Hindūism, therefore, like all other creeds, was contained in the Dharma of Buddhism, and the great object of Gautama’s advent was not to uproot the old religion, but to purify it from error and restore it.
It was on this account that he regarded the Hindū gods as occupying a place in his own system, though not without some modification of the nature of their supposed position, offices, and functions.
And here it will be necessary to give an account of the later Buddhist theory of twenty-six successive tiers of heavens, one rising above the other (p. 120).
In the centre of the world-system stands, as we have seen, the vast mass of the mythical mountain Meru. On the upper portion of this stupendous axis of the universe and above the eight chief hells and the worlds of animals, ghosts, demons, and men, is situated the lowest heaven of the gods, where abide the four Mahā-rājas, ‘great champions,’ or guardians of the earth and the heavens against the demons, who are ever engaged in assailing them from their world below. These four are represented in full armour, with drawn swords; one quarter of the heavens being assigned to the guardianship of each; viz. the East to Dhṛita-rāshṭra, king of the Gandharvas; the South to Virūḍhaka, king of the Kumbhāṇḍas; the West to Virūpāksha, king of the Nāgas; the North to Kuvera (Vaiṡravaṇa), king of the Yakshas. The inhabitants of this heaven are called Ćatur-mahārāja-kāyikas, or simply Mahārājika-devāhḥ. Above this lowest heaven, and on the highest summit of the world’s axis, Meru, is enthroned the god Ṡakra (Indra), known in the Veda as god of the atmosphere. He is lord of a heaven of his own, and no god is more popular among Buddhists or oftener named in their legends; yet he is inferior to Mahā-brahmā and to Māra (p. 208). Buddha himself was Indra in some of his births (p. 111). To this heaven he ascended to preach the Law to his mother.
Hence we may infer that in the early days of Buddhism, Indra, who was perhaps the chief god of the Ṛig-veda, was still the favourite god of the people.
His heaven forms the second tier, reckoning from the lowest upwards (see p. 120), and is called Trayastriṉṡa (Tāvatiṉsa), that of the thirty-three divinities—as recognized in the Vedic hymns—consisting of the three groups of eleven Rudras, eight Vasus, and twelve Ādityas, together with personifications of Heaven and Earth.
The remaining heavens of the gods, which rise in succession above the lowest and above Indra’s and therefore in the sky above Mount Meru, are the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. These are not illuminated by the sun and moon, since the gods who live in them give out a sufficient light from their own persons. The first of them, or third of the heavens, is inhabited by beings called Yāmas. They were known to the Brāhmans and probably presided over the periods of the day. They are called ‘strifeless,’ because they have not to take part in the war constantly being waged by the gods of the two lower heavens against the demons (Asuras), who are unable to advance into the regions above Meru.
The fourth heaven is that of the Tushitas or ‘perfectly contented beings.’ It is a peculiarly sacred region, as it is the home of all the Bodhi-sattvas destined to become Buddhas. Gautama Buddha once dwelt there, and Maitreya now presides in it.
The fifth heaven is inhabited by the Nirmāṇa-rati-devāḥ, that is, ‘beings who constantly enjoy pleasures provided by themselves.’
The sixth heaven, and the highest of the Deva-lokas, is the abode of the Para-nirmita-vaṡa-varti-devāḥ, ‘beings who constantly enjoy pleasures provided for them by others.’ These beings are also called Māras, and are ‘lords of sensuous desires.’ When the theory of races of gods was invented, it led to the figment of millions of Māras ruled over by a chief Māra, who tempts men to indulge their passions (pp. 28, 33, 41), and is always on the watch to enter the citadel of the body by the gates of eye, ear, etc. (see note, p. 129). One of Māra’s names is Kāma, ‘desire.’ He is superior to all the gods of the worlds of sense, even to Ṡakra or Indra. In every Ćakravāla or Universe of worlds there is a Māra. He is sometimes called the Buddhist Satan, but this is misleading. He is rather a superior god, whose power consists in exciting sensual or carnal desires.
So far, then, the heavens are all worlds of sense,—like the earth and the lower regions,—and are spheres inhabited by beings who have sexual feelings and live active lives. But at this point in the ascent upwards all sensuality ceases, and we are introduced to beings who enjoy a higher condition of existence in which there is no distinction of sex, and all sensuous desires and objects have lost their hold over the frame—a condition supposed to be induced by the exercise of mystical abstract meditation (Dhyāna, Pāli Jhāna).
The importance of Dhyāna or intense abstract meditation in the Buddhist system has been pointed out before (p. 32). It is the chief religious exercise in which a true follower of Buddha can engage, and although it is divided into four stages, the man who exercises himself perfectly in any one of the four, becomes so sublimated and refined that he cannot be re-born in any of the sensuous heavens, or in any region lower than the Brahmā worlds.
