and that a
considerable minority of the people who support the mis-
sionary enterprise still harbor the belief in heathen damnation
or something very like it. To one who holds this point of
view all "heathen" lands, of course, are equally in need of
Christian missions. But the rest of us may properly make
distinctions between the various non-Christian lands, and
differentiate those which are in great need of the help Chris-
tian missionaries can bring from others which are capable
of getting on relatively well by themselves.
SE
Among Buddhist lands the contrast here indicated is very
striking. In Japan and Siam Buddhism is decidedly alive and
is doing real work for the moral and social and religious wel-
fare of the people. Burma, Ceylon and Cambodia are less
well off but are still religiously in a fair condition. China,
Annam, and Korea, on the other hand, with the exception of
a few localities, are drawing but little spiritual and moral
nurture from the native religions and are in great need of
assistance. The position of those who deny that these lands
are in need of the kind of help which wise and truly Chris-
tian missionaries can bring, seems to me either based on igno-
rance, on sentiment, on prejudice, or else to be quite incom-
prehensible. It is emphatically the position of the sentimen-
talist rather than that of the realist. I can understand how
one who has never been in China may be impressed by an
argument against missions which should recite the antiquity
of the Chinese civilization, the loftiness of the Confucian
code, the law-abiding and moral nature of the Chinese, the
beauty of their art and the picturesqueness of their dilapi-
dation. All these things are undeniable. Undeniable also is
the fact that we of the West might well learn many things
from the Chinese. But despite all this it may still be true
that there are a few things which the Chinese might well
learn from us. And when one goes to China and looks about,
only (as it seems to me) a sentimentally obdurate blindness
726
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
can prevent one from seeing a considerable number of piti-
fully crying needs which some one ought to make an effort
to satisfy. And no one, so far as I have discerned, is ready
to take off his coat and make the sacrifices necessary for this
sort of work except the Christian missionary.
There are two classes of writers and talkers about China
who are equally misleading. One is made up of those people
of mole-like vision and encyclopedic ignorance who assert
that the Chinese are barbarians and that there is no civiliza-
tion except our civilization. The other class is composed of
those sentimental enthusiasts who, by magnifying certain
things and shutting their eyes to others, manage to believe (or
at least to assert) that Chinese art, poetry, religion, morality,
politics, and social structure and customs are all superior to
those of the West; and that the East is all civilized and the
West all barbarian. For my own part, I admire the East;
but I also love the East. And loving the East I cannot fail to
see that in many ways it is inferior to the West, and that it
has great needs which the West is in a position in some degree
to satisfy. I cannot shut my eyes to the extreme illiteracy of
the Chinese, and the consequent inner poverty of their lives;
their lack of individual spiritual development; their almost
universally diseased condition; their many bodily ills that
come through sheer ignorance, superstition, and evil conven-
tions; the lack of home life and its joys; the sad lot of the
majority of the women; the limited nature of their mutual
helpfulness, going as it does hardly beyond the family lines;
their callousness to the sufferings of others; the low standards
of honesty among their officials and among many who are
not officials; the cheapness of the lie; the superstitious fears
with which they spoil their peace; the unspiritual nature of
their outlook; the general materialism of their lives.
Much the same sad state of things exists in Korea and
Annam. And in none of these lands are the native religions
doing more than a minute percentage of the work required
to set things right. It is my thesis that Christian missions
are needed, and sorely needed, in all these lands, not to de-
stroy the native religions (so far as these religions are more
than demonstrable superstition) but to do the work which
the native religions fail to do. And there is work enough of
U
D
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
727
this sort everywhere, and for all. In Siam and Japan, as I
have pointed out, Buddhism is stronger and more wide awake
than elsewhere; but even in these countries Buddhism needs
the help that Christianity can bring.
For the work of the modern missionary is chiefly directed
against evils of the very real and undeniable sort recited
above. A large percentage of missionaries in our day are
school teachers. Many more are physicians and nurses. Some
of them are architects and builders, some of them roadmakers.
And those who are put down as evangelists give up most of
their time to directing native teachers and preachers, settling
disputes, giving personal advice, volunteering in famine re-
lief and plague relief, dealing with what wisdom they possess
with social questions, attacking evil customs such as foot-
binding and the opium habit, seeking to arouse and direct a
healthy public opinion, in short, teaching people how to live.
It may be said that it is well enough for the missionary to
carry on educational, medical, and social work, but that there
is no justification for his attempt to change the religion of
the natives. Some of the native religions, it is pointed out,
are noble, spiritual teachings. Since the Orientals have a
good enough religion of their own, why try to substitute
ours? Why, as it is sometimes expressed, seek to make Bap-
tists out of Buddhists? I should like those who ask that
question to come with me to China, Korea, and Annam and
point out to me the Buddhists who are being made into Bap-
tists. I spent upward of eight months in China with the
almost exclusive aim of finding Buddhists. Outside of the
Yangtse valley and outside of the monasteries I found ex-
ceedingly few. Exceedingly few, that is, relatively speaking
and in the sense of the anti-missionary argument recited
above; exceedingly few in whose lives the noble teachings
of Buddhism were a real power; exceedingly few for whom
Buddhism was doing anything of striking importance. And
those few were in no danger of being converted to Chris-
tianity, and, so far as I was aware, the missionaries were not
wasting any of their time upon them. The missionaries had
too many other, more promising things to do. The converts
to Christianity in the three lands I have mentioned are very
seldom made from those who have been devout Buddhists or
728
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
Confucians. They are made as a rule either from those who
had no religion before they met the missionary or from ani-
mists and spirit-worshipers whose "religion," if so it can be
called, was in many ways much worse than none at all. And
I do not see how there can be much argument over the
superiority of Christianity to the self-indulgent materialism
of the Annamese, the crude and non-moral superstition of
the Chinese villager, or the tree-worship and devil-fear of the
Korean. In the other Buddhist lands, I confess, the situation
is different, and there many efforts are made at the conversion
of real Buddhists. This is often a waste of time and it is
sometimes positively harmful. Probably it is not wise for
missionary boards to spend as much of their money and their
energies on these lands as in the others where the need is so
much greater. Yet surely the Siamese and Japanese, as well
as other peoples, should have an opportunity to learn about
Christianity if they care to. With the critics of the Christian
missions I agree that the Buddha has a message for many of
us in the West-for all of us, perhaps. But I should add that
Christ also has a message for the East and for all of it.
In fact, Buddhism itself needs the assistance of Chris-
tianity, not only in doing some of the common moral and
spiritual work which it is not strong enough to do alone, but
also for its own sake. Especially in Ceylon and Japan has
Christianity served Buddhism in two distinct and important
ways. It has, in the first place, taught it many useful meth-
ods of education and propaganda and ceremonial. And more
important still, it has been a stimulant to Buddhism, rousing
it to renewed life and effort by the very fact of its rivalry.
Two earnest Japanese Buddhists of my acquaintance, both
of them professors in Buddhist seminaries, assured me-and
each quite spontaneously-that Japanese Buddhism owed a
large debt of gratitude to the Christian missionaries.
The great majority of the many missionaries I have met
in Buddhist lands are liberal, intelligent, open-minded men
and women. Most of them are quick to recognize the finer
elements in the native religions. Most of them are much
more liberal in their point of view than are the rank and file
of the churches at home that send them out. Most of them
have become decidedly more liberal than they were when
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
729
they left home. They have done something to educate the
"heathen" and the "heathen" have done something to educate
them. They have got rid of many of our home-made pro-
vincialisms. They have attained, among other things, an in-
ternational point of view which is seldom found among those
who spend all their lives in their native land. Many of them
have, in similar fashion, learned to transcend denominational
lines and to think in terms of Christianity. A few of them
have succeeded in the very difficult task of thinking in terms
of religion, of viewing the situation from a point of view
that transcends the credal and nominal distinctions between
religions, while yet retaining the energy of the partisan in
the service of the Good.
In this matter again one should make distinctions between
different lands. The missionaries to Japan are as a rule a
very liberal group. They have to be. Ignorant and narrow
preachers of the gospel stand little chance of making much
impression on so intelligent and wide-awake a people as the
Japanese. A very large proportion of the missionaries I met
in China are also well educated and liberal and wise workers.
The level of liberality falls very decidedly when one enters
Korea or Annam, though in Korea, at least, I think the ma-
jority are still of the liberal sort. In the other countries I
visited the average level lies somewhere between these ex-
tremes. There is a notable difference also between the mis-
sionaries of different churches. I could name names, but I
do not wish to hurt feelings or acquire enemies.
-
M
As I have implied, by no means all missionaries are of the
liberal type. There is a narrow-minded minority, full of the
unselfish devotion of the zealot, who mix much harm with
the good they do. They are of the stuff the martyrs were
made of, and their persecutors. If born in an earlier age
they could have gone to the stake, or have tied some one else
to it, with equal readiness and fervor. They have come out
to destroy the devil and all his works, to smash the idols and
convert the heathen, or justify the Almighty in sending them
to eternal damnation. As Mr. R. F. Johnston's Letters to a
Missionary¹ show, there is still a fair minority of both mis-
sionaries and mission boards who cling (in name at least) to
1 London, Watts, 1918.
730
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the dogma that the heathen will be condemned by divine
"justice" to everlasting punishment unless they accept some
particular form of faith. Missionaries of this narrow type
are, so far as I know, invariably earnest, devoted, self-sacri-
ficing souls, ready to give their lives-and in fact actually
giving their lives-to the cause they love. In this as in every
field, zeal and narrowness commonly go together. Doubtless
it is a great impetus to missionary labor if one fervently be-
lieves that millions of one's fellows are held suspended, like
Jonathan Edward's famous spider, over the fires of hell, and
that in a brief time they will all be dropped into the yawning
jaws of the fiery abyss unless snatched like a brand from the
burning by being made to repeat some sacred formula. There'
is no doubt that Christian love for their fellows burns very
brightly in the hearts of these earnest and often heroic
apostles of an ancient creed. It may seem unkind to suggest
that a careful psychological analysis of their actual impulse
would reveal not only Christian love but also a good deal of
the instinct of pugnacity and of the partisanship commonly
associated with the Old Adam. Their type of militant mis-
sionary zeal not infrequently has much in common with a
familiar kind of "one-hundred percent" patriotism which,
in the words of Professor Veblin, "belongs under the general
caption of sportsmanship rather than of workmanship.
