English
Now all this story is not written in Ceylon until about 440 years after your first council (or as we should say, about 104 b.C!.), whereas it had been sung in heroic verse among the Yavanas some eight hundred years earlier, being in fact an episode of the Odyssey. Now you may urge, I cannot prove that the Greek bard did not get the groundwork of his story from India; but you will observe, even if he did, the author of the Mahdwansa is still necessarily wrong in placing the transaction so near his own time as the life of Vigaya, who preceded Mahinda by only three generations. Such an error in time must be considered as con- firming the mistrust which the marvellous character of the story is itself calculated to inspire ; not to mention, what some critics would say, that the Greek poet was perhaps the inventor, and the Bauddha annalist a borrower." Here Wolff, interposing, said, " That would be precisely my t)wn opinion." " But, how- ever that may be," resumed Blancombe, " you see, my fiiend, the difficulty of asking persons so scrupulous as your half ally Sadinanda to believe miracles ascribed to S^kya, on the strength of any inspiration which has first to be proved of books written long after his time. " Here then it is impossible to avoid a doubt, how far stories of the kind alluded to may have been exaggerated by error, or by the overgrowth of later times. This suspicion will haimt us more, if we see reason to believe that the very doctrine and practices of Sdkya have undergone some change. From what you have yourself told us, and from what I recollect of other accoimts, Sdkya appears to have been impressed with the transitoriness of all earthly things, and indignant at the exclusiveness practised SA'KYA— BAUDDHA SCEIPTURE8. 165 hj the Brahmanical priesthood. Hence he threw open the doors of hiB reKgion to every caste ; and although it is disputed how far he acknowledged an Adi Buddha in some such reserved manner as yourself, it is clear that his faith had no artificial order of priesthood. His very word for religious rites, I have been told, was JPdjd, or worship, as distinct from the older Brahmanic Yajna^ or sacrifice. Thus he appears to have been a democrat in religion. Whereas, those successors of his who enjoyed the favour of king Asoca, or some who followed them, appear to have sought the transfer of sacerdotal dignities, rather than their annihilation. Thus their yellow-robed fraternity planted itself in the place of the Brahmans ; and the number of priests who came over, as soon as this transfer was affected, helped to change the character of your faith. At least, I conceive, the gentle nature of S&kya woBld be surprised at the pomp of yellow robes, and incense, and chants, with which your temples are now filled ; certainly, I think he would forbid the relics, consisting of his supposed bones, to be worshipped ; and in many things, if Sdkya was a Divine teacher, you have need to return to the first principles of his fidth. To myself it appears probable, that as his practices have been changed, so the story of his life has been magnified." " But," here the Saugata threw in a reply, " you would not retain that supposition, if it appeared that our sacred books were arranged by the early coimcils of our Church, before any such developments as you conceive to be corruptions had taken place in our practice." " In that case," answered Blancombe, " part of my objection would be removed ; for wonderful events are better attested the nearer competent witnesses stand to them." ** Well, but you know," rejoined the Saugata, " our Pitakas, were arranged at the very first council, in the year when Buddha entered on his blessedness." ** On that account," resumed the other, ''I feel compelled to admit the probability that such books give a sufficiently faithful account of the original doctrine of Buddha; btit I have been alluding to the case of interpo- lations, and of wonderful stories in books of a later date. Now, 166 BUDDHISM HARDLY ORIGINAL. if we examine that doctrine of your teacher Buddha, or Sdkya, or G6tama, in its authorised records, has it such a character of novelty as to deserve properly the name of a revelation ? You scarcely yourself affirm that it has." " Pardon me," said the Saugata, " we call Sdkya the intelligent, or rather the en- lightened, (Buddha,) in order to denote the fulness of Buddha- hood, or Divine intelligence, which came upon him, as I have partly explained." " Yes," answered Blancombe, " and so the professors of any religion may consider Divine enlightenment necessary in order to apprehend spiritually their acknowledged truths ; but that is a different sort of enlightenment, or at least is generally conceived to be so, from the one which commu- nicates truths not previously known. For example, the A'chdrya has appealed to the Vedas as the doctrinal standards of his faith, but yet he has spoken of Divine grace as necessary to each believer; and I apprehend most Christians to make generally the same sort of distinction. Am I not right, my lord," con- tinued Blancombe, here turning to his elder friend Mountain. " Certainly," replied the other, " the revelation of a new truth to the world, and a revealing to each person of grace to appre- hend that truth, are distinct things." " Well," resumed Blan- combe, when we ask what was that doctrine which Sdkya taught, and in virtue of which he claimed to be a Divine teacher, we find it very much the same as the Sdnkhya philosophy. If at least we were to take the old maxims of this meditative sect, and superadd to them a certain devout contemplation of the Yoga kind, we should have the original of Sdkya as a founder of a religion, sufficiently explained. We should have a devout mystic endeavouring to raise himself by contemplation and benevolence above the illusions of this transitory world, while also he would possess in his philosophy a weapon keen enough to assail the received religion of his contemporaries. You will observe, I am not denying the personal virtue of the man ; and -we may admit that the rapid progress of his religion was due to something good in it; a re-action, as it were, of spiritualised sa'nkhya psychology. 167 hmnanity against the zealous sacerdotalism of the Brahmans There is no longer, however, so much as a shadow of a pretence for considering the system of S^kja as an original downdropth from Heaven; and the very possibility of its having Divine authority at all depends upon whether your theory is correct, that nature or humanity can developc themselves, either by prayers or otherwise, into a kind of Divine enlightenment. But such a theory is the offspring of the Sfokhya philosophy. I shall, therefore, do you no injustice in classing you with our wise friend Sad^nanda, and in considering both your theories as one. Or rather, I will look at the offshoot in its stem. " Notwithstanding many things which puzzle me in this S4nkhya system, it contains some which rather attract me. At least, I am not startled disagreeably by the subdivision of man into difierent parts which are called the gross and the subtile person, and the latter of which we are said to carry about with us into different forms of existence, though it consists, like the grosser, of matter, but of matter in most subtile and primary form ; for in such a doctrine, when it is coupled with the idea of a soul entirely distinct from matter, I recognise a sort of confession of the truth, that the personality of Man would not exist as a whole, nor what we call humanity be entire, without two elements. Thus, in one respect you, Saddnanda, seem to be nearer the truth than either the Ved&itine reasoner, who resolves everything into spirit, or any one, on the other hand, who approaches nearer to the Ch&v4cas, by making man consist only of sensuous body. Whatever our souls may be, there seems some reason in your belief that the consciousness we have of ourselves as a whole in- cludes an organic development, or a balance of powers depending partly on the play of those natural forces around us, which yet we hesitate to call part of ourselves. Perhaps then you here supply an escape from a difficulty which some have keenly felt as re- gards the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of tlie body. It is the creed of Christians, that not only their souls will live, but their bodies be raised again. Some ingenious persons, who 168 BESURHECTION AMD IMMORTALITY.