The first stage of Dhyāna consists in fixing (Dhāraṇā) the mind and at the same time exercising the thinking faculties on some object, in such a way that a state of ecstatic joy and serenity is attained.
The second consists in concentrating the mind or soul so intensely on itself that the thinking faculties cease to act and only ecstatic joy and serenity remain.
In the third, nothing remains but perfect serenity.
The fourth is a trance-like condition of utter indifference and torpor, in which there is neither any exercise of thought, nor any conscious joy or serenity, but the whole being is released from the fetters of sense and soars to a transcendental condition, characterized by latent energy and a power of working miracles (p. 133).
These four stages of abstract meditation must not be confused with the four earnest reflections and the five contemplations (pp. 49, 127), which are not so abstract and require more earthly objects on which to be exercised.
The fourth and last Dhyāna is also called Samādhi, and properly means such a perfect concentration of the soul’s faculties, that the soul becomes merged in itself. It is often used to denote an ecstatic condition, scarcely to be distinguished from trance or hypnotism or catalepsy. Those devotees in India who practise it are buried, not burnt, and their tombs are called Samādhs.
To return now to Buddhist Cosmology, the theory of later Buddhism is that he who has practised the first Dhyāna will rise at death to one of the three tiers of heavens connected with that first Dhyāna, i.e. to the first and lowest of the four groups of worlds of true form (rūpa), in which all sexual distinctions are obliterated.
This first or lowest group consists of the worlds of the Brahmās, a high order of gods divided into three classes with three tiers of abodes.
The first class of Brahmā gods, inhabiting the first or lowest of the tiers of the Brahmā abodes, consists of the Brahma-parisajjā devāḥ, or beings who constitute the retinue of the god Mahā-brahmā—the chief of all the Buddhist gods.
The second class of Brahmā gods, inhabiting the second tier, consists of the Brahma-purohitā devāḥ, ‘beings who are the ministers of Mahā-brahmā.’
The third class of Brahmā gods, inhabiting the highest of the three tiers, consists of the Mahā-brahmās, ‘great Brahmās,’ of whom Mahā-brahmā is the chief.
The inhabitants of these three worlds are sometimes called the Brahma-kāyikā devāḥ, ‘gods having a Brahmā form.’
It is important, however, to note that Brahmā or Mahā-brahmā, sometimes called Brahmā Sahām-pati, ‘lord of those who have to suffer[100],’ is the king of all the higher heavens (p. 214), ruling there, as Mara and Indra do in the lower worlds and heavens of sense and desire. Out of deference to Brāhmanism he has been adopted as the chief god of the Buddhist Pantheon, and yet he is far inferior to the Buddha.
Furthermore, it is to be observed that every Ćakra-vāla or ‘system of worlds’ (see p. 120) has its own Mahā-brahmā ruling over its own higher heavens, and that as there are countless Ćakra-vāla, so there are countless Mahā-brahmās. Nor is any of these chief gods eternal. Each has to pass into some other form of existence at the end of vast periods of time, and is then succeeded by another. Gautama Buddha himself was born four times as Mahā-brahmā (see p. 111).
The second group of worlds of true form has also three tiers of heavens like the first, and is assigned as an abode to those who have risen to the second degree of contemplation.
The characteristic of these three heavens is that they are regions of true light—not of the sun’s light, but of mental enlightenment, and each of the three is inhabited by beings who have raised themselves to different heights of knowledge and intelligence.
In the first are the Parīttābhā (Parĭttābhā) devāḥ, ‘beings of circumscribed or limited enlightenment;’ in the second are the Apramāṇābhā (Appamāṇābhā) devāḥ, ‘beings of infinite light;’ in the third are the Ābhāsvarā (Ābhassarā) devāḥ, ‘beings of the clearest light.’
The third group of worlds of true form has again three tiers of heavens, which are assigned to those who have raised themselves to the third stage of contemplation.
The peculiarity of these three seems to be that they are regions of the greatest purity, and that each of the three is the abode of beings distinguished by higher and higher degrees of purity. In the first are the Parītta-ṡubhā (Parītta-subhā) devāḥ, ‘gods or beings of limited purity;’ in the second are the Apramāṇa-ṡubhā (Appamāna-subhā) devāḥ, ‘beings of unlimited purity;’ in the third are the Ṡubha-kṛitsnā (Subha-kiṇṇā) devāḥ, ‘beings of absolute purity.’
The fourth group of worlds of true form has seven tiers of heavens, occupied by those beings who have risen to the fourth or highest grade of abstract meditation (Dhyāna), which is really a state of meditating on nothing and of complete indifference to all concrete objects. These beings are the emancipated Arhats who have delivered themselves from the cycle (Saṃsāra) of constant re-birth (p. 134).