It is bent on an invidious success which must involve as its
major purpose the defeat and humiliation of some competi-
tor, whatever else may be comprised in its aim." 2 The im-
pelling force within many of these nobly earnest knights of
Jehovah is in part the same as that which sent the crusaders on
their missions of sanctified conquest. They have come out
as soldiers of the Lord to destroy His enemies. His enemies
are the rival religions; and hatred for the Lord's enemies
often burns quite as brightly as love for the lost sheep. They
have been taught that Christianity and Buddhism are antipo-
dal and that there is war to the death between them; and
the militant group loyalty they feel for Christianity is un-
consciously mingled with, and mistaken for, the spirit of
Jesus. They are playing a great game, and their aim is to
beat the other fellows. They are striving not only for suc-
D The Nature of Peace (New York, Macmillan, 1917), p. 33.
ke
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
731
cess but for an "invidious success." The thrill of partisan-
ship, which they take for the love of Christ, blinds their
eyes. In this they are not alone, nor peculiar. We would all
do well to examine our own hearts. If I am not mistaken, a
considerable fraction of the motivation of Christian missions
among the home churches is more closely related to patriot-
ism, college spirit, party loyalty, and the enthusiasm of the
baseball rooter who eagerly "heals his team," than it is to
anything in the New Testament. The spirit of partisanship
is a sentiment centering around some social group, and having
for its chief constituent the instinct of pugnacity. In itself
it is neither vicious nor virtuous. Its value depends upon the
measure of enlightenment which it possesses.
The partisanship of the narrower type of missionary is
not very enlightened. His opponents must be the enemies of
Christ and of the Truth, and therefore must be beaten. He
is too busy attacking these enemies to examine their real
nature. Objective, scientific study of the position of his
adversaries would be almost an impossibility for his essen-
tially partisan mind; and such an unprejudiced weighing of
values, even if possible, he would consider most reprehensible.
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
The mission boards and theological schools that send out
missionaries of this kind regularly give them no real infor-
mation as to the nature of the native religions they are to
meet. Instead they inspire them, indirectly and unintention-
ally no doubt, with an almost ineradicable prejudice. Thus
equipped, these zealous men and women spend their lives in
Buddhist lands, in constant touch with Buddhists, and at the
end of their days know little more of the finer elements in
Buddhism than did their ignorant teachers at home. They
will tell you that they have no time to study Buddhism; that
they wish they might have time for such study in order to
understand more fully the many falsehoods and evil prac-
tices inculcated by that evil religion. The thought that
there might be in Buddhism something besides evil practices
and falsehoods seems never to enter their heads. If it does,
-
732
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
it appears to be strenuously suppressed, lest it weaken the
fervor of their blows.
-
There are, I think, few men who have less of the virtue of
magnanimity and fair play than the missionary of this ex-
treme (and fortunately very rare) type. He is frankly un-
willing to give the devil his due. The poor heathen in his
blindness has no chance at all. Some of the missionaries I
have talked with seem to divide all the "heathen" into two
groups, both equally bad. There are those, in the first place,
who have wickedly forgotten their own religion, never visit
any of their own temples, never say any of their own prayers,
and are trying to get on without any religion at all. This is
dreadful. Then there is another terrible class of heathen,
namely those who are "very fanatical" (I quote the words
repeatedly used by one of my acquaintances) and who stick
to their old religion with wicked obstinacy. The poor
heathen, he catches it going and coming! All of which is
good orthodoxy after all and has the authority of no less a
man than that of the great St. Augustine; who, it will be
recalled, taught that no non-Christian could possibly be good,
and that the pagan virtues were only "splendid vices"
(splendida peccata).3
(
The extremely narrow missionary I have been picturing
is fortunately a rare being today-though there are possibly
more of his kind than some readers of this book may suppose.
But there are a good many who more or less nearly or dis-
tantly approximate the picture I have drawn. The young
missionaries, fresh from America, whom one meets in the
North China Language School (where most missionaries to
North China get their linguistic training) are in large mea-
sure of the conservative type; and I am told the proportion of
conservatives among them is on the increase. The mission
field, especially in China and Korea, is unfortunately split
into two distinct camps which instead of gradually coalescing
seem to be steadily drawing farther and farther apart. In
this the mission field is, of course, only following the cur-
rents of the home churches. In missionary lands, however,
(
digest
See Nourrisson's discussion of this matter in his La Philosophie de St. Augustin
(Paris, 1866), I. 467-71, with the references there given, particularly Contra Julianum
Pelagianum, IV. 3.
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
733
one is much more keenly aware of the sharp division of Chris-
tian thought than one commonly is at home, because the
effectiveness of missionary activity is so seriously curtailed
by it. An active campaign is being carried on against liberal
teaching and liberal missionaries, in part by a few self-
appointed reactionary missionaries who feel it their duty to
inquire into the creeds of their fellows, in part by systemati-
cally organized "Fundamentalist" forces, subsidized by lib-
eral grants of money from wealthy Fundamentalists at home.
The evil that is thus being done to the Christian cause is quite
unmeasurable. Cooperation is being prevented, disunion is
being sown, mutual suspicion and enmity between mission-
aries is being disseminated, earnest Christian leaders are being
diverted from their work by repeated accusations before the
home boards and by threats of removal; and what is, perhaps,
worst of all, the Fundamentalist type of missionary is teach-
ing the Chinese and Koreans, the Siamese and Cambodians,
and to some extent the Japanese, that Christianity consists in
not smoking, not drinking, not dancing, not doing as you like
on Sunday; and that it is to be identified with a creed that
defies modern science and with a picture of God which,
from a moral point of view, would be an insult to an East-
ern despot. It is no wonder that many intelligent Orientals
regard Christianity as a superstition.
C
C
A
And indeed if Christianity be the sort of thing taught by
a considerable number of the Fundamentalist theologians it
is a superstition and a very ugly one. Christian unity is
a desirable thing, but common frankness must force us
to recognize the fact, even if we do not talk about it, that
liberal Christianity and "Fundamentalism" in its extreme
form have very little of a credal sort in common. It will
not lead to mutual understanding to allow ourselves to be
blinded by names. As a fact, most liberal Christians are in
their beliefs very much nearer to liberal Buddhism than they
are to the creed of Fundamentalist Christianity. Most of
the readers of this book, I will venture to suggest, would find
it easier to assent to the Dharmakaya doctrine, to the concep-
tion of the Buddha Nature that is in us all, to the moral
structure of the universe as represented by the law of Karma,
according to which each of us reaps, throughout eternity,
734
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the due reward of his works, than to accept the picture of
the emotional little Jehovah, the eternal damnation of those
who do not believe in, or have never heard of, the "evangeli-
cal" creed, and the other things with which extreme Funda-
mentalism would present us.
I have tried to give an outspoken description of the mis-
sionary movement in Buddhist lands as I have observed it. If
I may judge by those I have met, the majority of the mission-
aries are liberal-minded and open-minded men and women,
who are doing a very splendid work, the value of which is
recognized and gratefully recognized by the inhabitants of
these lands, whether Christian or non-Christian. Few of
these missionaries are as well educated as they should be, nor
are they as well informed concerning the nature of the non-
Christian religions as we all wish they were. But they are
usually well aware of their own shortcomings, and many of
them are making earnest, and sometimes scholarly efforts to
understand without prejudice and even with sympathy the
native forms of the spiritual life. Besides these there is a
small but sometimes militant minority, who have come out
to destroy Buddhism and are inadvertently doing everything
in their power to destroy Christianity. In view of this
situation, what shall we say of the possible future relations
and of the desirable relations between Christianity and
Buddhism?
-
There are four possible relations that the two religions
may hold to each other in the future. They may, namely,
continue in the state of mutual warfare which to a consider-
able extent characterizes them today. Secondly, one of them
may succeed in destroying the other. Thirdly, they might
conceivably coalesce. Or, finally, they might tacitly agree
to settle down and live side by side, as partners, perhaps, in a
common business, as friendly rivals, possibly, but not as foes.
As the reader may have guessed, this last is in my opinion
the consummation most devoutly to be wished.
The present state of warfare may, as a fact, continue into
the indefinite future. It is therefore a possible solution, but
I think far from a desirable solution of our problem. Par-
ticularly undesirable does it seem to me if the warfare be-
tween the two religions be universally carried on in the
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
735
extreme way in which many of the narrowly partisan mis-
sionaries now wage it. The mutual recriminations, the con-
stant attacks made and received on both sides would be
mutually harmful and would redound to the advantage of
no one but the common foe, the enemy of every spiritual
view of the cosmos and of every unselfish attitude toward
life. When the Ceylonese, Korean, or Chinese is making up
his mind how he shall live and how he shall look upon the
universe, the unedifying spectacle of the two great leaders
of the spiritual life engaged in slinging mud at each other
may well be the decisive consideration in favor of material-
ism and selfishness. Since each ridicules the other, he will
end by ridiculing both. And when a large part of the effort
of the religious leaders is drafted off into attacks upon
each other, much solid educational, charitable, and social
work, for which there is crying need, will necessarily go
undone.
-
In this connection it is only just to point out the curious
fact that thus far, in most Buddhist lands, the warfare to
which I have referred has been, almost wholly, a one-sided
affair. It is the Christian missionaries that have done all the
attacking and almost all the fighting.* Passive resistance or
even something that looks like turning the other cheek has
been the response of most Buddhists. In Japan and Ceylon,
to be sure, Buddhism has made some rather unsystematic
efforts at self-defense, but everywhere else it has done almost
nothing even to defend itself, and nowhere has it taken the
lead and acted aggressively. There are two reasons for this.
One is to be found in the passive, non-aggressive and out-
wardly inefficient nature of Buddhism discussed in the pre-
ceding chapter. But there is another reason, namely, the fact
that only after great provocation does Buddhism feel any
animosity toward Christianity, or toward any other form
of religion. The attitude of the great majority of Buddhists
toward Christians and toward Christianity is one of genuine
friendliness. If there is to be a fierce and long continued
war between the two religions it will be all the work of
Christianity. For its part, Buddhism would be only too glad
An exception must be made here of the Maha Bodhi Society and its organ, which
are very bitter against Christianity.
736
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
to ratify a treaty of enduring peace, alliance, and friendship
with its great rival.5
I think it unlikely that either of the two religions that we
are considering will be able to destroy the other. Certainly
the conversion of all Buddhist lands to the Christian creed
and the Christian form of worship, and the discarding of all
native religious beliefs and religious customs, if possible at
all, is a goal that can be attained only at a remote time. And
I would point out that if one of the two religions is des-
tined to destroy the other, say in Japan or one of the Hina-
yana lands, it is not at all certain which of the two will be
the victim. Christianity, of course, has the advantage of
Western energy and Anglo-Saxon money. But one must
remember, on the other hand, that it is chiefly the reaction-
ary part of the missionary movement that is set upon the
destruction of Buddhism. And when one considers the fan-
tastic teachings of this sect, and their hopeless incompati-
bility with either science or scholarly criticism, and when in
addition one recalls the remarkable elasticity, adaptability,
and liberality of Buddhism, whose philosophy is quite capable
of welcoming anything that science is likely to establish—
when one makes this comparison, it does not appear at all
certain that, in a case of dog eat dog, Buddhism would get
the worst of it.
