Buddha's Teaching
Behind
these political and economic revolutions that were changing the face of India,
there was the ferment of Buddhism and its impact on old-established faiths and
its quarrels with vested interests in religion. Far more than the debates and
arguments, of which India has always been so enamoured, the personality of a
tremendous and radiant being had impressed the people and his memory was fresh
in their minds. His message, old and yet very new and original for those
immersed in metaphysical subtleties, captured the imagination of the intellectuals;
it went deep down into the hearts of the people. 'Go unto all lands,' had said
the Buddha to his disciples, 'and preach this gospel. Tell them that the poor
and the lowly, the rich and the high, are all one, and that all castes unite in
this religion as do the rivers in the sea.' His message was one of universal
benevolence, of love for all. For 'Never in this world does hatred cease by
hatred; hatred ceases by love.' And 'Let a man overcome anger by kindness, evil
by good.'
It was an ideal of
righteousness and self-discipline. 'One may overcome a thousand men in battle,
but he who conquers him-self is the greatest victor.' 'Not by birth, but by his
conduct alone, does a man become a low-caste or a Brahmin.' Even a sinner is
not to be condemned, for 'who would willingly use hard speech to those who have
done a sinful deed, strewing salt, as it were, upon the wound of their fault?'
Victory itself over another leads to unhappy consequences—'Victory breeds
hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.'
All this he preached
without any religious sanction or any reference to God or another world. He
relies on reason and logic and experience and asks people to seek the truth in
their own minds. He is reported to have said: 'One must not accept my law from
reverence, but first try it as gold is tried by fire.' Ignorance of truth was
the cause of all misery. Whether there is a God or an Absolute or not, he does
not say. He neither affirms nor denies. Where knowledge is not possible we must
suspend judgment. In answer to a question, Buddha is reported to have said: 'If
by the absolute is meant something out of relation to all known things, its
existence cannot be established by any known reasoning. How can we know that
anything unrelated to other things exists at all ? The whole universe, as we
know it, is a system of relations: we know nothing that is, or can be,
unrelat-ed.' So we must limit ourselves to what we can perceive and about which
we can have definite knowledge.
So also Buddha gives
no clear answer about the existence of the soul. He does not deny it and he
does not affirm it. He refuses to discuss this question, which is very
remarkable, for the Indian mind of his day was full of the individual soul and
the absolute soul, of monism and monotheism and other metaphysical hypotheses.
But Buddha set his mind against all forms of metaphysics. He does, however,
believe in the permanence of a natural law, of universal causation, of each successive
state being determined by pre-existing conditions, of virtue and happiness and
vice and suffering being organically related.
We use terms and
descriptions in this world of experience and say 'it is' or 'it is not.' Yet
neither may be correct when we go behind the superficial aspect of things, and
our language may be inadequate to describe what is actually happening. Truth
may lie somewhere in the middle of 'is' and 'is not' or beyond them.
The river flows
continuously and appears to be the same from moment to moment, yet the waters
are ever changing. So also fire. The flame keeps glowing and even maintains its
shape and form, yet it is never the same flame and it changes every instant. So
everything continually changes and life in all its forms is a stream of
becoming. Reality is not something that is permanent and unchanging, but rather
a kind of radiant energy, a thing of forces and movements, a succession of
sequences. The idea of time is just 'a notion abstracted by mere usage, from
this or that event.' We cannot say that one thing is the cause of something
else for there is no core of permanent being which changes. The essence of a
thing is its immanent law of relation to other so-called things. Our bodies and
our souls change from moment to moment; they cease to be, and something else,
like them and yet different, appears and then passes off. In a sense we are
dying all the time and being reborn and this succession gives the appearance of
an unbroken identity. It is 'the continuity of an ever-changing ideatity.'
Everything is flux, movement, change.
All this is difficult
for our minds to grasp, used as we are to set methods of thinking and of
interpreting physical phenomena. Yet it is remarkable how near this philosophy
of the Buddha brings us to some of the concepts of modern physics and modern
philosophic thought.