In the first tier are the Vṛihat-phalā (Vehapphalā) devāḥ, ‘beings enjoying great reward;’ in the second are the Asañjñi-sattvā (Asañña-sattā) devāḥ, ‘beings lost in total unconsciousness;’ in the third are the Avṛihā (Avihā) devāḥ, ‘beings who make no efforts;’ in the fourth are the Atapā (Atappā) devāḥ, ‘beings who never endure any pain;’ in the fifth are the Sudarṡā (Sudassā) devāḥ, ‘beings who see clearly;’ in the sixth are the Sudarṡino (Sudassī) devāḥ, ‘beings of beautiful appearance;’ in the seventh are the Akanishṭhā (Akaniṭṭhā) devāḥ, ‘highest of all beings.’ In this last must be included all Arhats and Pratyeka-Buddhas.
High above the worlds of true form and above the abode of pure contemplative beings, rise the four heavens of formless entities—beings who have no material frames, even of the subtlest kind, but are mere abstractions, such as the Dhyāni-Buddhas (pp. 202, 203).
In the first of these formless heavens (Arūpa-loka) are the Ākāṡānantyāyatanā devāḥ, ‘beings who are capable of conceiving the idea of infinite space;’ in the second are the Vijñānānantyāyatanā devāḥ, ‘beings who are capable of conceiving the idea of infinite intelligence;’ in the third are the Akiñćanyāyatanā devāḥ, ‘beings who can conceive the idea of absolute nonentity,’ or, in other words, that nothing whatever exists anywhere; in the fourth and highest of all are the Naivasañjñānāsañjñāyatanā devāḥ (Nevasaññānāsaññāyå-), ‘beings who abide in neither consciousness nor unconsciousness.’ This is the most sublime of all conditions, but these heavens belong to mystical Buddhism.
Subjoined is a synopsis of all the heavens and their inhabitants explained above (see Koeppen i. 260).
A.
Heavens of beings liable to sensuous desires.
B.
Heavens of beings possessing true forms.
First Dhyāna.
Second Dhyāna.
Third Dhyāna.
Fourth Dhyāna.
C.
Heavens of formless entities.
This elaborate description of higher and higher conditions of future existence may be contrasted with the reticence of the Bible and its simple allusion to a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The description, however, belongs to later Buddhism. It enables us to understand the true position of the Buddhist gods. They merely constitute one of the six classes of beings, and, as they have to go through other forms of life, are inferior to Arhats and Buddhas.
Mahā-brahmā is often named, whereas Vishṇu, the popular god of the Hindūs, is neglected. In point of fact he was, as we have seen, represented by Padma-pāṇi (Avalokiteṡvara, p. 198), who seems to have taken his place in later Buddhism.
At all events the more modern form of Vishṇu called Kṛishṇa, who is generally worshipped by the lower orders of Hindūs as the most popular god of mediæval Hindūism, has not been adopted by the inhabitants of Buddhist countries.
When I was at Kandy in Ceylon I found one solitary shrine (Devālī) dedicated, not to Kṛishṇa, but to Mahā-Vishṇu. It was near the well-known Tooth-temple and appeared almost deserted. The shrine was at the end of a bare room, and contained a small silver-gilt image of Mahā-Vishṇu (as Vishṇu is called when worshipped by Buddhists, just as the chief of the Brahmā gods is called Mahā-Brahmā) about half a foot high. In the hands of the image was a thin metal bar with a kind of locket or amulet suspended from it, while round its neck was a long rosary and in front of the body a large plate for offerings. The folding doors of the sanctuary had representations of the sun and moon.
Turning to the god Ṡiva, we may note that he was adopted by later Buddhism in his character of Yogī, or Mahā-yogī (see ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 83). Then, as the Buddhism of the North very soon became corrupted with Ṡaivism and its accompaniments, Ṡāktism, Tāntrism, and Magic, so in Northern countries various forms of Ṡiva—such as Mahā-Kāla, Bhairava, Bhīma—and of his wife (Pārvatī, Durgā, etc.), are honoured, and their images are found in temples. Sometimes bloody sacrifices are offered to them.
Among the female deities forms of Tārā are chiefly worshipped, and regarded as Ṡaktis of the Buddhas.
It is even held by the disciples of the more advanced Mahā-yāna—especially in Nepāl—that there are five Ṡaktis or female Energies (corresponding to the five human Buddhas), whose names are given in corresponding order thus:—Vajra-dhātrī, Loćanā, Māmakī, Pāṇḍarā, and Tārā or Tārā-devī (the latter being the Tārā par excellence)[101].
But the goddess Tārā was also worshipped by Buddhists in India proper; for we find that Hiouen Thsang alludes to having seen images of Tārā Bodhi-sattva[102] in the country of Magadha.
