The Praises of Amida/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
AS I read my Translations of Rev. K. Tada's Sermons, I feel that they sound so very Christian in thought that a reader might almost be tempted to suppose that I had made them up for purposes of my own, and that they were not translations at all. The expenditure of a few sen on the original book (its name is Shūdō Kōwa 修道講話, and it is published by Bunmeidō, Hongō Shichōme, Tōkyō) will show any person acquainted with Japanese that my translation, though far from perfect, is in the main faithful, at least to the ideas of the original. The Sermons are written in a beautifully clear Japanese, and are quite worthy of being made subjects of linguistic study.
It will suffice, by way of introduction, if I say but a few words of the Buddhist Saviour in whose honour Mr. Tada has written. Of ancient royal descent, this Being, in the most remote Past, emptied Himself of the splendour of His rank in order to lead a religious life. His own salvation had been completed, and He was on the brink of Nirvana, when He looked back and saw His suffering brethren, whom He was about to leave behind in the miseries of human life. For their sakes He turned back: He would not enter into His rest until He had worked out a salvation for all mankind, one which even the most ignorant and helpless could lay hold of and be saved, a large ship which should take all men safely across the tempestuous waves of life and death. It was not done without a struggle, but it was done; and when the Vow had been accomplished, and the last ordeal endured, Paradise had come into existence in the Pure Land beyond the Setting Sun. The King of that Land is Amida Who has "entered into His rest in Paradise." His "Name, through faith in His Name," is said to save those who believe on Him, and He comes both now and at the hour of death to those who call upon Him with a thankful heart.
A question of real significance, not merely to the student of comparative religion, but, practically, to the Christian missionary, and to every one interested in the religious movement of to day, is, Who is Amida? The points of resemblance between Amida and Christ are too striking to be passed over unnoticed, even by a casual reader. Can the two stones in any sense be said to have a common origin?
No attempt has ever been made to give Amida a historical embodiment, and it must be remembered that there are very many Buddhists, even in Japan, who place no trust in Him and His Paradise. I believe, however, that such an embodiment is possible, and I hope to show at some future date that the Amida legend is an Oriental adaptation of the Life of Christ. Amida is first mentioned, so it is said, in the writings of As'vaghosha, who flourished in the reign of the Indo-Scythian Sovereign Kanishka. Kanishka s date is sometimes assigned to the middle of the 1st century A.D.; but Dr. Bhandarkar[1] of Bombay gives extremely good reasons for placing him in the latter half of the 3rd century. In either case, these was time for the Gospel to have reached India, before As'vaghosha wrote, and we know, as a matter of fact, that Christ was preached in that land at a very early date. The Indian Legend of Krishna (which may itself be an adaptation of the Life of Christ) has been found in a Buddhicised form, re-wrhten to suit the creed of Buddhist readers,[2] and if one Buddhist writer edited Krishna in a Buddhist sense, why should not another writer have done the same for the Story of Christ? Such a thing might be done with the purest and best of motives.
When the Nestorian schism took place in the Christian Church, all the Bishops East of the Euphrates were cut off from Unity with the Churches of Western Asia and Europe. The followers of these men were afterwards known in China as Nestorians; but there had probably been Christian Missions in China long before Nestorian days, and it was not before the middle of the 4th century A.D. that the first sect of Amida worshippers pure and simple was formed in China. The first Christian to come to Japan was a Nestorian physician, named Rimi, who was highly honoured by the Imperial Court at Nara during the ninth century. Nestorianism is known in Japan as Keikyō; in China it was sometimes spoken of as the religion that came from Tachin, i.e. the Roman Empire, and the name Taishinji, found here and there as the title of some ancient temple in Japan, would seem to point to the fact that the remnants of Nestorianism had become gradually amalgamated with the predominant Buddhism. The history of Nestorianism seems to have been a history of the abandonment, one by one, of the bulwarks that surround that Inner Citadel of the Christian Faith, the Belief in God, the Creator, the Saviour, the Sanctifier.
But there are certain differences between Christianity and Amida-ism which must constantly be borne in mind. In our simple Christian creed we are able to make a certain distinction between the articles of our Faith. Some of the propositions of the Apostles Creed (for instance) are like the outlying forts of a beleaguered city, places which it is right to defend with all one's might, and yet not so vital to the safety of the Fortress that their capture by the enemy must involve the immediate surrender of the Citadel. We contend earnestly for the whole Faith as delivered to the Saints: in some cases, we try to repair breaches that have been made, to re-occupy positions from which we have been forced to retire, and to re-establish communications with batteries that have been cut off and isolated; but we know that these outworks are only of use so long as they guard the main and central Citadel. And in the Fortress of Christian Belief the main and central Citadel is the Faith in the Trinity,—in "God the Father, Who made me and all the world," in "God the Son, Who redeemed me and all mankind," and in "God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God." This is the inner Citadel of the Faith: the rest are outworks, intended to secure the main position,—outworks to be defended with all our might,—but outworks.
Into this inner Citadel of Our Faith Shinshu Amida-ism does not penetrate, in spite of the striking resemblances between Amida and Christ, and in spite of (as I believe it to be) the fact that the two are in their origin the same Person. For though Amida-ism speaks of a Saviour, whom it proclaims to be the Father of Mankind, nay, of all that live, Amida is not the Father, in the sense of being the Creator; and it is our glory as Christians to believe in God the "Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth," and to maintain that, in Creation, God was absolutely unfettered by any pre-existent Matter, or by any Law, but only by the limitations (if such they may be called) of His own Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. It is here that Amida-ism falls short of the Highest Truth, and that in spite of the fact that, if it is true, as Christ said, that 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father' it is also true that he that has caught but the glimpse of Christ that Amida-ism gives, has also caught a glimpse of the Father. When it has been demonstrated, as I hope it will be, that Amida is none other than that Person Whom we Christians worship as our Saviour-God, and for Whose reality we claim to have historical evidence, then Amida-ism will rise to the perfect Truth, and will gain in courage, in strength; in sweetness, in honesty, and in truth. It was not to destroy Amida that our Master was revealed: it was to give substance to the idea which he expresses, and it will some day be seen that the Gospels of Christianity are, in fact, the records of the Earthly Life of Amida Nyorai.
In the meantime, whether Christians or Buddhists, we will provoke one another to good works, to making the world in general, and Japan in particular, a purer, nobler, and in all ways a better place, and if we accomplish so much we shall not have laboured in vain.