Buddha's method was
one of psychological analysis and, again, it is surprising to find how deep was
his insight into this latest of modern sciences. Man's life was considered and
examined without any reference to a permanent self, for even if such a self
exists, it is beyond our comprehension. The mind was looked upon as part of the
body, a composite of mental forces. The individual thus becomes a bundle of
mental states, the self is just a stream of ideas. 'All that we are is the
result of what we have thought.'
There is an emphasis
on the pain and suffering of life, and the 'Four Noble Truths' which Buddha
enunciated deal with this suffering, its cause, the possibility of ending it,
and the way to do it. Speaking to his disciples, he is reported to have said:
'and while ye experienced this (sorrow) through long ages, more tears have
flowed from you and have been shed by you, while ye strayed and wandered on
this pilgrimage (of life), and sorrowed and wept, because that was your portion
which ye abhorred, and that which ye loved was not your portion, than all the
water which is in the four great oceans.'
Through an ending of
this state of suffering is reached 'Nir-vana.' As to what Nirvana is, people
differ, for it is impossible to describe a transcendental state in our
inadequate language and in terms of the concepts of our limited minds. Some say
it is just extinction, a blowing out. And yet Buddha is reported to have denied
this and to have indicated that it was an intense kind of activity. It was the
extinction of false desire, and not just annihilation, but it cannot be
described by us except in negative terms.
Buddha's way was the
middle path, between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.
From his own experience of mortification of the body, he said that a person who
has lost his strength cannot progress along the right path. This middle path
was the Aryan eightfold path: right beliefs, right aspira-tions, right speech,
right conduct, right mode of livelihood, right effort, right-mindedness, and
right rapture. It is all a ques-tion of self-development, not grace. And if a
person succeeds in developing along these lines and conquers himself, there can
be no defeat for him: 'Not even a god can change into defeat the victory of a
man who has vanquished himself.'
Buddha told his disciples what he thought they could
under-stand and live up to. His teaching was not meant to be a full explanation
of everything, a complete revelation of all that is. Once, it is said, he took
some dry leaves in his hand and asked his favourite disciple, Ananda, to tell
him whether there were any other leaves besides those in his hand. Ananda
replied: 'The leaves of autumn are falling on all sides, and there are more of
them than can be numbered.' Then said the Buddha: 'In like manner I have given
you a handful of truths, but besides these there are many thousands of other
truths, more than can be numbered.'
The Buddha Story
The Buddha story attracted me even in early boyhood, and I
was drawn to the young Siddhartha who, after many inner struggles and pain and
torment, was to develop into the Buddha. Edwin Arnold's 'Light of Asia' became
one of my favourite books. In later years, when I travelled about a great deal
in my province, I liked to visit the many places connected with the Buddha
legend, sometimes making a detour for the purpose. Most of these places lie in
my province or not far from it. Here (on the Nepal frontier) Buddha was born,
here he wandered, here (at Gaya in Bihar) he sat under the Bodhi tree and
gained enlightenment, here he preached his first sermon, here he died. When I
visited countries where Buddhism is still a living and dominant faith, I went
to see the temples and the monasteries and met monks and laymen, and tried to
make out what Buddhism had done to the people. How had it influenced them, what
impress had it left on their minds and faces, how did they react to modern
life? There was much I did not like. The rational ethical doctrine had become
overlaid with so much verbiage, so much ceremonial, canon law, so much, in
spite of the Buddha, metaphysical doctrine and even magic. Despite Bud-dha's
warning, they had deified him, and his huge images, in the temples and
elsewhere, looked down upon me and I wonder-ed what he would have thought. Many
of the monks were ignorant persons, rather conceited and demanding obeisance,
if not to themselves then to their vestments. In each country the national characteristics
had imposed themselves on the religion and shap-ed it according to their
distinctive customs and modes of life. Ml this was natural enough and perhaps
an inevitable development.
But
I saw much also that I liked. There was an atmosphere of peaceful study and
contemplation in some of the monasteries and the schools attached to them.
There was a look of peace and calm on the faces of many of the monks, a
dignity, a gentle-ness, an air of detachment and freedom from the cares of the
world. Did all this accord with life to-day, or was it a mere escape from it?
Could it not be fitted into life's ceaseless struggle and tone down the
vulgarity and acquisitiveness and violence that afflict us?
