English
It is not within the province of this work, even if it were in the competence of its author, to account for the apparent failure of the plan we have ventured to indicate — nor to suggest how the same plan may be otherwise carried out — or in what period of time — but yet the least acquaintance with history must satisfy the in- quirer that one great cause of failure in all such cases is to be found in the neglect of those first principles of Religion, which, like healthy roots of a tree, convey to the remotest branches the nourishment of the soil ; and we cannot but lament that whilst the Christian world was divided into con- flicting sects, mutually anathematising each other, and wield- ing the sword of internecine warfare — the East was left in SCRIPTURES FROM THE CHINESE. 9 ignorance of the great truths which it had been prepared to receive through the appointed instrumentahty of its former Teachers. 10. The scope of the present work is to present the reader with a brief catena of Buddhist Scriptures^ arranged so far as is possible in a chronological order, with a view to exhibit the origin and gradual expansion of the system^ and to point out in what particulars it demands our candid consideration, and in what particulars it fails to deserve either attention or inquiry. The former phase will be found to consist in its peculiar purity as a religious system pro- perly so called, whilst the latter will embrace those numer- ous divergencies of the system from its original character, into a scholastic and vain philosophy which ended in its ultimate confusion with other sects in India, or in its pre- sent lifeless condition in China and Japan. The works here translated are mostly standard ones, and if not strictly speaking in the Canon, are yet of great authority and are found in the libraries of most of the monasteries in the south of China. 10 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST CHAPTER I. LEGENDS AND MYTHS. 1, Although there is bo ^Megendary period/^ strictly so- called, preceding tlie development of Buddhism into a reli- gious system, yet, as it has come down to us, it is mixed up with legends and myths, which have accumulated with its growth, and which now cannot be separated from it. To get a clear idea of the whole system, we must represent it accompanied with these outgrowths of ages ; and if they dis- tort its original charactei', and deprive it of the interest which certainly belongs to it as a religion, yet we shall have the advantage of being able to judge of it as a whole, and also be prepared to understand the condition of the people who accept it as a complete revelation of truth, and a sufficient provision for their religious necessities. We possess two works in Chinese which will sufficiently supply materials for this purpose. The first professes to be an orderly account of the Buddhist Kosmos, written by a priest, Jin-ch'au, of Pekin, and published by the Em- peror Wan-leih, of the Ming dynasty, a.d. 1573.^ The second is a legendary history of Buddha himself, with some notices respecting his successors. This is also written by a native priest, Wang-Puh, and included by the same Emperor Wan-leih in his collection of sacred books, al- though Wang-Puh himself lived in the time of the Tang- dynasty, 650 A.D. > The great value of this work consists in its resting on the authority of the Buddhist canon, and on commentaries written by Indian priests of great learning. SCRIPTURES FROM THE CHINESE. 11 Botli these writers adopted the teaching of the Swabhavika school of Buddhism, which is that generally accepted in China. This school holds the eternity of Matter as a crude mass^infini- tesimally attenuated under one form, and expanded in another form into the countless beautiful varieties of Nature. Its sym- bol is the Lotus, surmounted by a peculiar emblem generally known as the " trisul,^' or Trident. This symbol was evidently borrowed from an earlier figure, which was designed to repre- sent the Sun with a flame, or the empyrgean, above it. The idea was to denote the succession of heavens passing away into the highest heaven of pure flame. The sun emblem was called Suramani^ or Sun-gem ; but when the Swabhavikas adopted the Lotus as their symbol of self-generation, they termed the ornament the Padma-mani or Lotus gem, and formulated their belief in the mysterious sentence so often found in Chinese and Thibetan works : " Om ! mani padme," or, " Oh ! the jewel (of creation) is in the Lotus."- In accordance with the principles of this belief, Jin-ch^au re- presents the field of creation under the form of a succes- sion of Lotus system of worlds, each embracing the other, till the mind is lost in the attempt to multiply the series infinitely. The whole of these systems again he includes within one universally difiused essence, which, for want of a better word, is called the ''*' Heart," but which, in fact, corresponds to the soul of the universe, the all-pervading Self or the '^ All in all" of pure Pantheism,^ Wanof Puh seems to have held similar views. His com- mentators at least speak of Sakya's incarnation as a transi- tion of the universal into the definite, or as the mauifesta- 1 Called by Hodgson, " Chuni Mani" {Sketch of Buddhism^ n. 6) ; and by the Burmese " Soolamanee" {J.R.A.S., 1870, p. 400) ; and by the Chinese " Tsioh-li" {Travels of Buddhist Pilgrims, p. 202). 2 There seems to be much agreement between this school of Buddhism and the Atomic school of Greek philosophy ; the latter using the terms ^h TrA.f)p€j and to k^vIv in the same sense as the former employ jirakriti and suuyata. 3 I know not how to express the reiteration of this belief found in Chinese Buddhist books better than in the few words attributed to 12 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST tion of a latent energy residing in tlie universally diffused essence. All tliis is in agreement witli the general belief of tlie school ; a school, be it remembered, which repre- sents the final accommodation of a very complex system, and which may be regarded as a reaction against the absurdities of nihilism, and an escape from the supposed impossibility of a Theistic belief in creation. Jiu-Ch'au calls his book " The Buddhist Kosmos, with illustrations.'"^ The expression "Fah-kai^^ is a well-known one to signify the limits or elements of Dharma (dharma dhatu), where Dharma is the same as Prakriti, or Matter itself. Much confusion would have been avoided if this sense of Dharma, when used by writers of the Swabhavika school, had been properly observed. As an instance of this, we may remark that the title of the work translated by Burnouf, The Lotus of the Good Laiv, has no reference whatever to the moral law, or any law considered as a code of instruction. The object of the Sutra is to exhibit the infinite extent of the Lotus creation, in every part of which innumerable Buddhas reside, attended by their retinue of Bodhisatwas ; and the appearance of these Buddhas and Bodhisatwas in the world or system over which Sakya Tathagata is supposed to preside, is designed to signify the vast honour paid to our Buddha by the countless others who are manifested throughout the field of space. Had this design of the Sutra been observed, there would have been no occasion for such a remark as the followino- : — " Voila deja bien des details extravagants et tout a fait inutiles, puisque Texposition de la Loi promise par le Lotus n^est pas donnee."^ For, in truth, the exposition promised Zwinglius, wlio taught "that God was the infinite essence, absolute Being" (to Esse). The being of creatures, he said, was not opposed to the Being of God, but was in and by Him. Not man only, but all creation was of Divine race. Nature was the force of God in action, and everything is One (Origin and Development of Religious Belief, by S. B. Gould, p. 266). 1 In Chinese, Fah-kai-on-lih-to. - Le Buddha et su Ileli(jion, p. 70. SCRIPTURES PROM THE CHINESE. 13 was not of any doctrinal character, but of creation (as we call it) or the mode of existence exhibited in the infinite varieties of worlds evolved from the unusually diffused essence.