Nor does it seem to me even desirable that Buddhism
should be destroyed and completely superseded, at any rate
by the kind of Christianity which is being preached in the
East today by the more militant missionary. By that I mean
that if it is to be destroyed, it is highly desirable that the re-
ligion which displaces it should contain a good deal of what
we now know as Buddhism; and this would be a solution to
be described rather by the word coalescence than by the word
8
The Young East, the Japanese periodical to which I have several times referred,
founded in 1925 explicitly for the propaganda of Buddhism, quoted in a recent number
from an American subscriber who both commended the periodical and attacked Chris-
tian missions in Japan. The editors commented upon the letter as follows: "We are
thankful for these kind words, but it is far from our minds to challenge Christian
missionaries in the Far East to any quarrel. We respect them for their enthusiasm and
faithful service and know that they are our friends and allies in that part of our aim
of ushering in a time of peace and good will into these parts of the world. We publish
this little journal with no intention whatever of obstructing or injuring the activities
of Christian missionaries, but it is one of our cherished desires to make better known
through this medium the real East to the peoples of the West" (I. 98).
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
737
destruction. It is of course desirable that a great mass of
the superstitions and superstitious evil practices which clus-
ter around Buddhism today should be destroyed-and indeed
the same thing may be said concerning Christianity. It is
desirable that the narrow inwardness of Buddhism should be
supplemented. It is desirable that the Spirit of Christ should
be spread abroad everywhere. But I cannot see that this
necessarily means the destruction of Buddhism. There are
elements of spiritual beauty in Buddhism, sources of spiritual
strength, which this old world could ill afford to lose. Many
of the nobler aspects of Buddhism are the common property
of the two religions. But there are also peculiarly Buddhist
qualities, shared possibly but not stressed by Christianity, for
which the East has always felt the need—and which possibly
the West, too, needs without knowing it. Gentleness of
spirit, cultivation of the inner life, the destruction of tyran-
nous desires, aspiration for spiritual freedom and for the
Great Peace, these are things which Buddhism has taught
with an emphasis immeasurably greater than official Chris-
tianity has dared put upon them since the second century.
In its earliest days Christianity seems to have given Inner-
lichkeit almost as great, though not so exclusive, an emphasis
as Buddhism. But whatever may have been the teachings of
Jesus and his immediate successors, and of the medieval
Catholic mystics, certainly the actual Christianity of our
day, and particularly Protestant Christianity, even at its best,
lays its almost exclusive stress upon a very different, more
Western, more external and aggressive set of virtues. These
fine manly Christian virtues are certainly needed, but the
gentler, inward, Buddhist virtues have a place also and need
a champion. Not only so. Many of the methods of moral
training of the Hinayana have a psychological insight and a
practical efficacy that give them a distinctive value. Many
of the conceptions of the Mahayana have a nobility that puts
them among the inspiring intellectual treasures of the race.
And surely the memory of Gotama and the impress of his
magnetic personality is one of the most precious things in
the spiritual life of man. It possesses an emotional hold over
the imagination of a large part of mankind such as only one
other name can boast. It has been and still is an inspiration
738
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
to noble living in the hearts of an innumerable company of
our fellows. That an attempt should be made by earnest
lovers of their kind to destroy this memory and end this in-
fluence is explicable only through pitiful ignorance or blind
prejudice. If these men should succeed in their destructive
aim it would be a racial calamity. For the age when that
sort of influence and tradition could be originated is forever
past. The reverend and loving memory of Moses and Jesus,
of Buddha and Confucius, of Zarathustra and Mohammed
are among the world's priceless spiritual resources, and once
they are destroyed they can no more be replaced than can the
planet's coal and oil and iron. In our age the race has awak-
ened to the fact that the earth's riches are not endless and
we think and talk much of the conservation of our material
resources. It is time that our religious leaders too should see
the folly of a policy of reckless and prodigal destruction, and
should institute in its stead a cooperative system of conser-
vation for the world's spiritual resources.
Nor am I persuaded that it would be a gain if the more
mythical or symbolic names of the Buddhist cycle were all
forgotten. When one thinks what Amida, Kwan-Yin, Jizo,
mean to the Mahayana Buddhist, the power they have over
his imagination in the production of quiet confidence, inner
peace, mercy and gentleness toward others, hope for the fu-
ture, comfort in the hour of bereavement, calmness in the
hour of death, one can hardly contemplate their utter de-
struction with complacency. Doubtless they are unhistori-
cal, but as symbols of spiritual aspects of the Cosmos they
are not necessarily unreal. They are symbols only, to be sure,
but in religion, as distinct from abstract philosophy, symbols
of some sort seem to be a necessity. As Dean Inge has ex-
pressed it: "We cannot make our highest intuitions and ex-
periences our own without translating them into symbolical
or mythical forms. Myths and cultus seem to be the un-
transparent middle terms between the spiritual and the tem-
poral." And for a given people the symbols that will exert
the most compelling force are those which have behind them
the great prestige of an ancient and venerable tradition. You
cannot make new symbols and endow them with this power.
G
0 Outspoken Essays, II. 254 (London, Longmans, 1923).
.
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
739
You cannot transplant the symbols of an alien race and cul-
ture and make them glow with the compelling attraction of
the native ones.
As I have said, symbols of some sort our Chinese and
Japanese fellows must have. So I put the question as a real
question, with a real wish that some one would enlighten me:
Is it honestly desirable that the venerated names of Amida
and the Goddess of Mercy and Jizo who saves little children,
around which the faith and love of two nations for centuries
have twined and which have blossomed in a kind of inevitable
way from the culture and the hearts of these Eastern races,
is it, I ask, really desirable that these native, tried and beloved
figures should be replaced, in China and Japan, by the wor-
thies of the Old Testament? Is it not possible that we may
have overestimated and overemphasized the value of Hebrew
culture and ideas? The Jews were a great people certainly-
but there have been others. The Yahveh even of pre-
prophetic times was a fine conception, and the Yahveh of the
Prophets at its best a very noble one. But so at their best
were the conceptions of Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Brahman, T'ien;
so are the conceptions of Amida, and the Dharmakaya.
Surely we are fast getting beyond the time when intelligent
Christians can seriously take the Yahveh of the Twelve Tribes
as having any supreme value for us. A unique value for us,
doubtless, he has; it was historically from him that the Chris-
tian conception of God developed. But the "gods of the
nations" also developed, and some of them developed toward
the same larger conception toward which the God of Israel
was in process of growing throughout Old Testament times.
At best they were all but symbols.
The study of the Old Testament should hold a large place
in the education of every American and European, because
as an historical fact our culture has been so deeply influenced
by Hebrew beliefs and our literature is so shot through with
Hebrew thought. But is there any good reason why the de-
tails of Hebrew history and Hebrew ideas should be foisted
upon peoples to whom they are as foreign as they are to the
Japanese, the Chinese, and the Indians? Is it really necessary
that the whole world should be brought up upon Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob?
-
-
740
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
In fine, then, the goal of replacing Buddhism completely
by Christianity seems to me as undesirable as it is unlikely of
achievement. A certain amount of progress toward this end
is, indeed, probable, and is something to be wished. But when
I recall various groups of keenly intelligent, lofty-minded
Buddhist thinkers I have known in different parts of the
world, the thought of converting them to what is commonly
known as Christianity seems simply fantastic. I should as
lief think of making St. Thomas Aquinas into a Methodist.
Nor am I sure that the actual results of the destruction
of Buddhism in so far as already achieved are altogether a
gain. In some cases, no doubt, poor Buddhists, or even good
Buddhists, have been made into fair Christians. But most
of the Christian gain seems to have been made from the non-
Buddhist sections of the population, and the real gainer from
the weakening of Buddhism has been not Christianity but
worldliness and naturalism. I remember climbing a steep
and stony hillside in Chihli province, back of the great mon-
astery of Chieh Tai Ssu, to an ancient mountain hermitage
called Chi Leh Feng San, which means, I believe, the Peak
of Perfect Happiness. It is a cavern, supplemented by side
and front walls. The walls are said to have been built and
the place consecrated during the Liao dynasty, eleven hun-
dred years ago, by a monk from Chieh Tai Ssu, who wished
for more absolute retirement than he could find in the large
monastery. The last ten years of his life he spent in this
lonely hermitage. His successors continued the worship of
the Blessed One at this shrine for nearly a thousand years.
It is now deserted. A few decaying images of the Buddha
and his attendant P'usas still occupy the central shrine, and a
sad little Kwan-Yin still sticks to her post at the entrance.
But it is now several years since the cavern and its ruined
walls have echoed to the sound of Sutras chanted in honor of
the Tathagata. On one of the walls some visitor has traced
with chalk in large letters the words, "Ye shall know the
Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." The inscription
was probably written by some ardent Christian, in exulting
triumph over the fall of a false faith. But on reading it I
could not repress the query, Are the former worshipers of
the Blessed One, who now worship him no longer, free in-
-
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
741
deed? They who once spent their lives in reverence, medita-
tion, and gentle helpfulness, what are they doing with their
new-found liberty? And what was the Truth that has set
them free? Was it the truth of a larger spiritual life and of
a more efficient love and service, or was it materialism, cold
indifference to the cosmic questions and to the life of the
spirit, and cynical efforts at self-centered gratification?
Reflections such as the foregoing naturally lead us on to
the third of the four possible relations between the two reli-
gions that I suggested some pages back. If Buddhism and
Christianity are to cease their attacks upon each other, may
we not expect them to coalesce, and should we not use our
influence to bring about an explicit coalescence? As to the
question whether they may in the distant future grow into
one, it would be hazardous to make any confident statement;
but I feel quite confident in saying that it would be unwise
to seek to hasten any such coalescence by an explicit identifi-
cation of the two. The genius of Buddhism is one, the genius
of Christianity is another. The philosophy of Buddhism is
one; the philosophy of Christianity is another. Each has its
rôle to play, each has arisen in reply to a deep-lying need of
the human mind and the human heart. A union of the two,
brought about by the deliberate act of the leaders of both,
would be ultimately a failure, and so far as it succeeded, it
would bring but little gain and would result in real loss. The
wiser leaders of both religions realize this fact thoroughly.