The
pessimism of Buddhism did not fit in with my approach to life, nor did the
tendency to walk away from life and its problems. I was, somewhere at the back
of my mind, a pagan with a pagan's liking for the exuberance of life and
nature, and not very much averse to the conflicts that life provides. All that
I had experienced, all that I saw around me, painful and distressing as it was,
had not dulled that instinct.
Was Buddhism passive
and pessimistic? Its interpreters may say so; many of its own devotees may have
drawn that meaning. I am not competent to judge of its subtleties and its
subsequent complex and metaphysical development. But when I think of the Buddha
no such feeling arises in me, nor can I imagine that a religion based mainly on
passivity and pessimism could have had such a powerful hold on vast numbers of
human beings, among them the most gifted of their kind.
The conception of the
Buddha, to which innumerable loving hands have given shape in carven stone and
marble and bronze, seems to symbolize the whole spirit of Indian thought, or at
least one vital aspect of it. Seated on the lotus flower, calm and impassive,
above passion and desire, beyond the storm and strife of this world, so far
away he seems, out of reach, unattainable. Yet again we look and behind those
still, unmoving features there is a passion and an emotion, strange and more
powerful than the passions and emotions we have known. His eyes are closed, but
some power of the spirit looks out of them and a vital energy fills the frame.
The ages roll by and Buddha seems not so far away after all; his voice whispers
in our ears and tells us not to run away from the struggle but, calm-eyed, to
face it, and to see in life ever greater opportunities for growth and
advancement.
Personality counts
to-day as ever, and a person who has im-pressed himself on the thought of
mankind as Buddha has, so that even to-day there is something living and
vibrant about the thought of him, must have been a wonderful man—a man who was,
as Barth says, the 'finished model of calm and sweet majesty, of infinite
tenderness for all that breathes and com-passion for all that suffers, of
perfect moral freedom and exemp-tion from every prejudice.' And the nation and
the race which can produce such a magnificent type must have deep reserves of
wisdom and inner strength.
Ashoka
The contacts between
India and the western world which Chandragupta Maurya had established continued
during the reign of his son, Bindusara. Ambassadors came to the court at
Pataliputra from Ptolemy of Egypt and Antiochus, the son and successor of
Seleucus Nikator of western Asia. Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, added to
these contacts, and India became in his time an important international centre,
chiefly because of the rapid spread of Buddhism.
Ashoka succeeded to this great empire about 273 B.C. He
had previously served as viceroy in the north-western province, of which
Taxila, the university centre, was the capital. Already the empire included far
the greater part of India and extended right into central Asia. Only the
south-east and a part of the south were beyond its sway. The old dream of
uniting the whole of India under one supreme government fired Ashoka and
forth-with he undertook the conquest of Kalinga on the east coast, which
corresponds roughly with modern Orissa and part of Andhra. His armies triumphed
in spite of the brave and obsti-nate resistance of the people of Kalinga. There
was a terrible slaughter in this war, and when news of this reached Ashoka he
was stricken with remorse and disgusted with war. Unique among the victorious
monarchs and captains in history, he decided to abandon warfare in the full
tide of victory. The whole of India acknowledged his sway, except for the
southern tip, and that tip was his for the taking. But he refrained from any
further aggression, and his mind turned, under the influence of Buddha's
gospel, to conquests and adventures in other fields.
What Ashoka felt and
how he acted are known to us in his own words in the numerous edicts he
issued, carved in rock and metal. Those edicts, spread out all over India, are
still with us, and they conveyed his messages not only to his people but
to posterity. In one of the edicts it is said that:
'Kalinga was
conquered by His Sacred and Gracious Majesty when he had been consecrated eight
years. One hundred and fifty thousand persons were thence carried away as
captive, one hundred thousand were there slain, and many times that num-ber
died.
'Directly after the
annexation of the Kalingas began His Sac-red Majesty's zealous protection of
the Law of Piety, his love of that Law, and his inculcation of that Law (Dharma).
Thus arose His Sacred Majesty's remorse for having conquered the Kalingas,
because the conquest of a country previously unconquered invo-lves the
slaughter, death, and carrying away captive of the peo-ple. That is a matter of
profound sorrow and regret to His Sacred Majesty.'
