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A passage for editorial review. | BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH EDITED BY NISHAU UTSCKI an i Une). kj. bawrrolese, ie: Win. UALS oor flin eats Miks Ute Ry whack. Ao oy [egck 5 a ; bap. 27, 1948, ( XN op tj % Pe: SRE IRD er eo shila tit hrm Pie we VIII. CONTENTS PART I. LIFE OF THE BUDDHA PAGE BUDDHA’S LEGENDARY BIRTH 1 WHO IS GAUTAMA? 5 PRINCE SIDDHARTHA 7 GREAT ENLIGHTENMENT 12 DEATH OF THE BUDDHA 15 PART II. CANONICAL THE THREE COUNCILS 20 PALI CANON 24. RULES FOR BHIKKHU—FROMA VINAYA 29 POURING SPIRITUAL RAIN —FROM A SUTRA 33 WISHING FOR THE WESTERN PARADISE— FROM AN ABHIDHARMA 36 PART Ill. DOCTRINAL THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS 41 DHYANA, BUDDHIST MEDITATION 44 THERE IS NO SELF 49 *‘NO-THING’ BUT NOT ‘NOTHING’ 52 DOCTRINE OF TRINITY 56 2 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH And on Lord Buddha, waiting in that sky, Came for our sakes the five sure signs of birth, So that the Devas knew the signs, and said “Buddha will go again to help the World.” “Yea!” spake He, “now I go to help the World This last of many times; for birth and death End hence for me and those who learn my Law. I will go down among the Cakyas, Under the southward snows of Himalay, Where pious people live and a just King.” That night the wife of King Cuddhodana, Maya the Queen, asleep beside her Lord, Dreamed a strange dream; dreamed that a star from heaven— Splendid, six-rayed, in colour rosy-pearl, Whereof the token was an Elephant Six-tusked, and whiter than Vahtka’s milk— Shot through the void; and, shining into her, Entered her womb upon the right. Awaked, Bliss beyond mortal mother’s filled her breast, And over half the earth a lovely light Forewent the morn. The strong hills shook; the waves Sank lulled; all flowers that blow by day came forth As ’twere high noon; down to the farthest hells Passed the Queen’s joy, as when warm sunshine thrills Wood-glooms to gold, and into all the deeps A tender whisper pierced. “Oh ye,” it said, BUDDHA'S LEGENDARY BIRTH 3 “The dead that are to live, the live who die, Uprise, and hear, and hope! Buddha is come!” Whereat in Limbos numberless much peace Spread, and the world’s heart throbbed, and a wind blew With unknown freshness over lands and seas. And when the morning dawned, and this was told, The grey dream-readers said “The dream is good! The Crab is in conjunction with the Sun; The Queen shall bear a boy, a holy child Of wondrous wisdom, profiting all flesh, Who shall deliver men from ignorance, Or rule the world, if he will deign to rule.” In this wise was the holy Buddha born. Queen Maya stood at noon, her days fulfilled, Under a Palsa in the Palace-grounds, A stately trunk, straight as a temple-shaft, With crown of glossy leaves and fragrant blooms; And, knowing the time come—for all things knew— The conscious tree bent down its boughs to make A bower about Queen Maya’s majesty; And Earth put forth a thousand sudden flowers To spread a couch; while, ready for the bath, The rock hard by gave out a limpid stream Of crystal flow. So brought she forth her child Pangless—he having on his perfect form The marks, thirty and two, of blessed birth, 4 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH of which the great news to the Palace came. But when they brought the painted palanquin To fetch him home, the bearers of the poles Were the four Regents of the Earth, come down From Mount Sumeru—they who write men’s deeds On brazen plates—the Angel of the East, Whose hosts are clad in silver robes, and bear Targets of pearl: the Angel of the South, Whose horsemen, the Kimbhandas, ride blue steeds, With sapphire shields: the Angel of the West, By Nagas followed, riding steeds blood-red, With coral shields: the Angel of the North, Environed by his Yaksas, all in gold, On yellow horses bearing shields of gold. These, with their pomp invisible, came down And took the poles, in cast and outward garb Like bearers, yet most mighty gods; and gods Walked free with men that day, though men knew not: For Heaven was filled with gladness for Earth’s sake, Knowing Lord Buddha thus was come again. —Sir Edwin Arnold, “The Light of Asia” — WHO IS GAUTAMA? 