The attempted union of Buddhism with Taoism in China,
and with Shinto in Japan is an object lesson against any such
rather artificial mixture. The two religions, to be sure, have
a great deal in common. All things considered, their simi-
larities are very much greater in both number and impor-
tance than their differences. Yet differences there are, and it
will serve no useful purpose to shut our eyes to them. Nor
is it desirable that Buddhism and Christianity should become
exactly alike. This world has need of both.
My own conclusion is, therefore, as I indicated at the be-
ginning of this discussion, that the desirable solution of our
problem will be found only when the two religions settle
down to live side by side on terms of amity and cooperation
and friendly rivalry. The same principle holds, I believe, of
742
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
the great religions of the world as that which we have been
working out between the various divisions and denominations
of Christianity at home. The origin of Protestantism and the
origin of many of the Protestant denominations was accom-
panied with much hostile feeling and militant and destruc-
tive activity. At length we have learned that a difference in
creed or in ceremonial need not mean war, and we have come
to look upon other Christian bodies than our own not as ene-
mies but as cooperating friends. We have even ceased to wish
for the reunion of all Christendom into one church with one
creed and one form of worship. For we have come to realize
that different minds need different religious symbols, and
that different temperaments require different ways of wor-
shiping. Some day we shall see that the same principle holds
of the wider relations between religions. There are some
minds and some temperaments to which the Buddhist con-
ceptions and the Buddhist symbols and the Buddhist worship
are more satisfying and helpful than the Christian, while for
others the Christian ways of thinking and worshiping are
best. This, I know, will be a hard saying for most Christians
to accept, but it seems to me pretty plainly true. In the
first place Christian theology as it exists today and as it has
always been, is notably more conservative and more bound
down to the authority and the formulations of the past than
is Buddhist theology. In discussing this matter liberal and
advanced Christians almost always forget, for the time, what
Christianity actually is for the majority of Christians at home
and for the great majority of Christian missionaries in for-
eign lands. The Christianity which the creeds of the churches
retain, which the rank and file of good Christians believe in,
and which the majority of missionaries preach, though much
more liberal than it was twenty-five years ago, still insists
upon the actuality of some things which are of very dubious
certainty and to which Buddhism has never officially com-
mitted itself. It is quite conceivable—many think it almost
certain that in the course of the next century or half cen-
tury the official Christian position-the position maintained
at present by the majority of the churches in their more de-
liberate utterances and taught by most of the missionaries
to their converts-is going to be well-nigh untenable for
-
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
743
many reading and thinking men and women who are honest
with themselves. The position of the more philosophical sort
of Buddhism is much stronger on matters such as these and
offers a more helpful form of resistance to the advance of
naturalism. At any rate, it can hardly be denied that there
are many religous people in both East and West who find
and increasingly will find in Christian theology certain grave
difficulties from which Buddhism is quite free.
It is of course to be hoped that the liberal party within
the Christian church will be able to lead the thought of
Christendom in a direction not inconsistent with the scholar-
ship and intelligence of the future. Christianity and Maha-
yana Buddhism, on many of the points which at present
separate them, may come to an ultimate agreement. But in
their basal conceptions of the world it would seem that they
represent related but distinct philosophies, each of which has
its value and neither of which will ever be given up wholly
for the other. In the last analysis, I suppose, Christianity
stands for monotheism and Buddhism for pantheism. I think
that both of these points of view, in some modified form or
other, will for a long time be needed by the human race.
There is a certain type of mind to which pantheism
must ever seem cold, a type of mind which for its own best
spiritual development needs to conceive God under the image
of a person. For minds such as these Christianity will have
much more to give than Buddhism. Christianity also pos-
sesses a certain positive nature which appeals to many minds
and which Buddhism has to some extent always lacked. It is
not correct, to be sure (and I have pointed this out more than
once), to assert that Buddhism is pessimistic. Both Bud-
dhism and Christianity are in some sense pessimistic about the
world of sense and sin; both are optimistic about ultimate
Reality. But there clings about Buddhism ever a negative
note, while Christianity is essentially positive. The Anatta
doctrine and the doctrine of impermanence always suggest
the negative point of view, with usually a touch of gentle
melancholy. In this respect both the Christian and the
Hindu views seem more positive and more joyful than the
Buddhist. I doubt whether a person converted from Chris-
tianity to Buddhism would ever have the joy in religion that
744
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
G
so often accompanies a conversion from Buddhism to Chris-
tianity. The typical Christian experience at its best is joy;
the typical Buddhist experience is peace. Not that Buddhism
is without joy. But the joy it produces is usually either a
contrast effect-the consequence of the destruction of worry
-or it is a kind of philosophic confidence. And as to the
matter of morality, there can be no doubt that the Hina-
yana, even at its best, lacks something of the unreserved self-
forgetting devotion of Jesus' teaching and example; that the
Mahayana, even with its noble Bodhisattva ideal, lays less
emphasis upon the moral life than does Christianity; and that
both Mahayana and Hinayana are as yet immeasurably in-
ferior to Christianity in actual and efficient heplfulness.
Buddhism has not yet learned to serve in the whole-hearted
and effective way of Christ. Even Japanese Buddhism has
still a long way to go in the will to help and the energy of
full devotion before it can seriously compare with Christian-
ity at its best. And if we abstract from Japan, Buddhism in
other parts of the world is still characterized at times by an
extreme fear of sorrow, a preoccupation with one's own
Karma, a suspicious attitude toward the normally good things
of life, in marked contrast to the rational and glad acceptance
of the world's true riches which more and more marks the
attitude of modern Christianity. For the leaders of Chris-
tianity today, as every one knows, say but little of the ascetic
aspect of Jesus' teachings and instead dwell upon the words
which the Fourth Gospel attributes to Him: "I am come that
they might have life and that they might have it more
abundantly."
And this inevitably brings up the question of the different
effects produced upon the minds of Christians and Buddhists
by the figures of the respective Founders. There can be no
doubt that the psychological power of the image of Christ
is unique. No other figure, human or divine, has ever been
able to produce such intense and wide-spreading effects upon
the human imagination, and through it upon the whole of
human life. This, I think, is one of the great arguments for
Christian missions. It is at least conceivable that the inspir-
ing figure of Jesus might be released from much of the
mythical jewelry with which he has been so often and so
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
745
unfortunately bedecked, and from some of the dogmas
which hide much of his true glory, and so might be given to
all the world, a common possession of mankind, from which
intelligent men of all religions might draw endless inspiration.
This is being actually done in India by the Brahma Somaj
and Mahatma Gandhi, before our eyes. In a very real sense
Jesus seems in the process of being taken over into the nobler
forms of Hinduism. Gandhi is able to bring this about only
because the Christian missionaries have long since made the
figure of their Master familiar and glorious in the eyes of most
educated Indians. What is being done for India we may well
expect will be done for all Buddhist lands and for all lands
and all religions. In the end it may well transpire that the
great work of Christian missions has not been to convert the
"heathen" to "Christianity," but to permeate all the non-
Christian religions with the spirit of Christ.
But while the power of the Buddha over the imaginations
of men has never worked and probably never will work such
miracles of spiritual redemption as has the thought of the
living Christ, it must not be forgotten that his power for
good has probably been only second to that of Jesus, that his
figure is today the actual support of millions of our fellows,
and that there is a type of mind to whom the calm, intellec-
tual, loving Sage of India will make an appeal ever greater
than that of the Cosmic Logos of the Fourth Gospel or of
the eager adolescent reformer of the Synoptics. I was much
interested in a remark let fall by the Chinese monk Tai Hsu
on this matter. On being asked by a missionary what he
thought of Christ, he replied: "Your Christ appears to me to
be a great Bodhisattva." A Bodhisattva, notice, worthy of
immense admiration and reverence; a being animated by
divine love. A Bodhisattva, but not a Buddha; not one fully
enlightened. Equal to the Buddha, doubtless, in mercy and
self-sacrifice, but still behind him in ultimate insight and
supreme wisdom.
And just as there are many minds to whom monotheism
is a living force and pantheism could perhaps never be any-
thing but a cold and abstract doctrine, so there are some
minds-and are they not an increasing number?-to whom
monotheism with its personal deity is a difficult, or even a
746
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
dead world view, while the Buddhist philosophy with its
cosmic largeness and sweep and inclusiveness offers a living
vision of the Real and a perennial source of spiritual strength.
A Buddhist thinker, accustomed to the immensities and in-
finities of the Sutras and to the impersonal yet spiritual con-
cept of the Buddha nature which breathes through all things,
feels in Christianity a certain sense of confinement, a lack
of space and air. The Christian universe he finds too nice
and too little.
It may be that as the longings of the human heart and
mind are superficially modified in the course of centuries, the
conceptions and the hopes of the two great religions will also
be modified and that Buddhism and Christianity will more
and more approximate each other. Even if this should occur,
however, it is unlikely that the forms and symbols under
which they present their truths will ever entirely coalesce,
nor is it desirable that they should do so. At any rate until
that distant and most improbable day when Oriental and
Occidental shall feel and be exactly alike, a diversity of
spiritual symbols will be needed if all are to find their best
satisfaction.
It seems to me, therefore, an unfortunate and misleading
question to ask, Which of these two great religions is true
and which false? For both possess much truth and neither
one is wholly beyond illusion. Nor can we say in any abso-
lute and complete sense that either one is altogether better
than the other. There are many souls whose inner life can
be best nourished by what Christianity has to give, and there
are those who will find their spiritual needs best supplied by
Buddhism. Neither of the religions could wholly supplant
the other without a real loss to the human race. Each has its
peculiar function in the spiritual economy of our human
world.
Meanwhile there is much work in common for the two
religions to perform, work of a social, educational, philan-
thropic kind, upon which they may well cooperate.' There
"I take from recent numbers of the Young East two actual examples of the sort of
cooperation I have in mind. The January 1927 number announced the formation of a
"Purity Union" formed by two Japanese, one an ardent Christian, the other an ardent
Buddhist, for the purpose of organizing popular opinion against the licensing of prosti-
tution. The other case (reported in the number for June 1927) is an "example of
x
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
747
is another common task which will be increasingly thrust
upon them as the
years go by: namely, the united effort to
defend a spiritual view of the world, an idealistic view of
human life and the way to live it. Materialism both in
metaphysics and in morals is the common foe of both, and
it will require all the strength both have to muster to drive
back the rapid advances of that foe, without wasting any of
their forces in civil war. Shoulder to shoulder they may do
much.