No longer, goes on
the edict, would Ashoka tolerate any more killing or taking into captivity, not
even of a hundredth or a thousandth part of the number killed and made captive
in Kalinga. True conquest consists of the conquest of men's hearts by the law
of duty or piety, and, adds Ashoka, such real victories had already been won by
him, not only in his own dominions, but in distant kingdoms.
The edict further
says:
'Moreover, should any
one do him wrong, that too must be borne with by His Sacred Majesty, so far as
it can possibly be borne with. Even upon the forest folk in his dominions His
Sacred Majesty looks kindly and he seeks to make them think aright, for, if he
did not, repentance would come upon His Sacred Majesty. For His Sacred Majesty
desires that all animate beings should have security, self-control, peace of
mind, and joyousness.'
This astonishing ruler, beloved still in India and in many
other parts of Asia, devoted himself to the spread of Buddha's teaching, to
righteousness and goodwill, and to public works for the good of the people. He
was no passive spectator of events, lost in contemplation and self-improvement.
He laboured hard at public business and declared that he was always ready for
it: 'at all times and at all places, whether I am dining or in the ladies'
apartments, in my bedroom or in my closet, in my carriage or in my palace
gardens, the official reporters should keep me informed of the people's
business.... At any hour and at any place work I must for the commonweal.'
His
messengers and ambassadors went to Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene, and Epirus,
conveying his greeting and Buddha's message. They went to central Asia also and
to Burma and Siam, and he sent his own son and daugher, Mahendra and
Sanghamitra, to Ceylon in the south. Everywhere an appeal was made to the mind
and the heart; there was no force or compul-sion. Ardent Buddhist as he was, he
showed respect and consi-deration for all other faiths. He prcclaimed in an
edict:
'All sects deserve
reverence for one reason or another. By thus acting a man exalts his own sect
and at the same time does service to the sects of other people.'
Buddhism spread
rapidly in India from Kashmir to Ceylon. It penetrated into Nepal and later
reached Tibet and China and Mongolia. In India, one of the consequences of this
was the growth of vegetarianism and abstention from alcoholic drinks. Till then
both Brahmins and Kshatriyas often ate meat and took wine. Animal sacrifice was
forbidden.
Because of the growth
of foreign contacts and missionary enterprises, trade between India and other
countries must have also grown. We have records of an Indian colony in Khotan
(now Sinkiang, Central Asia). The Indian universities, especially Taxila, also
attracted more students from abroad.
Ashoka was a great
builder and it has been suggested that he employed foreign craftsmen to assist
in building some of his huge structures. This inference is drawn from the
designs of some clus-tered columns which remind one of Persepolis. But even in
those early sculptures and other remains the characteristically Indian art
tradition is visible.
Ashoka's famous
many-pillared hall in his palace at Patali-putra was partly dug out by
archaeologists about thirty years ago. Dr. Spooner, of the Archaeological
Department of India, in his official report, said that this was 'in an almost
incredible state of preservation, the logs which formed it being as smooth and
perfect as the day they were laid, more than two thousand years ago.' He says
further that the 'marvellous preservation of the ancient wood, whose edges were
so perfect that the very lines of jointure were indistinguishable, evoked
admiration of all who witnessed the experiment. The whole was built with a
precision and reasoned care that could not possibly be excelled to-day.... In
short, the construction was absolute perfection of such work.
In
other excavated buildings also in different parts of the country wooden logs
and rafters have been found in an excellent state of preservation. This would
be surprising anywhere, but in India it is more so, for the climate wears them
away and all manner of insects eat them up. There must have been some special
treat-ment of the wood; what this was is still, I believe, a mystery.
Between
Pataliputra (Patna) and Gaya lie the impressive remains of Nalanda university,
which was to become famous in later days. It is not clear when this
began functioning and there are no records of it in Ashoka's time.
Ashoka died in 232 B.C.,
after ruling strenuously for forty-one years. Of him H. G. Wells says in
his 'Outline of History': 'Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs
that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and
serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and
shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still
honoured. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine,
preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory
to-day than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.'
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