BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM

CHAPTER
I

INTRODUCTORY
of Brahma," of the pattern with mighty flames and vast streams of volcanic lava, burnt up the present race of mankind, and that by and by, in further fulfilment of Eastern dreams, a new race has developed. Let us sup-

Let us suppose that a

"

Day

imaged by Hindus,

has,

pose also that some individuals of this new race have discovered in a cave in Brittany two tractates miraculously preserved the one a sort of ancestor-worship by a religious reformer named Comte, and the other by one " Catholicus," setting forth another scheme of ancestor or saint-worship, with pilgrimages to their shrines and temples, cures performed at holy tanks, remissions of

future

fire

torture

by the

intercession of priests.

This discovery would, of course,

in learned colleges,

make much

noise

and in process of time the tractates would be deciphered, and it would be seen that one of these religions had plainly been derived from the
other.

Which was

the earlier?

This was warmly

debated, until

by and by the

question, let us imagine,

BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM

settled to the satisfaction

was

of

all

by a learned

writer

named

Excelsior.

man Comte (if he was a was a man of genius, a philosopher, a man of science. His main postulate was that religion, like everything else, must be based on
Excelsior showed that this real man, and not a tendency)

the facts of experience, not the dreams of the imaginHis motto apparently was: "Man we know; ation. God we do not know. Let us confine our cultus to

gone before

Let us honour the illustrious that have Their exertions have made us what we are. We, too, may improve the race by our exertions here, and by our memory hereafter." There was nothing really superstitious in the cultus of the man Comte, because it was admitted that the
the

known.

us.

saints of this religion

were really dead.

They had

passed into the great "Temple of Nothingness." Excelsior then, in a few vigorous paragraphs, poured out his scorn on those who could imagine a man like Comte plagiarising the miserable superstitions of the
creed of " Catholicus."
It is plain that the latter

was

the scheme of

debased

Comte turned probably by priests,

inside

out, vulgarised,

for greed

and power

many

centuries after the death of Comte.

In our learned colleges a similar topsy-turvy quesThere are two Buddhisms. The first, on the surface, seems to have emerged from the rude The saint deifications of the previous Brahminism. temple in those days was the sepulchral mound, even
tion has arisen.

when

calcined ashes

had replaced the

corpse.

The

man Buddha was worshipped

was invoked
altar during the sacrifice.

in such a temple.

He

in the Buddhist litany to appear at the

He was

asked to forgive

INTRODUCTORY
sins.

He was addressed by the titles that the Hindoos use towards their Supreme God. In the White Lotas of Dharma he is made to announce that a
Buddha
is

an incarnation of Swayambhu, and that at

death he goes back to rule the universe from his throne in the sky. The second Buddhism, however, proclaimed that a dead Buddha was non-existent, and that Swayambhu
himself was non-existent
as the other
;

but

its

cultus

Buddhism.

Its followers

was the same had the sepul-

chral ddgoba, or relic tumulus, as a temple, but devoid

They asked Buddha to appear at the altar during worship. They asked him to forgive sins. They addressed him by the titles that the Hindoos use towards their Supreme God. Does not all this seem on the surface to have been the outcome of an innovating school, an atheistical school, altering dogma but unable to alter ritual ? But the " Excelsiors " of our learned colleges will not admit of such an explanation, and it must be confessed that this topsy-turvy Buddhism has a real support in topsy-turvy Buddhist
of relics.
literature.

The books, which some

five

hundred years

after Buddha's death (under the collective title of the

Great Vehicle ") revealed the Non-God seated on his throne of Nothingness, have also puzzling Sutras announcing Eternal Life for all men in a paradise of an eternal God. This has allowed English writers on Buddhism to contend that the second school was the Deistical school a privilege, however, that has been now completely taken away from them by the pub-

"

lication

by Professor Max Muller

in
his
collection,

of

the

Mahayana

Sutras

the

Sacred Books of the

East

BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM

It is not too much to say that this publication has rendered obsolete the greater part of our English

disquisitions
1.

Great proclaimed the following There is no God and no material world. Man comes from the Great Nothing, and after a brief dream of non-existing worlds returns to it. All this had already been given to the public by Brian Hodgson and
Vehicle
"
:

on Buddhism. It shows That the innovating Buddhism of the

"

Buddha.
forced

Rajendra Lala Mitra, and also in my Popular Life of I showed also from Hwen Thsang, the Chinese traveller, that this innovating Buddhism was

upon the
A.D. 16.

earlier

Buddhism by King Kanaka

about

2. But a new fact of crucial importance has emerged from this volume of the Sacred Books of the East. There was recoil as well as revolution. Bound up together in the same library are two philosophies and

two

religions

distinct,

antagonistic, internecine.
is

The

eternal Buddha, Amitayas,

a protest against the

non-existent Buddha.