Nor do social service and the defense of the common
truth as they now see it exhaust the field of their desirable
cooperation. There is the pursuit of further truth as well,
and the mutual assistance in the truth search which each
may give the other. Each has something to give from which
the other may well learn. As Mr. Dwight Goddard has ad-
mirably expressed it:
8
Ca
We Anglo-Saxon Christians need the Buddhist serenity and aloofness
even more than they need our executive ability and energy. We both see
humanity entangled in a bewildering maze of causality, dissatisfaction,
selfishness, poverty, sickness, old age and death. Gautama saw the way out
through an individualistic life of kindness and purity, by the subordina-
tion of all physical desire and the will-to-power. Jesus saw the way out
through a brotherly life of coöperating good-will and service. The gen-
eral result of following Gautama's way has been to exaggerate inaction.
The general result of following Jesus' way has been to exaggerate nervous
activity in social service and institutions. . The world needs today-
it needs desperately-the mingling of these two: social Christianity with
cooperation between Christians and Buddhists in the village of Tatsuoka in Nagano
Prefecture. The village contains more than six hundred families of which about one
half are Christians, the remaining half Buddhists. Instead of keeping an attitude of
indifference, if not hostility, toward each other, as in other places, the villagers are
cooperating for the improvement of the village administration under the direction of
the Reverend Kobayasi and his wife, who established a Christian church in the village
several years ago and have converted half of the villagers into Christians, and of
Dr. Ko Nakada and Mr. Shigeru Kinoshita, who are devoted Buddhists and are doing
their best for the propagation of Buddhism among the villagers. No quarrel has ever
arisen between them. Half of the members of the village council are Buddhists and
the other half Christians, but everything goes on smoothly between them, each party
regarding the other with brotherly feeling and trying to render assistance for the pro-
motion of their common welfare."
8 Cf. the following from Prof. Whitehead: "The decay of Christianity and Bud-
dhism as determinative influences in modern thought, is partly due to the fact that each
religion has unduly sheltered itself from the other. The self-sufficient pedantry of
learning and the confidence of ignorant zealots have combined to shut up each religion
in its own forms of thought. Instead of looking to each other for deeper meanings,
they have remained self-satisfied and self-fertilized” (Religion in the Making, Macmillan,
1926), p. 146.
748
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
its coöperative service and good-will, and Buddhist personal piety, kind-
ness, serenity, and self-control.º
Not only in matters such as these may Buddhism and
Christianity properly learn from each other; on questions of
philosophical theory also each might profitably borrow and
each lend. Buddhist thought would do well to take from
Christian and from Western ways of thinking, some of that
definiteness and logical exactness, the lack of which often
makes Buddhist world pictures almost hopelessly self-
contradictory. Christian theology, on the other hand, might
well borrow from Buddhist thought some of the larger cos-
mic feeling which so distinguishes it, in contrast to which
much of our Protestant and Catholic anthropomorphic sys-
tematization often seems as little as it is exact. Nor need
their mutual influence stop here. It is neither likely nor
desirable that the borrowing and lending of the two religions
will cease at any point that we can now definitely name.
9
From a little pamphlet entitled A Vision of Christian and Buddhist Fellowship in
the Search for Light and Reality, and printed in Los Gatos, California, in 1924. Mr.
Goddard is a former missionary in Southern China. His pamphlet has the merit of
making a definite proposal of a method by which better understanding and cooperation
might be brought about between Christians and Buddhists-a proposal which has the
approval of one of the greatest of Christian missionaries in China, Bishop Roots of the
American Episcopal church. The proposal is to the effect that a hospice, after the
model of a Buddhist monastery, should be founded in some central locality in China,
such as Hangchow or Nanking, which should serve the following functions. It should
be, namely:
"1. A place for fellowship and mutual exchange of thought,
2. A place to which missionaries may come for rest and meditation,
3. A place for annual retreat for both Buddhists and Christians,
4. A clearing house for the exchange of speakers at annual conferences,
5. A place for the accumulation and examination of Buddhist books and research
material,
6. The publishing of a magazine designed to circulate among both Christians and
Buddhists,
7. The publishing of books of mutual interest,
8. A place where British and American scholars may meet Buddhist scholars in a
friendly atmosphere,
9. A place for the conservation of the results of research into the early contacts
of Buddhism and Christianity,
10. The foregoing are all the immediate objects. The great purpose is more distant,
but is all-important: namely, to provide a center from which may radiate that
friendly and understanding sympathy which we believe, in the long run, will
draw Christianity and Buddhism together into one native church."
Something like Mr. Goddard's dream may be partially realized in Japan in the not-
distant future. A convention of representatives of Buddhism, Shinto, and Christianity
is being held this year (June 5-9, 1928), for the "promotion of inter-religious co-
operation" through the discussion of "questions of common interest bearing on inter-
national peace, education, thought, and social welfare" (The Young East for May,
1928).
BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY
749
But if this be the case, and if no new important differ-
ences in belief arise, it means that the future will witness a
gradual and partial approximation of the two religions.
Already, when liberal Buddhist and liberal Christian thinkers
frankly compare their views, they discover that the principal
differences between them consist in the ways in which they
express their faith. It is chiefly their symbols that divide
them. This gradual approximation of which I speak will be a
very different thing from a deliberate and more or less arti-
ficial identification or union of the two religions brought
about by the specific and conscious acts of the leaders. It
will be a natural and almost imperceptible development, a
steady growth of mutual respect and friendliness. Both re-
ligions will come to place less emphasis on some of the differ-
ences that now seem important, and each will come to see
that the other's truth may possibly, in some large sense, be
true. For in some sense all truth is one. Contradictory
opposites, of course, cannot both be true; that much is cer-
tain if anything is certain. But we cannot always be sure
that opposites which seem to us contradictory are really so.
Beliefs that seem mutually incompatible from a lower level
may, when grasped by a more inclusive vision, prove to be
true and mutually complementary. There is at least this
much of justification for the ancient Tendai-Kegon doctrine
of the different planes of truth. And, as a Chinese Buddhist
philosopher of deep insight recently said, it may be that the
Buddhist and the Christian are both viewing the same
Supreme Reality from slightly different angles.
་
For when a last review we take of both Christian and
Buddhist philosophical conceptions, we must realize that
neither of them is a final and complete picture of the Ulti-
mate and Absolute. At their best, both are but adumbra-
tions of the Real, but fragmentary gleams of the truth which
both are seeking-"fingers pointing at the moon." Certainly
the Christian insight has taught us much. But for the Chris-
tian as well as for the Buddhist there can be but one answer
to the question: "Canst thou by searching find out God, or
know the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as Heaven;
what canst thou do; deeper than hell, what canst thou
know?" The Christian conceptions, though containing
750
THE PILGRIMAGE OF BUDDHISM
much that is true, are, like the Buddhist, only symbols after
all, symbols of the mystery that no man has solved, the mys-
tery behind the face of things, of which all the religions are
acutely conscious, and of which no religion has ever given
more than a poetic, a figurative explanation.
It is thoughts such as these that fill my mind these last
days of our Buddhist pilgrimage. And now as we board the
ship that is to carry us away from Japan, the last of our
Buddhist lands, they press with special insistency. What is
the truth of it all? What is the significance of the great con-
ceptions of the two religions-the Christian Logos, the eter-
nal Christ, Chen Ru, the Dharmakaya, the Buddha nature
that is in us all and rolls through all things? What do the
symbols mean? Is it possible that in the end they somehow
cover the same Truth? And what may that Truth be? . .
G
But now the officer on the bridge is ringing his signal to
the engine room, the propeller sluggishly begins its revolu-
tions, the great ship quivers and starts and slowly noses its
way between the long protecting arms of the breakwater, on
into the outer harbor. The bluff, the green banks and hill-
sides beyond it, the groves with their hidden temples float
past, and before us opens out the sea. Now all Japan lies
there astern, stretched along the horizon's edge, and behind it
the setting sun. All Japan lies out there, its cities and its
paddy fields, its mountains and its valleys, its Buddhist tem-
ples, Shinto shrines, and little Christian churches, merg-
ing in one thin, green line. Darkness and distance are rapidly
shutting them from our view. The horizon is engulfing
them-the horizon of space and the horizon of time-as it
engulfs all things mortal at the end. Before long nothing
will be left our eyes but sky and ocean and night, tremulous
night, luminous with its stars. The little lights of man's
making are glimmering now on the edge of the world, Bud-
dhist temples, Shinto shrines, Christian churches, all merged
in one.
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.
So the ship sails out into the unknown silent spaces of the
sea.