I may mention, too, that in a dilapidated building, which contains the Vajrāsana or thunderbolt throne of Gautama at Buddha-Gayā (in the same country of Magadha), I noticed in a shrine near the temple, an image of Tārā-devī, which, from the crown of fresh flowers encircling its head, appeared to have been recently worshipped by some Buddhist pilgrims, who had arrived on the day of my visit in 1876.
The god Indra, usually called Ṡakra (Sakka), is, as we have seen, the most popular god of the early Buddhist Pantheon (pp. 51, 207). He is a friendly deity and never exerts evil influences over men, like Māra. On the contrary, if any good man is in need of his services he descends from his own heaven to render assistance; and the fact of his aid being required is made known to him by his throne becoming hot.
The Dharma-pada (107, 392) mentions Agni, god of fire, and again (48), Antaka, god of death, sometimes identified with Māra or with Yama, ‘ruler in Hell.’ A form of Yama called Yamāntaka is also recognized.
In Ceylon I observed several shrines to Kanda-Kumāra, a form of Skanda (son of Ṡiva), who is said to have received the gift of healing from Buddha.
There also I observed shrines of Saman (sometimes spelt Samanta, sometimes Sumana), the tutelary deity of Adam’s Peak, which is thence called Samanta-kūṭo and Sumana-kūṭo.
Then there were shrines dedicated to a demoniacal goddess called Paṭṭini (regarded sometimes as protecting from small-pox), and to certain good and evil genii, called Năths (Nāthas?) as in Burma.
No doubt the worship of devils and demons existed in Ceylon long before the introduction of either Brāhmanism or Buddhism. At Colombo in 1877 I witnessed a so-called devil-dance, performed late at night before the then Governor, Sir William Gregory.
First, three men dressed in coarse, loose, jet-black dresses, engaged in a wild dance together. They had shaggy hair, blackened faces daubed with white paint, and a set of six or eight long projecting false teeth, which protruded far below the lower lip, sometimes one, sometimes two at a time. Their legs were completely covered with small bells, which rattled like chains when they moved. In their hands they held three flaring torches, branching from one handle. At intervals they increased the glare and smoke from these torches by sprinkling resin upon them.
Their dance was of the wildest description, in a circle, sometimes moving in and out, and crossing each other, and all the while beating the ground violently with their jingling legs, which kept time to the noisy music of tom-toms, flagiolets, horns, etc., played by attendant musicians. These three men were supposed to represent the various forms of typhus fever. At intervals during their dance they assumed frightful black masks with hideous open mouths.
Then with them were two other dancing demons dressed in red, not so hideous in appearance, who also danced holding torches. These represented another form of devil. They danced in the interval of the two performances of the black devils. There were also three men dressed in reddish garments, who formed part of the group and moved about quietly among the others. They were described to me as devil-charmers or exorcisers.
Every disease—every calamity has its presiding demon, and all such demons are the servants of Buddha.
In regard to the other supernatural beings and figments of Hindū mythology adopted, with a few unimportant modifications, by Buddhists, the first that call for mention are the Pretas (see p. 121).
The Pretas are beings of the nature of ghosts and goblins who have recently inhabited the earth, and are often of gigantic size and terrific appearance, with dried-up limbs, hairy countenances, enormous bellies, ever consumed with hunger and thirst, and yet never able to eat and drink by reason of their contracted throats. Some are represented as trying to swallow sparks of fire; others try to eat up dead bodies, or their own flesh. Possibly this form of re-birth was invented to deter the laity from withholding food from the monks. The Pretas inhabit a region above the hells. Some, however, assign them habitations above the surface of the earth or in desert places on the earth itself.
The Asuras or Daityas are evil demons who, like the Titans of Greek mythology, are always at war with the gods. They dwell under the foundations of Mount Meru, as far underneath the surface of the earth as their great enemy Indra is above it. In short, if he may be supposed to live at the zenith, they live at the nadir, and their battle-field is on the slopes of Meru.
Closely connected with them are the Rākshasas, who are also enemies of the gods and are represented as monsters of frightful form and man-eating propensities. They haunt cremation-grounds and cemeteries and way-lay human beings in solitary places to devour them.
Then there is a class of very malignant demons called Piṡāćas (described in ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 242), who are the authors of all evils.
On the other hand, the Yakshas and Yakshiṇīs are a class of good genii ruled over by Kuvera, ‘god of wealth,’ who is often referred to in Buddhist writings under his patronymic Vaiṡravaṇa (Pāli Vessavaṇo)[103]. These beings are commonly represented in sculptures in human form and held to be harmless, though some Buddhist legends describe them as cruel. Stories are told about some of them being converted to Buddhism.
