the first century of our era.[1] Thus, at the very time when Christianity was being carried westward into Europe by St. Paul and his companions, Buddhism was being carried eastward into China by missionaries no less courageous and zealous for the faith which they believed.
As Buddha did not claim any revelation, so the canon stands alone among the sacred scriptures of the world in not assuming any special inspiration for its contents: "For the attainment of those previously unknown doctrines, the eye, the knowledge, the wisdom, and the light were developed within me."
We propose to carry out the good intentions of the Japanese ambassador by giving an account of the life and teaching of Buddha as it is accepted by the popular Buddhist mind, apart from the metaphysical speculations of the philosophical schools in the scholastic and mystic periods.
I. The Personality. — In the fifth century, B.C., there arose in the civilized world the remarkable intellectual movement of which Pythagoras is the representative in Europe, Zoroaster in Persia, Buddha in India, Confucius in China. Buddha is more fortunate than the others in having bequeathed to the world not only words of wisdom, as did they, but also the example of a life in which the loftiest morality was softened and beautified by unbounded charity and devotion to the good of his fellow-men. His walk through life was along "the path whose entrance is purity, whose goal is love." The personality of the Buddha is still a living power in the world, and by its exquisite beauty it attracts the heart and affection of more than one-third of the human race.
Buddha is not, strictly speaking, the name of a man. The word means "the Enlightened," and is the title applied to a succession of men whose wisdom has enlightened mankind. It has, however, become identified with the founder of Buddhism, Gautama. Buddhists think it irreverent to say the word "Gautama," so they speak of him as the Buddha, Sakyamuni, "the sage of the Sakyas,"[2] "the lion of the tribe of Sakya," "the king of righteousness," "the blessed one." Gautama, then, is the Buddha, and his followers have been called Buddhists from the characteristic feature of the founder's office — he who enlightens mankind. Gautama claimed to be nothing more than a link in the chain of Buddhas who had preceded and who should follow him.[3] This modest claim is characteristic of great reformers: Confucius said, "I only hand on, I cannot create new things; I believe in the ancients." Mohammed claimed to return to the creed of Abraham, "the Friend." Nevertheless, the glory of a religion belongs to the founder, not to his predecessors nor his successors, he it is who makes all things new; and therefore it is to the life and teaching of Gautama that we must look for the mainspring of the religion. Buddha is one of the few founders of religion who did not claim a special revelation or inspiration: "I have heard these truths from no one," he said; "they are all self-revealed, they spring only from within myself." And he believed them to be true for all time: "The heavens may fall to earth, the earth become dust, the mountains may be removed, but my word cannot fail or be false."
Buddha commenced his preaching at the city of Benares on the banks of the Ganges, where Brahmanism was the religion of the mass of the people. He was a reformer. His reformation bears to Brahmanism the relation which Protestantism bears to Roman Catholicism, rather than that which Christianity does to Judaism, though it may be doubted whether a schism actually took place during Buddha's lifetime. It was primarily a protest against the sacrificial and sacerdotal system of the Brahmans; it rejected all bloody sacrifice, together with the priesthood and social caste so essentially bound up with them.
- ↑ Ramusat, "Foe-koue-ki," p. 41; Beal, "Fahian," pp. 20-22.
- ↑ Sakya — the able ones: "These princes are able to found a kingdom and to govern it. Hence the name Sakya" ("Rom. Hist." 23). Muni comes from man, to think; hence the thinker, the sage, the monk. Gautama is still the family name of the Rajput chiefs of Nagara, where Buddha was born.
- ↑ Traditional sayings of former Buddhas are translated in Beal's "Catena," pp. 158, 159.