1
INDEX
Abhidhamma, 107
Absolute, The, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253,
254, 255, 256, 259, 260, 408, 411, 412,
413, 414, 415, 416, 603, 604, 606, 609,
610, 611-619, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651,
663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670,
711, 749
Absorption, see Jhanas
Addison, J. H., SS3, 567, 699
Alaya-Vijnana, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248,
250, 259, 409, 412, 599, 600, 602
Alberuni, 114
Amida, 166, 304, 429, 478, 479, 480, 481,
483, 486, 487, 490, 492, 493, 494, 495,
496, 497, 498, 529, 541, 552, 555, 560,
564, 618, 619, 646, 648, 649, 650, 651,
659, 660, 661, 662, 663, 664, 738, 739
Amitabha, 214, 215, 216, 217, 223, 224,
225, 230, 231, 277, 289, 304, 353
Amogha Vajra, 286
Ananda, 11, 30, 31, 70, 103, 226, 252,
262, 268, 280, 308
Anatta Doctrine, 78-83, 107, 135, 220,
235, 237, 238, 401, 402, 458, 598, 619,
652, 659, 743
Anesaki, 261, 461, 481, 489, 491, 493,
501, 590, 613, 646
Anguttara Nikaya, 4, 7, 15, 21, 24, 27,
28, 31, 35, 36, 38, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48,
50, 57, 58, 82, 89
Annam, 148, 189, 190, 207, 208, 321,
332, 356, 357, 679, 680, 681, 701, 725,
726, 727, 729
Anuruddha, 103
Arahant, 13, 31, 66, 67, 70, 78, 84, 85,
86, 87, 88, 136, 218, 220, 225, 226,
227, 232, 302, 303, 703
Aristotle, 69, 72, 619, 670
Armstrong, R. C., 534, 540, 554, 604, 613
Arnold, Edwin, 18
Arupaloka, 76
Art, Buddhist, 99, 100, 127-129, 151-157,
194-198, 287, 294, 305-310, 313-324,
426, 449, 450, 456, 461, 463, 464, 476,
481, 491, 495, 496, 503-506, 507, 514-
518, 564
Asanga, 219, 231, 234, 243, 244, 245, 246,
248, 251, 257, 260, 285, 330, 407, 408,
412
Asceticism, 15, 16, 65, 341, 366, 531
Ashaku, 500
Asoka, 18, 104, 105, 106, 108, 117
Aston, 438
Asvaghosha, 234, 247, 280
Atavamsaka Sutra, 329, 479, 603, 605,
606, 617
Augustine (Saint), 732
Avelokitesvara, 215, 223, 296, 304
Awakeningof Faith in the Mahayana, 244,
245, 246, 247, 259, 266, 268, 270
Babbitt, Irving, 7
Beal, 223, 251, 346
Bengal, 115
Bhagavad, Gita, 73, 229, 231, 260, 265,
692
Bhaisajaguru, 215, 217, 293, 304, 424
Bhattacharyya, 215, 224
Bhutatathata, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251,
255, 259, 412, 602, 665
Bisjaimon, 463 ·
Binzurn, 507, 508, 549
Bodhidharma, 229, 278, 279, 280, 281,
328, 501, 552, 637
Bodhisattva, 217, 218, 219, 220-223, 241,
255, 260, 270, 275, 412, 703
Bodhi Tree, 1, 8, 65, 66, 98, 117, 119,
127, 212, 262, 279
Bradley, F. H., 237, 238, 401, 608, 616,
663, 667
Brahma, 6, 8, 127, 193, 303, 341, 505
Brahmaloka, 76, 77
Bredon, Juliet, 395
Brinkley, 276, 459, 462, 465, 477, 487,
493
Buddh Gaya, 1, 5, 98, 262, 675, 676
Buddha Image, 99, 100, 128, 129, 154,
155, 180, 196-198, 287, 288, 294, 295,
426, 458, 463, 464, 465, 495, 496, 504,
506, 508, 511, 552, 623
Buddhaghosa 106, 122
Buell, R. L., 438
Burma, 105, 110, 121, 122-136, 139-143,
147, 148, 149, 192, 193, 208, 209, 581,
595, 672, 673, 674, 675, 678, 679, 698,
701, 702, 725
Cambodia, 110, 126, 136, 148, 150, 188-
210, 672, 678, 679, 680, 681, 698, 701,
725
·
751
752
INDEX
Carter, T. F., 289, 290
Carpenter, 237
Central Ethical Principle, 17-20, 32
Ceylon, 105, 110, 116-122, 126, 127, 128,
130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 150, 193, 672,
673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 701,
725, 728, 735
Chandrakirti, 222, 245
Ch'an sect, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 288,
289, 290, 328, 333, 342, 343, 403, 404,
405, 406, 408, 415, 426, 483
Chen Ru, 412-416, 665, 750
Chen-yen sect, 329, 473
Chih K'ai, 282, 328, 603
China, 110, 149, 191, 192, 223, 224, 225,
226, 227, 231, 247, 271-416, 443-445,
453, 454, 456, 457, 458, 461, 462, 471,
472, 473, 476, 483, 504, 543, 578, 579,
595, 623, 624, 681-692, 701, 702, 703,
713, 720, 725, 726, 727, 732
Christ, see Jesus
Christianity, 34, 35, 52, 95, 177, 186, 234,
243, 262, 263, 265, 286, 287, 381, 394,
395, 404, 405, 412, 435, 453, 489, 548,
560, 567, 568, 594, 598, 616, 647, 700,
705-706, 707, 708, 714, 715, 716, 721,
723, 727, 728, 730, 733, 735, 736, 737,
741, 742, 743, 744, 745, 746-750
Chunking, 305, 315, 323, 324, 370, 382,
383, 684, 685
Clennell, 291
Coates and Ishizuka, 467, 478, 479, 480,
489, 647
Coit, S., 665
Compassion, 8, 11, 38, 40, 49, 53, 93, 217,
218, 219, 220, 269, 270, 335, 336,
374, 375, 376, 535, 537, 562, 594, 621,
712, 713, 714, 745
Confucianism, see Confucius
Confucius, 7, 46, 274, 275, 283, 286, 287,
290, 314, 352, 367, 396, 404, 405, 419,
435, 457, 458, 459, 464, 467, 493, 561,
564, 695, 713, 725, 738
Coomaraswamy, 119, 232
Cordier, 275
Costa, A., 92
Couling, S., 314
Councils, Buddhist, 103, 104, 110
Courage, 10, 44, 45, 447, 448, 712
Cult, see Worship
Dahlke, 18, 21, 64
Daimon Sutra, see Vajrakkhedika
Dainichi, 304, 496, 560, 609, 610, 611,
618, 619, 646
Daiseishi, 225, 304, 496, 497, 552
Dasgupta, 239
Day, C. B., 359, 361
Deming, C. S., 420
Dengyo Daishi, 286, 470, 471, 472, 473,
474, 511, 519
De Groot, 283, 312, 341, 369, 371, 374,
689
Descartes, 85
Desire, 19, 24, 25-33, 57, 77, 93, 94, 560,
710
Devatas, 127, 134
De Visser, 227, 299, 303, 497, 498, 499
Dey, Sri Mukul Chandra, 109
Dhamma, see Dharma
Dhammapada, 4, 18, 25, 31, 38, $1, $4, 70
Dharma, 47, 56, 90, 94, 100, 105, 110,
117, 217, 220, 259, 262, 286, 302, 461,
488, 692
Dharmakara, 216, 495, 618, 619, 649
Dharmakaya, 259, 260, 261, 267, 268,
411, 415, 424, 617, 618, 620, 621, 622,
647, 664, 665, 670, 739, 750
Dharma-lakshana, 285
Dharmapala, 142, 674
Diamond Mountains, 421-423, 693
Digha Nikaya, 3, 8-11, 13, 15, 16, 20, 21,
25, 28, 30, 31, 37, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49,
50, 53, 60, 74, 75, 76, 84, 89, 95, 98,
212, 259
Dipankara, 214, 216, 224
Docetism, 261, 262
Dogen, 483, 519
Dutt, S., 102, 675
Edkins, J., 278, 282, 296, 329, 369
Education, 139, 140, 141, 159, 160, 162,
199, 206, 333, 340, 341, 342, 347, 348,
373, 374, 375, 380, 382-385, 428, 433,
434, 435, 461, 468, 476, 490, 491, 561,
573, 574, 576, $77, 579, 580-588, 589,
590, 675, 677, 678, 691, 697, 698
Eightfold Path, 34, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61,
62, 333, 703, 711
Eisai, 483, 519
Eliot, Sir Charles, 63, 64, 87, 89, 90, 105,
106, 109, 110, 112, 114, 121, 130, 150,
190, 206, 217, 222, 284, 286
Emerson, 43
Epictetus, 32
Epicurus, 32
Evangelicism, Buddhist, see Pure Land
Buddhism
Fa-Hien, 110-112, 113, 119, 120, 278,
284, 296
Fa-Hsiang, see Tsu En sect
Faith, 47, 58, 95, 229, 230, 399, 654, 655,
656, 657, 658
Fausböll, 18
Fenellosa, 288, 289, 290, 463, 464, 481,
491
INDEX
753
Fergusson, 109
Fite, W., 43
Flournoy, 664
Foucher, 99, 212
Four Noble Truths, 17-34, 94, 136, 137,
141, 174-178, 217, 333, 431, 468, 560,
703, 710
Franke, 6
Freedom, of the Will, 15, 34
Fudo, 500, 501, 509, 516
Fu-gen, 304, 496
Fujishima, 473
Gambel, 325
Gandhi, 692, 745
Gebhart, 489
Generosity, 38, 47, 52, 535, 561
Genshin, 478, 479
Getty, 214, 217, 223, 296, 500, 501
Giles, 275
Goddard, D., 747, 748
Gods, 6, 76, 77, 96
Gotama, 1-16, 100, 212, 261, 269, 279,
456, 488, 561, 603, 618, 625, 647, 651,
652, 673, 698, 703, 704, 712, 719, 728,
737, 738, 745, 747
Geiger, 123
Goruku, 541
Graham, A. W., 149, 150
Griffes, 417
Grimm, G., 18, 21, 62, 63, 72
Grouset, 148, 190
Gulick, S. L., 450, 467
Gyogi, 466, 502
Hachiman, 476, 501
Hall, F., 132, 136
Happiness, 27-30, 47, 48
Hardy, Spence, 214
Harsha, 112
Harvey, G. E., 123, 125
Hatred, 24, 36, 38, 77, 405, 711
Havell, 106
Hearn, Lafcadio, 453, 498, 553, 554
Heaven, 67, 76, 173, 174, 205, 397, 410,
430, 714
Hell, 76, 173, 174, 205, 397, 410, 430,
497
Higashi Hongwanji, 503, 521, 522, 546,
$67, 571, 579, 583, 586, 587, 588, 590,
594
Hinduism, 39, 72, 92, 105, 111, 113, 127,
149, 150, 189, 190, 193, 194, 204, 212,
213, 214, 228, 229, 234, 235, 243, 248,
456, 457, 704, 706, 708, 718, 743
Hiuen-Tsiang, 112-113, 114, 227, 284, 285,
314, 329, 330, 376, 377, 408, 483,
690
Hocking, W. E., 637, 643, 667
Hodous, L., 336, 361, 367, 368, 375,
376
Hoffman, 62
Holt, E., 172
Holton, 494, 699