Then come the Nāgas, who are constantly alluded to. They properly belong to a class of serpent-demons, having human faces with serpent-like lower extremities, who live in one of the lower regions below the earth called Pātāla, or under the waters. They are introduced into Buddhist sculptures as worshippers of the Buddha and friends of all Buddhists, but usually represented as ordinary men. The Nāga Mućalinda (also Mućilinda), who sheltered Buddha, was a real serpent (see p. 39). Nāga-kanyās or female Nāgas (serpents from the waist downwards) are also not uncommon[104]. In Kashmīr Nāgas are connected with fountains and the sources of rivers.
Then there are the Mahoragas, ‘great dragons,’ who also belong to the Nāga class of demons.
We ought also to notice the Kumbhāṇḍas, a class of demons who attend on Virūḍhaka (p. 206); the Garuḍas, a bird-like race ruled over by the mythical Garuḍa, king of birds and enemy of the Nāgas and serpents; the Apsarases, or nymphs produced at the churning of the ocean. These last are sometimes described in Hindū mythology as the Hūrīs of Indra’s heaven, who are assigned to heroes killed in battle. In Buddhist sculptures they are represented as beautiful females, who are properly the wives of Indra’s celestial musicians called Gandharvas.
Finally, mention should be made of the Kinnaras and Kinnarīs—beings who ought properly to be represented with human bodies and equine heads, and are, like the Gandharvas, heavenly musicians. It is even recorded in one legend that the Buddha himself in a former life was a Kinnarī.
All this proves the close connexion of Buddhism with the Hindūism which, like Buddhism, grew out of Brāhmanism. In short, the one mythology is so interpenetrated with the other, that Buddhism in making proselytes throughout Eastern Asia could not avoid propagating Hindū mythological doctrines along with its own.
The consequence was that Hindūism, though often regarded as an unproselyting and wholly national religion, really exercised a vast influence outside its own boundaries and among alien races.
It is, at any rate, a remarkable fact that no mythological system has ever spread over so large an area of the earth’s surface as that which, originating in India, was accepted to a great extent by all Buddhist communities. And this Indo-Buddhistic system of mythology, with its, to us, absurd idolatry, rests on an extremely subtle form of pantheism, which is not to be brushed aside as too contemptible for investigation.
It is usual to denounce all such systems as simple Heathenism; but ‘Heathenism’ means the religion of ‘the nations’—the religion evolved by the men of all countries out of their own imaginations and by their own natural faculties, without the aid of any true supernatural revelation.
And assuredly this religion of human nature is still a strong citadel entrenched behind the formidable forces of pride, passion, prejudice, and ignorance. Yet the walls of the fortress have numerous weak places, which the wise missionary, armed with the still more powerful forces at his command, will endeavour to discover and quietly undermine. By patient and quiet working he must win the day.
With man, speed and rapidity of action are supposed to be the chief evidences of progress and the chief factors in success. The Evangelist, on the other hand, is a worker for God and a fellow-worker with God, and ought not to be discouraged by the tardy advance of the Truth which he advocates. He may have his moments of despondency, but he has only to look around and observe that God works everywhere throughout His own Universe by slow and almost imperceptible processes. The ripe fruit falls from the tree in a second, but its maturity is not effected without a whole year of gradual preparation.
The first idea implied by Buddhism is intellectual enlightenment. But Buddhism has its own theory of enlightenment—its own idea of true knowledge, which it calls Bodhi, not Veda. By true knowledge it means knowledge acquired by man through his own intellectual faculties and through his own inner consciousness, instincts, and intuitions, unaided by any external or supernatural revelation of any kind.
But it is important to observe that Buddhism, in the carrying out of its own theory of entire self-dependence in the search after truth, was compelled to be somewhat inconsistent with itself. It enjoined self-conquest, self-restraint, self-concentration, and separation from the world for the attainment of true knowledge and for the accomplishment of its own summum bonum—the bliss of Nirvāṇa—the bliss of deliverance from the fires of passion and the flames of concupiscence. Yet it encouraged association and combination for mutual help. It established a universal brotherhood of celibate monks, open to persons of all castes and ranks, to rich and poor, learned and unlearned alike—a community of men which might, in theory, be co-extensive with the whole world—all bound together by the common aim of self-conquest, all animated by the wish to aid each other in the battle with carnal desires, all penetrated by a desire to follow the example of the Buddha, and be guided by the doctrine or law which he promulgated.
Cœnobitic monasticism in fact, as we have already pointed out, became an essential part of true Buddhism and a necessary instrument for its propagation.
In all this the Buddha showed himself to be eminently practical in his methods and profoundly wise in his generation. Evidently, too, he was wise in abstaining at first from all mystical teaching. Originally Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism and all secret efforts to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine which it withheld from ordinary men.
Nor did true Buddhism at first concern itself with any form of philosophical or metaphysical teaching, which it did not consider helpful for the attainment of the only kind of true knowledge worth striving for—the knowledge of the origin of suffering and its remedy—the knowledge that suffering and pain arise from indulging lusts, and that life is inseparable from suffering, and is an evil to be got rid of by suppressing self and extinguishing desires.