Brian Hodgson called the innovating atheism "Pyrby the aid of this Mahdydna Sutras in the Sacred Books of the East we can have no doubt as to what the Pyrrho-Buddha was like. From one of
rhonism," and
these Sutras, entitled the

"Diamond

Cutter," I will

give a

little

sketch of him.

must point out that Pyrrhonism is word for this school of Buddhism. Pyrrhonism doubted everything. Pyrrho-Buddhism had no doubts at all. The difference can be made clear if we suppose that Pyrrho and Sakya Muni were both " Have you seen the disciple asked this question
But
at starting I

scarcely the correct

"

INTRODUCTORY

Subhuti this morning, and was his head bald, and did he wear the yellow cloak ? The answer of Pyrrho would be after this fashion " I have no sufficient evidence that I exist, nor can I Such being the case, it must, of course, be get it. doubtful to me whether I possess two eyes. And if I do not exist, doubts must also be thrown over the
existence of the disciple Subhuti, his bald head, and
his yellow cloak
"
!

The answer
this.

of the

Pyrrho-Buddha would

differ

from

it is

an absolute certainty that I do not exist, and an absolute certainty that my two eyes do not exist. It is another absolute certainty that the disciple Subhuti does not exist, and a non-existent disciple must have a non-existent bald head, and a cloak equally intangible; but stop and listen to the whole of my Although it is an absolute certainty that revelation. the disciple Subhuti does not exist, it is also an absolute certainty that he does exist. It is a certainty equally absolute that his bald head exists, that his yellow cloak exists. It is an absolute certainty also that I, Buddha, do not exist, but it is also an absolute certainty that I do exist." Now this Buddhism, which we may call the " Glad Tidings of Stupid Contradiction," runs through the whole of the Sutra called the " Diamond Cutter." It is supposed to record a conversation between Buddha and the disciple Subhuti, in the Jetavana grove near
Sravasti.

" It is

Buddha

declares that in the course of his

many transmigrations
millions of beings,
(p. 114).

a Buddha delivers immeasurable and yet not one is ever delivered He declares that the coming Buddbas (Bodhi-

BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM

satwas) must have the most distinct conception of Dharma (spiritual religion), and also no conception of

Dharma

at

all.

They must have understanding, and

no understanding (p. 117). He states that the Buddhas have preached the highest perfect knowledge, and that they have never preached the highest knowledge at all It affirms, too, that the Bodhisatwas who (p. 118). study the " Diamond Cutter " will be endowed with miraculous powers, and " frame to themselves a true
idea.

And why
!

because
126).

a true idea
'

is

not a true

idea

Therefore
(p.

Buddha preaches

true idea, a true

(the

idea indeed'"

It is said that the treatise is

to be entitled the

Prajnd Pdramitd
it
is

the other Bank), because other Bank. Therefore it

(p. 125).

is

not the

entitled

Wisdom of Wisdom of the Prajnd Pdramitd

Here
"

is

a specimen of the argument

Therefore,

Subhuti, a noble-minded Bodhisatwa,

after putting aside all ideas, should raise his

mind

to

He should frame his the highest perfect knowledge. mind so as not to believe in form, sound, smell, taste,
or anything that can be touched.

And why ?

Because

what

is

believed

is

gata preaches:

Bodhisatwa who

Therefore the TathaA gift should not be given by a It should not believes in anything.
not believed.

be given by one who believes in form, sound, smell, taste, or anything that can be touched." Now all this could not be the work of an absolute lunatic. He must have had some motive for these What was that apparently aimless contradictions.

motive

After exhausting

all possible theories, I

have

come

to this conclusion.

The Pyrrho-Buddhists were

confronted with the puzzling question of the earlier

INTRODUCTORY
literature.

mined
like

to neutralise it
;

They could not destroy it. It was deterby flooding it with contradictory
to give a colour to this, a

passages
the

and
"

few Sutras

Diamond Cutter " and the Brahmajdla

Sir Sutra had to be composed to mystify people. Monier Monier- Williams and Professor Rhys Davids prove Buddha to have been an athiest from the latter Sutra. Its importance shall be dealt with further on. But I must emphasise one point. Now that the Mahay ana Sutras can be examined by all, if any new writer still insists on depicting Pyrrho-Buddha as the real historical Buddha, he must give us the complete Pyrrho-Buddha, the whole statue, not an arm or a Says Dr. Crozier nose. I will explain my meaning. in the Fortnightly Review for February " He (Buddha) threw out the Supreme Soul altogether

as a piece of supererogation, finding that he could get

on quite as well without

world."

it

in his explanation of the

Now, if we take the " Diamond Cutter " or the Brahmajdla Siitra, as representing accurately the talk by which Buddha democratised the chief religions of
Asia and Europe, Dr. Crozier could no doubt prove his point for if there is no God in existence, and no man But at all, it is certain that no man can be a theist. It would be this is scarcely stating the whole case. just as easy to write down a few other passages like
;

the following
"

He (Buddha) threw

out

altogether the visible

in his explanation

Kosmos

as a piece of supererogation, finding that he

it

could get on quite as well without

of the Divine scheme."

Or

this

8
"

BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM

He (Buddha) threw
out altogether himself and his he could

disciples as non-existent things, finding that

get on very well without

them

in his

grand project of

giving

Dharma

to the world."

In my next chapter I will sketch religion in India This may help us to at the date of Buddha's advent. Pyrrho-Buddha would Buddha or a a judge whether Evolution, capricious not emerge. likely to most be originality, is the law of religious development.