5 CHAPTER _ II WHO IS GAUTAMA? Gautama was the son of a raja, a kind of petty chieftain of the Cakya clan, who were settled some hundred miles north of the Ganges, on the spurs at the foot of the Hi- malaya range. ‘The date of his birth is not quite certain, as the oldest authority on the point, the Dipavamsa, gives two inconsistent accounts of the period that elapsed bet- ween his time and that of Acoka. But it can be fixed with sufficient accuracy at between the middle and the end of the sixth century B.C., a period during which the conditions of the valley of the Ganges underwent no ma- terial change. He was married in early youth to his first cousin, the daughter of the raja over the neighbouring clan of the Koliyans, whose principal village was only a few miles from the village of Kapila-vatthu, in which he was born. We hear nothing more till his twenty-ninth year, when, after a long spiritual struggle, the causes and the nature of which we may guess at, but shall never exactly know, he finally abandoned his home. After first studying un- der teachers of repute, from whom he derived no satis- factory solution of the problems of life, he devoted him- self for six years to the strictest penance, by which men 6 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH then thought that they could obtain the mastery over the gods. Though his efforts in this direction were such, that we are told of his fame having spread abroad like the sound of a great bell hung in the skies, this also led to no lasting \peace. And in his thirty-fifth year he passed through a second great mental crisis, the details of which, as described in Buddhist books with all the poetry the Indian mind was at that time master of, are curiously similar to those of the temptation in the wilderness. The end of this struggle was reached when, under the famous Bo-tree at Buddha Gaya, he attained to that state of mind which was afterwards called Buddhahood, and found at last a final solution of all his doubts and all his difficulti- es in the power over the human heart of inward self culture and of love to all other beings. After a struggle with the not unnatural hesitation whether it would be of any use to make these views known to others, he decided to proclaim publicly the truth he thought he had discovered; and for forty-five years he walked from place to place in the valley of the Ganges publishing the good news, and gathering round him a small band of earnest and faithful followers, the earli- est members of his afterwards famous Order. At last, having gained a considerable measure of success, he died peacefully, in the midst of his disciples, in his eightieta year, at Ku.i-nagara in Vesali, not very far beyond the Ganges from the scene of his early studies. . Such are the simple facts of the career-of the man PRINCE SIDDHARTHA Y whose life has been more momentous in its influence upon a large proportion of the human race than that of any other man who has ever lived. But is this the view of Gautama’s life which has been recorded by his disciples in the Buddhist books themselves? The analogy of similar records in the case of other religious founders, would lead us to expect that the followers of the great Indian teacher would not be satis- fied by looking upon their master as a mere ordinary man; and this expectation is abundantly fulfilled. They endeavoured to give expression to their deep feelings of homage and of hero-worship, to their deep sense of infe- riority, to the deep impression made upon them by the personal power of a character quite unequalled among all the men they knew or heard of, by describing the glory and the grandeur of their Buddha in poetical and figurative language always liable to be misunderstood, and hardening too soon into erroneous beliefs. —TLW. Rhys Davids, “The Hibbert Lectures,” 1881— CHAPTER III PRINCE SIDDHARTHA As with other men who afterwards became famous, many marvellous stories have been told about the mira- 8 BUDDHISM IN ENGLISH culous birth and precocious wisdom and power of Gaus tama; and these are not without value, as showing the spirit of the times in which they arose and grew. It is probable that his having been an only child, born, as it were, out of due time, the subsequent death of his mother, and other details of the story may be due to this instinctive feeling that his birth must have been different from that of ordinary men. Even the name Siddhartha, said to have been given him as a child, may have been a subsequent invention, for it means ‘he who has accomplished his aim.’ But parents of Cuddhodana’s rank have never shown much aversion for grand names, and other Siddharthas are mentioned who were not at all peculiarly successful in accomplishing their desires. However it may be, his family name was certainly Gautama. Any other names given to the founder of Buddhism are not names at all, but titles. To the pious Buddhist it seems irreverent to speak of Gautama by his mere ordinary and human name, and he makes use, therefore, of one of those numerous epithets which are used only of the Buddha, the Enlightened One. Such are Cakya-simha, ‘the lion of the tribe of Cakya,’ Cakya-muni, ‘the Cakya sage;’ Sugata, ‘the happy one;’ Sattha, ‘the teacher;’ Jina, ‘the conqueror; Bhagava, ‘the blessed one;’ Loka-natha ‘the Lord of the world;’ Sarvajia, ‘the omniscient one;’ Dharma-raja, ‘the king of righteousness,’ and many others. These expressions, like PRINCE SIDDHARTHA 9 the Swan of Avon, may have had very real significance in moments of poetic fire.