In the Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta (Rhys Davids, II. 32) is recorded one of the Buddha’s remarks shortly before his decease:—
‘What, O Ānanda, does the Order desire of me? I have taught the law (desito dhammo) without making any distinction between esoteric and exoteric doctrine (anantaram abahiram karitvā). In the matter of the law, the Tathāgata (i.e. the Buddha) has never had the closed fist of a teacher (āćariya-muṭṭhi)—of a teacher who withholds some doctrines and communicates others.’ In short, he was opposed to mysticism.
Nevertheless, admitting, as we must, that early Buddhism had no mysteries reserved for a privileged circle, we must not shut our eyes to the fact that the great importance attached to abstract meditation in the Buddhist system could not fail in the end to encourage the growth of mystical ideas.
Furthermore, it is undeniable that such ideas were, in some countries, carried to the most extravagant extremes. Efforts to induce a trance-like or hypnotic condition, by abstracting the thoughts from all bodily influences, by recitation of mystical sentences, and by superstitious devices for the acquisition of supernatural faculties, were placed above good works and all the duties of the moral code.
We might point, too, to the strange doctrine which arose in Nepāl and Tibet—the doctrine of the Dhyāni-Buddhas (or ‘Buddhas of Meditation’)—certain abstract Essences existing in the formless worlds of thought, who were held to be ethereal and eternal representatives of the transitory earthly Buddhas. These have been adverted to in a previous Lecture (see p. 202).
Our present concern is rather with the growth and development of mystical Buddhism in India itself, through its connexion with the system of philosophy called Yoga and Yogāćāra.
The close relationship of Buddhism to that system is well known; but the various practices included under the name Yoga did not owe their origin to Buddhism. They were prevalent in India before Gautama Buddha’s time; and one of the most generally accepted facts in his biography is that, after abandoning his home and worldly associations, he resorted to certain Brāhman ascetics, who were practising Yoga.
What then was the object which these ascetics had in view?
The word Yoga literally means ‘union’ (as derived from the Sanskṛit root ‘yuj,’ to join; compare the English word ‘yoke’), and the proper aim of every man who practised Yoga was the mystic union (or rather re-union) of his own spirit with the one eternal Soul or Spirit of the Universe. A true Yogī, says the Bhagavad-gītā (VI. 13, 25), should be indifferent to all earthly things. To him a clod, a stone, and gold should be all alike.
Doubtless this was the Buddha’s first aim when he addressed himself to Yoga in the fifth century B.C., and even to this hour, earnest men in India resort to this system with the same object.
In the Indian Magazine for July, 1887 (as well as in my ‘Brāhmanism and Hindūism,’ p. 529), is a short biography of a quite recent religious reformer named Svāmī Dayānanda-Sarasvatī, whose acquaintance I made at Bombay in 1876 and 1877, and who only died in 1883. The story of his life reads almost like a repetition of the life of Buddha, though his teaching aimed at restoring the supposed monotheistic doctrine of the Veda.
It is recorded that his father, desiring to initiate him into the mysteries of Ṡaivism, took him to a shrine dedicated to the god Ṡiva; but the sight of some mice stealing the consecrated offerings, and of some rats playing on the heads of the idol, led him to disbelieve in Ṡiva-worship as a means of union with the Supreme Being. Longing, however, for such union and for emancipation from the burden of repeated births, he resolved to renounce marriage and abandon the world. Accordingly, at the age of twenty-two, he clandestinely quitted his home, the darkness of evening covering his flight. Taking a secret path, he travelled thirty miles during the night. Next day he was pursued by his father, who tried to force him to return, but in vain. After travelling farther and farther from his native province, he took a vow to devote himself to the investigation of truth. Then he wandered for many years all over India, trying to gain knowledge from sages and philosophers, but without any satisfactory result, till finally he settled at Ahmedābād. There, having mastered the higher Yoga system, he became the leader of a new sect called the Ārya-Samāj.
And here we may observe that the expression ‘higher Yoga’ implies that a lower form of that system had been introduced. In point of fact, the Yoga system grew, and became twofold—that is, it came in the end to have two objects.
The earlier was the higher Yoga. It aimed only at union with the Spirit of the Universe. The more developed system aimed at something more. It sought to acquire miraculous powers by bringing the body under control of the will, and by completely abstracting the soul from body and mind, and isolating it in its own essence. This condition is called Kaivalya.
In the fifth century B.C., when Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known. Practically, in those days, earnest and devout men craved only for union with the Supreme Being, and absorption into his Essence. Many methods of effecting such union and absorption were contrived. And these may be classed under two chief heads—bodily mortification (tapas) and abstract meditation (dhyāna).