Honen Shonin, 287, 479, 482, 485, 519,
541, 552, 571, 653
Hosso, 285, 330, 469, 519, 520, 569, 582,
599-602, 617, 696
Hozo, see Dharmakara
Hua-yen sect, 329
Idumi, H., 232, 233
Ignorance, 19, 24, 36, 38, 77, 241, 242,
250, 251, 254, 255, 265, 266
Inari, 502
India, 103-115, 222, 223, 231, 232, 243,
286, 287, 366, 456, 462, 675, 676, 677
Inge, 237, 652, 669, 738
Ingles, J. W., 230
Insight, see Wisdom
Inwardness, 38, 44-46, 98, 134, 135, 219,
220, 232, 273, 371, 372, 373, 375, 376,
377, 378, 390, 391, 410, 411, 415, 623,
624, 709, 710, 712, 714, 715, 717, 737
Ippen Shonin, 489, 490, 519, 659
Iti-vuttaka, 4, 6, 26, 50, 71
I-tsing, 113, 273, 284
Jacobi, 82
Jaina, 15, 38, 39, 73, 712
James, William, 65, 73, 236, 245, 632,
633, 673, 717
Japan, 216, 217, 223, 224, 225, 227, 231,
247, 286, 287, 290, 327, 402, 408, 416,
419, 420, 434, 436-671, 693-701, 703,
713, 715, 716, 717, 720, 725, 727, 728,
729, 735
Jasink, 63
Jatakamala, 4, 49, 93, 120, 141
Jesus, 8, 9, 14, 52, 262, 263, 264, 300,
618, 619, 706, 724, 728, 731, 737, 738,
744, 745, 747, 750
Jhanas, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 161, 637
Ji sect, 329, 490, 519, 520, 659
Jizo, 463, 497, 498, 499, 500, 506, 509,
552, 554, 564, 713, 738, 739
Jodo sect, 329, 479, 480, 484, 485, 487,
497, 517, 519, 520, 521, 522, 524, 531,
539, 540 541, 544, 545, 546, 548, 552,
555, 559, 563, $71, 575, 579, 582, 589,
593, 594, 648, 654, 658, 662, 695, 696,
698
Johnston, R. F., 222, 296, 298, 300, 301,
346, 366, 729
Jojitsu sect, 469, 519
Jones, G. H., 420
Joy, 27, 29, 68, 69, 98, 411, 414, 563,
564, 619, 743, 744
•
754
INDEX
Kamaloka, 76
Kami, 459, 465, 466, 467, 475, 476, 510,
597
Kanishka, 109, 110
Kant, 20
Karma, 66, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 91, 96,
98, 396, 397, 404, 407, 409, 410, 600,
601, 602, 617, 619, 659, 660, 713, 714,
717, 718
Katha-vatthu, 78, 106, 261
Kato, G., 699
Kassapa, 103, 226, 228, 280, 308
Kawabata, 551, 552
Kegon sect, 329, 469, 472, 473, 509, 519,
520, 569, 582, 597, 602, 603, 604, 605,
606, 607, 608, 611, 617, 642, 643, 665,
667, 670, 695, 696, 749
Keith, A. B., 6, 15, 47, 72, 87, 89, 237,
238, 240, 244, 247
Kern, H., 2, 108, 215
Keyserling, 288, 289, 400, 452, 564
Khandas, 72, 73, 74, 78, 402
Khuddaka-patha, 4, 48, 100
Kings of the Four Quarters, The, 302,
306, 307, 322, 323, 424, 461, 501,
505
Kirtikar, V., 614, 615
Knox, 598
Koan, 626, 627, 628, 629, 630
Koan-eum, 304, 425
Kobo Daishi, 286, 472, 473, 474, 475,
476, 477, 501, 512, 513, 514, 519, 520,
581, 585
Kocho, 561, 562
Kokuzo, 500
Korea, 227, 417-435, 454, 456, 458, 459,
460, 461, 462, 504, 579, 692, 693, 701,
725 726, 727, 729, 732
Koya-San, 473, 474, 476, 477, 512, 513,
514, 530, 536, 584-587, 597, 607
Kshitigarbha, 223, 224, 296, 304
Kusha sect, 469, 519
Kukai, see Kobo Daishi
Kumarajiva, 277
Kwammu, 470, 471
Kwannon, 463, 484, 496, 497, 509, $52,
564, 581, 582, 618
Kwan-Yin, 223, 225, 285, 296, 297, 298,
301, 302, 304, 308, 309, 310, 311, 316,
317, 320, 324, 346, 347, 360, 361, 365,
368-370, 373, 374, 399, 429, 681, 682,
685, 713, 738, 739
Kyo sect, 426, 427, 428, 431
Lay Buddhist Societies, 368, 369, 370
Layman, The Buddhist, 46-48, 232, 233,
352-378, 420, 478, 520, 523, 538-556
Larger Sukhavati Vyuha, 213, 216, 230,
277, 353, 479, 541
La Vallée Poussin 6, 54, 62, 83, 90, 95,
213, 221, 222, 225, 231, 238, 240, 245
Leclère, 190, 198, 204, 206, 207
Leong and Tao, 353
Leuba, J., 415, 641, 643
Leumann, 227
Levi, 219, 232, 243, 244
Liang Chi Chao, 401, 402
Lien sect, 329
Lohans, 302, 303, 308, 310, 311, 320, 321,
323, 324, 426
Lloyd, 485, 489, 532, 654
Longford, 419
Loshana, 294, 424
Lotus Sutra, see Saddharma Pundarika
Sutra
Love, 36, 38, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,
92, 93, 175, 176, 177, 376, 377, 405,
461, 562, 621, 622, 713, 714
Loyola, Ignatius, 62
Lust, 36, 38, 39, 51, 711
Lu sect, 328, 329
Macdonald, 535
Madhyamika, 238-242, 259, 266, 282,
283, 402, 406, 407
Magadha, 104, 108, 114
Maha Bodhi Society, 141, 142, 674, 675,
676
Mahasthanaprapta, 225, 296, 304
Mahavamsa, 66, 103, 105, 106, 116, 119,
120, 121, 122, 123
Mahinda, 116-118
Maitreya, 129, 136, 165, 166, 192, 214,
215, 217, 223, 226, 227, 228, 291, 302,
304, 429, 692
Majjhima Nikaya, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13,
15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28,
29, 30, 31, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
47, 51, 52, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63,
64, 74, 75, 76, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 94,
95, 96, 102, 243, 245, 248
Manjusri 223, 224, 296, 304
McDougall, 72, 711
McGovern, 239, 244, 283, 615
Meditation, 9, 39, 49, 50, 51, 60, 61, 95,
98, 134, 135, 331, 338, 341-344, 369,
371, 372, 401, 402, 411, 427, 428, 480,
528, 529, 531, 556, 557, 559, 561, 625,
626
▼
Mih sect, 329
Milei-Fo, 294, 295, 304, 305, 310, 316,
319, 320, 322, 323, 324, 369, 395
Milinda, 108
Milindapanha, 74, 78, 109
Millican, F. R., 401, 403, 413
Mindfulness, 40-43, 60
Miroku, 304
Miryek, 304, 425, 426
INDEX
755
Missions, Buddhist, 8, 9, 45, 53, 77, 105,
106, 115, 269, 270, 273, 276, 277, 278,
417, 418, 458, 459, 460, 464, 465, 578,
581, 676, 677, 678, 694
Missions, Christian, 139, 173, 184, 185,
286, 287, 376, 383, 385, 492, 558, 567,
595, 673, 678, 691, 721, 723-734, 735,
742, 744
Moggallana, 30, 39, 103, 226
Mohammedanism, 76, 114, 234, 457, 700,
704, 706, 714, 721
Mommu, 464
Monju, 304, 463, 496, 497, 509
Monk, The, 43-46, 130, 131, 132, 158,
159, 160-163, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203,
325-351, 361, 362, 381, 419, 420, 427-
429, 431, 432, 462, 477, 492, 493, $19,
520, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528-537,
694, 697, 698
Moore, G. F., 287
Moun-sou, 304, 425
Mura, 194
Murdoch, J., 463, 483
Murisier, E., 625, 626
Nagarjuna, 232, 234, 237, 238, 239, 240,
241, 242, 243, 247, 280, 402, 406, 547
Nagasena, 109
Nanjio, 279, 280, 281, 286
Narasu, 58
Nariman, 213, 247
Nats, 127, 134
Nepal, 215, 270
Neumann, 6, 90
Nibbana, see Nirvana
Nichiren, 487, 488, 489, 509, 517, 518,
519, 552, 596, 646, 647
Nichiren sect, 434, 490, 505, 519, 520,
521, 524, 526, 539, 544, 546, 552, 561,
562, 563, 570, $79, 582, 588, 593, 194,
596, 646, 647, 696, 698
Nidanas, The Twelve, 24, 36, 75
Nikayas, The 2, 3, 4, 12, 14, 17, 25, 31,
39, 57, 76, 78, 82
Ni-O, 501, 505
Nirmanakaya, 261, 267, 424, 618
Nirvana, 11, 27, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76,
94, 136, 138, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172,
204, 205, 216, 265-268, 398, 407, 411,
429, 430, 600, 606, 607, 611, 617, 619,
620, 643, 644, 660, 661
Nisbet, 132, 135
Nishi Hongwanji, 434, 521, 522, 539, 567,
571, 578, 579, 583, 586, 587, 588, 589,
590, 594
Nourisson, 732
Nukariya, 484, 630, 644
Nun, The; see Monk
Ohasama, L., 529, 616, 624, 631, 635, 644
Okakura, 457
Oldenberg, 6, 15, 20, 78, 90
Oltramare, 261
Okakura-Kakuzo, 290
Okuma, Count, 468
O-mi-to Fo, 293, 295, 304, 308, 329,
331, 332, 341, 364, 367-370, 371, 372,
381, 395, 398, 399
Order, The, 9, 43, 45, 46, 52, 53, 97, 100,
101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 121, 130, 131,
150, 158, 159, 273, 274, 276, 283, 333,
337, 340, 341, 350, 359, 426, 427, 428,
431, 461, 519-523
Otto, R., 555, 619, 635, 636, 637
Ouyang, 387, 388, 390, 400, 401, 408
Pagoda, 129, 130, 131, 151, 153, 154, 194,
307, 313, 314, 315, 505
Palmer, G. H., 51, 52
Paradise of Amida, 230, 231, 277, 352,
359, 372, 394, 398, 399, 400, 410, 430,
498, 552, 646, 659, 660, 661, 662
Paramitas, The Six, 221, 410, 431, 499,
561
Parinirvana, 8, 71, 83-88, 95, 227, 411
Parker, 275
Patimokkha, 102, 131, 199, 347
Paul (Saint), 32, 52, 94, 177, 256, 262,
263, 667
Peace, 11, 66, 68, 98, 405, 406, 416, 564,
712, 737, 744
Petzold, 472
Pfleiderer, O., 262-263
Philanthropy, 461, 468, 348, 349, 367,
375, 380, 428, 434, 477, 552, 592-
594
P'i-lo, Fo, 294, 295, 304
Pilgrimage, 98, 99, 364-367, 499, 551, 552
Pindola, 227
Plotinus, 237, 254, 255
Po-hien, 304, 425
Pratyekabuddha, 225, 260, 270