By either one of these two chief means, the devotee was supposed to be able to get rid of all bodily fetters—to be able to bring his bodily organs into such subjection to the spiritual that he became unconscious of possessing any body at all. It was in this way that his spirit became fit for blending with the Universal Spirit, of which it was originally a part.
We learn from the Lalita-vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama’s time.
Some devotees, we read, seated themselves in one spot and kept perpetual silence, with their legs bent under them. Some ate only once a day or once on alternate days, or at intervals of four, six, or fourteen days. Some slept in wet clothes or on ashes, gravel, stones, boards, thorny grass, or spikes, or with the face downwards. Some went naked, making no distinction between fit or unfit places. Some smeared themselves with ashes, cinders, dust, or clay. Some inhaled smoke and fire. Some gazed at the sun, or sat surrounded by five fires, or rested on one foot, or kept one arm perpetually uplifted, or moved about on their knees instead of on their feet, or baked themselves on hot stones, or submerged themselves in water, or suspended themselves in air.
Then, again, a method of fasting called very painful (atikṛiććhra), described by Manu (XI. 213), was often practised. It consisted in eating only a single mouthful every day for nine days, and then abstaining from all food for the three following days.
Another method, called the lunar fast (VI. 20, XI. 216), consisted in beginning with fifteen mouthfuls at full moon, and reducing the quantity by one mouthful till new moon, and then increasing it again in the same way till full moon.
Passages without number might be quoted from ancient literature to prove that similar practices were resorted to throughout India, with the object of bringing the body into subjection to the spirit. And these practices have continued up to the present day.
A Muhammadan traveller, whose narrative is quoted by Mr. Mill (British India, i. 355), once saw a man standing motionless with his face towards the sun.
The same traveller, having occasion to revisit the same spot sixteen years afterwards, found the very same man in the very same attitude. He had gazed on the sun’s disk till all sense of external vision was extinguished.
A Yogī was seen not very long ago (Mill’s India, i. 353) seated between four fires on a quadrangular stage. He stood on one leg gazing at the sun, while these fires were lighted at the four corners. Then placing himself upright on his head, with his feet elevated in the air, he remained for three hours in that position. He then seated himself cross-legged, and continued bearing the raging heat of the sun above his head and the fires which surrounded him, till the end of the day, occasionally adding combustibles with his own hands to increase the flames.
I, myself, in the course of my travels, encountered Yogis who had kept their arms uplifted for years, or had wandered about from one place of pilgrimage to another under a perpetual vow of silence, or had no place to lie upon but a bed of spikes.
As to fasting, the idea that attenuation of the body by abstinence from food facilitates union of the human soul with the divine, or at any rate promotes a keener insight into spiritual things, is doubtless as common in Europe as in Asia; but the most austere observer of Lent in European countries would be hopelessly outdone by devotees whose extraordinary powers of abstinence may be witnessed in every part of India.
If we now turn to the second method of attaining mystic union with the Divine Essence, namely, by profound abstract thought, we may observe that it, too, was everywhere prevalent in Buddha’s time.
Indeed, one of the names given by Indian philosophers to the One Universal Spirit is Ćit, ‘Thought.’ By that name, of course, is meant pure abstract thought, or the faculty of thought separated from every concrete object. Hence, in its highest state the eternal infinite Spirit, by its very nature, thinks of nothing. It is the simple thought-faculty, wholly unconnected with any object about which it thinks. In point of fact, the moment it begins to exercise this faculty, it necessarily abandons for a time its condition of absolute oneness, abstraction, and isolation, to associate itself with something inferior, which is not itself.
It follows, therefore, that intense concentration of the mind on the One Universal Spirit amounts to fixing the thought on a mere abstract Essence, which reciprocates no thought in return, and is not conscious of being thought about by its worshipper.
In harmony with this theory, we find that the definition of Yoga, in the second aphorism of the Yoga-sūtra, is, ‘the suppression (nirodha) of the functions or modifications (vṛitti) of the thinking principle (ćitta).’ So that, in reality, the union of the human mind with the infinite Principle of thought amounts to such complete mental absorption, that thought itself becomes lost in pure thought.
In the Ṡakuntalā (VII. 175) there is a description of an ascetic engaged in this form of Yoga, whose condition of fixed meditation and immovable impassiveness had lasted so long that ants had thrown up a mound as high as his waist, and birds had built their nests in the long clotted tresses of his tangled hair.
Not many years ago, I, myself, saw at Allahābād near the fort a devotee who had maintained a sitting, contemplative posture, with his feet folded under his body, in one place for twenty years. During the Mutiny cannon thundered over his head, and bullets hissed around him, but nothing apparently disturbed his attitude of profound meditation. Even Muhammadans practise the same. The Russian correspondent of the Times states (Sept. 18, 1888) that he saw in a mosque at Samarkand men who voluntarily remained mute and motionless for forty days. On a curtain being pulled aside he beheld a motionless figure seated in profound meditation like a squatting mummy. The guide said that a cannon fired off in front of his face would have left him equally unmoved.