Prayer, 127, 133, 134, 135, 167, 168, 169,
170, 179, 199, 200, 201, 203, 331, 332,
344, 345, 346, 358, 359, 360-364, 367,
370-373, 399, 420, 430, 431, 479, 480,
542, 543, 544, 554-559, 658
Preaching, 110, 126, 131, 140, 141, 180-
184, 199, 206, 347, 382-384, 386, 432,
433, 472, 520, 547, 548, 561, 568, $69-
572, 574, 579, $80
Preas Prohm, 204
Precepts, The Five, 39, 47, 59, 103, 140,
177, 178, 206, 274, 333, 340, 367, 372,
373, 374, 380, 429, 431, 561, 584, 710,
715
Prince, Morton, 620, 621
Prince, W. F., 620, 621
756
INDEX
Psalms of the Early Buddhists, 4, 12, 24,
27, 31, 39, 54, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70,
85, 101, 108
P'u-hein, 225, 296, 301, 302, 304, 309,
365
Pure Land Buddhism, 230, 256, 277, 282,
287, 302, 329, 353, 381, 400, 478, 479,
480, 481, 489, 598, 599, 647-664, 695
Purna, 54, 220
P'uto, 297, 301, 308, 341, 365, 388
Radhakrishnan, S., 82, 89, 90, 238, 239,
240, 245, 255
Rahula, 5, 42, 227
Rakans, 500, 501, 507, 508
Ramakrishna, 45
Refuges, Three, 46, 95, 117, 140, 229
Reichelt, K. L., 275, 283, 286, 287, 329,
336, 338, 349, 414
Reischauer, 283, 490, 519, 534, 591, 648,
694, 695, 698
Revival, Buddhist, 139, 141, 142, 143,
379-392, 432-435
Rhys Davids, Mrs. C. A. F., 29, 67, 72,
101, 244
Rhys Davids, T. W., 6, 20, 78
Ribot, Th., 643
Ritsu sect, 469, 519, 520
Royce, J., 616, 638, 667
Rupaloka, 76
Russell, B., 666, 667
Ryonin, 479, 519, 658, 659
Saddharma Pundarika, 85, 193, 213, 263,
264, 265, 266, 267, 270, 282, 283, 376,
400, 471, 487, 488, 489, 539, 541, 603,
646, 714
Saddler, A. L., 561, 562
Saicho, see Dengyo Daishi
Sakka, 6, 77
Sakyamuni, see Gotama
Salvation, 56-70, 229-231, 256, 287, 300,
372, 398, 399, 410, 415, 479, 480, 597,
653-660, 704, 714
Samantabhadra, 215, 223, 225, 296, 304
Sambhogakaya, 260, 267, 395, 424, 618
Samsara, 69, 84, 245, 246, 643
Samyutta Nikaya, 3, 8, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25,
27, 41, 47, 50, 51, 57, 85, 94
Sangha, see Order
Sanron sect, 469, $19
San-tao, see Zendo
Santi-deva, 219, 220, 229, 230, 238
Sariputta, 30, 85, 103, 226
Satori, 632, 633, 634, 635, 636
Sautrantikas, 235, 236, 237
Schayer, 221, 239
Schopenhauer, 18, 72
Schrader, 82, 87
Scott, J. G., 127
Self, 36, 37, 72, 78-82, 174, 256, 257,
401, 402, 404, 405, 408, 409, 411, 644,
651, 652, 653, 659, 660, 661, 662, 711
Self-discipline, 56-63, 163, 164, 338, 371,
372, 410, 528, 529, 710, 711, 717
Shaka, 304, 495, 496, 552, 618, 647, 651,
652
Shaku, S., 615, 618, 619, 668, 669
Shiba Tachito, 458, 459, 460
Shih-chia Fo, 293, 304, 308, 316, 323,
395
Shingon sect, 286, 294, 329, 473, 474,
477, 478, 487, 496, 505, 509, 515, 516,
519, 520, 528, 530, 544, 545, 520, 558,
559, 560, 569, 575, 579, 581, 582, 585-
587, 588, 593, 597, 608-611, 667, 696,
698
Shin sect, 329, 484-486, 487, 503, 504,
517, 519, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 540,
541, 542, 546, 547, 548, 549, 552, 559,
563, 567, 571-573, 578, 579, 583, 586,
587, 588, 589, 593, 594, 596, 648, 654,
658, 659, 662, 695, 696, 698, 716
Shinran, 484, 485, 486, 319, 541, 547,
654, 659, 661
Shinto, 435, 453, 459, 460, 464, 465, 466,
467, 474, 475, 476, 493, 494, 501, 502,
505, 518, 538, 541, 549, 551, 563, 597,
694, 699, 704, 720, 741, 748
Shomu, 463, 476
Shotoku Taishi, 460, 461, 462, 463, 476,
502, 568, 583
Siam, 110, 121, 125, 126, 129, 130, 136,
144-187, 189, 190, 192, 206, 397, 560,
595, 672, 678, 679, 680, 701, 702, 717,
725, 727
Siva, 127, 189, 193, 194, 201, 202, 222,
229, 502
Smaller Prajna Paramita, 238, 242, 545
Smaller Sukhavati Vyuha, 230, 277, 353,
541
Smith, V., 105, 106, 108, 109
Sorinto, 506
Sorrow, 21, 33, 481, 482, 563, 564, 743
Sotoba, 505, 506, 609
Spinoza, 32, 36, 253
Spiritual Freedom, 56, 57, 66, 67, 68, 75,
87, 88, 137, 405, 406, 632-634, 737
Sravaka, 225, 226, 229, 231, 260, 270
Starbuck, E. D., 65, 632
Starr, F., 417, 428, 432
Stcherbatsky, 78, 83, 107
Stein, 99, 289
Sukka Yurai, 304, 424, 425
Sunday schools (Buddhist), 139, 141, 373,
433, 561, 573, 580, 581, 582, 583, 584,
585, 586, 587, 588, 694
Sun Goddess, 465, 466, 694
INDEX
757
Sung-Yun, 111, 112, 278, 284
Surangama Sutra, 251-254, 268, 269
Sutra, of the Forty-two Chapters, 40
Sutta Nipata, 4, 25, 27, 31, 36, 40, 46,
49, 61, 85, 94, 97
Suzuki, Beatrice, 287
Suzuki, D. T., 219, 239, 240, 247, 260,
279, 479, 198, 604, 605, 625, 627, 630,
631, 632, 633, 634, 639
Syen sect, 426, 427, 428
T'ai Hsu, 338, 339, 383, 384, 388, 389,
390, 391, 402, 403, 413, 414, 537, 577,
745
Tai-sei-chi, 304, 424, 425
Takakusa, 462, 476, 483, 501, 502, 591
Tanimoto, 473, 476
Taoism, 275, 277, 278, 283, 289, 290,
299, 303, 309, 311, 314, 316, 352, 435,
464, 473, 474, 686, 687, 688, 689, 703,
720, 741
Ta-shih-chih, 225, 296, 302, 304, 399
Tanha, 72, 73
Tauler, 637
Tea, 290, 584
Temples, 127-130, 151-154, 156, 157, 158,
194-196, 305-324, 325, 326, 423, 424,
425, 426, 439, 440, 461, 462, 465, 503-
518, 520, 522, 523, 525
Tendai sect, 328, 471, 472, 473, 474, 477,
478, 483, 487, 490, 491, 492, 510, 514-
518, 519, 520, 521, 523, 529, 530, 544,
545, 560, 569, 575, 582, 588, 593, 597,
602, 603, 607, 608, 611-622, 642, 643,
647, 665, 667, 669, 670, 695, 696, 698,
749
Tennent, 120, 121
Thomas à Kempis, 32, 52
Tibet, 110, 208, 215, 270, 327, 456
Tien-tai sect, 282, 283, 286, 287, 288,
328, 329, 381, 402, 408, 413, 414, 427,
471
Ti-tjang, 304, 425, 426
Thomas, E. J., 73
Ti-tsang, 224, 296, 298, 299, 300, 301,
304, 309, 365, 395, 497
Tolerance, 12, 15, 96, 269, 270, 274, 275,
381, 394, 395, 396, 400, 458, 464, 465,
466, 474, 475, 535, 561, 562, 586, 596-
598, 658, 714, 715, 719, 720, 721, 722,
736
Transmigration, see Karma
Trollope, Bishop, 417, 424, 431, 433, 434,
693
Tsu, 349
Tsu En sect, 329, 330, 408
Tsun Lin Monasteries, 330-331
Tsushida, K., 608
Udana, 4, 17, 24, 30, 37, 39, 44, 56, 57,
87, 97
Upali, 103, 328
Upanishads, 14, 25, 87, 90, 231, 248, 269,
412, 456, 635, 670
Vairocana, 215, 216, 286, 294, 304, 309,
424, 464, 466
Vajrabodhi, 286, 329
Vajrakkhedika, 238, 242, 289, 541
Van Dyke, P., 62
Vasubhandhu, 83, 221, 234, 235, 243, 251,
280, 285, 329, 330, 408, 412
Veblin, 730
Vedanta, 237, 243, 248, 253, 412, 416,
456, 614
Vijnanavadin, see Yogacara
Vimalakirti, 232, 233, 462, 541
Vinaya, 4, 12, 16, 17, 20, 26, 37, 48, 53,
56, 57, 93, 97, 102, 103, 411
Vishnu, 193, 222, 229, 231, 260
Vittoz, R., 60
Void, The, 237-240, 243, 244, 245, 259,
414, 609, 643
Von Hügel, Baron, 84
Waley, A., 288, 482, 524, 636
Walsh, Clara A., 481
Ward, J., 251
Watters, 227, 303
Wei, Francis, 401, 414
Wei-to, 302, 307, 309, 316, 320, 323
Wen-Shu, 224, 296, 301, 302, 304, 309,
365
Whitehead, 172, 747
Wieger, 297
Will, 40-43, 49
Williams, Mrs. E. T., 367
Wisdom, 36, 47, 68, 69, 401, 561, 621,
745
Worship, 7, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 132, 133,
134, 135, 161, 179-183, 199, 200, 201,
206, 331, 332, 344, 345, 346, 347, 353,
354, 355-364, 368-373, 380, 427, 504,
509, 527, 542-548, 552-559
Yamabe and Beck, 547
Yaksa Yurai, 304, 424
Yakushi, 304, 496, 554
Yamashita, 490
Yao-shih Fo, 217, 293, 295, 304, 308
Yen-lo, 297, 299, 303, 502
Yoga, 6, 14, 62, 63, 456, 636, 638
Yogacara 242-247, 248, 249, 250, 254,
255, 266, 282, 330, 408, 411, 412
Yo Wang, 303, 310, 370, 685
Young Men's Buddhist Association, 141,
385, 386, 387, 433, 434, 572, 573, 580,
678
758
INDEX
Young Women's Buddhist Association,
$72, $73, 580
Yutsu Nembrutsu sect, 329, 479, $19, 520,
$32, 658, 659
Yu Yue Tsu, 392
1
Zendo 287, 480, $47
mu
Zen sect, 328, 443, 483, 484, 486, 487,
490, 491, 501, 504, SOS, 516, 517, 519,
520, 521, 522, 523, 525, 527, 528, 529,
530, 531, 540, $41, 552, 562, 569, 575,
579, 582, 588, 593, 594, 597, 615, 623-
645, 662, 667, 670, 696, 698
Zoroastrianism, 286, 456, 457, 616
Zazen, 342, 343, 427, 127, 128, $29, $31,
625, 626, 636, 637, 638, 639, 640, 641
Pe Un
11
f
**
7
1
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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DEC 1 a 1988
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1988 1534
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