It is clear, then, that, supposing Gautama to have made up his mind to devote himself to a religious life, his adoption of a course of profound meditation was a most usual proceeding.
A large number of the images of Buddha represent him sitting on a raised seat or throne (called the Bodhi-maṇḍa), with his legs folded under his body, and his eyes half-closed, in a condition of abstraction (samādhi)—sometimes called Yoga-nidrā; that is, a trance-like state, resembling profound sleep. (Compare frontispiece.)
He is said to have seated himself in this way under four trees in succession (see p. 39 of these Lectures), namely, under the Bodhi-tree or sacred fig-tree, under the Banyan-tree, under the Mućalinda-tree (protected by the serpent), and under the Rājāyatana-tree.
And those four successive seats probably symbolized the four recognized stages of meditation[105] (dhyāna) rising one above the other, till thought itself was converted into non-thought (see p. 209).
We know, too, that the Buddha went through still higher progressive stages of meditation at the moment of his death or final decease (Pari-nirvāṇa), thus described in the Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta (Davids, VI. 11):
‘Then the Venerable One entered into the first stage of meditation (pathamajjhānam); and rising out of the first stage, he passed into the second; and rising out of the second, he passed into the third; and rising out of the third, he passed into the fourth; and rising out of the fourth stage, he attained the conception of the infinity of space (ākāṡānañćāyatanam, see p. 214); and rising out of the conception of the infinity of space, he attained the conception of the infinity of intelligence (viññāṇañćāyatanam); and rising out of the idea of the infinity of intelligence, he attained the conception of absolute nonentity (ākiñćaññāyatanam); and rising out of the idea of nonentity, he entered the region where there is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness; and rising out of that region, he entered the state in which all sensation and perception of ideas had wholly ceased.’ (See p. 213 of these Lectures.)
Clearly, even four progressive stages of abstraction did not satisfy the requirements of later Buddhism in regard to the intense sublimation of the thinking faculty needed for the complete effacement of all sense of individuality. Higher and higher altitudes had to be reached, insomuch that the fourth stage of abstract meditation is sometimes divided and subdivided into what are called eight Vimokhas and eight Samāpattis—all of them forms and stages of ecstatic meditation[106].
A general name, however, for all the higher trance-like states is Samādhi, and by the practice of Samādhi the six transcendent faculties (Abhiññā) might ultimately be obtained, viz. the inner ear, or power of hearing words and sounds, however distant (clair-audience, as it might be called); the inner eye, or power of seeing all that happens in every part of the world (clair-voyance); knowledge of the thoughts of others; recollection of former existences; the knowledge of the mode of destroying the corrupting influences of passion; and, finally, the supernatural powers called Iddhi, to be subsequently explained.
But to return to the Buddha’s first course of meditation at the time when he first attained Buddhahood. This happened during one particular night, which was followed by the birthday of Buddhism.
And what was the first grand outcome of that first profound mental abstraction? One legend relates that in the first watch of the night all his previous existences flashed across his mind; in the second he understood all present states of being; in the third he traced out the chain of causes and effects, and at the dawn of day he knew all things.
According to another legend, there was an actual outburst of the divine light before hidden within him.
We read in the Lalita-vistara (chap. i) that at the supreme moment of his intellectual illumination brilliant flames of light issued from the crown of his head, through the interstices of his cropped hair. These rays are sometimes represented in his images, emerging from his skull in a form resembling the five fingers of an extended hand (see the frontispiece).
Mark, however, that Gautama’s meditation never led him to the highest result of the true Yoga of Indian philosophy—union with the Supreme Spirit. On the contrary, his self-enlightenment led to entire disbelief in the separate existence of any eternal, infinite Spirit at all—any Spirit, in fact, with which a spirit existing in his own body could blend, or into which it could be absorbed.
If the Buddha was not a materialist, in the sense of believing in the eternal existence of material atoms, neither could he in any sense be called a ‘spiritualist,’ or believer in the eternal existence of abstract spirit.
With him Creation did not proceed from an Omnipotent Spirit or Mind evolving phenomena out of itself by the exercise of will, nor from an eternal self-existing, self-evolving germ of any kind. As to the existence in the Universe of any spiritual substance which was not matter and was imperceptible by the senses, it could not be proved.
Nor did he believe in the eternal existence of an invisible Self or Ego, called Soul, distinct from a material body. The only eternity of true Buddhism was an eternity of ‘becoming,’ not of ‘being’—an eternity of existences, all succeeding each other, and all lapsing into nothingness. If there were any personal gods they were all inferior to the perfect man, and all liable to change and dissolution.